The Necklace - The Dusky Club, June 1962 - Linda S Rice (books to read fiction txt) 📗

When she didn’t answer, he grabbed her hand and shoved the bills into it, closing her fingers around the money. He continued to glare at her, squeezing her fingers. She felt as if she could see fire sparking out of his eyes.

“My dad’s on a pension, and his job doesn’t pay much,” he said. “He gave this back to me this morning. You evidently thought it was okay to pay for your extravagant dinner last night, but you weren’t to be buying things with your money, as I made clear before. Dad paid for all that stuff nobody asked for or needed, and now I’ve got to figure a way to pay him back. Did you think of that?! Did you?!!” His voice reverberated throughout the room.

She took a step backward, away from him, her eyes open wide in dismay. He was yelling at her!

She didn’t know what to think or say or do. She knew he was far too angry at the moment to be appeased by any words. But at the same time, she could feel her own temper rising from resentment at the way he’d treated her on the drive.

As if he still had something pent up inside, he continued. “Do you know how selfish and extravagant you are? Like that expensive green dress you had to have? Ever think about it? Always having to have your way and not thinking or caring about anyone else but yourself!!”

He’d gone too far. The whole reason for the dinner was because she cared so much and wanted to do something special and nice. And, she had tried to pay for the dress with her own money because she knew he probably didn’t have much. She’d even offered to return it. Flames burned in her eyes as she tossed the money onto the floor, swung her arm backward, then forward again, and slapped him full on the face. The impact turned his head, and his cheek was left with a red palm print on it.

She gasped as he grabbed her shoulders, and it appeared as if he was about to shake her, but instead, he brought his face close to hers.

“And while we’re talking about you, why don’t you satisfy my curiosity on another point. How is it that you know how to do so many things, specifically all those things you do in the bedroom? You’re just a whore like the rest of the girls at the club, aren’t you!? With all your sweet words and tricks...like the virgin thing...how did you manage that one?”

She pushed as hard as she could against his chest and broke free of his grasp, but he wasn’t finished.

“Oh, you’re thinking,” he mimicked her. ‘But, you know I was a virgin; I proved it to you.’ Well, you proved nothing to me! That can all be faked, can’t it? It’s been done by girls since the dawn of time! So then, how did you manage to fake it so well? Who was it that taught you all your whore’s tricks?!”

She was speechless at his cruel and hurtful words. She didn’t recall a time in her entire life, past, present, or future, where someone had said something that hurt so badly. She felt as if she would burst into tears, but she was even too pained to do that. She backed away from him, their eyes still locked.

Suddenly his hands and arms went slack and dropped to his sides as if regretting his outburst. He was breathing heavily, and he looked like an angry bull. He quickly turned away from her, strode to the door, opened it then slammed it shut behind him so hard that the teacups in the cabinet rattled. She saw him pass the window and head up the hill to the big tree where they’d had their picnic and sat drawing.

She was shaking. Tears welled in her eyes. She put both hands up to her face and started sobbing. Her heart was breaking. She wanted to go home. She didn’t belong with James…not now…not ever…

Lynn was upset and concerned. She watched Susan faint, and, even if no one else had noticed, she’d seen her tear-stained face when she’d come into the club. Susan looked pained and exhausted. She thought it might be the after-effects of the near attack in the alley, but she knew better. She knew Susan was in way over her head, and she was worried about her.

When she and Ian got back to the hotel room, she wasn’t in the mood for frolicking in the bed.

“Worried about your friend?” Ian asked.

“Yeah,” said Lynn. “I wish she’d never decided to come here. It was a huge mistake. I can already see that she’s regretting it.”

“Doesn’t look like she’s regretting it to me.”

“Well, you don’t know her, and I do. We’ve been best friends for fifty years. We can almost read each other’s minds.”

Ian sat back at her remark. “Fifty years?”

“Yes, that’s what I said. Fifty years.”

“You’re funning me, of course.”

“No, I’m not.” She sat down on the bed and patted the space beside her. She pulled her iPhone out of her purse and turned it on. “Come look at this, and then you’ll believe me,” was all she said.

An hour later, Ian felt stunned.

“Don’t worry. we can’t change history or anything. Once we’re gone, you won’t even remember us. We’ll just be a vague memory.”

“So what do you want to do now?” he asked.

“Find Susan and James,” she said. “I’ve got to convince her to go back now!”

Susan felt numb and confused. How had such a small thing escalated into such a giant and hurtful exchange of words? Why had she lost control and slapped him? Was James right about her being selfish and extravagant? She could almost agree with extravagant, but she didn’t consider making a nice dinner to be in any way selfish. She knew what he’d said was all said in anger, but that was no excuse. And then his other cruel words, implying she was a whore and had faked being a virgin. That was the most hurtful of all.

She suddenly realized, however, that she’d been dreadfully wrong regarding the dinner, not because she’d been “disobedient,” which wasn’t a word that was even in her vocabulary, but because she hadn’t considered the financial circumstances in which James and his dad currently lived. It didn’t matter that he would be a millionaire someday. It was still 1962, and James lived frugally. She’d not only embarrassed and humiliated him by making him feel poor and inadequate, but she’d rubbed it in his face that she had money and he didn’t. She tried to justify all this as the reason for his over-the-top anger and the hideous words he’d spewed out at her. He’d simply lost control and was probably regretting what he said at this very moment.

And, she thought, “You slapped him and left a big red mark on his face. You were the first to lose it.”

She took a deep breath and hung her head. She owed him a real “I’m sorry” apology, but she needed to wait until he cooled down some to be able to accept it.

She went out the back door and sat on the stoop leading into the garden and contemplated matters more. She knew she could gather up the wherewithal to be able to make a sincere apology, and she knew that if she waited long enough to do it, he would forgive her.

Buttons came up and rubbed against her arm. She gathered the cat in her lap, then leaned down and put her face in the soft fur. Buttons turned on her purr motor.

“Oh, Buttons, tell me what I should do now...” she murmured. Buttons just kept on purring.

Her mind wandered. What kind of relationship was this anyway? Nothing more than a whirlwind of lust and passion brought on by a wager, her out-of-control hormones, and her taunting him with innocence and virginity. They had first come together physically without fully knowing each other emotionally. Her physical attraction to him was toxic. Where in the hell had her sixty-two-year-old brain gone off to?! It certainly wasn’t anywhere near here!

Well…maybe just a tiny piece of it was here…

And, although James was incredibly talented, artistically and musically, far surpassing anything most people could ever remotely aspire to, there were so many things she enjoyed talking about that were of no interest to him at this young stage of his life.

He might be intelligent, but she didn’t think she could ever hold a stimulating conversation with him related to the economy, politics, science, history, religion, or other topics she found interesting or exciting.

And, it was an obvious fact he was overbearing and chauvinistic, expecting to have his way in everything, demanding obedience. Didn’t that make him selfish? The only way she would ever be obedient is if it were beaten into her. And she would certainly never tolerate that!

Thoughts of her real life back in the future flooded over her. She was never treated like James was doing now, not even when she was impulsive or unreasonable, which she knew she often had been over the years. Yes, her future mate was just as moody in many ways, and he sometimes yelled when she frustrated him, but he would never say such awful things to her. He would never grab her or hurt her physically. And, he loved her deeply and unconditionally. Why had she ever even imagined that James would somehow be better?

She thought back to James, remembering how he’d grasped her arm at the first practice session and dragged her outside, and how he’d squeezed her arm so tight that it hurt just the day before when they went to the hotel to get her things. Then she thought of just today. He’d grabbed her arm again when she started to open the car door for herself, and she was sure he was about to shake her just a short time ago.

What would life be like with someone who had such a short fuse on his temper? Her own fuse was short enough. What would he do the next time she made him angry? And it was undeniable that, with her rebellious nature, she would often make him angry. Would he slap her or push her? Would she hit him back? It was something she didn’t even want to think about.

It was still an era in time where men ruled, and women obeyed. Men were in charge of the money and doled it out to women if they felt it was warranted…just as James had tried to make clear to her. They controlled what women said and did and what they wore. Not a place where she’d fit in very easily. She and James would likely end up destroying each other. Returning to the future was looking better and better.

More than a half-hour had passed since James left. Susan knew that if there were any chance of them making up, it would have to be her going to him and apologizing, maybe even begging forgiveness, and it wasn’t in her nature to do it. It had never been. In situations like this, she typically just waited for things to cool down and then just pretended all the hurt or bad feelings would go away by themselves. Time passing seemed to be a cure of its own. If you waited long enough or just ignored what happened, everything got better again all by itself.

Didn’t it?

But, she knew that wasn’t going to work with James. He was as stubborn as she was, possibly more. She would have to make the first move,