The Graduate Page 6

  “Do you want me to get it?”

  “You?” he said, looking up at her. “Oh no. No. I’ll get it.” He began nodding.

  “Do you want to get it now?” she said.

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you get it.”

  “Why don’t I get it now? Right now?”

  “Why don’t you.”

  “Well,” Benjamin said. “I will then.” He rose from the table. “I’ll get it right now then.” He walked a few steps away, stopped, then turned around and came back. “Mrs. Robinson, I’m sorry to be so awkward about this but—”

  “I know,” she said.

  Benjamin shook his head and walked across the Verandah Room. He stood for several moments in the doorway looking at the clerk behind the main desk, then finally pushed his hands down into his pockets and walked across the thick white carpet.

  “Yes sir?” the clerk said.

  “A room. I’d like a room, please.”

  “A single room or a double room,” the clerk said.

  “A single,” Benjamin said. “Just for myself, please.”

  The clerk pushed a large book across the counter at him. “Will you sign the register, please?” There was a pen on the counter beside the book. Benjamin picked it up and quickly wrote down his name. Then he stopped and continued to stare at the name he had written as the clerk slowly pulled the register back to his side.

  “Is anything wrong, sir?”

  “What? No. Nothing.”

  “Very good, sir,” the clerk said. “We have a single room on the fifth floor. Twelve dollars. Would that be suitable?”

  “Yes,” Benjamin said, nodding. “That would be suitable.” He reached for his wallet.

  “You can pay when you check out, sir.”

  “Oh,” Benjamin said. “Right. Excuse me.”

  The clerk’s hand went under the counter and brought up a key. “Do you have any luggage?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Do you have any luggage?”

  “Luggage,” Benjamin said. “Yes. Yes I do.”

  “Where is it.”

  “What?”

  “Where is your luggage.”

  “Well it’s in the car,” Benjamin said. He pointed across the lobby. “It’s out there in the car.”

  “Very good, sir,” the clerk said. He held the key up in the air and looked around the lobby.’ “I’ll have a porter bring it in.”

  “Oh no,” Benjamin said.

  “Sir?”

  “I mean I’d—I’d rather not go to the trouble of bringing it all in. I just have a toothbrush. I can get it myself. If that’s all right.”

  “Of course.”

  Benjamin reached for the key.

  “I’ll have a porter show you the room.”

  “Oh,” Benjamin said, withdrawing his hand. “Well actually I’d just as soon find it myself. I just have the toothbrush to carry up and I think I can handle it myself.”

  “Whatever you say, sir.” The man handed him the key.

  “Thank you.”

  Benjamin walked across the lobby and out through the front doors of the hotel. He watched the doorman open the doors of several cars and a taxi that drove up, then he turned around and went back inside. As he passed the clerk he stopped and patted one of the pockets of his coat.

  “Got it,” he said.

  “Sir?”

  “The toothbrush. I got the toothbrush all right.”

  “Oh. Very good, sir.”

  Benjamin nodded. “Well,” he said. “I guess I’ll stop in the bar a minute before going up.”

  “You do whatever you like, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Benjamin returned to the Verandah Room. Mrs. Robinson looked up to smile at him when he came to the table.

  “Well,” Benjamin said. “I did it. I got it.”

  “You got us a room.”

  “Yes.”

  He reached into his pocket for the key. “It’s on the fifth floor,” he said, squinting at the number on the key. “Five hundred and ten it is.”

  “Shall we go up?” Mrs. Robinson said.

  “Oh,” Benjamin said, frowning. “Well I’m afraid there’s a little problem.”

  “Oh?”

  “I got a single.”

  Mrs. Robinson nodded. “That’s all right,” she said.

  “Well that’s all right,” Benjamin said. “But the man at the desk. The clerk. He seemed—he seemed like he might be a little suspicious.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well do you want to go up alone first?”

  “I think I’d better,” Benjamin said. “And also—also I was wondering if you could wait. Till he’s talking to someone. So he—I mean I signed my own name by mistake and I—”

  “I’ll be careful,” Mrs. Robinson said.

  “I know,” Benjamin said. “But I don’t know what their policy is here. I wouldn’t—”

  “Benjamin?”

  “What.”

  “Will you try and relax please?”

  “Well I’m trying,” Benjamin said. “It’s just that this clerk—he gave me a funny look.”

  “I’ll be up in ten minutes,” Mrs. Robinson said.

  “Ten minutes,” Benjamin said. “Right. I mean—right.” He nodded and hurried away from the table.

  In ten minutes Mrs. Robinson knocked on the door of the room. Benjamin had just drawn two large curtains over the window. He hurried across the carpet and pulled open the door for her. They stood looking at each other for a moment, then Benjamin began nodding.

  “I see—I see you found it all right,” he said.

  She smiled at him and walked into the room, looking at a television set in the corner, then at the bed. She removed the small round hat from the top of her head and set it down on a writing desk against one of the walls.

  “Well,” Benjamin said. He nodded but didn’t say anything more.

  Mrs. Robinson walked slowly back to where he was standing. “Well?” she said, looking up into his face.

  Benjamin waited a few moments, then brought one of his hands up to her shoulder. He bent his face down, cleared his throat, and kissed her. Then he lifted his face back up and nodded again. “Well,” he said again, removing his hand from her shoulder.

  Mrs. Robinson returned to the writing table and looked down at her hat. “Benjamin?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll get undressed now,” she said, running one of her fingers around the edge of the hat. “Is that all right?”

  “Sure,” Benjamin said. “Fine. Do you—do you—”

  “What?”

  “I mean do you want me to just stand here?” he said. “I don’t—I don’t know what you want me to do.”

  “Why don’t you watch,” she said.

  “Oh. Sure. Thank you.”

  He watched her unbutton the three buttons on the front of her suit, then reach up to unbutton the top button on her blouse. She smiled at him as she moved her hand slowly down the front of her blouse, then leaned for support on the writing table and reached down to remove her shoes.

  “Will you bring me a hanger?” she said.

  “What?”

  She straightened up and frowned at him. “Benjamin, if you want another drink we’ll go down and have one.”

  “Oh no,” Benjamin said. “A hanger. I’ll get a hanger.” He hurried to the closet and opened its door. “A wood one?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Do you want a wood one?”

  “A wood one would be fine,” she said.

  “Right,” Benjamin said. He reached into the closet for a wooden hanger and carried it across the room to her.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking it.

  “You’re welcome,” Benjamin said. He walked back to the door. He slid his hands into his pockets and watched her as she removed the jacket of her suit, then the blouse she was wearing and
hung them on the hanger.

  Suddenly Benjamin began shaking his head. He pulled his hands up out of his pockets and opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again. “Mrs. Robin—?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  She frowned at him.

  “Nothing,” Benjamin said. “Nothing. Do you need another hanger.”

  “No,” she said. She looked at him a moment longer, then pushed her skirt down around her legs, stepped out of it and folded it. “Would it be easier for you in the dark?” she said, draping the skirt through the hanger and over the wooden bar.

  “No.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’m sure. Yes.”

  “Hang this up, please?” she said. Benjamin walked across the room to take the hanger from her and carried it to the closet. When he had hung it up and turned around she had let a halfslip she was wearing drop to the floor and was stepping out of it. She slid a girdle and the stockings fastened to it down around her legs and onto the floor. “Will you undo my bra?” she said, turning around.

  “Your—your—”

  “Will you?”

  Benjamin looked at her a moment longer, then suddenly began shaking his head. He rushed to one of the walls of the room. “No!” he said.

  “What?”

  “Mrs. Robinson! Please! I can’t!”

  “What?”

  “I cannot do this!”

  Mrs. Robinson watched him for a moment, then turned and walked slowly to the bed. She seated herself and moved back to sit with her back against the board at the head of the bed. She crossed her legs in front of her and reached behind her back to unhook the bra. “You don’t want to do it,” she said.

  “I want to but I can’t!” he said to the wall. “Now I’m just—I’m sorry I called you up but I—”

  “Benjamin?”

  “I mean don’t you see?” he said, turning around. “Don’t you see that this is the worst thing I could possibly do? The very worst thing in the world?”

  “Is it?”

  He shook his head. “Now I feel awful about this,” he said. “About having you come up here like this. But I—I just—Mrs. Robinson, I like being with you. It’s not that. I mean maybe we—maybe we could do something else together. Could we—could we go to a movie? Can I take you to a movie?”

  She frowned at him. “Are you trying to be funny?” she said.

  “No! No! But I don’t know what to say! Because I’ve got you up here and I—”

  “And you don’t know what to do.”

  “Well I know I can’t do this!”

  “Why not.”

  “For God’s sake why do you think, Mrs. Robinson.”

  She shrugged. “I suppose you don’t find me particularly desirable,” she said.

  “Oh no,” Benjamin said, taking a step toward the bed. “No. That has nothing to do with it.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Look,” Benjamin said. “Mrs. Robinson. I think—I think you’re the most attractive woman of all my parents’ friends. I mean that. I find you desirable. But I—For God’s sake can you imagine my parents?” He held his arms up beside him.

  “What?”

  “Can you imagine what they’d say if they just saw us here in this room right now?”

  “What would they say” she said.

  “I have no idea, Mrs. Robinson. But for God’s sake. They’ve brought me up. They’ve made a good life for me. And I think they deserve better than this. I think they deserve a little better than jumping into bed with the partner’s wife.”

  She nodded.

  “So it’s nothing to do with you. But I respect my parents. I appreciate what they’ve—”

  “Benjamin?” she said, looking up at him.

  “What.”

  “Would you think I was being forward if I asked you a rather personal question?”

  “Oh no,” Benjamin said. “You can ask me anything you want. “I’d be happy to—”

  “Are you a virgin?” she said.

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”

  Benjamin frowned at her. “Am I a virgin,” he said.

  She nodded.

  Benjamin continued to frown at her and finally she smiled. “All right,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “Well what do you think,” he said.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess you probably are.”

  “Come on,” Benjamin said.

  “Well aren’t you?”

  “Of course I’m not.”

  “It’s nothing you should be ashamed of, Benjamin,” she said, dropping her bra beside her on the bed.

  “What?”

  She folded her arms over her breasts and leaned her head back against the wall. “I mean I wish you’d just admit to me you’re a little bit frightened of being with a woman instead of …”

  “What?”

  “I wish you’d just tell me you don’t think you’d be able to go through with it rather than …”

  Benjamin shook his head. “Look,” he said. “You’re missing the point.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well you are,” he said. “The point is that I come from a family where we trust each other.”

  Mrs. Robinson brought her head up and smiled slightly. “Come on,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Now look,” she said. “I’m sure there isn’t a man living who wasn’t a little scared his first time.”

  “But it’s not!”

  “Benjamin there’s no reason to be scared of me.”

  “Do you really believe that?” he said, taking another step toward the bed. “Do you really believe I’ve never done this thing before?”

  “Well,” she said, “I think it’s pretty obvious you haven’t. You don’t have the slightest idea what to do. You’re nervous and awkward. You can’t even—”

  “Oh my God,” Benjamin said.

  “I mean just because you might be inadequate in one way doesn’t—”

  “Inadequate?!”

  She nodded, then it was quiet. Benjamin stared at her as she frowned down at one of her breasts. “Well,” she said finally, straightening up and putting one foot down on the floor. “I guess I’d better be—”

  “Stay on that bed,” Benjamin said. He removed his coat quickly and dropped it on the floor. Then he began unbuttoning his shirt. He walked to the bed to sit down beside her, then reached behind her head to remove several bobby pins. Mrs. Robinson shook her head and her hair fell down around her shoulders. Benjamin finished taking off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. Then he put his arms around her and eased her down onto her back on the bed. He kissed her and kicked off his shoes at the same time. Mrs. Robinson put her hands up at the sides of his head and then moved her fingernails up through his hair and finally wrapped both her arms around him and pressed him down against her until he could feel her breasts flattening underneath his chest and the muscles trembling in her arms. She pulled her mouth away from his and pushed it against his neck, then pushed one of her hands down between them to the buckle of his belt.

  “Please,” she said.

  Benjamin raised his head up several inches to look at her face. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was partly open.

  “Please,” she said again.

  Benjamin reached for the lamp on the table beside them. “Inadequate,” he said, turning it off. “That’s good. That’s really pretty—”

  “Please!”

  He let her unbuckle his belt and push his pants down around his legs, then climbed on top of her and started the affair.

  Chapter Four

  The date after which Benjamin was no longer eligible for the Frank Halpingham Education Award fell sometime in mid-September. He celebrated the event quietly and by himself. When his parents had gone to bed he carried a bottle of bourbon from the liquor cabinet out to the pool and drank it slow
ly and smoked cigarettes, grinding the first ones out on the cement beside the pool and then flipping the rest up in the air and watching them fall and sputter out in the bright blue water. It was not till long after midnight that he tossed the empty bottle into the pool, stood from his chair and walked slowly inside and upstairs to bed.

  He spent most of his time at home. He got up late in the morning or early in the afternoon and dressed in his bathing suit. He usually ate breakfast by himself. Sometimes, if she wasn’t shopping or reading in her room, his mother came into the kitchen to sit with him while he ate. After breakfast he went out to the pool. He had found an old rubber raft in one of the cupboards of the garage which had not been used since before high school when the family had taken it on weekend trips to the beach. Benjamin inflated it and although the rubber was cracked where it had been folded and stored, it still held air.

  After breakfast Benjamin usually kicked it into the water from the edge of the pool where he had left it the day before, then walked slowly down the steps of the shallow end. Sometimes he carried a can of beer down into the pool with him and sat on the raft while he drank it. Then he tossed the empty can off beside the pool and eased himself down onto the raft to float for the rest of the day. Sometimes he floated on his back with his hands folded across his stomach and sometimes he lay on his stomach with his arms hanging down into the water beside the raft. Unless it rained he floated all afternoon and right up until it was time for dinner, getting off the raft only once every hour or so to inflate it when he felt the water slowly rising up around his chest.

  He ate dinner each evening with his parents. He put on a shirt and rolled up its sleeves around his elbows after his father insisted he wear more than his bathing suit to the table. After dinner, on the nights he didn’t dress and drive to the Taft Hotel, he took a can of beer with him into the den and watched television. During the early part of the evening he usually drank only beer as he watched television and then when it was later and his parents had gone to bed he usually poured himself a glassful of bourbon to drink as he watched the movies that came on after the shorter plays and comedy programs had ended. Sometimes, if his drink was still not finished, he sat a long time after the last movie was over watching one of the test patterns or the photograph of an American flag that one of the channels always put on the screen after they had played the national anthem and signed off the air. Once or twice he fell asleep in his chair and woke up hours later just as it was beginning to get light outside to find that the can of beer or the drink he had been holding had fallen out of his hand and spilled into his lap or across the rug. But usually the movies kept him awake. After a while he was able to calculate just how much to drink so that the moment the last movie ended he could set down his empty glass, turn off the set and go upstairs and be asleep almost the moment he slid in between the sheets of his bed.