Читать книгу Spring Fire - Vin Packer - Страница 6

“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 OK 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 naïve 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 blissfully on Jake’s shoulder.

“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 OK 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. He began to rub her breasts 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 OK,” 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 titled “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,” she 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 boyfriend 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, OK?”

“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. Weekends, 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 weekends, and special permission for out-of-town weekends. Then she assigned the Fledge lesson (learn the first three songs in the songbook, and the names of the official alumnae officers) and dismissed the group. She bounded off in the direction of the president’s suite.

“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 OK 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.”