Spring Fire (18 page)

Mitch shook her head. "I have to see Leda," she said. "I have to talk to her. Please
—she won't be able to stand this. If we're expelled—"

The Dean took Mitch's arm. "Susan,
Leda
is not going to be expelled. I think we'd better talk about it at lunch, dear. All right?"

As if in a trance, unable to comprehend any meaning, Mitch waited while Dean Paterson straightened some papers on the desk, removed her purse from the lower drawer, and pressed the light button off. Together they walked through the reception room, out into the cold marble corridor of Kenyon Hall.

* * *

After Dean Paterson canceled her afternoon appointments, she sat down in the small, green-walled front room of her apartment. Susan Mitchell was in the bedroom asleep. The story seemed unbelievable.

But not impossible.

Ruth Paterson picked up the small white china poodle from the round glass-top coffee table. She passed her thumb along the ridges and up to the object's black eyes, and she thought about Susan Mitchell. Certainly not a savage.

It was a strange story, the story of Susan and Leda, but she had learned long ago not to be surprised at anything. She checked back her own willingness to believe what Susan Mitchell had told her. The child was afraid and lost, and sympathy came easily. This girl invited it and coaxed it, with her lonesome eyes and her ingenuous statements. Ruth Paterson had an impulse to go into the bedroom and wake the girl up and tell her that she could not stay. Even though she had asked her to stay. She was afraid of the girl in many ways, afraid that the fumbling immaturity of Susan Mitchell had made her go soft and irrational. There had been other occasions when she had weakened like this and regretted it later. The Dobbs girl, for instance. Petite, blue-eyed Faith Dobbs, a freshman years ago. She had been accused of stealing in the dorm, and something about her made the Dean believe that she was innocent when she sat before her and told her story. The hours and days of counsel, the defense she had made of the girl before the Board of Trustees, and the angry speech she had delivered to the girls who lived in Faith's dorm
—all objects of ridicule when Faith Dobbs pilfered the Dean's watch and petty-cash box from her office weeks later. No, she was by no means infallible. And now there was another child who wanted to be trusted, was already trusted by the mere fact that she was asleep now in Dean Paterson's apartment.

She got up and placed the china poodle back on the glass top. The phone was in the corner, just above the window seat. For a moment she sat looking out into the street. A boy and girl passed, he carrying her books, she laughing up at him, reaching with her hand to brush back the blond curl that fell on his forehead. They kicked the leaves along the sidewalk as they walked down the block. Ruth Paterson said aloud, "If everything could be as simple as that," and laughed when she thought of the obvious fact that even
that
was not simple. There's no simplicity left in modern living, she decided. Everyone is on the spit at one time or another. Thumbing through the phone book, she found the number and dialed it.

"Marsha Holmes, please," she said, and while she waited, she twisted the rubber cord attached to the telephone.

"Hello, Marsha? This is Dean Paterson. . .  Fine, thank you. Marsha, is Leda Taylor in the house? . . . I see. I wonder," Dean Paterson said, "if you could find her for me. If she's in class, wait until it's over and ask her to come and see me. At the apartment. I'll be here all of this afternoon."

* * *

The Den was not crowded at two-thirty that afternoon. It was a popular hour for classes at C.U., and only a few students lined the bar, their books strewn about on the pine top, their beers before them. The juke box blared out a frantic trumpet, and from a corner near the door the ringing of the pin-ball machines could be heard.

Leda and Jake were the only ones occupying any of the knotty-pine booths. They sat in the last one, side by side, a pitcher of beer before them. Jake had a flask in the pocket of his coat, and they were drinking "boiler-makers," half whisky, half beer. They had been there since eleven-thirty, and their only food had been a hard-boiled egg apiece and a bowl of pretzels. Jake's head was hanging to one side languorously. He was only half listening to Leda, who had been talking for three hours.

"You can jus' imagine," she said, "if anyone can jus' imagine."

Jake reached out for the pitcher of beer. He poured half of it on the table. The rest went in the glass and he fumbled in his pocket for the flask. He sang loudly, "Oh, a girl without a woman is like a
—"

A few boys at the bar looked back and laughed. Others kept on talking. The bartender shook his head. "Flunked an exam, probably," he said.

"Man," the short thin boy exclaimed, "he's carrying a big load!"

The fellow next to him swallowed his beer. "She's helping him with that load."

Leda tried to pour beer into her glass but she couldn't grasp the handle. She nudged Jake and pointed to it He poured more on the table, leaving a few inches in the bottom of her glass. His hand shook when he added the whisky, and some of the yellow-brown liquid fell on Leda's coat. She brushed it away and giggled. Then her face became serious and she tasted the beer, which did not taste at all.

She said, "Here's to Mitchell, Mitchell."

Jake reached for his glass. "To Mitchell Mitchell," he said. "Long may she wave!"

The bartender leaned over to a solitary waiter standing near the end of the bar. He pointed at Leda and Jake, and the waiter came across the room to them. "All right, kids," he said. "Don't you think you've had enough?"

Jake said, "Who asked you?"

"C'mon, quiet down, kids. This is your last drink."

"Tell him," Leda said, her words slurring and halting. "Tell him wha' hoppen."

"Naw, he don't know from nothing."

"Look," the waiter said, "take it easy. I'm warning you I kids for the last time."

"For the last time," Leda repeated, smiling, her head dropping to Jake's shoulder.

A confused thought came to her mind as she leaned against Jake. She wanted to cry. She really wanted to cry, but she couldn't. She wanted to cry for what she had done to Mitch, but when she realized she had done it to herself too, she couldn't get a tear to come. She could feel tears in her throat. She said aloud, "What good are they in my throat?"

Jake said, "I don't know."

She wondered where Mitch was and what she was thinking. She decided that Mitch was crying. Maybe she was packing. Maybe she was in the room at the Tri Epsilon house packing. She shut her eyes and there were bright colored circles and her head spun. She said, "Once yer on a roller coaster yew can't git off."

Jake got up quickly. "Hurry," he yelled at her. "Can you make it?"

She only had a little way to go. The door pushed open readily, and she held onto the white sink. The tears came to her eyes automatically, and her whole body shook in jerks and seemed to roll. When it was over she got up from her knees and stared into the mirror. Her eyes focused at last, and when she saw her face, she could not believe it. She looked white and her hair hung like a witch's. She took a lipstick from her coat pocket and rubbed the old stain off with a piece of rough toilet paper. When she applied the red color, it still looked sickly and smeared. The powder only made her face look whiter. She pinched her cheeks for color. The comb caught in the knots of her hair, and she swore. Finally she gave up. She turned to go back, but she could not. Again she fell to her knees. Over and over she cried, "Mitch," and she got sicker and sicker. The tears rolled off her nose, and she could taste an evil-smelling taste in her mouth. She stood up after a while and held onto the wall. Everything was clear. She felt better. Gradually the wall stopped moving and she could see things standing still again. She pushed the door open and walked regally down to the booth where Jake was waiting.

Marsha sat across from him, and beside Marsha was Kitten Clark.

"Where have
you
been?"  They sounded too loud. "We've been looking high and low."

"Right here," Jake said.

Leda could feel things coming back. She could control herself. "I've been here for. hours," she said. "What do you want with me?"

"We don't want you. Dean Paterson wants you. She called up the house."

"Oh, God!"

Kitten Clark got up from the booth. "C'mon, Leda," she said. "We've got to get you sobered up. We'll take you back to the house and put you under the shower. You're in no condition."

"Yeah," Leda answered, “I’m not. Jake borrowed Clive's car. It's out front We gotta get it back to Sig Delt"

Marsha said, "I'll drive."

Jake stood up then too. "The hell," he said. "The hell you'll drive. I'll drive. I'm no one's goddamn kindergarten kid. I’ll drive."

"No, Jake." Leda held onto him and said, "No, don't."

"Then
you
drive, goddamn it. I don't want these jackasses in my car that I personally borrowed."

Leda turned to them. Her head was clearing. She could still taste the taste and feel the strangeness in her knees, but she was all right. She had to be all right. Dean Paterson wanted to see her. Leda said, "Look, I better drive the car. We'll drop him off. It'll help me sober up, anyway."

"You're not sober enough now to drive," Marsha said.

"I tell you I am! Don't argue, now. I've got to step on it"

"She's O.K.," Kitten said. "She could sail a schooner with a few drinks in her. I know her."

They filed out of the Den and walked up the street toward Clive's car. Jake was singing and stumbling as he walked along, and the fresh air made Leda feel sleepy. She blinked her eyes and made herself keep on going.

The car was parked at the end of the street. Jake crawled in the back and stretched out on the seat, while Leda and Marsha and Kitten crowded in the front. When the motor started, Jake yelled out, "Home, James! Home!"

The Dean would want Leda to tell her all about Mitch. She had talked to Mitch, and Mitch had no doubt told her everything. But the Dean wouldn't believe it. Even the late minutes on her record alone would keep the Dean from believing. She was always out with boys
—late. Last year she had been a queen.

The Dean would make her go all through it again. Could she remember everything she had said exactly?

"Here," Kitten said, "chew on these mints. They'll clear your breath. I'm not sure you'll have time for a shower. It's quarter after three."

Leda reached over for the mint. Her eyelids felt heavy and drooping.

"She's got to have a shower," Marsha said. "Even her clothes smell of it."

"She can change those."

"No," Marsha said, "a shower's best. After all, the house has got a bad enough name in the Dean's office now. She'll think we're completely irresponsible."

"Irrrrrr-reeeeee-spon-sib-bull!" Jake yelled out from the back seat.

"Where'd you tell her I was?" Leda said.

"In class. We said we thought you had a class."

"I don't. She can go to her files and find that out"

Marsha said, "She's at her apartment."

"God! I've never been there."

She put her foot down harder on the gas. She would have to hurry and get it over with. What did Mitch say when she found out? What did she think? Mitch's face seemed to come on the window and she couldn't see the road. She was looking at Mitch's face and the trusting eyes. Remembering the words. "I'll always stick by you
—always. You mean more to me than anyone I know."

"Hey," Marsha said. "Slow down."

"Slow down, baby, don't you blowwww yer top-p," Jake sang out

She didn't feel as though she were driving a car. She felt as though she were sitting back and someone else was driving. Looking down at her foot, she saw that it was on the pedal, but she could not feel her own strength pushing it.

"Leda!" Kitten screamed. "Take it easy! Leda!"

The car crashed in a thundering noise. Jake was thrown to the floor and Marsha and Kitten could feel their heads jerk forward and thump on the pane. When they straightened up, they lay back with their heads leaning against the leather seats. Jake moaned out from the back, and then he scrambled up and held his head too and shook it. Then they all saw Leda. The glass in the pane where her head had struck was splintered, and down the side of her face there was the scarlet color of blood.

Outside of the car, there was another car smashed and still where it had been parked. Jake got out first. He pushed the seat back and stood in the road while the people on the street hurried toward them. Kitten and Marsha held Leda and tried to move her back. They were able to pull her head from the windshield and ease her back in a sitting position against the seat.

"God!" Kitten said. "She's bleeding like mad."

"I better call an ambulance." Marsha got out of the car.

A gray-haired man ran up to her. "Anything I can do, lady?"

Marsha said, "Please
—call an ambulance," She went around to the other side and talked through the window to Kitten. "Is she coming to?"

"Not yet. I'm trying to wipe the blood away. Ask Jake if he's got a handkerchief."

Jake was holding onto the car, his head down, his arms wobbly. He handed Marsha the handkerchief without speaking. People crowded toward them and a policeman hurried up from the comer.

"Hey!" Kitten yelled. "She's coming to. She's talking."

"What's she saying? Is she hurt?"

"Listen," Kitten said. "Marsha, listen!"

Marsha leaned in the window. Leda's lips were parted, and the blood had run down by her nose. Her eyes were closed. She kept mumbling. They were able to make the mumbling out gradually as it became clearer. "Mitch," she was saying. "Mitch, honey. Oh, God, Mitch, honey, what did I do to you?"

"She feels bad about Susan Mitchell," Kitten said.

They listened to Leda as she said more. "I want you, Mitch. Kiss me! It's going to be all right again. God, Mitch, love me."

Marsha and Kitten looked at each other with horror-stricken faces.