Spring Fire (6 page)

"Leda, please stop. I started all this. Please stop."

"Why? Because you don't want to hear the story of my life? Is it raising the hair on your head, Mitch? You want to know something else? I used to be in bed and listen at night. We had a bungalow out in L. A. when Jan and I lived there, and Jan's room was right next to mine. I used to hear them. I used to hear them plain as everything
—the springs creaking and the breathing."

There was an eeriness about the room and the way Leda looked straight ahead with her eyes fixed and un-moving. Mitch squirmed uncomfortably, not wanting to hear any more, but Leda kept on.

"And Jake! Want to know what Jake did tonight? After Bud announced that the Tri Eps were black-listed, Jake and I got to the house and heard the news. Jake took me back to the car. And after, Mitch, after it was over, Jake said, 'We'll find some way to have this, even if I can't take Tri Eps out They won't stop this, baby.' He didn't say, 'The hell with the whole goddamn bunch of them. They can't keep us apart' He said, 'We'll find some way to have this.' But what's funnier, Mitch
— what's even funnier—was that I felt that way too. I didn't say it, but I felt it. That's all I want from him. I hate his guts and it's all I want from him. Sometimes I don't even want that and then there's nothing. I don't know what I. want, Mitch. I'm afraid of what I want"

She looked at Mitch and she said, "Mitch, that was why I was mad when I first came in the room. Because you brought it out in the open. Because you made the whole thing as goddamn plain as the nose on my face. You caused the trouble
—you and that bastard Roberts. Because now the whole damn sorority is black-listed and I've got to act as if I care and as if Jake cares and oh, my God, it's hell. We don't care. What a laugh!"

Mitch saw Leda's face, and it was strange and unfamiliar. The features fell apart and they would not unite again. There was the wide, sensuous mouth and the nose and the eyes and the chin and they were like pieces of the puzzle that was Leda's face that had not been put together. Mitch felt cold and hard, as though this room and this house and this whole new life were a dream and tomorrow she would wake up and her father would say, "What a sleepy-head you are, black-eyed Susan!"

The room was still except for a slight knocking sound that the blinds made in the wind. Leda stood up.

"Sometimes I drink too much," she said now because it was over, "and I talk like a fool late at night I'm sorry, Mitch. Forget it, kid, will you?"

Mitch said yes but she knew no. She knew no she would never forget it, not the loneliness that gnawed away at Leda and the way she had said it.

"Tomorrow you go over for your course cards," Leda said. "Better get some sleep."

"What do you think they'll do about what happened?"

"I don't know, kid. They'll think of something. Don't worry about it."

Mitch pulled her slip over her head and jerked off her brassiere. She stepped into the pants of her pajamas and buttoned the coat.

"I'" get the light, Leda," she said, but Leda only looked at her and did not answer. When the room was dark, Leda said, "Mitch, come over and rub my back, will you?"

She sighed then when the large hands came on her body and gently ran over her back. "Mitch," she said, "I like you. From the first day. You knew that. . . . Do you hear me, Mitch?"

The room was black and the wind blew and drops of rain fell on the roof and it was tin. "I hear you, Leda."

"You looked at me when I was standing by the piano. I'll never forget that look."

"I thought you were
—beautiful."

"Now what do you think of me, Mitch? Honestly."

"I've never known anyone like you. I've had friends before, you know, school friends. You're different, though."

"Do you like to touch me?"

"Yes. I
—used to be timid about touching people. I don't know. When the kids asked me to scratch their backs, I used to dislike it Now
—
I like it With you."

"The rain sounds good, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

"Want to crawl in with me?"

Mitch didn't answer. She pulled the covers back and lay beside Leda, taking her hand from her back and turning over to face the other way. When Leda's arms came around her to hold her, she felt a warm aching that eased into peace and she slept until the rain stopped and the sun came through the blinds in the morning.

* * *

Marsha said, "So you see, Mitch, it's up to you. I know it's a ridiculous request, but we've got to save the reputation of Tri Ep."

Mitch backed the car into a space in front of the library. Outside it was hot, and even now in the early morning, near ten, the people passing in the streets had a tired, damp look about them. A bespectacled young man dropped his books and stooped to gather them.

"But why?" Mitch turned to Marsha. "Why would Bud Roberts want me to ask him to our housewarming ? It doesn't make sense."

"All I know is what he told me on the phone. He said, 'If Susan Mitchell asks me to your housewarming, I'll forget it.' That's what he said."

"I don't trust him."

"Listen, Mitch, it's three weeks away and you won't have to be alone with him. It's right at the house, and we'll all be around. Try to believe me, I know how you feel. I'd never ask you to do it except that we-can't afford an enemy like Sig Delt. If they black-list us, the other fraternities will be too proud to date us too. And after all, Mitch, you did make it pretty messy when you ran to another sorority for help."

The car was hot and Mitch opened the door. She said, "O.K., I'll ask him. I better get my course cards. The line's getting longer by the minute."

"Thanks, Mitch." Marsha smiled and touched her hand. "Thank you very much"

Marsha waited to cross the street while Mitch joined the line, standing behind a tall, angular blond boy. A warm buzz began in Mitch's stomach when she thought of Leda. She traced an L in the dirt with her foot, and shielded her eyes from the sun with her arm.

The blond boy said, "Hot!"

Mitch nodded. The line inched forward while he talked to her.

"Then we're in three courses together," he said. "That's swell!"

Afterward, as they sipped Cokes slowly in Mac's, he told her that his name was Charlie Edmonson.

It had grown cloudy while they were in Mac's, and now the rain started heavily on the roof and splashed down at the windows. "My car!" Mitch exclaimed. "The windows are down!"

They ran to the door and stood under the awning, watching the rain teem down. "Can't get to it in this," he said. "It'll be a quick one, anyway."

People in the streets dodged for shelter, and one boy rolled his pants up to his knees and tore off with a newspaper over his head.

"When it lets up," Mitch said, "maybe I can drop you off. What fraternity are you in?"

"Me?" Charlie pointed to himself, laughing. "I'm not a fraternity boy. That stuffs too fancy for an old Kansas farmer."

"Then you're an independent," Mitch said blankly, moving back from the awning where the leak was and the rain came through. She thought of the song they had sung at the Sig Delt house last night, the refrain humming distantly in her ears.

"He's a goddamn independent, He's a G.D.I.

Ignore! Ignore! Ignore the bas-tard!

 Ditch the guy, The G.D.I."

"I think it's letting up,'
;
he said. "Want to run for it?"

It was Thursday, the week of the Tri Epsilon house-warming party, and the leaves on the trees along the streets of Cranston were the way they are in October. Mitch stood in the entrance to Jacob Hall, glancing nervously at her watch, moving up and down from the top step to the second step.

"Sorry, Sue," Charlie said when he arrived. "Professor Rudolph got talking after class and I couldn't get away from him.

"We haven't got time for a Coke. I have to get back to the house this afternoon."

They walked along the path to the street while Mitch explained that all pledges had to assist in decorating the house for the party on Saturday. As soon as she had said it, she felt a sudden surge of embarrassment sweep through her. It had been three weeks now that she had been going for Cokes after class with Charlie. He had asked her to go to a movie one Tuesday evening, but the Tri Epsilon pledge study-hall system had started, and pledges could not date on week nights.

"It's just sort of a housewarming," she said, hoping it sounded unimportant and dull. Charlie scuffed his feet near the end of the sidewalk where there was a space between the ground and the asphalt

"Could I walk you on home?"

"Certainly."

Kitten Clark passed them as they turned and she said hello to Mitch and looked at Charlie with a flat expression in her eyes. She had seen Mitch with him before, and she knew that he was an independent. His awkwardness, the plain, loose-fitting clothes, and the conspicuous absence of a fraternity pin pointed out the fact. As yet it was not a matter of concern to Tri Epsilon, because Mitch had not had a week-end date with him, or with anyone else since the trouble with Roberts. On Saturday she would emerge from the cocoon for the housewarming and the date with Bud. It was a complete enigma to Kitten why Roberts even bothered. Perhaps to save face, and more to prove that no girl could hit and run. Not him. She thought of the silverware that Mother Nessy had promised Tri Epsilon if they pledged Susan, and hoped they would have it in time for the buffet dinner on Saturday.

"How come you aren't driving?"

Mitch hardly heard his question after they had passed Kitten. She was thinking that Kitten would want to know who the boy was and what house he belonged to. She wondered vaguely what Jane Bell would say; if she would say that it was just as easy to have a Coke and walk home with a fraternity man after class, and that it was preferable.

"Independents aren't lepers," she had told the pledge class at their last meeting, "but fraternity men are preferable."

There were fraternity men in all of Mitch's classes
—suave, confident young men whose loafered feet stretched out in the aisles, and whose bold guffaws echoed after the profs' jokes. They had names like Grey Gregg and Big Tom D. and Rabbit Man and they sat in clumps together. There was something different about them, Mitch thought, something that was not neutral but cold and hot as they willed in their way with others.

"I said, how come you don't have your car in the lot today?"

"Leda borrowed it. She had to pick up some equipment downtown."

"Your roommate?"

"Yes."

"If I had a car, I guess I'd be afraid to let people borrow it. Maybe not. Hard to tell when you're as far from having a car as I am."

"Leda's careful."

"Must be going to be a big old party at your house Saturday."

"Pretty big."

"Just girls?"

"No," Mitch said. "Boys and girls."

"I was going to
— I have this job downtown at Messer's Drugstore. Usually work week ends. That's why I haven't been able to ask you out. I was going to ask you out Saturday, but—"

They cut across Swampcot Street and waited for the light to change. "Will you ask me some other week end?" Mitch said as they walked on.

"Sure."

"Because I have a date Saturday."

When they reached the circular walk to the Tri Epsilon house, Charlie said good-by and handed Mitch the French book he was carrying for her, and he said after he said good-by, "Be good, Sue."

The Tri Eps were busy trimming the entrance to the dining room in pink and blue streamers and Robin Maurer was polishing the mirror in the hall. She paused when Mitch entered the hall.

"Get lost," she advised. "They got work around here that would scare an elephant."

"Looks good. Who's your date, Robin?"

"Some blockhead. I've seen him once. Looks like those prehistoric men in our soc books."

"You know who mine is."

"Yes," Robin said, wringing out the cloth, "I know. Marsha gave me a little lecture too, all about bowing and scraping to Sig Delt. I don't know, though. She's the only one in this bunch I trust"

"Hey," Jane Bell called to Mitch. "Change your clothes and pitch in here. We need some work done in the basement if Mother Nessy lets us use it Saturday."

At a previous Tri Epsilon party, a fraternity man had spent his entire evening and half of the following day on the moth-eaten divan behind the ping-pong table in the Tri Ep cellar. He was very drunk and it had happened last year and Mother Nesselbush had been called on by the Dean of Women to explain the incident. Since then, the basement was termed "off limits" for house parties. This year there was a skinny hope that it would not be a restricted area.

The hope died shortly after Mitch changed into a pair of jeans and headed off in the direction of the back steps. There, congregated in a small mass, Tri Eps faced Mother Nessy. Her answer was a very adamant no, supplemented with the viewpoint that basements encouraged extravagant necking, liquor drinking, which was forbidden, and other "things."

Leda heard them arguing back there when she drove Mitch's car in the drive and pulled the packages out. She set them down in the living room and went upstairs. As she took her worn green suede coat off and tossed the matching beret to the top of the closet, she noticed the yellow paper on Mitch's desk. It was Marsha's paper. Marsha had reams of this paper, pale lemon-colored onionskin with a small silver initial at the top. The third time this week, Leda realized. Whenever Mitch could not be found, she was down in the suite helping Marsha, or in the evening after closing hours, making cinnamon toast in the kitchen with Marsha, or listening to records with Marsha in the living room. Irritated, Leda glanced at the scrawled words on the yellow paper:

"Want to help me trim the side hall for the party? I'll meet you there when you're changed. Love, Marsh."

"Good God!" Leda said aloud. "Trimming the side hall with
Marsh.
What a great big fat kick that is!"

She stretched out on the bed and shut her eyes. In a persistent, conscious dream, Jake was beside her, his hands on her, her ears filled with the harsh profane words he used. Then, in that crazy state of half awareness, she projected herself into Jake's ways and saw Mitch, large and muscular, but less strong than Leda, who held onto her. Suddenly she heard the footsteps in the hall and Mitch appeared, shaking the dream, chattering noisily about the decorations, how Marsha had helped her with her French assignment, and what Mother Nessy had said about the basement.