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Show 133 -here to the Village Theatre. Roger had wanted to know why they couldn't catch it at The Picwood in Santa Monica, it was playing there also. But she had insisted on coming here. She told him to wanted to go to someplace different, he accepted that. But she had wanted to come here to be around the UCLA students. When she had worked at Whitman's with her mother, she had observed the students in the store. They had always interested her; the way they talked, the clothes they bought, the way they were around each other. They had been a class apart from her. They were money, privilege. They were the big, sprawling homes around the Village. They were, it always seemed, the lucky ones. The ones good fate had selected for its own. But that had been when she was younger. They had been older then. Now she was almost eighteen, as old as some of them, now how would they impress her? Through the car window she studied the figures on the sidewalk, their gait as they walked, especially the girls. With their pleated skirts, their ponytails tied with scarves in large bows. There were couples walking together, the Saturday night date, as well as pairs of girls and young men. As a rule, the couples were better dressed, and, it seemed to her, older; the men wore neckties and coats, the women were in dresses. How would it feel to be one of them, walking down the sidewalk? She would like that, she decided. Yes. But then they drove past Whitman's, it was still open, the bright lights of the window displays-and she tensed, as if warding off a blow. "That's where you used to work, isn't it?" Roger said. "Yes, that's it," she said, not turning to him. And suddenly, it was all impossible. That she-Sharon Mackinlay- |
