Spring Fire Page 9

  "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 (lezTri-an) 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.

  Chapter Seven

  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 sisterhood

  Of love that lasts forever,

  Where memories are golden ones

  That are forgotten never!

  "Tri Epsilon, Tri Epsilon,

  For her name we will strive

  So 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 f
ew 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.