The Tight White Collar by Grace Metalious Page A

Wrigley’s spearmint gum, and if I’m not I’m to go to the fountain and order a small Coke. So now, of course, I’ll order the gum. If one of his parents is around, I mean.”
    â€œAnd Lisa,” said Jess, as if she had not spoken, “if you run into any trouble at all, either with the boy or his family, you are to come back here to me at once. Do you understand? At once.”
    â€œYes, sir,” said Lisa and all of a sudden she felt like crying. She didn’t feel warm or excited any more at all. “Yes, Dr. Cameron,” she said and walked out the door.
    Chris reacted as Lisa had known he would.
    â€œI’m glad,” he said. “I love you and you love me and we’re going to have a baby. So what?”
    He put his arm around her shoulders and said again, defiantly, “So what?” as if daring the world to tell him so anything, and Lisa was overwhelmed with love.
    The trouble, when it came, was between Irene and Mrs. Pappas.
    â€œA child!” screamed Irene. “You, Lisa? A child? With this
nobody
? This
shopkeeper
?”
    Lisa, Chris and the two mothers sat in Irene’s living room. Lisa held Chris’s hand and looked around and she could hardly believe that just that morning she had thought that this room was perfectly comfortable and attractive. She supposed that it was still all right, in its way, but it just wasn’t the kind of room she liked any more. The wallpaper had a dark tan background with small, lighter tan figures printed on it. Lisa had often wondered what the figures represented. Sometimes they looked like rose arbors in a garden and sometimes like the faces of old men, and sometimes like church windows. The furniture was covered with maroon plush, like the seats in the coaches on the Boston and Maine Railroad, and Lisa, sitting in one of her mother’s living room chairs, felt slightly sick and a little scared.
    â€œIf she’s that way,” said Mrs. Pappas, “it’s because she led my Chris on so he didn’t know what he was doing. How many times I told him, ‘Chris,’ I said, ‘don’t play around with no tramps.’”
    â€œLisa isn’t a tramp,” said Chris quietly. “She’s a nice girl.”
    â€œLed him on!” yelled Irene so loud that Lisa almost said, “For heaven’s sake, Mother, remember who you are!”
    â€œLed him on! Let me tell you something, Mrs. Pappas, my Lisa wasn’t brought up like that. She’s a good decent girl. A young lady.”
    â€œBrought up! Huh! With you in a beer saloon every chance you get, tell me how good she was brought up?”
    â€œYou filthy foreigner,” cried Irene. “You in that cockroach-infested store of yours, raising up a son to violate a young girl.”
    â€œHe didn’t,” said Lisa and began to cry. “He didn’t do that. I love him.”
    â€œShe’s a little tramp!”
    â€œIf he were any good she wouldn’t be in this fix!”
    â€œShe asked for it. Her kind always does.”
    â€œGod only knows how many other girls he’s done this to!”
    â€œMy Chris never had no girls! He always stayed home or in the store minding his own business until that little hot britches kid of yours started in twitching her tail at him!”
    â€œEnough, you vile-tongued harridan!”
    â€œAin’t you somethin’ with them big words, huh? Yeah, yeah, Mrs. High and Mighty herself. Can’t even hang on to her man. You drunken bum!”
    â€œIt is always the ignorant,” said Irene, calm at last, “who look down upon their better-educated neighbors.”
    â€œEducated your ass! That’s a good one. Educated by a pimp like old man Durand. Well all I can say is that you learned good, Mrs. Fancy Pants. Real good. And you taught your kid all the things you learned from that crook.”
    Lisa and Chris were married. In church. With double rings