Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 4. Whole No. 143, October 1955

Then before he went to bed he would go to his mother, pat her under the chin with his finger and say, “ ’Night sweetheart. Pleasant dreams.” Because he was always sorry when he was rude to her. When you came right down to it, he had a swell family. His mother and dad always played square with him, and he used to think, “Why, I can tell them anything — anything!” But he couldn’t tell them about this. This was different. He was in love — desperately in love — with an older woman, and he had been in love with her for one whole year.

Even the fellows at school didn’t know. He made sure of that. Some of the boys used to say, “Hey, that Lattimore is some chick, huh? All teachers should have her looks.” Charlie would smirk and tell them they were loony. He cut up in her class, shot paper airplanes across the room, dropped aspirin in inkwells, and whistled La Cucaracha when she read poetry. One day she kept him after class.

“Charlie,” she said, “why can’t we get along?”

He wanted to cry right then and there.

He said, “What difference does it make!”

“It makes a great deal of difference to me,” she answered quietly, “You know, Charlie, I’ve read your compositions carefully. I think we both know you don’t act the way you feel inside. You’re quite a sensitive young man, Charlie. You write beautifully about beautiful things.”

He thought, if she doesn’t stop saying my name that way I will cry; if she doesn’t stop saying things like that I will cry — I just won’t be able to help myself.

He said gruffly, “I’ll be late for Latin.”

“Please think it over,” Miss Jill Lattimore said.

The truth was, she understood him and no one else really did. “You’re quite a sensitive young man, Charlie. You write beautifully about beautiful things.” And what else had she said? That he didn’t act the way he felt inside. He should have said, “Yes, Miss. Lattimore. ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ ” He should have said something adult and intellectual — like something Shakespeare had written. She was a bug on Shakespeare and Charlie was too now. He had thumbed through the pocket-book Shakespeare he kept under his pillow until the pages were worn and marked...

This term it will be different, Charlie thought as he strolled along Fort Washington Avenue, past the drug store where the gang crowded in booths, listening to the juke box and drinking cokes. He didn’t want to go in the drug store and hear all that kid talk. He wanted to be by himself and think about how different it would be this term. He was grown up now and he would act grown up. Jill would notice it immediately because he wasn’t going to clown around any more. The very first morning of class he would go to her and say, “You know, Miss Lattimore, I was something of a buffoon last year.” Buffoon was a good word. And then he would quote, “My salad days, when I was green in judgement.” That would do it. Short and to the point, with a peppering of Shakespeare and a sincere smile. He had been practicing sincere smiles all summer.

Charlie thought it was a lucky thing she taught both Junior and Senior English. He might never have seen her again, or heard her voice, or watched the proud way she walked with her head held high, the tilt to her nose giving her face a saucy look. He was a lot taller than she was, and really, when he thought about it, she seemed younger than he. It was a fact she didn’t look 27 — she didn’t look that old at all.

There was a moon up over the Hudson and dots of light on the Jersey side. Charlie walked slowly and he made his hands into fists. He had not seen her for three months. He remembered she had said that she would spend the summer in Colorado with her folks. School began in three days and she should be back. He turned and walked down Cabrini Boulevard. “How like a Winter hath my absence been, From thee.”

He stopped before the building where she lived, and when he looked up, he saw the lights there. She was back! There was a drum in his stomach and he could feel his knees weaken. He did a strange thing. He kept walking toward the rear of the building until he could touch the brick with his hand. He touched it very gently... When he saw the fire escape, he said in a whisper to himself, “Don’t be crazy, Charlie. Hey, don’t be crazy!”

It was easy because he wore sneakers on his feet and he went up the iron steps like a cat. He was afraid too. He had never done anything like this in his life and the moment had no reality for him. The moon was bright and big, and when he looked down he felt dizzy. He kept thinking “Go back” — but he wanted to see her.