by Ann Bannon
“Yes,” Laura said. Her throat was dry and she tried to clear it again.
“Are you on a committee?”
She was strangely, compellingly pretty, and she was looking down at Laura with a frank, friendly curiosity that confused the younger girl.
“I’m here for an interview,” Laura said in a scratchy voice.
Beth waited for her to say something more and Laura felt her cheeks coloring. A young man thrust his face out of a nearby door and said, “Laura Landon?” looking around him quizzically.
“Here.” Laura stood up.
“Oh. Come on in. We’re ready for you.” He smiled.
Beth smiled, too. “Good luck,” she said, and walked away.
Laura looked after her, until the boy said, “Come on in,” again.
“Oh,” she said, whirling around, and then she smiled at him in embarrassment. “Sorry.”
The interview turned out well. Laura joined the Campus Chest committee and turned her efforts toward parting students from their allowances for good causes. Every afternoon she went up to the Union Building and put in an hour or two in the Campus Chest office on the third floor, where most of the major committees had offices.
It was nearly two weeks later that Beth stopped in the office to talk to the chairman. She sat on his desk and Laura, carefully looking at a paper in front of her, listened to every word they said. It was mostly business: committee work, projects, hopes for success. And then the chairman told her who was doing the best work for Campus Chest. He named three or four names. Beth nodded, only half listening.
“And Laura Landon’s done a lot for us,” he said.
“Um-hm,” said Beth, taking little notice. She was gathering her papers, about to leave.
“Hey, Laura.” He waved her over.
Laura got up and came uncertainly toward the desk. Beth straightened her papers against the top of the desk, hitting them sideways the long way and then the short way until all the edges were even.
“Beth, this is Laura Landon,” the boy said.
Beth looked up and smiled. And then her smile broadened. “Oh, you’re Laura Landon,” she said. She held out her hand. “Hi, Laur.”
Nobody had ever called her “Laur” before; she wasn’t the type to inspire nicknames. But she liked it now. She took Beth’s hand. “Hi,” she said.
“You know each other?” the chairman said.
“We’ve never had a formal introduction,” Beth said, “but we’ve had a few words together.” Laura remained silent, a little desperate for conversation.
“Well, then,” said the chairman gallantly, “Miss Cullison, may 1 present Miss Landon.”
“Will Miss Landon have coffee with Miss Cullison this afternoon?” said Beth.
Laura smiled a little. “She’d be delighted,” she said.
They did. And she was. An occasional fifteen- or thirty-minute coffee break was traditional at the Union Building. Beth and Laura went down to the basement coffee shop, and came up two hours later because it was time finally to go home for dinner. Laura couldn’t remember exactly what they talked about. She recalled telling Beth where she was living and what she was studying. And she remembered a long monologue from Beth on the Student Union activities and what they accomplished. And then suddenly Beth had said, “Are you going to go through rushing, Laur?”
“Rushing?”
“Yes. To join a sorority. Informal rush opens next week.”
“Well, I—I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Think about it, then. You should, Laura. I’m on Alpha Beta and, strictly off the record, I think we’d be very interested.”
“Why would Alpha Beta want me?” Laura said to her coffee cup.
“Because I think it’s a good idea. And Alpha Beta listens to Beth Cullison.” She laughed a little at herself. “Does that sound hopelessly egotistical? It does, doesn’t it? But it’s true.” She paused, waiting until Laura looked at her again. “Sign up for rushing, Laura,” she said, “and I’ll see to it you’re pledged.”
“I—I will. I certainly will, Beth,” Laura said, hardly daring to believe what she’d heard.
Beth grinned. “My God, it’s nearly five-thirty,” she said. “Let’s go.”
After that it had been easy. Beth spoke the truth; Alpha Beta did listen to her. Laura had signed up for rush, with the secret understanding that she would pledge Alpha Beta. But even at that, it was a thrill when Beth called her two days after rushing was over and said, “Hi, honey. Pack your things. You’re an Alpha Beta now. Officially.”
Laura had cried over the phone, and Beth said, “You don’t have to, you know.”
“But I want to!”
Beth laughed. “Okay, Laur, come on over. You just joined one of the world’s most exclusive clubs. And you have a new roommate. In fact you have two.”
“Two?”
“Yes. Me. And Emily.”
Emily had spent the day with them, helping Laura bring things in and put them away. Laura was so tired now she could hardly recall Emily’s face; all she remembered was a warm, ready laugh and the vague impression that Emily was fashioned to please the fussiest males: the ones who want perfect looks and perfect compliance in a woman.
Beth had called a halt to their work early in the evening.
“We’ve done enough, Laura,” she had said, dropping down on the studio couch. “We’ve even done too much.”
“It was wonderful of you to help me, Beth.”
“Oh, I know. I’m wonderful as all hell. I only did it because I had to.” She grinned at Laura, who smiled self-consciously back. Beth liked to tease her for being too polite and it made Laura uncomfortable. She would have gone to almost any length to please Beth, and yet she could not abandon her good manners. They struck her as one of her best features, and it puzzled her that Beth should needle her about them. She knew Beth could carry off a courtesy beautifully at the right moment; Laura had seen her do it. But Beth was much less formal than her new roommate, and furthermore she liked to swear, which Laura thought extremely unmannerly. Beth made Laura squirm with discomfort. And in self-defense Laura tried to build a wall of politeness between them, to admire Beth from far away.
There was a vague, strange feeling in the younger girl that to get too close to Beth was to worship her, and to worship was to get hurt. As yet, Beth made no sense to her, she fit no mold, and Laura wanted to keep herself at an emotional distance from her. She had never met or read or dreamed a Beth before and until she could understand her she would be afraid of her.
Laura had been thinking about this that afternoon while she filled the drawers of her new dresser with underwear and sweaters and scarves and socks, and had resolved right then that she must always be on her guard with Beth. She didn’t know what she was trying to shield herself from; she only felt that she needed protection somehow.
Beth had suddenly put an arm around her shoulders, shaking the thoughts out of her head, and said with a laugh, “For God’s sake, Laur, how many pairs of panties do you have? Look at ’em all, Emmy.”
And Emily had looked up and laughed pleasantly. Laura couldn’t tell if she was laughing at the underwear or at Beth or at the look on Laura’s face, for Laura looked as surprised as she was. She stood there for a minute, feeling only the weight and pull of Beth’s arm and not the necessity to answer.
In a faint voice Laura answered, “My mother buys all my underwear. She gets it at Field’s.”
“Well, she must’ve cleaned them out this time,” said Beth, smiling at the luxurious drawerful. “I’ll bet they put in an emergency order for undies when she leaves the store.”
Emily laughed again and Laura shut the drawer with a smack and cleared her throat. She hated to talk about lingerie. She hated to undress in front of anyone. She even hated to wash her underwear because she had to hang it on the drying racks in the john or in the laundry room where everyone could see it. It was no comfort to her that everybody else did the same thing.
“Of course, I don’t believe in underwear myself,” said Beth airily. “Never wear any.” She swept a stack of sweaters theatrically off the table and handed them to Laura, who gazed at her in dismay, reaching mechanically for the sweaters. Beth laughed. “I’m pretty wicked, Laur.”
“Don’t you really wear any—any underwear?” Her whole upbringing revolted at this. “You must wear some.”
Beth shook her head, enjoying Laura’s distress and surprised at how little it took to shock her. Laura looked at her with growing outrage until she burst out laughing and Emily intervened sympathetically.
“Beth, you’re going to make your poor little roommate think she’s fallen in with a couple of queers,” she said with a giggle.
Beth grinned at Laura and the younger girl felt strangely as if the bottom had fallen out of her stomach.
“She has,” said Beth with emphatic cheerfulness. “She ought to know the dreadful truth. We’re characters, Laura. Desirable characters, of course, but still characters. Are you with us?”
Laura wished for a moment that she were all alone in a vacuum. She didn’t know whether to take Beth seriously or not; she felt as if Beth were testing her, challenging her, and she didn’t know how to meet the challenge. She transferred a sweater nervously from one hand to the other and tried to answer. Nobody was a more rigid conformist, farther from a character, than Laura Landon. But the bothersome need to please Beth prompted her to say weakly, “Yes.”
She put the sweater in a drawer, turning away from Beth and Emily as she did so, and silently and secretly scraped the white undersides of her forearms. It was an old gesture. Whenever she was disappointed with herself she bruised herself physically. The sad red lines she raised on her skin were her expiation, a way of squaring with herself.
Beth, who could see she had gone far enough, confined herself for a while to friendly suggestions and answering questions. It was a great relief to Laura. She was almost herself again when Beth suggested a tour of the sorority house.
The two girls went first up to the dormitory on the third floor, where everybody but the housemother and the household help slept.
“Does anyone ever sleep in the rooms?” Laura asked as they mounted the stairs.
“Oh, once in a while. In the winter, when the dorm is really cold, some of the kids sleep in their rooms. The studio couches unfold into double beds. They can sleep two.”
They had entered the big quiet dorm with its dozens of iron bunks beds smothered in comforters and down pillows and bright blankets. Laura shivered in the chill while Beth pointed out her unmade bed to her.
“We’ll have to come back and make it up later,” she said.
Beth had then led Laura down to the basement. She was enjoying this new role of guide and guardian, enjoying even more Laura’s unquestioning acceptance of it. They found themselves playing a pleasant little game without ever having to refer to the rules: when they reached the door to the back stairs together, Laura stopped, as if automatically, and let Beth hold the door for her. Laura, who tried almost instinctively to be more polite than anybody else, readily gave up all the small faintly masculine courtesies to Beth, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if Beth expected it of her. There was no hint that such an agreeable little game could turn fast and wild and lawless.
In the basement Beth showed her the luggage room, shelved to the ceiling and crowded with all manner of plaid and plastic and leather cases. In the rear of the room was a closed door.
Beth turned around to go out and bumped softly into Laura, who had been waiting for an explanation of the closed door. Laura jumped back and Beth smiled slowly and said, “I won’t eat you, Laur.”
Laura felt a crazy wish to turn and run, but she held her ground, unable to answer.
Beth put her hands gently on Laura’s shoulders. “Are you afraid of me, Laur?” she said. There was a long, terribly bright and searching silence.
“I wondered what the door in back was to,” Laura faltered. Her sentence seemed to hang suspended, without a period.
Beth let her hands drop. “That’s the chapter room,” she said. “Verboten. Until you’re initiated, of course.”
“Oh,” said Laura, and she walked out of the luggage room with Beth’s strange smile wreaking havoc in the pit of her stomach.
On the way upstairs they met Mary Lou Baker, the president of Alpha Beta. She came down the stairs toward them, towing a bulging bundle of laundry which bumped dutifully down the stairs behind her. She smiled at them and said, “Hi there. How’s the unpacking coming, Laura?”
“Fine, thank you.” Laura watched Mary Lou retreat into the basement, impressed with her importance.
“She likes you,” said Beth as they headed back up to their room.
“She does?” Laura smiled, pleasantly surprised.
“Um-hm,” Beth answered. “Usually she has nothing to say to newcomers for a few weeks. If she notices you right away it’s a good sign. At least it is if you’re interested in her approval.” She said this rather disparagingly.
Walking down the hall behind her, Laura smiled.
And now here they were in the calm of a Sunday night, alone in their room, curious and shy at the same time. Beth finished her Coke and set the bottle down on a glass-topped coffee table in front of the studio couch. The clack of glass on glass startled Laura and the pledge manual slipped from her hands to the floor.
“Want to go make your bed up now?” Beth said. Her voice was soft, as if she were rather tired. “Oh, yes. I guess I’d better.”
“I’ll help you.” Beth sat up, swinging her long legs to the floor. She sat still for a minute as if getting her bearings, looking at her feet. Then she lit a cigarette. “Come on, let’s go do it,” she said finally with a sudden brightness.
“I’ll do it, Beth,” said Laura firmly. “You’ve done so much for me today, I just hate to have you do any more.”
Beth blew smoke over the table top. “Laura, if you don’t stop thanking me for everything you’re going to wear me out,” she said. “Or turn my head.” She said this good-naturedly, to tease more than to scold. But then she saw that she had hurt Laura and she wanted instantly to reach out with comfort and reassurance. She was not impatient with Laura’s hypersensitivity, only unused to it. She never knew when she might scrape against it and cause pain.
Laura’s mouth tightened and she gripped the cover of her pledge manual in an effort to calm herself.
“Laura,” Beth said in a gentle voice, and she got up and went over to her. Laura drew back in surprise as Beth dropped to her knees in front of the chair, putting a hand on Laura’s knees and smiling up at her. Laura was too startled to pretend composure.
“Laur, have I hurt your feelings, honey? I have, haven’t I? Answer me.”
Laura said helplessly, “No, Beth, really—”
“I know I have,” Beth interrupted her. “I’m sorry, Laur. You mustn’t take me so seriously. I’m only teasing. I like to tease, but I don’t like to hurt people. You just have to get used to me, that’s all. Take me with a grain of salt.” She looked earnestly at her with the shade of a smile on her lips and she thought how good it would be to skid her hands hard up Laura’s thighs and…. So she kept talking. It was better to ignore the peculiar feelings Laura awoke in her; she covered her confusion with words.
“Because I want us to be good friends,” she went on. “And I’ll try not to—to shock you any more. I guess I’m a little crazy—the result of a misspent youth, of course.” And she grinned. “But I’m not dangerous, honest to God. Now—” she smacked Laura’s knees amiably—“we’re over the first crisis. Are we going to be friends, Laur?”
Laura wanted desperately to pull her knees together. “Yes,” she said to Beth. “I hope so.”
“Good!” said Beth and she bounced to her feet. “Come along then. Let’s make your bed.”
It hadn’t taken long to make up the austere box bed and Laura found herself back in the room and face
d with the humiliating problem of undressing in front of somebody else. Her shyness settled in her cheeks and neck like a heat rash. As soon as she felt the burn, it spread to her shoulders and bosom. She blushed very easily and she despised herself for it. She wanted to scratch at her arms again, but because Beth would notice it she had to content herself with biting the tender flesh of her underlip until she was afraid it would bleed and cause her more grief.
She turned as far from Beth as she could and unbuttoned her blouse, somehow feeling that Beth’s bright eyes were doting on every button. But Beth was subtle; she was humming a tune and busy with her pajamas. She saw Laura without seeming to and Laura began to envy her pleasant abandon. After a moment she said, “Laur, do you have a sweatshirt?”
“Yes.” Laura eyed her quizzically.
“Better put it on. The dorm is a damn deep freeze.”
Laura found the sweatshirt and pulled it over her head, and Beth led her up to the dorm. On the door was posted a wake-up chart with a pencil on a string hanging beside it. Beth signed Laura’s named under “6:45.”
“Think you can find your bed?” she asked.
“There it is,” said Laura, pointing.
“Okay, in you go,” said Beth.
Laura studied the upper bunk, which looked unattainable. “How?” she faltered.
Beth laughed quietly. “Well, look,” she said. “Put your foot on the rung of the lower bunk—no, no wait!—that’s right,” she said, guiding her. “Now, get your knee on the rung of the bed next door. Now, just roll in. Whoops!” she said, catching Laura as she nearly lost her balance. She gave her a push in the right direction. Laura rolled awkwardly onto her bunk, laughing with Beth.
Beth climbed up where she could see her and said, “You’ll catch on, Laur. Doesn’t take long.” She helped Laura under the covers and tucked her in, and it was so lovely to let herself be cared for that Laura lay still, enjoying it like a child. When Beth was about to leave her, Laura reached for her naturally, like a little girl expecting a good-night kiss. Beth bent over her and said, “What is it, honey?”