Chapter I: Part 1

Sorority House

From far off Susan Mitchell could hear the sweet voices of a
fraternity serenading another sorority house down the street.

Mitch turned the light on and looked at the face of the clock. It
was eleven-thirty. She saw Leda’s half-full package of cigarettes
on the desk, and she took one from the pack and lit it.

It was taking Leda a long time. Mitch was numb with torment, and
the sheets on her bed were wrinkled and halfway off the mattress
from her perpetual turning and moving as she waited. The ticking
of the tin clock on the dresser sounded frantic and Mitch made
the ticks come in three beats in her mind—_Les-bi-an_,
_Les-bi-an_, _tick-tick-tick_. The thought foamed in Mitch’s
brain and hurt her. She did not know why she felt dirty when Leda
told her that she was a Lesbian. She thought she should have felt
happy and glad that they were two. But she did not want to be
one.

Tomorrow, she decided, she would move out of Tri Epsilon and into
the dorm with Robin. If she and Leda weren’t put out of the
sorority, she would leave anyway. But she knew she could not
leave Leda. “I love Leda,” she said softly to the darkness, “even
though we’re both that way. I wish she wasn’t that way.”

A GOLD MEDAL ORIGINAL

SPRING FIRE

Vin Packer

New York
Gold Medal Books
Fawcett Publications, Inc.

Copyright 1952 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.

First Printing, February 1952
Second Printing, August 1952
Third Printing, May 1954
Fourth Printing, March 1956
Fifth Printing, July 1958

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof.

All characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Chapter One

It was two-thirty in the afternoon, late September, with the sun beating down the way it does then in the Midwest, and the dust in the streets. The girl, Susan Mitchell, was wearing a green linen suit that clung on her large body heavily, a round white straw hat from which short pieces of blonde hair hung limply, and brown and white shoes with low heels that made her long feet look longer. She was not pretty. She was not lovely and dainty and pretty, but there was a comeliness about her that suggested some inbred strength and grace. It was in her face. It was in the color of her eyes—deep blue like the ocean ’way out there, but quiet and still. It was in the structure of her cheekbones, high and firm coming down to pull her chin up. She walked that way, too. She walked easy and sure. She was following College Avenue down to where the main gate was, and the road that led through the gate to the campus of Cranston University. All around her there were signs in the windows of bookstores and drugstores and dress shops and bars and the signs said: “WELCOME BACK C. U.”

The gate was open and the wide slate walks surrounding the immense green lawn were dotted with boys and girls, walking together in groups, sitting alone on benches, standing thoughtfully in doorways, and waiting wearily in long registration lines. Susan Mitchell had registered two weeks ago.

“You’ll have enough to think about during rush week,” her father had promised, “without worrying about getting yourself enrolled. We’ll do it early. Then you can concentrate on impressing those sorority gals. Don’t be nervous, either. Remember, your father still loves you, no matter what.”

And so it was there again—his fear for her. His fear that she was not good enough. Because he had not been. He had worked hard, and not gone to college, and not had luxuries, and not learned not to say “ain’t,” and not anything. Until the war and the men came that day and looked at the factory and talked with him and signed papers and he was rich then. And then he was afraid.

He had driven her from Kansas City to register, and when she had finished, he had asked someone how to get to “Greek Town,” and with him she had first seen it.

“Greek Town” was the home of the sororities and fraternities and it was magic over there, close to the stadium, within walking distance of the campus, but not huddled up in narrow streets the way the dorms and boardinghouses were. It was magic, with street after street of grand houses—brick, stucco, stone, and fresh white wooden houses. Each one had a gold plaque with shining Greek letters, and nearly all of them had spacious yards, winding driveways, and huge white columns that stood impressively, symbols of magnificence. Then she too had felt a thin shiver of fear.

Tomorrow she would go to the sorority houses to be judged; but now as she walked on the campus she forgot about that momentarily, and smelled the grass that had been cut and watered, and it was good. The ivy, crawling up along the walls of the building, was massive and cooling, and the big trees made shade along the path. She sat for a while on the rock bench there where the breeze came along, and it was peaceful.

A group of laughing girls passed, arms entwined, faces glowing with excitement.

“... anyway,” one of them was saying, “it turned out he was from St. Louis—Webster, in fact—and he knew loads of kids I knew.”

“My God!” another shrieked. “Didn’t you tell him _I_ was from Webster?”

Later Susan Mitchell walked back toward the gate and the street leading to the hotel where she was staying. A convertible whizzed by and kicked up clouds of the dust that settled near the curb, and at the corner when it turned, the tires squealed nervously. In the doorway of a restaurant, a tall boy stood holding hands with a small, brown-eyed girl whose hair was flaxen. “God,” he said, “all summer I had you on my mind, Annie. No bull, I thought about you all summer.”

When Susan Mitchell reached the lobby of the hotel, the low leather couches and chairs were filled with girls, and several rows of luggage were lined up near the desk. She asked for her key, wary of the arrogant, crooked-nosed clerk who always yelled, as he did now. “Speak up, girlie,” he said. “I ain’t deaf and I can’t read lips.”

“Susan Mitchell,” the girl said louder. “Four-o-one.”

He handed her the metal key with the wooden tab attached and she hurried off to the waiting elevator.

“Good God,” the uniformed pimple-faced boy said when she stepped into the small box. “You girls! Up and down all the damn day long! I never seen the likes of this bunch. The sororities are welcome to you!”

* * * * *

“The next name, girls,” Mother Nesselbush said, “is Susan Mitchell.”

At her feet, sitting on the wide tan rug, the members of Tri Epsilon polished their nails, knitted, rubbed cold cream into their skin, and rolled their hair up on rags and iron curlers and bobby pins. Mother Nesselbush thumbed through the papers on the card table in front of her. She was a fat woman with a nervous twitch in her jowls and short, squat legs. Twenty years ago she had been a slim coed with long golden hair, a gay young face, and a heart-shaped Tri Epsilon pin attached to her budding bosom. Five years ago, when J. Edman Nesselbush fell dead, she returned to the Cranston campus and took over the duties of the housemother at Epsilon Epsilon Epsilon. Now she was a wide dowager with wiry gray hair and a worn, wrinkled face. In place of the pin now, there was a gravy stain from the noon meal slopped onto her broad, lace-covered chest.

“Now,” Mother Nessy began, “a little about this girl.”

The information on Susan Mitchell had been obtained by Edith Wellard Boynton, ’22. Mrs. Boynton relished the task. She was a superior sleuth, and she would often come from an assignment with copious notes on such intimate details as the estimated income of the candidate’s father; the color of the guest towels in the candidate’s bathroom and the condition of said bathroom; the morals of the candidate, the candidate’s mother, father, brother, and sister; and ever important, the social prestige of the candidate’s family in the community. Then she would type up her notes and send them special delivery.

Susan Mitchell’s report read:

An absolute _must_ for Tri Epsilon. The Mitchell girl is 17. Her
father is a widower and a millionaire. There are no other
children. The Mitchell girl owns a brilliant red convertible,
Buick, latest model. Edward Mitchell belongs to Rotary, Seedmore
Country Club, Seedmore Business Club, and Seedmore P.T.A. Susan
has been educated in the best private schools. She is not
beautiful, but she is wholesome and a fine athlete. Every room in
the Mitchell home has wall-to-wall carpeting. There are four
bathrooms. No mortgages. Edward Mitchell’s reputation is above
reproach. They are definitely nouveaux riches, but their social
prestige in Seedmore is tiptop. Susan has a fabulous wardrobe.
Kansas City Alum Association puts a stamp of approval on this
girl, and a definite “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

When Mother Nesselbush finished reading what Mrs. Boynton had written, there was a sudden minute of silence. Then Leda Taylor spoke up.

“What if she’s a muscle-bound amazon? Do we have to pledge the girl just because her father is worth a mint?”

Leda Taylor did not have a father. Not a father she knew. Jan, her mother, had raised Leda singlehanded, with the help of her job as a dress designer and a good stiff Martini. It had not been easy for Jan. As Leda grew older, Jan’s age became more obvious to men and she always had to say, “I had my baby when _I_ was a baby, really—I was just a baby when little Leda was born.” Little Leda grew fast and fully and richly. She had long black hair that shone like new coal, round green eyes, a stubborn tilt to her chin, proud pear-shaped breasts that pointed through her size 36 sweater, and long, graceful legs. Jan had taught her never to say “Mother.” Leda said “Jan.” She said, “Oh, God, Jan is getting higher than a kite!” when they were all out on parties like that—Leda and the men who clambered after Jan and Jan with her glass raised and her voice growing shrill. Leda said, “Jan, for the love of God, let me pick my own men. I don’t want your castoffs,” when she was home in the summer and Jan was always entertaining. Then in the fall, Leda said, “Take it easy, Jan. Stay sober,” and the train moved away, toward Cranston and college and the house.

Mother Nesselbush sighed and answered Leda. “This is a pretty strong note, dear. You know our alums never make their requests quite so adamant.”

Kitten Clark tapped her nails angrily on the top of the glass coffee table. She was the official social chairman for the sorority, the girl who was responsible for seeing that Tri Eps dated fraternity men. Her motto was pasted up over the mirror in the soft jade-green room where she and Marybell Van Casey lived: “If he’s got a pin—he’s in!”

Underneath these words, a penciled addition to the rule read blithely: “Like Flynn!”

“Nessy,” Kitten said, “so far on our list we have four goon girls. Legacies. We _have_ to take legacies, but we don’t have to take Susan Mitchell! What did the K.C. alums ever do for us?”

Viola Nesselbush straightened herself, tugged harshly at her corset, and leaned forward intimately. She whispered in a rasping tone, one finger held forward significantly. “Now listen, girls. Remember that new set of silverware you all want for the house? The one with the Tri Epsilon crest on it? Well, girls, if we pledge this little girl, I think the K.C. alums will see to it that you get that silverware. In fact, girls,” she added coyly, “I’ll personally guarantee it.”

A spontaneous round of applause rose from the gathering, and the faces of the Tri Eps grinned approval.

“She may be halfway attractive,” Marybell Van Casey offered. “After all, just because she’s a sweat-socks is no sign she’s utterly repulsive.”

Casey’s voice was tinged with defiance. She was a major in physical education, and all of her classes, with the exception of English and vertebrate zo, took place in the arid surroundings of the gymnasium. Her build was heavy and muscular, but her face was pleasant and attractive and she was pinned to a Delta Pi who played baseball.

The president of Tri Epsilon sorority rose gracefully and stood beside the piano facing the group. She wore a crisp pair of white shorts, a black halter, and a black velvet ribbon in her hair. Her name was Marsha Holmes, and there was a mild, poised quality about her that commanded respect and admiration from her sorority sisters. Whenever Marsha spoke, her gray eyes watched the individual faces of her audience carefully, and her low husky voice made her words sound wistful and honest. Marsha had learned much about people from her father, the Reverend Thomas Holmes, and the serenity she wore so easily had been practiced long years at church functions.

“I think everyone agrees,” she said calmly, “that Susan Mitchell is excellent Tri Epsilon material. The purpose of a sorority is to help a girl grow, and if Susan needs our help, it will be our privilege to give it to her. Let’s all make a special effort to show Susan that Tri Epsilon is a friendly house—the kind of house that she would be proud to live in.”

For a moment there was a holy stillness. Leda blew a cloud of smoke up into the air in tiny rings. She said, “Amen!” She said, “Amen and hail the new Christ child!”

* * * * *

The following morning, a few minutes before the taxis arrived with the rushees, Mother Nesselbush gave the final instructions.

“Remember, girls, the phonograph is your signal to dance with one of the rushees. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, girls, don’t leave a girl without a partner. You’ll be able to tell a whole lot about a rushee by dancing with her. Notice how she dances, and in speaking to her, try your best to determine whether she would make a satisfactory Tri Ep. We know most of the facts on these girls, but it’s up to you to verify them. And one more thing. In regard to the Mitchell girl—be patient. She may not look like a Tri Ep, but girls, I’m to the point where I’ll insist that she be one. Now—go to it, and good luck!”

Susan Mitchell arrived in the first taxi along with four other rushees. Beside them she looked like a great hound dog that had been forced to romp with a select group of dachshunds, Pekinese, and toy poodles. Her manner was sprightly and buoyant, and she lacked the poised reserve of the others who walked with her up the long path to the marble steps, where Kitten Clark waited to greet them. She was smiling when her hand caught Kitten’s, and her voice was too impetuous and ingenuous. “Hi,” she said. “Hot, isn’t it?”

Kitten glanced hastily at the name tag. She should have known. The dimples came in her cheeks, and her hand guided Susan lovingly toward Mother Nesselbush. “This is Susan Mitchell,” Kitten said. “Mother Nessy will introduce you to the girls.”

Mother Nesselbush’s fat fingers reached for Susan’s arm, and as she led her through the porch door to the living room she exclaimed, “What a lovely name! Susan! Or Sue? Which one do you like best?”

“Most folks call me Mitch,” the girl answered, and Mother Nessy said, “That’s a dar-ling name! Mitch!”

Marsha Holmes interpreted Nessy’s wink correctly. She rushed forward immediately and checked the name tag. Then she sat beside Susan Mitchell on the divan and she talked in that mellow, soft voice. She brought the girl cool mint punch and round jelly cookies, and she punctuated every sentence with “Mitch.” Through the house she guided the girl, showing her the neat, pastel-colored rooms, the grand tile bathroom with the glass shower and tub stalls, the spotless white kitchen, the cellar with the washing machines and dryers and irons, and the closed-off section known as The Den, where Tri Eps brought their dates for ping-pong and Cokes. Soon Kitten Clark finished greeting the rushees and joined the entourage, and Marybell Van Casey followed along, and Jane Bell, the pert, efficient rush chairman, and they were all smiling and saying, “Do you like it, Mitch?”, “Wait till you see this, Mitch,” and “You are going to come back, Mitch?”

Mitch felt confident and proud. She sat at the bridge table with the Tri Eps flocking to her, and her eyes saw the wretched lanky girl in the corner near the window, alone, fumbling frantically with her purse, feigning an interest in its contents, ignored by the smooth busy figures in white. Another girl in a creamy yellow suit enjoyed the same attention Mitch received, the white formals reaching to light her cigarettes, bending to smile benignly, kneeling adoringly at her feet as she sat there in the stuffed chair and let the cool breeze from the porch ruffle her hair lightly. There was a fat girl in a red suit standing awkwardly with Mother Nesselbush in the doorway of the room, not speaking, looking fearfully at the assembly. A small, pug-nosed rushee with a flip feathered hat whispered fervently to two Tri Eps. Mitch saw them all, hearing the voices talking to her on all sides, answering and listening and watching until her eye rested on a girl standing near the piano. The girl was beautiful. Her white gown began just above her breasts and came in tight at her waist and full down to her ankles, where it ended and allowed spike-heeled silver shoes to glisten clean and clear. She was picking up records from a stack there on the top of the piano, reading the labels, and dividing them into two piles. When she felt Mitch’s fixed look, she answered it and Mitch grinned, looking back quickly at Kitten, who was explaining how the Tri Epsilon house had been redecorated over the summer. For several minutes Mitch knew that the girl was staring at her now, and a warm flush rose to her face. There was something about the girl. She had never seen her before, but there was something familiar in that fast second when they had looked at one another.

In a moment the phonograph was turned on, and throughout the room girls paired off and moved to the center of the floor. Kitten grabbed Mitch’s hand. “Do you like to dance?” she asked, pulling her forward. Mitch nodded, and as they danced, Kitten held her off so that she could talk and watch Mitch’s face.

“How do you like Tri Epsilon?” she asked.

“Fine,” Mitch told her, and naïvely, “but of course, I haven’t been to the other houses yet.”

Kitten said, “You will come back, won’t you, Mitch? We all hope you’ll save your most important dates for us. Try to save two and eight.”

“I didn’t know there was a difference.”

“Yes.” Kitten smiled and pressed Mitch’s hand. “There certainly is. Will you try?”

Mitch said she would. At the hotel she had heard the rushees talk ecstatically about the Tri Eps. They were rated tops nationally, and the Cranston chapter was the leading sorority on the college campus. A hot stir of pleasure enveloped Mitch. She had not known the fear her father had known for her when she had thought of rush week, but there was always the subconscious worry that she might be too uncut and plain for sorority sophisticates. During the summer the college catalogues and booklets had come through the mail, and she had flicked through the pages, seeing the pictures of debonair, glamorous young people her own age. But not like her. Mitch knew that then—and again when Kitten talked to her and Marsha walked with her, and Marybell Van Casey sat beside her and smoked long cigarettes and talked about tennis and swimming and things Mitch understood. Still different, all of them. Mitch was aware of that fact, but she no longer pondered the differences. They liked her anyway. They wanted her to join Epsilon Epsilon Epsilon.

Jane Bell danced with Mitch. Casey. Kitten again. Marsha. The lilting lyrics of “Temptation” filled the room. Suddenly Mitch felt a wave of uncanny turbulence, relieved then when she turned and saw the girl standing next to her. The beautiful girl who had stood at the piano. Marsha laughed and said, “Mitch, I don’t think you’ve met Leda Taylor.”

Susan Mitchell was taller than Leda Taylor. Leda held her and led her along the waxed floor. Mitch was conscious of her own breathing, coming in gasps and causing her chest to heave uncomfortably against Leda’s. She smelled the faint pungent perfume that Leda wore, and her hand on Leda’s bare shoulder was hot and rough. The words to the song sounded loud in her ears, and they embarrassed her, dancing to them close to this girl.

“So you’re Susan Mitchell,” the girl said, and Mitch could not hear her own answer. She did not talk for those minutes when they were together before the music ended, and Leda Taylor did not talk again. When it was over, a note sounded on the piano, and Marsha Holmes hummed the note.

“Form the loving circle,” Marsha said. “Join hands.”

Leda grasped Mitch’s hand tightly. As the Tri Eps hummed the melody, there was a slow swaying motion in the circle of girls, and when the words came, Mitch could feel Leda’s eyes on her.

“Love you, I love you,
Come be a Tri Ep girl.
Love you, I love you,
Come be an Ep-si-lon pearl.”

Mitch looked down at Leda and then away toward the French doors and the drapes and the sun outside.

“Take my hand and hold it, dear,
Let me make my message clear.
Love you, I love you,
Come be a Tri Ep girl.”

“I suppose,” Leda said when the song was finished, “that you’ll come back.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see you then,” Leda said. She said, “I’ll see you then,” and glided away while Mother Nessy ran forward to hug Mitch. “The taxis are waiting, dear,” she told Mitch, “and we have to hurry you all away. Remember, Susan, Tri Epsilon is counting on you. We hope you’re counting on Tri Epsilon.”

Past Kitten Clark and Marsha, Marybell and Jane, their “Come backs” echoing in her ears, Mitch felt the sun on her arms, heard the nervous honking of the cabs’ horns, and remembered only the green color of Leda’s eyes, and the four words, “I’ll see you then.”

* * * * *

That evening Marsha looked up from the stuffed peppers and the tossed salad in front of her. “I noticed you were Susan Mitchell’s partner in the loving circle this morning,” she said to Leda.

“Wasn’t my fault. I danced with her and it happened to be the last dance.”

“Well, what did you think of her?”

Leda toyed with her crust of bread, spreading the butter thickly around the edges and on the sides. “We need the silverware,” she answered.

“But the girl has possibilities, too. I mean, she certainly isn’t backward or shy.”

“I don’t know anything about the girl. I had one dance with her.”

Kitten Clark sat opposite Marsha. She clinked her fork on her plate and said, “Well, believe me, if she were anyone but Edward Mitchell’s daughter, she’d get a nice, fat, round blackball from yours truly. She’s hickey! I mean, absolutely hickey!”

“But she is Edward Mitchell’s daughter,” Marsha broke in, “and let’s all of us remember that. The girl hasn’t pledged yet, you know. Other houses will be after her too.”

Casey said, “She says she swims. We could use her on the intramural swimming team.”

“You’ll find a way to _use_ her,” Leda said. “I’m not worried about that.”

After she said it, she bit hard into the bread and the layers of butter. Casey’s eyes flashed and she spurted out angry words. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Since when have you cared a damn whether a girl got an even break in this sorority? You throw a blackball around at the drop of a hat, and all of a sudden you’re so damned self-righteous. This is a new twist.”

Leda knew it. She pushed her plate away and stood up. “Must be the heat,” she said. “I don’t care a hoot about Mitchell. She can go back to Seedmore for all I care. Right now, lover boy is waiting.”

She ran to the side door, to the tall brown-haired boy with the pipe jutting from his jaw, and the sweater that said Sigma Delta, and she murmured, “Jakie,” and moved close to him.

“You finished fast,” he said. “Wanna walk?”

“Yes, Jake-O.”

“We can pick up some beer in Campus Town. Then wanna walk back out—to the stadium?”

“You know I do.”

“You always do. That’s why you’re my baby. Because you always do.”

“Let’s hurry, Jake.”

* * * * *

The long red car waited at the corner for the light to be green, and Mitch sat behind the wheel with Fredna Loughead in the front seat beside her. She had met Fredna at the hotel. Fredna was trying to convince her that Delta Rho was a better house than Tri Ep.

“They liked you too, Mitch,” she said, “and I know they’ll ask me. Why don’t you join with me?”

“I don’t know. I can’t make up my mind. All of them were so wonderful to me.”

“The Delta Rhos aren’t snobs, either.”

The light went green and Mitch saw them. They were standing at the curb waiting. Leda Taylor looked up. There was a brief flicker of recognition, a half-smile. Mitch grinned broadly this time and waved, but Leda took the boy’s arm and turned to talk with him. The car moved away and Mitch watched them as long as she could through her mirror.

“Some buggy,” Jake said. “Rushee?”

“A potential Tri Ep. Father’s a millionaire.”

“She gonna be your roommate?”

“_My_ roommate?”

“Well, you gals have to room with a pledge. I just thought you might pick a pledge with a nice red convertible.”

Leda laughed. She said, “Maybe that’s an idea.”

* * * * *

Back in the hotel room, Mitch finished unpacking some of her clothes. She hung them up and brushed them off, and when she was through, she slipped into her blue-striped pajamas and sat on the bed hugging her knees. She said, “Tri Epsilon,” aloud, and then, “Delta Rho.” She reached over to the night table, where the leather-bound books rested. On the cover of one, there was a picture of the huge house with the six white columns and the marble steps leading up to the door. The words underneath read simply: “Tri Epsilon is a friendly house.”

For a moment she stared at it dreamily, and then, turning the page, she saw the clear full-length picture of Leda Taylor in the black dress wearing the crested crown, smiling. Mitch’s fingers moved delicately down the picture as though she were touching a live object, and they stopped there at the words printed in bold blue letters. They said: “Where every girl’s a queen.”

Chapter Two

“Put your stuff in the top drawers,” Leda told Mitch. “I don’t mind bending down to get mine.”

Mitch was used to new roommates and new surroundings and the strange formalities attached to this form of orientation. For six years she had attended boarding schools, and each year it was smoother and less uncomfortable. The first year she had hovered behind a closet door, too shy to undress in front of the girl with whom she shared the room. She had bolted the bathroom doors, and picked odd hours to do her grooming. Even her underclothes had been a source of embarrassment, and she had brought them to her room wet from their washing in the dorm sink, and hung them surreptitiously along the radiator near her bed. In time she had developed an unabashed nonchalance toward these matters and they no longer concerned her. But now, in Leda’s presence, the casualness fell away, and Mitch found the old inhibitions again. She found that it was hard to talk to Leda, too, because she wanted to so badly. She wanted to remember the glib, natural responses that came so readily with others, but she could not.

“Tonight the pledges are supposed to go on blind dates,” Leda said. “You know that?”

“Yes.”

“Want to get out of it?”

“How?”

“By going out with a friend of Jake’s. He’s a fraternity brother. We’d double-date. It’s O.K. with Kitten so long as you’re with a fraternity man.”

Mitch said, “I’d like that, I guess.”

She knew what it would be like if Leda were along. She knew that she would forget how to act and what to say and that she would laugh too loud and too often. But she did not want to go on a date alone with a stranger, either.

“Like men, Mitch?”

“Sure, they’re all right.”

“I mean, really like them?”

Mitch’s lips were tired from the painful grins she had been stretching them into all day. Leda laughed. “Never mind,” she said. “You’ll learn. I used to think you just had to lie there and that was it. Then I learned better.”

Mitch pulled nervously at the string of pearls around her neck. Her face flushed scarlet. Leda noticed. “You’ll have to get used to me, Mitch. I believe in being frank.”

“I don’t mind,” Mitch answered. “I guess I’m kind of dumb.”

“We’re all dumb at first. But don’t get fooled by some of them that play dumb. My God, to listen to this bunch, you’d think they were all virgins. But take it from me, most of them have had it. You ever fool around?”

“I—I don’t know too many fellows.”

“Ever been kissed—hard?”

“A few times, I guess.” The pearls snapped then and rolled onto the floor. Mitch jumped down to chase them and Leda stopped one with her foot. “Couple of them under the desk,” she said. “God! Never been kissed more than a few times. I started when I was six. Then I used to play doctor out in back of my house. God!”

Mitch did not answer. Her hands felt huge as she groped for the tiny, round pearls, and bending down there before Leda, she felt like an immense malformed giant. She was remembering how many other times she had heard references to sex, behind locked bedroom doors in boarding school, interspersed with thick laughter and raised eyebrows, and hands held at the mouth in gestures of awe and excitement. But now....

“You’ll grow up in college,” her father had said. “You’ll be a real lady when you come home.” She wondered vaguely what her mother had been like, and if she were a real lady, and how she would have told her about men and women and the things they did together. She thought of Billy Erickson—the day in the bushes when he had showed it to her. The snake, she had called it to herself. The snake that men have.

“You’ll have fun tonight,” Leda said. “You’ll like Bud Roberts. That’s Jake’s friend.”

Mitch put the pearls in a box and sat awkwardly on the bed beside Leda. “I hope he likes me. You see, I’m not too used to men. In the other schools, I didn’t see many. You know—rules and all.”

“Forget it! Look, we’re going to buy some beer and get out on the Creek Road and just take life easy. You’ll like Bud. He’s no movie star, but he gets around plenty. He’s Sig Delt president. Say, what about your car? We _could_ walk, but—”

“Sure,” Mitch said. “Might as well take it. Only I don’t like to drive at night very well. Not in a strange city.”

“Can Jake drive? He’s a peach on the roads. Careful as anything.”

Mitch hesitated. Then she agreed.

Leda pulled her sweater up over her head and loosened her bra. “Scratch my back, will you, kid?” she said. “God, I’m tired.” She flopped on the bed, face down.

Timidly Mitch’s hands reached over and rubbed her shoulders, and with her eyes fixed half shyly on Leda’s body, she recalled doing this before—a hundred times—but never so fearfully as now with Leda.

“Ummm. That’s nice. Your hands are wonderful.”

For long minutes Leda let them run up and down her back. Susan Mitchell was an enigma. There was strength and force and power in her, queerly harnessed and checked, Leda thought. If it should be released, she would be stronger. Masterful. There had been a hint of this in her look that first day. It was the kind of look that an old acquaintance gives another, in a crowd where no one is aware that the two have known each other a long time. Leda balked at her own thoughts. This tall child was naïve and uncomplicated, she scoffed inwardly, and there was no reason to be wary. Suddenly, on an impulse, Leda rolled over and lay with her breasts pushed up toward Mitch’s hands. The girl jerked her hands away quickly and stood up.

“F-f-feel better?” She forced the words out.

Leda stretched luxuriously. “Mitch, honey,” she said, “look in the left closet and see if my yellow blouse is there. The one with the buttons down the back.”

Mitch turned toward the door to the closet and opened it, grateful for this sanctum. She stood there moving the hangers down the rack. _I used to think you just had to lie there and that was it._

“See it, honey?”

“No,” Mitch answered, not looking at the color of the clothes. “I don’t see anything at all.”

* * * * *

Bud Roberts was a straight, narrow boy with a long nose and a square jaw. A cigarette hung loosely from his mouth, and as they rode along in the back of Mitch’s car, he held his hands firmly, cracking his knuckles in regular, even movements. Mitch sat beside him, smoothing her skirt and glancing up at him now and then, searching frantically for something to say. The radio blared forth from the front seat, where Leda leaned blissfully on Jake’s shoulder.

“I love to ride along like this,” Mitch managed to say. “It’s so cool and everything,” she added.

They turned down a dirt road and drove fast around the sharp corners and Mitch fell against Bud Roberts. “I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away.

He had not said anything beyond “Hi” since they started on their evening. He had simply said, “Hi,” and then they had climbed into the car and he had not said another word. Mitch tried to pretend that the silence was natural and she hummed a bit from one of the songs the Tri Eps had sung at dinner. The radio was noisy and she could not hear her own humming, but it made her feel better. She thought of Leda and how beautiful she was, and she felt a warm glow in her stomach when she remembered the way Leda had turned on her back that afternoon, and how lovely she had been. At her feet, in the car, the beer bottles rattled and she remembered how she hated the taste of beer. A slow panic mounted inside her as she imagined the hours ahead with the beer and the boy who did not talk. The panic was edged with anger and resentment.

When the car stopped and Jake called, “All out!” she was sick inside where a drummer beat fast against her breast, and dull loneliness gnawed there.

Bud Roberts caught the blanket that Jake tossed at him.

“We’re going on up ahead,” he said, and Leda called out, “See you later, Mitch.”

Mitch stood there while Bud spread the blanket a few feet from the car. He was whistling now, but there was no tune—just whistling with no order to the notes. Walking back to the car, he picked up the sack from the back seat and set it down by the blanket. Then he took a bottle opener from his shirt pocket and sat down.

“Like beer?” he said.

“Not too well. I’m not used to it.”

With a flip of his wrist, he sprung the cap and the white foam bubbled out toward the top of the bottle. He held it up to Mitch and said, “Here.” He opened another for himself and took a long swig.

Mitch sat down beside him and tasted the cold beer mincingly. It tasted bitter and sour. She coughed and said, “I haven’t had any in a long time.” Bud grunted and drank some more. He finished and reached for another bottle. “Through?” he asked, and Mitch shook her head. She sat quietly, wishing that Leda had not gone off with Jake, indignant that they had left her alone with Bud.

The silence was nervous and anticipating. After a while he reached over and pulled her down beside him there on the blanket. His mouth came on hers and she could feel the roughness of his beard. At first she tried to push him back and she struggled desperately. Then she let him kiss her. _Ever been kissed—hard?_

“You’re a cold baby,” Bud Roberts muttered in her ear. “That’s all right. I like them cold.”

“Leave me alone,” Mitch said. “Will you leave me alone?”

He sat up and reached for the full bottle of beer that was Mitch’s. He handed it to her and watched her swallow. In the darkness he could not see the tears that stung her eyes from the harsh taste of the beer. He waited and she took another swallow. She did not want to kiss him.

“Cigarette?” he said, passing her the pack.

She took one from him and let him light it. It would pass time. The smoke tickled her nose and she began to sneeze. Bud drank more beer and whistled nonchalantly, watching her as he handed her another bottle. The taste was like water now.

“Think you’re going to like smoking?” Bud said, grinning at her.

The end of her cigarette was wet and soggy and she stubbed it out on the ground. She said, “I’ve smoked before.”

He laughed and pulled her down again, and for another long minute she lay there impassively while his mouth pressed against hers, wet and hard.

“Take your coat off,” he said.

“I will not!”

“Get it off. What’s the matter? Rule against taking your coat off? I’m not going to undress you.”

His hands worked on the buttons, and in a moment he was helping her out of it. The beer made her head swim and she did not care. He put her coat beside his own, and then he opened more beer, passing her another. It was smooth going down and she was grateful that he had not pushed her back again.

“How old are you?” he said.

“Seventeen.”

“Jail bait, huh?” He laughed and reached over to touch her arm.

“What does that mean?”

“Means I’m not supposed to do this,” he said, his hand patting her below the stomach.

She moved away. “Stop it, will you? Please!”

“That’s just what I was explaining.” He laughed again. “That I’d have to stop. Don’t be so jumpy. You’re doing a regular dance over there. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Don’t touch me, then,” she told him.

“Don’t worry so much, baby.... Tell me, how do you like rooming with Leda?”

She was glad that he was going to talk. She felt better and less restless as he lay back, his arms behind his head, his legs crossed lazily.

“I like her,” she said. “She’s been wonderful to me.”

“She tell you much about Jake and her?”

“What would she tell me? Just that she likes him.”

“Likes!” He hooted and then he said, “Yeah—yeah,” slow, and then, “Yeah, maybe she does only like him. Funny girl. She always has eyes.”

“What?”

“She’s always looking around. You know.”

“Yes,” Mitch said, not knowing at all.

“Drink some more of that beer,” he said. “We’re wasting good iced beer.”

“You know, I like beer O.K. now,” Mitch said with a frail semblance of excitement. “It’s not bad at all.”

“Good. Here—rest your head.”

He raised himself to a sitting position and spread his legs apart. He patted his chest lightly and said, “Here, baby—rest your head here. We’ll talk.”

Mitch moved over and put her head on his chest, a hand resting on either knee.

“I’m glad you’re so tall,” she confided. “I’m so tall myself.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re a long-legged gal, all right.”

“Why didn’t you talk coming up in the car? I was afraid you’d lost your tongue.”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I just wanted to think.”

“About what?” Mitch began to feel comfortable and easy with him. “What did you think about?”

His hands reached up and cupped her breasts quickly, and his knees held her in. “About this,” he said, reaching one hand up to the blouse and down to her slip and inside touching her flesh. He began to rub her breasts as she wiggled to be free.

Mitch whimpered slowly and softly and she could feel him moving around and forcing her back on the blanket and the tears came fast then. She was dizzy and exhausted and she could not pull herself up. Fighting desperately with him, she could not stop his hands from pulling her skirt up. A thin wail escaped from her mouth and she began to heighten it to a loud moaning sound.

“Shut up,” he snapped. “Shut up!”

Her moaning increased and some of the lost strength returned so that she kicked him and sent him back away from her. He stood up and glared down. “Mamma tell you not to?” he said angrily. “Mamma tell you sex is dirty?”

She began to cry hard, and sitting there sobbing, she did not listen to his words. For a long time she stayed like that, listening to him take the caps off the bottles, light cigarettes, and mumble dull words to her. She could hear him say that he was sorry and she had better not cry because Jake and Leda would be back, and then she could hear him curse and swallow the beer and whistle the way he whistled.

There were voices in the distance, ringing laughter, and the sound of them coming. She put her coat on and got up while Bud began folding the blanket.

Leda came down the fields ahead of Jake, running happily while he followed. “Mitch and Bud,” she shouted, “how goes the mad twosome?”

Mitch said, “Hi, Leda.”

Bud reverted to his old mood of sullen silence as he loaded the blankets in the car and gathered the empty bottles together. Jake helped him and Leda jumped in the front seat, yawning and saying sleepily, “Better hurry. We’ll be out after hours.”

On the way home, after they had come off the dirt road and gone onto the highway, Jake stopped the car. Leda stood beside Mitch while she vomited.

“You’ll be O.K.,” she promised. “I used to get sick on beer myself. You’ll get used to it, honey.”

* * * * *

The next morning, after breakfast, Mitch waited for Marsha Holmes, as she had been told to do. The president’s suite consisted of three rooms. There was the bedroom, the study room, and the meeting room, all of them attractively furnished with low couches and triangular lamps and small square tables. Mitch sat in the meeting room, thumbing through the magazines on the table in front of her. She stopped at one titled “The Epsilon.” Inside, the columns were devoted to news from chapters of Tri Epsilon throughout the country. Mitch’s eye caught the printing, “Gamma Pi Chapter, Cranston University.”

Gamma Pi Tri Eps are looking forward to a year bustling with
excitement. Last year, you remember, they received many honors.
For the second year in a row, glamorous Leda Taylor, a Tri
Epsilon junior, was voted campus queen. Good luck this year,
Leda, and may you cap all awards again for the name of Epsilon
Epsilon Epsilon.

“No one can deny it,” a voice said behind Mitch, “Leda is a beautiful girl.”

Mitch turned and faced Marsha. “A very beautiful girl,” Marsha continued. “Do you like rooming with her, Mitch?”

“Yes, I do. She’s been swell to me.”

“Did you have a good time last night? You went out with Bud Roberts, didn’t you? And Leda and Jake?”

“Yes, I did. I’m sorry we were late. It was my fault.”

“Your fault, Mitch?”

“Yes, I got sick coming back. We had to stop.”

“I see.” Marsha thought for a moment, her hands folded demurely, and then she sat down beside Mitch. “Look, Susan, I hate to be the bossy president that starts right in advising pledges, but remember something for me, will you?”

“Certainly, Marsha.”

“Leda has many ideas that some of us—that _I_ don’t agree with. If there are any that you don’t agree with, will you come and talk to _me_ about them?”

“Yes, I will. I didn’t like my date too well, but I shouldn’t have had all that beer. I guess I’m old enough to take care of myself.”

“I won’t say any more, Mitch. I just want you to know that I’m here to help the pledges. I don’t think Leda was wise to have you date Bud Roberts during blind-date week. You see, Kitten, our social chairman, tries very hard to arrange a suitable date for each pledge. Someone your own age—usually a fraternity pledge who is as new to college as you are.”

“Oh,” Mitch said. “I didn’t understand. Leda said it would be all right so long as Bud was a fraternity man.”

“You will go along on a blind date tonight, won’t you, Mitch? One of Kitten’s. All the other pledges are enjoying it tremendously.”

“Yes,” Mitch answered, “I will. I’m sorry about last night.”

Mitch wandered out of the suite down the stairs to the porch, where some of the girls were playing bridge. She recognized a few of them as pledges, because they wore the pink and blue ribbons too, but she did not know them.

“... and so I told him,” a short girl with jewel-studded rims on her large-framed glasses was saying, “that as far as I was concerned, he was the blindest date I’d ever had.”

“Robin!” Marybell Van Casey looked horrified. “He was an Omega Phi. They’re a big fraternity, sweetie, and Tri Ep can’t afford to run around insulting their pledges. You be careful.”

“Well, I don’t care. I hate those big oafs that maul you around as though you were a punching bag. I just won’t take it.”

There was a tense silence. Marybell looked across the table significantly at Kitten Clark. Robin was due for a conference with the social chairman.

* * * * *

Mitch sat next to Robin Maurer at the pledge meeting that afternoon. Jane Bell was the pledge director. She had an extensive background in directing and leading and counseling. In grammar school she had been the monitor in the cloakroom, and later, a junior counselor at a summer camp for girls. She was a Texan and an Army brat, and her speech was peppered with such phrases as “team spirit,” “pulling together,” “giving it all we’ve got,” and “sticking in there.” Whenever a date gave Jane trouble toward the end of an evening, Jane always looked him squarely in the eye and said, “Now, look—don’t get out of line, son!”

“I guess that’s all. How about you girls? Any questions?”

A girl in a plaid dress raised her hand. “Is it true,” she asked, “that we can only date fraternity men?”

Jane cleared her throat and looked treacherously serious. “That question always comes up among new pledges. Well, girls, all I can say is that you have joined a sorority because you have found that you’re in with a gang you can be mighty proud of. Most men join fraternities for the same reason. They want to pick a bunch that they know have high standards and high ideals. Now, to my way of thinking, it’s only logical to want to date that kind of guy.”

“But,” the girl persisted, “may we date an independent if we find that his standards are high and—” She stopped and wrung her hands and blurted out finally, “My boy friend is an independent. He can’t af-afford a fraternity.”

Jane said, “I’ll talk to you after the meeting. We’ll have a chat about it, O.K.?”

“Wait a minute,” Robin said, getting up and resting her hand on the large oak table before her. “I think this is pretty silly. You mean to tell me we have to ask _you_ before we can date an independent?”

There was a stir among the gathering and Jane Bell rapped for order. “You can go out with independents if you want—on weekdays. Week ends, we’d prefer you to be with fraternity men.”

“What a laugh!” Robin exclaimed. “You’re serious!”

Anger swept through the Texan’s whole body and settled in her eyes, black as night. “That’s a demerit for you, Robin Maurer,” she thundered, “and it’ll be wise for you to learn how to talk to an active member of Tri Epsilon.”

Robin turned and walked from the room after she said, “Hooray for the team spirit we’ve all got! Three big cheers for our team spirit!”

It was difficult for Jane to continue. She uttered a few remarks about hours on week ends, and special permission for out-of-town week ends. Then she assigned the pledge lesson (learn the first three songs in the songbook, and the names of the official alumnae officers) and dismissed the group. She bounded off in the direction of the president’s suite.

* * * * *

“Here you are,” Leda said, pulling Mitch aside as she came from the Pledge Room. “I’ve been looking for you. How about my fixing you up tonight with a date? Not Bud Roberts, spare your soul, but someone else.”

They walked toward the stairs while Mitch explained that Marsha had advised her to take a blind date.

“Marsha!” Leda cried. “She’s from hunger, honey. No kidding. You can do what you want as long as he’s a fraternity boy. Never mind Kitten’s blind dates. Look, I’m sorry Roberts was such a mess. I never should have left you, kid. Tonight it’ll be different.”

“I think I’d better do what Marsha asked. All the other pledges are. You know—I don’t want to be an exception.”

Leda put her arm around Mitch. “I understand, honey,” she said. “I shouldn’t have suggested it. Let’s go upstairs and catch thirty winks before dinner.”

Robin Maurer was waiting outside Marsha’s door on the second floor when Mitch and Leda passed by.

“I’m going in for my fifty lashes,” she said to Mitch. “Care to join me?”

Mitch grinned. She liked Robin. She admired the way Robin spoke up and said what she thought. What Mitch thought, too.

“That kid’s a little too cocky,” Leda commented. “She’d better tone down if she wants to keep those ribbons.”

“What happens when you get a demerit?”

“Oh, you get some horrible duty like taking Nessy to a movie on a Sunday afternoon. Sometimes to church too.” Leda sighed. “Nessy is a peach, really, but who wants to cart her around?”

When they reached the room, Leda flopped down and kicked off her loafers. “Say, honey,” she said, “is everything going O.K. with you? I mean, I don’t want you to be a stranger around here too much longer.”

“I don’t feel like one,” Mitch said. “Sometimes I just don’t catch on right away.”

“You don’t say much, that’s why I wondered. When you want to unload, just open up, Mitch. That’s what I’m here for.”

Mitch kicked her shoes off and stretched out on the bed. “I used to talk a lot in boarding school. College is different. The girls are more grown up, and I’m not used to talking about dates and boys and stuff.”

“You’ll get used to it.... Your mother is dead, isn’t she, Mitch?”

“Yes. When I was real young.”

Watching the girl lie there, Leda had an odd feeling, like that of a protector who must guard an object carefully, less to keep it from harm than to keep it as a possession. The word “mother” floated around there somewhere and Leda could not catch it and stop it like that, so it rested with her momentarily. In that moment her breasts felt hard and bothersome. Mother, she thought, and seeing Jan off there again, she felt the sharp edge of hatred gnawing into her boredom, inside where she was thinking now for that very slow minute.

* * * * *

Downstairs in the president’s suite, Marsha talked to Robin.

“... because if everyone had her own way, Robin, we wouldn’t be a unified group. There have to be rules.”