Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers (6 page)

Hildy's blue eyes studied Ann. “Why don't you want to?”

“I don't know how,” Ann answered. “I'll watch, I'd like to watch. You'll need an audience. Every sport needs an audience.”

“I can think of one that doesn't,” Niki said, smirking.

Ann, her face held bright in a smile, blushed and was furious with herself.

“Volleyball's easy. You can learn while you play,” Niki explained. “It's sort of like tennis. You must have
some
athletic ability. You play tennis all right.”

Ann refused stubbornly. She never played a game well unless she had been playing for a while. She didn't want to go out and make a fool of herself.

“OK then. How
do
you feel about winning, Hildegarde?” Niki returned to her original topic.

Hildy considered. “I like it,” she decided.

“What about losing?” Niki asked.

“That doesn't matter,” Hildy said.

Niki pounced: “But winning does.”

“I didn't say that. Neither is important, not really. I like to win. But—” She apparently had no words for further discussion of the point. “I like to play,” she explained. “If you play well you win, usually. If you play well and lose, then it will still be a good game.”

It was clear that Niki didn't believe her “I'll go see who I can find. To play. What do you think, two o'clock?”

“There is a net already set up?”

“There's an outdoor court and lots of indoor ones. Volleyball seems to be popular around here. Lots of pick-up games. There's some kind of inter-class tournament, in all the sports, each season. Some people last night were talking about it. Freshmen never win of course. Anyway, there are volleyball teams, as well as the rest. It's a friendly game,” she concluded, looking at Ann. Ann, in whose memory was clear the image of
Niki's arm upraised, fist clenched to hammer down on the ball, smiled.

Niki had Hildy and Ann down on the lawn beside the volleyball net by one forty-five. She had found two volley-balls. She went to the side and did deep knee bends, while Hildy tried to show Ann how to hit the ball.

“I'm not going to play,” Ann said.

“I know. Wouldn't you like to see how it's done though?”

Ann learned to hold her hands so that the heels would contact the ball. She stood across the net from Hildy and returned a few soft shots. It wasn't all that difficult. But it wasn't as easy as it looked. Ann could be sure of getting the ball up over the high net; however, she had no idea of how to put it where she wanted it to go. Hildy had no trouble returning her shots, no matter how wildly they flew. Hildy didn't always make contact with the heels of her hands, as she had told Ann: sometimes—if the ball was low—she would dig at it with her fists; a couple of times—when it flew high—she brought it down with her forearms. Every shot she sent back to Ann was easily within reach.

Other girls came to join them, and Ann stopped playing. “You're good, aren't you?” she asked Hildy as she walked over to return the ball. Ann had played enough tennis to know how good you had to be to return the ball well to a beginner.

“Yes,” Hildy said.

People were warming up, going to one side or another as they arrived. Niki still stood apart, now leaping up and bringing her fist down on an imaginary ball. Ann watched. Niki sprang high, stroked, and landed with knees flexed, ready. She reminded Ann of a panther or mountain lion. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“It's called spiking,” Niki said, and leaped again. “It's the way you win points,” she grunted as she landed. “Like a smash.”

“Is this like tennis without a racquet?”

Niki shook her head and leaped. “This is a team sport. You have to win serve, too. And you can hit it twice on one side of the net, before you pass it over. You'll see.”

Ann sat down on the grass nearby. She didn't mind being alone, here, under these circumstances. Niki went to join the players, choosing the side opposite Hildy. A few of the girls
greeted her, welcoming her onto their team. They made room for her in the row near the net. Ann watched lazily. Niki's coordination seemed better than anyone else's. Her muscular body was never caught off-balance. Hildy, on the other side, played a slower game. She moved in a more leisurely fashion, gracefully. As if every gesture was part of a whole, continued from the previous and leading into the next. But Niki, Ann thought, was the better player, the better athlete, quicker, sharper.

“Shall we begin?” Niki asked. The two teams of six each arranged themselves into front lines and back lines. Niki served, underhand and hard, into the opposite corner. The receiver touched it, but knocked it out of bounds. Niki's next serve went to the center rear The girl punched it up and Hildy seemed to be waiting for it because she passed over the net. One of Niki's team ran for it, swung at it with a fist, but missed. Niki called out “One-nothing.” Hildy's team rotated.

“Why not one-all?” Ann wondered. Each side had won a point. No, Niki said you have to win serve, so Hildy's team had only won serve, not scored a point.

Ann turned to see who was sitting down beside her. She recognized Eloise Golding, from the Hall, and swallowed back a groan. Eloise had been in her classes for three years and she had never gotten to know her, and she had never regretted it. Eloise was a square person, her head, her body, her chunky limbs. Her hair was straight and square cut. Her eyeglasses were square. Her white lips were square. Her mind—Ann assumed, for she knew only that Eloise got A's—was as square and pallid as her flesh. Eloise was always carefully quiet.

“Hi,” Eloise said. Ann grunted. She was convinced that Eloise, if given encouragement, would become a leech.

In front of them the game went on. Finally, Ann felt she had to speak. A long-legged, long-haired blonde was serving on Niki's team. “I can't figure out what's going on. Can you?”

“Yes,” Eloise said. “I'm familiar with the rules of the game.”

Ann waited, then asked. “What's the score?”

“Five to one. The service team is ahead. The score of the service team is always given first, then the score of the receiving team.”

“How come you're here?” Eloise was unathletic.

“I heard there was a game from someone—I don't know her name—who was asked to play. Since I had nothing else to do until the tea, I thought I might as well watch. My roommates were telephoning their boyfriends.”

“How do you like your roommates?”

“They're tolerable,” Eloise said. Then she added, as if surprised, “I just recalled that you aren't rooming with anyone from school either.”

“No.”

“Why not? I'd have thought you would.”

Ann couldn't remember Eloise ever asking a question before, not even
What did you get on that test?
“If Sally had come here, I might have. But—and it was time to branch out I thought.”

“I see.” Another pause and then, rushing out, “Both of my roommates come from Houston. They requested to be placed together.”

“Oh dear,” Ann said without thinking.

“Just so,” Eloise said solemnly. Ann, confused by having given away so obviously what she was thinking, wondered if there was a glint of humor in her companion. If she'd thought of Eloise at all, it had been to dismiss her, as a wispy person—like a tepid breeze on a summer day, uninteresting.

“How do you find
your
roommates?” Eloise asked. A second question.

“They're both here playing. That's why I came,” Ann said.

“But I always thought of you as an athlete. How is it that you're not playing?” And a third. This wasn't like the Eloise Ann remembered.

“I've never played volleyball in my life,” Ann explained.

Niki screamed: “Get your buns over there, dammit! You don't play the game standing still! Jackass.” Eloise jumped.

“That's one,” Ann said. Eloise smiled faintly.

“Her name's Niki. The other's the big blonde on the other side, with short, curly hair. Hildy. See her? in the middle.” At that moment Hildy leaped up and placed the ball neatly at Niki's feet. Niki dived, but couldn't get to it. “Piss on it,” she said, then, “Nice shot,” then she screeched, “C'mon, we only need one point to win this game. Let's go! Close in.” Her team inched toward the net.

“That didn't take very long,” Eloise observed.

“How long is it supposed to take?”

“Ordinarily, if the teams are at all equal, a game will take between ten and fifteen minutes. This engagement appears to be a rout.”

“Niki will like that. She creamed me yesterday at tennis.”

“Didn't you play on the varsity tennis team?”

“Second string.”

“Even so, I would have thought—” Eloise said. They had another silence while the game ended with Niki rushing to the net to spike a ball down into the empty forecourt (empty because the players had backed away at her approach). “I didn't know you had translated Catullus that way,” Eloise said, not looking at Ann. “I mean, I knew we'd done him, but I wasn't aware you had executed poetic translations.”

Ann flushed.

“Do you want to know what I thought of it?” Eloise asked.

Of course I do, you ninny, Ann thought, not wanting to have to ask. “Shoot,” she said.

“You weren't precisely faithful to the syntax—”

“I know that.”

“But you did it rather well I think. The scholarship, although not meticulous, is able enough. There's nothing specious in it. However, the feeling is what I noticed most. I think you really succeeded with the feeling. It's modern, but not too modern, and you have retained the fluency of the original. Though I wonder whether you should have used feminine rhymes. Do you know what I mean?”

A real criticism, Ann thought, nodding.

“Anyway, it is a sound translation,” Eloise concluded pedantically, lamely.

“What are they doing now?” Ann asked. “I'm glad you liked the translation.”

“They're changing sides.”

“I
know
that,” Ann's irritation came into her voice until she saw that faint smile. Dry humor? “What's Hildy doing?” Hildy was talking to her teammates. She held her arms up together, illustrating something and the girls nodded. Could you co-exist with someone for three years and not know if she had a sense of humor? and not know her? At the Hall you could, it seemed.

“Coaching, or so it would appear,” Eloise answered.

Ann and Eloise attended more carefully to the second game. Hildy's team served first. Hildy, in the front row, turned to the redheaded girl and said, “Remember. Just keep it in play. Are we ready?”

The girl's puffball underhand serve floated gently down. The long-haired blonde on Niki's team hit an overhead shot, which Niki seemed to be waiting for, because she jumped up with her fist raised. A fraction of a second later, Hildy leaped. Her hands met the descending ball above the net and snapped it to the ground before anyone on Niki's team saw what had happened. Niki glared at Hildy, who did not respond. Instead, Hildy said to the blonde, “That was a nice set.”

“Thanks.”

“One-nothing,” Niki announced.

When Hildy had successfully blocked two more spikes, as if she could read Niki's mind and knew just where the ball would cross the net, Niki stopped spiking. She called “Mine!” for any ball anywhere near her and charged after it to get it back over the net with all the power she could give it. The game became schizoid: on Hildy's side the ball was gentled, made soft; on Niki's it was energized and pointed. Hildy's team would retrieve and pass it among themselves. If Niki couldn't get to it for the first return, she was always there for a second shot. “Look out!” she would yell to her teammates, who backed away to give her room. Hildy too moved about, although she did not range as far. “I'm behind you,” she would say softly.

“Nine-two,” Niki called. “Let's get on it here. Wake up!”

Niki's team placed themselves for Hildy's serve. Unlike the others, Hildy served overhand, a series of arcs, the tossed ball, the arm, the body. The serve landed between two players, equidistant from each. Neither moved. Each wore the same expression of surprise.

Hildy served again. This time the ball was fast, speeding into an uncovered corner. Niki dived for it, and missed. She lay on the ground for a minute, as if thinking. As they waited for the third serve, Ann noticed Niki watching her own team, not Hildy. Hildy threw the ball up, over her head, and before her hands touched it, Niki started to run. “Outta my way!” she yelled and was there to receive the serve at the opposite side of the court where there was a broad space between two players.
She got it, but could not lift it over the net. “To you, Sarah,” she yelled. The blond punched it over to Hildy's team. The redhead received it at the net but did not return it. Instead she passed it overhead to a teammate beside her, who returned it to Niki's team. The ball landed softly on the ground.

“Twelve-two, dammit,” Niki cried.

Hildy served again, this time another fast ball, landing low, just too far from the receiver's feet to be reached. Niki was there, again, her teammates having jumped back to give her room, and her shot went low and hard over the net.

“That's out,” the redheaded girl called to the back row. They stood to let it go. It touched the end line before rolling out of bounds. “Hah!” Niki grunted. The team rotated.

“I'm sorry,” the redhead said. “It looked out to me. Didn't it look out to you, Hildy?”

Hildy turned to face the girl. “I didn't watch it,” she said. “When you called it I didn't watch.”

“My fault,” the girl said.

“Fault?” asked Hildy. “Why? You will be right more often than not, when calling a ball out. But you will sometimes be wrong.”