Whisper Their Love (9 page)

Joyce put on her housecoat, tying the belt tightly, pulled on the slippers she had bought down at the Henderson Variety because they had padded foam-rubber soles. Her breasts were tender; she felt them hopefully—they were getting bigger, weren't they? She tried to smile. The door shut.

The hall echoed with silence. Upstairs there were only the usual late-night noises, a creaking as someone turned over, a surprisingly deep snore, a mutter from Molly's and Charlene's room. Those two were supposed to be more or less queer about each other, but Joyce had never seen any signs of it. She looked at their door with some distaste. It's funny how different it seems when it happens to you, she thought.

She opened her own door very quietly. Mary Jean was in and asleep, rolled up into a bundle of sheet with one bare foot sticking out. Joyce eyed her, crawling into her own bed slowly, so the springs wouldn't creak. She was not sure how much Mary Jean knew, or suspected. She didn't know whether Mary Jean was talking about her to other people, considering all the gossip she'd repeated to Joyce, or whether the ethics of being a roommate made a difference there. Anyway, she reminded herself defensively, I can say as much about her as she can say about me.

That's different, though.

She sighed, pulling up a blanket and wishing again, as she had wished so often before, that she had someone to discuss things with. Then she shut her eyes and gave herself over to the pleasure of remembering.

There was only one drawback to this secret excitement and wonder. That was the letdown that came the next day. She woke in the morning cross from lack of sleep, headachey and irritable. Maybe this is bad for me or something, she worried, pulling off her pajamas and standing naked in front of the mirror, examining her reflection minutely. Maybe it can make me sick. Maybe it does some awful thing to you, she worried, throws your glands out of kilter.

She sat on the edge of the bed, too enervated to dress. When the door opened she jumped and began throwing on her clothes. Mary Jean was in a bad mood, too. Joyce wondered when she had come in. They went down to breakfast together, without talking. Bitsy joined them on the landing and Joyce looked at her with disfavor. You couldn't imagine Bitsy going all the way, with anybody. No; she would study hard and have dates with nice boys, and still be a virgin when she married—and she'll be happy too and have about four wonderful kids, Joyce told herself, and run the PTA.

Edith sat at the head of the table, pouring coffee. Never mind, she's worth it, Joyce thought. She avoided Edith's eyes because she was afraid to think what would show on her own face if that calm, grave look fell on her. For a moment she felt rich and comforted.

That was the day it rained and rained, a steady slow drizzle that got on everybody's nerves and soaked everybody's shoes and made people slow and sleepy or cranky according to their natures. Of course, it rained a lot in Illinois in October, too, but here there wasn't any glory of colored leaves or any deep-blue Indian-summer sky to make you feel good between times. Just a steady drip that went on and on.

That was the day Mimi's letter came, the first since that short catastrophic visit. Irv hadn't told her—good. She tore the stiff creamy envelope open and held the paper in her hand, feeling the raised letters of the engraving between thumb and finger, not quite realizing yet that it was from Mimi. Mimi was, she always said apologetically, no hand to write letters. Always, though, there had been the weekly postcard, two for a nickel off a wire rack in some crumby drugstore, with a bright-colored picture on the front and a couple of lines in Mimi's loose up-slanted scrawl.

Since she had come to college, though, Mimi hadn't written at all. Too busy—or too sick and worried, or too afraid she couldn't live up to this swell place where her daughter was now a pupil, chumming around with girls from the very best families. She knew what was what. Anyway, she had gone out and had some stationery engraved with her new married name and the address of the apartment, fragrant of money and culture. The message was the. kind she used to put on the postcards. She was just fine. Let me know if you need anything. Irv sends his best regards. Joyce crumpled the page and threw it in the wastebasket, then fished it out and smoothed it the best she could. There was no need to spoil this beautiful paper that Mimi had bought for her benefit, just because she hated Mimi's husband.

Her mind turned to Edith Bannister. Edith was real and close at hand, and meaningful. The little pinch that used to come in her stomach at the thought of Mimi wasn't there.

That was also the day when Joyce definitely found out she was safe. In spite of Edith's reassurances and the charts in the little book, she hadn't felt too sure about it. A disturbing suspicion that she might really be pregnant kept grinning out at her from the back of her mind. Somewhere around the middle of the morning, this drippy soggy day, a familiar stiffness inside her thighs and ache in her lower back signaled that everything inside was going along according to routine. I wasn't worried, she bragged to herself, not for a single minute.

Never again, though. You wouldn't catch me having anything to do with a man again. Ugly things, always using women for their own purposes.

She sat in her room, unstrung and relaxed all at the same time, listening to the plop of raindrops on the window. Temporary peace, between two tensions.

Chapter 8

There are always ways and means. If you want something badly enough, it's almost always possible to figure out a scheme for getting it. And if you are a woman with looks and intelligence and that elusive thing the fashion magazines call charm, some man will frequently help you to it with a minimum of effort on your part.

Edith Bannister decided she needed a part-time secretary and set about getting one. She started by calling up the only member of the school's governing board who lived in Henderson, an eligible and cagey bachelor of fifty who liked women until their intentions began to get honorable, and suggested that he invite her out to lunch. "That is, unless you feel it's your duty to lunch here."

Wayne felt no such obligation, and said he would like to take her out to lunch—as soon as she could be ready, in fact. His pleasant voice came out of the receiver tiny but clear. "I don't know what you're fishing for, Ede, but you'll probably get it. You almost always do."

"I enjoy your company," she told him demurely. She cradled the phone and turned to her closet, humming under her breath.

The authorization for a part-time secretary came through the next day, typed by Wayne's sixty-dollar girl. One dollar an hour, minimum for employed women, for services not to exceed five hours a week. Joyce read it, leaning against Edith's shoulder. "Evenings," Edith pointed out. "I hope you can type."

"Well, I had a year in high. I'm slow, though."

"You can type. Come down after dinner tonight, unless you have a date."

"You know I don't have dates."

"I've told you about that," Edith said sharply. "If you don't go out with a boy now and then, someone's going to get suspicious."

"I hate boys. Always trying to get their hands on you."

"I have a little trouble along those lines myself," Edith said with a faint smile. "It won't hurt you to let some adolescent wolf make a pass at you once in a while. It wouldn't even hurt you to act a little bit responsive. My God, I go out with men all the time. I make a point of it. You have to think how things look."

"I don't care."

"I mean it. Do you want some brat starting a rumor?"

"I think you worry about it too much."

Edith sat down. "Look, I was about your age the first time it happened to me. Maybe a little younger—I was still in high school." She shook her head, looking back, wonder in her face. "It's a pattern that repeats. Gwenda did everything for me—the way I'd like to do everything for you. We were together as often as we could manage. I had the flu that winter, and she came into the house and took care of me. My parents didn't think anything about it—why should they? She was a teacher. It was a real thing we had, not anything promiscuous or cheap."

"I know."

"It would have been all right if I'd kept my mouth shut," Edith said. "Happiness is like trouble, though, it's easier to bear if you can share it. I had to tell someone… The girl told," she added after a momentary silence.

"What happened?"

"Well, that was during the depression, when there were a hundred teachers for every job. They called a special meeting of the school board."

"Fired her?"

"They let her resign. I was expelled from school. Luckily my father had a little money left, and enough pull to keep it out of the papers. I passed my College Boards that summer. But Gwenda—she killed herself the next winter. She'd tried to go on relief. It was a horrible mess."

She was living it over again, and there was nothing to say.

"She was a little thing, like you. Only dark. Olive skin and brown eyes. I loved her, Joy."

"I know you did." Go ahead, turn the knife.

"So that's the way it was. There have been others, but never one that was cheap or trivial. Don't think about it, darling, learn to take it the way it comes."

So then there was contact again, and the wave of feeling that washed away thought. I'll never want anyone else, Joyce promised herself, shutting her eyes so that sight couldn't break in on rapture. I'll never want anything but this.

If anyone had any mean little doubts about the secretary plan, no snickers reached her. Twice a week, after dinners that went on forever and were full of talk without meaning, she sat at Edith's desk and took dictation in a kind of lecture-room shorthand evolved by herself, and then sat figuring out her notes and turning them into letters. She developed a professional pride in the results, which had sentences and paragraphs and read like real letters typed by genuine secretaries. She even began learning to smoke, partly for the pleasure of sharing Edith's cigarettes and partly because it was such an adult thing to do. She didn't care for the taste much, or for the way shreds of tobacco stuck to her teeth, but she stayed with it and practiced illegally in her own room when she had a chance.

There was a special excitement in sitting in front of the typewriter, clicking out letters about supplies and-credit transfers, erasing carefully when she made a mistake because her mind would rush ahead into the good part of the evening. There was even a special pleasure in putting off the time, after Edith came in from her D.A.R. meeting or Glee Club rehearsal. The longer you waited the better it would be, like getting good and hungry before a meal.

"Leave the light on. I like to look at you."

"I like to look at you, too."

Not always sure which of them was talking, was moaning at the instant of fulfillment, because it was happening to both of them at the same time.

"Let me stay with you this once. I want to sleep with you."

"Will you be sure to hear the alarm if I set it for five?"

But it was Edith who woke at the first click and pushed the little knob down. Joyce slept heavily, like a child. Even after she was awake she hated to get up, but lay looking at Edith. Part of the thrill was the contrast between the cool and composed daytime Edith and this woman who lay naked and curled up against the pillow, her long hair tangled, still smelling faintly of sweat and excitement. Joyce touched her lightly, in wonder, before she crawled out. She picked up her pajamas and duster from the floor beside the bed and got into them, yawning with sleep. The trip upstairs was more dangerous than usual because this time a film of light was spreading over the windows—it wasn't quite day, but almost, and someone might be up or awake. But there was nobody in the hall.

Mary Jean was awake. The little reading-lamp that clamped over the head of her bed was on, and she was sitting up in the round pool of light, waiting. Joyce jumped at the sight of her, then stiffened her shoulders and shut her mouth tight. Deny everything. Been to the bathroom. Heard noises down the hall. Couldn't sleep and decided to walk around a while.

Then she saw that Mary Jean's eyes were swollen almost shut and her face was red and puffy from crying, and her head hung forward as if there were no bones in her neck.

"For heaven's sake, are you sick?"

Mary Jean tried to smile. It was a ghastly grimace, and a new flood of tears washed it off her face. "I'm all right," she said. Her voice cracked under the strain of trying to be calm. "I guess this is it. I guess it's the real thing, all right. You'll have to throw me out in the snow with a bundle in my arms."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh God, you fool, I'm in trouble. That's a goofy thing to call it, isn't it? That's what the old ladies back home call it, and they're so right." Mary Jean shoved back the covers and sat up in bed, rocking. Most of the time she slept naked, but tonight she had gone to bed in a slip, as though to hide her betrayed and betraying body even from herself. "I'll have to get rid of it, or something, but oh God, I'm scared. People die from it sometimes."

"Maybe there's something you can take," Joyce suggested. She sat down on her own bed. Beneath her real concern for Mary Jean's predicament was relief that she wasn't caught, that it was somebody else's trouble and not hers. It made her feel ashamed. "Ergot," she remembered. "There was a girl in high school and she always—"

"That's an old wive's tale. You can't take anything. I mean, you can but it won't do any good. And it won't do any good to run up and down stairs, or get chilled, or sit in a tub of hot water." Mary Jean's voice wobbled. "It's an operation, and they don't give you any anesthetic for it. People get blood poison from it sometimes."

Joyce shivered. She said, "Maybe you're just late. Lots of people are late sometimes. Maybe you've got a little cold or something."

"Look, I'm the original clockwork kid." Mary Jean's face puckered. "I told him and told him. He wouldn't wait. I kept telling him, and he wouldn't listen to me."

Men, Joyce thought with a cold anger rising in her. She felt a new affection for Mary Jean. She would have liked to pat her head or put an arm around her, but was afraid of being sentimental. She felt so alive and secure herself that she was ashamed. "Please don't make so much noise," she begged. "Somebody'll hear you."