Living Room Read Online Free

reddening face revealed a white area where Shirley’s fist had landed. As a teacher on schoolyard duty was striding over, Charlotte burst out crying, which caused the tension of the surrounding children to release itself in laughter at the tomboy vanquished, the tables turned.
    By the end of the afternoon the whole school knew. Eyes watched Shirley in a different way. A touch of respect? Shirley, who had the habit of reflecting on her experiences, had learned that a free man carries his fist in readiness if he wants to be let alone.
    From that day, Philip Hartman sensed something about his daughter and himself. When they walked together, or talked, he did not seem her protector any more. This nine-year-old was beginning to take charge not only of her own life, but of all those in her environment. She had begun her long siege in bed as his little girl. She had gotten up metamorphosed somehow, a stranger prepared to deal with the world.

CHAPTER TWO
    IN 1956, SHIRLEY, a quick-developing thirteen going on fourteen, had reached her full height. Her five-foot-three body was constantly in motion; her short-of-shoulder-length blond hair framed restless eyes; her brows needed eyebrow pencil to be noticeable; and her mouth had lately taken to staccato sentences, exclamation points and an occasional four-letter word Philip Hartman pretended not to hear. She gobbled food, books, records and new acquaintances. “Shirley,” Hartman said, “how can you read a book, listen to a record and be on the telephone to a friend at the same time?”
    “You got to cram,” said Shirley.
    “Cram what?!”
    “Everything!”
    “It’s okay,” said Mrs. Bialek, “it’s a phase.”
    Though Shirley was zipping through her days like a stream of tracer bullets, when it came to sexual matters she was inexperienced and unprepared for the nature of her first encounter.
    She had asked and received permission from her father to attend a school dance. Shirley was embarrassed by the fact that dancing didn’t interest her; she had learned how, she had danced with girls and danced with boys. A year earlier, at twelve, her figure had blossomed (“You look beautiful, cover yourself up!” said her father, coming upon her getting out of the shower) and she knew she looked attractive as her jitterbugging partners flung her away and pulled her back; when she stood on the sidelines watching her friends do the same dance they seemed like savages in a tribal ritual. Shirley once dared her opinion of that kind of dancing to Harry, a boy she liked more than most. Harry had said to her, “Shirley, you’re a snob.”
    His remark had hurt. Unless you did what everyone else did the way they did it, you had best shut up. It was not Shirley’s nature to keep her mouth shut in or out of class, and so she experienced the falling off of friends, and a sudden sense of complete loneliness.
    On the occasion of this particular dance, she had no date, and so she sat, the only pretty girl among a group of seven or eight, watching the boys and girls on the dance floor. It was surprise that made her heart jump when Harry—she hadn’t seen him come over—asked her to dance. The music blared through amplifiers. Though you could not carry on a conversation, you could shout an occasional short phrase at your partner, who might hear.
    Shirley, who loved conversation more than dancing, tried the simplest expedient, a short question.
    “How’ve you been?”
    “What?”
    She repeated the question to her gyrating partner.
    “Oh,” Harry said. “Not bad.”
    She would have welcomed a chance to be off in a corner somewhere with Harry, a quiet place, talking. Harry was smart, fifteen, a grabbag of ideas for subduing the world. He was running for class president.
    “I’m going to vote for you” would sound like buttering up. What could she ask him—shout at him through the din—in a short sentence that wouldn’t sound idiotic?
    It was Harry who said, “What do you think of