“No, thanks. . . . Thank you, though.”
Absently, he bent over and scratched his bare ankle. “What’s the name of this guy she’s marrying?” he asked.
“Joan, you mean?” said Ginnie. “Dick Heffner.”
Selena’s brother went on scratching his ankle.
“He’s a lieutenant commander in the Navy,” Ginnie said.
“Big deal.”
Ginnie giggled. She watched him scratch his ankle till it was red. When he began to scratch off a minor skin eruption on his calf with his fingernail, she stopped watching.
“Where do you know Joan from?” she asked. “I never saw you at the house or anything.”
“Never been at your goddam house.”
Ginnie waited, but nothing led away from this statement. “Where’d you meet her, then?” she asked.
“Party,” he said.
“At a party? When?”
“I don’t know. Christmas, ‘42.” From his breast pajama pocket he two-fingered out a cigarette that looked as though it had been slept on. “How ‘bout throwing me those matches?” he said. Ginnie handed him a box of matches from the table beside her. He lit his cigarette without straightening out its curvature, then replaced the used match in the box. Tilting his head back, he slowly released an enormous quantity of smoke from his mouth and drew it up through his nostrils. He continued to smoke in this “French-inhale” style. Very probably, it was not part of the sofa vaudeville of a showoff but, rather, the private, exposed achievement of a young man who, at one time or another, might have tried shaving himself lefthanded.
“Why’s Joan a snob?” Ginnie asked.
“Why? Because she is. How the hell do I know why?”
“Yes, but I mean why do you say she is?”
He turned to her wearily. “Listen. I wrote her eight goddam letters. Eight. She didn’t answer one of ’em.”
Ginnie hesitated. “Well, maybe she was busy.”
“Yeah. Busy. Busy as a little goddam beaver.”
“Do you have to swear so much?” Ginnie asked.
“Goddam right I do.”
Ginnie giggled. “How long did you know her, anyway?” she asked.
“Long enough.”
“Well, I mean did you ever phone her up or anything? I mean didn’t you ever phone her up or anything?”
“Naa.”
“Well, my gosh. If you never phoned her up or any—”
“I couldn’t, for Chrissake!”
“Why not?” said Ginnie.
“Wasn’t in New York.”
“Oh! Where were you?”