The Member of the Wedding by Carson Mccullers

His face, although not fat, seemed swollen, and it was glossy in the neon light. He had a thousand little freckles, and the only thing that seemed to her pretty was his bright, red curly hair. His eyes were blue, set close together, and the whites were raw. He was staring at her with a peculiar expression, not as one traveler gazes at another, but as a person who shares a secret scheme. For several minutes he did not talk. Then, when at last he spoke, the words did not make sense to her and she did not understand. It seemed to her the soldier said:
    "Who is a cute dish?"
    There were no dishes on the table and she had the uneasy feeling he had begun to talk a kind of double-talk. She tried to turn the conversation.
    "I told you my brother is a Member of the Armed Forces."
    But the soldier did not seem to listen. "I could of sworn I'd run into you some place before."
    The doubt in F. Jasmine deepened. She realized now that the soldier thought she was much older than she was, but her pleasure in this was somehow uncertain. To make conversation she remarked:
    "Some people are not partial to red hair. But to me it's my favorite color." She added, remembering her brother and the bride. "Except dark brown and yellow. I always think it's a pity for the Lord to waste curly hair on boys. When so many girls are going around with hair as straight as pokers."
    The soldier leaned over the booth table and, still staring at her, he began to walk his fingers, the second and third fingers of both hands, across the table toward her. The fingers were dirty, with rinds of black beneath the nails. F. Jasmine had the sense that something strange was going to happen, when just at the moment there was a sudden racket and commotion and three or four soldiers shoved each other into the hotel. There was a babble of voices and the screen door banged. The soldier's fingers stopped walking across the table and, when he glanced at the other soldiers, the peculiar expression was scattered from his eyes.
    "That certainy is a darling little monkey," she said.
    "What monkey?"
    The doubt deepened to the feeling that something was wrong. "Why, the monkey you tried to buy a few minutes ago. What's the matter with you?"
    Something was wrong and the soldier put his fists up to his head. His body limpened and he leaned back in the seat of the booth, as though collapsed. "Oh, that monkey!" he said in his slurred voice. "The walk in the sun after all those beers. I was slamming around all night." He sighed, and his hands were open loose upon the table. "I guess maybe I'm just about beat."
    For the first time F. Jasmine began to wonder what she was doing there and if she ought not to take herself on home. The other soldiers had crowded around a table near the stairway, and the lady with the golden tooth was busy behind the counter. F. Jasmine had finished her beer and a lace of creamy foam lined the inside of the empty glass. The hot, close smell in the hotel suddenly made her feel a little queer.
    "I have to go home now. Thank you for treating me."
    She got up from the booth, but the soldier reached out toward her and caught a piece of her dress. "Hey!" he said. "Don't just walk off like that. Let's fix up something for this evening. How bout a date for nine o'clock?"
    "A date?" F. Jasmine felt as though her head was big and loose. The beer made her legs feel peculiar, too, almost as though she
had four legs to manage instead of two. On any other day than this it would have seemed almost impossible that anyone, much less a soldier, would have invited her to a date. The very word,
date,
was a grown word used by older girls. But here again there was a blight upon her pleasure. If he knew she was not yet thirteen, he would never have invited her, or probably never joined with her at all. There was a troubled sense, a light uneasiness. "I don't know—"
    "Sure," he urged. "Suppose we link up here at nine o'clock. We can go to the Idle Hour or something. That suit you all