Alma Mater (13 page)

to do. I have to speak to everyone, help the hostess. Hate it." She
smiled. "Cotillion."

"Hey, we have it in York. We just call it dance school. I had to
do it."

"Sports. I was always doing sports.' Vic's long graceful fingers
wrapped around the coffee mug. "That killed what vestige of socializ
ing I might have had left."

"Golf?"

"No, I leave that up to Aunt Bunny. Baseball. I loved baseball, and
then I reached the point where girls weren't allowed to play baseball. I
mean, I could play with the boys in the summer but at school, only soft
ball. So I took up tennis, and that was okay. Field hockey. Lacrosse.
Track and field. Anything and everything. I liked track and field the
best, but Mother and Aunt Bunny kept saying the long-term applica
tions of running the one-hundred-meter dash were few."

"I thought you and Jinx played lacrosse for William and Mary?"
"We do. Jinx. I do it for Jinx. I'd be just as happy playing tennis for
,r
Mary not William." She laughed.

"Well, I used to swim backstroke. Being blonde and on the swim
team isn't a good idea. Your hair turns green."

"How punk."

Soon they split the bill and ran for the car.

The rain on the windshield and the tempo of the wipers were the
only sounds in the car. Through the rain, the blurred headlights of cars
going in the opposite direction added to the sensation of privacy in
the Impala.

"I see what you mean about each rain having its own character,"
Chris noted as Vic pulled into Chris's driveway. "Would you like to
come
up?
Actually, we can wash our wet clothes. I can use the washer
and dryer."

"You are so lucky." Vic had to take her clothes to the Laundromat.

They got out of the Impala and ran inside the house. Chris guided
them to the washer, happily sorted their sopping clothes, and loaded
the machine. Then they walked up the stairs to her apartment. She lit
candles instead of clicking on the lights.

"John Coltrane,
A Love Supreme?
Bob James? David Sanborne? Or—?"

"The rain. I'd rather listen to the rain." Vic sat on the sofa.

"I'd better turn on the heat. I can't believe how raw it is."

"Late September. The changing seasons. You never know. I love
it.

When I was little I'd sometimes be out on the river
_;
Aunt Bunny had a
sailboat. We'd be out and within seconds the water would get a chop, the clouds would roll in. Magic."

"Where you live is magic." Chris sat down next to her. "The
Savedges are magic." She leaned against the large curling arm of the sofa, kicked off her yellow rain boots, and put her feet on the sofa.
"Take your shoes off. Get comfortable. You know, visiting you was—"
Chris struggled to find the right words. "—a glimpse into another
world. A happy world."

"We're all
a
little nuts, so take that into account."

"Your family is happy. Mine isn't." Chris stated this as a fact. "Mom
and Dad go through the motions. Mom is real critical. Life has to be
her way. She's a perfectionist, and she makes the rest of us miserable."

"But she loves you." Vic couldn't imagine having a mother who
didn't love her.

"Mother wants a carbon copy of herself. She wants the table set
exactly her way, the thermostat at seventy degrees, the clocks set at
the correct time, not one minute fast or one minute slow.
If
I do all
those things and agree with everything she says, she loves me." Chris smiled ruefully. "My mother is a control freak and not a very happy
woman."

"What about your dad?"

"Works hard. Makes a lot of money. Puts up with her. Plays the role."
She plumped up a sofa pillow. "Your family is happy. You all accept one
another. In my family what you hear constantly is this is wrong, do this,
do that. Your mom and dad might give you a chore but afterward they
don't tell you what an awful job you did. Your parents love you. Being
with your family, it's, I don't know, it's like being able to breathe."

Vic listened, not sure how to respond. "Well, you can come visit us
anytime."

Chris tossed her head, her hair spinning out and then falling back

into place. It was still a little wet. 'Do you ever think about
tomorrow?
About who you'll be and what you'll do?"

"Sometimes. Mostly about what I'll do. You?"

Chris shrugged. "Off and on. Sometimes I'm off and sometimes I'm
on. I get sick of everyone telling me my whole life is ahead of me.
How do they know? No one knows. Especially me."

"I suppose it would take the fun out of it if we did know." Vic smiled.
"Or the terror."

"I'm not afraid."

"Really?" Chris, often tense inside, wondered how Vic could say that, feel it.

"Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. You'll drive
yourself and everyone else crazy if you try to change it. I think you accept life. Accept yourself."

"It's probably the accepting yourself that's the hardest part. Accepting your limitations."

Vic watched Chris's mouth, well shaped with finely cut lips.
"Maybe the accepting yourself is what makes life good. You only realize what you can do if you know what you can't do."

"I never thought of it that way." She lay back against the sofa arm.
"People live their whole lives without knowing what they can do.
They kind of drift along. I'd go mad."

Vic laughed at her. "It's not worth it. Nothing is worth going mad
over."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Yes. Whole societies have been destroyed and people didn't go
mad. Maybe some people did, but most didn't. Russia. France during the
revolution. World War I swept away an entire world order. After World
War II people in Europe and Japan lived in rubble. But they lived."

"See, that's the advantage of being a history major. English majors
read the novels that come out of those wars. Of course, everyone is mis
erable or alienated or whatever. Maybe only unhappy people write."

"Nab. Chaucer. Shakespeare. I'm not an English major, but I think
there are unhappy people and happy people. That's life. So you might as
well spend time with the happy people. You can find them everywhere—
even in bomb shelters in England during the Blitz."

"What makes you happy?"

"New clothes." Vic smiled. "The new clothes you bought me."
"That's easy."

"The river. Piper. My family. What about you?"

Chris noticed that Vic did not mention Charly. She didn't bring it up. "Beautiful things. Order. Beautiful people. You." She blushed.

A ripple almost like hunger startled Vic. She liked hearing that.
She liked being in a candlelit room with Chris. She wanted to touch
her. If Chris had been a man, she would have known what to do. She
didn't want to offend her. But she trusted her instincts and her instincts
told her that Chris wanted her as much as she wanted Chris.

Chris drew her legs up under her, shifting toward Vic. "I think the
laundry is done." She paused. "And I don't care."

Chris slid over to Vic, rested against Vic's drawn-up knees and
leaned over to kiss her on the mouth.

Although startled, Vic kissed her back. She put her hands on Chris's
shoulders, dropped her knees, sliding her legs around Chris, pulling her
up to her. They kissed for half an hour, kisses of liquid gold.

Chris bit Vic's neck and slid her hand under the new green sweater,
feeling the hard stomach, the thin line between the abdominal muscles.
She moved up to Vic's breasts.

Vic gasped. "You are driving me crazy."

"I thought you said nothing was worth going mad over." Chris bit
Vic's lip lightly.

"I take it back." Vic pulled off Chris's sweater, kissing her breastbone and then her breasts.

"That feels good. That feels so good." Chris dropped her hand back
for a moment
_;
then she inclined it forward to bite Vic's neck again. She
took the crew neck of Vic's sweater between her forefinger and thumb,
pulling it over Vic's shoulder. She kissed her shoulder, then pulled the sweater back over it. She reached down with both hands, pulling Vic's
sweater over her head. She pressed her body against Vic's, the cool
flesh intoxicating, the air in the apartment still chilly.

Chris unzipped Vic's jeans, running her tongue alongside the zipper.
Vic reached around Chris, putting her hands down the back of
Chris's jeans, feeling her smooth ass, pulling her tighter.

Chris exhaled. "I have never been so excited in my entire life." "Me neither."

"Come on." Chris stood up, her breasts reflecting candlelight on
smooth skin. She led Vic into the bedroom. She yanked Vic's jeans
down to her ankles and stepped out of her own. She pulled back the
covers on the bed, sliding underneath.

Vic slid in next to her. They lay on their sides kissing. Vic wrapped
her arms around Chris's waist and then released her as Chris rolled onto
her back, pulling Vic with her. She wrapped her legs around the tall
woman. She kissed her hard. She ran her hands over Vic's muscled
back, surprising Vic again with how strong she was.

Sweat trickled between Vic's breasts. The rain beat on the
windowpane.

"Vic, Vic, I am so excited I can't stop."

"Don't." Vic inhaled traces of perfume on Chris's neck, a fragrance
she couldn't identify.

Chris whispered in her ear, "I'm going to come all over you." Then
she bit Vic's ear.

When Chris moaned, Vic followed, swept along. She had no con
trol over her body. Like a dancer, she moved to the music, feeling for
the first time the sonorous freedom of lust.

_T

he world was sharper, more colorful, when Vic slipped down
the stairs of Chris's apartment. She felt she could see every
raindrop touch the pine needles, bouncing off into tiny frag-

ments of water.

The white lintel over the doorway, the slight wave in the hand-
blown glass windowpanes, the deep green of each grass blade, the
world jumped out at her in its richness and beauty.

She'd left a note for Chris, sound asleep. Vic had an early morning
class.

As she drove down to the campus, the texture of the brick buildings, dark persimmon, glistening in the rain, was exquisite to her eyes.

The faces of her classmates intrigued her. She couldn't concentrate
on the French Revolution, but she sat there watching the rain, remem
bering Chris's breath on her neck, her hands, the sweet smell of her.

When class was over, she hurried down the stairs back out into the
rain. There were two people she wanted to see, Jinx and Charly. Jinx because she could talk to her, Charly because she hoped she'd feel the
pull toward him she felt for Chris. She hoped, somehow, that a sexual
awakening meant she would awaken to him, too.

She stepped inside the science building. She usually picked him up
after class. Then they'd go to the stadium and run steps.

"Beautiful!" He bounded toward her.