two girls walked to their afternoon class together. It was a brisk day, snappy and sunny and invigorating. Beth walked with long, smooth strides. She liked to walk and she walked well, as if she were really enjoying her legs; enjoying the rhythmic cooperation between legs and lungs, crisp weather, space and speed. She had a lusty health that almost intimidated Laura, who was breathless with trying to keep up. And breathless, too, with pleasure at walking beside Beth.
They arrived in class five minutes late, and the instructor had already started his lecture. He interrupted himself to note, while gazing out the window with a wry smile, “Glad you could make it, Miss Cullison.”
Beth, slipping out of her coat, looked up at him with a grin. They were friendly enemies, she and the teacher; they liked to catch each other slipping up somewhere.
“I see,” he added, “you’re leading the innocent astray.”
Laura blushed in confusion. It scared her to see someone flirt with authority as Beth did: she expected to see the hallowed rules and traditions crash down on Beth and crush her, and when they didn’t she was as surprised as she was relieved. To Laura, the things Beth said and did were daring in the extreme. To Beth, who knew herself and people better, it was just a half-hearted revolt; a small-scale protest that was more in fun than in earnest. She didn’t want to be an out-and-out character any more than she wanted to be one of the herd, so Beth beat herself a path between the two. Laura was happy, when she saw the letter was from her father, that Beth and Emily weren’t in the room. Her divorced parents were a faraway sorrow she tried to pretend out of existence. She opened the letter slowly.
“Glad to hear you like your new home,” she read. “I understand Alpha Beta is a pretty good sorority.”
Yes, father. Pretty good. If you say so. She hated the way her father phrased things.
“Anyway,” the letter went on, “they had a good house when I was in school. Your roommates sound like nice girls, especially the Cullison girl. That’s the kind of friendship you should cultivate, Laura, with people who can really do you some good. This girl sounds like a real go-getter—president of the Student Union and etc. That’s quite an honor for a girl, isn’t it? She can probably do a lot for you—get you into the right activities and so forth. I’d treat her well, if I were you.”
Laura sighed with exasperation over her father’s ideas of friendship; if it weren’t useful somehow it just wasn’t friendship, only a waste of time.
“By the way,” he continued, “Cliff Ayers’s son Charlie is in school down there. I’d like you to give him a call—he’d like to hear from you, I’m sure.”
Sure, thought Laura with resentment. He’d like to hear from Marilyn Monroe. But who’s Laura Landon? He won’t even remember the name.
“Cliff says Charlie looks just like him, which means there’s probably a line of girls ahead of you.”
Is that supposed to encourage me? Laura wondered bitterly. If Charlie Ayers wants to hear from me, which I doubt, he can call me himself.
“I understand that your mother has found herself a nice apartment. You will spend half the holidays with her and half with me, of course. I must say, Laura, you took the divorce pretty well, though of course I expected you to.”
Laura crushed the letter with angry hands and threw it into the wastebasket by the desk. Then she put her head down and wept, until she heard Beth and Emily coming down the hall. They found her dusting the already spotless coffee table and smiling at the job.
Beth looked at her oddly for a moment and then picked up a manila envelope and hurried out of the room. She would be at a committee meeting all evening long and left Laura and Emily to study in an embarrassed silence. Both of them wished rather uncomfortably that Beth would come back and mediate for them. After a while the dearth of words between them began to pall and they were both suddenly conscious that they would be roommates together for the rest of the year. It seemed an interminable length of time.
Emily could usually chatter easily with people. She was natural with them and they responded naturally to her. But every word and gesture of Laura’s seemed to her to be rehearsed, calculated to please, and it threw Emmy completely. She got the feeling that she could smash a bottle over Laura’s head and Laura would say, very calmly, “Thank you.”
There was plenty of room for Laura on the couch beside Emily, but she wouldn’t sit there, simply because Emily got there first. She sat down in the butterfly chair with a sigh. It defied her, as usual, and her narrow skirt made the problem worse. She shifted unhappily and Emily, trying to be helpful, suggested, “Why don’t you put your p.j.’s on, Laura? Much more comfortable. Besides, nobody studies in their clothes.”
Laura couldn’t think of an excuse to keep her clothes on and she got up to change, wondering if Emily just wanted to watch her undress. She performed the operation with determined casualness. Her set teeth wouldn’t show, but her manner would. Emily watched her on the sly, wondering why Laura was so embarrassed and self-conscious about herself.
“Hey, Laur, what a pretty bra!” she exclaimed spontaneously as Laura pulled it out from under her pajama shirt. “Let’s see it,” said Emily, reaching out a hand.
Laura gave it a jerky toss.
“Gee, nylon,” said Emmy. “They make ’em up just like this only padded, you know,” she added. “They’re terrific. Ever try ’em?”
“Falsies, you mean?” said Laura. The word struck her as mildly obscene.
“Yeah.”
“No, I never did.”
“You should,” said Emmy realistically. “They’re terrific, really. Nobody knows the difference. Unless you’re dancing awful close,” she amended.
“I guess my busts are kind of small,” said Laura.
Emily smiled at her, wondering at the pathetic modesty that made it impossible for Laura to call the parts of her body by their right names.
Laura’s small breasts bothered her. She would fold her arms over them as much to conceal their presence as to conceal their size. She wished that they were more glamorous, more obviously there. In their present shape they seemed only an afterthought.
She sat down with her book again when she was safely into her pajamas and Emily sat and toyed with things to say; she had made a start and she wanted to keep the communication line open. At nine o’clock she snapped her book shut and said, “How ‘bout some coffee, Laur?”
“No thanks,” said Laura, looking up from her book.
“Oh, come on. It won’t keep you awake. We’ve got a big jar of Sanka.” She pulled open Beth’s bottom dresser drawer and took out the jar, and Laura noted with displeasure her familiarity with Beth’s things. “Come on,” she said again. “I hate to go down alone.”
Laura gave in. She followed Emily down the back stairs to the kitchen.
“We have a coffee break almost every night,” said Emily tentatively. She lighted a cigarette and cast about for something new to say. Her perplexity made her pretty face quite appealing.
“Say, Laur,” she said cheerfully, “have you got a date this Saturday?” Emily was ready
