Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers (17 page)

Niki was not to be distracted from her own interests. “The English professor doesn't like me. To begin with. She'd like you, Annie—you're her kind. She's a bastard.”

“Maybe if you worked a little harder?” Ann returned. “Maybe if you worked a little?”

“Nope. I keep up, and that's enough for an English course. She says I don't think about the stuff. But it's English. You don't think about English, you have opinions. What do I do, Ann?”

“How can I tell?”

“Would you look at my papers?”

“What's wrong with them?”

“I don't know.”

“Is the professor right? She is, isn't she? You don't think about it, do you?”

“It's boring. It's all so . . . undefined. You can prove almost anything, if you twist and turn it enough. And why bother? That's what I want to know: why bother? I can't think
about that stuff. Just getting the reading done—I have trouble staying awake for that.”

“Well then,” Ann said.

“There's got to be a way around this. If I could get an A on the long paper, I'd get a B for the semester. Don't you think? Even if all the rest of my papers are C-plus? How do you get an A?”

“I don't know.”

“You helped Hildy.”

“Hildy was in trouble.”

“Will you just read one paper? That's not so much trouble is it? Just one? The
Odyssey
one. I'm not asking you to do very much, just tell me what you think about a paper. It's not hard, not for you. I'm not asking you to like me, Annie, just read a paper.”

“All right. I give up, I will. All right.”

Niki opened a drawer and pulled out a paper. “Here, I happen to have it handy. Hildy? What did you get on your Penelope paper?”

“C.”

“That's two letter grades up. You can do it, Annie. You can do it for me.”

“What do you think of this?” Hildy asked. “If each game a different person sits out. In rotation.”

“Eloise is our sub,” Niki said.

“She improves,” Hildy said.

“How about, everyone but you and me?” Niki suggested.

“I thought everyone. You do not have to though, that will make no difference.”

“I have no objection to the idea,” Ann said.

“Why wouldn't I make a difference?” Niki asked.

“You play by yourself.”

“Balls,” Niki said. “The team needs me. And you. The team needs us.”

“Not me,” Hildy said.

“Then me,” Niki said. She turned on Ann, “I know how that sounds so don't bother saying it.”

“You make many of the points more quickly; you make them more easy for us,” Hildy said. “They would still be made.”

“Piss on it.”

“I do not understand,” Hildy said in a genuinely puzzled voice, “why you use such words. If you have chosen them for their meaning, you are either deliberately rude or simply stupid. If for any other reason, you are a hypocrite.”

Niki fumed. Her mouth opened on unuttered responses. Finally she slammed her hand down on the desk. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Nothing. I did not ask a question.”

“You know, you may be right, capital-R Right. But you won't break me.” Niki's voice was steely.

“I know,” Hildy spoke softly. “I do not want to. But you cannot know that.”

“I don't care. That's the truth of the matter. All I want is to get my English grade up. So I can get the hell out.”

“I'll read the paper right now,” Ann said, seizing the diversion. “Look, I'm starting. I'm reading the title.”
Adultery.
Ann read through the seven pages, noted and agreed with the C + grade, and was surprised at the flat though workmanlike content and style.

Niki, she became aware, had watched her throughout. “Well?”

“I need to think,” Ann hedged.
“Interesting
is the comment by the grade. Is that all the professor said?”

“Ah. You think that, as a critical analysis of the paper, as the response of a trained intelligence seeking to enable improvement, for example, that as such it is not incisive enough? Maybe a little lacking in constructive criticism? Although it is succinct.”

Ann said, “What strikes me is that interesting is the one thing it isn't.”

Niki threw back her head and laughed. “You're right, of course. Bizarre, yes? Talk to me after dinner, OK? Annie—I knew you could put your finger on it.”

Later, Ann tried to explain to Niki that it was a matter of the quality of the idea and the complexity of dealing with it. “You've missed so much,” Ann said.

“But I only had ten pages.”

“Yes. And you plumped for the most pedestrian use of them. That surprises me.”

“Why?”

“This paper is so safe.”

“When you're going for the grade—”

“Admit it. You got the grade you got by going for grades.”

“OK, OK. So I've got to have better ideas.”

“And deal with them more thoughtfully. That may be hard for you.”

Niki looked down at her paper “I guess that makes sense. OK. I see what you're driving at Annie. I owe you one. Want me to help you with science?”

“Eloise said she would.”

“Eloise? Why Eloise? Is she smart? I don't believe that, Annie. She's such a wimp, how can she be smart?”

“The real thing,” Ann said, sure of it. “Not like us. She may even be a scholar She has that sense for—perfection in detail, is that it? You're underestimating her, Niki.”

“But I bet I could show you better than Eloise. She won't know how to yell at you. We'll try it together.”

Ann was not up to arguing about that, not even for the sake of her new, burgeoning friendship with Eloise.

♦   ♦   ♦

Ann went home for the weekend, riding the express bus. Ann's home, altogether, in all respects, reflected the kind of polishing that makes silver shine and wood gleam. Mrs. Gardner had a rib roast, Ann's favorite, for Friday dinner. Her two older sisters had also come home for the occasion, and one of her older brothers. The next day, her father's birthday, lobsters were served. Sunday morning was filled with leave-takings; only Ann and her younger brother would stay through Sunday lunch. It was a typical weekend at home: logy with food, passing the time slowly in a kind of contented haze, making desultory inquiries about other peoples' jobs, schools, activities.

When she had a moment alone with her mother, Ann asked whether she could bring her roommate home for Christmas. “Niki?” Mrs. Gardner inquired. “Or the other girl, Hildy.”

“Actually, I asked them both.”

Mrs. Gardner raised her eyebrows.

“But Niki has to go out to California to keep her father from getting married, if she can. She didn't want to come anyway.”

“Why should she want her father not to remarry?”

“It's complicated,” Ann said. There were some areas of the
world her mother could not understand. “Anyway, I asked Hildy.”

“Before you had spoken to me?”

Ann knew she was in the wrong. “I thought—you'll like her, I'm sure of it—it's Christmas and she can't get home herself—”

“Why not?”

“She doesn't have much money.”

“So, you've been feeling sorry for people again,” her mother said.

Ann left the room.

Ann's green and white bedroom felt strange to her, for the first time in her life. She had lived in this room for much of her life. Its corners were cluttered with pieces of her childhood and with personal treasures. But she was no longer entirely comfortable there. On Sunday morning she packed a long stuffed snake into her suitcase and rolled up her Kennedy campaign poster; she picked out her first edition of
The Secret Garden.
She set her suitcase in the hallway, ready to go.

At lunch, a large platter of chicken salad sandwiches, her mother answered her “I've been thinking about Christmas. Ann wants to bring a friend home with her for the holidays,” she announced.

The suggestion did not seem to evoke much interest.

“I've decided that it's all right with me,” Mrs. Gardner said. “When you shop, remember that there will be one more person. Her name is Hildy. She plays volleyball—isn't that right? She comes from a modest background—that's correct, isn't it, Ann?”

Ann protested. “It wouldn't be like that. It wouldn't be right to give her presents the way we do each other. That would embarrass her.”

“I think the question is,” Mr. Gardner said, “whether it would embarrass us
not
to do so. Or are you suggesting that we celebrate differently this year?”

“No, not at all. Hildy wouldn't mind. She wouldn't even notice. She doesn't notice stuff like that. Are you trying to tell me it's a bad idea?”

“Of course not,” Mrs. Gardner said. “I'll admit I'd have difficulty welcoming Niki. But Hildy, when you write of her,
seems quite nice. A little simple. Though she might feel uncomfortable here. Have you thought of that?”

Ann, feeling at that point uncomfortable herself, nodded.

Ann's brother joined in. “Let's do it. But play it by ear and not make a big production out of it. Is she pretty?”

“Very.”

“She'll be bound to have a good time then. Don't get in a tither, Ma.”

“You know, if you wanted to, you could come up and meet her first. Maybe that's the way to do it. And if it feels OK to you, you could invite her yourself.”

“Now that's a workable idea,” Mr. Gardner said. “A very good idea. I'm glad to see our money is not being wasted. We could have a day's quiet skiing, just the two of us, and take the girls out to dinner. Some time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, don't you think?” He talked down the length of the table to his wife.

“That does seem better. We should do it quite close to Thanksgiving, though.”

“Niki too, let's include her in the dinner,” Mr. Gardner said. “I was taken with her. She put spokes in your mother's wheels, if you can imagine that,” he said to Ann's brother.

“Of course, Niki might not care to dine with us,” Mrs. Gardner said.

“Yes, but she might. I shall attempt to charm her, if she hesitates.”

“You'd do better to bully her,” Ann advised.

“That too,” her father agreed.

“Is
she
pretty?” the brother inquired.

“No,” Ann said.

“But, Ann,” her mother said. “Niki could be quite striking. Dramatic. She has lovely hair and a fine figure.”

“What's Hildy like?” Ann's father asked. “Besides pretty.”

Ann tried to think of what to say. “She's sort of—unusual. I like her.”

Mrs. Gardner smiled patiently. “What's her background, what does her father do? Where did she go to school?”

“Her father's a farmer. She went to a high school. She works hard, she goes to church every Sunday.”

“Catholic?”

“No, she just—worships.” Ann struggled to find the detail
or description that would explain. “I don't know—she's just herself. You'll have to meet her. She's sort of the volleyball coach. I really like her, everybody admires her.”

Ann's brother changed the subject. “What
is
this I hear, you're playing volleyball?” Ann nodded. “I never figured you for a jock,” he remarked.

“I sort of fell into it,” she justified herself. “I kind of like it. We're playing on an all-school ladder and doing pretty well.” This much boasting she allowed herself.

“Volleyball?” His opinion of the sport was obvious in his tone: low.

“Mens sane,”
Ann answered, knowing how weak his Latin was.

“We know you're the brainy one,” he responded equably. “But it isn't like you to play a sport—it isn't, is it? You won't even go off the high diving board, Ann.”

Ann giggled, remembering. “OK. I'm no athlete, I'm not even competitive—”

“Hot news flash,” he announced to the table.

“—but you should understand this: I feel like I know how to get better at it. Do you know what I mean? I can almost feel—see—what it would be like to be really good. Like you are at tennis. I never will, of course, but—listen.”

“I'm listening. I can eat and listen.”

“I've always been good in school, but I never had to work that hard, especially for the things I liked, like languages and English. It was all sort of accidental. I did the only thing I could think of to do and it was excellent.” She didn't care if she was boasting, because she was figuring something out. “But in the volleyball, because it's a team maybe and there are other people . . . . Always before, I never tried for anything I wasn't naturally good at. Maybe I figured I'd lose anyway, or maybe I was too scared of looking stupid. But now, in this, I'm really working hard even though I know I'll never be as good as I'd like to be. Doesn't that happen to you in school? Don't you know what I mean?”

He looked thoughtfully at her. “You must have a good teacher,” he said.

“Hildy,” Ann said. “She and Niki are really good players. Really good. I'm the worst on the team.” That was true, Ann realized, and wondered why she had never thought of it that
way before. “Except maybe the sub. Eloise.” She forestalled her brother's inevitable question. “No,
not
pretty. But Hildy . . . well, just wait and see.”

He groaned and smote his breast. “If I were only two years older.”

♦   ♦   ♦

The room was empty when Ann returned. She unpacked quickly. The snake coiled in furry indolence on her bed. The poster, with its photograph of JFK, she tacked over her desk. Ann changed into trousers and walked over to the gym, to see if there might be a practice. She wanted to see Hildy in her new glasses. But nobody was at the gym, so she went back, drew herself a bath and lay in it, sketchily reading
The Secret Garden.