Read the Big Bounce (1969) for Free Online

terribly sorry, Mrs. Peterson, he was pulling on the cord and before I could get to him ) Gosh, she was sorry.
    Another thing that was fun she did with the fathers when they drove her home. She didn't always do it, or with all the fathers. To qualify, the father had to be in his thirties or early forties, a sharp dresser, good-looking in a middle-aged way and at least half in the bag each time he drove her home. To do it right required care and patience over a period of months, during a dozen or so rides home. The first time she would be very nice, her book in her lap, and not speak unless asked a direct question. If asked a question, it was usually about the book or how's school. Somehow, then, in answering telling her grade in school or describing the book, which seemed pretty deep for a young girl she would let him know she was going on seventeen. During the next several rides home she would be increasingly more at ease, friendly, outgoing, sincere; she would come off as a serious reader, a bright girl interested in what was going on in the world, especially the teenage world with its changing fads and attitudes. Sometimes the discussion was so interesting they would arrive at Nancy's house and, parked in the drive, continue talking for another ten or fifteen minutes. Sooner or later then, usually between the fifth and eighth ride home, talking as they pulled into the drive, she would zap him.
    It would be an apparently innocent question, part of their conversation. Like: Do you think it's all right for teen-agers to make out? He would act casual and ask her to define making out and she would say: You know, parked somewhere.
    Well, if you're just parked, listening to the radio
    Of course I mean if they're in love, or if they feel at least a strong physical attraction.
    You wonder if it's all right for them to do a little smooching?
    Uh-huh, not necessarily going all the way or sexing around too much, but maybe frenching and letting him touch you, you know, here.
    Then the timing. Just as he said, Well she would look at her watch and say, Oh my gosh, I'd better get in! And with a thanks-a-lot, slam the door in his face.
    Then the next time steer the conversation or wait to see if he steered it to making out or smooching or necking, as he called it. If he didn't she would move in quickly and zap him again.
    But why are boys always, you know, so anxious?
    It's just the way they are physiologically. I suppose psychologically too.
    Innocently, a sincere girl in search of knowledge: Are older men that way?
    Sure older men are. Not too old but older.
    I've wondered about that. Like young girls who marry older men.
    Well, if they're too old
    There was a movie star recently I can't think of his name he's fifty and the girl I think is twenty-two. That's, gosh, twenty-eight years difference!
    If they get along, have mutual interests, a rapport, then why not?
    Uh-huh. I guess so. If they love each other.
    Now watch the serious, rationalizing father turning it over in his mind in the dark car with the dash lights and the radio low and her tan legs in the short shorts. What are you, seventeen? That would be only eighteen years difference between us, he would say, knocking anywhere from three to six years from his age. Could you imagine say in a couple of years, and if I weren't married could you imagine you and I going together?
    I hadn't thought of it that way.
    But it could happen, couldn't it?
    Gee, I guess it could.
    Within one December to April season, six after-the-party, half-in-the-bag fathers, who lived within a mile of one another but were not acquainted (she made sure of that), had reached the verge and realized the clear possibility that cute little Nancy Hayes with the cute little figure could be more to them than a babysitter. Three escaped: they did nothing about it; they seemed interested in her; they liked talking to her; they teased themselves with the possibility of her; but they did nothing about it.
    Three did not