Idiots First by Bernard Malamud Page A

he had, though he knew it bothered him a little. “Hello there,” she said. She had hesitated on hearing his voice but seemed cordial enough. Cronin wondered about a drive and she said she wouldn’t mind. He called for her in his car. She looked a little distant when she came out and he was surprised at how attractive. He noticed she seemed to be prettier on warm days.
    â€œHow are things with you?” Cronin asked as he held the door open for her.
    â€œAll right, I guess. How are they with you?”
    â€œFine,” Cronin said.
    â€œHow’s the teaching?”
    â€œFine. I’m enjoying it more than I was.”
    Not much more but it was too much trouble to explain why.
    She seemed at ease. They drove towards the mountains along some of the side roads he had explored with George,
until they came to a long blue lake shaped like a bird in flight. Cronin parked the car and they went through a scattering of pine trees, down to the water. At his suggestion they walked part of the way around the lake, and back. It took more than an hour and Mary Lou said she hadn’t walked that much in years.
    â€œLife’s pleasures are cheap,” Cronin said.
    â€œNo, they’re not,” said Mary Lou.
    He let it pass. They had said nothing about last time, there was nothing to say really. The beauty of the day had lightened Cronin’s mood—he remembered having dreamed of Marge last night and had awakened uneasy. But Mary Lou’s company, he admitted to himself, had made the walk around the lake enjoyable. She was wearing a yellow cotton dress that showed her figure off, and her hair, to the large thick knot on her neck, was for once neatly arranged. She was rather quiet, as though a word too much might defeat her, but once she loosened up they talked amiably. She seemed to Cronin, as he sat by her side gazing at the lake, no more nor less than any woman he had known. The way he presently saw it was that she was entitled to her mistakes. He was to his. Yet though he tried to forget what she had told him, the fact that she had been a whore kept nagging him. She had known many men, how large a crowd they would make following her now, he was afraid to guess. He had never known anyone like her, and that he was with her now struck him as somewhat strange. But Cronin thought what an unusual thing present time was. In the present a person is what she is becoming and not what she was. She was this heavy-but-shapely-legged girl in a yellow dress, sitting by his side as though she belonged there. Cronin
thought this was an interesting lesson for him. The past interfered if you let it. People feared it because they thought it predicted the future. It didn’t if you realized how much life changed, and concentrated on what it had changed to, and lived that. He began again to think of the possibility of friendship with Mary Lou.
    She got up, brushing pine needles off her dress. “It’s hot,” she said. “Would you mind if I peeled and went in for a dip?”
    â€œGo ahead,” said Cronin.
    â€œWhy don’t you come in yourself?” she asked. “You could keep your shorts on and later get dry in the sun.”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so,” he said, “I’m not much of a swimmer.”
    â€œNeither am I,” Mary Lou said, “but I like the water.”
    She unzipped her dress and pulled it over her head. Then she kicked off her shoes, stepped out of a half slip and removed her white underwear. He enjoyed the fullness of her form, the beauty of her breasts. Mary Lou walked into the water, shivered, and began to swim. Cronin sat watching her, one arm around his knees as he smoked. After swimming a while, Mary Lou, her flesh lit in the sunlight, came out of the water, drew on her underpants, then let the sun dry her as she redid her damp hair. He was moved by her wet body after bathing.
    When she had dressed, Cronin suggested they have dinner