The Collected Stories Read Online Free PDF

a real secret engagement for a while? How about it?”
    â€œNot me,” I said, remembering everything I’d ever heard from Liz about the opportunism of men, how they will sometimes dedicate with seeming goodwill thirty days and nights, sleeping and waking, of truth and deceit to the achievement of a moment’s pleasure. “Secret engagement! Some might agree to a plan like that, but not me.”
    Then I knew he liked me, because he walked around the table and played with the curls of my home permanent a minute and whispered, “The guys would really laugh, but I get a big bang out of you.”
    Then I wasn’t sure he liked me, because he looked at his watch and asked it: “Where the hell is Lizzy?”
    I had to do the shopping and put off some local merchants in a muddle of innocence, which is my main Saturday chore. I ran all the way. It didn’t take very long, but as I rattled up the stairs and into the hall, I heard the thumping tail of a conversation. Browny was saying, “It’s your fault, Liz.”
    â€œI couldn’t care less,” she said. “I suppose you get something out of playing around with a child.”
    â€œOh no, you don’t get it at all …”
    â€œI can’t say I want it.”
    â€œGoddamnit,” said Browny, “you don’t listen to a person. I think you stink.”
    â€œReally?” Turning to go, she smashed the screen door in my face and jammed my instep with the heel of her lavender pump.
    â€œTell your mother we will,” Browny yelled when he saw me. “She stinks, that Liz, goddamnit. Tell your mother tonight.”
    I did my best during that passing afternoon to make Browny more friendly. I sat on his lap and he drank beer and tickled me. I laughed, arid pretty soon I understood the game and how it had to have variety and ran shrieking from him till he could catch me in a comfortable place, the living-room sofa or my own bedroom.
    â€œYou’re O.K.,” he said. “You are. I’m crazy about you, Josephine. You’re a lot of fun.”
    So that night at 9:15 when Mother came home I made her some iced tea and cornered her in the kitchen and locked the door. “I want to tell you something about me and Corporal Brownstar. Don’t say a word, Mother. We’re going to be married.”
    â€œWhat?” she said. “Married?” she screeched. “Are you crazy? You can’t even get a job without working papers yet. You can’t even get working papers. You’re a baby. Are you kidding me? You’re my little fish. You’re not fourteen yet.”
    â€œWell, I decided we could wait until next month when I will be fourteen. Then, I decided, we can get married.”
    â€œYou can’t, my God! Nobody gets married at fourteen, nobody, nobody. I don’t know a soul.”
    â€œOh, Mother, people do, you always see them in the paper. The worst that could happen is it would get in the paper.”
    â€œBut I didn’t realize you had much to do with him. Isn’t he Lizzy’s? That’s not nice—to take him away from her. That’s a rotten sneaky trick. You’re a sneak. Women should stick together. Didn’t you learn anything yet?”
    â€œWell, she doesn’t want to get married and I do. And it’s essential to Browny to get married. He’s a very clean-living boy, and when his furlough’s over he doesn’t want to go back to those camp followers and other people’s wives. You have to appreciate that in him, Mother—it’s a quality.”
    â€œYou’re a baby,” she droned. “You’re my slippery little fish.”
    Browny rattled the kitchen doorknob ten minutes too early.
    â€œOh, come in,” I said, disgusted.
    â€œHow’s stuff? Everything settled? What do you say, Marvine?”
    â€œI say shove it, Corporal! What’s wrong with Lizzy? You and she were really