Spring Fire Read online

  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-or-rying 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 wou
ld 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. Ther
e 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.