Searching for Caleb

"Ah, yes! 'Ask if your little friend there would like another potato, Justine.' Little friend! And, 'Tell me, is it true that you go to public school? How are the public schools?' And, T understand your father is a doctor, um, Reilly. How nice! It's a very rewarding profession, I hear, though a little-mechanical, don't you think? We are all lawyers, I suppose you know-' "

"What's wrong with that? They were only showing an interest," Justine said.

"Ho! And then when he asked Great-Grandma if he could help to clear the dishes. Then he got it twice! 'Oh, my, no, we have a servant, dear.' And, 'Besides,' Aunt Caroline says, 'it's the very best china.' "

"Well?" said Justine. "We do have a servant. And it was the best china."

Duncan stopped unreeling the baling wire. He straightened up and wiped his face on his sleeve. "You really don't see it, do you," he said.

But Justine wouldn't answer. She folded her arms against an autumn wind and looked instead at the four brick houses behind them, where everybody was getting comfortable now with newspapers and needlework and cups of spiced tea. "You know what those houses remind me of?" Duncan said, following her gaze. "Hamsters. Or baby mice, or gerbils. Any of those little animals that cluster in one corner piled on top of each other even when they have a great big cage they are free to spread out in."

"Oh, Duncan," Justine said.

She knew he only talked that way because he was going through a difficult time. Next year he would enter college and he wanted to go to Hopkins instead of the University and study science instead of law. But Grandfather Peck and the uncles kept arguing with him, nagging, pushing him. Of course he could study science, it was a free country, they said, but all the same there was something so materialistic about science, whereas law . . . "Peck, Peck, Peck & Peck," said Duncan, referring to the family firm, which was actually called Peck & Sons. "What a perfect name for them." And he would shut himself away in his room, or go riding aimlessly with Glorietta so close beside him that if the Graham Paige were a matchbox (which it almost appeared to be) they would have tipped over long ago.

So Justine didn't worry when he spoke so bitterly. And sure enough, Neely kept on asking her out. He never came to Sunday dinner again but that was because he really had to eat with his own family, he said.

He did take her to movies and dances and birthday parties. He drove her home the long way around and parked some distance from the Pecks' in order to kiss her good night. He asked if she would like to move to the back seat where they would be more comfortable. "Oh well, oh no-" said Justine, uncertain of the proper answer. She really didn't know what she was supposed to do in this situation. None of her girl cousins could help her, either. All they knew about sex was what Duncan had told them when he was eight; that and the vague, horticultural-sounding information their mothers had given out. So Justine would flutter and debate with herself, but she always ended up saying, "Well actually I'm very comfortable where I am but thank you just the-" Neely, who might have been uncertain too, would look almost relieved. Going home he hummed along with "Good Night, Irene" on the radio. He was starting to. talk about their getting married someday, after he was through with medical school. Justine thought he was the best-looking boy in Roland Park and she liked his eyes, which were gray and translucent like quartz, and his quiet, level way of speaking. It was possible that she might even love him, but she didn't know what her mother would say.

By the fall of 1951, Justine had started attending a girls' junior college nearby. She thought she would do English or preschool education or something. It didn't much matter. Although she had always been a fair student she didn't have any real curiosity and she couldn't think of any career she wanted to aim for. So she and Esther drifted off to college every day in the Ford their grandfather had bought them for commuting, their bright kerchiefs flickering and their hair whipping in the wind.

Almost every evening Neely would come over (he was at Hopkins now) to study in the dining room with her. And there were still the Sunday dinners, the cousins alternating with grownups around the table to discourage mischief, and Claude's round face shining with the relief of being home from the University even if just for a day.

But Duncan!

Something came over Duncan that year. No one could quite put a finger on it. He had what he wanted, didn't he? He was studying science at Hopkins, wasn't he? Yet it seemed sometimes that he was more dissatisfied than ever, almost as if he regretted winning. He complained about living at home, which he had to do because Hopkins was so expensive. He said the expense was an excuse; this was just the family's way of punishing him.