Tell Me if the Lovers Are Losers

by Cynthia Voigt

  “I’ll vouch for that,” Ann remarked. “Can glasses correct the errors?”

  “Big glasses,” Hildy said. “Thick glasses.” She was silent.

  Ann tried to reassure her. “You’ll look fine in them.”

  “What does that matter?” Hildy said. “I was remembering. As I left he said that my eyes looked perfect to him. He said he was sorry to say I must have glasses. Isn’t that strange?”

  “No,” Niki said.

  “So I told him if he would write a note to my roommates that I was all right, I would not need them. And he put me in his car and drove me here. So that is done.”

  “When do you get the glasses?” Ann asked.

  “Friday at four.”

  “Then I won’t see them until Sunday when I get back. You won’t schedule a game for the weekend, will you? Remember, I have to go home—it’s my father’s birthday.”

  “Our only match this week is Thursday,” Niki said. “No problem.”

  “No bike riding until you get the glasses. OK, Hildy?” Ann asked. Hildy nodded meekly, but spoke softly to herself as she lay down on her bed.

  “What?” Ann asked.

  “Nothing. Nothing. How old is your father to be?”

  “Fifty-four.”

  Niki joined in. “That’s not young.”

  “No. So what?”

  Niki shrugged. “I just thought. People, when they get older, into their thirties, they don’t want the inconvenience of small children. I just thought that.”

  “I’ve got a younger brother too,” Ann said.

  “What’s he like, your father?” Niki asked.

  This time Ann shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s strict. He’s conservative. He’s a pretty good lawyer, I think. He doesn’t care anything about art or literature. Cultural stuff. He says he lets Mother dabble in all that. We don’t have these incredible father-daughter talks. I don’t tell him—you know, we’re not intimate. I mean, what does he need to know about my first menstrual period, say, or Greek verbs? He’s busy. We get along OK. I like him.” She thought. “I don’t know him well. Not nearly as well as I should, do I?”

  “What’s it matter,” Niki asked.

  “Do you know your father, Hildy?”

  “I have worked beside him. He has taught me patiently. But as a man—no, I do not know him, and that is proper. He is my father.”

  “He’s just a human being, like every other,” Niki argued.

  “His seed made me. His blood flows in my veins. His work feeds me, clothes me, shelters me. How am I to think of him as I do other people?”

  “Do you like him?” Ann wondered.

  “We work well together, my father and I.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Their second sophomore match went smoothly. Ann played the first game, Eloise the second. Watching, Ann could see a coordination in her team that she was not aware of when she was playing within it. Most of the crowd at this match rooted for the freshmen, although a few partisan sophomores hooted, jeered, and called out to their own team, praising and pushing them on. The gym walls echoed the spectators’ enthusiasms, magnifying them.

  Miss Dennis slipped onto the bench beside Ann during the second game. She did not take off her heavy jacket, although Ann offered to help her. “This game will not last long,” she said. “You won the first, didn’t you?”

  “Fifteen—eight.”

  Ann was too constrained by the Munchkin’s presence to shriek eagerly, as she would have, say, when Sarah rose to spike a ball. Miss Dennis applauded a good play, a sound undistinguishable in the general noise, a little Munchkin sound of fingers on palms.

  “I want to thank you—”

  “For the grade?” Miss Dennis cut her off, leaning slightly toward her. “You disappoint me, Miss Gardner. I had thought you capable of accurate self-evaluation.”

  “Yes, of course,” Ann said, flushing as she realized what she had almost said.

  The woman smiled at her and inclined her head. It was a gesture Ann knew from Philosophy lectures, perfectly ambiguous.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Grades were announced at the middle of the week. Carbon copies of the reports that were being sent to parents were mailed to each student. Ann had a B + in Philosophy; what she would have guessed. The rest of her grades, even the A in English, were not surprising either: except for a D in Sciences. Ann looked at the slip of paper and then at Niki. “I must have flunked the unit test.”

  “What?” Niki was displeased about something.

  “Science. I got a D. I’ve never flunked anything before.”

  “What about the rest?”

  “B’s and an A.”

  “Don’t sweat it. D is passing and you won’t have to take another science.”

  Ann bit her lip.

  “Annie—are you really upset?”

  Ann nodded.

  “Why? You don’t want to transfer out of here or anything. No graduate school will look at a freshman science course.”

  “I’m not worried about that. I’ve never flunked. Not even a quiz. I didn’t think I’d done that badly. I don’t understand how I could have. It’s the only thing I could count on being good at, school.”

  “Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter, does it? Now, I’ve got a real problem. Look at this.”

  “That looks pretty good. How did you get an A-minus in Math?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Niki mocked hurt feelings. “No, you’re right. We did some Calculus last year and this first section has been review for me. The A will go down, I promise. But English—”

  “C-plus? That’s all right.”

  “I need at least B’s to get into Berkeley. Nothing lower They got a lot of transfer applications.”

  Hildy entered, bearing her grade slip, serene.

  “And how’d you do, Hildy?” Niki asked.

  “I have passed everything,” Hildy spoke lightly. “Not well, but I did not expect to do well. See? So that is all good.”

  Ann noticed that, although she had received permission to take two sciences, Hildy had C – in both.

  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 Christ
mas, 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.”