Imaginary Men by Enid Shomer Page B

leather gloves and a dirty white apron over several layers of old clothes, was carrying bushels of something heavy, his body moving with the fierce rhythms of concentration, his face red with effort and the cold. He hadn't seen her.
You couldn't tell Paul was poor. Until she began to date him, Riva thought he was shy or antisocial. He had a beat-up car, which, she found out later, he owned with his older brother who had already left home. Paul, in fact, spent most of his energy trying to look and act as middle class as anyone else, even though his home life was a nightmare. Riva didn't mind having to buck him up. He was worth it. Because poverty was abstract to Riva, she had a bottomless faith in his ability to overcome it, and her faith was contagious. Also, she was good at talking people into things.
Now she sat in her mother's Buick in a downpour in front of the public library waiting for Paul. She had told her parents she'd be out until ten, studying for a Latin exam. On the phone, Paul had said something was wrong. He needed to see her. Riva loved being needed. She thought she would make a wonderful wife for some brilliant, successful man, like a physicist or a writer.
Through the sheeting rain, she made out his finned, grass green Oldsmobile. She pulled up the hood of her raincoat and when Paul drove up alongside, darted from her car to his. Then she slid across

 

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the seat and kissed him on the cheek. ''I don't know why I came,'' he said. "Talking about it isn't going to change a thing."
"Let's go someplace."
He headed in the direction of Tacoma Park, to a back road that dead-ended under a train trestle. They often went there to neck. They had discovered it one Sunday in the fall when they took a hamper lunch to the park.
It had taken Riva months to get Paul to confide in her. He was deeply ashamed of his family. But now he trusted her completely in a way that he would probably never trust anyone again in his life. His need was that great.
The sky was a dull red above the glistening street lights as he maneuvered through traffic along Georgia Avenue. The rain made liquid jewels of the neon signs for Little Tavern hamburgers and Midas mufflers and Ramco Auto Upholstery. Riva had become more aware of her surroundings lately. She would be leaving for college in the fall, and she would probably never live here again, except for the summers. She and Paul planned to write to each other and spend vacations together. She liked thinking about that arrangementPaul tucked away in her life, like a lucky coin you could keep in your pocket and never spend. Riva was a "brain," and Paul was the only boy at Hoover High School she had ever dated. Unlike most boys, he wasn't afraid to date a girl who made better grades than he did. Or maybe he figured that his grades would have matched hers if he had more time to spend on schoolwork.
Paul parked under the trestle, and they cracked their windows. It was the end of March, and they could smell the change of seasons in the sharp, damp air. Outside the car, the first green shoots worked their way up through a thick brown carpet of dead grass.
"I won't be going to San Antonio," he said. He linked his hands together and cracked his knuckles. Paul had won the school debating contest. The prize was $300 and the honor of representing the school at the National Polemics Competition.
"Oh no," Riva said. The story would be terrible; it would make her cry for Paul. The story would be about his disreputable father and his pathetic mother. She put her arms around him and lay her head on his shoulder and waited.
"He heard about the money. He said he had to pay these bills. He showed me a bill for three months' rent for the apartment."

 

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"How did he find out?"
"What difference does it make?"
"Maybe he heard your mother telling somebody about the prize." As soon as Riva said it, she could see Mrs. Auerbach herself telling her husband about the moneybeing proud of Paul, not realizing