A Matter of Conviction

“I know, Pop, but Agatha’s expecting me at eight-thirty, and she’s got some creamy new records, and Mom said dinner would be at seven, but you were late. So it’s really your fault I’m gulping my food.”

“Agatha’s creamy new records can wait,” Hank said. “You slow down before you choke.”

“It’s not really Agatha’s records that are causing the speed,” Karin said. “There’ll be some boys there, Hank.”

“Oh,” he said.

“Well, for Pete’s sake, Pop, don’t look as if I’m going into some opium den or something. We’re only going to dance a little.”

“Who are these boys?” Hank asked.

“Some of the kids from the neighborhood. Actually, they’re all bananas except Lonnie Gavin. He’s cool.”

“Well, that at least is reassuring,” Hank said, and he winked at Karin. “Why don’t you bring him to the house sometime?”

“Pop, he’s only been here about eighty times already.”

“And where was I?”

“Oh, preparing a brief or giving some witness the rubber hose, I guess.”

“I don’t think that’s very funny, Jennie,” Karin said. “Your father doesn’t beat his witnesses.”

“I know. That was just a euphemism.”

“And I suggest you brush up on your figures of speech, which are more incriminating than your original statements,” Hank said.

“Hyperbole?” Jennie asked.

“That’s more like it.”

“We’ve got a creep teaching English,” Jennie said. “It’s a wonder I learn anything. They ought to shoot him up with the next Vanguard.”

She seized her napkin, wiped her mouth, shoved her chair back, and kissed Karin briefly.

“May I please be excused?” she said as she rushed from the dining room. He could see her applying lipstick to her mouth, standing in front of the hall mirror. Then, unself-consciously, she tugged at her brassière, waved back at her parents, and slammed out of the house.

“How about that?” Hank said.

Karin shrugged.

“I’m worried,” Hank said.

“Why?”

“She’s a woman.”

“She’s a girl.”

“She’s a woman, Karin. She applies lipstick like an expert, and she adjusts her bra as if she’s been wearing one all her life. Are you sure it’s all right for her to go over to this Agatha’s house to dance? With boys?”

“I’d be more worried if she were dancing with girls.”

“Honey, don’t get glib.”

“I’m not. For the information of the district attorney, his daughter began to blossom at the age of twelve. She’s been wearing lipstick and bra for almost two years now. She has, I believe, been kissed.”

“By whom?” Hank said, his brow creasing.

“Oh, my God. By many boys, I’m sure.”

“I don’t think that’s wise, Karin.”

“How do you suggest we prevent it?”

“Well, I don’t know.” He paused. “But it doesn’t seem right to me that a thirteen-year-old girl should go around necking with everybody in the neighborhood.”

“Jennie’s almost fourteen and I’m sure she chooses the boys she wants to kiss.”

“And where does she go from there?”

“Hank!”

“I’m serious. I’d better have a talk with that girl.”

“And what will you tell her?”

“Well...”

With a calm smile on her mouth, Karin said, “Will you tell her to keep her legs crossed?”

“In essence, yes.”

“And will that keep them crossed?”

“It seems to me she should know...”

“She knows, Hank.”

“You don’t seem very concerned,” he said.

“I’m not. Jennie’s a sensible girl, and I think she’d only be embarrassed if you gave her a lecture. I think it might be more important if you—” She stopped suddenly.

“If I what?”

“If you came home earlier more often. If you saw the boys who are dating her. If you took an interest in her, and in them.”

“I didn’t even know she was dating. Isn’t she too young to be dating?”

“Biologically, she’s as old as I am.”

“And apparently following in your footsteps,” Hank said, and was immediately sorry afterward.

“Enter the Slut of Berlin,” Karin said dryly.

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s quite all right. There’s just one thing, Hank. I wish you’d someday have the guts to believe it was you I fell in love with — and not an American chocolate bar.”

“I do believe that.”

“Do you? Then why do you constantly refer to my ‘lurid’ past? To hear you tell it, I was the chief prostitute in a red-light district which stretched for miles.”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Hank said.

“Well, I would. Once and for all, I would like to talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“There’s a lot to say. And it’s better to say it than to hint at it. Does it trouble you greatly that I went to bed with one other man before I met you?”

He did not answer.

“Hank, I’m talking to you.”

“Yes, goddamnit, it troubles me greatly. It annoys the hell out of me that I was introduced to you by the bombardier of my ship — and that he knew you a lot longer and possibly a lot better than I ever did.”

“He was very kind,” Karin said softly.

“I don’t want to hear about his goddamn virtues. What’d he do, bring you nylons?”

“Yes. But so did you.”

“And did you tell him the same things you told me?”

“I told him I loved him. And I did.”

“Great,” Hank said.

“Perhaps you’d have preferred me to go to bed with a man I despised?”

“I’d have preferred you not to have gone to bed with anyone!”

“Not even you?”

“You married me!” Hank hurled.