Girls' Dormitory (12 page)

"And?"

"He's coming on for parents' night."

"That's next Saturday."

"Yes."

"What's wrong with that? Didn't you expect him?"

"I've expected him, all right. I'm just been worried about what might happen after he gets here."

"Worried?"

"There's one thing I haven't told you about him. He's sort of crazy over young girls."

"He is?"

"All through high school I was worried that he would insult some of my classmates by making a pass."

"An old man's folly?"

"Something like that."

"Well, you can't blame him. If a man has nobody he might as well look for someone young."

"I suppose so."

"And some of the girls like older men better than younger ones. The older ones aren't after the same thing."

"That's not my father."

"It isn't?"

"No. He likes to drink and he likes to make love."

"I see."

Peggy was silent for a moment.

"You could help me with him," she said.

"How?"

"He'll want somebody to go to parents' night with him."

"What about you?"

"Once he sees the girls around here he'll want to take somebody else, too."

"I see."

"You haven't got anybody coming and I wouldn't dare trust him with one of the other girls. He'd make a fool out of me. But if you would go with him it would solve everything."

Helen laughed.

"You trust me?"

"That way, yes."

"And the way you don't trust me?"

"With Harry Martin, sometimes. He seems awfully serious."

"He is. But I could say the same thing about you and Jerry."

"Yes, I guess you could."

"Does Jerry ever tell you that he loves you?"

"Not with words, no, but the way he acts. I think so, anyway."

"He's not worth it, honey."

"No man is worth it."

"Not even your father?"

"For a young girl, my father least of all,"

"Is he that old? That way?"

"I don't think so."

"He must be quite a man."

"I guess he is."

They lay there saying nothing, their bodies close together. So Peggy's father had a young mind and he wanted fun. That was interesting. He was also very rich and that, too, was interesting.

"Peggy?"

"Yes?"

"I'd be glad to help you with him.”

"Thank you."

She would. She would dress her best, act her best and she would drive him crazy. He wanted something young. Well, she was young. And maybe he wanted it forever. Well, she was available. If she married money now she wouldn't have to bother finishing college, wouldn't have to live like an animal, wouldn't have to chase a rainbow that never, for her, appeared in the sky. And if she got Peggy's father she would also have Peggy. Not only Peggy but all of the things she had ever yearned for.

"I'll do it," she said contentedly.

"Thank you."

Helen closed her eyes, relaxing, and her fingers found the soft, warm skin beside her. She would do it. One way or another, she would do it.

"I love you," Helen murmured.

"And I love you."

"Kiss me."

Peggy kissed her.

"I love you," Helen said again.

The body beside her moved closer.

"Show me," Peggy pleaded.

She did.

The wind that came down the lake was sharp and filled with the threat of snow. Overhead the sky was gray and threatening and beyond the towering pine trees that encircled the frozen surface of the lake the clouds were dark and low.

"I don't know why I let you talk me into it," Peggy complained. "We've been out here less than fifteen minutes and already I'm half frozen."

Jerry laughed and looked up from his task of trying to chop a hole through the ice.

"Move around a little bit," he advised. "Take a walk and flap your arms around."

"That might help."

"It will. Only don't go near the shore. There are spring holes in a lot of spots and the ice in those places isn't thick enough to walk on."

She shivered and turned her back to the wind.

"You won't catch any fish anyway," she said. "Bet you won't."

"Bet I will."

"What happened to the old saying that 'a wind from the South blows the bait in the fish's mouth?'"

"I never heard it before."

"Then you aren't much of a fisherman. Every fisherman knows that old saying."

He whacked away at the ice with the axe and the chips flew.

"I thought you never went ice fishing before."

"I didn't, but my father did lots of times. And I heard him say that it should be a warm day, that the water should be running in the holes."

Jerry broke through the ice and struck water. A shower of slush filled the air.

"It's a lot of stuff," Jerry said. "I've caught fish out here when you could hardly stand the cold."

"Then you ought to do pretty good," she said. "I can't stand it now."

"I told you, take a walk."

Silently she watched him while he unwrapped the line and set the tip-up. The tip-up wasn't a fancy thing, not like the ones her father used, complete with reel and all the rest of the junk. The tip-up was made from a shingle, tapered on both ends and with a hole drilled through the middle. The line was fastened to one end, the other end painted red, and a long stick went through the hole in the center. Whenever a fish bit the tip-up would stand straight up.

"Lousy bait," Jerry said. "Too small and no life."

He had bought the bait down the road, not far from the highway, and the little man with the dirty hands had charged him a dollar a dozen.

"Who could have life in this weather?" she wanted to know.

"Take that walk," Jerry said. "As soon as I get the tip-ups in you'll keep warm by helping me tend to them."

It was her turn to laugh.

"I'll believe it when I see it," she said.

He was on his knees setting the tip-up, but now he turned his head and looked up at her.

"I believe what I see," he said.

"What's that?"

"You're pretty in red."

"Am I?"

"Don't tease me. You know you are."

Peggy liked to tease him. He thought he was so hot with the other girls and she had him right where she wanted him. Tamed. If she didn't have him just where she wanted she wouldn't have come out to the lake country with him.

"I think I will walk around," she said, shivering.

"But stay away from the shore. This is a spring-fed lake and you can be in-over your head before you know it."

"All right."

She started away from him, walking fast and moving her arms. The wind was bitterly cold against her face but she didn't mind that. If only her legs and thighs would get warm she would feel better.

She hadn't been surprised when he asked her to go fishing with him. But then, it was getting so that she wasn't surprised at anything Jerry thought or did. She had found him totally unpredictable—gentle and thoughtful at times, harsh and brutal at other times.

"I don't get it," Jerry would say to her. "You go out with me, knowing what I am, and you expect me to treat you like you're the only woman on earth."

"Of course, I do."

"Well, you've got the wrong guy, baby. I take what I want.

"Don't try it."

"Some night I will and I'll make it stick."

"I'll have something to say about that."

"Will you?"

"Yes."

And she had a lot to say about it. Nights when he had taken her to the movies or for a ride in Mrs. Reid's car—she now let him use her car two nights a week—and he had tried to make love to her, holding her tight, his hands rough and insistent, she had laughed at him. She had known that her laughter would hurt more than a slap, more than anything else she could have done.

"You're not pure, baby."

"I am with you."

"Which means that you can be had?"

"Which means that you never will."

"Like hell."

"Yes. Like hell."

She walked over the surface of the lake, paying little attention to where she was going, thinking, remembering. The girls at Mrs. Reid's thought she was Jerry's girl—well, wasn't she?—and that she was getting from Jerry, or giving to Jerry, all of the things that he had given or received from the other girls.

"Be careful," Evelyn Carter had said to her. "You know how I am."

"I know how you are."

"I thought it was love, too. But I found that it doesn't have to be love, that love doesn't always have anything to do with it. All it has to be is one little mistake."

"I won't make it."

"Don't be too sure. I thought I was sure. You never can be."

She hadn't made the mistake and she never would. She was in complete control of Jerry. Every way that he had tried, every way he had sought to get her, she had fooled him. If she hadn't been sure of that, of herself, she wouldn't have come out to the lake with him.

She turned now and looked back at him. He was busy cutting another hole in the ice, and the ice was flying in all directions. Strong, she thought. Powerful. A violent young man with violent ideas.

She smiled and resumed her walking. No one, she was sure, suspected the depth of her association with Helen. Well, maybe Mrs. Reid did. Mrs. Reid looked at her rather oddly at times. But that would change as soon as she moved up to the dormitory. There would be no chance for doubt or speculation then. Perhaps, although less convenient, it would actually be better for them that way. She could rent a place for them downtown, a room or an apartment, and they could go there every opportunity they got.

She was close to the shore now, walking rapidly, still swinging her arms. Jerry didn't know what he was talking about. With the weather this cold there couldn't be any open spots and if there were she would see them.

She was worried about Helen, very worried. At times Helen seemed terribly concerned about something but she had been unable to find out what it was. At first she thought that Helen was tiring of her, that their love was dying, but this had not been so. Helen was as devoted as ever, perhaps more so. But the thing that was bothering her was always there, always haunting her.

"Is it money?"

"Nothing's the matter."

"There is. I can tell."

"I love you," Helen would say, avoiding the issue. "I love you."

And she would.

Most weekends Helen went away and these days and nights were lonely for Peggy. These were the nights when she would have welcomed Jerry's presence but he was never around. Sometimes, when her imagination ran riot, she would think of the two of them together but that, of course, was, silly. Helen went to visit friends and it was difficult to tell what Jerry did. Sometimes, on Monday morning, he looked as though he had been drinking heavily.

"I have to get away from this place once in a while," Jerry often said. "You put a guy in a house with a lot of crazy dames and it's enough to drive him crazy, too."

She didn't know whether she liked Jerry or not. When she was near him and his hands were on her, trying to move under her dress, she hated him. But later, when she was alone, when the night was close and black around her, she wasn't quite sure. There was something about him that was brutally fascinating, .something magnetic and powerful that she did not understand.

"One of these nights you'll let me," he said.

"No, I won't."

"We'll see."

She had thought about it, thought about it a lot. No man had ever touched her, no man had ever known her. When she thought of Helen's love she could compare it with nothing. This was all she had ever known, all that she had ever had. The book said it was wrong, society said it was wrong. But was it? Was it wrong to love and to feel love? Was there any kind of love, no matter what kind it was, which could be totally wrong?

"It is right," Helen would say. "It is right and beautiful. It is us."

Peggy's body told her that this was so, but her mind did not. Only during the luxury of an embrace, the wildness of a kiss, was her mind convinced. After that, after the searching flame of love had died, she was always ashamed at her vivid response, ashamed that her need had been so great. Wrong, her mind would scream; wrong. Right, her body would reply; right and beautiful.

Which was the truth?

She did not know.

And there was only one way to find out. Just one.

She was equally ashamed and shocked at that thought. To find a man, any man, and to let him possess her for the sake of an experiment was more horrible than the crime itself—if what she had done was indeed a crime. To do this to herself, or to do it to a man—to Jerry—would be the greatest crime of all.

Jerry was shouting something to her but she continued walking along the shore and paid no attention to him. She had nothing to fear. The ice was thick, so thick that a horse wouldn't break through it.

And then, suddenly, without warning, her instant, muffled scream ringing in her own ears, she was going down through the frozen shell over one of the natural springs, going down into the icy waters of the lake.

Catch the edge of the ice, she thought desperately; catch it! But it was too late for that. She was already under, all the way under, the coldness of the water numbing her entire body.

Don't lose your head, she thought; keep calm.

She wanted to cry.

Her woolen clothes, now completely soaked with water, made it impossible for her to swim. With a strangled moan she threshed with her feet, trying to touch bottom, trying to find something. She moaned again. There was nothing, nothing.

She was drowning. She knew that. Unless something happened and happened right away she would die there. Die!

She in an instant saw her life as it had been, and as it should have been. There was nothing to be proud of, nothing to be happy about. And now she was dying, dying.

She held her breath, lungs aching, her hands over her head, reaching up hopefully. The ice. Find the ice!

She couldn't.

Something touched her hand, moving, coming down, finding her hair. It was Jerry's hand, big and powerful, his thick fingers taking a firm grip on her hair.