Spring Fire (13 page)

* * *

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."