Spring Fire Page 15

  "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 ri
ght," 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.
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  "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.