Tell Me if the Lovers Are Losers

by Cynthia Voigt

  “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. Ins
tead, 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.”

  Niki’s team won two points, then lost serve again. Although Hildy was in the front row, she did not often spike. She sent the ball back, to her own team, over her head or sideways. She placed her shots when she made them over the net and ordinarily won the point. Her team won that game, and the sides switched again.

  Ann and Eloise exchanged a glance, both with eyebrows raised. “I’m rather glad I decided to stop by,” Eloise said.

  Ann nodded. Niki’s face was mottled with exertion, and so was Hildy’s. All twelve faces were serious. The blonde, Sarah, served a moderate underhand. Hildy passed it overhead to a player in the front row. Niki’s team shifted toward that side of the court. “To Carol,” Hildy called, and the ball, instead of being sent over the net, was passed down to the opposite side of the front line, to the redheaded girl. She plopped it over for the point, into the emptied court.

  The team rotated. To Hildy’s serve. In silence.

  Hildy served hard, and Niki returned it. Hildy’s team passed it forward and over the net. Sarah returned it immediately, to the feet of a player who could not lift it back into play.

  The team rotated. In silence.

  A heavy, brown-haired girl, wearing boy’s athletic shorts, served for Niki’s team. The redhead, Carol, returned it easily, a long, high, floating shot. As soon as it left her hands, she slapped one palm against her forehead and looked about her apologetically, but nobody returned her glance. They watched the ball instead. Sarah moved to receive it. Niki poised by the net. The ball came off Sarah’s hands at the same time that Niki left the ground. She executed the spike. Hildy dived for it, but missed.

  Ann let her breath out.

  Brownhair served again, across the court to the opposite side. Hildy’s team passed it forward, then across the front to Hildy; who soared up to meet it with her fist, spiking it directly to Sarah; who caught it against her belly, surprised.

  The team rotated. In silence.

  Eloise crossed her legs beneath her and hunched forward.

  The next serve was weak but accurate. Niki returned it to midcourt. Hildy crouched down to lift the ball enough so that another pass returned it over the net. Niki went to receive it, passed it to Sarah, who sent it back, deep and flat. The server ran to meet it and, with a frenzied fist, popped it up. Hildy was beneath it when it came down. She sent it to Carol who angled it across court. Sarah lifted it high, and Niki leaped.

  “Hoo-aah!” Niki cried, as she fired the ball into the back of the court.

  “All right! Now! We’ve got it!” Niki yelled. Her voice shattered the silence.

  Ann repressed a nervous giggle. By a coolness at her back, she knew a third person had joined them. Word of this kind of contest must spread quickly. She turned her head to greet the newcomer, then scrambled to her feet.

  “Miss Dennis,” Ann said as Eloise, too, hurried to stand.

  “Miss Gardner,” the Munchkin answered. “Miss Golding.”

  Eloise bobbed her head.

  Miss Dennis wore a navy shirt dress that emphasized her squat body.

  “I was on my way to the tea,” she remarked. “This seems to be a close game.”

  “It is.”

  “Yes. Well, so it appears.”

  “It’s the third,” Eloise volunteered. “Each team has won one.”

  They watched in silence for a while. The score crept slowly upward to five-five. As Niki’s team prepared to serve, Miss Dennis stepped up to one of the poles. “Ladies,” she announced. “If you continue, you will either miss the tea entirely or be embarrassingly late.”

  Eyes turned to wristwatches. “Hell and damnation,” Niki said. Too loudly.

  “Perhaps so,” Miss Dennis’ dry voice carried over the babble that hastily arose. “Ah, Miss Koenig. I see you have arrived safely.”

  Hildy’s head swung around and she squinted toward the Munchkin. “Yes?” she said. She stooped and stepped under the net, coming to shake hands. “How do you do? It is good to meet you, yourself,” Hildy said.

  “It wouldn’t do to miss the tea you know,” Miss Dennis chided. “So I’ll see you all there, in a few moments.” She loped away, lopsidedly ascending a small bank of grass.

  “We could finish,” Niki said. But she knew she would not be heard. Girls were already running back to dorms.

  “Dammit,” Niki said. She flung the ball at the ground. “Who wants to go to this tea anyway?”

  “Why, I do,” Hildy answered. She picked the ball up and hurried off.

  “See you there,” Ann said to Eloise, as Eloise nodded. Ann hastened after Hildy, leaving Niki to make her own angry way.

  Hildy and Ann took quick baths, by which time Niki returned, her hair damp from a shower. As soon as she had stepped into the room, she said, “Hildy? What if I played volleyball for my fall sport? There’s a tournament—if we were on the same team, I bet we’d win.”

  Hildy had spread a brown cotton dress on her desk top and was smoothing it with the flat of her hand. When Ann asked what she was doing, she explained that this was her dress for the tea, but that she had worn it for two days’ travel. Ann brought out a bright flowered Lanz, in the princess style. “Will you try this?” she asked. Hildy was taller than she but no broader. “Really,�
� Ann insisted.

  “Is it the custom to share?” Hildy asked.

  “My sisters and I do it all the time,” Ann said.

  “Ah. I have only brothers,” Hildy said. She put the dress over her head and pulled up the back zipper.

  “Pretty,” Ann said. The airy print and smooth lines of the dress suited Hildy’s haphazard hair, her bright blue eyes and slender, tanned neck. It was a pleasure to see the dress on her Both the garment and its wearer seemed fresh, accidental, and eager as a bank of daffodils.

  Hildy smoothed her hands down the front of the dress. “Pretty,” she agreed. “Isn’t it too short though? You are several inches smaller than I. Am I immodest?”

  “Never.” Niki laughed sharply. “Besides, we’re all female here, so who cares? What’s to show? Who’s to see it?”

  Hildy stared at Niki for a moment, without seeming to see her.

  “Anyway, what do you think?” Niki asked.

  “About what?” Ann asked. They were all dressing.

  “Playing volleyball for a sport. Me. And Hildy.”

  “I would not want to play on a team with you,” Hildy said.

  “What? What do you mean? Why not?” The air in the room crackled. Ann squirmed.

  “You do not know how to play on a team,” Hildy said. She apparently had not noticed Niki’s fullblown reaction.

  “What the—?” Niki said. “Holy pissing name of God.”

  Ann, whose squirming had intensified to acute discomfort, felt Hildy’s wrath while the third girl struggled to find her tongue. Hildy’s hands clenched. She stepped up to Niki, into whose eyes she could look as equal, and her own eyes were luminous. Her jaw moved, once. Her voice when she spoke was stony: “You will not use such language where I must hear it. I have heard enough.”

  Ann would have run from the room, had not her two roommates stood between her and the door.

  Niki stood silent, sullen. Hildy faced her, implacable, not altering her gaze.

  She spoke again: “You have not answered.”