
SPRING FIRE
By
Vin Packer
Spring Fire
By Vin Packer
First published 1952.
ISBN: 978-1-936456-12-3
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A new revolution was underway at the start of the 1940s in America---a paperback revolution that would change the way publishers would produce and distribute books and how people would purchase and read them.
In 1939 a new publishing company---Pocket Books---stormed onto the scene with the publication of its first paperbound book. These books were cheaply produced and sold in numbers never before seen, in large part due to a bold and innovative distribution model that soon after made Pocket Books available in drugstores, newsstands, bus and train stations, and cigar shops. The American public could not get enough of them, and before long the publishing industry began to take notice of Pocket Book's astonishing success.
Traditional publishers, salivating at the opportunity to cash in on the phenomenal success of the new paperback revolution, soon launched their own paperback ventures. Pocket Books was joined by Avon in 1941, Popular Library in 1942, and Dell in 1943. The popular genres reflected the tastes of Americans during World War II---mysteries, thrillers, and "hardboiled detective" stories were all the rage.
World War II proved to be a boon to the emerging paperback industry. During the war, a landmark agreement was reached with the government in which paperbound books would be produced at a very low price for distribution to service men and women overseas. These books were often passed from one soldier or sailor to another, being read and re-read over and over again until they literally fell apart. Their stories of home helped ease the servicemen's loneliness and homesickness, and they could be easily carried in uniform pockets and read anywhere---in fox holes, barracks, transport planes, etc. Of course, once the war was over millions of veterans returned home with an insatiable appetite for reading. They were hooked, and their passion for reading these books helped launch a period of unprecedented growth in the paperback industry.
In the early 1950s new subgenres emerged---science fiction, lesbian fiction, juvenile delinquent and "sleaze", for instance---that would tantalize readers with gritty, realistic and lurid stories never seen before. Publishers had come to realize that sex sells. In a competitive frenzy for readers, they tossed away their staid and straightforward cover images for alluring covers that frequently featured a sexy woman in some form of undress, along with a suggestive tag line that promised stories of sex and violence within the covers. Before long, books with sensational covers had completely taken over the paperback racks and cash registers. To this day, the cover art of these vintage paperback books are just as sought after as the books themselves were sixty years ago.
With the birth of the lesbian-themed pulp novel, women who loved women would finally see themselves---their experiences and their lives---represented within the pages of a book. They finally had a literature they could call their own. Of course, that's not what the publishers of the day intended -- these books were written primarily for men... indeed shamelessly packaged and published to titillate the male reading public.
Many of the books were written by men using female pseudonyms and were illustrated by cover artists who never read the content between the covers. However, a good percentage (primarily titles from Fawcett's Gold Medal Books imprint) were written by women, most of whom were lesbians themselves. For lesbians across the country, especially those living isolated lives in small towns, these books provided a sense of community they never knew existed... a connection to women who experienced the same longings, feelings and fears as they did---the powerful knowledge that they were not alone.
We are excited to make these wonderful paperback stories available in ebook format to new generations of readers. We present them in their original form with very little modification so as to preserve the tone and atmosphere of the time period. In fact, much of the language---the slang, the colloquialisms, the lingo, even the spellings of some words---appear as they were written fifty or sixty years ago. The stories themselves reflect the time period in which they were written, reflecting the censorship, sensibilities and biases of the 1950s and early 1960s. Still, these lesbian pulp novels are a treasure in our collective literary history and we hope you will enjoy this nostalgic journey back in time.
It was two-thirty in the afternoon, late September, with the sun beating down the way it does then in the Midwest, and the dust in the streets. The girl, Susan Mitchell, was wearing a green linen suit that clung on her large body heavily, a round white straw hat from which short pieces of blonde hair hung limply, and brown and white shoes with low heels that made her long feet look longer. She was not pretty. She was not lovely and dainty and pretty, but there was a comeliness about her that suggested some inbred strength and grace. It was in her face. It was in the color of her eyes---deep blue like the ocean 'way out there, but quiet and still. It was in the structure of her cheekbones, high and firm coining down to pull her chin up. She walked that way, too. She walked easy and sure. She was following College Avenue down to where the main gate was, and the road that led through the gate to the campus of Cranston University. All around her there were signs in the windows of bookstores and drugstores and dress shops and bars and the signs said: "Welcome Back C. U."
The gate was open and the wide slate walks surrounding the immense green lawn were dotted with boys and girls, walking together in groups, sitting alone on benches, standing thoughtfully in doorways, and waiting wearily in long registration lines. Susan Mitchell had registered two weeks ago.
"You'll have enough to think about during rush week," her father had promised, "without worrying about getting yourself enrolled. We'll do it early. Then you can concentrate on impressing those sorority gals. Don't be nervous, either. Remember, your father still loves you, no matter what."
And so it was there again---his fear for her. His fear that she was not good enough. Because he had not been. He had worked hard, and not gone to college, and not had luxuries, and not learned not to say "ain't," and not anything. Until the war and the men came that day and looked at the factory and talked with him and signed papers and he was rich then. And then he was afraid.
He had driven her from Kansas City to register, and when she had finished, he had asked someone how to get to "Greek Town," and with him she had first seen it
"Greek Town," was the home of the sororities and fraternities and it was magic over there, close to the stadium, within walking distance of the campus, but not huddled up in narrow streets the way the dorms and boarding-houses were. It was magic, with street after street of grand houses---brick, stucco, stone, and fresh white wooden houses. Each one had a gold plaque with shining Greek letters, and nearly all of them had spacious yards, winding driveways, and huge white columns that stood impressively, symbols of magnificence. Then she too had felt a thin shiver of fear.
Tomorrow she would go to the sorority houses to be judged; but now as she walked on the campus she forgot about that momentarily, and smelled the grass that had been cut and watered, and it was good. The ivy, crawling up along the walls of the building, was massive and cooling, and the big trees made shade along the path. She sat for a while on the rock bench there where the breeze came along, and it was peaceful.
A group of laughing girls passed, arms entwined, faces glowing with excitement.
"... anyway," one of them was saying, "it turned out he was from St. Louis---Webster, in fact---and he knew loads of kids I knew."
"My God!" another shrieked. "Didn't you tell him / was from Webster?"
Later Susan Mitchell walked back toward the gate and the street leading to the hotel where she was staying. A convertible whizzed by and kicked up clouds of the dust that settled near the curb, and at the corner when it turned, the tires squealed nervously. In the doorway of a restaurant, a tall boy stood holding hands with a small, brown-eyed girl whose hair was flaxen. "God," he said, "all summer I had you on my mind, Annie. No bull, € thought about you all summer."
When Susan Mitchell reached the lobby of the hotel, the low leather couches and chairs were filled with girls, and several rows of luggage were lined up near the desk. She asked for her key, wary of the arrogant, crooked-nosed clerk who always yelled, as he did now. "Speak up, girlie," he said. "I ain't deaf and I can't read lips."
"Susan Mitchell," the girl said louder. "Four-o-one."
He handed her the metal key with the wooden tab attached and she hurried off to the waiting elevator.
"Good God," the uniformed pimple-faced boy said when she stepped into the small box. "You girls! Up and down all the damn day long! I never seen the likes of this bunch. The sororities are welcome to you!"
\*
"The next name, girls," Mother Nesselbush said, "is Susan Mitchell."
At her feet, sitting on the wide tan rug, the members of Tri Epsilon polished their nails, knitted, rubbed cold cream into their skin, and rolled their hair up on rags and into curlers and bobby pins. Mother Nesselbush thumbed through the papers on the card table in front of her. She was a fat woman with a nervous twitch in her jowls and short, squat legs. Twenty years ago she had been a slim coed with long golden hair, a gay young face, and a heart-shaped Tri Epsilon pin attached to her budding bosom. Five years ago, when J. Edman Nesselbush fell dead, she returned to the Cranston campus and took over the duties of the housemother at Epsilon Epsilon Epsilon. Now she was a wide dowager with wiry gray hair and a worn, wrinkled face. In place of the pin now, there was a gravy stain from the noon meal slopped onto her broad, lace-covered chest.
"Now," Mother Nessy began, "a little about this girl."
The information on Susan Mitchell had been obtained by Edith Wellard Boynton, '22. Mrs. Boynton relished the task. She was a superior sleuth, and she would often come from an assignment with copious notes on such intimate details as the estimated income of the candidate's father; the color of the guest towels in the candidate's bathroom and the condition of said bathroom; the morals of the candidate, the candidate's mother, father, brother, and sister; and ever important, the social prestige of the candidate's family in the community. Then she would type up her notes and send them special delivery. Susan Mitchell's report read:
An absolute must for Tri Epsilon. The Mitchell girl is 17. Her father is a widower and a millionaire. There are no other children. The Mitchell girl owns a brilliant red convertible, Buick, latest model. Edward Mitchell belongs to Rotary, Seedmore Country Club, Seedmore Business Club, and Seedmore P.T.A. Susan has been educated in the best private schools. She is not beautiful, but she is wholesome and a fine athlete. Every room in the Mitchell home has wall-to-wall carpeting. There are four bathrooms. No mortgages. Edward Mitchell's reputation is above reproach. They are definitely nouveaux riches, but their social prestige in Seedmore is tiptop. Susan has a fabulous wardrobe. Kansas City Alum Association puts a stamp of approval on this girl, and a definite "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
When Mother Nesselbush finished reading what Mrs. Boynton had written, there was a sudden minute of silence. Then Leda Taylor spoke up.
"What if she's a muscle-bound amazon? Do we have to pledge the girl just because her father is worth a mint?"
Leda Taylor did not have a father. Not a father she knew. Jan, her mother, had raised Leda singlehanded with the help of her job as a dress designer and a good stiff Martini. It had not been easy for Jan. As Leda grew older, Jan's age became more obvious to men and she always had to say, "I had my baby when I was a baby, really---I was just a baby when little Leda was born." Little Leda grew fast and fully and richly. She had long black hair that shone like new coal, round green eyes, a stubborn tilt to her chin, proud pear-shaped breasts that pointed through her size 36 sweater, and long, graceful legs. Jan had taught her never to say "Mother." Leda said
"Jan." She said, "Oh, God, Jan is getting higher than a kite!" when they were all out on parties like that--Leda and the men who clambered after Jan and Jan with her glass raised and her voice growing shrill. Leda said, "Jan, for the love of God, let me pick my own men. I don't want your castoffs," when she was home in the summer and Jan was always entertaining. Then in the fall, Leda said, "Take it easy, Jan. Stay sober," and the train moved away, toward Cranston and college and the house.
Mother Nesselbush sighed and answered Leda. "This is a pretty strong note, dear. You know our alums never make their requests quite so adamant."
Kitten Clark tapped her nails angrily on the top of the glass coffee table. She was the official social chairman for the sorority, the girl who was responsible for seeing that Tri Eps dated fraternity men. Her motto was pasted up over the mirror in the soft jade-green room where she and Marybell Van Casey lived: "If he's got a pin---he's in!"
Underneath these words, a penciled addition to the rule read blithely: "Like Flynn!"
"Nessy," Kitten said, "so far on our list we have four goon girls. Legacies. We have to take legacies, but we don't have to take Susan Mitchell! What did the K.C. alums ever do for us?"
Viola Nesselbush straightened herself, tugged harshly at her corset, and leaned forward intimately. She whispered in a rasping tone, one finger held forward significantly. "Now listen, girls. Remember that new set of silverware you all want for the house? The one with the Tri Epsilon crest on it? Well, girls, if we pledge this little girl, I think the K.C. alums will see to it that you get that silverware. In fact, girls," she added coyly, "I'll personally guarantee it."
A spontaneous round of applause rose from the gathering, and the faces of the Tri Eps grinned approval.
"She may be halfway attractive," Marybell Van Casey offered. "After all, just because she's a sweat-socks is no sign she's utterly repulsive."
Casey's voice was tinged with defiance. She was a major in physical education, and all of her classes, with the exception of English and vertebrate zo, took place in the arid surroundings of the gymnasium. Her build was heavy and muscular, but her face was attractive and she was pinned to a Delta Pi who played baseball.
The president of Tri Epsilon sorority rose gracefully and stood beside the piano facing the group. She wore a crisp pair of white shorts, a black halter, and a black velvet ribbon in her hair. Her name was Marsha Holmes, and there was a mild, poised quality about her that commanded respect and admiration from her sorority sisters. Whenever Marsha spoke, her gray eyes watched the individual faces of her audience carefully, and her low husky voice made her words sound wistful and honest. Marsha had learned much about people from her father, the Reverend Thomas Holmes, and the serenity she wore so easily had been practiced long years at church functions.
"I think everyone agrees," she said calmly, "that Susan Mitchell is excellent Tri Epsilon material. The purpose of a sorority is to help a girl grow, and if Susan needs our help, it will be our privilege to give it to her. Let's all make a special effort to show Susan that Tri Epsilon is a friendly house---the kind of house that she would be proud to live in."
For a moment there was a holy stillness. Leda blew a cloud of smoke up into the air in tiny rings. She said, "Amen!" She said, "Amen and hail the new Christ child!"
The following morning, a few minutes before the taxis arrived with the rushees, Mother Nesselbush gave the final instructions.
"Remember, girls, the phonograph is your signal to dance with one of the rushees. Don't, for heaven's sake, girls, don't leave a girl without a partner. You'll be able to tell a whole lot about a rushee by dancing with her. Notice how she dances, and in speaking to her, try your best to determine whether she would make a satisfactory Tri Ep. We know most of the facts on these girls, but it's up to you to verify them. And one more thing. In regard to the Mitchell girl---be patient. She may not look like a Tri Ep, but girls, I'm to the point where I'll insist that she be one. Now---go to it, and good luck!"
Susan Mitchell arrived in the first taxi along with four other rushees. Beside them she looked like a great hound dog that had been forced to romp with a select group of dachshunds, Pekinese, and toy poodles. Her manner was sprightly and buoyant, and she lacked the poised reserve of the others who walked with her up the long path to the marble steps, where Kitten Clark waited to greet them. She was smiling when her hand caught Kitten's, and her voice was too impetuous and ingenuous. "Hi" she said. "Hot, isn't it?"
Kitten glanced hastily at the name tag. She should have known. The dimples came in her cheeks, and her hand guided Susan lovingly toward Mother Nesselbush. "This is Susan Mitchell," Kitten said. "Mother Nessy will introduce you to the girls."
Mother Nesselbush's fat fingers reached for Susan's arm, and as she led her through the porch door to the living room she exclaimed, "What a lovely name! Susan! Or Sue? Which one do you like best?"
"Most folks call me Mitch," the girl answered, and Mother Nessy said, "That's a darling name! Mitch!"
Marsha Holmes interpreted Nessy's wink correctly. She rushed forward immediately and checked the name tag. Then she sat beside Susan Mitchell on the divan and she talked in that mellow, soft voice. She brought the girl cool mint punch and round jelly cookies, and she punctuated every sentence with "Mitch." Through the house she guided the girl, showing her the neat, pastel-colored rooms, the grand tile bathroom with the glass shower and tub stalls, the spotless white kitchen, the cellar with the washing machines and dryers and irons, and the closed-off section known as The Den, where Tri Eps brought their dates for ping-pong and Cokes. Soon Kitten Clark finished greeting the rushees and joined the entourage, and Marybell Van Casey followed along, and Jane Bell, the pert, efficient rush chairman, and they were all smiling and saying, "Do you like it, Mitch?", "Wait till you see this, Mitch," and "You are going to come back, Mitch?"
Mitch felt confident and proud. She sat at the bridge table with the Tri Eps flocking to her, and her eyes saw the wretched lanky girl in the corner near the window, alone, fumbling frantically with her purse, feigning an interest in its contents, ignored by the smooth busy figures in white. Another girl in a creamy yellow suit enjoyed the same attention Mitch received, the white formals reaching to light her cigarettes, bending to smile benignly, kneeling adoringly at her feet as she sat there in the stuffed chair and let the cool breeze from the porch ruffle her hair lightly. There was a fat girl in a red suit standing awkwardly with Mother Nesselbush in the doorway of the room, not speaking, looking fearfully at the assembly. A small, pug-nosed rushee with a flip feathered hat whispered fervently to two Tri Eps. Mitch saw them all, hearing the voices talking to her on all sides, answering and listening and watching until her eye rested on a girl standing near the piano. The girl was beautiful. Her white gown began just above her breasts and came in tight at her waist and full down to her ankles, where it ended and allowed spike-heeled silver shoes to glisten clean and clear. She was picking up records from a stack there on the top of the piano, reading the labels, and dividing them into two piles. When she felt Mitch's fixed look, she answered it and Mitch grinned, looking back quickly at Kitten, who was explaining how the Tri Epsilon house had been redecorated over the summer. For several minutes Mitch knew that the girl was staring at her now, and a warm flush rose to her face. There was something about the girl. She had never seen her before, but there was something familiar in that fast second when they had looked at one another.
In a moment the phonograph was turned on, and throughout the room girls paired off and moved to the center of the floor. Kitten grabbed Mitch's hand. "Do you like to dance?" she asked, pulling her forward. Mitch nodded, and as they danced, Kitten held her off so that she could talk and watch Mitch's face.
"How do you like Tri Epsilon?" she asked.
"Fine," Mitch told her, and naively, "but of course, I haven't been to the other houses yet."
Kitten said, "You will come back, won't you, Mitch? We all hope you'll save your most important dates for us. Try to save two and eight."
"I didn't know there was a difference."
"Yes." Kitten smiled and pressed Mitch's hand. "There certainly is. Will you try?"
Mitch said she would. At the hotel she had heard the rushees talk ecstatically about the Tri Eps. They were rated tops nationally, and the Cranston chapter was the leading sorority on the college campus. A hot stir of pleasure enveloped Mitch. She had not known the fear her father had known for her when she had thought of rush week, but there was always the subconscious worry that she might be too uncut and plain for sorority sophisticates. During the summer the college catalogues and booklets had come through the mail, and she had flicked through the pages, seeing the pictures of debonair, glamorous young people her own age. But not like her. Mitch knew that then---and again when Kitten talked to her and Marsha walked with her, and Marybell Van Casey sat beside her and smoked long cigarettes and talked about tennis and swimming and things Mitch understood. Still different, all of them. Mitch was aware of that fact, but she no longer pondered the differences. They liked her anyway. They wanted her to join Tri Ep.
Jane Bell danced with Mitch. Casey. Kitten again. Marsha. The lilting lyrics of "Temptation" filled the room. Suddenly Mitch felt a wave of uncanny turbulence, relieved then when she turned and saw the girl standing next to her. The beautiful girl who had stood at the piano. Marsha laughed and said, "Mitch, I don't think you've met Leda Taylor."
Susan Mitchell was taller than Leda Taylor. Leda held her and led her along the waxed floor. Mitch was conscious of her own breathing, corning in gasps and causing her chest to heave uncomfortably against Leda's She smelled the faint pungent perfume that Leda wore, and her hand on Leda's bare shoulder was hot and rough. The words to the song sounded loud in her ears, and they embarrassed her, dancing to them close to this girl.
"So you're Susan Mitchell," the girl said, and Mitch could not hear her own answer. She did not talk for those minutes when they were together before the music ended, and Leda Taylor did not talk again. When it was over, a note sounded on the piano, and Marsha Holmes hummed the note.
"Form the loving circle," Marsha said. "Join hands."
Leda grasped Mitch's hand tightly. As the Tri Eps hummed the melody, there was a slow swaying motion in the circle of girls, and when the words came, Mitch could feel Leda's eyes on her.
"Love you, I love you,Come be a Tri Ep girl.Love you, I love you,Come be an Ep-si-lon pearl."
Mitch looked down at Leda and then away toward the French doors and the drapes and the sun outside.
 Let me make my-message clear.Love you, I love you,Come be a Tri Ep girl."
"I suppose," Leda said when the song was finished, "that you'll come back."
"Yes."
"I'll see you then," Leda said. She said, "I'll see you then," and glided away while Mother Nessy ran forward to hug Mitch. "The taxis are waiting, dear," she told Mitch, "and we have to hurry you all away. Remember, Susan, Tri Epsilon is counting on you. We hope you're counting on Tri Epsilon."
Past Kitten Clark and Marsha, Marybell and Jane, their "Come backs" echoing in her ears, Mitch felt the sun on her arms, heard the nervous honking of the cabs' horns, and remembered only the green color of Leda's eyes, and the four words, "I'll see you then."
\*
That evening Marsha looked up from the stuffed peppers and the tossed salad in front of her. "I noticed you were Susan Mitchell's partner in the loving circle this morning," she said to Leda.
"Wasn't my fault. I danced with her and it happened to be the last dance."
"Well, what did you think of her?"
Leda toyed with her crust of bread, spreading the butter thickly around the edges and on the sides. "We need the silverware," she answered.
"But the girl has possibilities, too. I mean, she certainly isn't backward or shy."
"I don't know anything about the girl. I had one dance with her."
Kitten Clark sat opposite Marsha. She clinked her fork on her plate and said, "Well, believe me, if she were anyone but Edward Mitchell's daughter, she'd get a nice, fat, round blackball from yours truly. She's hickey! I mean, absolutely hickey!"
"But she is Edward Mitchell's daughter," Marsha broke in, "and let's all of us remember that. The girl hasn't pledged yet, you know. Other houses will be after her too."
Casey said, "She says she swims. We could use her on the intramural swimming team."
"You'll find a way to use her," Leda said. "I'm not worried about that."
After she said it, she bit hard into the bread and the layers of butter. Casey's eyes flashed and she spurted out angry words. "What are you talking about?" she demanded. "Since when have you cared a damn whether a girl got an even break in this sorority? You throw a blackball around at the drop of a hat, and all of a sudden you're so damned self-righteous. This is a new twist."
Leda knew it. She pushed her plate away and stood up. "Must be the heat," she said. "I don't care a hoot about Mitchell. She can go back to Seedmore for all I care. Right now, lover boy is waiting."
She ran to the side door, to the tall brown-haired boy with the pipe jutting from his jaw, and the sweater that said Sigma Delta, and she murmured, "Jakie," and moved close to him.
"You finished fast," he said. "Wanna walk?"
"Yes, Jake-O."
"We can pick up some beer in Campus Town. Then wanna walk back out---to the stadium?"
"You know I do."
"You always do. That's why you're my baby. Because you always do."
"Let's hurry, Jake."
The long red car waited at the corner for the light to be green, and Mitch sat behind the wheel with Fredna Loughead in the front seat beside her. She had met Fredna at the hotel. Fredna was trying to convince her that Delta Rho was a better house than Tri Ep.
"They liked you too, Mitch," she said, "and I know they'll ask me. Why don't you join with me?"
"I don't know. I can't make up my mind. All of them were so wonderful to me."
"The Delta Rhos aren't snobs, either."
The light went green and Mitch saw them. They were standing at the curb waiting. Leda Taylor looked up. There was a brief flicker of recognition, a half-smile. Mitch grinned broadly this time and waved, but Leda took the boy's arm and turned to talk with him. The car moved away and Mitch watched them as long as she could through her mirror.
"Some buggy," Jake said. "Rushee?"
"A potential Tri Ep. Father's a millionaire."
"She gonna be your roommate?"
"My roommate?"
"Well, you gals have to room with a pledge. I just thought you might pick a pledge with a convertible."
Leda laughed. She said, "Maybe that's an idea."
\*
Back in the hotel room, Mitch finished unpacking some of her clothes. She hung them up and brushed them off, and when she was through, she slipped into her blue-striped pajamas and sat on the bed hugging her knees. She said, "Tri Epsilon," aloud, and then, "Delta Rho." She reached over to the night table, where the leather-bound books rested. On the cover of one, there was a picture of the huge house with the six white columns and the marble steps leading up to the door. The words underneath read: "Tri Epsilon is a friendly house."
For a moment she stared at it dreamily, and then, turning the page, she saw the clear full-length picture of Leda Taylor in the black dress wearing the crested crown, smiling. Mitch's fingers moved delicately down the picture as though she were touching a live object, and they stopped there at the words printed in bold blue letters. They said: "Where every girl's a queen."
Put your stuff in the top drawers," Leda told Mitch. "I don't mind bending down to get mine."
Mitch was used to new roommates and new surroundings and the strange formalities attached to this form of orientation. For six years she had attended boarding schools, and each year it was smoother and less uncomfortable. The first year she had hovered behind a closet door, too shy to undress in front of the girl with whom she shared the room. She had bolted the bathroom doors, and picked odd hours to do her grooming. Even her underclothes had been a source of embarrassment, and she had brought them to her room wet from their washing in the dorm sink, and hung them surreptitiously along the radiator near her bed. In time she had developed an unabashed nonchalance toward these matters and they no longer concerned her. But now, in Leda's presence, the casualness fell away, and Mitch found the old inhibitions again. She found that it was hard to talk to Leda, too, because she wanted to so badly. She wanted to remember the glib, natural responses that came so readily with others, but she could not.
"Tonight the pledges are supposed to go on blind dates," Leda said. "You know that?"
"Yes."
"Want to get out of it?"
"How?"
"By going out with a friend of Jake's. He's a fraternity brother. We'd double-date. It's O.K. with Kitten so long as you're with a fraternity man."
Mitch said, "I'd like that, I guess."
She knew what it would be like if Leda were along. She knew that she would forget how to act and what to say and that she would laugh too loud and too often. But she did not want to go on a date alone with a stranger, either.
"Like men, Mitch?"
"Sure, they're all right"
"I mean, really like them?"
Mitch's lips were tired from the painful grins she had been stretching them into all day. Leda laughed. "Never mind," she said. "You'll learn. I used to think you just had to lie there and that was it. Then I learned better."
Mitch pulled nervously at the string of pearls around her neck. Her face flushed scarlet. Leda noticed. "You'll have to get used to me, Mitch. I believe in being frank."
"I don't mind," Mitch answered. "I guess I'm kind of dumb."
"We're all dumb at first. But don't get fooled by some of them that play dumb. My God, to listen to this bunch, you'd think they were all virgins. But take it from me, most of them have had it. You ever fool around?"
"I---I don't know too many fellows."
"Ever been kissed---hard?"
"A few times, I guess." The pearls snapped then and rolled onto the floor. Mitch jumped down to chase them and Leda stopped one with her foot. "Couple of them under the desk," she said. "God! Never been kissed more than a few times. I started when I was six. Then I used to play doctor out in back of my house. God!"
Mitch did not answer. Her hands felt huge as she groped for the tiny, round pearls, and bending down there before Leda, she felt like an immense malformed giant. She was remembering how many other times she had heard references to sex, behind locked bedroom doors in boarding school, interspersed with thick laughter and raised eyebrows, and hands held at the mouth in gestures of awe and excitement. But now...
"You'll grow up in college," her father had said. "You'll be a real lady when you come home." She wondered vaguely what her mother had been like, and if she were a real lady, and how she would have told her about men and women and the things they did together. She thought of Billy Erickson---the day in the bushes when he had showed it to her. The snake, she had called it to herself. The snake that men have.
"You'll have fun tonight," Leda said. "You'll like Bud Roberts. That's Jake's friend."
Mitch put the pearls in a box and sat awkwardly on the bed beside Leda. "I hope he likes me. You see, I'm not too used to men. In the other schools, I didn't see many. You know---rules and all."
"Forget it! Look, we're going to buy some beer and get out on the Creek Road and just take life easy. You'll like Bud. He's no movie star, but he gets around plenty. He's Sig Delt president. Say, what about your car? We could walk, but---"
"Sure," Mitch said. "Might as well take it. Only I don't like to drive at night very well. Not in a strange city."
"Can Jake drive? He's a peach on the roads. Careful as anything."
Mitch hesitated. Then she agreed. Leda pulled her sweater up over her head and loosened her bra. "Scratch my back, will you, kid?" she said. "God, I'm tired." She flopped on the bed, face down.
Timidly Mitch's hands reached over and rubbed her shoulders, and with her eyes fixed half shyly on Leda's body, she recalled doing this before --- a hundred times --- but never so fearfully as now with Leda.
"Ummm. That's nice. Your hands are wonderful." For long minutes Leda let them run up and down her back. Susan Mitchell was an enigma. There was strength and force and power in her, queerly harnessed and checked, Leda thought. If it should be released, she would be stronger. Masterful. There had been a hint of this in her look that first day. It was the kind of look that an old acquaintance gives another, in a crowd where no one is aware that the two have known each other a long time. Leda balked at her own thoughts. This tall child was naive and uncomplicated, she scoffed inwardly, and there was no reason to be wary. Suddenly, on an impulse, Leda rolled over and lay with her breasts pushed up toward Mitch's hands. The girl jerked her hands away quickly and stood up.
"F-f-feel better?" She forced the words out
Leda stretched luxuriously. "Mitch, honey," she said, "look in the left closet and see if my yellow blouse is there. The one with the buttons down the back."
Mitch turned toward the door to the closet and opened it, grateful for this sanctum. She stood there moving the hangers down the rack. I used to think you just had to lie there and that was it.
"See it, honey?"
"No," Mitch answered, not looking at the color of the clothes. "I don't see anything at all."
\*
Bud Roberts was a straight, narrow boy with a long nose and a square jaw. A cigarette hung loosely from his mouth, and as they rode along in the back of Mitch's car, he held his hands firmly, cracking his knuckles in regular, even movements. Mitch sat beside him, smoothing her skirt and glancing up at him now and then, searching frantically for something to say. The radio blared forth from the front seat, where Leda leaned against Jake.
"I love to ride along like this," Mitch managed to say. "It's so cool and everything," she added.
They turned down a dirt road and drove fast around the sharp corners and Mitch fell against Bud Roberts. "I'm sorry," she said, pulling away.
He had not said anything beyond "Hi" since they started on their evening. He had simply said, "Hi," and then they had climbed into the car and he had not said another word. Mitch tried to pretend that the silence was natural and she hummed a bit from one of the songs the Tri Eps had sung at dinner. The radio was noisy and she could not hear her own humming, but it made her feel better. She thought of Leda and how beautiful she was, and she felt a warm glow in her stomach when she remembered the way Leda had turned on her back that afternoon, and how lovely she had been. At her feet, in the car, the beer bottles rattled and she remembered how she hated the taste of beer. A slow panic mounted inside her as she imagined the hours ahead with the beer and the boy who did not talk. The panic was edged with anger and resentment.
When the car stopped and Jake called, "All out!" she was sick inside where a drummer beat fast against her breast, and dull loneliness gnawed there.
Bud Roberts caught the blanket that Jake tossed at him.
"We're going on up ahead," he said, and Leda called out, "See you later, Mitch."
Mitch stood there while Bud spread the blanket a few feet from the car. He was whistling now, but there was no tune---just whistling with no order to the notes. Walking back to the car, he picked up the sack from the back seat and set it down by the blanket. Then he took a bottle opener from his shirt pocket and sat down.
"Like beer?" he said.
"Not too well. I'm not used to it."
With a flip of his wrist, he sprung the cap and the white foam bubbled out toward the top of the bottle. He held it up to Mitch and said, "Here." He opened another for himself and took a long swig.
Mitch sat down beside him and tasted the cold beer mincingly. It tasted bitter and sour. She coughed and said, "I haven't had any in a long time." Bud grunted and drank some more. He finished and reached for another bottle. "Through?" he asked, and Mitch shook her head. She sat quietly, wishing that Leda had not gone off with Jake, indignant that they had left her alone with Bud.
The silence was nervous and anticipating. After a while he reached over and pulled her down beside him there on the blanket. His mouth came on hers and she could feel the roughness of his beard. At first she tried to push him back and she struggled desperately. Then she let him kiss her. Ever been kissed---hard?
"You're a cold baby," Bud Roberts muttered in her ear. "That's all right. I like them cold."
"Leave me alone," Mitch said. "Will you leave me alone?"
He sat up and reached for the full bottle of beer that was Mitch's. He handed it to her and watched her swallow. In the darkness he could not see the tears that stung her eyes from the harsh taste of the beer. He waited and she took another swallow. She did not want to kiss him.
"Cigarette?" he said, passing her the pack.
She took one from him and let him light it. It would pass time. The smoke tickled her nose and she began to sneeze. Bud drank more beer and whistled nonchalantly, watching her as he handed her another bottle. The taste was like water now.
"Think you're going to like smoking?" Bud said, grinning at her.
The end of her cigarette was wet and soggy and she stubbed it out on the ground. She said, "I've smoked before."
He laughed and pulled her down again, and for another long minute she lay there impassively while his mouth pressed against hers, wet and hard.
"Take your coat off," he said.
"I will not!"
"Get it off. What's the matter? Rule against taking your coat off? I'm not going to undress you."
His hands worked on the buttons, and in a moment he was helping her out of it. The beer made her head swim and she did not care. He put her coat beside his own, and then he opened more beer, passing her another. It was smooth going down and she was grateful that he had not pushed her back again.
"How old are you?" he said.
"Seventeen."
"Jail bait, huh?" He laughed and reached over to touch her arm.
"What does that mean?"
"Means I'm not supposed to do this," he said, his hand patting her below the stomach.
She moved away. "Stop it, will you? Please!"
"That's just what I was explaining." He laughed again. "That I'd have to stop. Don't be so jumpy. You're doing a regular dance over there. I'm not going to hurt you."
"Don't touch me, then," she told him.
"Don't worry so much, baby... Tell me, how do you like rooming with Leda?"
She was glad that he was going to talk. She felt better and less restless as he lay back, his arms behind his head, his legs crossed lazily.
"I like her," she said. "She's been wonderful to me."
"She tell you much about Jake and her?"
"What would she tell me? Just that she likes him."
"Likes!" He hooted and then he said, "Yeah---yeah," slow, and then, "Yeah, maybe she does only like him. Funny girl. She always has eyes."
"What?"
"She's always looking around. You know."
"Yes," Mitch said, not knowing at all.
"Drink some more of that beer," he said. "We're wasting good iced beer."
"You know, I like beer O.K. now," Mitch said with a frail semblance of excitement. "It's not bad at all."
"Good. Here---rest your head."
He raised himself to a sitting position and spread his legs apart. He patted his chest lightly and said, "Here, baby---rest your head here. We'll talk."
Mitch moved over and put her head on his chest, a hand resting on either knee.
"I'm glad you're so tall," she confided. "I'm so tall myself."
"Yeah," he said. "You're a long-legged gal, all right"
"Why didn't you talk coming up in the car? I was afraid you'd lost your tongue."
"I didn't," he said. "I just wanted to think."
"About what?" Mitch began to feel comfortable and easy with him. "What did you think about?"
His hands reached up and cupped her breasts quickly, and his knees held her in. "About this," he said, reaching one hand up to the blouse and down to her slip and inside touching her flesh. She grasped his arm as she wiggled to be free.
Mitch whimpered slowly and softly and she could feel him moving around and forcing her back on the blanket and the tears came fast then. She was dizzy and exhausted and she could not pull herself up. Fighting desperately with him, she could not stop his hands from pulling her skirt up. A thin wail escaped from her mouth and she began to heighten it to a loud moaning sound.
"Shut up," he snapped. "Shut up!"
Her moaning increased and some of the lost strength returned so that she kicked him and sent him back away from her. He stood up and glared down. "Mamma tell you not to?" he said angrily. "Mamma tell you sex is dirty?"
She began to cry hard, and sitting there sobbing, she did not listen to his words. For a long time she stayed like that, listening to him take the caps off the bottles, light cigarettes, and mumble dull words to her. She could hear him say that he was sorry and she had better not cry because Jake and Leda would be back, and then she could hear him curse and swallow the beer and whistle the way he whistled.
There were voices in the distance, ringing laughter, and the sound of them coming. She put her coat on and got up while Bud began folding the blanket.
Leda came down the fields ahead of Jake, running happily while he followed. "Mitch and Bud," she shouted, "how goes the mad twosome?"
Mitch said, "Hi, Leda."
Bud reverted to his old mood of sullen silence as he loaded the blankets in the car and gathered the empty bottles together. Jake helped him and Leda jumped in the front seat, yawning and saying sleepily, "Better hurry. We'll be out after hours."
On the way home, after they had come off the dirt road and gone onto the highway, Jake stopped the car. Leda stood beside Mitch while she vomited.
"You'll be O. K.," she promised. "I used to get sick on beer myself. You'll get used to it, honey."
\*
The next morning, after breakfast, Mitch waited for Marsha Holmes, as she had been told to do. The president's suite consisted of three rooms. There was the bedroom, the study room, and the meeting room, all of them attractively furnished with low couches and triangular lamps and small square tables. Mitch sat in the meeting room, thumbing through the magazines on the table in front of her. She stopped at one tided "The Epsilon." Inside, the columns were devoted to news from chapters of Tri Epsilon throughout the country. Mitch's eye caught the printing, "Gamma Pi Chapter, Cranston University."
Gamma Pi Tri Eps are looking forward to a year bustling with excitement. Last year, you remember, they received many honors. For the second year in a row, glamorous Leda Taylor, a Tri Epsilon junior, was voted campus queen. Good luck this year, Leda, and may you cap all awards again for the name of Epsilon Epsilon Epsilon.
"No one can deny it," a voice said behind Mitch, "Leda is a beautiful girl."
Mitch turned and faced Marsha. "A very beautiful girl," Marsha continued. "Do you like rooming with her, Mitch?"
"Yes, I do. She's been swell to me." "Did you have a good time last night? You went out with Bud Roberts, didn't you? And Leda and Jake?"
"Yes, I did. I'm sorry we were late. It was my fault."
"Your fault, Mitch?"
"Yes, I got sick coming back. We had to stop."
"I see." Marsha thought for a moment, her hands folded demurely, and then she sat down beside Mitch. "Look, Susan, I hate to be the bossy president that starts right in advising pledges, but remember something for me, will you?"
"Certainly, Marsha."
"Leda has many ideas that some of us---that I don't agree with. If there are any that you don't agree with, will you come and talk to me about them?"
"Yes, I will. I didn't like my date too well, but I shouldn't have had all that beer. I guess I'm old enough to take care of myself."
"I won't say any more, Mitch. I just want you to know that I'm here to help the pledges. I don't think Leda was wise to have you date Bud Roberts during blind-date week. You see, Kitten, our social chairman, tries very hard to arrange a suitable date for each pledge. Someone your own age---usually a fraternity pledge who is as new to college as you are."
"Oh," Mitch said. "I didn't understand. Leda said it would be all right so long as Bud was a fraternity man."
"You will go along on a blind date tonight, won't you, Mitch? One of Kitten's. All the other pledges are enjoying it tremendously."
"Yes," Mitch answered, "I will. I'm sorry about last night."
Mitch wandered out of the suite down the stairs to the porch, where some of the girls were playing bridge. She recognized a few of them as pledges, because they wore the pink and blue ribbons too, but she did not know them.
"... and so I told him," a short girl with jewel-studded rims on her large-framed glasses was saying, "that as far as I was concerned, he was the blindest date I'd' ever had."
"Robin!" Marybell Van Casey looked horrified. "He was an Omega Phi. They're a big fraternity, sweetie, and Tri Ep can't afford to run around insulting their pledges. You be careful."
"Well, I don't care. I hate those big oafs that maul you around as though you were a punching bag. I just won't take it."
There was a tense silence. Marybell looked across the table significantly at Kitten Clark. Robin was due for a conference with the social chairman.
\*
Mitch sat next to Robin Maurer at the pledge meeting that afternoon. Jane Bell was the pledge director. She had an extensive background in directing and leading and counseling. In grammar school she had been the monitor in the cloakroom, and later, a junior counselor at a summer camp for girls. She was a Texan and an Army brat, and her speech was peppered with such phrases as "team spirit," "pulling together," "giving it all we've got," and "sticking in there." Whenever a date gave Jane trouble toward the end of an evening, Jane always looked him squarely in the eye and said, "Now, look--- don't get out of line, son!"
"I guess that's all. How about you girls? Any questions?"
A girl in a plaid dress raised her hand. "Is it true," asked, "that we can only date fraternity men?"
Jane cleared her throat and looked treacherously serious. "That question always comes up among new pledges. Well, girls, all I can say is that you have joined a sorority because you have found that you're in with a gang you can be mighty proud of. Most men join fraternities for the same reason. They want to pick a bunch that they know have high standards and high ideals. Now, to my way of thinking, it's only logical to want to date that kind of guy."
"But," the girl persisted, "may we date an independent if we find that his standards are high and---" She stopped and wrung her hands and blurted out finally, "My boy friend is an independent. He can't af-afford a fraternity."
Jane said, "I'll talk to you after the meeting. We'll have a chat about it, O.K.?"
"Wait a minute," Robin said, getting up and resting her hand on the large oak table before her. "I think this is pretty silly. You mean to tell me we have to ask you before we can date an independent?"
There was a stir among the gathering and Jane Bell rapped for order. "You can go out with independents if you want---on weekdays. Week ends, we'd prefer you to be with fraternity men."
"What a laugh!" Robin exclaimed. "You're serious!"
Anger swept through the Texan's whole body and settled in her eyes, black as night. "That's a demerit for you, Robin Maurer," she thundered, "and it'll be wise for you to learn how to talk to an active member of Tri Epsilon."
Robin turned and walked from the room after she said, "Hooray for the team spirit we've all got! Three big cheers for our team spirit!"
It was difficult for Jane to continue. She uttered a few remarks about hours on week ends, and special permission for out-of-town week ends. Then she assigned the pledge lesson (learn the first three songs in the songbook, and the names of the official alumnae officers) and dismissed the group.
\*
"Here you are," Leda said, pulling Mitch aside as she came from the Pledge Room. "I've been looking for you. How about my fixing you up tonight with a date? Not Bud Roberts, spare your soul, but someone else."
They walked toward the stairs while Mitch explained that Marsha had advised her to take a blind date.
"Marsha!" Leda cried. "She's from hunger, honey. No kidding. You can do what you want as long as he's a fraternity boy. Never mind Kitten's blind dates. Look, I'm sorry Roberts was such a mess. I never should have left you, kid. Tonight it'll be different."
"I think I'd better do what Marsha asked. All the other pledges are. You know---I don't want to be an exception."
Leda put her arm around Mitch. "I understand, honey," she said. "I shouldn't have suggested it Let's go upstairs and catch thirty winks before dinner."
Robin Maurer was waiting outside Marsha's door on the second floor when Mitch and Leda passed by.
"I'm going in for my fifty lashes," she said to Mitch. "Care to join me?"
Mitch grinned. She liked Robin. She admired the way Robin spoke up and said what she thought What Mitch thought too.
"That kid's a little too cocky," Leda commented. "She'd better tone down if she wants to keep those ribbons."
"What happens when you get a demerit?"
"Oh, you get some horrible duty like taking Nessy to a movie on a Sunday afternoon. Sometimes to church too." Leda sighed. "Nessy is a peach, really, but who wants to cart her around?"
When they reached the room, Leda flopped down and kicked off her loafers. "Say, honey," she said, "is everything going O. K. with you? I mean, I don't want you to be a stranger around here too much longer."
"I don't feel like one," Mitch said. "Sometimes I just don't catch on right away."
"You don't say much, that's why I wondered. When you want to unload, just open up, Mitch. That's what I'm here for."
Mitch kicked her shoes off and stretched out on the bed. "I used to talk a lot in boarding school. College is different. The girls are more grown up, and I'm not used to talking about dates and boys and stuff."
"You'll get used to it... Your mother is dead, isn't she, Mitch?"
"Yes. When I was real young."
Watching the girl lie there, Leda had an odd feeling, like that of a protector who must guard an object carefully, less to keep it from harm than to keep it as a possession. The word "mother" floated around there somewhere and Leda could not catch it and stop it like that, so it rested with her momentarily. In that moment her breasts felt hard and bothersome. Mother, she thought and seeing Jan off there again, she felt the sharp edge of hatred gnawing into her boredom, inside where she was thinking now for that very slow minute.
\*
Downstairs in the president's suite, Marsha talked to Robin.
"... because if everyone had her own way, Robin, we wouldn't be a unified group. There have to be rules."
"But rules like that are crazy. I never heard of dating only boys who belong to fraternities. Gee, next week when classes start, I'll meet a lot of independents. It's worse than racial prejudice."
"Robin, tell me something. Why do you want to join a sorority?"
"My mother wants me to. She never had the money when she was in college. I guess she always wanted to make up for it by having me belong."
Marsha walked toward the window and watched the trees in the yard near the side of the house. "If you don't believe in all that a sorority does," she said, "one way to fight is to fight from the inside---where the rules and regulations are being made. Sometimes it takes a while. But there are good things about living here like this, and you can't fight effectively if you don't keep those good points in mind."
Robin looked up at her and smiled. "Maybe you're right," she said. "I'm a pretty clumsy rebel."
As she left the suite and passed the phone in the hall, it rang shrilly and she lifted the arm from the cradle. It was for Kitten Clark, and reaching up for the buzzer on the left of the booth, she found the name and pushed the tiny button. A voice called down, "Got it on three. Hang up on two, please." Robin walked past a room where some pledges were gathered, learning the words to the Tri Ep song. "Tri Epsilon is a friendly house where every girl's a queen," they sang in close, harmonic tones, raising their voices slightly for the next line: "And all the frat men love her."
"... and this," Kitten Clark said, "is Susan Mitchell."
Mitch stepped forward there in the front hall of the Tri Ep house and shook hands with Dirk Henry. He was a plump, short person, and walking along beside him, Mitch felt like a large wire-drawn giraffe. When they reached the front steps, he said, "Clive's car is down the street. We're going to the house."
"What fraternity are you in?" Mitch asked. "Kitten never even told me what house you were from."
He opened the jacket to his coat and displayed a plain oval-shaped silver pin, fixed to the pocket of his shirt. "Recognize it?"
Mitch stammered. "I'm afraid I'm not too good at spotting them yet."
"Sigma Delta," he said proudly. "It's just the pledge pin. That's why you didn't recognize it. Here's the car."
Bud Roberts was president of Sig Delt. Would he be at the party? The thought lost its force when Dirk opened the door, and Mitch saw Robin Maurer seated in front with Clive.
"Hi, Mitch," she cried. "Want you to meet Clive McKenzie, my unlucky blind date for the evening."
They drove for a few blocks until they reached a palatial two-story brick house. Oak trees towered self-consciously over the entrance and cast shadows on the Greek letters ΣΔ, outlined in sparkling white lights.
As they piled out of the car and went up the walk, there was a sweet aroma of roses and honeysuckle.
"Smells marvelous," Mitch said.
"It's Henry, our houseboy. He has a passion for flowers. Keeps the yard in damn fine shape, Henry does." Dirk's tone sounded forced and pontifical, and Mitch glanced sideways at him to see if there were any trace of a smile, but he was dead serious.
At the doorway, a small old woman waited to greet them. In the harsh light of the chandelier inside the entrance, her white face looked heavily powdered like the top of a sponge cake, and her silver-colored hair had a strong purple tint.
"This is Mother Carter," Dirk said. "How's the party going, Mom?"
Mitch and Robin shook her hand and passed on with the boys through spacious rooms with parquet floors to a winding stairway that led downward.
"You'll like the Tack Room," Clive assured them. "Cost Sig Delt three thousand."
Robin groaned significantly, and it was hard to tell whether she was expressing awe or disgust
The Tack Room was lined on either side with large red leather booths, and around the walls on oak shelves there were pictures and trophies that were difficult to distinguish in the dim lighting. At the head of the room there was a large circular bar. Behind this a pledge worked, opening bottles of Coke and soda. Liquor was forbidden at fraternity parties, and so the flasks were hidden at the tables where a score of couples huddled together. Everyone was singing when Mitch and Robin entered with their dates.
"Roll me over, Yankee soldier.Roll me over, lay me down, and do it again.This is number three and my hand is on her knee,Roll me over, lay me down and do it again.Roll me o-ver in the clo-ver,Roll me over, lay me down,and do it again."
"I'll get the setups," Clive yelled back at them as they settled in a corner, and he pushed his way through the crowd. Robin sighed and said, "Last night I drank chug-a-lug. Not tonight!"
Dirk joined the singing enthusiastically, and Mitch stared around the room, wondering if Leda and Jake were there. And Bud Roberts. Across from her, a girl with long raven hair pulled away from the lean boy who was whispering in her ear. "Kee-ryst!" she exclaimed, and the rest of her words were gobbled and gone amid the singing and the pounding dink of bottles and feet tapping time with the music.
An hour dragged, monotonous and unrelieved, with the same songs and the sour taste of the whisky that Mitch barely touched. Clive and Dirk sang every song, stopping only to swig their drinks and refill them, and point out the various "brothers" who were big shots--- football players, and the editor of the campus humor magazine, and a graduate student who was a Phi Beta Kappa, and, inevitably, Bud Roberts. Clive pointed at him, and Mitch looked and saw him, leaning against the wall, grinning crookedly. He began to weave his way toward them, slowly, at an amble, his hands stuffed into his baggy pants pockets, his green checkered sports shirt open at the neck.
Mitch said, "I think I'll go to the powder room." She had noticed the red arrow and the dark letters on the wall announcing, "Women go this way!" Dirk nodded as she rose to leave, and Robin said, "Wait a second, friend, I'll string along."
"One at a time," Bud Roberts said, standing squarely in front of the two girls. "It's a house rule. One at a time." And then, "How are you tonight, Miss Mitchell?"
"Fine."
"Good! Now, if you'll allow me, I'll lead you to our ladies' room." He grinned at Robin. "You'll have to wait"
Mitch's cheeks grew hot as his hand held her elbow and pushed her along. The singing was loud and painful in her ears.
"How do you feel tonight?" he said. "Feel better?"
"Yes."
"You know, you're sort of a challenge to me."
"Why don't you forget it?" Mitch said. "Why don't you just be a gentleman?"
"Spoken by a true lady, at the door of the ladies' room."
Mitch pulled the door open and slammed it shut, thankful to be rid of him, to have the touch of his hand off her arm. Inside, the room was feminine and attractive, with small dressing tables, flowered couches and chairs, and a downy blue rag rug with green trim. Her examination of the handsome room was arrested suddenly as she stood before the mirror and reached for her comb. There, to the left of her, a huge cardboard figure dangled brazenly. It was that of a man, naked except for a flapping fig leaf across which was written, "Lift and look."
Automatically, her hand reached for the fig leaf, and drew back. Her curiosity was mixed with shame and guilt. She ignored it and began combing her hair, fixing her lipstick, and powdering her nose. It remained to obsess her in a peculiar way. Again she glanced at it, and then, remembering that Bud had said, "One at a time," she realized that no one would see her examine the figure, and once more her hand touched the loose leaf. Slowly and fearfully she raised it. Suddenly and swiftly a fierce bell deafened her ears, ringing out a vibrant wail throughout the Sigma Delta fraternity house. Gales of laughter and shouts started in the room outside, and Mitch drew back and stood shocked, her hands shaking with scalding embarrassment.
The voices and calls persisted and Mitch sat down for long, frenzied minutes. She could hear them coming closer until they stood at the door, singing.
"Never lift a fig leaf, lady, let the poor guy be!
That is,
That is,
If it's idle cu-ri-os-i-ty!
"Never lift a fig leaf, lady, just to steal a glance,
Unless,
Unless
You fol-low with romance!
"Now! Ain't you coming out?
Ain't you coming out?
Ain't you ev-er, ev-er comin' out?"
She knew that she could not. They were waiting for her and she could not get up and walk to the door and pass them. Not now. It was a joke, she realized that, but it was his joke. And everyone would be shaking with laughter, knowing what she had done. Anger mounted in her, and her hands wrung with a seething anxiety. Over and over they sang the song and shouted and she sat there. Very gradually the voices died away and then it was finished and they had left the door. Short, round tears loitered in the corners of her eyes and escaped down her face. She blotted them with her handkerchief and straightened herself. She listened at the door, and the noise was not there, but back at the booths where they all were. Opening it a few inches, she saw that Bud had waited. There was a look of smug defiance on his face.
"C'mon," he said. "No one will bother you now."
She slammed the door shut harshly and held onto it from the inside. He was the last one she could look at--- his face leering that way, the slimy, suggestive tone, and the hand that reached for her.
"By God, you'll come out! You'll come out!" he shouted, and heaving himself at the door before she could twist the lock and secure it, he held her arms back and kicked the door shut behind him.
"Damn you," he said, the sick, sweet odor of liquor flowing from his mouth. "Damn you and your innocence! You wanted to look, didn't you? By God, look, then!"
Mitch wrested herself free, and grabbing the china vase on the table, she brought it down on his head, and left him staggering back against the wall. Then, running, she tripped up the stairs, past the ghostlike face of Mother Carter, through the door, and beyond the gangling oak trees. She ran down the street in the tar-black night
When she stopped running, a block away, the near lights of the stadium told her she was streets away from the Tri Epsilon house. Gasping for breath, her body perspiring feverishly, she stumbled along until she saw the white house on the corner. As she approached it, she noticed the sign ΔP, and she remembered Fredna, the girl she had met at the hotel during rush week. Instantly, she quickened her pace and climbed the rows of brick steps. A couple sat on the porch, and the girl looked up at Mitch as she passed the swing where they were.
"May I help you?" she said, standing, coming toward Mitch so that she could view her in the light of the porch.
"Fredna Loughead. I was---looking for her."
The girl said, "Fredna's on a blind date tonight She won't be home until closing hour. Can I take a message?" She had a quizzical expression in her alert eyes.
"Well, I---I guess I'm lost" Mitch stuttered nervously. "I'm a Tri Epsilon pledge. I can't find the house."
"Really?" the girl said, her tone gaining interest, her lips parting in a ready smile. "Well, now, how did that happen? You're a pledge, you say?"
"Yes, I am. I---I had a fight and---well, I just got lost."
"A fight? That's terrible. Why, that's awful. Look, I'll tell you what we'll do. Biff and I will walk you home. It's just a few blocks, and we were going to take a walk anyway, weren't we, Biff?"
The boy got up from the swing and studied Mitch. "Yes," he said. "We'd be glad to walk you home." There was a bright jeweled pin on his sweater. "I live right across the street from you. Delta Pi. We're neighbors."
"And," the girl said in sirupy tones, "you can tell us all about this fight of yours while we walk along."
"There isn't much to tell," Mitch said as they started across the damp grass. "I guess I just lost my temper."
\*
Bud Roberts reeled back against the pale blue wall, and felt the warm trickle of blood on his forehead. He touched it with his finger and stared at its vivid color and stood there, slumped unevenly, resting. The door was partially open and the sound of many feet came rushing to him, and he straightened himself and walked into their midst, not stopping the blood as it ran. A girl shrieked out at the sight of him, and two young men rushed to aid him as he walked up to them all.
"You O.K., fellow?"
"Yeah," Bud drawled, "I'm O. K."
"Man, she really bruised you."
They stood about him gaping up at his wound. Bud said, "Where'd she go?"
"She took off," Dirk answered. "She took off like a bat out of hell, up the stairs and out. Robin here tried to call to her."
"Are you a Tri Ep?" Bud asked Robin. "Are you one of that bunch?"
"Yes." Robin was uneasy. The crowd thickened. She wondered where Mitch had gone. "Why did she hit you?" Robin said incredulously. "I didn't even know she knew you."
"Because she's a poor damn sport,, that's why. Every night I plug old cardboard Adam up for one girl to bite on it, and she was the wrong girl. Then when I made the men stop singing, and quieted them down so she wouldn't feel bad about coming out, she slugged me. Well, by God, she's the last Tri Ep to come to this house."
He took out his handkerchief and held it to the blood. Mother Carter had come downstairs and squeezed through the crowd and seen him. She caught her breath in a quick hissing sound and ran to take his arm. With exaggerated caution she led him from the room, saying she hoped it was not a concussion, saying the young lady should be reported. "And she scooted right past me, too," she said, "and the devil was in her eyes."
Clive McKenzie turned to Robin. "Under the circumstances," he said, "I think I'd better drive you back to the Tri Epsilon house."
His voice was stiff and brusk, and members of other sororities stood beside their dates watching as Robin picked up her coat and Mitch's coat and walked toward the stairway with Clive.
"I guess you realize," Clive said as he opened the car door, "that this means trouble for your house. Probably a black-listing."
Robin said, "I wonder where she went. It's so dark and everything."
"Hits a guy with a flowerpot! God!" Clive cursed. "Goddamn!"
\*
The meeting lasted until two o'clock that morning. When Leda came upstairs, Mitch was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her hands clenched and shaking. Leda said nothing. She put her shoes in the flowered shoe bag behind the closet door and wiggled out of her skirt. Mitch watched her and felt strange, as though she were in a play on a stage and the people in the audience were waiting and watching and she did not know her lines. "I'm sorry, Leda," she said finally. "I'm awfully sorry I got everyone in a jam."
Leda took out her brush and the bobby pins from the small yellow box on the top of the bureau. "I guess I just don't belong," Mitch continued. "I guess I just don't know how to act right I don't know much about jokes like that, and Bud Roberts and the way he acted after. Look, Leda, I am sorry."
"I'm afraid," Leda said into the mirror, "that it doesn't help anything being sorry. You really made a mess of it. You know, the Delta Rhos aren't our best friends. You would pick that house to run to."
"I didn't tell them anything. Just that I had a fight. Honest."
"And Biff Collins. He would be in on it. You couldn't have picked two worse people to help you find your way back home. You didn't have to tell them anything. They'll have their own stories circulating before morning. God!"
"Is there anything I can do?" Mitch looked at the beautiful girl and her eyes ached where there should have been tears.
"Yes," Leda answered coolly. "There is. You can grow up! You can forget yourself and come out of your lousy damn shell and grow up! Don't you think I know how you felt? Don't you think I know what Roberts is like and how you felt? Do I look dumb and stupid, Mitch? Mitch, look at me! Do I look dumb and stupid?"
Mitch stared. The tears had welled up and were held fast and there was a heaviness about her lids and the drummer was back inside her, beating away fast. Leda stood before her in her sheer white pajamas with her face red from excitement and her voice harsh and sharp.
"No," Mitch answered her. "I'm the one that's dumb and stupid, I suppose. But I can't help it Everything's so dirty and nasty. I can't understand---"
Leda cut in and held Mitch's shoulders. "You make me sick, Mitch! You make me retch! I bet you still think babies grow under cabbage leaves. Well, they don't. I've got news, Mitch, they don't grow under any goddamn cabbage leaves. I had to learn it! I had to learn it the hard way. Goddamn you, anyway!"
The tears broke then and came to Mitch's eyes in a great rush and down her cheeks onto her slip and she said Leda's name over and over. Leda sat beside her and began to talk as though she were not talking to the girl, but to the wall and the curtains and the Venetian blinds.
"When I was ten---ten---I was out in the back yard and Jan was sitting there with Dave, the man she was sleeping with then, and he came over to me and felt me. He said, 'Boy, she's a nice one!' and Jan laughed. Jan said, 'You won't even stop at kids, you bastard,' and then they both laughed. You know what I did, Mitch? I laughed too. I've been laughing ever since. You should know what I laughed at. You should know some of the goddamn funny jokes I laughed at!"
"Leda, please stop. I started all this. Please stop."
"Why? Because you don't want to hear the story of my life? Is it raising the hair on your head, Mitch? You want to know something else? I used to be in bed and listen at night. We had a bungalow out in L. A. when Jan and I lived there, and Jan's room was right next to mine. I used to hear them. I used to hear them plain as everything---the springs creaking and the breathing."
There was an eeriness about the room and the way Leda looked straight ahead with her eyes fixed and unmoving. Mitch squirmed uncomfortably, not wanting to hear any more, but Leda kept on.
"And Jake! Want to know what Jake did tonight? After Bud announced that the Tri Eps were black-listed, Jake and I got to the house and heard the news. Jake took me back to the car. And after, Mitch, after it was over, Jake said, 'We'll find some way to have this, even if I can't take Tri Eps out They won't stop this, baby.' He didn't say, 'The hell with the whole goddamn bunch of them. They can't keep us apart' He said, 'We'll find some way to have this.' But what's funnier, Mitch--- what's even funnier---was that I felt that way too. I didn't say it, but I felt it. That's all I want from him. I hate his guts and it's all I want from him. Sometimes I don't even want that and then there's nothing. I don't know what I. want, Mitch. I'm afraid of what I want"
She looked at Mitch and she said, "Mitch, that was why I was mad when I first came in the room. Because you brought it out in the open. Because you made the whole thing as goddamn plain as the nose on my face. You caused the trouble---you and that bastard Roberts. Because now the whole damn sorority is black-listed and I've got to act as if I care and as if Jake cares and oh, my God, it's hell. We don't care. What a laugh!"
Mitch saw Leda's face, and it was strange and unfamiliar. The features fell apart and they would not unite again. There was the wide, sensuous mouth and the nose and the eyes and the chin and they were like pieces of the puzzle that was Leda's face that had not been put together. Mitch felt cold and hard, as though this room and this house and this whole new life were a dream and tomorrow she would wake up and her father would say, "What a sleepy-head you are, black-eyed Susan!"
The room was still except for a slight knocking sound that the blinds made in the wind. Leda stood up.
"Sometimes I drink too much," she said now because it was over, "and I talk like a fool late at night I'm sorry, Mitch. Forget it, kid, will you?"
Mitch said yes but she knew no. She knew no she would never forget it, not the loneliness that gnawed away at Leda and the way she had said it.
"Tomorrow you go over for your course cards," Leda said. "Better get some sleep."
"What do you think they'll do about what happened?"
"I don't know, kid. They'll think of something. Don't worry about it."
Mitch pulled her slip over her head and jerked off her brassiere. She stepped into the pants of her pajamas and buttoned the coat.
"I'" get the light, Leda," she said, but Leda only looked at her and did not answer. When the room was dark, Leda said, "Mitch, come over and rub my back, will you?"
She sighed then when the large hands came on her body and gently ran over her back. "Mitch," she said, "I like you. From the first day. You knew that. . . . Do you hear me, Mitch?"
The room was black and the wind blew and drops of rain fell on the roof and it was tin. "I hear you, Leda."
"You looked at me when I was standing by the piano. I'll never forget that look."
"I thought you were---beautiful."
"Now what do you think of me, Mitch? Honestly."
"I've never known anyone like you. I've had friends before, you know, school friends. You're different, though."
"Do you like to touch me?"
"Yes. I---used to be timid about touching people. I don't know. When the kids asked me to scratch their backs, I used to dislike it Now---I like it With you."
"The rain sounds good, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"Want to crawl in with me?"
Mitch didn't answer. She pulled the covers back and lay beside Leda, taking her hand from her back and turning over to face the other way. When Leda's arms came around her to hold her, she felt a warm aching that eased into peace and she slept until the rain stopped and the sun came through the blinds in the morning.
\*
Marsha said, "So you see, Mitch, it's up to you. I know it's a ridiculous request, but we've got to save the reputation of Tri Ep."
Mitch backed the car into a space in front of the library. Outside it was hot, and even now in the early morning, near ten, the people passing in the streets had a tired, damp look about them. A bespectacled young man dropped his books and stooped to gather them.
"But why?" Mitch turned to Marsha. "Why would Bud Roberts want me to ask him to our housewarming ? It doesn't make sense."
"All I know is what he told me on the phone. He said, 'If Susan Mitchell asks me to your housewarming, I'll forget it.' That's what he said."
"I don't trust him."
"Listen, Mitch, it's three weeks away and you won't have to be alone with him. It's right at the house, and we'll all be around. Try to believe me, I know how you feel. I'd never ask you to do it except that we-can't afford an enemy like Sig Delt. If they black-list us, the other fraternities will be too proud to date us too. And after all, Mitch, you did make it pretty messy when you ran to another sorority for help."
The car was hot and Mitch opened the door. She said, "O.K., I'll ask him. I better get my course cards. The line's getting longer by the minute."
"Thanks, Mitch." Marsha smiled and touched her hand. "Thank you very much"
Marsha waited to cross the street while Mitch joined the line, standing behind a tall, angular blond boy. A warm buzz began in Mitch's stomach when she thought of Leda. She traced an L in the dirt with her foot, and shielded her eyes from the sun with her arm.
The blond boy said, "Hot!"
Mitch nodded. The line inched forward while he talked to her.
"Then we're in three courses together," he said. "That's swell!"
Afterward, as they sipped Cokes slowly in Mac's, he told her that his name was Charlie Edmonson.
It had grown cloudy while they were in Mac's, and now the rain started heavily on the roof and splashed down at the windows. "My car!" Mitch exclaimed. "The windows are down!"
They ran to the door and stood under the awning, watching the rain teem down. "Can't get to it in this," he said. "It'll be a quick one, anyway."
People in the streets dodged for shelter, and one boy rolled his pants up to his knees and tore off with a newspaper over his head.
"When it lets up," Mitch said, "maybe I can drop you off. What fraternity are you in?"
"Me?" Charlie pointed to himself, laughing. "I'm not a fraternity boy. That stuffs too fancy for an old Kansas farmer."
"Then you're an independent," Mitch said blankly, moving back from the awning where the leak was and the rain came through. She thought of the song they had sung at the Sig Delt house last night, the refrain humming distantly in her ears.
"He's a goddamn independent, He's a G.D.I.
Ignore! Ignore! Ignore the bastard!
Ditch the guy, The G.D.I."
"I think it's letting up,'; he said. "Want to run for it?"
It was Thursday, the week of the Tri Epsilon housewarming party, and the leaves on the trees along the streets of Cranston were the way they are in October. Mitch stood in the entrance to Jacob Hall, glancing nervously at her watch, moving up and down from the top step to the second step.
"Sorry, Sue," Charlie said when he arrived. "Professor Rudolph got talking after class and I couldn't get away from him.
"We haven't got time for a Coke. I have to get back to the house this afternoon."
They walked along the path to the street while Mitch explained that all pledges had to assist in decorating the house for the party on Saturday. As soon as she had said it, she felt a sudden surge of embarrassment sweep through her. It had been three weeks now that she had been going for Cokes after class with Charlie. He had asked her to go to a movie one Tuesday evening, but the Tri Epsilon pledge study-hall system had started, and pledges could not date on week nights.
"It's just sort of a housewarming," she said, hoping it sounded unimportant and dull. Charlie scuffed his feet near the end of the sidewalk where there was a space between the ground and the asphalt
"Could I walk you on home?"
"Certainly."
Kitten Clark passed them as they turned and she said hello to Mitch and looked at Charlie with a flat expression in her eyes. She had seen Mitch with him before, and she knew that he was an independent. His awkwardness, the plain, loose-fitting clothes, and the conspicuous absence of a fraternity pin pointed out the fact. As yet it was not a matter of concern to Tri Epsilon, because Mitch had not had a week-end date with him, or with anyone else since the trouble with Roberts. On Saturday she would emerge from the cocoon for the housewarming and the date with Bud. It was a complete enigma to Kitten why Roberts even bothered. Perhaps to save face, and more to prove that no girl could hit and run. Not him. She thought of the silverware that Mother Nessy had promised Tri Epsilon if they pledged Susan, and hoped they would have it in time for the buffet dinner on Saturday.
"How come you aren't driving?"
Mitch hardly heard his question after they had passed Kitten. She was thinking that Kitten would want to know who the boy was and what house he belonged to. She wondered vaguely what Jane Bell would say; if she would say that it was just as easy to have a Coke and walk home with a fraternity man after class, and that it was preferable.
"Independents aren't lepers," she had told the pledge class at their last meeting, "but fraternity men are preferable."
There were fraternity men in all of Mitch's classes---suave, confident young men whose loafered feet stretched out in the aisles, and whose bold guffaws echoed after the profs' jokes. They had names like Grey Gregg and Big Tom D. and Rabbit Man and they sat in clumps together. There was something different about them, Mitch thought, something that was not neutral but cold and hot as they willed in their way with others.
"I said, how come you don't have your car in the lot today?"
"Leda borrowed it. She had to pick up some equipment downtown."
"Your roommate?"
"Yes."
"If I had a car, I guess I'd be afraid to let people borrow it. Maybe not. Hard to tell when you're as far from having a car as I am."
"Leda's careful."
"Must be going to be a big old party at your house Saturday."
"Pretty big."
"Just girls?"
"No," Mitch said. "Boys and girls."
"I was going to--- I have this job downtown at Messer's Drugstore. Usually work week ends. That's why I haven't been able to ask you out. I was going to ask you out Saturday, but---"
They cut across Swampcot Street and waited for the light to change. "Will you ask me some other week end?" Mitch said as they walked on.
"Sure."
"Because I have a date Saturday."
When they reached the circular walk to the Tri Epsilon house, Charlie said good-by and handed Mitch the French book he was carrying for her, and he said after he said good-by, "Be good, Sue."
The Tri Eps were busy trimming the entrance to the dining room in pink and blue streamers and Robin Maurer was polishing the mirror in the hall. She paused when Mitch entered the hall.
"Get lost," she advised. "They got work around here that would scare an elephant."
"Looks good. Who's your date, Robin?"
"Some blockhead. I've seen him once. Looks like those prehistoric men in our soc books."
"You know who mine is."
"Yes," Robin said, wringing out the cloth, "I know. Marsha gave me a little lecture too, all about bowing and scraping to Sig Delt. I don't know, though. She's the only one in this bunch I trust"
"Hey," Jane Bell called to Mitch. "Change your clothes and pitch in here. We need some work done in the basement if Mother Nessy lets us use it Saturday."
At a previous Tri Epsilon party, a fraternity man had spent his entire evening and half of the following day on the moth-eaten divan behind the ping-pong table in the Tri Ep cellar. He was very drunk and it had happened last year and Mother Nesselbush had been called on by the Dean of Women to explain the incident. Since then, the basement was termed "off limits" for house parties. This year there was a skinny hope that it would not be a restricted area.
The hope died shortly after Mitch changed into a pair of jeans and headed off in the direction of the back steps. There, congregated in a small mass, Tri Eps faced Mother Nessy. Her answer was a very adamant no, supplemented with the viewpoint that basements encouraged extravagant necking, liquor drinking, which was forbidden, and other "things."
Leda heard them arguing back there when she drove Mitch's car in the drive and pulled the packages out. She set them down in the living room and went upstairs. As she took her worn green suede coat off and tossed the matching beret to the top of the closet, she noticed the yellow paper on Mitch's desk. It was Marsha's paper. Marsha had reams of this paper, pale lemon-colored onionskin with a small silver initial at the top. The third time this week, Leda realized. Whenever Mitch could not be found, she was down in the suite helping Marsha, or in the evening after closing hours, making cinnamon toast in the kitchen with Marsha, or listening to records with Marsha in the living room. Irritated, Leda glanced at the scrawled words on the yellow paper:
"Want to help me trim the side hall for the party? I'll meet you there when you're changed. Love, Marsh."
"Good God!" Leda said aloud. "Trimming the side hall with Marsh. What a great big fat kick that is!"
She stretched out on the bed and shut her eyes. In a persistent, conscious dream, Jake was beside her, his hands on her, her ears filled with the harsh profane words he used. Then, in that crazy state of half awareness, she projected herself into Jake's ways and saw Mitch, large and muscular, but less strong than Leda, who held onto her. Suddenly she heard the footsteps in the hall and Mitch appeared, shaking the dream, chattering noisily about the decorations, how Marsha had helped her with her French assignment, and what Mother Nessy had said about the basement.
"Mitch," Leda said, breaking in, "who's the guy?"
"What?"
"They say you're hanging around with some guy after classes."
"Oh, Charlie. He's in a couple of my classes."
"Like him?"
"Sure."
Leda blew the smoke from her cigarette toward the ceiling. Mitch thought it was time now for the harangue on independents if Leda knew, and if not it would be time after she asked and knew then.
"Why don't you ask him to come Saturday? Tell Roberts to go jump and ask him."
"I can't. Marsha asked me to do this. Leda, you know why I had to ask Roberts."
"That's Marsha's idea. Listen, kid, don't be pushed around. Marsha could have settled it some other way."
"But I thought," Mitch said, confused, "I thought it was the only choice I had. I don't understand you now, Leda."
"You understand Marsha, apparently."
Mitch sat down on the bed and tried to reason why Leda was afraid again, almost as she had been that night. Weeks had passed and Leda had seemed aloof and busy, with Jake all the time, and tired in the evening. Now this, and Leda was angry.
"Charlie is an independent," Mitch said, "so he wouldn't be a good date to bring anyway."
"Charlie?"
"The boy you said I should ask instead of Roberts."
Leda searched in the bookcase for her Spanish text and finding it she grabbed her coat "I've got work to do," she said. "I can't think about it all the time. Do you hear me, Mitch? I can't think about it all the time!"
Mitch didn't say anything.
"Marsha! I'm so sick of hearing that girl's name. You think she's God, don't you? You think that girl is God?"
Mitch reached in the drawer beside her bed and found the nail polish. She was wearing it regularly now, bright red, and her nails were growing long and tapered.
Leda stood before her waiting for an answer but it did not come. She said, "I thought you were my friend. I thought you cared about me because no one else had ever given a damn. No friend. Jake cares for his own damn reasons and Jan doesn't care. The two Fs in my life. J for junk. But I thought you gave a damn and I ran around pouring my heart out telling you things. Then you run to Marsha when you have a problem and you do what Marsha says."
"I haven't." Mitch's voice cracked. "I talk to her because she's president."
"President! President of what? Of the world? Of the United States of America? I laugh my fool head off at her being president."
"I don't know what to say, Leda. I don't know why you're mad all of a sudden."
Leda shook her head and walked out of the room, slamming the door. She walked down the hall and the steps and out of the door to the street, and she knew why it was this way. She knew. Before she had thought she knew, and she had erased it like a pencil mark on a sheet of new paper. It came back. And Susan Mitchell, of all those it might have been, and the way she was, like a baby.
Mitch watched her from the window until she was out of sight. Across the street the Delta Pi's were staging a song practice on their side lawn. In even rows of more than a dozen, they faced their white-flanneled leader and sang out in fine, gruff voices. They were singing the Cranston football team's "Fight Song," and listening to them, Mitch thought that this was the way she had pictured college. This singing, and the fall leaves outside, and the hazy questions in her mind about the French translation and the English composition, and no Leda, or Bud Roberts---nothing like that. Still, there were Leda's eyes, and the deep blue tinge of hurt that had shown when she left like that
\*
The housewarming was to begin immediately after the football game, and that Saturday afternoon the Tri Eps had gone in a body to the stadium. It was the first home game of the year, and tradition brought together the fervid assemblage of fraternity brothers and sorority sisters in solid blocks throughout the grandstands. To Mitch, it was a bewitching spectacle, with the lively mass of people and the beat of the drums in the uniformed band parading down the field. Robin Maurer sat beside her. Of all the pledges, Robin was the one whom Mitch knew and liked best. The others seemed to be absorbed into the whole, with no particular individual traits of their own. Sissy Callahan and Bebe Duncan and Jett Duquette and Travis King, all somehow alike, with die same neutrality toward you as the fraternity men's. Most of them wore their hair long, curled loosely, their faces tinted with the popular liquid powder base they all used. Their arms were caparisoned with silver bracelets, and their shoes varied only from loafers to saddle shoes and saddle shoes to loafers and they called everyone darling. That was together. Alone, there was Sissy's brother who flew transatlantic flights and had been married four times. Bebe Duncan's father was an author and his books were dedicated always "To B. and Bebe," because her mother's name was Beatrice. Jett Duquette was named after the race horse her uncle made his first million on. And Travis King had false teeth, which only made her more beautiful and which she talked about, often, in mixed company.
They sat there, too, with Robin and Mitch. But Robin was the one that counted. When the whistle blew and the football sailed off in the air, Mitch leaned forward and drank in the movements on the field below. The cheering and the songs and the tense moments near the goal line caught her up and carried her with them. Once Leda turned around from the row down in front of her and winked at Mitch. She saw the excitement on Mitch's face, the red, ruddy look to her cheeks, and the eyes shining as though she had fever. Mitch was happy then. It was their first exchange after yesterday's quarrel. There was something in the look that meant, "All right, it's all right," and Leda was beautiful, looking up like that and laughing.
During the half Marsha called down to Mitch and Robin to come up and sit with her. She was munching a hot dog, and some of the boys from Delta Pi had crawled under the ropes and were standing there chatting with her. Mitch and Robin scrambled up and joined them, and they met Ted and Lucifer, the two Delta Pis. When the band struck up the "Fight Song," the five of them roared out the words, and Mitch laughed at the way Lucifer sang, deep and loud like a bass drum.
"Hey," he said. "You're laughing at me."
The whistle blew and she sat down beside him for the next quarter. "I've seen you somewhere before," he said, "somewhere that smells vaguely of formaldehyde."
"Gosh," Mitch exclaimed, "that's right! Lab! You're in my zoology lab."
"No, no!" He smiled, tipping his black and gold fraternity cap. "You're in my zoology lab. Remember, I am Lucifer."
Mitch saw Leda looking back, searching for her, craning her neck and peering over the heads of the others to the seats Robin and Mitch had deserted. Mitch did not know why she leaned down and pretended to tie her shoe, so that Leda wouldn't see her. She did not know why, but she knew that it was better not to have her see.
"Walk you home," Lucifer said, after the game was won and elated students jumped about in the bleachers, hugging one another and singing out in husky choruses. "You're a neighbor, that's why. I only walk neighbors home. Hate foreigners from other streets."
Lucifer jabbered on about nothing and Mitch liked him. He was a short boy with huge thick glasses and an unbelievably short haircut. Mitch was taller than he was and he would not let her forget it, but the way he joked and the way he talked charmed Mitch.
"You're taller," he said, "and so you undoubtedly consider your length a blight on your whole day. Because why? Because Lucifer said he would walk you home. Because Lucifer is very tiny and prefers that his women be very tiny. And furthermore because you have a feeling you are going to fall madly in love with Lucifer. But never mind. Lucifer has a soul. It is very possible that he will make a little room in his life for you from time to time."
Mitch laughed. "Thanks," she said. "Any time you want me to reach up and hammer a nail in that's over your head . . ."
"My dear girl," Lucifer said, "a much funnier way of saying the same thing would have been to say, 'Call me when you can't reach the hatrack.' You see? Something simpler than what you said, though much the same essence."
Outside the Tri Epsilon house, cars were lined up and horns were blowing. The chairs on the lawn were filling up with young men, and Tri Eps were hurrying up the walk to join them.
"I understand you're warming your house tonight," Lucifer said. "Some of our boys were invited."
"Yes. I'm sorry you won't be here."
"Then ask me."
Mitch laughed. "I have a date, Lucifer."
"Where?"
"I don't see him now," Mitch said, looking the crowd over, "but he'll be here."
"Well, I tell you what. I'll wait with you until he comes. It'll be O.K. Tell him I'm your brother. Tell him I'm a gnome. He won't care. And when he comes, poof! Disappearing act"
She hesitated, but realized it was no use. Lucifer was determined. Together they made their way up to the porch, and Mitch went in to get him a glass of punch. On her way to the kitchen she met Marsha, and she explained that Lucifer had insisted on staying until Bud came. Marsha smiled and answered that she couldn't see how it would hurt anything. Then Mitch rejoined Lucifer and waited for Bud to come.
At seven o'clock Lucifer said, "It was a very delicious buffet, my little gazelle. Ah, your date---he's corning tonight?"
"I don't know," Mitch said, thinking of the humiliation of being stood up, of having Lucifer here to witness it, and Tri Eps passing with their dates, looking to see if Mitch and Bud were getting along well, and Bud not there at all.
"You don't seem distressed."
"I'm not, really. I don't like it, of course. But I don't care for him either."
Lucifer said, "But he's tall. I suppose he's very, very tall."
"Quite tall, yes. Taller than I am."
"Ah, me," Lucifer sighed. "Vanity. Vanity, vanity."
Inside the group was singing "My Gal Sal." Mitch shivered, and thought about forgetting the housewarming and going up to bed, or taking Lucifer inside and forgetting Bud. Then, to punctuate her thoughts, there was a sharp voice: "Hey, Susan Mitchell!"
Bud Roberts was coming up the walk, carrying a box under his arm, smiling and talking in a loud voice. "Hi, there. I know I'm late."
"Bright boy," Lucifer said, rising, bowing, and moving away. "A commanding personality, that boy!" he said as he walked toward the sidewalk.
"Who's that?"
"Lucifer. I don't know his last name." Mitch didn't stand up or look up at him. Inside she was seething with anger.
"Look, let me explain it. I was late for a good reason."
"Yes?"
"I wanted to get you just the right kind of flower," he said, tearing the ribbon off the box and presenting her with an orchid. A brown orchid. Mitch stared. She stood up and stepped back from the flower, as though it would shatter if she were to go near it. It was beautiful.
"Forgive me?" he asked.
Mitch nodded.
"For everything, I mean, for everything! Let's make this a peace offering."
She took his arm after he pinned the orchid on, and they went into the house, where couples were dancing on the dining-room floor, which had been cleared of the tables,
"Got any punch?" Bud asked, and she led 'him back to the kitchen. He pulled a leather flask from his back pocket. "I want a shot in mine," he said. "How about you?"
"Put it away, Bud! It's not allowed."
Bud Roberts threw his head back and laughed. He reached for Mitch's hands and he said, "You know what? You're the first really innocent girl I've ever met. You're really innocent, aren't you?"
"I don't know," she said, "but I know liquor isn't allowed."
Kitten Clark and her date rushed into the kitchen. They were howling over something and Kitten grabbed his head and bit his ear. "Take that," she said, "and let it be a lesson." Bud offered them a drink, and Mitch felt the blood rise in her head when she saw Kitten pour a large shot into her punch glass. Kitten sensed Mitch's shock, and she said, "Look, it's O.K. as long as Nessy doesn't get wise. So take it easy." Her date took a straight swig from the bottle, and laughing again, they left the kitchen door swinging back and forth behind them.
"Here," Bud said. "I'll give you a light shot. This doesn't taste bad, like beer. You won't get sick."
Tired of being wrong all the time, Mitch let him "fix" her punch, and they joined the others. Marsha beamed at Bud and came rushing over to him, holding his hand for minutes after she shook it, smiling and saying nice things. Then others came---Jane Bell and Skip and Mother Nessy and, at last, Leda.
"Hi," she said to Roberts, Jake standing beside her, a sly, lopsided grin on his face. Roberts shook their hands and when he held Leda's he did something to make Leda pull her hand away, and wipe it on her skirt and sneer at him half-smiling. "You never forget."
"Like an elephant," he said, "just like an elephant."
"Someday you're going to forget and you won't have any personality. You'll be a dope without your dirty jokes and your coy gestures."
Mitch shuddered to think what would follow, but Bud Roberts only stuck his hands in his pockets and looked admiringly at Leda. "You're the only girl who can deliver an insult," he said, "and still be a duchess. A mean duchess, though."
Jake took Leda's arm. "Cool off, Roberts," he said. "Cut your line, or pull your bait in."
Bud and Mitch danced and she found him easy to talk to and friendly. He kept getting her more punch, and each time putting a little more whisky in the glass, and telling her it was all right and that she wouldn't feel it. But she did. She felt light and happy and once or twice she touched his arm and said something complimentary to him. She said, "You're nice, Bud," and "You know, you look very nice tonight, Bud." He squeezed her close when they were dancing and she could feel his warm breath near her ears. She thought that their misunderstanding was a foolish, silly thing and that they had never understood one another until now. Now she was the lady her father wanted her to be and this was the ball and Bud Roberts was a gentleman.
The orchestra that Tri Epsilon had hired was a small combo that played half an hour out of every hour. Then they staged a gala intermission, during which the orchestra members raced to the kitchen to refuel themselves with many bottles of assorted liquors. Mother Nessy permitted the musicians to have "alcoholic refreshments," so there could be no suspicion on her part if she were to enter the kitchen and see a young man pouring a drink. He was merely "servicing" the hired musicians. During intermission there were scores of young men occupied this way.
"That kitchen's a mess," Roberts said, "and the porch is jammed. How about sitting in your car?"
Mitch felt lively and excited and she said, "Yes, that'd be fun."
When he kissed her she did not mind the kiss. She snuggled up close to him and laughed at nothing.
"You feel good, don't you?" he said.
"Yes."
He kissed her again, and this time her mouth was forced open and she was hurt from his teeth and she drew back.
"Listen," he said, "you've never been kissed much that way, have you?"
"No."
"Let me show you something," he said. "Let me show you how nice it can be."
The back door of the car opened and Marsha stood there with her date, a large, happy-looking boy. "Can we sit this out with you?" she said. "Every place is filled."
Marsha's date was Ken, and he impersonated professors and they laughed for a while, but Bud did not laugh enthusiastically. Ken heard the music when it started, later, after they had talked together, and Marsha said, "Well, let's all go back. There's going to be a pinning. Jim Keeler is going to pin Kitten tonight."
A huge circle formed in the dining room and Jim Keeler stood in the center, his arm around Kitten's waist. From the side lines, Mother Nessy beamed as the girls sang the "Sweetheart Song." When it was finished, the orchestra played "I Love You Truly," and Jim pinned his large fraternity pin on Kitten's bosom. Then they danced and the others joined in.
"C'mon," Bud said to Mitch, "let's get some punch."
The kitchen was empty and Bud poured a large shot of whisky into Mitch's drink. "Susan Mitchell," he said, holding his glass high, "the picture of innocence."
The taste was gone and Mitch drank easily. Bud came to her and kissed her and his hand went down to her skirt. "No," he said when she started to squirm away, "just wait a minute. Wait a minute now, Susan Mitchell, just let me alone for a minute. Feels good, doesn't it?" he said, and Susan Mitchell shut her eyes and the room was going around in grand yellow and red circles. He helped her down the steps and it was still and musty, but he talked all the way. When he found the light switch, he turned it on once and then off again quickly. He led her over to the couch near the ping-pong table.
"You're sweet," he said, his hand working the buttons on her blouse, pulling it gently from her shoulders, kissing her. "You're sweet, Susan."
Very softly, almost too softly for her to hear her own words, she said, "No," but her eyes saw the circles and there was a new feeling in her body when he touched her and she could feel her clothes being pulled.
"No," she said. "No, please, no!"
Then swiftly, suddenly, and with terrific pain, she felt pressure and her eyes opened wide and she would have screamed but his hand covered her mouth and he struck her hard.
"Shut up," he said. "You wanted to know. You wanted this, Miss Virgin."
For a long time she was down in the mire of pitch black and the quicksand sucking her in and her whole head dizzy and the pain. Then it was over and she could feel him kneeling beside her, his head on her breasts, his breath coming hard. When she stood up, she hung onto the table and her head throbbed and spun. He got up too and turned the light switch on and she saw him looking at her.
"Better get your clothes on," he said, "and get upstairs with me."
Her voice was not her own. "You go to hell," she said. "You go to hell."
"Come on," he said. "Get your clothes on."
She did not cry. She reached for her things, scattered there on the floor, the brown orchid squashed beside the couch, everything strewn. He turned his back and ran his fingers through his hair, and then he turned around and she was dressed, walking toward him with dead eyes, swerving slightly from side to side.
"Listen," he said. "That's 'Good Night, Ladies'. It's the last dance."
She moved past him toward the cellar steps. He caught her arm and she stopped and did not look at him.
"I'll go out the side door," he said. "Look, take a hot bath. You're not hurt. Go up and take a hot bath and keep your mouth shut. Look, you're all right. Don't act this way."
When he let her go, she walked up the cellar steps and up the back steps to the second floor and her room. There was no one up there. They were all finishing the last dance. She lay on the bed, her eyes shut, and the circles came back, but they were black now and she was very cold.
Leda found her like that when she came in the room, threw her coat on the chair, and let her arms reach out in a wide yawn.
"What's the trouble?" she said.
Mitch did not move. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling, her lips parted, a gray-white color to her face, and she did not answer.
"You sick?"
She put her hand on Mitch's forehead. "Roberts," she said. "What did Roberts do to you? Did you fight? Talk to me, kid. Please tell me."
Mitch started up. Her feet touched the floor and moved toward the door. She shut it and turned to Leda.
"He did it to me," she said slowly. "He did it to me in the basement. I feel---horrible."
Outside there was singing, men's voices coming clearly, singing, "Dream girl, dream girl, you are a frat man's dream girl," in rich, deep tones. Mitch held her head and sat next to Leda.
"That goddamn bastard," Leda said. "That no-good damn bastard!"
Mitch said, "When he came over tonight, I thought--- he was sorry and he liked me and---" She could not finish, or cry or scream as she wanted to, and Leda's cursing jarred her and teased her.
"Kid, listen. Can you hear me? Don't say anything about this. Don't trust anyone. Don't tell anyone what happened in the cellar. The basement was off limits, and you've been drinking. God, it isn't your fault! God knows that. But honey---no one cares when a rule is broken. They don't care. Can you straighten out? Do you want me to get a wet rag for your head?"
"He said to take a hot bath. He said---"
"He would! A hell of a lot a man knows. Take a hot bath!"
"Leda, what's wrong with me? How did---"
Leda said, "Don't try to talk, kid," and she helped the girl take her clothes off. She said, "It's all right now. You're O.K. now. You'll feel better after you sleep." The voices outside were singing in a lively chorus, singing fast and clear:
"We are the great big, wow!Hairy-chested men, wow! Hairy-chested men!Wow! Hairy-chested men!We are the great big, wow! Hairy-chested men!We can do an-nee-thing! Wow!"
Leda helped Mitch into her bed, and stripping, slipping into white silk pajamas, Leda crawled in beside her after flicking the light off. She put her arms around Mitch.
"It's a lousy break, kid. It shouldn't have happened to you. Marsha should have known better."
"I'm afraid, Leda. Will I have a--- What if I'm pregnant? I can't even think. I wish I wasn't here or alive or anything."
"Everything will be O.K., Mitch honey. Let me stroke your back gently. I know how men are, Mitch. I know how rough they are. Mitch, does my hand feel good?"
"Yes."
"Jake is rough too. You get sick of it. You get sick of them pawing you around as if you were an animal. Men don't understand. They're tough and they don't care what they do to you. I know, honey. I've been through it and I don't know why I go back, except that it just---- You have to. Jan always thinks if you don't have a man hanging around that you're abnormal or something. Mitch, you don't know what I'm talking about, I know. I talk like an idiot, Mitch. But I like to touch you. I die when I think of that Roberts bastard laying a hand on you. Listen, kid, I never felt about a person the way I feel about you. You're different. I want to keep the damn world away from you, so it won't kick you in the teeth the way it has me. You're special, Mitch, and as long as I'm alive, you're going to be O.K. I mean it"
Long after Mitch was asleep, Leda's hands stroked her arms, and Leda lay there, hoping the evening would stay and never let morning come, for now there was a restless peace in her, akin to finding something that was lost, and yet something that had never been hers before.
\*
Up on the hill overlooking the towers and the town, there in an alcove, the Sigma Delta house was bright with lights and young men laughing. In the living room downstairs, faces were awake with lively talk and collars were open at the neck, with the ties hanging freely and the coats unbuttoned. A few of the boys kicked off their shoes and leaned back luxuriously in the deep chairs and couches. Others were coming through the front door in groups of twos and threes, and in the corner a radio played a late disc-jockey show from Louisville. At the card table, four fellows began a poker game, and one stood near them, holding a glass, discussing the evening, telling about the bad roads near Cranston Creek and the way "Gloria's no fool, you know. She takes real precautions. That's what I mean about her acting older than the rest of these coeds."
On the third floor, in the room with the banners and the signs and the skeleton hanging from the hatrack, Bud Roberts sat with a bottle and his roommate, Clive McKenzie, and Jake was there too. Bud was talking about it. About the way the girl had looked afterward, and how he felt, and their faces were serious and interested.
He said, "It was the first time I ever got such a creepy feeling. Now, I've fooled around a lot. Plenty. But I never got such a creepy feeling."
Clive McKenzie crushed his cigarette on the floor. "Yeah, I know what you mean. One time I had a virgin and after she---"
"Listen," Roberts yelled. "Listen, I'm telling you it wasn't like that! You don't know what the hell I'm telling you. I'm so goddamn drunk I don't know what I'm telling you either. But this girl---she was like my dog at home after I kick her when I don't mean to but I lose my temper. Ever kick your dog and see his eyes? She was like that. I never---"
"What the hell, Roberts. You asked for it. You said you were going to make her. I don't know why you wanted to bother with the girl anyway. She's built like a barn. You knew it Jesus, what the hell! You want us to cry in our beer over your mess? God, what an act!"
Jake took a swig from the bottle and coughed. "Do I yell around here over troubles I got? And troubles I have got You make me sick sometimes."
"All right, shut up! Shut up!" Roberts yelled, standing up quickly. "We got a pledge in this room. Shut up, Jake, you damn fool!"
"You brought it up. You brought the thing up, for God's sake. What do you want?"
"I want you to shut up about it now," Roberts answered, lurching toward Jake and grabbing his shirt He raised his arm to swing it out at Jake and Jake caught it, twisting it back until Roberts was on his knees.
"Break it up, fellows," Clive ventured in a scared tone, stopping short when Jake let Bud free.
Jake looked at Bud kneeling there and his anger softened. He said, "G'night, Clive, Bud. I'm going to bed. Get some sleep, men!"
When he said "men," Clive knew that it was all right then. He watched Jake go and he turned his back on Roberts. He took his toothpaste and his brush and he swung a towel over his shoulder. Whistling weakly, he left the room and walked down the hall in the direction of the bathroom.
After the door shut, Bud dragged himself up on the bed. He sat there, pulling his ear and looking hard at the floor. With his fist, he hit his head hard. Then he stood up.
"Hey, you party-poopers," he called out hoarsely, "where the hell did you go? It's only one-thirty, for God's sake! Hey, you four-legged bastards, come back and finish the bottle!"
\*
The light sound woke Leda. Beside her, Mitch tossed restlessly, a pulsating whimpering rising inside her. "Mitch, are you all right?"
She opened her eyes and looked at Leda. The room was not dark, early lights of dawn casting a rusty hue over everything, and the wind from the open window was mild and steady.
"I was dreaming. What time is it?"
"About five."
"I was having an awful dream. Bud Roberts and---"
"Don't," Leda said, her arm catching the girl's waist. Mitch turned on her side, facing Leda, feeling the hand rub her back. It was quiet and warm. Leda moved her hand forward and ran her fingers lightly over the buttons on Mitch's pajama top. Then, gently, she slipped the round, plastic buttons from their loops, leaving the coat open. Almost as if Mitch knew what would follow, she held the top of the sheet back while Leda moved down and lightly kissed Mitch's breasts. A soft sigh broke free from Mitch's throat and evolved into a plaintive cry. Leda pulled herself up and her lips found Mitch's and crushed them, burning and moist.
"Mitch," Leda whispered, and they held each other fast and hard. "Mitch."
Mitch settled back in her seat that Monday morning and watched the thin, bespectacled man on the rostrum in the front of the room. Around her, students sat with open notebooks, waiting for the lecture to begin, doodling in circles and squares on the lined paper, talking busily, watching the slight rain on the windows, and stacking the books on the floor beneath their chairs. There was a sharp rap, a final rearranging of position on the part of the boys and girls, and Professor Aimes's voice broke through the stir to say, "Shelley's dates were 1792 through 1822. He attended Oxford as a boy, and while there he---"
He was like her father, this professor. Mitch noticed the resemblance in the way he stood, legs spread, hands stabbing his pockets, rocking back and forth as he talked. And his build, in the gangling structure of his body, the way his arms hung loose in defiance of all tailoring, wrists jumping out of his sleeves. Even his voice was similar---high and full and self-assured. Her father was not an intelligent man. Mitch realized that much about him. He had been a very lucky man, and a very skillful businessman, and a man who was strange to other men and to most women and to Mitch. She could imagine that she and her father had never known each other, and yet they had spent many long hours together when she was on vacation from school, in the summer, and when he visited her on his rare trips that brought him to her vicinity.
Her mother was the stranger---the name, and the small gold-framed picture on the bureau, and the tiny flashes of information that her father had relayed. Death was a word like mother and the two stood for something that was there but unknown to feeling. Vaguely Mitch wondered what it would have been like if they had been real to her, this dead mother and the father who was alive and whom she wrote to and returned to in between school and growing.
"Do you know what happened to me Saturday night, Father?"
"No, black-eyed Susan. What?"
"I had sexual intercourse. In the cellar."
Even after she had thought of such a scene and played with it in her mind and rejected it as impossible, she felt the danger of the thought. She felt that now she was grown, as her father had always said she would be and as she had thought she would never grow. She was grown and there was no more time to say, "When I grow up," and now she could not say, "When I grew up" and tell what it was like, because it was over. It was over and when it is over you do not talk. You do not say what it was like. Not when it's like this.
The Professor's voice began the poem and she listened attentively.
"I arise from dreams of theeIn the first sweet sleep of night,When the winds are breathing low,And the stars are shining bright..."
Leda was not a man, and yet, when she had awakened her, Mitch turned to her and they were not friends then, but lovers. Mitch became separate as a person at last. She was not separate from Leda, but individual and one. She was wanted and she wanted, and it was not a want striped with fear and hurt It was a fragile want to be nurtured and cared for, as Leda had then in bed.
"I never kissed a girl," Leda had said afterward. "I'm sorry I did it to you, kid."
There was something wrong and ill in the two of them then like that, Mitch knew, but what? When she was a child, near the dam where she had gone with her father, on the worn lead pipe there were words written and she had said, "What do they mean?" They were bad words, he explained, and there was that about his explanation that made her feel guilty, as though she had taken the white chalk and put the words there. Leda was sorry, so she knew what was wrong.
"Oh, lift me from the grass!I die! I faint! I fail!Let they love in kisses rainOn my lips and eyelids pale."
The voice droned on and on and Mitch traced the holes in the paper with her pencil and thought more of Leda and still not enough. She thought of the talk at the dinner table in the house on Sunday, the way Leda had reached under the tablecloth and gripped Mitch's hand, as if to give her strength to answer Marsha's "You see, Mitch, it wasn't so bad after all. I guess Bud can be a gentleman when he wants to." And Sunday evening, before Leda ran downstairs to greet Jake and go off with him, she had kissed Mitch's lips and looked at her and told her it would not be the same with Jake.
"I have to go," she said, "but it won't be the same. Not like us, kid. No."
"My heart beats loud and fast.Oh! press it to thine own againWhere it will break at last."
Professor Aimes stopped, leaned forward, resting his elbow on the rostrum, his glasses in his hand. "That," he said dramatically, "is what I mean about Shelley."
\*
When Mitch entered zoology lab after English class, Robin Maurer was waiting inside the door. She pulled Mitch over to the corner and began talking to her in a plaintive, earnest tone.
Robin had met Tom Edwards in her French class, a separate section from the one Mitch attended. He played the tenor sax and he was an independent and Robin had liked him immediately, the way Mitch had liked Charlie. He was one of the members of the combo that entertained at the housewarming on Saturday. As Marsha had requested, Robin asked a Sig Delt to the dance, an old flame of Kitten Clark's. When Kitten got pinned, Robin's date proceeded to get highly inebriated out on the back steps. During one of the half-dozen intermissions, Robin and Tom went for a ride. There was a flat tire with no spare tire in the back, and they had been stranded until one o'clock in the morning.
"It was innocent, really, Mitch, Tom didn't even put his arm around me. But I got in after hours, and it's the talk of the dance. Did Leda tell you anything about it?"
"No, I don't think she heard that it happened."
"Everyone heard! He didn't get back for the dance---to play, I mean---and I was missing. Everybody heard about it, and they were whispering all through the house yesterday. Mitch, there's a chapter meeting tonight and I'm going to get it Bet you anything, Mitch. Bet you I get it."
For a bare, awkward minute, Mitch thought of telling Robin about it. She thought of saying, "Look, you don't know what happened to me," but she remembered Leda's words: "Don't trust anyone. Don't tell anyone what happened in the cellar." She let Robin talk, and she listened until the class was called to order and the lab instructor passed the tiny slabs around to the members of the class. Moving along to the third row where her microscope was, Mitch slipped the slide under and peered down at the wiggling amoeba. Then the slide went black.
"You are now looking at the finger of Lucifer. Much more interesting than an amoeba."
"Hello," she said, raising her head and grinning at him. "I was just getting it focused."
"My finger?"
"No. I was getting the amoeba focused."
"Ah," Lucifer said. "So you're not interested in my finger."
Any time but now, Mitch thought. Any day but today I could talk to him and laugh at him because I like him. But not today. She looked down into the microscope again, and Lucifer bent his head and moved it close to hers. "Let me see too," he said. "Don't be so stingy with your amoebas."
She pulled the slide out and began to write in her lab book.
"Have a rip-roaring time with old Step-and-Fetch-It Saturday?"
"Yes," she said.
"Tell me," he leaned on the lab bench, "is it true that tall men are aggressive?"
Mitch didn't answer. She tried to think so that she could write in her book, but he kept chatting away.
"Are they the best lovers?" he said. "Are they the world's very best lovers?"
"I have to get this, Lucifer. Please---"
"If I were only tall," he said. "If I were only tall and could make you forget amoebas."
The lab instructor shot her a piercing glance.
"Please go, Lucifer."
"You wouldn't say that to an amoeba!" he said.
"He's watching us," she told Lucifer, pointing over toward the instructor, but Lucifer ignored the warning.
A piece of paper landed at Mitch's feet and she reached to get the note that Robin had rolled to her. Lucifer caught it instead and held it up high and said, "Ah, a note! A secret message."
He did not see the angry expression on the lab instructor's face as he came toward them. Lucifer blew at the folded paper the note was written on, and he laughed. "Ha!" he said. "Communists infiltrating into our school system. Cranston Communists delivering their nasty notes of plenty!"
"Give that to me!" the instructor snapped. "Does this look like a high-school room to you?"
Lucifer jumped back and his face flushed. The instructor pointed to the note and tapped on the bench. "Who wrote this?" he said loudly.
In a strained voice, Robin Maurer answered.
"All right, you two, outside. One week's suspension from the course! When you get back in, we'll see if you've grown up any. Bad enough you act like freshmen, without acting like jackasses!"
He gave Lucifer a tap on the arm and pointed toward the door. Robin followed him, her head bent, her ears scarlet. Suspensions were reported to sorority houses. It was a means of checking on the pledges, and freshman instructors had been advised of this ruling by Panhellenic. Suddenly Mitch hated the clownish idiot who had caused Robin's expulsion. She hated him along with all of them. Men don't care what they do. Leda was right. A gnawing loneliness seeped into Mitch's veins and she thought of Leda and how Leda touched her. The instructor pushed the amoeba slide in front of her and said, "You'll be next if you don't get busy, Miss Mitchell."
\*
Charlie was waiting for Mitch at the parking lot that afternoon. She had purposely avoided him when French class was over and the students shuffled out of the room. He stood next to her car and watched her coming.
"I missed you. You didn't wait."
"I'm in a hurry, Charlie. I don't feel good."
"Gee, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Can I do anything?"
"No, I'd better hurry to the house."
He opened the door for her, his brow wrinkled with concern, his hand helping her.
"Maybe I can ask you this quick," he said. "Go to a show with me Saturday?"
Mitch started the motor and looked back to see how much room there was between her car and the one behind her. He was hanging on the door of the car, looking at her with a sweet but servile expression. She felt sorry for him but she did not want to go out with him.
"Yes," she said for no reason that she could think of, "I'll go with you. Saturday."
When she drove off the dust kicked up in a cloud in the back and he stood in it. "Hope you feel better," he called after her, pushing the thin specks of dirt away from his face.
From the street, along College Avenue, another voice called. Mitch brought the car to an abrupt halt, wheels squeaking and tires scraping against the curb when she pulled in.
"Hello, kid," Leda said, tossing her books on the seat "I thought you wouldn't hear me. Hello," she said again, smiling at Mitch and touching Mitch's skirt with her hand. "I missed you today," she said, and the car started fast on the black pavement.
Leda watched the girl as she drove. She had a mad, fleeting impulse to reach over and push the wheel so that there would be no more. The day had been an agony of guilt and regret, but her need for Mitch was no less strong. Jan's, face had come to hex like a ghost, tormenting her with shame, symbolizing the impossibility of Mitch and Leda and a love that was wrong. It was not even love. It could very possibly not even be love. But where Jake was plastic, Mitch---this feeling for Mitch was wood. It was wood and it could do everything wood should do---splinter, crack, and burn. Now it burned, deep near her stomach, and there was never that with Jake. There was a compulsion with Jake, a compulsion to be taken and used and discarded. And with Mitch it was not like that. With Mitch it was clean. It was impossibly clean.
"Let's drive out to the farm road, Mitch."
"O.K."
"Drive fast, Mitch. Let's go fast."
For that time before they reached the dirt road and swung off to the side near the pasture where there was space to park, Leda let her hair blow out in the wind and felt the crisp autumn air on her cheeks. Then, sitting there in the car with Mitch, she said, "I think this is peace, Mitch. I think this is what I always wanted."
Leda always talked like that, dramatically, as if each word swelled with significance and was true. Mitch saw her beside her and saw her head resting on the leather seat, sitting loose and relaxed, staring up at the sky and the way it looked after the sudden and short showers that came and went like that in the Midwest
She said, "Leda, did you hear anything about Robin?"
"Something, yes. Something about staying out late and going off from the dance with one of the musicians. She's in for it"
"It's not her fault," Mitch began, but Leda reached for her hand and said, "Don't! Let's not talk about the sorority and school and all that. Mitch, how do you feel about me?"
Mitch stammered. "I---I told you. I think that I---love you . . ."
"My God, think of the way people would talk if they knew! Leda, the fraternity man's little damn darling, and here she sits wishing all to hell she could reach over and kiss you. But she can't because it's not right. Not here in broad daylight. Not in the open. It's right in the night. Then it's right. Huh, Mitch?"
"Don't get mad, Leda."
"I'm not mad, Mitch, honey, I'm not. I just wonder why I don't lose my goddamn mind. I just wonder what I'm all about and how come you came along and gave me a clue. That's all. And I wonder about Jake and oh, God!"
"Leda, in class today, I thought about Bud Roberts and I thought that if it hadn't been for you---if you hadn't cared---I guess I would have killed myself almost."
Leda started to lean toward the girl, but drew back when she heard the voices. Through the woods a boy with a lettered sweater came, holding hands with a girl who was looking up at him, and they were smiling and pressing close to one another as they walked down the path and sat on the rock, back there where the road turned. From where they sat, they could see Mitch's car, and Leda felt a swing of shame and guilt ride through her. She snapped the radio on.
"God," she said, "it really is muggy! Out here in the damn country, it really is muggy."
"I thought," Mitch said, "that it was sort of like fate, what happened Sunday morning. I needed someone so badly."
Mitch's confessions seemed ludicrous and unholy to Leda, there with the boy and girl behind them. She wished she would stop. The presence of the couple that had come through the woods inhibited her and made her nervous. She began to hum slowly to the music on the radio.
"Do you feel that way, Leda?"
Mitch leaned close to Leda and Leda pulled back and sat near the door. "Let's drive back to the house," she said. "I've got a pack of mail waiting for me."
"Do you want to go, Leda?"
"Why not?" She could see them through the rear mirror. "Can't stay here all day."
"I thought you liked it out here."
"Well, I want to go. Can't stay in one place all your life, kid."
Mitch said, "O.K.," and she turned the switch on. The rest of the way back to the house, they did not talk. When they drove in, Leda jumped out and ran in and Mitch followed. Together they found their mail, a letter for Leda from Jan's beau, and for Mitch, a letter from her father. When they were on the way to their room, Marsha called to Leda. "Chapter meeting," she said, "at seven tonight, Leda. It's important, so be there."
"Hey," Leda called back, "I want to talk to you about an exchange dinner. The Sig Delts are hot to have an exchange next week. We could set ourselves up good with that kind of deal, and maybe the silverware will be here by then. It should have been here long ago and I think---"
Mitch left them talking there in the hall, and as she turned the doorknob to her room, Robin appeared. Her eyes were swollen with crying and she told Mitch that she had reported the suspension herself. "They might as well know," she said. "My goose is cooked anyway."
"It's my fault," Mitch said. "That Lucifer is a---"
"He's wonderful, Mitch. He's the first all-around guy I've met besides Tom. No, it's my fault---and I don't care. If I get kicked out, my folks will be wild. You don't know my folks, Mitch. Prestige and social climbing means everything. It'll kill them."
"You don't think they'd kick you out."
"I think they will. Sure, I try to tell myself they won't, but I asked for it. I really did, and then Saturday night finished everything. I wish Marsha weren't president. She's the only decent one."
"Leda's wonderful too." Mitch smiled. "She's been really wonderful and---"
"I trust her like I trust a snake," Robin snarled. "Don't let her fool you, Mitch. Around here she may be a big cheese, but I've heard enough to convince me she'd make Amber look like a New England schoolteacher. You never can trust that kind of girl."
Opening the door to the room, Mitch said, "We better not talk in the hall."
Robin looked around her and shook her head and said it didn't really matter where she talked. She said she had to go back to her room and get her homework done because at least that much wasn't messed up, and there was that much.
\*
After dinner that evening, the Tri Eps filed into the small room off the living room. This was the Chapter Room, where the active members of Epsilon Epsilon Epsilon held their meetings. The pledges were instructed to stay upstairs in their rooms when such meetings occurred, and Mitch was propped up on her bed, staring unseeingly at her French assignment.
It had been impossible to concentrate these first few weeks of school. There was always a debris of thoughts to clear up in her mind, and when one mass was swept away, the windfall hit again and each new amount seemed staggering. Determined, Mitch began reading the lesson aloud, trying to impress the catchy rules of pronunciation on her brain, but she could not. Her thoughts returned invariably to the afternoon and the way Leda had been and the change that was always instant and arresting within Leda. Mitch got to her feet and drifted to the window, and sat in the chair looking out into the street Monday night was chapter-meeting night in Greek Town, and there was a reverent hush in the neighborhood. Decisions and rules and amendments to rules were being developed throughout the area, and it was like a grand corporation manufacturing a variety of brands, all tested, all ready to compete with one another. As she saw the darkness with the spots of light in it and the stillness, Mitch wondered what it was like to be an independent She wondered if Charlie were working in the drugstore, and if Lucifer were downing in the chapter meeting across the street, and then she wondered achingly what Bud Roberts was thinking and if he had told his "brothers" and if he laughed and told them and if they laughed too. She picked up a copy of the school magazine and turned the pages, reading the jokes without smiling and looking at the pictures of the students there. The breeze coming in on her was cool, but there was a tiredness in her like that of a series of humid days that were dose and without air. . .
"Is that the way you study?" Leda said, nudging Mitch. She was smiling and her hand on Mitch's shoulder was the same hand that had been there on Sunday and not cold or frigid now.
"I fell asleep."
"I guess you did! Well, that damn meeting is over for another week. Robin's case has been referred to Grand Council. They're meeting in Marsha's room now."
Mitch sat forward. "You think it'll be O.K.?"
"I don't know, honey. It's hard to tell. I just don't know."
Leda rolled her hair in tight ringlets and fished her soap from her glass. "Let's go to bed right away," she said. "I'm going to wash up and then let's go to bed."
"What about the Grand Council?"
"Don't wait for them to decide anything. It may take all night. Get your bath, and we'll turn in. O.K.?"
The bath water was too hot, but after the sting it felt good on Mitch's leg. In the other tub, Marybell Van Casey was singing "On, Wisconsin" and splashing the water vigorously. Mitch eased herself down to a sitting position, listened to the other girls in the room, washing out their socks, brushing their teeth, and talking about Robin. She recognized Kitten's voice, and the voices of several of the pledges, but there was no way of learning more about the incidents that occurred during the meeting. The feelings were mixed, and influenced by what each girl thought she should feel. The pledges thought that they should side with those who recommended stern reprimand, and only a few dared to express sympathy. None rebelled against the occurrence. No one defied those who accused Robin. Only Mitch, inside, and she did not speak out She pushed the soapy cloth back and forth on her arms and legs and neck and remained silent. There was enough to be wary of, and there were no answers to her own questions.
Later, Leda turned the lights out and for a moment there was no sound in the room, but an air of expectancy, a period of waiting for one to speak. Then, in a rush of covers, springing over to Mitch's bed, Leda clung to the girl. She said, "Mitch, Mitch, oh, God!" and then they came together.
When they talked, later, Mitch asked her about the afternoon and Leda cried, saying her words between half sobs welling from the slim body that was pressed tight against Mitch's.
"I don't know what came over me," she said. "That couple came along and I don't know what happened to me. I felt as though---Mitch, don't ask me."
"How did you feel?"
"I felt---guilty."
Mitch said, "Oh."
"Do you, Mitch? About us?"
"No . . . not yet. I felt--- I know how you feel because I think I felt that way after Bud Roberts and---"
"No!" Leda said sharply. "Not that way! Not that kind of guilt! God, no!"
Leda wanted to laugh and scream and be hysterical until her whole body was spent and she could fall exhausted down into a bed of grass and let the wet blades cool her. How was it possible to make a child understand what an adult could not comprehend either? It was better that she did not realize, that the kinks and bumps and twists that resolved themselves into the overt actions were shielded and hidden from Mitch. One could bear guilt. For both, one could carry it and it would be better.
"Go to sleep, darling," Leda said. "I love you, Mitch. This is between us. It's ours, Mitch. Keep it ours and never tell it"
Mitch said, "I will. I don't talk about things. I mean, I think I know what you mean."
They could hear the chattering just when sleep was coming, and the rush of the feet in the hall. Leda sat up straight and said, "What in hell is going on?"
She poked the light button and unlocked the door. "Hey," she yelled, "what the hell is the rumpus? Did the Russians attack?"
One of the girls stopped long enough to say that Robin Maurer was depledged. That tomorrow she would have to move out of the house.
The Tri Epsilon porch was crowded when Mitch and Charlie came up the walk and stood against the columns. In the swings and chairs there were half a dozen couples locked in embraces at various angles, and many others clung to their dates standing. It was Saturday evening, five minutes shy of closing hour, and the scene was usual.
"I had a good time with you tonight," Charlie said, and in that setting his voice sounded loud and intrusive. Mitch glanced at the minute hand flying slowly in circles under the glass in her wrist watch. They had been to a late movie and for sodas in the Cortille after. Soon she would be with Leda. Three minutes.
The porch light flickered on and off to give the signal, and a voice called out, "Twelve-thirty." Charlie shuffled his feet uneasily. "Well," he said, coughing, lingering, "this is it, I guess... May I kiss you good night?"
Mitch was uncomfortable when he leaned forward and let his lips touch hers lightly. Then he backed away, waving faintly, a curved grin on his round young face, until he collided with a couple behind him saying good night at the edge of the steps. Mitch turned, and once inside the screen door, ran up the stairs to see if Leda was there. The room was dark, and when Mitch pushed the light button, there was only the disarray of clothing on the bed, the shoes kicked about on the floor, and the papers scattered on the desk, reminding her that her economics assignment was barely begun. She pulled the blinds and slipped out of her clothes, into her terry-cloth robe and the worn slippers. The bathroom was crowded with Tri Epsilons, and as she ran her bath water and waited, she saw them pass in the halls, tired and bedraggled from their evening, many of them rushing to the windows to wave to their dates as they left. Leda was not among them, and as Mitch eased herself into the hot water, she prayed that Leda was only late, and not in trouble somewhere with Jake.
Jane Bell called her a few minutes after she was in the bathtub.
"Phone," she said. "Some guy."
Dripping and curious, Mitch hovered in a wide towel as she took the call in the booth outside the bathroom. "I said, this is Jake. You know."
"Yes, but---Has something---"
"Listen," he yelled out at her, "don't blurt anything out where the whole bunch can hear. Leda's O.K. We're just a little tied up and she'll be late. Now listen, can you hear me?"
Mitch's knees grew unexplainably weak. "Yes," she said.
"In one hour exactly---that's at one-forty-five---I'll let Leda off at the side entrance. She'll come in through the cellar door. Got that? You get down there and unlock the door for her. Now, have you got it?"
"I guess so, but---"
"Don't get panicky. It happens all the time. Look, just be a sweet kid and get that door unlocked for her. Don't unlock it ahead of time, though, because someone might get wise. They'll be in bed by the time we get in. And something else---you there?"
"Yes."
"Leda says not to tell anyone she's still out. If anyone comes looking for her, lock the door and say she's sick, or pretend you're asleep, or something like that O.K.? And when you meet her at the cellar door, bring her robe and slippers."
"Is it all right? I mean---"
"Look, kid, Leda wouldn't ask you to do it if it wasn't. Now be a sweetheart. Promise?"
"I promise," Mitch said, and the click came in her ear after Jake said, "Fine, baby, don't forget. One-forty-five."
She did not bother to finish her bath. Pulling the plug, she gathered her things together and came face to face with Kitten as she was about to leave. "Hey," Kitten said, "how are you? Why don't you come down for hot cocoa in the kitchen?"
"O.K.," Mitch said. "As soon as I get into my pajamas."
After Mitch was dressed, she wrapped Leda's thin robe about her slippers and tied them in a ball. On the shelf near the stairway to the cellar, she hid them behind the large can of turpentine.
When she reached the kitchen, there was a huge pot of steaming cocoa on the stove. Marsha was stirring it, the sleeves of her green wool robe pushed up to her elbows, her hair rolled up on red and white rag curlers. At the table, Kitten and Casey and Bebe Duncan talked busily about their evening.
"Hi," Kitten said. "I suppose you couldn't drag Leda down."
Mitch laughed and shook her head. She sat on the high wooden stool and looked at her watch. It was ten minutes after one. Marsha poured the cocoa into the cups and pulled a chair over near the table. They kept on talking. Casey asked Mitch to try out for the swimming team next week, and the chatter about sports grew and lasted. One-twenty.
"Who was your date tonight?" Kitten asked suddenly, turning toward Mitch.
"Oh, Charlie. He's in some of my classes."
"Independent?"
The cocoa was cold and flat. "Yes. I---It was my first date with him. He's very nice to me."
"I didn't mean anything," Kitten said. "It's O.K. to date them once in a while. You know, just so it's not a habit."
Mitch swallowed. She had expected more trouble from Kitten, but the subject changed again and Charlie was virtually forgotten by everyone. The minute hand seemed to whirl. There was no way to go down the cellar steps without being seen, and the talk was endless. When Marsha moved toward the stove to reheat the remaining cocoa, Mitch felt a warm rising in her chest and her hopes of getting Leda in safely caved in.
"I'm not the least bit sleepy," she heard Bebe say, "not the least bit"
\*
Jake came back from the phone booth with a smile. He signaled to Leda to finish her beer. "Now, that's the kind of roommate to have," he said. "Lets you take her car and opens the door for you when you come home. I gotta' train mine better."
He paid the check and took her arm. She stumbled on the cobblestone walk that led away from the Fat Lady, a cafe just on the outskirts of Cranston. It was a popular place for late dates because few of the regular college crowd went there. Those who did were usually there for the same reason---to avoid being seen and to make a few phone calls before starting off someplace else.
The air was brisk, and the ground was still soft from the rain that had fallen earlier in the day. Dizzily, Leda thought of Mitch, and burned to be with her, but in the pocket of her coat her fingers touched the letter. Jan was coming in five days. She laid her head back on the seat in Mitch's car, and when the motor started and the tires skidded loose, she recalled last night's dream.
She had been asleep somewhere in a rambling bed with Mitch beside her. They were naked, and covering them there was a brilliant red comforter, and snow was falling around them. Sleepily, and with that surging ache inside of her, she had turned to Mitch's back and cupped her hands around on Mitch's breasts and kissed the smooth white skin of her shoulders, and Mitch had turned instantly. She had said, "Leda!" in that startled, shocked voice, and the features of her face fell away and became Jan's features. And again, "Leda, what on earth are you doing?" The dream had ended there.
"Hell!" Leda swore, and Jake grinned, his eyes on the road. "You got yourself a little load on, miss. Too bad, too---could have been a good night for it"
"Every night's a good night for it where you're concerned."
"That's why you love me," Jake laughed, "my insatiable queen!"
"What time is it?" Leda said.
He turned the corner sharply and she fell over against him.
"We're on time," he said. "It's only one-twenty now. We'll make it right on the dot."
\*
The kitchen lights were bright at a quarter to two, and inside, Mitch sat on the stool, her eyes moving from the empty cocoa cup to the cellar stairs just outside the kitchen door on the left Marsha was rattling on about clothes and only Kitten had left the gathering to go up to bed. Leda was waiting, but there was no way to reach her. Because of Jake. When she thought of him, Mitch glowered at the floor, imagining in a fleeting series of mental pictures what they had done that evening, Jake and Leda. The pictures were sordid and painful, and almost compulsively Mitch forced them to come, and each one was worse. Leda did not love him, and yet she persisted in being with him, always, as if he were a medicine or a drug. He drove Mitch's car, and called up and asked Mitch to let Leda in, and the whole affair was tiresome and nerve-racking. Mitch vowed she would tell Leda not to see Jake any more. When she got in, and if she got in, Mitch would tell her that she didn't like it. She loved Leda and Leda loved her. There was no need for this fear and worry and frustration. Suddenly, Mitch realized that Marsha was standing there, speaking to her.
"I said, are you coming to bed? It's two o'clock."
Mitch jumped to her feet and hurried to rinse her cup and saucer at the sink. Then, after the light was switched off in the kitchen, she followed Bebe and Marsha up the stairs to the second floor. She would have to wait to run back and open the door for Leda if she was still there! If everything would only work out! Marsha waved good night, and Bebe wandered off down the hall, humming "St. Louis Blues" aimlessly.
The house was strangely quiet and still. Mitch waited ten minutes in the doorway of the bathroom, and then, softly, the tips of her slippers barely touching the stairs as she moved, she found her way to the cellar stairway, and reaching up behind the large square tin can, she found the rolled ball of clothing that she had left there. Her other hand grabbed the long silver flashlight, and she flinched at the strong creaking of the stairs as she made her way down and ran toward the door in the back room of the cellar. She unbolted it, and Leda, leaning up against it on the outside, nearly fell in. Jake was behind her. She held the door open an inch and whispered something to him before she closed it. Then she turned toward Mitch, and reaching for her waist, she came into her arms, and her kiss smelled heavily of stale liquor and tobacco.
"Get into your robe," Mitch said. "I'm petrified. You don't know how my stomach felt when it was time and everyone was still in the kitchen."
"I could see them," Leda said, "but I knew you'd come, honey. When you could."
She began to pull her sweater over her head and unhook her skirt "I'll have to undress here and leave my clothes under the pillows until tomorrow. Then if anyone sees us going back upstairs, we can say we came down for Cokes. Couldn't sleep. I even have two nickels. Look, you go get two Cokes out of the machine. God, my clothes are stuck to me!"
Mitch walked across the room and slid the nickels into the slot. "If I'd thought of the machine, I could have got here on time. I never thought of it."
She felt the cold ice feeling of the bottles as they hit the small case at the bottom of the machine. "Shall I open them?"
Leda said, "Yes," and then, "Look, Mitch"
Mitch turned the flashlight to look at her, and she saw her standing there, bare except for the spike-heeled shoes on her feet. "What are you going to do about it?" Leda laughed. "You aren't going to just stand there?"
Slowly, Mitch came toward her and set the Cokes on the table. She put out the flashlight, and her hands found Leda's body. Then for the first time, she was the aggressor. The strength that was sleeping in her awakened. A powerful compulsion welled up inside of Mitch as she felt the pliant curves of Leda's body. Then they lay together, breathless and filled with a new peace. When she spoke at last, Leda said, "Mitch? Oh, God, I love you."
A feeling of power, and the knowledge of Leda's quivering submission, filled Mitch as she let her eyes stare up at the blackness in the cellar. When she had gone to Leda, she had not known what she would do, and it happened without thought or care for what followed, but it was easy and natural. She was the conqueror, and it was a sensation abundant in glory and desire.
"Want to stay here for a while?" Leda asked. "It's too late now for anyone to care whether we're in our rooms or not. I like it here. . . . Did you have a good time?"
Mitch said, "Pretty good. We went to a movie. Nothing special." She rubbed Leda's back and patted her hair. "How about you?" she said. "How come you were late?"
"Oh, Jake was in one of his usual carnal moods but I was too high and we argued."
"Then why do you do it, Leda? With Jake, I mean."
"What?"
"Why do you do it with Jake?"
"Who knows?" Leda said, stretching magnificently, pulling her robe around her. "I don't know. Maybe I'm trying to prove something."
"I don't like it, Leda"
"You don't like it! What in hell does that mean?"
"It means," Mitch said, "that I don't like you sleeping with a guy when you're in love with me." Even to Mitch the words sounded unreal, as if she were playing a game or reading someone else's lines or living a foolish semiconscious daydream. Yet that was what she had wanted to say.
Leda sat up and moved from Mitch. "Listen," she said. "Don't get me wrong. I may be a little uncertain about it, but men come first with me. What do you think we are--- engaged to be married? Are you going to propose now, and then settle down with me in a little goddamn vine-covered cottage and raise kids? Sometimes you're Godawful thick in the head, Mitch."
"But you said you didn't even like Jake! Maybe I am thick in the head."
"Maybe you are! Who said anything about Jake? I said men come first. Men, as distinguished from women! Sure, I've got bisexual tendencies, but by God, I'm no damn Lesbian."
"You said you loved me. Maybe I don't understand--- Leda got up from the couch and picked the Coke bottle up. She took the flash in her hand, and then, turning around to face Mitch sitting there, she said, "You don't understand much at all. But get this! Jan is coming Wednesday. Lay off the love business while she's around. I'm afraid she doesn't understand much either, and she sure as hell wouldn't understand this. I'm tired. I'm going to bed."
"Wait a minute," Mitch said, catching the girl's wrist "Wait a minute, Leda. I love you. Don't leave it like this. All I know is that I love you."
"You better get to know men too, kid. I mean that. There are a lot of people who love both and no one gives a damn, and they just say you're oversexed and they don't care. But they start getting interested when you stick to one sex. Like you've been doing, Mitch. I couldn't love you if you were a Lesbian."
"I'm not," Mitch said, wondering what the word meant "I'm not. I---I just haven't met a man yet who makes me feel the way you do."
"Maybe you don't give them a chance," Leda answered. "Come on now. Let's go to bed. God, it's three-thirty."
They tiptoed up the back steps and down the quiet, dimly lighted hall to their room. Leda pulled the covers back and fell into her bed. She murmured a tired good night, and her eyes closed and her breathing came heavily. Mitch did not sleep. She lay tossing about on her bed across from Leda, her mind running through the incidents of the evening to review them and examine them. There was only a fragmentary edge left to the sensuous memory of her loving Leda, and looming now in a sick foreground there was this word.
Slowly Mitch got up and went to the bookshelf, taking from it the blue book, and leafing through it, holding it near the flash that Leda had left on the desk.
Les'bian (lezTrian) adj. 1. Of or pertaining to Lesbos (now Mytilene), one of the Aegean Islands. 2. Erotic;---in allusion to the reputed sensuality of the people of Lesbos.
Mitch closed the book and stood staring at the bare light of the street lamp in front of Epsilon Epsilon Epsilon. She could hear Leda's breath coming slower now and more evenly, in deep sleep, and the dictionary had told her nothing.
Mitch sat in the stuffed chair near the window sewing up the burst seam in her coat.
"Well, darling, I wish you could see what Dwight has done with the studio. Of course, it's the only place in the whole goddamn office building where a body can get a good stiff drink during the day and Dwight says---"
The words went on endlessly, like a radio playing in a room when you do not listen constantly, but now and then, catching illusive scraps of the whole meaning, the crumbs of an endless dialogue. Jan had been there for three days. They were funny days. Leda fastened herself to Jan, hanging on the words and laughing before the pause, compulsively, almost as though she were afraid Jan would not say something hilarious each time she spoke. Jan was beautiful, too, older, with faint lines in her face that became real under the harsh electric ceiling light in Mitch's and Leda's room, but still very fine and hardly there at all. Leda sat on the bed next to Jan that afternoon.
"I don't know if I'll marry him or not," she heard Leda say. "Do you like him, Jan?'
"He's a doll, darling. You know who he reminds me of? Frank Pierce. Member him? Des Moines. Member?"
"Oh, God," Leda shrieked, laughing. "Him! One perfect rose! Sure, I remember Frank Pierce."
Jan wore a tight print dress, high black alligator shoes that were strapped around her slender ankles, and her fingers flashed and sparkled with rings and glitter. Mother Nessy had said, "Your jewelry is exquisite, Mrs. Taylor. Why, it's fabulous!" when she met Jan on Wednesday and Jan had dinner in the dining room with the Tri Eps. Mitch sat at another table. From where she sat she could see Leda's face, her eyes avoiding Mitch and fixed on Jan's red lips and the whiteness of her teeth. When Jan left the house to return to the hotel for the evening, everyone had flocked to Leda's room to say how they liked her mother and what fun it must be to have such a young mother. Then when they were gone and it was late, Leda did not talk to Mitch or come to her there in the night. And Mitch worried.
She had found the explanation for the word in a thick volume on the psychology shelf in the library. A Lesbian was abnormal, a female who could not have satisfactory relations with a male, but only with another female, and Mitch knew it had been that way. A bisexual could love both sexes, and Leda loved Mitch, and she was with Jake like that too. Mitch thought back to the crushes she had had in boarding school, awful emotional orgies in which she had idolized certain teachers, and Miss English, the dietician, and there had never been any boys. Until Leda, there had been no one who had set her whole body pulsing with the sweet pain and the glory in the end. That was abnormal.
Jan was looking at Mitch, waiting for an answer to the question Mitch did not hear.
"I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."
Leda smiled. "Jan said, 'Who's your man of the hour?' It's Charlie, isn't it, Mitch? Isn't he the one?"
The needle came through the wool in the skirt and pricked Mitch's finger. She tried to force a smile, but her lips felt dry and stiff. She knew that Leda was baiting her, trying to indicate the proper answer to Mitch. "I guess so," Mitch said. "I guess he's the one."
There was a mixed look of repulsion and pity on Jan's face when she regarded Mitch. Mitch could feel it, like the heat of a warm sun, uncomfortable and sickly. She wished that they would go someplace and not stay here in the room and she felt that Jan knew she was abnormal.
"Well, what's he like?" Jan continued. "I bet he's a big wheel on campus and you'll be wearing his pin before long."
Leda jumped up to change the subject and grabbed a yellow envelope from the desk. "I forgot to show you the pictures," she said. "I forgot to show you the pictures Jake and I took on our last picnic." She fumbled with the seal on the envelope until the pictures fell out on the bed and Jan picked them up and riffled through them, laughing and screaming out her words the way she did. Mitch was grateful when Casey poked her head in the door and said, "Phone for you, Mitch. Want to take it in the hall?"
"Don't let us disturb you, honey," Jan sang out, but Mitch had already moved for the door and followed the blue hall rug down to the booth near the bathroom.
"Peculiar girl," Jan said. "Certainly is awkward."
Leda passed another snapshot to Jan. It would be over tomorrow. Jan would leave and it would be over, Leda thought, and then she could make it up to Mitch. It had been horrible, the last few days, treating Mitch as though she were a piece of furniture, Jan's presence heightening the guilt that Leda nurtured.
"Is she popular?"
"Oh, I don't know, Jan," Leda answered. "She goes out a lot. Really, she can be sweet"
"Well, I haven't even seen her smile. Not once. Her lips just stretch, but she doesn't smile. You don't even seem like friends."
Leda said, "We get along all right."
Jan lit a cigarette and stuck the end into a long ivory holder. "I do like the other girls," she said. "I thought you'd probably get yourself all graduated before I could get down here and see your sorority house and meet everyone. Dwight is hell about traveling. I told you I went to Louisville by myself for the fabric show, and he just stayed behind. He hates to travel."
Leda had met Dwight during the summer. He was a fat, greasy man with a stubby cigar, wet on the end, hanging there from his mouth, and his head thinly covered with single strands of black hair that began inches back from his high forehead. On his little finger he wore a huge diamond ring, and there was a sweet, sickly smell of cologne and tobacco about him. Dwight was a big man in fabrics and Jan worked with him. She would come home and open the door and Leda would hear his voice behind Jan's, and then the shaking of the cocktail mixer and the ice cubes, the low music on the phonograph and Jan's laughter ringing through the rooms. He had looked at Leda and shown his brown teeth and he'd said, "Well, now, by God. An apple never falls far from the tree!"
"You going to marry Dwight?" Leda asked.
Jan inhaled and let the smoke come out in tiny round clouds. "I don't know. I'd never have to worry where my next thousand is coming from. He hasn't asked me yet, you know."
Glancing at her watch, Leda said, "Maybe we better go downstairs. It's almost time for dinner. Fish tonight."
"Hell!" Jan swore. "I abhor fish! Member Ted Thorpton? Member the way he used to drag me around to those damn fish houses for lobster Newburg? I think you came along a couple of times too, honey. You member? Washington? Member that place we went down a gangplank to get to and there was sawdust on the floor and that ungodly fishy odor?"
Leda nodded. She remembered.
\*
Robin Maurer put the arm back in its cradle and left the phone booth. Lucifer was leaning against the brick wall of the dorm reading the newspaper.
"Any luck?" he said.
"No, it's too late for tonight. She says she's got some kind of a special date with a guy named Charlie. No telling what that sorority has thought up. She's probably going off to smoke opium someplace."
"Why didn't you ask her to join us? Her and that Charlie horse?"
"I did. She said she couldn't She said it was a special night. Who knows?"
"Did you tell her the party was right across the street at Delta Pi? Maybe she's lazy. Maybe she thought it was someplace she'd have to hike to."
"No," Robin said, pulling a leaf off the tree as they passed down the walk from Main Dorm. "I think she might have a good date or something and wants to be alone with him. Then too, maybe the Tri Eps forbade her to be seen with an old reprobate like me." They turned the corner and kicked the leaves while they walked. "Tell me something, Luke," she said, "honestly."
"Sure."
"How about your fraternity brothers? Don't they give you a bad time because you date me? I know how independents go over in Greek Town."
Lucifer reached over for her hand and swung it back and forth while they walked along. "Naw," he said, "not at our house. We ain't rich and we don't know anyone who is. We ditched the rule book a long time ago. That's how come I got in. You know, I'm pure Indian, with a little Russian on my mother's side, and a little Chinese on my father's. Seriously, Robbie, it ain't that way at the house. Sure, we got eager beavers with all kinds of fool notions, but none of them go into effect. I couldn't stomach it"
"I wish Mitch would get out of Tri Ep. I have a feeling she's not going to stomach it either. The whole crowd's too fast"
"How about that Leda?" Lucifer whistled. "Wooooo-owwww!"
\*
The candles were lighted on the tables in the Tri Ep dining room. At the head table, Leda and Jan sat opposite Mother Nessy, and Marsha sat beside her. Above the other voices singing out, Mitch could hear Kitten Clark's lively soprano. Nessy tapped on her glass, giving the signal to eat Mitch sat at a side table in the back of the room Her fork stabbed at the thin pieces of white fish, and pushed them in the mashed potatoes before she raised the fork to her mouth and swallowed the tasteless concoction. She thought of calling Robin back and telling her that Charlie and she would meet them after all, but then she could not. It was all planned. She would pick him up in the car at eight-thirty. They would have to be alone, Mitch knew, or it would never work. The food felt heavy in her stomach, and she took each bite with a long sip of water. Casey sat across from her, still talking about the swimming team, encouraging Mitch to join it
"You were terrific the other day," she said. "With enough practice you could develop fast." "I'll come over again on Monday," Mitch told her.
Through the maze of faces, Mitch saw Leda look at her and then away. She heard Jan's voice, louder than any other, and the inevitable laughter following what she said. Mitch wondered if she ever said anything you were not supposed to laugh at.
"How's your backstroke? That's what we need. Someone with a neat backstroke."
"I'll have to get more time in. It used to be my best stroke."
"Say, wasn't that Robin Maurer on the phone?"
"Yes."
The others at the table looked up, interested. "I thought I recognized her voice," Casey said. "How is she?"
"Pretty good. She's living at the dorm."
"Too bad about Robin," Casey sighed. "She just wasn't sorority material."
It was during dessert, when they sang the "Sweetheart Song," that Mitch could feel Leda's eyes watching her. Heat poured through Mitch, and there was a light yearning in her breasts that seeped through the rest of her body and warmed her.
"Tri Epsilon is a sisterhoodOf love that lasts forever,Where memories are golden onesThat are forgotten never!"Tri Epsilon, Tri Epsilon,For her name we will striveSo long as we are sisters,So long as we're alive."
Marsha led the applause, and then, rising and standing at her place at the head table, she waited for the room to quiet down. "Remember," she said, "closing hours are at one tonight because of the game tomorrow. That's an extra half hour, so don't anyone be late. And now I think we all ought to say good-by to Mrs. Taylor. She's leaving us tomorrow, and I know we've all enjoyed her visit." Marsha hummed the note. The words sounded sad and heartfelt.
"Won't you come back? We'll miss you.Will you remember our love?Good-by, good luck, we'll miss you,We send our prayer for you above.Will you remember our love?"
Jane Bell jumped up and started a round of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow." The smile was glued on Jan's face, and Mitch could hear her saying, "Lovely, simply lovely," all the while. Mitch wondered if her mother would have said that and if they would have sung to her. And what her mother would 'have thought if she were alive and knew what Mitch was planning. She pushed her chair back with the others while Mother Nessy rose regally and took Marsha's arm, to be led from the dining room.
"Why don't you stay for more coffee?" Casey said to Mitch.
Mitch explained that she had an early date. She swallowed what was there in her cup, and hurried upstairs to dress before Leda and Jan returned to the room. They were going out with Jake for the evening. Jan thought it would be "a perfect riot."
\*
The car kicked up the gravel when it left the drive and spun around the corner. Mitch was not used to driving at night, but she knew the town well now. She turned on the radio and a lusty torch song sang out at her. The streets were not very crowded, and passing through Greek Town, Mitch saw the lights in other houses, shining and showing the figures of boys and girls moving in the large rooms. As she came near the campus, she admired the long walks, well lighted, and the great oak trees bordering the walks, and a few solitary figures strolling along them. The traffic increased as she approached the main street, and went fast down to the light. After she left it she stopped again a few blocks down in front of the drugstore. Charlie was waiting there. He had a neat black-and-gray checked sports coat and gray pants, and under his arm a paper bag. When he saw her pull up, he grinned and hurried toward the car.
"Hi," he called. "Right on time."
He opened the door and moved in next to her. As they drove out toward the Creek Road, he said, "I got the bottle. You know, it'll be fun. We've got a real moon, too. Did you remember the blankets?"
Mitch nodded and motioned toward the back seat, where the brown blankets were folded beside the bottles of ginger ale and the opener.
"I brought sandwiches too," Charlie said. "Had Doc make some up for me. Say, this was a swell idea. How'd you ever think of it?"
The husky crooner sang out on the radio and a tenor saxophone chimed in and gave the music a soothing air. Mitch put her foot down harder on the gas pedal.
\*
It was one of those clear, brisk November nights and the ground was hard and cold when they sat down.
"I got rye," Charlie said. "Supposed to be easier on you. I'm not much of a drinker, myself."
Mitch spread one blanket on the ground while Charlie dragged the other over and the bottles of ginger ale. He took paper cups from the bag with the liquor bottle inside, and pried the tops off the bottles. Pouring two drinks, he set them on the ground beside Mitch.
"My first time out here, he said after he sipped his drink. "You ever been out here before?"
"No," Mitch said, remembering the last time. "No."
The air felt good on her face, and from the car a few feet away Mitch could hear the lush tones of a low piano. Above them hung a round moon the way it looks in November. She thought of Leda, and leaning back until her head touched the blanket, she closed her eyes and pictured it again. You aren't going to just stand there? I couldn't love you if you were a Lesbian.
With her hand supporting her head like that, she could hear the steady tick-tick of her wrist watch. He was beside her, talking and filling the paper cups with fresh drinks, then reaching for her hand. She turned toward 'him, and they kissed. She could hear him sigh, "Susan," in the breaking away, holding her. His heart was beating very fast. They kissed again, and this time Mitch tried to imagine Leda and for a moment she could feel her lips until the roughness of his cheeks brushed against hers. She drank her third drink straight down.
"Do you want to know something?" he said. His voice sounded strange and falsely hallowed. Mitch felt an impulse to smile. She knew what he would say. "I love you, Susan. I do, no kidding."
In the near distance Mitch could hear the announcer: "United States Weather Bureau forecast for Cranston and vicinity: Ten p.m. temperature, forty-five degrees; humidity, fifty per cent Barometer, two nine point nine nine, rising. Tonight clear becoming cloudy toward morning. . ."
Charlie's hand climbed from her waist until it touched her breast and then drew back sharply. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, Susan."
"Don't be," Mitch said, and then, "I love you too--- Charlie."
He was gentle and kind. There was a slow awkwardness to his kisses, and his hands came on her almost apologetically, fumbling, his voice mumbling, "Susan," over and over, and the stiffness to his body. When he found her, she said, "Charlie, let's move to the car."
They left the blanket and the bottles, and as he pushed the seat back for her, he pressed the tab of the radio off. Sitting on the leather seat he put his arm around her and held her there, his lips touching her neck, wet and hot on her skin. "Gee," he kept saying. "Oh, gee, Susan. Is it all right? Should we---"
Mitch was afraid because it still was not the way it was with Leda. It was empty and aimless. He was sweet and shy and he loved her. If it was not now, then when? When ever? She reached out and touched his hair, a cheated feeling inside of her when her hand touched his ears and his neck and there was no hair there. "Do you want to?" she said. "Do you really want to?"
He could barely talk. His voice was a thick whisper. "Gosh," he said. "Oh, yes. I do. Listen, Susan, I've never touched a girl. Honestly, never once in my life. I---I have something in my wallet. Look, I know what you must think because I have it with me, but I swear---I swear that I just always carry it and I never thought---"
Mitch said, "I know. It's all right."
She lay down on the leather seat, cramped, so that her feet came off the end. Charlie was kneeling on the floor of the car, and, kneeling like that, he began to kiss her again, and pull at her sweater, until he had it open and the hooks undone.
For a long time he kissed her, and the open windows let the breeze in.
"Susan," he kept muttering. "Susan, I really love you. I really love you, Susan."
"I know," she said. "I know you do."
"You're cold," he said. "I can feel you're cold when I touch you."
Mitch felt the chill through her whole body. "Hurry," she said. "Please hurry."
His hands clutched her desperately, and he began to whine in a strange way. After a moment he sat back on the floor.
"I can't," he said. "I can't"
"It's all right Charlie. I told you it was all right I'll put my sweater on. Then I won't be cold and you won't have to hurry and---"
"No," he whispered. "No. I just---can't."
His shoulders shook violently as he began to cry.
Mitch dressed while he sat there. She got out of the car and went over to the ground where the blankets were. When she came back with them, he was sitting up on the seat in the back, staring down at the floor.
"Charlie---" Mitch began.
He shook his head and did not look at her. "I want to go home," he said. "Just drop me off when we get back in town."
"I'm sorry. I--- Was it me?"
"I don't want to talk about it! I don't want to ever talk about it!"
She put the blankets down beside him and got into the front seat. When they were off the dirt road and on the highway, she snapped the radio on again. Through the mirror, she could see his figure slumped over, his hands holding his chin, his eyes fixed on the side window. When they reached town, he got out of the car and did not look back.
\*
They sat on Mother Nesselbush's purple love seat, in the small beige-walled anteroom of her suite on the first floor of the Tri Epsilon house. There were Mother Rasmussen, Mother Muriel, and Mother Carter, seated across from Nessy, whose large hips hugged the lime-colored cushions of the chair facing them.
"I thought she was very strange," Mother Carter said, balancing the plate on her lap. There was a huge mound of whipped cream piled high above the fresh red fruit and the yellow cake. "I mean, hitting a boy with a vase."
"A what!" Mother Muriel gasped and licked the spoon from her own shortcake. "You mean she did that?"
"Now, now," Mother Nessy said, "let sleeping dogs lie." She tittered. "After all, the whole thing was forgotten. He did attend our housewarming with Susan, so you can see it was forgotten."
There was an elaborate silence, except for the clink of the spoons on the plates. Mother Muriel had a knowing smile at the edge of her lips. She was perfectly aware that Mother Nesselbush was trying to quell the story. Every Saturday night they met in one or the other's small suite, exchanging gossip, and relating the exciting little incidents attached to the duties of housemother. Mother Muriel and Mother Carter agreed that it was not quite fair to include Nessy in their parties, because Nessy was a Tri Ep alumna. She could hardly be expected to give a fair or accurate appraisal of the situation in her house. It was so obvious that she was biased. Mother Rasmussen, on the other hand, was a thorough dunderhead. She rarely had anything to say. Each week she attended the get-together, ate heartily, and seemed to listen to the talk somewhat vaguely, with an aimless smile on her face.
"At any rate," Mother Nessy moved to conclude the conversation about Susan Mitchell, "the alums are so pleased that we took this girl, they're sending us a splendid set of sterling. It should arrive any day now."
The front door slammed vigorously. Mother Nesselbush moved to the curtains of her French doors and stared into the hall. "Speak of the devil," she said, "and the devil appears." She looked at her watch, and noted that it was just eleven-forty-five. "Early, too," she added, "for a one-o'clock night"
She pulled the French doors open and called after Mitch, "Susan, dear, are you all right?"
"Fine, thanks." Mitch started up the steps but stopped halfway.
"Come down here," Mother Nesselbush said, "and meet my guests."
"I can't, Nessy. I look just terrible."
"I'd appreciate it, Susan. They'll understand."
Mitch turned and walked back down. Mother Nessy took her arm and led her into the room. Instantly Mitch recognized the white, pasty face of Mother Carter. She smiled grimly at her, and she said, "Hello, Mother Carter."
She said hello to the others, passing by them, shaking their wrinkled, bony hands, being careful not to upset their plates.
Her heart was pounding faster as she stood there and made polite conversation. They all seemed to be observing her as though she were a freak of some sort. Then Mother Nessy said, "Your father called tonight dear. He was very anxious because you haven't written in weeks.
Mitch passed her hand through her hair uncomfortably. "Gee," she said. "I guess I just forgot."
"It's easy to forget when you're young." Mother Muriel sighed.
Mitch stood there, uncertain how she could leave them She said, "Well, thanks, Mother Nessy. I'm so messy, I think I'll take a good hot bath. And I'll drop him a line tonight."
"Do that," Mother Nessy said, her hand around Mitch's waist, "because you know how parents worry, dear. I know when my son doesn't write, I just get wild that something's happened to him."
A faint smile flickered across Mitch's face as she turned at the French doors and looked back at the women there. When the doors were shut, she went toward the kitchen, swung through the door, and turned the light on. She poured a tall glass of milk and spread butter on a piece of bread from the square red tin. Sitting on the stool, she felt a knot, burning and twisting, inside her, and her eyes felt tired and irritated. The news of her father's call was the final thrust, the inevitable irony of the evening. She ached to call him back and tell him that she wanted to come home, but she knew what he would say. He would say, "Now, pretty black-eyed Susan, a big girl like you isn't homesick." Or he would have one of his standard sentences for her, like the signs that hung around the walls of his office: "A quitter never wins and a winner never quits." "Keep on keeping on." "If someone hands you a lemon, squeeze it and start a lemonade stand."
There was a free feeling in Mitch about Leda. At that moment she could not have cared less about Leda, she told herself; she simply could not care less. Charlie was a name. There was no Charlie and no Creek Road and nothing that had happened had happened. She sipped her milk slowly. She thought back on the day she had won the swimming championship for Gross Hall. How everyone had cheered and yelled her name. Four years ago, when she was in her first year at Gross.
The house was quiet. Mitch finished her milk and walked up the back stairs. There were a few lights on in the rooms she passed. One girl's head was bent over a book as she sat at her desk. Mitch went on until she reached her room. After she undressed, she lay on the bed with the lights off and the covers kicked back. She unbuttoned the top of her pajamas and drew a deep breath, but it was unsatisfying and stuffy. Mental pieces of the cracked picture of Charlie and her seemed to hang around in her thoughts and she could see some of them, but she did not think about them. She thought of sleeping and she slept.
They were pointing at her and laughing. She was running down the street naked and her body was changing. At a corner she stopped to catch her breath and lean on the fat green storage box. She called out to them to stop laughing at her and her voice was deep and low like a man's. Leda tried to get out of the storage box, but she held the door tight because Leda was naked too, and if she got out they would know. She saw her father coming down the street, calling her name, softly, calling her name, and she felt his hands on her shoulders.
"It's going to be all right"
"Leave me alone, Dad."
"No, Mitch, wake up, honey. It's me. It's going to be different now."
"No. No, go on."
"Mitch, Jan's gone back. She gets me excited, sometimes I lose my head when Jan's around. She makes me nervous. Don't send me away now, Mitch. Now that it's over. I'm back here, Mitch."
Her eyes opened and it was dark. Leda's arm was holding her as she lay in bed beside Mitch. She was talking, and as she talked, Mitch could smell the odor of beer on her breath. Her own mouth tasted foul from the rye. She had not had enough to be drunk from it, but the taste was still there. Was Charlie drunk? He couldn't do it to her. There was something wrong with her because he didn't want to talk about it and he didn't look back at her. Leda clung to her.
"Mitch, please talk to me."
"I don't have anything to say."
"Don't you love me? Don't you even want to touch me?"
The words brought the stir back inside Mitch and she felt a warm spring of desire, but it was physical and opposite from the way she knew she was then. "You said--- you said you couldn't love a---Lesbian."
"Oh, God, kid, listen---I talk crazy. I'm crazy the way I talk. You're no more that than I am. Hell, you know that. Look, Mitch, it was because Jan was here. I said so many damn things. Jan causes that. I know the way I treated you. I'm sorry. God, I am!"
Mitch didn't want to, but she lay there and felt it happening. She squeezed her eyes shut and lay there.
"I can't do what you can do," Leda said huskily. "I'm not like you, but I love you."
"Why am I different?" Mitch wanted to know why. She wanted to stop Leda's hands and find out why.
"You're stronger than I am. You really are. The other night in the basement, I knew it. It was---wonderful."
"It was different because I---"
"Yes," Leda said, "because you're strong. But you'll see. I'll learn to do it like that too, because I love you."
"I didn't learn," Mitch said. "I didn't learn." Leda kissed her. "Maybe it was natural." She kissed her again and her hand stayed there, hurting Mitch now. Mitch sat up in bed. "It wasn't," she said. "It was not! Leave me alone. You can't love me. Leave me alone, and ---ohhh!" The sobbing was too loud. Leda hurried out of the bed and into her pajamas. She turned her covers down, and when she tried to make Mitch stop crying, Mitch wailed louder. "Someone will hear you," Leda said, "and they'll come," but the sounds stopped in minutes, and no one came.
\*
There was a single light above the bureau in the small room. The heat of the light bulb had burned a brown imprint in the dull green lampshade. Around the room on the walls there was a worn pattern of hounds, and men dressed in red coats, which were once brilliant red, but now dirty and faded. On the floor there was a skimpy rag scatter rug, and there was a single closet to the left of the door. Near the one window that looked out on the Cranston reservoir and water tower, there was a small cot covered sparsely with a brown Army blanket He sat on the cot an open Bible in his lap, his face covered with his hands. Next to the bureau there was a sink, and he got up and went to the sink and took the soap and ran the water. He washed his hands, and dried them on the shabby white towel, retaining to stand near the cot and stare out of the window. Then he picked the Bible up again, and read aloud softly.
"Against thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight; that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity..."
He could not finish. He threw the Bible on the cot. The gold letters spelling out "Charles Edmonson" seemed brighter in the dull lighting of the room. Remembering Susan Mitchell, he blamed her. He could hear the laughter of other boys coming up the stairs, and the heavy treading of their feet on the warped wooden floors in the hall. Doors slammed and again there was a stillness except for the very distant murmuring of voices through the thin walls. His mother's picture was set up on the bureau and he looked at it for a long time. Beside the picture there was a hard-covered notebook with the words "Record Book" in white on the black cover. He opened it and turned the pages. Unscrewing the pen on the top of the bureau, he took the pen and the notebook and went back to the cot Before he wrote, he thought a minute.
November 5th
I was wrong about Susan. I admit that it was my fault too, but it was her idea to get the liquor and go out there with the blankets. She did not try to stop me. I had too much to drink and I never acted that way before. I thank God in heaven that I was stopped---that God knew best for me, and that He gave me my warning. I shall never lose his faith in me again. . .
He looked back at what he wrote. He scratched out the small letter "h" on the "his" and capitalized it. Then he put the record book back on the bureau, stared again at the picture of his mother, and moved to the sink, turning, the tap water on gently, and reaching for the soap with his hands.
The green line at the bottom of the swimming pool grew fat and then thin with the even ripples of the blue water. The room, long and wide, was lined to the ceiling with tile, and the voices of the girls assembled there rang as though they were all shouting at one another from across the water and from the balcony stairs. Mitch stood with the others along the edge of the pool, the pungent smell of chlorine in her nostrils, a washed-out gray tank suit clinging to her body, freshly wet from the sprinkler through which she had passed at the entrance to the locker room.
Miss Jennings, the instructor, separated from the rest by the fact that she alone wore a gay plaid swimming suit and carried a whistle on a string around her neck and wore no cap, called the role.
"Abbott," she began, "Barry, Craig, Caraway, Feitzer, Jamison, Lathrop, Maurer, Mitchell..."
Mitch turned sharply. Robin was here, then. She scanned the faces of those around her, strangely alike with the white caps pulled down to their ears across their foreheads, leaving no clues as to the color of their hair. Robin was standing at the head of the pool near the diving board. She waved and smiled, but it was against the rules to move about when roll was being taken.
Standing beside Mitch, Marybell Van Casey said, "I didn't know Robin Maurer could swim."
"All in, now!"
The water was too warm and it tasted bad. Mitch dove down to the wobbly green line and brought up the round black rubber puck as she came to the top, letting it sink again as she caught her breath and trod water while she listened to the instructions for the relay with the Australian crawl. Then the backstroke, the flutter kick, the side stroke, and the whistle.
"All out!"
They all stood dripping at the sides, pulling their caps up from their ears so they could hear better, punching the sides of their heads to let the water out.
"As it stands, the following stay: Caroway, Lathrop, Maurer, Mitchell, Marin, Orhoski, Rogers, Van Casey, and Walker. Next week, we'll narrow down to six, with the others doubling. Play period for those who want to stay." She blew a shrill period with her whistle, and climbed up on the white ladder chair.
"Wonderful," Casey said, slipping as she reached Mitch. "Two Tri Eps made it. Best ever. We'll be there next week, too."
It had been easy. Mitch smiled back at Casey. Over her shoulder she saw Robin leaving, going toward the lockers. "I'm not going to stay," Mitch said. "I'm pooped. See you at the house."
She caught up with Robin at the showers.
"Well, stranger!" Robin said. "Say, you're good. I saw that crawl."
"Robin, I'm sorry I couldn't make it Saturday. Thanks again for asking."
"Forget it" Robin said, pulling her suit off and working the knobs of the shower. "I know what you have to go through over in Greek Town. Social calendar like the Astors."
Mitch said, "No, I went out alone. With an independent." She wished that Robin would put a towel around her. It was hard to talk with her and keep looking above her head or directly at her eyes or across the room. Not down at her naked body.
"Gee, honey. You're brave." She tested the running water. "Just right," she said. "Wait after you get dressed. We'll catch a Coke."
The bathing suit fell to the floor in a tightly curled knot, and the towel felt good. There was a slight feeling of elation over Miss Jennings' announcement that she was not eliminated yet. It would be easy to make the team, Mitch thought, and that would help at the house. She would know some of the others better, like Casey and Marsha and Jane Bell. The thought made her feel clean, not like the thought of Leda and those things. But where was Leda? She had spent yesterday with Jake, from early morning to closing hours, and Jan was gone. It was because of the way she had cried Saturday, and Leda was proud. Mitch knew that Leda had done it purposely, to hurt her.
"I'm going with Jake for the day," she had said Sunday morning, early, after breakfast and the phone call she had made. "See you around."
"Hey, Mitch, you dressed?"
"In a minute."
"I'll be drying my hair."
Mitch zipped the side of her skirt and pulled the sweater over her damp head. With the towel around her shoulders, she combed and parted her hair and took the lipstick to the mirror. I love Leda, she thought. I love Leda. I hurt her. I'll always hurt her because I am that way. I'm what she said I was. Leda loves both but I love one. In the mirror, the wetness of her hair gave it a bobbed look, and the reflection was like that of a young boy. Mitch moved her hands up and pushed her hair back from her ears and studied the effect. Her face looked fresh from the swim, her eyes bright, the straight hair darker, and slicked back mannishly.
"Hey," Casey said, standing behind her in her swim suit "you look like Sonny Tufts with lipstick."
Mitch jumped and stepped away from the mirror. She stuttered and felt heat rise to her head. "I w-was w-w-orrying ab-bout what to d-do with my hair."
"Well, don't get so upset Why don't you dry it first?"
"Y-yes," Mitch said, hurrying away toward the driers.
Casey flung the towel over her shoulder and moved down past the white curtains to an empty booth. She thought, She's an odd one.
\*
Robin twisted the straw in her Coke glass. "I suppose you're trying to make the better of the bitter," she said, "but you don't sound very happy."
"Most of it's my own fault," Mitch answered. "It's because of the way I am."
"Look, Mitch! You're a healthy, normal American girl, by Jupiter, and that bunch is from hunger. You don't know. Over at the dorm, everything's easy, the way it should be. Some people fit like gloves into that sorority routine, and others --- well, they're better off elsewhere. Take a tip from me, sweetie, come on over to the dorm. We have lots of extra beds."
The minute hand on the wall clock moved forward with a perceptible jerk. "French class," Mitch said, fumbling in her coat for a dime to lay on the table. "I'll have to run. I don't know, Robin. Maybe I just won't fit in anyplace. You don't know me."
Robin gathered her books up and pushed two nickels across the table. "I know you. There's nothing wrong with you that a good taste of independent life won't cure. See you next week---and think it over. Gad, I sound like a recruiting station."
\*
Even if Charlie hadn't acted that way in French class, Mitch would have gone there anyway, eventually. He merely added to the reasons. It was happening all the time, everyplace. In the gym earlier, the way she had felt when Robin was naked, and in front of the mirror with her hair like that. Ever since she had heard the word. It was like picking up a book and reading the things the main character did and said and his description and thinking vaguely, at first, Why, I'm that way a little. Then more, until the realization comes like a giant boulder down the hill and crashes into you, pulverizing you with the knowledge that this is you, this character. "Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." It says here.
Charlie sat in the back by the window. She could feel his eyes. The short walk between the gym and Jacob Hall had taken the curl from her hair and left it the way it was before she had rolled it on pins and sat with the hot air blowing it dry under the big machine. It was straight. Why couldn't he do it? What was it she had read? Exactly? "A strong congenital trend . . . risk to associate with a girl who has these traits . . ." What? Did he know about her? He had brought that thing in his wallet and he had wanted to. Was there something on her body that showed it? She squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, and listened to the slow, calculated conjugation of the verb avoir.
Her name was called. "Levez-vous! Allez au tableau noir et conjugez le verbe être."
The chalk dropped from her hand in the middle. She turned to pick it up and saw him look away from her and out the window. He knew.
At the end, he didn't wait. Mitch walked toward the library alone. There was a huge arch above the door, and inside the halls were quiet except for the slight tap of the shoes on the marble floors as the boy behind her walked down toward the Science Reading Room. At the head of the stairs, Mitch turned right and walked to the silent room where the tables were in rows, and the people at the tables sat hushed before their work. She picked the volume out easily from the shelf and chose a chair at a back table where no one sat.
"The female homosexual, the Lesbian, often preys on girls who are not true homosexuals. Such girls may enjoy men, and be capable of normal heterosexual life if they do not become involved with a genuine Lesbian type, whose technique is often more skillful than that of many of her young men suitors."
Men come first with me.
Maybe it was natural.
"A normal man finds sex with this type of woman extremely difficult if not impossible."
I can't.
No, I just can't!
"Many times, under the proper circumstances, a female homosexual may learn to control, if not eliminate, her active homosexual tendencies once she is removed from an environment where the temptation is great In the case of..."
Take a tip from me, sweetie, come on over to the dorm.
"But, on the other hand, a change in environment may only lead to new conquests, a fresh hunting ground."
Mitch closed the book and put it back on the shelf. A dog wandered listlessly into the large room He barked, wagging his shabby white tail, looking around at everyone. Laughter rocked the silence, and the dog increased his baking, running excitedly from table to table. The librarian in the room, a thin woman with pursed lips, hurried feverishly toward the fleeing animal.
"Here," she whispered ridiculously. "Here, here."
Mitch sat down again at the back table. She watched the woman take the dog by the collar and lead him with his back feet skidding across the floors and out the door. Again the hush fell back save for a few lingering giggles. Mitch tore a large sheet of paper from her notebook and wrote, stopping now and then to stare gloomily at the books that circled the wall. From a good distance down the hall, she could hear the dog barking in another room.
\*
It was a gray afternoon, and the sun was hidden behind a sheet of dull sky, with the wind kicking the leaves along the curb in front of the Tri Epsilon house, where they stood talking.
"I'll pick you up after the meeting," he said. "We could squeeze in a few beers at Rick's."
"Not tonight, Jake-O. I'm tired. Think I'll catch up on sleep. Those Monday-night chapter orgies wear me down."
She was thinking that Mitch would be waiting in the room. Before dinner she would tell Mitch that she was going out with Jake when the chapter meeting let out, and then she would surprise her. She'd say, "Do you think I could go out with him when I knew you were up here? I can't kid myself any longer, Mitch." Maybe that would erase the nervous undercurrent of tension between them since Jan had gone. It would be more dramatic that way, surprising her like that
"O.K., I'll give you a ring." He took the pipe out of his mouth and leaned over to kiss her quickly. Jake was funny the way he sang aloud in the streets. He walked away singing, "Oh, here by the fire we defy the frost and storm," and Leda heard him as she walked up the steps and came into the front room of the house. The thought came that if Jake were gone forever, it would be strange, but if the choice were to be made, it would be Jake who would go. Not Mitch. Was she upstairs? She teased her own curiosity, prolonging h, sweetening it by tarrying in the hall downstairs.
To the left of the dining room there was a small alcove, with square boxes and names printed evenly above each one. In her box there was an envelope with her name scrawled on the outside, and no postage or address. Girls were coming down the stairs, milling around in the halls, waiting for the dinner gong. They were reading the papers, playing cards, singing at the piano, and talking together in close, separate groups. Leda took the envelope to the scarlet chair in the corner near the entrance to Mother Nessy's suite. She ripped the seal open and held the thin notebook paper in her hand.
"Dear Leda,
This letter is for you alone. Please tear it up when you are through.
More than anything else I want you to understand what I'm going to say here, and why I'm saying it. I want to leave the sorority and become an independent.
Maybe it'll be the best thing for me, and maybe it'll be just another defeat, but I have to do it. Leda, darling, you know that I love you. You know it, even though I haven't shown it in the past few days. I've been worried and afraid, and now I know for sure what's wrong with me. I suppose I should go to a doctor, but I don't have the nerve, and I'm going to try to help myself as best I can.
Lesbian is an ugly word and I hate it. But that's what I am, Leda, and my feelings toward you are homosexual. I had no business to ask you to stop seeing Jake, to try to turn you into what I am, but please believe me, I didn't know myself what I was doing. I guess I'm young and stupid and naive about life, and I know that you warned me about the direction my life was taking when you told me to get to know men. I tried, Leda. But it was awful. Even Charlie knows what I am now. I think that if I go to an independent house, away from you, the only person I love, I'll be able to forget some of the temptation. If I stay in the sorority, I'll only make you unhappy and hurt you. I love you too much to do that
Please announce that I am leaving during the chapter meeting tonight Don't tell them why, please, because I want to straighten myself out and I don't want people to know. Tell them that I thank them for all they've done, but that I'd rather live somewhere else because I don't fit in here.
I know how you'll feel about me after reading this. I'll try to stay out of your way. Tonight I am going to eat dinner downtown, and then during chapter meeting I'll pack most of my things and move to the hotel until I get a room at the dorm. Robin Maurer is going to help me.
There's nothing else to say but good-by, I'm sorry, and I do love you, Leda.
Mitch"
The dinner gong sounded out the first seven notes of "Yankee Doodle." Mother Nesselbush stood in the doorway of her suite. She looked down at Leda, who was sitting there holding the paper the note was written on, not moving. It was customary for one of the girls to lead her in to dinner. Marsha usually handled the task because she was president, but Marsha was hurrying to finish the last-minute preparations in the Chapter Room for the meeting. Mother Nesselbush cleared her throat, but to no avail. Leda sat still and pale and Nessy bent down.
"Are you all right dear?"
"Yes."
"That was the dinner bell, you know."
Leda said, "Yes."
"Would you like to escort me to my table?"
Leda looked up at her, a thin veil of tears in her eyes, so thin that Mother Nessy did not notice. She could sense the waiting around her, the girls waiting to go into the dining room, Nessy waiting, the houseboys who served the food waiting for her. Standing slowly, she crooked her arm and felt Nessy's hand close on it as they moved across the floor into the brightly lighted hall, past the six oak tables to the long front table and the center seats.
A plate of buns went from hand to hand, each girl taking one and passing the plate mechanically, reaching for it with the left, offering it with the right as they had been taught when they were pledges. The bowl of thick, dried mashed potatoes came next, and the long dish of wizened pork chops, the bowl of dull green canned peas, and the individual dishes of cole slaw. When Leda tasted the food, she felt an emetic surging throughout her body and she laid her fork down. Around her there was a churning gobble of voices that seemed to slice through her brain like a meat cleaver. Mother Nessy stared after her when she went from the room.
"She said she was sick," she told Kitten, "and I knew it when I saw her before dinner. Poor thing. There's a flu epidemic going around, and I'm willing to bet my life she's got the flu."
The car was gone from the driveway. Leda put on the sweater she was carrying and ran down the graveled drive. In her hand she clutched her felt purse, and at the corner she caught a taxi.
At the Blue Ribbon there was a crowd of students waiting at the rail with trays, sitting in the booths with books piled high beside their plates, pushing and standing near the juke box with nickels and dimes, the pin-ball machines ringing up scores in her ears as she looked for Mitch.
The Den was quieter, and the waitresses were lingering lazily around the front of the room near the bar, where a few boys munched liverwurst sandwiches and drank draught beer. The bartender dropped a glass and cursed enthusiastically. Leda pushed the revolving door and felt the cold autumn wind.
Mac's, Donaldson's, the Alley, French's, Miss Swanson's, all of them alive with hungry students swarming in and out the smell of hamburger predominant in each cafe, the sizzling crackle of French fries cooking in grease on hot open grills.
"Ham on rye."
"One over easy."
"Hey, Mary, catch the dog."
"Well, hell, you're almost an hour late!"
Leda stood finally on the curb in front of Miss Swanson's. She fumbled in her pocket for a nickel and ran into the drugstore on the corner. She made a mistake dialing the number, and she held the hook down until the dime came back and then tried again. When the voice answered, there was a long wait, the far-off sound of voices shouting down the halls, and then the answer quick and flip. "Robin's out to dinner. Call back later."
Her heart was pounding, and she could feel the perspiration soaking her body. If Mitch was eating with Robin, she might have it arranged already. Where was she eating? With the car, she could be anywhere, but it was unlike her to drive far at night. The clock read seven-thirty. In half an hour the chapter would meet and Mitch would go back to the house for her bags. Leda shivered in the night air and wished she had found Mitch before she had a chance to see Robin and carry her plan through. Now Leda would have to tell Marsha she was sick, that she had gone for medicine because she was sick and she could not attend the meeting. She would be in the room waiting for Mitch when she came.
A car swerved away from her as she stepped off the sidewalk into the street. The cab driver grunted, and skirted the curb narrowly as he drove fast.
"Hurry!" he said. "You girls always gotta be someplace fast. That's all I hear, 'Hurry, driver! Hurry, hurry."
\*
"Marsha's in the Chapter Room," Kitten said. "Thought you were sick."
Leda said, "I am." She found the door to the room locked, and she knocked three times fast and once slow.
"Who goes?" She recognized Jane Bell's voice.
"Pledged in blood," Leda said. "Promised in the heart."
"Enter."
The bolt was slipped off and Jane Bell stepped back. She was wearing a silky white gown with a deep red scarf on her hair, drawing her hair back behind her ears. There was a sharp odor of burning incense in the dark room, lighted only by five single candles on a small table covered with the same silky white material. Marsha knelt at the table, arranging a red velvet-covered book with a black marker on the open page. When Leda walked in the room, panting, her face damp and hot, Jane stared at her.
"My gosh," she said, "you look feverish."
"That's what I came about. I can't attend the meeting tonight I feel lousy."
Marsha looked up from the book at Leda. There was an angelic look to her face by candlelight, a look that she was fully aware of, cultivated and practiced. When she conducted the weekly chapter meetings, this look lent an air of piety to the conduct of the service. With the members of the chapter standing in a solemn semicircle before her, she felt that there was something spiritual about her leadership, celestial and sacrosanct
"We're having a formal meeting tonight," she told Leda, as if to persuade her sickness to end.
"I see you are. I'm sorry. I just feel lousy."
"You look feverish," Jane Bell remarked again.
"I hope you feel better." Marsha smiled. "Did you know that Mrs. Gates, our Kansas City vice-counsel, gave us three new robes? Jane has one on."
Jane twirled and the robe floated on her gracefully. Inwardly Leda thought, Jesus! Oh, silly Jesus! but she pacified them by touching the material and exclaiming, then apologizing again. She backed out of the room just as the electric buzzer gave the signal for the members to line up in the hall and prepare to enter in single file.
The halls were still, the pledges confined to their rooms for study hour. Leda found the room dark. Mitch had not come yet. She struck a match and lit a cigarette, and in the blackness she went to the window and watched the street. Ten dragging minutes later the convertible pulled up in front of the house, and Mitch slammed the front door and hurried up the walk. Leda lay down on the bed, watching the cigarette smoke curl to the ceiling.
After the light went on in the room, Mitch felt a flood of surprise in her stomach as she saw Leda. She shut the door and set Robin's large empty suitcase on the floor. Leda sat up and looked at her.
"You're going to pack now?" she said.
"Yes. I thought you'd be in chapter meeting." She tried not to look at Leda, but she could feel the girl's eyes piercing her, stopping her attempts to avoid those eyes, and she went to the bureau and began removing socks and handkerchiefs and scarves.
Leda let her click the suitcase open, and watched her while she placed the things inside it. She could feel the sharp edges of the letter against her chest there near her bra where she had put it before dinner. With her left hand she reached down and fished the letter out and stuck it under her pillow.
"I decided," Leda said finally, "that the least I could do was to say good-by to you."
Mitch felt choked up and agonized with desire. She scooped out an armful of slips and panties and pajamas and thrust them in there with the other clothes. Her lips formed the word "Thanks," and she meant to say it, but there was no sound. On the floor of the closet there were fluffy swirls of dust near her tennis shoes, and she brushed them away with her hand. She tossed the shoes onto the bed, and took the chair from the desk over to the closet to reach the boxes at the top.
Leda said, "Want any help?"
"No. Thanks, though. I can do it myself."
"You've got an idea," Leda said, "that you can do everything yourself. I don't know where you got that idea."
"Sometimes it's up to yourself," Mitch said.
"You've got a lot of ideas, I bet. I bet you've got thousands of good ideas."
The box slipped from Mitch's hand and fell to the floor, spilling out two round hats, one black, one brown, both alike---round and plain.
"Someday you'll find out that most of the ideas don't work. None of them work."
Mitch looked up at Leda. "What are you trying to say?" she asked. "What are you trying to tell me? You never say anything right out. You always talk around and make it hard."
"I'm trying to say, don't go. Going isn't the answer."
The tears came in her eyes, and Mitch looked away at the shoe bag on the closet floor. She thought of Robin, her friend, of the swimming team, of other years and anything to keep them from being the same, but this made it worse and the sob started low in her throat. Then Leda bent and caught her shoulder and held her, kneeling on the rug, listening to the stifled crying.
"Mitch," she said, "don't go. Don't leave me, please."
"But you know what I am. I told you what I am in the letter."
"I don't care. Mitch, I don't care."
"I can't stay with you. I won't feel right I---"
Leda put her hand on the girl's face and felt the tears. She turned her face and put her lips on the salty moistness. "Come on over to the bed," she said. "Get up, Mitch, and come on over to the bed."
Mitch lay down with her face buried in the pillow, and Leda sat on the edge, her hands stroking Mitch's hair.
"Can you hear me, Mitch? Listen, it doesn't help to run away. You don't think it helps, do you? It doesn't help."
"No," Mitch sobbed. "I can't stay here. I can't bear to see you every day and know what I'm doing to you."
"What are you doing to me? What in hell are you doing to me?"
"I'm a Lesbian," Mitch answered. "That's how I feel about you, too. I'm not like you---with Jake and everything."
"Oh, God, Mitch! All right, listen. I love you, you crazy kid. I don't have to label my love, do I? Do I have to say that it's Lesbian love? O.K., then that's what it is. It's Lesbian love, pure and simple. Ye gods, I've known about myself for years. I didn't run away. I didn't walk out and run away. You gave me plenty of reason to. You were the first one to come along and blow up my little plan for hiding the way I am. You think you're doing something to me! Oh, Mitch! If anyone's doing it, I'm doing it I'm doing it because I love you."
Mitch brought her head up from the pillow and turned over on her side. "But you said it" she said "You said you couldn't love a Lesbian. You said---"
"I said so damn much, didn't I? You've got to understand, Mitch. I don't like what I am. If Jan ever knew, I'd take a razor and slash my wrists. I couldn't live with people knowing, and pointing and saying 'queer' at me. No one knows but you, and I guess I never would have told you if you hadn't started to leave. Do you think it's easy to admit it? It was different when I could say it wasn't this way, that I was bisexual and all that rot. Bisexual---that's sort of like succotash, isn't it? Only this succotash hasn't got any corn in it. It's straight beans!"
"What about Jake?" Mitch blew her nose and sat up. "What about all the time you spend with Jake?"
"Maybe I'm trying to prove something to myself. Part of me is trying to say that I'm not what I am. That's the part of me that everyone knows---the alluring Leda, the queen, Jan's daughter, an apple never falls far from the tree. Out with Jake every damn day to keep myself away from what I really am. Want to know what sex with him is like? It's like dry bread, that's what it's like. Like dry bread!"
Leda got up from the bed and reached for her cigarettes on the desk. She felt relieved, cleansed, as though her mind had been emptied and she was free. She walked over to the suitcase on Mitch's bed and picked up the clothing, taking it in her arms to the drawer. "You want this all put back, don't you?" she said to Mitch. "You won't leave me?"
"No," Mitch said. "I'm going. Robin arranged everything, and---oh, Leda!" They stood in the center of the room holding one another, their lips fastened hard, their arms strong around each other. Leda's hand reached for the buttons on Mitch's blouse.
"Just stand still," she said. "Just let me take everything off and look at you. I want to look at you."
The skirt fell to the floor, and the blouse. Mitch stepped out of her shoes and stood before Leda.
"I want to love you," Leda said.
Her hands stroked Mitch's body gently. She leaned over to kiss her lips and her forehead and the closed eyelids. She said her name and held her, feeling the fast beat in her pulse and knowing that she had almost lost her.
The blood beat furiously in Mitch's throat and she could feel a mounting strength in her legs and arms. With the arrogance of a master, Mitch's nails dug into Leda's flesh as she began to pull the sweater and the thin blouse from her shoulders.
Leda's gasp was one of pleasure and desire and it moved Mitch to more violence, pinning Leda's wrists behind her back and jerking at her skirt.
Neither of them heard the door open.
They turned in time to see Kitten and Casey framed in the doorway, eyes big, mouths dropped, and they fell apart from one another when the door was slammed, and the sound of the intruders' feet running down the hall was as loud and fast as the beating of their hearts in that room.
It was a long time before they talked. Mitch lay dumb with horror, never forgetting the look on their faces as they had found her that way with Leda, unclothed and wild like a fierce animal. Sitting with her head hung, her hands pressing at her eyes, Leda was the first one to speak after the minutes passed as they would in a slow nightmare when nothing is real.
She stood up and picked the blouse off the floor. "Look," she said. "I'll go and talk to Marsha, That's where they ran to. I'll go and straighten it out."
"How?"
Leda reached in the closet for a fresh blouse, and straightened her skirt so that the zipper was pulled and on the side. She ran a comb through her long hair, and her hands were trembling.
"I'll explain it somehow. Marsha's gullible, and I'll explain it I have to go now, or they'll have a chance to talk and spread the story. I've got to stop them before they tell anybody else."
Mitch said, "I'll go too, Leda, I'll go too. What'll we say?"
"No!" Leda put her hands over her face and shook her head. "I'm sorry I yelled. We've got to handle this just right. You stay here. It's better for me to go alone."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Look, get into bed. I'll turn the light out and you stay here. If anyone else comes in here, pretend you're asleep."
She waited while Mitch pulled her pajamas from the suitcase on her bed and threw the suitcase down on the floor, before she stepped into the pants and the coat. After she got in bed, Leda snapped the light out and went back by her own bed before she opened the door to go.
"Don't worry," she said. "Don't worry at all. And stay here!"
In her hand, as she walked toward Marsha's suite, Leda clutched Mitch's letter, wrinkled and folded on the long sheet of notebook paper. Her eyes were set and determined and there was a tight line about her lips.
Under the heavy violet and black quilted robe, Mother Nesselbush wore a voluminous peach-colored flannel nightgown. Her hair was rolled on large black pins so that it pulled at her scalp and gave her round face a bizarre expression like that of a mild Jersey cow. Her skin shone with night cream, and until everything began, it was with conscious effort that she stifled the great yawns that exposed her pressing lethargy, as well as her gold-studded molars.
Everything began when Marsha shut the door to Nessy's suite and pressed the lock down to secure it. Besides those two, Casey, Kitten Clark, Jane Bell, and Leda shared the secrecy of the meeting that was about to commence. Marsha stood while the others sat in various positions around the small anteroom.
"I don't need to tell you that this gathering is an extreme emergency. We must all pledge never to reveal what we hear. Our whole reputation as a national sorority is at stake, to say nothing of the reputation of Tri Epsilon on the Cranston campus. I've asked Jane to come because she's a member of the Grand Council. Fortunately, our other two members were on the scene when this thing happened. And Leda will explain her part in it. Nessy, we've inconvenienced you tremendously, but this is too terribly serious."
Mother Nesselbush protested that she was not disturbed, and that she was only too thankful that she was called on. She straightened her drooping shoulders and sat forward intently.
"Maybe you better tell how it started, Casey," Marsha said, leaning against the small mahogany table with the vase of daisies set on it.
Casey was excited. Her face was animated and colored with the heat of her adventure. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward from the couch.
"It was right after chapter meeting. Kitten and I were going up to talk with Leda about her being nominated for Christmas Queen, and about the campaign we were going to plan. Well, we were kind of pleased and everything and I guess we just never thought of knocking, and when we got in there---well, this is kind of hard to say--- we found Mitch naked and she was attacking Leda. I mean, she was kissing her and pulling at her clothes."
"What!" Mother Nesselbush paled and caught her jowls with her pudgy hands. "Oh, no!"
Leda's knees felt watery and loose, and her knuckles were white in a tight fist.
"Well," Casey went on, "Kitten and I ran like the devil---"
"I'll say we did," Kitten broke in. "I was never so scared in my life. If you could have seen it! I didn't know what to think. I didn't even think when I was running."
"What did she do when you opened the door? Gosh, Leda, you must have been crazy with fear." Jane Bell looked over at Leda after she said it, and shook her head and wrinkled her forehead in disbelief. "Absolutely crazy with fear!" she repeated.
"You poor, poor darling," Nessy said. "To think of it!"
Marsha moved forward and held her hand up for silence. "After that," she said when everyone settled down, "Leda came to me in the suite. Luckily, Kitten and Casey had come right there, so the story hasn't spread."
"What about Susan Mitchell?" Mother Nesselbush snapped. "Where is she now?"
"You better carry on from here, Leda." Marsha sat down on the floor, close to Nessy's chair, and waited while Leda found words. Of course, they believed the story. It had been easy to tell it, Leda thought; not easy, but the only way. It had been the only way to tell it. Strange how she had thought that she would do it just this way if they were found, in that quick flash of intuition a second before they were found. She remembered another day when she was a child alone in her room, and in the midst of it she had heard Jan's footsteps down the hall. If they stopped, if Jan came in the room, then she would say that she had shooting pains from cramps, and that she had been tossing on the bed and was hot and out of breath, and she would even cry to show that the pains were bad ones. But she would not spoil that moment there with herself for anything. All of the thoughts came quickly to Leda, solved in seconds, so that there was never any defeat. Now again she was not defeated, because they believed her. There was Mitch upstairs, waiting, trusting, but the time was now, downstairs, and Leda began slowly, her words careful and well remembered.
"Mitch is upstairs in bed. She'll stay there, and she won't talk to anyone. I told her that I would explain it, and I'm going to try to. I can't explain it so that everything is over and forgotten as I know she hopes I will do, but I am going to try to be fair to her.
"First of all, I'd like to read a letter."
When she finished the letter, Mother Nesselbush rolled her eyes in utter horror. "I declare," she said. "I do declare!"
"You see," Leda said, "I suspected that Mitch had a crush on me. She was jealous of Jake and of the time I spent with him. I knew that, but I never dreamed the kid was in love with me like this. You know how I am. I call everyone honey and darling, and I guess the kid took me to heart. Then, after I told her to get some boy friends, she got mad and tried to ignore me. I didn't pay any attention until I found this note in my mailbox before dinner tonight. Well, you know how I acted at dinner."
"And I thought it was just the flu," Nessy said. "Land!"
"So I decided that the only thing I could do was to try to help the kid. At least persuade her to wait until morning. I didn't know what kind of condition she was in. She might do something dumb like confiding in that Robin Maurer. Then the whole campus would know. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't wait till chapter meeting and talk it over with you kids, because she'd be gone by then. I tried to handle it myself."
"Who's Charlie?" Kitten said. "Is he that independent? What does she mean, he knows?"
She imagined that, I'm sure," Leda answered. "I guess they had a fight or something and she thought he knew. The kid is really naive."
"She didn't look naive when Casey and I saw her."
"Let me finish, Kitten."
"Well, Lord, we don't want it all over campus that one of the Tri Ep pledges is queer. That's all the independents need."
"I tell you, he doesn't know. No one does!"
"Let Leda finish," Marsha said.
"She brought a suitcase with her and was ready to go. I persuaded her to wait until morning. I thought that by that time I'd be able to do something---talk to Nessy or Marsha or someone. She got undressed to go to bed, and ---then she---attacked me. Thank God you kids came along at the right time."
"What did she do after they left the room?" Jane Bell asked. "I can't even imagine this!"
"That brought her to. You see, she really went out of her mind for a minute. After the door slammed, she came to and became herself. I quieted her as best I could, and told her it would all be O.K. She was scared to death, poor kid."
"Poor kid!" Casey sneered. "She belongs in a cage!"
"I don't know," Leda said. "I can't help feeling sorry for her."
Nessy said, "You showed great presence of mind, Leda. Why, if it had been me, I would have just shrieked my lungs out!"
"You weren't even yelling," Casey said.
"And it's a good thing she didn't. If it ever got around the house---Lord, I hate to think." Kitten reached for a cigarette and snapped the flame on her lighter. "That's one thing we've got to be damn careful about. We've got to keep it between us. We'll have to think of some other reason for getting rid of her."
"Maybe I can do it," Leda said. "Look, maybe I can convince her that the best thing for her to do is to go to the Psych Department. I'll tell her I think she was right to want to move to the dorm, and then we'll be rid of her and she'll never know the difference. We can keep it all hush-hush."
Jane Bell groaned and scratched her head "No, that's no answer. She'd blab it to one of the doctors and then it'd get back to Panhellenic. Besides, no telling what she might do at the dorm."
Inwardly Leda shook at the danger of her own suggestion. But no matter where Mitch went, there was the danger of her telling her side of the story. Of someone believing it. Who'd believe it? The letter was written perfectly, leaving Leda free of any implication, and there was no other proof. Nothing. She felt stronger then, fear lending new armor.
"You know," she said, "the kid will probably try to blame me. She'll probably say I had something to do with it. You know how people get when they're up against a wall."
Mother Nesselbush giggled. "Leda, our queen," she said. "Now really, do you think anyone would believe the child? She's obviously demented!" Her face changed and became grave. "Girls, I don't think the decision is ours to make. We must think of the reputation of the house. Tri Epsilon stands for honesty and loyalty, to ourselves and to the school too. This is a matter for the dean's office, girls, and I assure you, Dean Patterson is a very discreet person. She'll handle this with utmost concern for our welfare."
"I agree with Nessy," Marsha said. "It isn't anything we can decide. We can only pledge ourselves to secrecy. No other member of the sorority is to know about this. Now, let's promise it."
"Promised!" Kitten said "That's for sure."
"I'd be embarrassed to tell anyone else," Casey commented. "Even now it embarrasses me."
Jane Bell stubbed her cigarette out in the ash tray. "I don't have to remind anyone," she said, "that if the pledges ever learn about this, we'll be in danger of losing the entire pledge class."
Marsha stepped forward to the middle of the room. "We all know the consequences. It could be anything else but this. Homosexuality just leaves a horrid taste. We'd all have to pay, even though we had nothing to do with it, just because it happened under our roof. We'd be the brunt of thousands of miserable jokes. You all remember the year the Sigma Delts had those two terribly effeminate boys in their pledge class? Remember what happened the day they woke up and found the signs all over their front yard? That's just half of what we'd get"
Leda remembered the signs. They were large cardboard ones with bright red paint. They said, "Fairy Landing," and "Sig Delt Airport---Fly with our boys!" For weeks, the jokes out at the Fat Lady and down at the Den and the Blue Ribbon centered around the Sig Delt house. No one ever knew how it all started, or whether there was any basis to it all, but everywhere you went you heard the sly remarks, and saw the wry grins that attended the cracks about "those fairy nice Sigma Delts." She had been a freshman then, but after two and a half years it was all very fresh in her memory. Everyone remembered, long after the boys left campus.
"I'll call the Dean," Mother Nessy said, "the first thing in the morning. The only thing we can do tonight is go to bed and try to sleep. Leda, you'd better make up the couch in here."
"I'm afraid Mitch will be suspicious. I mean, I told her I'd explain everything. She'll probably wait for me to get back."
"Oh, joyous reunion," Casey said. "Holy God!"
"You mean you're going back to that girl, Leda? Why, I won't hear of it!"
"Look," Marsha said calmly, "maybe it's the only way. We can't have her getting out in the halls and trying to find Leda. I mean, she won't be violent like that again, will she, Leda?"
"No, I know she won't. You don't understand. The kid is scared out of her wits now. She wouldn't lift a finger." Leda felt queasy, listening to them picture Mitch as a wild beast roaming the halls for prey. She would have to make them believe that she was wise to go back up there to Mitch. But not too anxious. "Of course I confess it isn't going to help me sleep any to know she's in the room, but---"
"No!" Nessy said. "I simply can't have it I'm responsible."
Mitch would be waiting. Leda would have to go back, or Mitch might run to Marsha and confuse the story, ruin it---even if they didn't believe her.
"I know," Marsha said. "Kitten and Casey and I will wait in the bathroom. Leda, you go in and see if it looks O.K. to stay there. If it does, you can tell us by coming down to the john. If it's not O.K., then you can tell us and we'll think of something else. I mean, if you think Mitch is going to act up."
"That's fine," Leda said, "and I think it'll be O.K. You don't know this kid like I do."
Kitten grinned "Obviously," she said. "Who'd want to?"
"All right," Nessy consented reluctantly, "but I won't sleep a wink. Not a wink!"
Marsha moved the tab back on the door and opened it. "Now, for heaven's sake," she whispered, "look nonchalant. Pretend we were all in talking to Nessy, and that's all. Some of the kids might still be up. And Leda, when you come down to the john, make it subtle if anyone's there. Then we can go to the suite and talk."
Mother Nessy took Leda's arm before she left the room. "You promise me," she said, "you promise me that if that girl gives any indication of acting up again, you'll just jump right out of that room and come down to me. I don't care what the hour is."
Leda said, "Don't worry, Nessy, and I promise."
The five girls climbed the main stairs slowly, Marsha attempting vaguely to whistle a bit from "On, Wisconsin.
\*
It was taking Leda a long time. What could she say to them? Mitch was numb with torment, and the sheets on her bed were wrinkled and halfway off the mattress from her perpetual turning and moving as she waited. The ticking of the tin clock on the dresser sounded frantic and Mitch made the ticks come in three beats in her mind--- Les-bi-an, Les-bi-an, tick-tick-tick. Leda was one too. The thought foamed in Mitch's brain and hurt her. She did not know why she felt dirty when Leda told her that she was a Lesbian. She thought she should have felt happy and glad that they were two. But she did not want to be one. Abnormal.
From far off she could hear the sweet voices of a fraternity serenading a sorority house down the street
She turned the light on and looked at the face of the clock. It was eleven-thirty. Leda had been gone too long. She saw Leda's half-full package of cigarettes on the desk, and she took one from the pack and lit it. It tasted strong and sour and she squashed it in the ash tray and turned the light off again.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would move out of Tri Epsilon and into the dorm with Robin. If she and Leda weren't put out of the sorority, she would leave anyway. But she could not leave Leda. "I love Leda," she said softly to the darkness, "even though we're both that way. I wish she wasn't that way."
The dream came in a half fit of consciousness. Her mother was very beautiful, with black hair that came to her shoulders, and clear green eyes. Mitch loved her. She wore pants and shirts and combed her hair back, wet from her swim, and went to her mother with jewels and furs that she had stolen for her to have. Her mother smiled and accepted them. Mitch heard her say, "You'd better not steal all the time. I couldn't love a thief." She ran down a long alley to escape the police who were looking for her. It was late when she got back to the Tri Epsilon house and her mother was there with the police holding her arm. Her mother was laughing. She said, "You didn't know I was a thief too," and the policemen led her away. Diamonds were spilling out of her mother's pocket as she went down the steps with them.
She thought she had been asleep for hours, but it was only twenty minutes to twelve. Leda must be in trouble. The dream put a ragged edge on her anxiety. The bed was a sight, rumpled and torn apart as though it had been ravaged. Mitch straightened the sheets and fluffed the pillow. In the corner of the room by the bureau her clothes lay where Leda had taken them off, kicked to the side. Mitch picked them up and brushed them off. Les-bi-an, Les-bi-an, tick-bi-an... Mitch thought, I can get a job. Leda and I can run away and I can work someplace. If they put us out of the sorority I won't go home. Leda won't either, because of Jan. Colorado is nice, or California. She had a vivid picture of the open convertible speeding through purple and rust landscapes and along white desert with the cactus along the roadside. She added glorious black nights and ten thousand brilliant stars, and a warm wind whipping at their faces. It was no good. She hated the picture. Why? A slow self-disgust chewed at her and called her coward, but she was still afraid. She promised herself to be strong when Leda came back, no matter. Whatever Leda said, Mitch would not reveal her fear. Leda loved her and this was the price. Be strong for two. The words on the storybook she'd had as a child came dancing on the screen of her mind: "Now We Are Two."
Part of it was the way Leda had gasped and twisted. It seemed far away and morbid, as though there was an insane spark to their love that made them fierce and careless. Sitting on the side of her bed, under the harsh light of the electric bulb overhead, Mitch could not know herself in that scene. She reasoned that she was not violent Never violent. Yet there was still the faint taste of blood on her tongue, and the way she knew she had been strong there with Leda.
Don't blame Leda. You're trying to blame Leda.
There was a sound of steps in the hall. Mitch caught her breath when they came to the door. It was Leda returning.
"What are you doing with the light on?"
"I had to find out the time."
"I told you not to leave it on. I told you to go to bed"
"I just turned it on. I was afraid."
"Well, it's over, so go to bed"
"Over?"
"Yes. It's all right"
"Wh-what did you say? How did you explain it?"
Leda's face was composed and placid. She took her soap from the tray on the rack behind the door. Her washcloth hung over the bar above the shoe bag and she put that with the soap. "I'm going to wash my face. I'll tell you when I get back. Look, it's over. There's nothing to worry about"
Mitch just sat there staring.
"Get in bed. I'll be back."
"I'll come too," Mitch said. "I didn't wash yet. Wait for me and I'll come too." She started toward the bureau.
"No!" Leda's tone came out sharper than she had meant it She could not look at Mitch's face, which was alive with a new hope. Her words went to the rug. "No, it's better if you stay in bed. I told them you didn't feel well. You see, that's how I explained it I said you were sick."
"Oh," Mitch said. "I---" She sat back on the bed and rubbed her forehead.
Leda walked toward the door. "Look, just get in bed. I'll be back in a minute. I'll tell you then."
"O.K., Leda."
Before Leda turned the doorknob, Mitch's eyes met hers.
"Leda?"
"What?"
"Thanks."
When she was gone, Mitch felt sick and dull all over. She was ashamed of the way she had thought about Leda. The thoughts seemed to tease her still, pricking her knowledge that Leda had made everything all right, that now there would be no reason to run and hide. Steadily she rebuilt the structure of their love, amplifying it with Leda's courage and with her own indebtedness to Leda She could feel the physical ache for her down to the tips of her fingers, replacing the enfeebled numbness, charging it with renewed vigor. Healing time had conquered the doubt and fear, and her servility was sworn in that moment. Mitch felt humble and brave.
A tongue of light cut through the black as Leda opened the door and slipped back in. Mitch could hear her putting things away and getting out of her clothes. The thud of her shoes on the floor sounded unusually heavy in the silence. Mitch threw the sheets and blankets back and went over to her.
"For God's sake, no! We just got out of one mess."
"I'm sorry, Leda. I just feel so---"
"Get back in bed. My God!"
The covers felt itchy on her chin and she pulled the sheet up higher. She could hear Leda getting in bed.
"I know you're upset," she said. "I should have known better than to come over to you, Leda. I'm sorry."
Forget it"
Mitch waited. Leda would tell her now---everything that had happened. The minutes crept and the clock began the game, ticking out the word
"Leda?"
"What?"
"You said you'd tell me." Mitch's voice was thin and meek. She didn't mean to keep at Leda like that, but she had to know.
"O.K. I said you were sick. I said you went to bed sick and you were feverish when you came after me."
"D-did you say that I came after you?"
"Well, hell, I had to say something. When they came in the door, that's what they saw."
"Oh."
The wind blew papers off the desk and they ruffled along the floor, the noise quick and airy.
"Leave them," Leda said. She settled back and the noise stopped.
"Well, did they believe you? What about---My God, I was naked!"
"You were sick! I told them you were sick, Mitch!"
Mitch wanted to stop the angry tone. She lay quiet and another paper chased across the room and landed on top of her on the bed.
"Mitch, I'm sorry I'm so snappish. I just feel like hell. It wasn't easy."
"I know what it must have been like, Leda."
"It was hell."
"Does---does anyone know? Anyone else, I mean?"
"Just Marsha and those two."
"It'll be hard tomorrow. What'll I tell them when they ask what was wrong?"
Leda turned her pillow over on the side. Then she got up and put a bottle of ink on top of the papers so they wouldn't blow any more. "It won't be hard," she said. "They won't even talk about it Just go along as though nothing happened."
"Leda, I don't know how to thank you."
"Quit saying that! What in the name of God do you think I am, your holy savior?"
The night air was crisp and Mitch snuggled down in the covers. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but she kept listening for Leda to say more. When she didn't Mitch said, "I just want to say one more thing, Leda. I'll always stick by you---always. You mean more to me than anyone I know."
Leda didn't answer.
Ruth Paterson was a stocky, middle-aged woman with brownish-red hair, which she wore in a short, smoothly waved coiffure. Her thin lips were faintly tinted with a medium rose shade, and her long full face had a healthy pink color that set off the deep brown eyes. Between the book ends on her smooth red-leather-topped desk there was a dictionary, a worn copy of "Wine from These Grapes," "The Collected Poems of Robert Frost," "Roget's Thesaurus," two volumes on methods for counseling teen-age girls, a Bible, and a frayed copy of Proust.
Her office was a small white room furnished with comfortable red furniture and red-framed prints of Daumier. On a wobbly end table at the side of a long couch in front of her desk there were a miniature wooden pagoda and a vase with a single red rose pointing toward the white ceiling. On the lower rung of the table there were three copies of current magazine issues, and one copy of the Cranston University humor magazine.
Dean Paterson took a great deal of pride in her office. She had done most of it herself, lacking encouragement from the university officials, who saw little valid reason for decorating the room so that it bore small resemblance to a typical office of the Dean of Women. The wall-to-wall black rug she had purchased herself at a private auction of one of the distinguished townspeople's household effects. It was impractical, inevitably catching lint and dust from the heels of the steady infiltration of students, file clerks, secretaries, and university officials. She liked the rug anyway.
It was just before eleven in the morning, a beautiful morning with a quick snap in the air, and a clear fall sky. At eleven-fifteen, Susan Mitchell would arrive for her appointment. Dean Paterson held the three square yellow cards in her hand, thumbing through them, the bland printed information registering slowly in her mind. There was scant knowledge of the girl on the office records.
Mrs. Nesselbush had called her "a savage."
The case was not unique. In her twenty-three years of counseling girls, Dean Patterson had become fairly well acquainted with the problem of homosexuality, suspected or overt. She had dealt with it before.
She laid the first set of yellow cards down and picked up the second set, removing the paper clip. Leda Taylor's name was familiar. There were several rows of reported late minutes. The explanations appeared in the spaces after the account of the offense.
24 March---30 minutes late---Flat tire. 12 April---2 hours late---Delayed because of storm 19 April---Absent all night---Forgot to sign out for week end.
2 May---15 minutes late---Watch stopped.
Her scholastic report was not always good. There were alarming high and low points, and a strange proclivity toward extremes. A's and D's. B's and E's. Psychology was a good subject. English was second, with science and math at a nadir. Dean Paterson remembered her as a very attractive girl, with a slight rough edge to her nature and a suggestion of specious warmth.
Mrs. Nesselbush had explained that she was a darling.
The buzzer burred out in the stillness. Susan Mitchell.
Dean Paterson stood up and watched the door until the girl came in. She had not expected her to look like that at all. She said, "Won't you sit down, Susan?"
From the top of her desk drawer, near the newly sharpened pencils and the memo pads, the Dean removed the envelope that Mrs. Nesselbush had sent her. Inside was the letter.
"You don't know why you're here, do you, Susan?"
The girl smiled. "No, ma'am," she answered. "Mother Nessy said something about your wanting to talk about my subjects."
It was irritating. There was no need to lie to the girl. There was no necessity to explain falsely why the appointment was made. The Dean shook her head and picked up her yellow pencil. She made dots on the back of the white envelope.
"No," she said. "It's not about your subjects. It's about something you may be able to tell me more about than I know."
"Yes?"
"How close have you been to Leda Taylor?"
Mitch felt a shrinking inside of her. "I---I room with her," she said "We're good friends."
"Is that all?"
So they hadn't believed Leda after all. Mitch looked at the Dean's face, and then down at her hands and the pencil. She could not say anything.
"You see," Dean Paterson said, "it's been left up to me. I guess you had no indication that anything was wrong at the Tri Epsilon house today."
"No." Mitch's voice was barely audible. She looked at her hands. If only Leda had been summoned at the same time, Mitch thought, she could do the talking. Mitch wondered then if Leda had already been to see the Dean, earlier in the morning. She had not seen her since breakfast, and they had not sat at the same table. Leda thought it would be too obvious if they sat together after last night.
"You see, Susan, that kind of thing can't be tolerated. In the long run, if it was tolerated, you'd be hurt terribly. There would be cruel jokes, and an even cruder alienation from the other girls. Do you want to talk about it? I have only Mrs. Nesselbush's report."
"I---I don't know how to talk about it"
Dean Paterson went over to the couch where Mitch was sitting. She sat beside her. "Start with Leda," she said. "Try to tell me about Leda."
Mitch spoke suddenly. "It's not her fault," she said "It's really not her fault at all."
Tears clouded Mitch's eyes and she tried to prevent them from rushing forward. Dean Paterson put her arm around the girl's shoulder. "Susan," she said, "listen to me. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. It's going to make my job a little harder, though. You see, I'll have to submit a report on this, and I don't have very much to go on. Just the letter and what I've heard"
Mitch looked at her. "What letter?"
"The one you wrote Leda. I'm sorry, dear. You can have it back. I don't think it's very nice to read other people's mail either, but there are so many things the Dean of Women has to do that aren't very nice."
Mitch said, "Then Mother Nessy stole the letter. She must have. Leda forgot to tear it up and---"
Dean Paterson told Mitch then that Leda had given the letter to Nessy. Mitch pulled away and jumped up. "That's not true," she said. "That's not true!" The tears streamed down her cheeks, and she sank back on the couch. "You don't know Leda. She wouldn't do that. She's tried to protect me all the way---even lied for me last night to Marsha. She told Marsha I was sick and---" The shrill ring of the phone cut into Mitch's words. While Dean Paterson crossed the room and stood talking, Mitch cried violently, stopping the sound with her handkerchief, pushing the sobs back in her throat. Again she thought of running away, with Leda, somewhere---anywhere. They would be expelled and there was no other thing to do but run. And run. She wished that the Dean would just tell her that she would have to leave Cranston, instead of asking questions and trying to find out more information. Then Mitch could hurry and get to Leda first, before the Dean did. It would be awful for Leda, She was so sure last night.
"I'm sorry for the interruption," Dean Paterson said, walking back toward Mitch. "I have an idea, if you'd like. It's almost lunchtime. I usually make a sandwich at my apartment, a few blocks from here. Would you like to go there with me now?"
Mitch shook her head. "I have to see Leda," she said. "I have to talk to her. Please---she won't be able to stand this. If we're expelled---"
The Dean took Mitch's arm. "Susan, Leda is not going to be expelled. I think we'd better talk about it at lunch, dear. All right?"
As if in a trance, unable to comprehend any meaning, Mitch waited while Dean Paterson straightened some papers on the desk, removed her purse from the lower drawer, and pressed the light button off. Together they walked through the reception room, out into the cold marble corridor of Kenyon Hall.
\*
After Dean Paterson canceled her afternoon appointments, she sat down in the small, green-walled front room of her apartment. Susan Mitchell was in the bedroom asleep. The story seemed unbelievable.
But not impossible.
Ruth Paterson picked up the small white china poodle from the round glass-top coffee table. She passed her thumb along the ridges and up to the object's black eyes, and she thought about Susan Mitchell. Certainly not a savage.
It was a strange story, the story of Susan and Leda, but she had learned long ago not to be surprised at anything. She checked back her own willingness to believe what Susan Mitchell had told her. The child was afraid and lost, and sympathy came easily. This girl invited it and coaxed it, with her lonesome eyes and her ingenuous statements. Ruth Paterson had an impulse to go into the bedroom and wake the girl up and tell her that she could not stay. Even though she had asked her to stay. She was afraid of the girl in many ways, afraid that the fumbling immaturity of Susan Mitchell had made her go soft and irrational. There had been other occasions when she had weakened like this and regretted it later. The Dobbs girl, for instance. Petite, blue-eyed Faith Dobbs, a freshman years ago. She had been accused of stealing in the dorm, and something about her made the Dean believe that she was innocent when she sat before her and told her story. The hours and days of counsel, the defense she had made of the girl before the Board of Trustees, and the angry speech she had delivered to the girls who lived in Faith's dorm---all objects of ridicule when Faith Dobbs pilfered the Dean's watch and petty-cash box from her office weeks later. No, she was by no means infallible. And now there was another child who wanted to be trusted, was already trusted by the mere fact that she was asleep now in Dean Paterson's apartment.
She got up and placed the china poodle back on the glass top. The phone was in the corner, just above the window seat. For a moment she sat looking out into the street. A boy and girl passed, he carrying her books, she laughing up at him, reaching with her hand to brush back the blond curl that fell on his forehead. They kicked the leaves along the sidewalk as they walked down the block. Ruth Paterson said aloud, "If everything could be as simple as that," and laughed when she thought of the obvious fact that even that was not simple. There's no simplicity left in modern living, she decided. Everyone is on the spit at one time or another. Thumbing through the phone book, she found the number and dialed it.
"Marsha Holmes, please," she said, and while she waited, she twisted the rubber cord attached to the telephone.
"Hello, Marsha? This is Dean Paterson. . . Fine, thank you. Marsha, is Leda Taylor in the house? . . . I see. I wonder," Dean Paterson said, "if you could find her for me. If she's in class, wait until it's over and ask her to come and see me. At the apartment. I'll be here all of this afternoon."
\*
The Den was not crowded at two-thirty that afternoon. It was a popular hour for classes at C.U., and only a few students lined the bar, their books strewn about on the pine top, their beers before them. The juke box blared out a frantic trumpet, and from a corner near the door the ringing of the pin-ball machines could be heard.
Leda and Jake were the only ones occupying any of the knotty-pine booths. They sat in the last one, side by side, a pitcher of beer before them. Jake had a flask in the pocket of his coat, and they were drinking "boiler-makers," half whisky, half beer. They had been there since eleven-thirty, and their only food had been a hardboiled egg apiece and a bowl of pretzels. Jake's head was hanging to one side languorously. He was only half listening to Leda, who had been talking for three hours.
"You can jus' imagine," she said, "if anyone can jus' imagine."
Jake reached out for the pitcher of beer. He poured half of it on the table. The rest went in the glass and he fumbled in his pocket for the flask. He sang loudly, "Oh, a girl without a woman is like a---"
A few boys at the bar looked back and laughed. Others kept on talking. The bartender shook his head. "Flunked an exam, probably," he said.
"Man," the short thin boy exclaimed, "he's carrying a big load!"
The fellow next to him swallowed his beer. "She's helping him with that load."
Leda tried to pour beer into her glass but she couldn't grasp the handle. She nudged Jake and pointed to it He poured more on the table, leaving a few inches in the bottom of her glass. His hand shook when he added the whisky, and some of the yellow-brown liquid fell on Leda's coat. She brushed it away and giggled. Then her face became serious and she tasted the beer, which did not taste at all.
She said, "Here's to Mitchell, Mitchell."
Jake reached for his glass. "To Mitchell Mitchell," he said. "Long may she wave!"
The bartender leaned over to a solitary waiter standing near the end of the bar. He pointed at Leda and Jake, and the waiter came across the room to them. "All right, kids," he said. "Don't you think you've had enough?"
Jake said, "Who asked you?"
"C'mon, quiet down, kids. This is your last drink."
"Tell him," Leda said, her words slurring and halting. "Tell him wha' hoppen."
"Naw, he don't know from nothing."
"Look," the waiter said, "take it easy. I'm warning you I kids for the last time."
"For the last time," Leda repeated, smiling, her head dropping to Jake's shoulder.
A confused thought came to her mind as she leaned against Jake. She wanted to cry. She really wanted to cry, but she couldn't. She wanted to cry for what she had done to Mitch, but when she realized she had done it to herself too, she couldn't get a tear to come. She could feel tears in her throat. She said aloud, "What good are they in my throat?"
Jake said, "I don't know."
She wondered where Mitch was and what she was thinking. She decided that Mitch was crying. Maybe she was packing. Maybe she was in the room at the Tri Epsilon house packing. She shut her eyes and there were bright colored circles and her head spun. She said, "Once yer on a roller coaster yew can't git off."
Jake got up quickly. "Hurry," he yelled at her. "Can you make it?"
She only had a little way to go. The door pushed open readily, and she held onto the white sink. The tears came to her eyes automatically, and her whole body shook in jerks and seemed to roll. When it was over she got up from her knees and stared into the mirror. Her eyes focused at last, and when she saw her face, she could not believe it. She looked white and her hair hung like a witch's. She took a lipstick from her coat pocket and rubbed the old stain off with a piece of rough toilet paper. When she applied the red color, it still looked sickly and smeared. The powder only made her face look whiter. She pinched her cheeks for color. The comb caught in the knots of her hair, and she swore. Finally she gave up. She turned to go back, but she could not. Again she fell to her knees. Over and over she cried, "Mitch," and she got sicker and sicker. The tears rolled off her nose, and she could taste an evil-smelling taste in her mouth. She stood up after a while and held onto the wall. Everything was clear. She felt better. Gradually the wall stopped moving and she could see things standing still again. She pushed the door open and walked regally down to the booth where Jake was waiting.
Marsha sat across from him, and beside Marsha was Kitten Clark.
"Where have you been?" They sounded too loud. "We've been looking high and low."
"Right here," Jake said.
Leda could feel things coming back. She could control herself. "I've been here for. hours," she said. "What do you want with me?"
"We don't want you. Dean Paterson wants you. She called up the house."
"Oh, God!"
Kitten Clark got up from the booth. "C'mon, Leda," she said. "We've got to get you sobered up. We'll take you back to the house and put you under the shower. You're in no condition."
"Yeah," Leda answered, "I'm not. Jake borrowed Clive's car. It's out front We gotta get it back to Sig Delt"
Marsha said, "I'll drive."
Jake stood up then too. "The hell," he said. "The hell you'll drive. I'll drive. I'm no one's goddamn kindergarten kid. I'll drive."
"No, Jake." Leda held onto him and said, "No, don't."
"Then you drive, goddamn it. I don't want these jackasses in my car that I personally borrowed."
Leda turned to them. Her head was clearing. She could still taste the taste and feel the strangeness in her knees, but she was all right. She had to be all right. Dean Paterson wanted to see her. Leda said, "Look, I better drive the car. We'll drop him off. It'll help me sober up, anyway."
"You're not sober enough now to drive," Marsha said.
"I tell you I am! Don't argue, now. I've got to step on it"
"She's O.K.," Kitten said. "She could sail a schooner with a few drinks in her. I know her."
They filed out of the Den and walked up the street toward Clive's car. Jake was singing and stumbling as he walked along, and the fresh air made Leda feel sleepy. She blinked her eyes and made herself keep on going.
The car was parked at the end of the street. Jake crawled in the back and stretched out on the seat, while Leda and Marsha and Kitten crowded in the front. When the motor started, Jake yelled out, "Home, James! Home!"
The Dean would want Leda to tell her all about Mitch. She had talked to Mitch, and Mitch had no doubt told her everything. But the Dean wouldn't believe it. Even the late minutes on her record alone would keep the Dean from believing. She was always out with boys---late. Last year she had been a queen.
The Dean would make her go all through it again. Could she remember everything she had said exactly?
"Here," Kitten said, "chew on these mints. They'll clear your breath. I'm not sure you'll have time for a shower. It's quarter after three."
Leda reached over for the mint. Her eyelids felt heavy and drooping.
"She's got to have a shower," Marsha said. "Even her clothes smell of it."
"She can change those."
"No," Marsha said, "a shower's best. After all, the house has got a bad enough name in the Dean's office now. She'll think we're completely irresponsible."
"Irrrrrr-reeeeee-sponsib-bull!" Jake yelled out from the back seat.
"Where'd you tell her I was?" Leda said.
"In class. We said we thought you had a class."
"I don't. She can go to her files and find that out"
Marsha said, "She's at her apartment."
"God! I've never been there."
She put her foot down harder on the gas. She would have to hurry and get it over with. What did Mitch say when she found out? What did she think? Mitch's face seemed to come on the window and she couldn't see the road. She was looking at Mitch's face and the trusting eyes. Remembering the words. "I'll always stick by you---always. You mean more to me than anyone I know."
"Hey," Marsha said. "Slow down."
"Slow down, baby, don't you blowwww yer top-p," Jake sang out
She didn't feel as though she were driving a car. She felt as though she were sitting back and someone else was driving. Looking down at her foot, she saw that it was on the pedal, but she could not feel her own strength pushing it.
"Leda!" Kitten screamed. "Take it easy! Leda!"
The car crashed in a thundering noise. Jake was thrown to the floor and Marsha and Kitten could feel their heads jerk forward and thump on the pane. When they straightened up, they lay back with their heads leaning against the leather seats. Jake moaned out from the back, and then he scrambled up and held his head too and shook it. Then they all saw Leda. The glass in the pane where her head had struck was splintered, and down the side of her face there was the scarlet color of blood.
Outside of the car, there was another car smashed and still where it had been parked. Jake got out first. He pushed the seat back and stood in the road while the people on the street hurried toward them. Kitten and Marsha held Leda and tried to move her back. They were able to pull her head from the windshield and ease her back in a sitting position against the seat.
"God!" Kitten said. "She's bleeding like mad."
"I better call an ambulance." Marsha got out of the car.
A gray-haired man ran up to her. "Anything I can do, lady?"
Marsha said, "Please---call an ambulance," She went around to the other side and talked through the window to Kitten. "Is she coming to?"
"Not yet. I'm trying to wipe the blood away. Ask Jake if he's got a handkerchief."
Jake was holding onto the car, his head down, his arms wobbly. He handed Marsha the handkerchief without speaking. People crowded toward them and a policeman hurried up from the comer.
"Hey!" Kitten yelled. "She's coming to. She's talking."
"What's she saying? Is she hurt?"
"Listen," Kitten said. "Marsha, listen!"
Marsha leaned in the window. Leda's lips were parted, and the blood had run down by her nose. Her eyes were closed. She kept mumbling. They were able to make the mumbling out gradually as it became clearer. "Mitch," she was saying. "Mitch, honey. Oh, God, Mitch, honey, what did I do to you?"
"She feels bad about Susan Mitchell," Kitten said.
They listened to Leda as she said more. "I want you, Mitch. Kiss me! It's going to be all right again. God, Mitch, love me."
Marsha and Kitten looked at each other with horror-stricken faces.
Kitten said, "Did you hear what I heard?" and the mumbling kept on.
The strong hospital smell made Marsha cough and cross the waiting room on the second floor of the large building to open the window and breathe the fresh air.
"Hey," Kitten said, "it's cold. I'd rather have the smell." She said it more for something to say than as an actual expression of her feelings that morning. On other Friday mornings at half past ten, she would be sitting in world-lit class, in the second row of the auditorium, vaguely hearing Professor Weber's sonorous words blare out on the loud-speaker while she made flimsy notes and stared at the boy's head in front of her.
Leda had been in the University Hospital for three days. During that time, Dr. Ted Peters was her only visitor. Now Kitten and Marsha were waiting for him before they went in to see Leda.
"I wish he'd come," Marsha said. "If I miss my eleven-thirty, I'll have to take a separate econ quiz." She sat down in the black leather rocker and picked through the pages of "Look." It was an old issue, and she had read it thoroughly weeks ago. Kitten took her compact from her purse and looked at her lipstick. She powdered her nose and stuck the compact back, clamping the purse shut. A nurse in a crisp white uniform padded by on her rubber-heeled shoes.
"It didn't take Mitch long to move," Kitten said.
Marsha sighed. "She had the car."
Dr. Peters shut the door to the waiting room after he came in. He was a tall, thin man with a boyish face and kindly gray eyes behind the black, heavy-rimmed glasses that matched the color of his thick hair. He had on a white coat above the dark blue pants, and in his hand he held a tan bone pipe.
"Which is which?" he said, sitting down on the leather couch beside Kitten. After Marsha made the introductions, he put a match to the tobacco in his pipe and leaned back comfortably. His face was drawn with a serious, wary expression.
"Dean Paterson tells me you two are the only Tri Eps who know the whole story on this."
"That's right," Marsha said, putting the copy of "Look" back on the table and folding her hands on her lap. "We'd like to keep it that way, if it's possible. I guess you understand how girls can talk, and---"
"I understand. About the Mitchell girl... Does the house know why she was asked to leave?"
Marsha said, "No. We said she was incompatible. That's all. Jane Bell and Casey and Mother Nessy know. They know about Leda too now, but it's terribly embarrassing. Leda was our queen. If it ever got out, we'd be ruined. I don't think Mitch will tell. It'd ruin us."
Dr. Parker blew a puff of smoke up into the air. He took his glasses off and held them loosely in his hand. "And this---Jake? How does he fit into all of this?"
"Him!" Kitten said. "We don't have to worry about him. He was so blotto he doesn't even remember being at the Den, much less anything else. I don't know whether Leda told him or not, but he sure doesn't remember anything. I had a class with him yesterday. All he's worried about is paying for the car that got wrecked. And Leda too, he says, but if you ask me---"
"Which no one did," Marsha broke in, putting a period to Kitten's opinion.
Ted Peters watched the girls as they talked. He wondered if his generation had been that way, or if it was true that the younger generation had changed, evolved into a careless breed of people who lacked even a remote basis for understanding. He shut his eyes and shuddered inwardly. "Right now," he said, "we've got to worry about Leda Taylor. She's very ill---in her mind as well as in her body."
"Lord!" Kitten exclaimed. "You'd never think she was one. All those dates and everything."
"Look, girls," Dr. Peters said, "right now I want you to turn into actresses. The best actresses you can be. Leda is conscious now. For the past few days she's been semiconscious and she's got a lot off her mind, talking and crying, saying things she's probably had pent up in her since she was knee-high. But now, as you go in that room, let her be the old Leda Taylor---act as if she's the Leda you knew before the accident and your talk with Dean Paterson. When you go in to see her, forget all of these recent developments, and talk to her as you would if this had never happened. She has no way of remembering what she said at the wreck, and no way of knowing what's happened since then. "She'll be attempting to live the lie, and you've got to help her live it. Some of her talk may be incoherent. Pass over it. Don't indicate in any way that there's anything different about her. And most important---prepare yourself for a difference."
"We shouldn't mention Susan Mitchell, of course?"
"Not unless she mentions her. She may ask you if Susan was sent home, or what became of her. In that case, you say that she hasn't been sent home yet. Say you don't know any more about it---that Dean Paterson is handling it. You see, the best thing that could happen to Leda would be for her to see Susan. She feels guilty, and she still has emotional ties that are stronger than we can imagine, but she'll have to ask to see the girl herself. Otherwise it won't be effective."
"What about Jake?" Kitten said. "Should we mention him?"
"Certainly! Act the way you would act if you didn't know anything about all of this. Tell her everyone is asking for her at the house. Try to give her some will to get better."
Marsha stood up and came over to Dr. Peters. "We'll do the best we can," she said.
The three of them left the small reception room and walked down the dark corridor where the smells of ether and medicine and disinfectant were more pronounced. There was a screen in the entrance to Room 209, and Kitten and Marsha stopped there and shook hands with Dr. Peters. He smiled briefly and whispered, "Don't forget"
Inside the room the shades were drawn and there was a small light over the bed. The fat, neat-looking nurse left them alone with Leda, who lay still, her head swathed in white gauze bandages. Marsha went ahead of Kitten to the edge of the bed and peered at Leda.
"Hi," she whispered. "How do you feel?"
Leda's face had a yellow cast to it and her lips barely broke in an uneven, crooked grin. "How do I look?" she answered.
Kitten moved up alongside Marsha. She said, "I bet that's the first cotton crown you ever wore."
"Why don't you tell me how I look?" Leda said.
Kitten sat down on the straight-back chair near the bed table. "You had a rough time of it," she said. "I think you look darn well, considering."
Marsha tried to smile enthusiastically. "Everybody's been asking about you at the house," she said.
"So everybody's been asking." Leda half laughed. "Well!"
"Jake's asked, too," Kitten said. "You know, we have math together."
"Car wrecked?"
Kitten stammered, unsure of what to say. Marsha said, "It is in bad shape."
"Anyone called Jan?"
"I don't know," Kitten answered. "I don't think anyone at the house did."
"Good. It'd ruin her trip. She's going to L.A., you know. Did you know Jan was going to L.A.? Yeah, she likes it out there. She's a big hit in L.A."
There was a short pause. Kitten fumbled with her purse and found the handkerchief. She touched it to her nose, a gesture to take time and allow her to think of something to say. Marsha leaned on the bed and smoothed her skirt.
"What about Mitch?" Leda said suddenly. "She go home?"
"Not yet" Marsha said. "I guess not yet." Kitten remembered to add, "The Dean's handling it."
"The Dean. What'd she want with me, anyway? I don't care, either."
Marsha pretended to scratch her arm up under the sleeve of her sweater. "We'll have to talk about your nomination for Christmas Queen when you get better, Leda."
"And what's the Dean want with Mitch? Poor dumb kid."
There was another short silence.
Leda said, "I'd like to see her. Surprise you? I'd like to see Mitch."
"Maybe you can," Marsha said.
"Surprises you that I'd like to see her, doesn't it?"
Kitten said, "No. I can see why."
"Why?" Leda said.
Kitten's face became tense. "Well, you---roomed together and---"
Leda laughed very hard. Then she was serious again, her green eyes strangely alert. She brought her hand up and touched her fingers to her mouth, and even in the light and with the gauze and the weakness of her body, she was beautiful. It was in the supple line of her lips, and the way her glance seemed plaintive and lost.
"Yes," she said. "Yes, we roomed together. Roommates! Too bad. If she was still around I thought I could talk to her. Tell her it was too bad."
Kitten tried to blow her nose as though it needed it. "I've got a damn cold," she said, "or my sinus or something."
"Do you know where Mitch is?" Leda asked.
"No," Marsha said. "Maybe the doctor would know."
"God!" Leda turned over on her side. "He doesn't know her from a hole in the wall. Why talk about such dreary subjects anyway? Might as well forget about it. What's going on at the house this week end?"
Kitten started elaborating on who had a date with whom, and what fraternities were giving parties. "You know," she said, "we've got to get together on plans for the Christmas Queen campaign." After she said it, she wondered whom they would elect to take Leda's place. Secretly, she had thought of herself as a logical candidate.
The fat woman in white returned and signaled to them. "Time's up," she said. "You can come again tomorrow."
Marsha and Kitten felt mutual relief as they stood up and bade Leda good-by. "Come back," Leda said. "Come back and see me again. God, I go crazy in this bed!"
"We'll be back," Marsha promised.
Dr. Peters was waiting outside the screen for them. He led them down the hall and listened with interest as they announced that Leda had asked for Susan Mitchell.
"She was funny, though," Kitten said. "Not funny, but strange."
"Almost like she wasn't all there at times," Marsha sighed, "the way she looked away from me when she talked, and how she rambled."
He watched them after they left from the front door and hurried down the walk, talking together excitedly.
It was late that afternoon when he parked his worn Chevrolet coupe in front of Dean Paterson's apartment. She met him at the door and led him into the living room
"You look tired, Ted," she said as he sat down and stretched his long feet before him. "It's pretty depressing, isn't it?"
He knocked the bone pipe on the ash tray and took the small tan pouch from his pocket. "Did you talk to the girls? They were over this morning to see Leda, you know."
Ruth Paterson sat on the hassock beside the couch. "Yes, they stayed in my office for several hours. I wanted to be sure that they understood the situation thoroughly ---that Susan Mitchell would be a perfectly normal girl if it hadn't been for Leda, and that now, with understanding and help from you, she will be normal again."
"And how did they react to her staying in school?"
"It's curious, Ted. You see, their main worry is that Susan will tell the story to someone, thereby ruining the Tri Ep reputation. Susan's welfare seems a smaller concern. Oh, of course, they said they wanted to see her get a decent break, and that they were upset about the whole affair---but primarily, they worry about how this would affect their sorority."
Dr. Peters put a match to the tobacco in the pipe and sucked on the stem thoughtfully. He shook his head. "You're sort of sticking your neck out, Ruth. I can't tell you how genuinely proud I am of you. It's been my feeling all along that there's no question about the Mitchell girl's normality---that it could have happened to almost any lonely, helpless, and naive child. But you shouldered the responsibility when you decided to let her stay in school. That takes courage, Ruth---real courage."
Dean Paterson wondered if it did, or if it were more of an act of responsibility than an act of courage. There was no doubt in her mind that the Mitchell girl would be normal again. Doubts like that were too costly for a dean of women. But to defend your own beliefs in the face of other people's doubts did take courage. She was thankful for the kind of man Ted Peters was.
"You know, Ted," she began, "I've always thought my position was more than that of a counselor to girls en masse. I've wanted it to mean more than that---to mean each girl individually, not only in her academic work and in her extracurricular activities, but in the girl's life as long as we're associated with one another. I think that's part of a college's duty. Otherwise, it seems like an assembly line that turns out a B. A. degree in four years."
"You're right," Dr. Peters agreed. "It's a big job, too. I don't know, Ruth. Today I wondered if all our youth hadn't suddenly turned shallow and callous---after the girls left the hospital and I watched them walk away laughing and chatting like magpies. I wondered where the dignity of youth was nowadays. Well, at any rate, it looks like Susan will have a chance. Leda is another matter. She wants to see Susan---and that's what I came over about. I'd like to arrange a meeting between the two of them tonight."
"Is that wise, Ted?"
"I've talked to Susan, and I think I know her well enough now to be sure that it'll be very wise in her case. It's cruel to ask her to witness the fallen Leda, and yet, perhaps it's the only way to prove to her once and for all how very sick Leda is and was. The mental sickness is becoming more pronounced than the physical. That wreck didn't really injure Leda. It awoke her. The neuroses that was growing in her subconscious mind suddenly came to grips with the conscious mind at the time of the wreck. The impact of that meeting is what she can't bridge. She knows her two selves now, and she can't assimilate them. It's very serious, Ruth, and I'm counting on her seeing Susan to help."
The phone was on the desk, and Dean Paterson reached for it, hesitating a moment before she remembered the number of the dorm where Susan Mitchell was living.
\*
Mitch finished hanging up the last dress and turned to look at the room in Main Dorm where she had moved. The boxes were empty, and the suitcase had been shoved under the bed by the wall. Robin sat limp in the chair near the desk, her short legs relaxed in front of her, her arms hanging down at the side. "Finally!" she sighed. "I thought we'd never finish."
"You were wonderful to help, Robin." "I'd help anyone out of that kind of hell. You should have done it months ago."
"I guess so," Mitch agreed. She sat on the bed and flicked the radio on, waiting for it to warm up.
"You know," Robin said, "Monday night after you didn't show up here, I thought you'd weakened and changed your mind."
Mitch got a station that was playing waltz music. She fixed the tone so it was not too loud, and didn't answer Robin. The Dean had warned her that it would be hard. People would want to know why she had moved out of the sorority.
"Anything new on Leda?"
The question jarred Mitch. She had heard from Dr. Peters that Leda had called for her at the wreck, that she had said all those things about her, crying out her love before she came to in the hospital. Half of Mitch remembered Leda with the raven-colored hair and the keen, delicate hands, the jade eyes and the soft words, but even in that half there was a tinge of bitter irony in Mitch's memory, flowing into the other half of the remembered Leda. The half that had betrayed her.
"I know you must be worried," Robin continued. "I never trusted her, myself. There was something about her. But I know you like her."
"You have to know her," Mitch said, hoping the dull edge on her words was not obvious to Robin.
Robin yawned and stretched. "Yeah," she said. "You can never tell. I'm going to run along. Got a mad date with Tom Edwards."
After she left, Mitch sat in the chair, hearing the music and thinking of Leda lying in the hospital, sick and alone. She did not want to hate Leda for all that she had done. Dr. Peters had helped her to understand Leda, but there was still the pain left from the way it had all blown lip and left her burned. And Leda had struck the match to the situation.
"She was sick when she loved you," Dr. Peters had said, "and you caught some of that sickness. You're going to be all right. Leda may never be all right again."
Mitch thought of it again---what would have happened if everything had gone the way Leda had planned it. She tried to picture her father's face, contorted with anger and resentment and disgust, the way it would have been if she had been sent home from Cranston.
But Leda was sick.
Mitch turned the radio off and yelled, "O.K." into the buzzer on her wall. She wondered who would be buzzing her number. Robin was gone with Tom Edwards, and she didn't know anyone else yet.
She picked up the comb again and fixed her hair before the mirror. It was getting longer, and she thought of having a permanent so the curl would stay in and not come down after swimming class. She turned the light off and shut the door. A girl passed her in the hall on her way to the steps, and Mitch returned her smile. The dorm was friendlier, she decided, and the smile made her feel better as she went down the stairs into the lobby to answer the buzzer.
"Well!" Lucifer grinned. "You took your sweet time getting down here."
He was wearing a pair of old olive-green pants and a spotted brown sweater. There was a cap on his head, with faded Greek letters.
"Pardon my attire," he said. "I just finished scrimmage. Want to have a Coke with a famous Cranston peasant?"
Mitch laughed and ran back up the stairs to get her coat. Lucifer was fun.
They sat together in a small booth at the Student Union. Lucifer handed her a nickel. "Go ahead," he said, "play anything you like. I'm extravagant, I know. But go ahead."
She read the list of selections on the machine at the side of the booth and pushed the button for number nine after she slid the nickel in the slot. Bing Crosby's voice floated out over the room. "Little early for 'White Christmas'," Lucifer said. "Or is it?"
"Six weeks early," Mitch said. "I love Christmas, though."
"You'll have a miserable Christmas." Lucifer frowned. "You'll miss me till you're almost crazy."
The afternoon went easily. Mitch forgot a lot with Lucifer chatting away in her ear, running back and forth with Cokes, making her laugh with his idiotic talk. It wasn't until they were leaving that she saw Marybell Van Casey sitting in the opposite booth. A flash of heat shot through Mitch when their eyes met, and she stood in the aisle beside Lucifer, uncertain whether to speak or move on. Casey smiled and her face broke in sudden friendliness. "Hi," she said. "How are you, Mitch?"
There were others at the table, but Mitch felt relieved when she saw that they were not Tri Eps. She said, "I'm fine."
"We can't talk," Lucifer broke in. "We have to catch a train: We're eloping."
Casey laughed, and Mitch could feel the tension leave when Casey called out, "Get back in time for swim meet Monday. I think you'll make the team, Mitch."
"Teams!" Lucifer said as he took her arm and led her out of the room "Teams at a time like this!"
When he left her at the entrance to Main Dorm, he asked her to go out with him on Saturday. "We'll go to a movie," he said. "After all, it's our honeymoon. We might as well splurge."
Mitch agreed. She pushed the door open and walked through the lobby of the dorm toward the stairs. The small girl at the reception desk called out her name. Mitch stopped and turned around. "Dean Paterson said to call her at the office," the girl told her. "You can use the phone on this floor if you want. To your left."
"I'll drive you over after dinner," Dean Paterson told Mitch over the phone. "Now, keep your chin up and don't worry about it. I'll pick you up at seven."
Mitch hung up. She stayed there in the booth and looked dumbly at the four walls, marked with penciled phone numbers, red lipstick prints where someone had kissed one of the walls, pictures of rabbits and girls' heads, the sign that said, "Others are waiting," and the one that said, "Well! Don't take all day!" She pulled the door back and walked slowly toward the stairs. A girl ran out of her room and brushed up against Mitch, saying, "I'm sorry," and hurrying on, with her coat flying.
What kind of reunion would it be there in the hospital, Mitch wondered? What would they say to each other?
\*
The headlights blinded Mitch as she walked toward the car. Dr. Peters got out and let her move in so that she was sitting between them
"It won't take long," Dean Paterson said, "but it's very important"
"How---is Leda?" Even the name was hard to say. Again a favorite slogan of her father's ran through her mind: "Every good pencil has an eraser." She wanted desperately to erase Leda from her mind.
"She's still in serious condition," Dr. Peters answered, "but we're hopeful. She asked to see you. Two of her sorority sisters were over this morning. I asked them to do something for me and they did it very well. Now I'm going to ask you, Susan."
"What?"
Dr. Peters explained that Leda still thought Mitch was going to be expelled.
"She feels guilty," he said, "and it's preventing her from wanting to get better. And yet we can't let her know that you're not being expelled, because then she'd realize that we know all about her, and she couldn't take that. You've got to try to make her feel as though everything's all right. Make her think you're happy and that you've forgiven her. You'll be alone with her, Susan, but we'll be close by. If she gets emotional, try to be calm yourself. Say things that will ease her mind about you. All right?"
Dean Paterson stopped for the light and reached over to touch Mitch's hand. "It won't be easy for you, Susan," she said, "but try very hard, dear. Don't tell her you're at the dorm. Tell her you're staying with me until you go home."
Tell her, don't tell her, say, don't say, all jumbled up and crazy in her mind. Mitch watched the lights from other cars and tried to remember what Leda's face was like. She couldn't remember. And her voice. She couldn't recall what Leda's voice was like. High or low? Dr. Peters and Dean Paterson kept talking, and Mitch could only think that she did not even know Leda, or them, or why she was there. The car swung into the spacious parking lot behind the hospital, and the night air felt cold on Mitch's face as she stepped out of the car and followed them into the building.
Some students sat in the chairs at the right of the entrance, and a telephone operator pulled out colored cords from her board and kept repeating, "University Hospital, one moment" in a singsong tone. There was a strange silence in the halls, and the elevator seemed crowded, though there were just the three of them
The door moved back automatically, and they walked along until they came to the door with the screen in front of it. Mitch went in and they waited outside. Dr. Peters pushed the screen back when the nurse came out, and Mitch could hear the door close behind her. Slowly she walked toward the bed. When she saw Leda's face in the dim light, she knew why she was there.
She said, "Leda?"
Leda opened her eyes. She looked at Mitch without smiling. She didn't say anything, and Mitch moved closer.
"Hello, Leda," Mitch said.
Almost instantly Leda seemed to regain her energy. She smiled and tried to move up farther on the big pillow behind her head. "Hi, kid," she said.
"How do you feel?"
"God, I feel lousy."
"I'm sorry, Leda. Terribly sorry."
She was sorry, too. She knew it when she said it and looked right at the girl. She was plain sorry.
"You shouldn't be sorry for me. I guess I ought to be sorry myself, Mitch."
"No," Mitch said. "Everything turned out O.K. for me. You did your best, Leda."
"You think so? You really believe that?"
"Well, all I know is, I think it's best the way you did it."
"You would," Leda laughed. "You would, Mitch. You know something?"
"What, Leda?" Mitch had never seen a face like that. It looked old and lined with fear and worry. But it was Leda's face, Mitch realized, and there was something there in the look that was not too strange. Familiar.
"If I ever do anything good, I don't know when I'm doing it. You know what I mean? I just do it, and then sometimes it turns out good. Do you know?"
"Yes, I know, Leda."
"If it turned out good for you, kid, I'm glad."
"It did, Leda. It turned out good."
"I was worried," Leda said, reaching over for her cigarettes. "Hand me one, will you, kid? Dr. Peters said I could smoke if I wanted today, but I didn't feel like it till now."
Mitch gave her the cigarette and lit it for her with the small, blue-covered matchbox that said, "Clean-Rite Cleaners" on the top, and "You get it dirty---we'll get it clean."
"I was worried," Leda continued. "I thought you'd be sore at me. I wouldn't have blamed you, either. I'm sorry about the letter. Nessy found it, you know. There wasn't much I could do."
"I know," Mitch said. "Let's not talk about it, Leda. I'm glad you feel---"
"Wait a minute. Why not talk about it? Why not? You don't believe that Nessy found that letter, do you, Mitch? Come on, Mitch. Even you don't believe that!"
"Leda, please. Let's forget it."
"Forget it! My God, forget it! You know what it's like to lie here in this goddamn bed and think about everything? Some circus, this is! Some big circus!"
She laughed and she stopped laughing abruptly. For a moment the look of peace and ease came back to her face and she smiled. "I do feel better," she said. "Marsha and Kitten were here this morning. I haven't seen Jake yet."
"Maybe you'll see him tomorrow," Mitch said.
"Hell, who am I kidding? I'm not kidding you, am I, Mitch? I don't care if I ever see him again." Leda blew the smoke out and tried to sit up farther. Mitch moved over to help her with the pillow. Leda's eyes met Mitch's then under the light. They seemed to lose some of their green color, and there were lines around the sockets under them.
"I'm not kidding you, am I, Mitch?"
Leda caught Mitch's hand when she brought it back from the pillow. "You know I don't give a damn about Jake, don't you?"
Mitch felt the coldness of Leda's skin. The same skin that used to feel warm and send chills through her and excite her. A momentary physical memory came back, but the warmth was fleeting and then dead when she looked back at Leda's face. She tried to pull her hand away but Leda held it tightly.
"I told you the other night. I told you right that night, Mitch. Remember that. No matter what happens after I get out of here, don't forget I told you right. I probably won't see you again, anyway." Her voice seemed to break on the last sentence. She said, "Going home, Mitch? Back to Seedmore or Sneedmore or wherever it is?"
"I suppose," Mitch said. She saw the tears in the corners of Leda's eyes.
"You know I don't want to be without you, don't you?" Her fingers fastened more strongly on Mitch's and Mitch could feel her crushing them. She could feel her own eyes fill. It wasn't because of Leda. It was for Leda that she wanted to cry. She wanted to cry a long time for Leda.
She said, "Yes, I know that, Leda. Don't think about it."
"It's hard not to think about it. God! God! God!" Leda let Mitch's hand go and moved her head back and forth on the pillow, clasping her own hands together and saying, "God, oh, God!" Then she did not move, but stared straight ahead and talked slowly. "You know something, Mitch? It's going to be all right. I've just got a feeling that it's going to be all right. I mean, maybe I didn't do too bad by you. Hell, there are plenty of colleges and sororities. You wouldn't have to go far away. I could still see you."
A tear came down Mitch's cheek. God help her, she thought. Oh, God help Leda. She needs help now.
Leda saw the tear. She smiled, and her voice rose. "You crazy kid! You're crying! You're crying!" Her own tears came forward. "You got me crying too," she said. "You crazy kid!"
Leda reached for the ash tray and put the cigarette in it. The smoke spiraled up. Her face was wet, and she began to talk faster with the tears coming too. "Maybe you can see me again before you go. When are you going, Mitch?"
"I don't know," Mitch said. "I'm not sure. It's up to the Dean."
"You---you didn't tell her about me? I wouldn't blame you if you did. I want to know, though. Did you, Mitch?" The edge of her white cloth hospital gown was wet and the tears did not stop.
"No," Mitch said, "I didn't tell her." Please, God, she thought, forgive me for lying to her. There are enough lies.
"I wouldn't blame you, Mitch. I wouldn't blame you if you hated my guts. You do, don't you?"
She began to laugh then, and to cry and sob, her shoulders shaking and her hands covering the wild expression of hysteria. Mitch kept saying, "I don't hate you, Leda. No, I don't hate you at all."
The thick sound from Leda cut into Mitch's words and rang through the room, persistent and hammering. Mitch backed away, her heart throbbing, afraid to go near Leda while it kept up and Leda writhed in the sheets. Momentarily Leda's hand left her face and she stared ahead, quietly, unmoving, but this lasted only a quick second and she lapsed back again, laughing and weeping, her whole body convulsed.
Fear ran through Mitch, and when the nurse opened the door and took the needle over to Leda, Mitch looked back once more, and left the room remembering Leda like that.
Dean Paterson was waiting outside, and her arm went around Mitch's waist as they walked along the hall. Mitch could see the thin figure of Dr. Peters waiting at the end of the corridor, and she could smell the tangy odor of his tobacco.
There was a warm sun that morning, and the air was so cold that the messenger boy could see his breath as he walked up the steps. He pushed the button and shuffled his feet and clapped his hands together after he laid the package beside him on the porch and waited for someone to answer the door.
He could hear an alarm go off somewhere in the house. It was early in Greek Town, eight o'clock, and across the street at the Delta Pi house, the windows on the second and third floors were half open and the shades were down,
A girl in a blue wool robe answered the door and signed for the package. The boy could see other girls through the door, filing lazily into a large dining room, wearing robes like the one this girl had on. He could smell bacon and eggs and hot coffee while he stood there waiting for her to put her signature on his pad. She handed it back to him, and he picked up the package and gave it to her. Then he hurried down the steps to his bicycle, and took off at a good speed.
Bebe Duncan rapped on the door to Nessy's suite.
"It's a package," she said, "from Kansas City."
Inside, Nessy put the final touch to her dress, the small square-shaped pearl brooch. She was proud of the fact that she never ate breakfast in a robe, that she was always dressed for the day by eight o'clock in the morning at the latest. She fluffed her hair and gave one last jab to her nose with the powder puff.
"Coming," she said, sliding the lock back and emerging from the room, her lilac perfume filling the hall where Bebe stood with the package. "We'll bring it into" the breakfast room." She smiled, walking stanchly ahead and leaving Bebe to follow with it.
There was a noisy scraping of chairs as the Tri Eps stood up when Mother Nesselbush entered beaming and walked regally to the head table, where she pushed her fat hips into the chair. They all sat down again, and watched Bebe bring the package and Nessy take a knife to the string.
"I think," she said, "that I know what this is." She looked very secret, with her lips puckered in a cryptic expression of pleasure.
The brown paper fell from the box and Nessy reached into it and pulled out rumpled sheets of white tissue and another box, a red one. She set it on the table and lifted the cover. The Tri Eps gasped and sighed. The silverware looked beautiful and brilliant against the red velvet background.
"Gee," Bebe Duncan said. "With Mitch gone, they might take it back now."
"No," Nessy said, her eyes dazzled with the silver pieces, her mind filled with vivid pictures of intimate gatherings in her suite with the other housemothers, and the way they too would gasp and sigh when they saw it. "After all, we did what was asked. We pledged the girl and gave her a chance."
One by one the Tri Eps came by the table to touch the silver and run their fingers along the magnificent crest. They left their breakfast and hung around the table where the box lay.
"We'll use it for the exchange with Delta Pi next week," Jane Bell said, holding a fork so that it caught the light and gleamed.
"Lord, let's not wait till then. How about Sunday dinner, tomorrow?"
"It isn't even out of the box yet."
"Look at the demitasse spoons!"
"Now all we need is cups."
It was not long after she had opened the box that Mother Nesselbush was called to the phone. She left the girls in the dining room, exclaiming, fondling each piece, planning for its use, Marsha by that time advising all of them that they had better vote on whether to save it for special occasions or to use it every day. When Nessy entered the small phone booth outside the dining room, Marsha was asking for a show of hands.
Mother Nesselbush's face was strangely animated when she reappeared and stood in the entrance. There was a look of grimness, oddly striped with fascination and a secret pleasure at the thought of the shock she was about to introduce to Epsilon Epsilon Epsilon.
"Girls," she said. "Please---everybody."
They turned and faced her and she waited. She looked down at the tablecloth and the rows of dishes filled with cold eggs and curled pieces of bacon. It was very quiet. She said, "Dr. Peters just called from the University Hospital. Leda Taylor has had a complete nervous breakdown. Her mother arrived late last night, and Leda is completely out of control. Absolutely broken!"
There was silence, and then the noise of the sudden rush of voices, and the fork that fell from Marsha's hand and clattered to the floor. Mother Nesselbush held her hand up for silence. "We are to pack her things. I suggest that Marsha and Kitten come into my apartment immediately to make plans for this."
The three of them left the dining room, and left behind them the gabble of high voices and the low buzz of awed exclamations.
Nessy shut the doors to her apartment and leaned forward, whispering as though her words could be heard through the walls. "I saw it coming," she said. "When I talked to Dean Paterson yesterday I could feel it coming. She'll have to go to an institution."
"Gee," Kitten said. "Leda!"
"I could just read into everything the doctor said when he called. I just know she's a wild woman over there in that hospital. A wild woman!"
"I wonder where she'll be sent?" Marsha said.
Nessy's face was bubbling, and her eyes were shining as though she had fever. "She won't have a thing to do with her mother. There's only one place she could go. An asylum." She said the word "asylum" with a heavy tone of dread, and a note of finality for Leda, almost as though she had said "the grave."
"Lord," Kitten said. "Leda in a nut house. Lord!"
Marsha looked away from them and toward the window and the leaves running along the front of the house. She said, "As Tri Epsilons we must do everything we can for her. I wonder," she said dramatically, pausing, her brow wrinkled, "I wonder if---if insane people can read mail."
\*
Dr. Peters lingered in the hall near the door as Susan Mitchell buttoned her coat and put her scarf around her head. "Then I'll see you on Tuesday," he said, taking her hand in a friendly good-by, "and have a nice week end, Susan. Any big plans?"
"I'm going on a hay ride tonight. Robin and Tom and Lucifer and me. That's about all I've planned."
He let her hand go and smiled as he held the door open. "Sounds like fun," he answered. "By, Susan."
It was cold and there was a warning of snow in the fresh sweep of the breeze as Mitch walked along the path from the hospital. She had a clean feeling that was there whenever she finished talking with Dr. Peters, and she knew she was whole now. The tower bell struck five times, and distant figures of students carrying books hurried along the far walks, their breaths frosting faintly in the cold air. When she went by the auditorium, she could hear the university choir rehearsing for the Christmas pageant, and the nostalgic strains drifted out to her. Dusk was dressing the campus, and as Mitch walked with the music in her heart, she thought of Leda---hazily, as though she were someone she had known a long, long time ago.
She knew that if it had been any other way---if Leda Taylor could have been helped, and could have at that moment walked there too and known the peace in the twilight and the first hints of frost on the grass and bushes surrounding Cranston---Mitch would have wanted that. Because it was true what she had told Leda yesterday. She didn't hate her. She didn't hate her at all, and she knew then that she had never really loved her.
The End

