And she remembered that recently there had been references to suitability of families and once a hint that some people couldn’t keep a scandal hidden forever. This had happened only when Adam was reputed to have lost all of his money.”

She leaned across the table. “You know what we could really do is so simple it will make you laugh.”

“What?”

“We could run your father’s ranch. My father says it’s beautiful land.”

“No,” Aron said quickly.

“Why not?”

“I’m not going to be a farmer and you’re not going to b? a farmer’s wife.”

“I’m going to be Aron’s wife, no matter what he is.”

“I’m not going to give up college,” he said.

“I’ll help you,” Abra said again.

“Where would you get the money?”

“Steal it,” she said.

“I want to get out of this town,” he said. “Everybody’s sneering at me. I can’t stand it here.”

“They’ll forget it pretty soon.”

“No, they won’t either. I don’t want to stay two years more to finish high school.”

“Do you want to go away from me, Aron?”

“No. Oh, damn it, why did he have to mess with things he doesn’t know about?”

Abra reproved him. “Don’t you blame your father. If it had worked everybody’d been bowing to him.”

“Well, it didn’t work. He sure fixed me. I can’t hold up my head. By God! I hate him.”

Abra said sternly, “Aron! You stop talking like that!”

“How do I know he didn’t lie about my mother?”

Abra’s face reddened with anger. “You ought to be spanked,” she said. “If it wasn’t in front of everybody I’d spank you myself.” She looked at his beautiful face, twisted now with rage and frustration, and suddenly she changed her tactics. “Why don’t you ask about your mother? Just come right out and ask him.”

“I can’t, I promised you.”

“You only promised not to say what I told you.”

“Well, if I asked him he’d want to know where I heard.”

“All right,” she cried, “you’re a spoiled baby! I let you out of your promise. Go ahead and ask him.”

“I don’t know if I will or not.”

“Sometimes I want to kill you,” she said. “But Aron—I do love you so. I do love you so.” There was giggling from the stools in front of the soda fountain. Their voices had risen and they were overheard by their peers. Aron blushed and tears of anger started in his eyes. He ran out of the store and plunged away up the street.

Abra calmly picked up her purse and straightened her skirt and brushed it with her hand. She walked calmly over to Mr. Bell and paid for the celery tonics. On her way to the door she stopped by the giggling group. “You let him alone,” she said coldly. She walked on, and a falsetto followed her—”Oh, Aron, I do love you so.”

In the street she broke into a run to try to catch up with Aron, but she couldn’t find him. She called on the telephone. Lee said that Aron had not come home. But Aron was in his bedroom, lapped in resentments—Lee had seen him creep in and close his door behind him.

Abra walked up and down the streets of Salinas, hoping to catch sight of him. She was angry at him, but she was also bewilderingly lonely, Aron hadn’t ever run away from her before. Abra had lost her gift for being alone.

Cal had to learn loneliness. For a very short time he tried to join Abra and Aron, but they didn’t want him. He was jealous and tried to attract the girl to himself and failed.

His studies he found easy and not greatly interesting. Aron had to work harder to learn, wherefore Aron had a greater sense of accomplishment when he did learn, and he developed a respect for learning out of all proportion to the quality of the learning. Cal drifted through. He didn’t care much for the sports at school or for the activities. His growing restlessness drove him out at night. He grew tall and rangy, and always there was the darkness about him.

Chapter 38

1

From his first memory Cal had craved warmth and affection, just as everyone does. If he had been an only child or if Aron had been a different kind of boy, Cal might have achieved his relationship normally and easily. But from the very first people were won instantly to Aron by his beauty and his simplicity. Cal very naturally competed for attention and affection in the only way he knew—by trying to imitate Aron. And what was charming in the blond ingenuousness of Aron became suspicious and unpleasant in the dark-faced, slit-eyed Cal. And since he was pretending, his performance was not convincing. Where Aron was received, Cal was rebuffed for doing or saying exactly the same thing.

And as a few strokes on the nose will make a puppy head shy, so a few rebuffs will make a boy shy all over. But whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, groveling, a little boy may cover his shyness with nonchalance, with bravado, or with secrecy. And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not exist—or, worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it.

In Cal the process had been so long and so slow that he felt no strangeness. He had built a wall of self-sufficiency around himself, strong enough to defend him against the world. If his wall had any weak places they may have been on the sides nearest Aron and Lee, and particularly nearest Adam. Perhaps in his father’s very unawareness Cal had felt safety. Not being noticed at all was better than being noticed adversely.