LITMIR.BIZ

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Patrick’s way.

      Marianne had once complained to Mom, why was Patrick so unfriendly? so rude? to her friends? to her friends who admired him in fact? and Corinne had said soothingly, in Patrick’s earshot, Oh, that’s just Patrick’s way. Which had quite boosted his ego.

      So he hadn’t paid much attention to his kid sister as he considered her, a year younger, a year behind him in school but light-years distant from him, he was sure, in matters of significance. He may have asked her how the dance—“or whatever it was”—had been and Marianne might have replied murmuring something vague but in no way alarming; adding, with an apologetic little laugh, touching her forehead in a gesture very like Corinne’s, “—I guess I’m tired.”

      Patrick laughed, one of those coded mirthless brotherly laughs signaling So? He’d tossed Marianne’s garment bag into the back of the Buick where it upended, and slid down, and oddly Marianne hadn’t noticed, or in any case hadn’t reached around to adjust it. In that bag were Marianne’s new prom dress, her prom shoes, toiletries. Patrick didn’t give it a thought.

       Why didn’t you tell me? Why, as soon as you got into the car? As soon as we were alone together?

      Afterward he would think these things but not at the time. Nor did he think much of the fact (he, who so prided himself in his powers of observation) that when he’d turned into the LaPortes’ driveway there was his sister already outside waiting for him. Waiting out in the cold. Garment bag, purse at her feet. Marianne in her good blue wool coat. Just waiting.

      In truth Patrick might have felt relief. That Marianne’s best friend Trisha wasn’t with her, that he didn’t have to exchange greetings with Trisha.

      He’d backed out of the LaPortes’ driveway without a second glance, wouldn’t have noticed if anyone had been watching from one of the windows, behind the part-drawn blinds. Marianne was fussing with the seat belt, at the same time petting Silky’s persistent head as he poked against her from his awkward position in the backseat, forbidden to climb into the front as he dearly wanted, but she hadn’t let him lick her face—“No, Silky! Sit.” Silky was Mike’s dog he was always neglecting now.

      Afterward Mom would say, I thought you and Marianne were so close. Thought you shared things you wouldn’t share with Dad or me.

      Patrick hadn’t even thought to inquire why Marianne needed a ride home, in fact. Why Austin Weidman—her “date”—hadn’t picked her up, driven her. Wasn’t that a “date’s” responsibility? Marianne often stayed overnight in town with one or another girlfriend and nearly always she was driven home, if not by a “date” then by someone else. Marianne Mulvaney was so well liked, so popular, she rarely lacked for people eager to do her favors.

      Nor did Patrick inquire after Austin Weidman. It was absurd, that Marianne had gone to the prom with Austin. A dentist’s son, fairly well-to-do family, very Christian, bookish. Marianne had agreed to go with him only after consulting her conscience, and no doubt asking Jesus’ advice, for though she didn’t “like” Austin in the way of a seventeen-year-old girl’s “liking” a boy, she did “respect” him; and he’d asked her weeks ago, or months—the poor jerk had actually written her a letter! (Which she’d showed only to Corinne, not to the derisive male Mulvaneys.) Crafty-desperate Austin had dared put in his bid to Marianne Mulvaney, a junior, and hardly a girl who’d encouraged him, well in advance of other more likely “dates.” Marianne was so tenderhearted, so fearful of hurting anyone’s feelings, of course she’d said yes.

      Last year she’d done the same thing, almost. Jimmie Holleran in his wheelchair. Jimminy-the-Cricket Holleran the kids cruelly called him behind his back, a boy in Marianne’s class long stricken with cystic fibrosis, in fact vice-president of the class. He and Marianne were friends from Christian Youth and he, too, had asked her to a dance months before. Though even Mom had wondered about that—“Oh, Button, won’t it seem like, well—charity?” Marianne had said, hurt, “I like Jimmie. I want to go to the dance with him.”

      Impossible to argue with such goodness.

      “Button” Mulvaney was so sweet, so sincere, so pretty, so—what, exactly?—glimmering-luminous—as if her soul shone radiant in her face—you could smile at her, even laugh at her, but you couldn’t not love her.

      As a brother, that is.

      Patrick disdained high school sports, most clubs and activities and competitions of popularity in whatever guise, but he could hardly ignore the presence of “Button” Mulvaney at Mt. Ephraim High. (Even as, grinding his teeth, he could hardly ignore the fallout of his similarly popular older brother Mike—“Mule”—“Number Four”—who’d graduated in 1972.)

      Not that he was jealous. Not Pinch.

      In fact his sister’s popularity this past year at Mt. Ephraim High was an embarrassment to him. He squirmed having to watch her with the other varsity cheerleaders at assemblies before games—the eight girls in their maroon wool jumpers that fitted their slender bodies snugly, their small perfectly shaped breasts, flat bellies, hips and thighs and remarkable flashing legs. They were agile as dancers, double-jointed as gymnasts. They were all very, very good-looking. They wore dazzling-white cotton blouses and dazzling-white wool socks and their smiles were identically dazzling-white—such joyous smiles! And all in the service of the school football team, basketball team, swim team. Boys. Boys whom Patrick privately scorned. Grimly Patrick stared into a corner of the auditorium as into a recess of his own labyrinthine mind, as about him hundreds of idiots yelled, clapped, whistled, stamped their feet like a single great beast.

      TWO! FOUR! SIX! EIGHT!

      WHO DO WE AP – PRE – CI – ATE?

      MT. EPHRAIM RAMS!!!

      Too silly, too contemptible for words.

      But try explaining that to Michael Sr. and Corinne, the proud parents of “Button” Mulvaney. As they’d been for four glorious years the proud parents of “Mule” Mulvaney.

      Patrick had never told his parents how he dreaded one day discovering Marianne’s name in a school lavatory. Whenever he saw obscene or suggestive words, nasty drawings, above all the names or initials of girls he believed he knew, Patrick rubbed them off in disgust if no one was around, sometimes inked them over with a felttip pen. How he despised his male classmates’ filthy minds! their juvenile humor! Even the nice guys, the halfway intelligent guys could be astonishingly crude in exclusively male company. Why, Patrick didn’t know. Every other word “shit”—“fuck”—“bugger”—“asshole”—“cocksucker.” Patrick himself was too pure to tolerate the breaking of taboos not wholly intellectual.

      Another thing Patrick had never told his parents: how Marianne, for all her popularity, was considered one of the “good, Christian” girls. Virgins of course. But virgins in their heads, too. There was something mildly comical about them—their very piety, decency. A tale was told of how Marianne had asked one of the science teachers why God had made parasites. In the cafeteria, amid the bustle of laughter, raised voices, high-decibel jocularity, Marianne was one of those Christians who bowed their heads before picking up their forks, murmuring prayers of gratitude. Most of these conspicuous believers were girls, a few were boys. Jimminy-the-Cricket Holleran was one. All were unperturbed by others’ bemused glances. Or wholly unaware of them.

      In conversation, exactly like her mother, Marianne might speak so familiarly of Jesus you’d swear He was in the next room.

      The previous fall, one of the popular football players was injured at a game, hospitalized with a concussion, and Marianne Mulvaney had been one of the leaders of a fervent all-night prayer vigil on the field. The injured boy had been admitted to intensive care at Mt. Ephraim General but by the time the prayer vigil ended next morning at 8 A.M., doctors declared him “out of immediate danger.”

      So you could smile at Marianne Mulvaney and the “good, Christian” girls of Mt. Ephraim. You could even laugh at them. But they never seemed to notice; or, if they

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