The Big Bounce

And Leon Woody says-

No, Leo doesn’t say anything. Jack Ryan says it. He says the hot dog only thinks he notched one up, like any hot dog who thinks he’s a hot dog. But what happened, he was notched. Hooked, notched, and set up.

Whatever he did now, he had to do something with the beer case first. He was approaching the Bay Vista and he thought of the vacant field next to Mr. Majestyk’s house.

Ryan was exactly the way Nancy imagined he would be. Very basic but in control, and thorough. Sort of a natural. Neat body-bone and muscle and good moves-which he had probably been working on since he’d first discovered there were girls in the world. He had to pose after, taking his time getting dressed, and she had pictured him doing that too.

Jackie was all right. It would be fun to grab the money and meet him in Detroit and spend about a week with him in Florida or on Grand Bahama and then, before breaking it off, take him home to meet Mother.

Lying on the bed, one hand on her stomach, her other hand playing with a strand of her hair, Nancy heard herself say, “Mother, this is Jack Ryan.” She saw her mother in the shade of the palm tree, her cigarette case, lighter, and vodka and tonic on the glass-top table. She saw her mother lower the thick novel to her lap, slip off her reading glasses, and hold them, interrupted, under her chin, her eyes on Ryan and her mouth forming the smallest gesture of a smile. Her head would be cocked very slightly, alertly, and she would seem to nod, a slight smile and a pleasant hint of a nod, but not giving away any of herself in the look: withdrawn, peering at him through little brown stones, observing him and sensing something was wrong.

“Jack’s from Detroit, Mother.”

Watch the eyes, the little brown stones. Watch Jack Ryan. He looks away from Mother. Mother isn’t bad-looking at all for a forty-four-year-old mother, chic and slick and wearing white and pearls to set off her tan. But Ryan isn’t sure about her. She hasn’t said anything, but she scares him. Little Mother pushes him off-balance with her cool. He looks around the patio. He puts one hand in his pocket to show he’s at ease and looks at the small, curved swimming pool and then toward the white stucco house, trying to think of something to say. It would be good, Nancy thought. It would be fun to bring him in and let him loose. It would be fun to watch Mother watching him: afraid he might touch something or come toward her, watching him calmly but afraid to move, sitting perfectly still and waiting for him to go away.

“Mother, this is Jack Ryan. He breaks into houses and almost clubbed a man to death.” That could shake her up a little.

Maybe. Though the thing with the two boys in Lauderdale didn’t seem to shake her-the two boys she had met at Bahia Mar and had brought home because her mother was out and only Loretta, the maid, would be there.

She was fifteen then. She could still see the two boys standing with their hands on their hips in shorts and tight football jerseys with numerals, 23 and 30-something. They were both over six feet and could chugalug a can of beer in less than twenty seconds, tall and slouchy with their hands-on-hips, time-out pose, but still little boys. She didn’t put them in the same class now with Jack Ryan. Size didn’t count. Anyone under 21 or who wasn’t married (a new qualification) or had never been arrested for felonious assault, was still a minor.

They sat by the little curved pool with three six-packs and a transistor radio and the boys beat time on the arms of their chairs when they weren’t drinking the beer. Loretta, black face and white uniform, would appear at the door leading into the sunroom, frowning and trying to catch Nancy’s eye. One of the boys said, “Your maid wants you.” But Nancy pretended she didn’t see Loretta and the two boys got the idea.

Nancy said, “It’s too bad we have to be spied on. If we were alone, we’d probably have more fun.” One of the boys said, “Yeah,” and the other one said, “Like doing what?” And Nancy said, “Like going swimming.” One of them said, “But we didn’t bring any suits.” And Nancy said, “So?”

She watched them each drink their beer while they thought of a way to get rid of Loretta and while Nancy knew all the time how they would do it. They couldn’t lock her in her room; Loretta had the key.

So they used the box spring and mattress from Nancy’s room, sliding them quietly over the tile to Loretta’s open door. She didn’t see them. When she did look up, and they heard her muffled voice inside, a wall of striped mattress ticking covered the doorway. They laughed, Nancy laughed with them leaning against the box spring while they brought chairs to wedge between the mattress and the opposite wall in the hallway. Then they ran outside and took off their clothes and dove in. The boys did. Nancy went to her room and put on a two-piece semibikini. She turned off all the lights in the house and the swimming pool lights too, hearing the boys yelling hey, what’s going on! But when she came out and they saw her, they gri

They played tag, with a lot of ru

Hey, but would one of them mind unhooking her bra? It was so darn hard to reach.

They both went for it, and while they pushed and wrestled for position, Nancy reached behind and unfastened the strap. Walking to the sunroom door, she knew they were watching. She went inside, closed the glass door behind her, and pressed the lock catch. She took off the bra. She stood with her back to the glass until she knew they were close to the door and one of them was trying the handle. Then she turned around.

One of them said, “Hey, come on. Open the door.”

Nancy looked from one to the other, the tall stringy athletes trying to look casual in their wet jockey shorts. She hooked her thumbs in the low waist of the bikini and smiled.

“Come on. Open up.”

“What’ll you give me?” Nancy asked them.

“You know what.” They both laughed at that.

“Come on,” the other one said again.

“I’m going to bed,” Nancy said.

“Open the door, we’ll go with you.”

“What’ll you give me?” Nancy said again.

They were both looking at her, seriously now, silent. Finally one of them said, “What do you want, anyway?”

And Nancy said, “Fifty bucks, Charlie. Each.”

She could still see the dumb look on their faces.

And the look on her mother’s face a few days later, the no-look look.

“Is it true, Nancy?”

Her mother had found out about the two boys because one of them happened to have a buddy relationship with his father. The little buddy told the big buddy. The big buddy told his wife, who told a friend, who told Nancy’s mother, the friend saying she didn’t believe a word of it, but perhaps Nancy’s mother would like to look into it. Then the scene-her mother sitting in the living room, Loretta a few steps behind her.

“Is it true, Nancy?”

The brown stones in her mother’s solemn eyes stared up at her and, watching her mother’s eyes very closely, she said, “Yes, it’s true.”

The eyes did not seem to change expression. “Do you know what you’re saying?” her mother asked. “You want us to believe you offered yourself to those boys?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t say uh-huh, dear. Say yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“All right, tell me why.”

“I don’t know.”

“If you think this is cute-have you thought of the consequences?”

Nancy hesitated, interested. “What consequences?”