Pamela Dean (6 page)

"Why was he a jerk?"

"Oh, he thought reading fiction was a waste of time, and he thought I couldn't be a scientist if I was rendered miserable once a month by misapplied female hormones, and he was rude to my brothers."

"Why'd you go out with him at all?"

"He kissed very well," said Molly, still upside-down.

"Why'd you get to know him well enough to find that out?"

"He had a very large vocabulary," said Molly. She rolled over, banged her elbow on the end of the bed, and tucked it under herself, making muffled sounds.

"What in the world's the matter?" demanded Christina, emerging with a quilted sewing basket appliquéd in pink and yellow ducks.

"Hit my funny bone," said Molly.

"You're turning red," observed Janet.

"Peg says one of the Roberts—Armin, I think—gives good backrubs," said Christina. She made for her own bunk and tripped, as usual, over its discarded upper portion.

"You bump your head on the upper bunk as you stand up," said Molly to Janet,

"and we'll all be casualties. Tina, maybe we could lug that down to the basement and hide it somewhere."

"Not with you all full of codeine and aspirin," said Christina. "After supper, maybe."

"How
does
alcohol mix with codeine and aspirin?" said Molly. "I can't remember."

"Nora's got a
PDR,
" said Christina.

"A what?" said Janet.

"Physician's Desk Reference.
It lists a lot of drugs and their side effects."

"Why?" said Molly.

"Somebody killed herself a couple of years ago with an overdose of sleeping pills. Nora thought if the RA'd known what to do maybe the kid wouldn't have died."

"They don't tell you
that
when they're trying to persuade you to come here," said Molly. "Did Nora say why?"

"Academic pressure," said Christina. "She had some problem with her boyfriend, Nora said, but it wouldn't have mattered if she hadn't been under so much pressure."

"Premed?" said Janet.

"Classics," said Christina.

"I want you guys to promise me something," said Molly, sliding herself, again alarmingly, into a sitting position on the floor with her back against the bed.

"What?" said Janet, obligingly.

"If any of us is thinking of doing something like that, we have to tell the other two first. I mean it. Even if we don't room together all four years; even if we haven't seen one another for months; even if we think we hate each other. And the other ones have to promise to listen, no matter what, if one of us calls and says it's important."

"You'd better assign us a password," said Janet. She caught Christina's eye, trying to gauge her reaction. Christina shrugged; Janet recognized, already, her you-guys-are-weird-but-I-guess-this-is-harmless gesture.

"I'm serious," said Molly.

"So am I. Something we won't forget in two years."

"The Snark is a Boojum."

They smiled at one another. Janet said reluctantly, "That doesn't mean anything to Tina. It should be something we'll all remember."

Christina, still delving around in her sewing basket, gurgled suddenly and said,

"Pink curtains."

Molly rolled her eyes. Janet said to her, "Will you remember?"

"How could I forget?"

"All right, then. I swear."

"And I," said Molly.

"Me, too," said Christina.

Registration was held on a Thursday. It was raining, which meant that anybody with the slightest worry about getting into a particular class stood in long lines, outside the old gymnasium where Registration took place, and became damp and disgruntled. Janet got into all her classes.

Out of what she could only view as the College's customary perversity, said classes began the next day, instead of waiting decently until Monday. She had Fencing first.

Two-A felt earlier than she had hoped it would; to get up at nine-thirty was not so dreadful, but to be up and dressed and fed by then left her still a little bleary, and not inclined to physical effort. She supposed that, after the class, she would feel invigorated but not inclined to intellectual effort, just in time for her first class in the philosophical problems of classical science.

It was, of course, since everybody was fated to spend it indoors, the most beautiful of autumn days, full of cloud shadows and piercing blue sky and the hope that some of those maples might hold on to their leaves long enough to turn them red before they fell. "Do it, trees," said Janet softly to the nearest clump, which held two healthy young maples and a rather straggly ash

Janet dodged out of the chilly shadow of the decaying Student Union and went along past the chapel and the Music and Drama Center, trying to walk briskly and feeling like a film that somebody had slowed down. She turned her head away from the reflecting glass of the M&D Center, and looked across the little natural amphitheater in which, next week, the Classics Department would be staging

Lysistrata.
They would do so in the shadow of Olin Hall, a nondescript brick building trimmed with metal strips that made it look like a radiator.

That was where Molly and Christina would be spending most of their time for the next four years. Janet turned away from that, too, wandered down the middle of the asphalt road between the M&D Center and the north end of Ericson, and moved a little more quickly for the Women's Phys Ed Center. There were enough people heading for it that the time must be close to nine-thirty.

Somewhere to her right, a husky tenor sang, "'I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing for me.'"

Janet stopped short. She was, just for a moment, annoyed. Like to see you do that with
Murder in the Cathedral,
she thought grumpily. Then, as the voice performed a great leap into some other tune entirely and sang, "'I have lingered in the chambers of the sea,'" she became wildly intrigued. Why shouldn't he sing T. S. Eliot? And where, oh, where, had he gotten the music?

She stood waiting, and though the song stopped, a small and wiry young man with wild curly hair emerged suddenly from the shrubbery, his arms full of books that looked as if they had already seen four years' use, and plunged past her in the direction of the Women's Center.

"Excuse me," called Janet, sprinting after him. He turned, looking alarmed. He had huge blue eyes, behind a lopsided and dilapidated pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and a blunt face decorated with mild acne. "Hello?" he said.

"You were singing 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,'" said Janet, falling into step beside him. He had begun walking again as soon as she caught up to him.

"A point for you, lady," he said.

"Where'd you get the music?"

"I wrote it."

Janet experienced a treacherous upwelling of instant adoration, and quashed it violently. "May I hear it sometime?"

"When it's done," he said.

"Have you put a lot of poetry to music?"

"Not really—look, I have to go in here—what's your name?"

"I have to go in here, too. Janet Carter."

"Are you taking Fencing?"

"Yes."

"Thank God. If I finish the song soon, will you be my partner? Everybody else in this class is six feet tall."

"Yes, of course, if you tell me your name."

"Nick Tooley," said the dark-haired boy, and smiled as, propping his huge load precariously in one arm, he held open the door of the building for her. He was one of the Classics majors Peg had pointed out in Taylor dining hall, the one that Molly thought too skinny and Tina had not taken note of because he was short.

Everybody else in the fencing class was not six feet tall, but certainly they all exceeded five feet eight, except for the instructor. She was shorter than Janet, but very sturdy, with gray hair in two braids, a sharp chin and nose looking incongruous in her round, wrinkled face, and a crisp voice.

She sat them all down on the polished gym floor and treated them to a half-hour lecture on fencing, its history and nature, followed by a half hour's demonstration of stretching exercises that, she intimated, if performed faithfully everyday, would, by the time she actually let any of them have a foil, prevent undue injury. Next time, she finished, they would be allowed to put on masks and protective jackets.

Janet, accustomed to high-school physical education classes wherein it was tacitly assumed that everybody already knew how to do everything and was simply panting to start doing it right now, was extremely pleased. As they finished their prescribed stretches and got up, she looked sideways at Nick Tooley and caught him shutting the notebook he had been scribbling in during the lecture. He had not been taking notes, unless he always took them in sonnet form. He not only put poetry to music, he wrote it.

He caught her eye. "This will never do," he said. "I'm going to ask her if she'll give me an accelerated program."

"And what about your partner?" said Janet.

"Oh, I'll still come to class. I just need a foil this weekend. Where do you live?"

Janet just managed not to give her parents' address. "Fourth Ericson."

"I'll call you if I finish the music before Monday,"

he said, and marched

determinedly across the floor to the fencing instructor.

Janet thought she knew a dismissal when she heard one. She went outside. The Women's Center stood on the top of a steep hill overlooking a vast playing field, the stream that fed the lakes, and, on the stream's far side, the tamer part of the Arboretum attached to Blackstock. The willow trees along the banks of the stream were bright yellow. The woods were still mostly green, with here and there a tinge of yellow. All the sumac had turned red. It might be a good autumn after all.

Janet had an hour for lunch, after which she would get a solid block of Philosophy and Anthropology; her English class would reign in lonely splendor on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. She had half promised to meet Christina and Peg in Taylor. She watched the wind ruffle the smooth-cut grass of the playing field, and considered the ducks sailing on the stream, and turned abruptly into Eliot Hall, where one could dine in a building set into the hill, and watch the ducks while one did it.

She found Nora and Sharon occupying a round table for eight in the spot with the best view, and decided they were unlikely to be having a private conversation. She managed to catch Sharon's eye while she was still several tables away. Sharon didn't smile, not a muscle moved in her dark face; but she did wave and pat the back of the chair next to her. Janet carried her tray over there and took the seat offered her.

"I was beginning to think you never ate," said Nora, who did smile. Janet wondered if they had chosen her to be an RA because she looked so wholesome and ordinary, with her round face and straight brown hair and glasses. "Or Molly or Christina, either," added Nora.

"Peg's got 'em used to Taylor already," said Sharon.

Nora rolled her eyes. Janet spread the paper napkin on her lap, picked up her dish of stewed tomatoes, and said, "Now don't look. I'm going to mush these into the macaroni and cheese."

Sharon covered her face with her hands. Nora said, "I've already watched Sharon pepper her cottage cheese until it turned gray; what's a few tomatoes to that?"

"How are you and your roommates getting along?" she added.

"Molly's great," said Janet. This was not tactful, but she knew what Nora was probably wanting to say, and they might as well shorten the process.

"Tina feels left out, you know," said Nora, apparently agreeing with this desire.

"She
is
left out," said Janet. "It's not our fault."

"She expected better, from your letters."

"It's the Admissions Office," said Janet. "I said I liked folk music and Molly said she went to rock concerts and Christina said she liked Bach, so they said, oh, look, three people who listen to music, and stuck us in the same room."

"Same thing happened to Peg and me," said Sharon. "She used to make jewelry and I had a rock collection. Bingo. We had to put a clothesline up in the middle of our room fall term, with sheets hanging from it; and Peg climbed in and out the window 'cause I had the door in my half."

"So why did you room together again?"

"That's what I'm saying," said Sharon. "Give Tina a chance."

"She may be athletic," said Nora, "but that doesn't mean she's stupid."

"I'm athletic," said Janet.

"Well, go play tennis with her, then."

"I hate tennis. And she hates Ping-Pong, because I asked her."

Nora sighed, and to Janet's considerable relief appeared to relinquish her post as lecturer. "Just think about it, okay?"

"Sure," said Janet. If Christina had complained to Nora, she probably did feel unhappy; unlike Molly, Tina did not favor you with any details at all of her history, her private life, or her opinions. "I know she can't be stupid if she's here," said Janet, "but I don't think she has any sense of humor."

"She has so," said Sharon.

"It's just not verbal," said Nora.

Janet, her mouth mercifully full of macaroni and tomato, gazed at them with what she hoped was an enlightened and tolerant expression, while wondering how in the world you could possibly have a nonverbal sense of humor if you were over the age of two. She hoped they didn't mean Christina was a practical joker. There hadn't been any sign of it so far.

"That reminds me," she said, having swallowed, "can we store the top part of Christina's bunk bed in the basement?"

Sharon chortled and Nora looked horrified. "Don't tell me another thing," Nora said.

"You want to get pregnant, you want to get arrested for selling dope, you want to fail all your courses because you've been playing poker for six weeks straight, you want to go broke on the pinball machines in the Student Union—fine, I'm your man, I'll help you out. But don't you talk to me about College property and especially don't you talk to me about removing it from the rooms it's supposed to be in."

"Gosh," said Janet, "thanks, Nora, I'll remember that."

"And don't talk to Melinda Wolfe about it, either," said Nora, unsmiling.