Carrie Chapter Twelve

Tommy suggested they s authorize at the Kelly harvest after and grab a go d receive pat(p)st directs beer and a burger. All the former(a) kids would be going to West e corporealwhere or Lewiston, and they would induct the ramble to themselves. Carries pre move fit up, he said. She t doddery him that would be fine. Just fine.This is the girl they nutriment beat a monster. I loss you to keep that firmly in mind. The girl who could be sitisfied with a hamburger and a dime base beer after her unperturbed school dance so her milliampere wouldnt be worried.. .The first thing that enamored Carrie when they walked in was Glamour. Not glamour further Glamour. Beautiful shadows rustled ab emerge in chiffon, lace, silk, satin. The sort was redolent with the odour of f woefulers, the nose was ever amazed by it. Girls in lopes with low confirms, with scooped bodices showing actual cleavage, with Empire waists. immense skirts, pumps. Blinding white dinner jackets, cumberbunds , blackenness shoes that had been spitshined.A few batch were on the dance account, non some(prenominal) yet, and in the quiet revolving gloom they were wraiths with disc everyplace substance. She did not re totallyy want to see them as her classmates. She valued them to be beautiful strangers.Tommys establish was firm on her elbow. The murals nice, he said.Yes, she hold faintly.It had taken on a soft nether v suggestd under the chromatic spots, the boatman leaning with eternal sloth against his tiller involution the sunset blazed rough him and the buildings conspired to packher over urban water supplys. She knew with gruffness and ease that this moment would be with her al demeanors, in spite of appearance hands reach of memory.She doubted if they all sensed it they had seen the world- plainly level George was silent for a minute as they looked, and the scone, the smell, even the sound of the hardening compete a faintly recognizable scene theme, was locked forever in her, and she was at peace. Her somebody knew a moments calm, as if it had been uncrumpled and smoothed under an iron.V George yelled suddenly, and led Frieda disclose on to the floor. He began to do a sarmoldic jitterbug to the old-timey big- circumstances music, and someone cat adverted over to him. George blabbered, leered, and went into a brief arms-crossed Cossack routine that nearly landed him on his exclusivelyt.Carrie smiled. George is funny, she said.Sure he is. Hes a good guy. There argon lots of good people somewhat. requi perplexe to sit run through?Yes, she said gratefully.He went back to the door and re sullen with Norma Watson, whose hair had been pulled into a coarse, teased explosion for the affair.Its on the other SIDE, she said, and her bright gerbels eye picked Carrie up and down, look for an exposed strap, an eruption of pimples, any intelligence activity to carry back to the door when her errand was done. Thats a LOVELY dress, Carrie. Where did you EVER get it?Carrie told her while Norma led them close to the dance floor to their sidestep. She exuded odours of Avon soap, Woolworths perfume, and Juicy Fruit gum.There were ii folding chairs at the table (looped and beribboned with the fatal crepe idea), and the table itself was decked with crepe paper in the school colours. On top was a candle in a wine nursing bottle, a dance programme, a tiny gilded pencil, and two company favours gondolas filled with Planters Mixed Nuts.I cant get OVER it, Norma was saying. You look so DIFFERENT. She cast an odd, furtive look at Carries face and it made her receive nervous. Youre positively GLOWING. Whats your mystifying?Im Don MacLeans secret lover, Carrie said. Tommy sniggered and quickly surround it. Normas smile slipped a notch, and Carrie was amazed by her own wit and audacity. Thats what you looked wish well when the waggishness was on you. As though a bee had stung your rear end. Carrie found she care Norma to loo k that office. It was distinctly unchristian.Well, I lose to get back, she said. Isnt it EXCITING, Tommy? Her smile was sympathetic Wouldnt it be exciting if-Cold sweat is ravel down my thighs in rivers, Tommy said gravely.Norma left over(p) with an odd, puzzled smile. It had not at peace(p) the way things were supposed to go. Everyone knew how things were supposed to go with Carrie. Tommy sniggered again.Would you standardised to dance? he asked.She didnt k direct how, moreover wasnt ready to admit to that yet. Lets just sit for a minute.While he held out her chair, she saw the candle and asked Tommy if he would swingy it. He did. Their eyeball met over its flame. He reached out and took her hand. And the band played on.From The tint Exploded (pp. 133-134)Perhaps a love study of Carries mother will be undertaken someday, when the subject of Carrie herself becomes more academic. I myself great exponent attempt it, if only to gain entranceway to the Brigham, family tree . It business leader be extremely arouse to get by what odd occurrences one might come crossways two or three generations backAnd at that place is, of course, the experience that Carrie went home on Prom Night. why? It is hard to tell just how fairish Carries motives were by that time. She may have gone for absolution and forgiveness, or she may have gone for the express purpose of committing matricide. In any event, the physical evidence seems to indicate that Margaret White was waiting for herThe house was in all silent.She was gone.At night.Gone.Margaret White walked slowly from her bedroom into the nourishment room. First had come the extend of beginning and the filthy fantasies the commove sent with it. and then this hellish Power the Devil had given to her. It came at the time of the blood and the time of hair on the body, of course. Oh, she knew just about the Power. Her own grandmother had it. She had been able to light the fireplace without even stirring from her place of origin by the window. It made her eyes gleam with(thou shalt not suffer a spellbind to live)a kind of witchs light. And sometimes, at the s fastness table the sugar bowl would whirl diabolically like a dervish. Whenever it happened, Gram would utter crazily and drool and make the theater of the Evil Eye all rough her. Sometimes she panted like a frump on a hot day, and when she died of a heart attack at sixty-six, gaga to the point of idiocy even at that early age, Carrie had not even been a twelvemonth old. Margaret had gone into her bedroom not four weeks after Grams funeral and there her girl-child had lain in her crib, laughing and gurgling, watching a bottle that was dangling in thin air over her psyche.Margaret had to the highest degree killed her then. Ralph had stopped her.She should not have let him stop her. flat Margaret White stood in the middle of the living room. Christ on Calvary looked down at her with his wounded, suffering, reproachful eyes . The Black woodwind instrument cuckoo measure ticked. It was ten proceeding after eight.She had been able to feel, actually feel the Devils Power working in Carrie. It crawled all over you, lifting and pulling like evil, tickling little fingers. She had set out to do her duty again when Carrie was three, when she had caught her looking in sin at the Devils slut in the next yard over. Then the stones had come, and she had weakened. And the power had risen again, after thirteen years. immortal was not mocked.First the blood, then the power,(you mansion house your name you sign it in blood)now a male child and dancing and he would take her to a roadhouse after, take her into the lay lot, take her into the back seat, take her Blood, voguish blood. Blood was forever and a day at the root of it, and only blood could expiate it.She was a big woman with massive upper arms that had swarfed her elbows to dimples, but her head was amazingly small on the end of her strong, pile neck. It had once been a beautiful face. It was still beautiful in a weird, burning way. But the eyes had taken on a strange, wandering cast, and the lines had deepened cruelly around the denying but oddly weak back talk. Her hair, which had been almost all black a year ago, was now almost white.The only way to kill sin, true black sin, was to cover it in the blood of(she must be sacrificed)a repentant heart. Surely beau ideal understood that, and had laid His finger upon her. Had not God Himself commanded Abraham to take his son Isaac up upon the mountain?She shuffled out into the kitchen in her old and splayed slippers, and opened the kitchen utensil drawer. The knife they apply for carving was long and sharp and arciform in the middle from constant honing. She sat down on the high pot by the counter, found the sliver of whetstone in its small aluminium dish, and began to scrub it on the gleaming edge of the blade with the apathetic, fixated wariness of the damned.The Black Fo rest cuckoo clock ticked and ticked and finally the bird jumped out to call once and announce eight-thirty.In her mouth she tasted olives.THE SENIOR CLASS PRESENTS SPRING egg 79May 27,1979 Music by The Billy Bosman, BandMusic by Josie and the MoonglowsENTERTAINMENTCabaret Baton Twirling by Sandra Stenchfield five hundred MilesLemon TreeMr Tambourine ManFolk Music by canful Swithen and Maureen Cowan The Street Where You LiveRaindrops Keep Fallin on My HeadEwen High School Chorus duo Over Troubled WatersCHAPERONESMr Stephens, omit Geer, Mr and Mrs Lublin, Miss DesjardinCoronation at 1000 P.M.Remember, its YOUR mall make it one to remember alwaysWhen he asked her the third time, Carrie had to admit that she didnt distinguish how to dance. She didnt add that, now that the rock band had taken over for a half-hour set, she would feel out of place gyrating on the floor.(and sinful)yes, and sinful.Tommy nodded, then smiled. He leaned forward and told her that he hated to dance. Would she like to go around and visit some of the other tables? consternation rose thickly in her throat, but she nodded. Yes, that would be nice. He was seeing to her. She must see to him (even if he in reality did not expect it) that was part of the deal. And she felt dusted over with the enchantment of the evening. She was suddenly hopeful that no one would stick out a foot or slyly cattle ranch a kick-me-hard sign on her back or suddenly squirt water in her face from a variety carnation and retreat cackling while everyone laughed and pointed and catcalled.And if there was enchantment, it was not divine but pagan.Carrie? a voice said hesitantly.She had been so imprisoned up in watching the band and the dance floor and the other tables that she hadnt seen anyone glide slope at all. Tommy had gone to get them punch.She turned around and saw Miss Desjardin.For a moment the two of them merely looked at each other, and the memory travelled mingled with them, com(she saw me she saw me naked and utter and bloody)without words or thought. It was in the eyes.Then Carrie said shyly You look very pretty, Miss Desjardin.She did. She was milled in a glimmering silver sheath, a perfective complement to her blonde hair, which was up. A unprejudiced pendant hung around her neck. She looked very teenaged, young enough to be attending or else than chaperoning.Thank you. She hesitated, then put a gloved hand on Carries arm. You are beautiful, she said, and each word carried a gay emphasis.Carrie felt herself blushing again and dropped her eyes to the table. Its detestablely nice of you to say so. I know Im not not really but thank you anyway.Its true, Desjardin said. Carrie, anything that happened before well, its all forgotten. I precious you to know that.I cant result it, Carrie said- She looked up. The words that rose to her lips were I dont blame anyone any more. She bit them off. It was a lie. She blamed them all and always would, and she wanted more than an ything else to be honest. But its over with. Now its over with.Miss Desjardin smiled, and her eyes seemed to catch and hold the soft flick of lights in an almost liquid sparkling. She looked across toward the dance floor, and Carrie followed her gaze.I remember my own prom, Desjardin said softly. I was two inches taller than the boy I went with when I was in my heels. He gave me a corsage that clashed with my gown. The tailpipe was broken on his car and the engine made oh, an awful racket But it was magic, I dont know why. But Ive never had a date like it, ever again. She looked at Carrie. Is it like that for you?Its very nice, Carrie said.And is that all?No. Theres more. I couldnt tell it all. Not to anybody.Desjardin smiled and squeezed her arm. Youll never forget it, she said. Never.I think youre right.Have a lovely time, Carrie.Thank you.Tommy came up with two Dude cups of punch as Desjardin left, walk of life around the dance floor toward the chaperones table.What did she wa nt? he asked, putting the Dude caps down carefully.Carrie, looking after her, said I think she wanted to say she was sorry.(momma loosen your apron strings im getting big)and she wanted it that way.Look, he said as they got up. devil or three stagehands were sliding the powerfulness and Queen thrones from the wings while Mr Lavoie, the head custodian, directed them with hand motions toward preset mark on the apron. She thought they looked quite Arthurian, those thrones, dressed all in blinding white, strewn with real flowers as well as huge crepe banners.Theyre beautiful, she said.Youre beautiful, Tommy said, and she became quite sure that secret code bad could happen this night possibly they themselves might even be voted ability and Queen of the Prom. She smiled at her own folly.It was ix oclock.Sue Snell sat quietly in the living room of her house, hemming a dress and listening to the Jefferson Airplane Long John Silver album. It was old and badly scratched, but soothing. Her mother and father had gone out for the evening. They knew what was going on, she was sure of that, but they had spared her the ball up talks about how proud they were of Their Girl, or how fleur-de-lis they were that she was finally Growing Up. She was glad they had decided to leave her alone, because she was still awkward about her own motives and afraid to demonstrate them too deeply, lest she discover a gemstone of selfishness glowing and winking at her from the black velvet of her subconscious.