The Collected Stories of Richard Yates Read Online Free

me, Vincent,” she said, and when he had settled himself, she looked at him. “I want you to tell me the truth. Did you write those words on the wall outside?”
    He stared at the floor.
    â€œLook at me,” she said, and he looked at her. She had never looked prettier: her cheeks slightly flushed, her eyes shining and her sweet mouth pressed into a self-conscious frown. “First of all,” she said, handing him a small enameled basin streaked with poster paint, “I want you to take this to the boys’ room and fill it with hot water and soap.”
    He did as he was told, and when he came back, carrying the basin carefully to keep the suds from spilling, she was sorting out some old rags in the bottom drawer of her desk. “Here,” she said, selecting one and shutting the drawer in a businesslike way. “This will do. Soak this up.” She led him back to the fire exit and stood in the alley watching him, silently, while he washed off all the words.
    When the job had been done, and the rag and basin put away, they sat down at Miss Price’s desk again. “I suppose you think I’m angry with you, Vincent,” she said. “Well, I’m not. I almost wish I could be angry—that would make it much easier—but instead I’m hurt. I’ve tried to be a good friend to you, and I thought you wanted to be my friend too. But this kind of thing—well, it’s very hard to be friendly with a person who’d do a thing like that.”
    She saw, gratefully, that there were tears in his eyes. “Vincent, perhaps I understand some things better than you think. Perhaps I understand that sometimes, when a person does a thing like that, it isn’t really because he wants to hurt anyone, but only because he’s unhappy. He knows it isn’t a good thing to do, and he even knows it isn’t going to make him any happier afterwards, but he goes ahead and does it anyway. Then when he finds he’s lost a friend, he’s terribly sorry, but it’s too late. The thing is done.”
    She allowed this somber note to reverberate in the silence of the room for a little while before she spoke again. “I won’t be able to forget this, Vincent. But perhaps, just this once, we can still be friends—as long as I understand that you didn’t mean to hurt me. But you must promise me that you won’t forget it either. Never forget that when you do a thing like that, you’re going to hurt people who want very much to like you, and in that way you’re going to hurt yourself. Will you promise me to remember that, dear?”
    The “dear” was as involuntary as the slender hand that reached out and held the shoulder of his sweatshirt; both made his head hang lower than before.
    â€œAll right,” she said. “You may go now.”
    He got his windbreaker out of the cloakroom and left, avoiding the tired uncertainty of her eyes. The corridors were deserted, and dead silent except for the hollow, rhythmic knocking of a janitor’s push-broom against some distant wall. His own rubber-soled tread only added to the silence; so did the lonely little noise made by the zipping-up of his windbreaker, and so did the faint mechanical sigh of the heavy front door. The silence made it all the more startling when he found, several yards down the concrete walk outside, that two boys were walking beside him: Warren Berg and Bill Stringer. They were both smiling at him in an eager, almost friendly way.
    â€œWhat’d she do to ya, anyway?” Bill Stringer asked.
    Caught off guard, Vincent barely managed to put on his Edward G. Robinson face in time. “Nunnya business,” he said, and walked faster.
    â€œNo, listen—wait up, hey,” Warren Berg said, as they trotted to keep up with him. “What’d she do, anyway? She bawl ya out, or what? Wait up, hey, Vinny.”
    The name made him tremble all over. He had to