Mrs. Wyzek looked at the little fan that Anton had placed on the gas range and nodded her approval of the hum of its motor and the cool little breeze it blew across half the kitchen. Between the fan and her feet in a pan of cold water, she was very comfortable and happy. “You’ll have a cold drink with me before you go out tonight?” she asked.

“Sure, Ma. Soon as I get dressed. What time is it?”

“Almost eight-thirty,” She raised her right hand to hold it in the cool gust of air blown by the fan. “I’m so comfortable.”

“Good,” Tony winked. “Now you mind if I finish shaving?”

“No, Anton,” his mother said. “Be careful. Don’t cut yourself.”

The mirror had become fogged with the heat of the room and Tony wiped the glass clean with the side of a hand before he leaned forward and screwed up the corner of his mouth to get at a difficult place which he often missed. As he ran the lukewarm water over the blade, he frowned at himself in the mirror, leaned both hands on the edge of the little bathroom sink, and wondered—just exactly how were things going to go tonight? So far, the question stumped him, and he thought again of his meeting with Maria.

His lips formed her name, he approved their shape. Maria was a good name to identify with the sun, the moon, stars and love.

Try as hard as he could, it had been more difficult to think of Maria than of the Jets and the Sharks. About three that afternoon Baby-John had come into the drugstore to buy a new comic book, and whispered that he was speaking for all the boys, and they were sure glad to see him back with the Jets; even if he hadn’t been chosen by Riff to take on Bernardo. The Jets knew they could count on him, and Riff wanted Tony to meet them under the highway by nine o’clock.

“I just stole me a new icepick from the five and ten,” Baby-John had said proudly. “And I made me a sheath and I’m gonna wear it down the back of my neck. So if them lousy Sharks don’t go along with Diesel licking their man, we’ll just take them on. And I’m personally gonna give it to Pepe and Nibbles.” He touched the scab on his earlobe. “I’m gonna push it right through so they can wear earrings just like their broads.”

He had given Baby-John a free cold bottle of soda, and told him not to show that night. But he knew that Baby-John wouldn’t listen; instead he would hurry to tell the other Jets what he had said. Some of them, especially Action, and Diesel too, would say that he had really turned yellow and wouldn’t be there. Riff would have a bad time of it, so like it or not, for Riff’s sake, he had to show.

At five o’clock he had drawn his pay, fifty dollars for fifty hours, bought an electric fan wholesale, run home with it and taken a quick bath, because cleaning up in the cellar of the drugstore was impractical. He’d told his mother that he wasn’t hungry, that it was too hot to eat, and he would be back later.