The Gate Crasher

I could tell by the expression of her face that Joyce was terribly angry about the whole thing. She and her mother sent for their wraps and left immediately afterward without taking any notice of me. But I couldn’t let her go like that; it nearly killed me. I ran after her, and just as she was getting ready to follow her mother into the elevator and go downstairs I caught her by the hand.

“Before you go,” I murmured, “I want to tell you something. You may as well know it now as any other time. He was right. I don’t belong here. I crashed the gate.”

“Hurry, Joyce.” said her mother. “I’m waiting for you.” And the mirrored slide of the elevator shut in my face.

I went home that night, that morning rather, shaking my head.

“What’s the matter?” asked Frankie. “You look as though you’d come fresh from a funeral.”

“I’m afraid I’ve lost her,” I told him.

“Plenty more,” said Frankie. “Another one’ll be along soon enough.”

“It’s got to be her, or no one,” I answered.

“In that case,” he said, “it looks like it’s going to be no one.”

Four or five days passed and I couldn’t get Joyce out of my head. I was blue all day long, never smiled. Frankie said I was turning into an ouch — an ouch is his idea of a person terrible to get along with. Toward the end of the week he came home one night and asked:

“Think you’ll crash any more?”

“Never again.” I said. “I’ve lost the girl I cared for by doing that.”

“Because I see by the paper that the Artists’ and Models’ Ball is being given tonight,” he told me.

“What do I care?” I said. “Go away, don’t remind me.”

“I think I’ll tackle it,” he said.

He started in to dress, and when he had on his dinner jacket he straightened it out by pressing his hands down the sides of it, the way people have a habit of doing.

“What’ve you left in this pocket?” I heard him say. “Feels like candy or something.”

I turned around just in time to see him pull out Joyce’s pearls, which had been there since the night of the dance.

“There is a Santa Claus,” said Frankie, “and you must be his pet.” He held the string up to the light and admired it. “I think I’ll put my hand in the other pocket. I might find a twenty-dollar gold piece.”

I wrapped the necklace in some tissue paper that I pulled out of the cuff of one of Frankie’s starched shirts and reached for my hat without wasting any time.

“I’m going to take them back myself,” I said. “I wouldn’t trust a messenger boy.”

I looked up Joyce’s family in the telephone book and went straight over there. They lived in a private house just off Park Avenue, and when I rang a Jap opened the door for me.

“Miss Joyce at home?” I said.

“Your name, please?” he asked.

I was afraid she wouldn’t see me if I told who I was. “Just say that a friend wishes to speak to her for a moment,” I said.

He left me waiting in a little side-room with a polished floor that shone like lacquer. I could hear voices and laughter and music up-stairs, as though they were dancing. Then I heard some one running down the stairs, and Joyce came through the door in an orange party dress with little silver things dangling around it.

“I forgot to give you back your pearl-the other night,” I said, handing the package over to her.

She put it on a table behind her without even opening it.

“How did you know where to find me?” she asked.

“I looked in the telephone book, of course,” I told her.

She smiled. “Did it tell you I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately?”

“No,” I said.

“Well, I have.”

I thought she was just saying that to be polite in her own home. I looked down at my feet and didn’t answer.

“I have some friends up-stairs,” she said. “I mustn’t stay away from them too long.”

“Good night,” I said.

“Why the good night?” she said. “Put your hat down. You’re coming up-stairs with me for a little while.”

“How can I?” I said. “Your friends won’t want to mix with me. I’m just a bank clerk.”

“Great!” she said. “What bank?”

“The Twenty-first National.”

“Why, that’s funny,” she said. “My daddy is president of that bank. I’ll have to talk to him about you.”

As we went up the stairs arm in arm she said to me: “Are you going to be at the Midnight Rolick tomorrow night?”

“No,” I said regretfully. “No more crashing-the-gate for me.”

“You won’t have to,” she answered cheerfully. “Just give your name to the man at the door. And Teddy—” her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Yes?” Something made my heart go faster.

“After this we’ll do all our crashing together, shall we? You dance so nicely.”

“Joyce,” I cried, “I simply have to tell you. I’m crazy about y—”

“Sh!” she cautioned. “Save it for tomorrow night. There’s going to be a moon.”