The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

so I assumed he had forgotten her.
    “I sent her a letter, but she didn’t answer it,” Tom said, ignoring Archie’s continuing chant.
    “She was at the football game yesterday,” I said lamely. “And she and Ed came over one day after school, and we played a little basketball.”
    “Did she say anything about me?”
    “She said how much fun she had that Sunday,” I said, carefully, not wanting to get Tom’s hopes up too high, but at the same time not wanting to crush them.
    “I guess she’s been busy.”
    I hoped he would leave it at that. In any case, the next time I saw her, I would make it clear to her that I had a girlfriend. We went in the house where I got the usual kiss from my mother and handshake from my father. My father asked me to go upstairs with him. That didn’t sound good.
    I followed him upstairs and into his study where he closed the door. Without even bothering to sit down, he said, “I hear that you’ve been going around with Michael Doran’s daughter.”
    “Who told you that?” I asked, belligerently. If I was in trouble, at least I wanted to know the source of it.
    “What does it matter? I’ve heard it from two people.”
    Dr. Graves and Aunt Dorothy. I was getting hit from all sides.
    “And going to parties where liquor is served.”
    I hadn’t told Aunt Dorothy about the beer. She must have extrapolated from the cause of the accident.
    According to the constitution, I had a right to remain silent. But that hadn’t done Mr. Doran much good, and it apparently wasn’t going to help me, either.
    “If you can’t behave yourself, I’m going to pull you out of Carter and put you in Pratt School where they have some discipline,” my father continued. “And you’ll be living at home where we can keep an eye on you.”
    Pratt was a private school in Atherton. If my father was willing to spend that kind of money, he must be really upset with me. I couldn’t stand the thought of changing schools again. It was time to grovel. I spent the next five minutes telling my father how good I was going to be. I didn’t actually say I was going to stay away from Sylvia, but a strict interpretation would have been that I had agreed to everything he wanted me to do. The fact that I had my fingers crossed mentally would help me about as much as pleading the Fifth Amendment.
    ***
    I stopped at Sylvia’s house on the way back to the farm. I didn’t want to talk to her about this on the phone. Mrs. Doran came to the door in answer to my ring. She smiled at me, but I had a hard time smiling back because I felt like a rat. I said I needed to talk to Sylvia for a minute. She went to the bottom of the stairs and called her. Apparently her rules on allowing mixed sexes in Sylvia’s room were stricter than Mr. Doran’s.
    Sylvia came downstairs in a couple of minutes. Her face lit up when she saw me, but again I couldn’t produce anything resembling a smile. Mrs. Doran had gone into the kitchen, so she gave me a quick kiss and said, “Are you on your way back from Atherton?”
    “Yes.” I stopped. This wasn’t going to be easy. “I had a talk with my father. He laid down the law to me.” I glanced toward the kitchen. “Listen, can we…?”
    Sylvia caught my drift and said, “Let’s go for a walk.” She yelled something to her mother to that effect and took a coat out of a nearby closet.
    Outside it was blustery, but not too cold. Yet. As soon as we got to the sidewalk, we started holding hands. We put our spare hands in pockets to keep them warm and walked slowly up the hill.
    I didn’t want to tell her that my father was a rabid anti-communist, but there didn’t seem to be any way to avoid it. First I told her about his threat to put me in a private school and said it was because of the drinking party. She had a look of horror on her face until I said that I had talked him out of it, at least for now. Then I said, “He knows that I…know you. And he knows about your dad.”
    “I imagine all of Buffalo knows about Daddy,” Sylvia said. “But I think what you’re trying to tell me is that he doesn’t approve of Daddy. Or of me.”
    She was too smart by half. But at least it got the subject on the table. “I have no intention of staying away from you,” I blurted.
    She looked at me and squeezed my hand. “You have to watch out for yourself, Gary. You don’t want to get into any more trouble. And if that means staying away from me…”
    Was she willing to let me go