Come and Join the Dance by Joyce Johnson Page A

didn’t really mind his hand. Somehow it was no more sinister to be touched by Anthony than to be touched by a child. What would it be like if Peter ever touched her? The jazz sounded like the way he walked, the shambling, uneven steps, the forward thrust of his head. She made herself think of Kay and Peter talking to each other now in the warm, blind-drawn dimness of the bedroom, the closed door shutting them in together—that was the way it should be. They even looked a bit alike with their heavy heads, and their voices had the same feverish quietness. It would really be beautiful for them if they loved each other. There were amazingly few people in the world that you could love. Maybe she would find someone in Paris… . Anthony would call that “getting laid” and maybe that was all it would be for her, a gratuitous act of sex—those words at least had a kind of scholarly dignity. She supposed that after all she was a poopsie, but she’d die rather than admit it. Anthony’s face was moving closer and closer to hers—she could almost feel the warmth of his breath. Hastily, she stood up and walked to the window.
    â€œSusan!” she heard him say reproachfully, “I was going to kiss you.”
    â€œOh it’s too early in the morning,” she said.
    â€œNo excuse.” She was silent. Standing at the window with her back to him, she watched the janitor five flights below sweep the courtyard. Anthony hadn’t moved. He was probably staring gloomily at her back. It was a little disappointing. She was almost waiting for him to walk across the room. She wondered whether he was shy. After all, he was only eighteen, a little boy, a waif. When she turned away from the window, he was sitting on the sofa, bending over a book. “What are you reading?” she asked in a voice she recognized as the too interested voice grownups used with children.
    He did not look up. “ Prison Etiquette ,” he muttered grudgingly.
    â€œOh, what’s that?” she said. She felt loathsome, utterly dishonest. It was all a game—she didn’t know what she wanted.
    â€œA book about C.O.’s—Conscientious Objectors, to you—how to get along in prison.”
    â€œAre you planning to go to prison?”
    â€œThey might take me away,” he said. “I’ve had this book out six months from the library, and now I don’t even have an address for those postcards they bug you with.”
    She sat down beside him. “I can never return library books either. Once I had to pay an eight-dollar fine.”
    â€œYeah? That was pretty dumb.” Suddenly he smiled at her. “You’re weird,” he said with evident satisfaction. “You’re another one.”
    â€œAnother what?” she asked anxiously.
    â€œOne of the club. I’m a freeloader. Peter wants to do himself in, preferably in the Packard. And you—you won’t let anyone touch you. That’s your particular little kick.”
    â€œThat’s not true!” Susan protested.
    â€œOh, I don’t care.” He yawned elaborately. “All I want is my breakfast. How are you fixed for money?”
    â€œYou’d better get a job if you want money.” Her face was hot with anger.
    â€œI knew you’d come out with some bourgeois moral thing like that,” he said triumphantly. “Christ, I knew it the minute I saw you. I’m always running into girls like you. That’s my fate. I bet I’ll never meet a really great woman. Just little nowhere girls all my life until I marry one.” He stalked restlessly up and down the room. “I wish Peter would get up so I could have some breakfast. I wish they’d stop screwing in the bedroom. That’s really too much!”
    She tried to think slowly, carefully, to be calm. All of a sudden there were hundreds of little wheels spinning inside of her, as though Anthony’s words had set