Ann made her appointment with the Munchkin for one evening when Hildy rode off to the observatory. Hildy would never ask where she was going, but Ann opted for secrecy. It rained that night, a dark storm rending leaves from trees, bending supple branches, driving the water before it. Ann’s raincoat was soaked through after a five-minute walk. She dripped on the Munchkin’s porch for a desolate time before ringing the bell. To be bedraggled made her feel at a tangible disadvantage.
Miss Dennis answered promptly. The light behind her was dry and warm. “Miss Gardner. Do shake yourself.”
Ann complied. She hung her coat on a wall hook and stood, awkward.
“I have a pot of tea. And a fire.”
The Munchkin wore trousers and a shapeless beige sweater, which made Ann feel overdressed. She followed the small figure down a short hallway to a small study, a mannish room with its leather, wood, and books. A comfortable room, not an attractive one. There were no curtains.
Unable to begin speaking, Ann accepted a cup of tea and sat gratefully in the warmth pouring from the deep fireplace.
The Munchkin sat facing her, in a matching leather chair. Her eyes stayed on Ann’s face, unblinking. She waited.
Ann began: “You said we could ask advice.”
A pained expression, quickly disguised into irony, passed over the round, wrinkled face.
“In your opening day speech.”
“Not a speech. I did so hope not to give a speech.”
“No, of course not, I didn’t mean that.”
“Was it so bad?” the Munchkin demanded quickly.
“I didn’t mean that,” Ann said again. She blushed. She saw that the little woman’s feet did not touch the floor, and looked quickly away. “Miss Dennis, I . . .”
“Want some advice,” the Munchkin finished, after a bit. “Not about men, I hope.”
“Of course not,” Ann disclaimed quickly, and felt her face grow hot again. She lost her train of thought.
Miss Dennis waited, again, then asked again. “Advice, you said.”
“It’s my roommate,” Ann said. Her approach to the proposal had been so clear in her mind.
“You can’t get along with Miss Jones.”
“No. Not that. Give me a chance,” Ann protested.
The gray eyes twinkled at her. “All right, here is your chance.”
“Hildy. Miss Koenig.”
“I remember.”
“She has a scholarship.”
“I know.”
“She has no money.”
“Yes?”
“I shouldn’t be here talking about this, should I? I’m meddling, I know that. I’m not a meddler.”
“I will assume that your intentions are good ones. Let that conclude the ethical quibbling. Just what is your point?”
“Ten dollars for the whole year,” Ann continued. “And fifty cents.”
“Ah. Not an abundance. Is she concerned about this?”
“Hildy? No.”
“But you are. Why is that?”
“She can’t do things with us, like going downtown. But that’s not important. And it doesn’t bother her at all. She’ll have to stay East over the vacations, but she can come home with me—I’d like that, so that doesn’t matter But Niki noticed—Miss Jones—that Hildy’s eyes are bad. When Hildy reads, the book is no more than three inches from her eyes. Even then she squints and wrinkles up her eyebrows. You can’t read from that distance. She couldn’t afford glasses, you see.”
“Or an eye examination.”
“And she doesn’t like taking things, presents. Charity, Hildy calls it.” Ann debated adding this next, but decided to. “Even the scholarship.”
The Munchkin nodded. “I’d be inclined to trust Miss Jones’s observations.”
Ann agreed eagerly. “She told me and I watched Hildy. When Hildy writes, her face almost lies on the paper.”
“You have an idea, I think,” Miss Dennis suggested.
“Yes, I do. I don’t know if you know that Hildy has been running the freshman volleyball classes.”
Miss Dennis smiled. “I heard something of it. Some words were spoken. Miss Stookings—you won’t remember her?”
Ann shook her head.
“The graduate instructress. She came to see me. More in sorrow than in anger, it seemed. However, since she had to agree that Miss Koenig was capable, I could see no objection to what had clearly been a successful plan. The decision was, as they say, in my province.”
“I didn’t know that,” Ann said. “It all happened so easily.”
“Thank you,” Miss Dennis bowed her head. Ann had relaxed enough to smile.
“Niki will like that.”
“You will not tell Miss Jones.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, indeed. But, your proposal is?”
“Could Hildy be paid for that work? Could the College pay her for what she’s doing? Or, I could ask my parents and they could give you the money and you could say it was from the College.”
“I think we can discount the latter, don’t you?” The Munchkin’s gaze brightened. She refilled their tea cups and sat looking into the flames. “What were you thinking of?”
“I beg your pardon?” Ann asked.
“How much money were you thinking of?”
“I wasn’t,” Ann admitted.
“Right and proper, if foolish.” Miss Dennis said. “What is the usual monthly allowance?”
“I have no idea.”
“Surely you have an allowance.”
“Not exactly. My parents put money into my account when I need it.”
“I see. Well then, I’ll think about the suggestion, and do what I judge is correct.”
“Is it within your province?”
“I believe so. I believe it can be put there. I am not so certain that Miss Koenig will consent to see an optometrist.”
“Why shouldn’t she?”
“I don’t pretend to understand Miss Koenig. But let me make a deal with you. I will do what I can about remuneration, and you will do what you can about an optometrist. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
They shook hands, leaning toward one another before the fire.
“Mine may well be the easy task,” Miss Dennis warned Ann.
“It would be silly not to, and Hildy isn’t silly.” Ann stood up, to leave. Miss Dennis did not protest. It had all been so much easier than Ann had hoped. At the door, her sodden raincoat cold around her body, she turned to try to express her gratitude. Miss Dennis raised her eyebrows, forbidding.
“I just want to say,” Ann said, then—unable to halt the stumbling words—“that I am really enjoying your course.” She walked out quickly into the cold rain, mumbling her thanks, wondering if she would ever be able to say things as she wanted to.
Ann decided she would give Miss Dennis a week. If she had not heard about her proposal within a week, she would assume that the Munchkin had decided it was not suitable or had been unable to convince the College. Two days later, Hildy approached Niki with a typewritten letter. It was the long hour before dinner and Niki was working out a math problem. “What of this?” Hildy asked. Niki turned. Ann watched the scene.
Niki read the letter. Her expression was puzzled. “Was there a check?”
Hildy produced it. Niki looked at it, then reread the letter.
Ann, shading an inner glow, said, “What’s going on?”
“I am not sure,” Hildy said.
“It seems,” Niki said, “that Hildy’s work with the volleyball class has not gone unnoticed. The Munchkin’s all-seeing eye has fallen on her.”
“And?” Ann prompted.
“They will pay me,” Hildy said. “That is what the letter says, isn’t it?” Niki nodded.
“Generously,” Niki added. “They worked it all out, hours in class, hours extra.”
“May I see?”
The letter was from Miss Dennis. It was short and simple. The College considered a trained Physical Education Instructor to earn twenty-five dollars per class, plus twenty-five dollars a week for preparation, maintenance, etc. Hildy would be paid for half the work, by virtue of talking on half of an assignment. The enclosed check represented the salary for the past four weeks of classes. Henceforth, she would be paid by the week.
“That is generous,” Ann said. She looked at Hildy.
“They think of me as a trained instuctress,” Hildy said.
“Apparently,” Niki said. “Nice going.”
“But I didn’t ask,” Hildy said. Her eyes were puzzled. “I wonder if it is right to accept this.”
“Hildy!”
Niki silenced Ann with a dark glance. “Why not?” she asked. “Look. You didn’t ask, so they must have thought it was the right thing to do. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t get the usual pay, is there? You should get more than usual—you’re much better than Whoozis was. They’re just playing fair.”
“But I have already a full scholarship,” Hildy argued. “Surely that is enough. I would think of the volleyball class as a small return to the College.”
“Ah.” Niki grinned. “That’s it.”
“What?” Hildy asked. “What is? What is what? Tell me.”
“I was wondering why the Munchkin didn’t do this in person. Now I know. You’d have gone all righteous on her. You would have refused the payment—now be honest about it, Hildy—and say something devastatingly simple about your gratitude.”
“Perhaps I would. Is that righteousness? I am not righteous, am I?”
Niki looked at Ann. “Annie?”
“Not righteous,” Ann soothed Hildy. “But all the time Right. Do you really think Miss Dennis couldn’t face Hildy? That doesn’t seem like her.”
“I’m sure she had some deep and complex plan,” Niki said, “which comes down to—she didn’t want to face Hildy.”
“Why not?” Hildy wondered.
Niki shrugged. “You’re too tall, I guess.”
“Not in the brain I’m not, and that is how she measures. I do not understand what she says in Philosophy lectures. I read and read and do not understand what she says. In the section meetings, Miss Dennis will answer my questions and those answers I understand. But I know she spepaks only from the surface of all her knowledge. To make things easy for me to understand.” Hildy considered, and concluded, “No, she would not be afraid of speaking directly with me.”
“But that’s not as official,” Ann said. “Official things are what is written down and put on the record.”
“Yes,” Hildy nodded. “So I should write and accept, to be official.”
“There’s no question of acceptance, is there?” asked Niki.
“Not in their letter,” Ann agreed. “Maybe just thanks?”
“Are you sure? Then I will write to thank them.”
“What’re you going to do with this new-found wealth?” Niki asked.
“I shall open a bank account,” Hildy said. “I will be able to return to my family with some money. My father will approve of that. I will have a small dowry.”
“You’re just going to bank it? All? I’m disappointed in you,” Niki said.
“Not all. I’m going to buy myself a dress. Like that one Ann has, the one I wore to the tea. Will you come with me, Ann?”
“Of course.” Ann was flattered, flattered and pleased.
Niki said, “Tell you what I’d do, if I was you.”
“What?”
“Have my eyes checked.”
“My eyes checked? But why?”
Ann looked at Niki.
“You hold the book too close when you read. Something’s wrong.”
“No, nothing’s wrong,” Hildy said. “I have the eyes I was born with. The expense of an eye doctor—” Hildy shook her head. “I will get some school stationary from the housemother.” She left the room.
Ann and Niki kept silence for a moment.
“I’ll keep after her,” Niki said, watching Ann’s face. Then, shockingly, she grinned and hugged Ann, hard and brief.
“What?”
“I knew you’d think of a way,” Niki said. “Good job, Annie.”
Ann allowed the glow of pleasure to spread through her before she resolutely put it aside. “There’s something I want to tell you,” she said, remembering what the Munchkin had said about Miss Stookings. “But I can’t until we graduate. Remind me on graduation.”
“You’ll have to do it by mail,” Niki said. “I’ll be in California. But I’ll remind you—even if we haven’t kept in touch. Let’s go eat.”
The second volleyball match was easier than the first and Hildy’s team won quickly and easily. After this match, Sarah told Hildy that she would be away for the next but one, scheduled for a Saturday. “I’m going down for the Yale-Princeton game,” she said. “Couldn’t you change the match date?”
“I don’t think so,” Hildy said. “You will have to change your plans.”
“I’ll need to think about that,” Sarah said.
♦ ♦ ♦
Niki kept after Hildy about seeing an optometrist. The variety of her approaches dazzled Ann. She spoke of a cousin who had to undergo expensive surgery after ignoring weakness in his eyes. “He’d have gone blind,” Niki said. “Hildy?” “I will not go blind,” Hildy said. “My eyes are as they have always been.”
Niki inquired about Hildy’s regular checkups. “I have never had one.” “Didn’t the school require it?” “Why should they?”
Or, at breakfast, “What do you see?” Niki would ask Hildy. “Tables, eggs, Ann,” Hildy answered.
“What do you see?” Niki asked, as they walked to classes in the morning. “The sky gray and low, heavy with rain,” Hildy said. “Trees in before-winter bareness. The sidewalk white, almost as if snow had already fallen.”
“Who is that?” Niki pointed to a distant figure. “Someone glad.”
Ann tried once, when they were alone in the room. “What if Niki’s right about your eyes?”
“You think she is?” Hildy asked.
“Yes.”
“You don’t often agree with Niki,” Hildy observed before she returned to her studies.
Studies took a great deal of Hildy’s time. Their first set of tests and papers had not been graded, so Ann had no plumbline for judging Hildy’s abilities, but the amount of time Hildy spent at her studies roused Ann’s curiosity. However, Hildy did find an hour, her first free afternoon, to go shopping with Ann. “Find me a dress like yours,” Hildy directed her.
Ann protested.
“You’ll know it,” Hildy argued. “I was pretty in that dress, but I could not find it for myself.”
“You’re pretty in anything,” Ann said. It was the simple truth.
“That dress was particular,” Hildy said.
Ann agreed, and found Hildy a Lanz of similar style and fabric. Hildy did not like the price (“That is three times what I have ever paid”); because it was what she wanted, she bought it.
The third freshman volleyball match was another easy victory. After it, Hildy formally challenged the lowest sophomore team, for the next Saturday.
Sarah came over in the evening to talk with Hildy. “I can’t play,” she said.
Hildy nodded.
“No, you’ve got to listen, Hildy. I called and asked if he’d understand. I tried to explain how I felt, and how you feel, and who you are and what you’re like. But he—Timmy, Timmy said that the weekend was important to him.”
Hildy nodded.
“He doesn’t say that lightly. And Hildy, it’s the only time I’ll get to see him before Christmas. He’s—I couldn’t go all the way until Christmas vacation without seeing him. I miss him, do you know what that means?”
“Yes, I know,” Hildy said. “I can understand.”
“So you understand why I can’t play?”
“No,” Hildy said. “I can understand that it is a difficult choice for you.”
“Not angry,” Hildy said.
“Fat lot of good that does me. Ann?” Sarah asked for help.
“Couldn’t we change the date?” Ann asked.
“No,” Hildy said. “It is worked in among many other matches.”
“Why don’t we play it Sunday afternoon. You could get back by late Sunday, couldn’t you, Sarah?”
“If I left early in the morning,” Sarah said. She turned the idea over in her mind. “I’d do that, Hildy. Can we play it on Sunday?”
“Not Sunday,” Hildy said.
“Why not?”
“It is the Sabbath.”
“But we’ve practiced on Sundays,” Sarah said.
“We do not play matches on a Sunday,” Hildy said.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Ann said. “Be fair. You’re not being fair.”
“I am. Sarah has made her choice. I have said nothing to sway her.”
“Does this mean,” Sarah stood at the door, “that I am off the team?” She put her hands into her pockets. “I really don’t want to be dropped.”
“Why should you be dropped?” Hildy sounded surprised.
“Hildy,” Ann said, “what about those people who didn’t come to the first practice? Remember?”
“They had said they would come and then did not,” Hildy explained, as if it were the most obvious distinction imaginable, as if surprised that such a thought should not cross their minds. “Sarah has not done that. She has merely made a choice.”
“Boy, I’m glad I told you as soon as I knew.”
“Who’ll take her place?”
“Eloise will.”
“Who will take Eloise’s place?”
“No one. We do not need seven players, only six.”
“That’s OK then,” Sarah said. “I’m sorry, Hildy.”
“I know that,” Hildy said.
After Sarah left, Hildy did not return to her work, but remained facing Ann, her face puzzled.
Ann tried to explain: “You were so unyielding, that other time. I can see why she thought she’d be dropped.”
“Then you also did not understand?”
“No. Was I supposed to?”
“It doesn’t matter Am I allowed to ask you to help me?”
“What?” Ann said. “What are you talking about.”
“I wrote a theme. In English. The professor has given it back to me. He has instructed me to rewrite it.”
Ann had never heard of such a thing.
“He says it is not good enough. I must do a better job,” Hildy said. “But I can’t do better: this was the best I could do. I wonder if you could read it and help me make it better. Is that allowed?”
“Of course. As long as you’re the one who writes it. What do you want me to do?”
“Read it, I think, don’t you? And then tell me what the mistakes are and how to correct them? And then—”
“Just give it to me,” Ann said. “We’ll get to the and then’s later. You’re a babe in the woods, Hildy.”
“I think so,” Hildy said. She gave Ann three handwritten pages. “It is also too short, he said. I’ve never had themes to write for English before. So I don’t know what is expected. Can you tell me that? And explain how I can learn to do it?”
“Stop talking,” Ann said.
The paper was untitled. Hildy’s topic was, apparently, names in the Odyssey. Ann read the paper slowly. It wasn’t about names, by the time she got to the end. What was it about? Recognition? Self-knowledge?
Ann read it through again.
All of the paragraphs could be tied in with naming, if she thought about it. But as to what Hildy had actually said, Ann was not sure. Hildy’s use of language was correct. It was the jumble of ideas that confused.
“What was your outline?” Ann asked.
“I do not know outlining. I thought to write about the unveilings. The professor mentioned that one day. It had to do with the theme of human excellence. He said—the professor—that the most important question for the book is: Why did Odysseus refuse Calypso’s offer of eternal life?”
Ann nodded. She remembered.
“Can you help me?” Hildy said. “If you could tell me what to do?” She waited, with bright expectancy.
“I don’t know, Hildy. You see, I can’t understand what you are trying to say in this.”
Hildy shook her head.
“I can’t follow your ideas. And sometimes, you seem to lose the thread of what you’re saying so that all your grammar indicates that this is the main idea of the sentence, but what you actually say indicates that that is the main idea. Does that make sense?”
Hildy’s color was higher “Yes,” she said. “No. I think I understand, but I do not know how to fix it. All the spelling is correct?”
“That, yes. And the grammar But— You see, I could write it myself—”
“No, no. That is plagiarism.” Hildy took the paper out of Ann’s hands.
“Let me finish the sentence. I could write it myself, but I can’t figure out how to explain what I’d do, or why I’d do it.”
This Hildy did understand. “Make it as simple as you can. What is the most basic thing I do wrong?”
“Basically? I think . . .” Ann hesitated and then continued. “I think that you don’t consider words real. Not real as things are real. Not like desks or volleyballs or eggs. Does that make sense?”
Hildy nodded. Watching her face, Ann felt that Hildy understood everything she was saying, and much of what she was trying to say.
“If grammar is the orderly presentation of ideas, you don’t use words and grammar to present your ideas,” Ann said. “You write as if the two were not related.”
“What two?”
“The idea, and the tools you use to express it.”
Hildy mused: “I think I see. If words are real, like stars, absolutely there . . . . Good. Now, what do I do?”
Ann considered. Hildy needed quotes in the paper and to recast most of the sentences. She needed to put in transitions and to write an introduction.
“Make an outline.”
Niki burst into the room. Ann immediately felt foolish, but Hildy ignored Niki’s presence. Niki listened for a while, then sat at her desk, unexpectedly muted. Ann forgot she was there.
“Why do I need an outline?”
“For a plan. Everything you write about should have to do with your topic.”
Hildy’s face grew puzzled again. She shook her head and looked at Ann.
“Look,” Ann said. She pointed her pencil at a paragraph. “What does this have to do with unveiling? With showing who someone truly is?”
“Oh,” Hildy said. She turned to her desk. Ann sat and watched the back of her head, bent low over the paper Ann did not move, because a fragile picture was forming in her head and to jar it would be to destroy it. Hildy’s mind was clumsy, cumbersome—like what, in its befuddlement with abstraction, its lack of polishing technique? Also, its abundance of possibilities. Her perceptions were true. Like a forest, perhaps, wild and profuse in its growth, some several strong and noble trees growing above a tangled floor Like a forest, accidental, at least in human terms, in its self-management. And large: one did not weed a forest to bring order A forest was too complex an arrangement of livings, too tough in its own right, for garden management. To improve a forest one would have to deal with the essential ingredients, and be patient. Like, adjusting soil balance or planting seedlings, and then waiting to see. Because what you planted would be altered by the nature of the forest into something other than you had imagined.
Whereas Ann’s own mind was water, a lake held within controlling banks, sensitive to induced changes, but always with unexpected water-promises. Things would float to the surface and, within limits, move free. You could easily see how to alter and improve a lake, although you could not predict what it might give up to you from its unseen depths.
How would you teach a mind like Hildy’s? Not by piddling weed-pulling points. And how teach it without changing its real nature?
Hildy returned with a new sheet of paper, topic and subtopics.
“That’s it,” Ann said. “Can you see it now?”
Hildy shook her head, apologetically.
“Wait,” Ann thought. “How long was this supposed to be?”
“More than five. Less than ten.”
“Typwritten?”
Hildy nodded. “I can’t type. I don’t have a typewriter. He said it had to be typed too, the rewrite.”
Niki spoke: “Did he write this down, or just tell you?”
“He spoke to me after class.”
“I could have guessed he’d be too busy,” Niki said. “Don’t worry about typing, OK? I can easily knock off ten pages.”
“That’s fine,” Hildy said.
Ann had been thinking. Hildy’s outline would produce only two or three pages. “What does it mean about Odysseus if nobody recognizes him?” she asked, trying to show Hildy that there was more to write about.
“But that is not true,” Hildy said. “His wife does.”
“What do you mean Penelope does?” Niki interrupted. “She’s the worst of the lot. She doesn’t know who he is even after he tells her. Not until that stupid test about what their bed was like.”
“Oh, I think she does,” Hildy said. “He is her husband and she loves him.”
“If she loves him, why did she send her suitors those secret love letters?”
“For her son. And for her husband, her son’s father She is in a difficult position, you see. He has been away for so long, her husband; the suitors no longer fear him or they would not be there, living in his house. If the suitors understand that she will not marry any one of them, they will take the property by force. Her son’s property. And maybe take her, too, by force. So she must make each man think he is the one she would choose, when she can lawfully choose. She must encourage them just enough, each one. And she must stay firm until her son is grown to manhood and can fight for himself and hold his father’s property. Or until Odysseus returns.”
Ann looked up from the outline. “Hildy, did your professor tell you that?”
“No. He did not like Penelope. He liked, I think, Calypso for Odysseus. He said Odysseus was diminished at the conclusion, in his woman. I do not understand what he meant by that.”
“The idea about Penelope,” Ann said, “is it your own?”
“Yes.”
“Can you prove it?”
“How should I prove it? It is clear to me. The kind of woman she was.”
“Can you take that idea and show how it explains the way she acts in different scenes? Can you show how she shows she knows, by referring to things she says and does?”
“Of course.”
“Then that’s your paper.”
“What of these?” Hildy pointed to her outline.
“It’s not as good, not nearly. Why did you take that topic anyway?”
“The professor talked about things like that. Unveiling, diminishing, the function of the gods. I thought these were the kinds of ideas I should be having.”
“They’re OK,” Ann said. “But that’s not the way you read the book, is it? Hildy, when you pick a paper topic, you should always pick something you’re good at. I’d guess you’re good at character At people.”
Niki asked Ann: “You’ve studied this? You seem to know what you’re talking about.”
“A couple of years ago.”
“Good memory.”
Ann nodded. “I told you, it’s a talent.”
“You recommend that I write about Penelope,” Hildy said.
“Try it. Try it and see how it goes. Make an outline and all that.”
Hildy nodded. “I think so. Will you read it when I am through?”
“Sure,” Ann said.
For a brief time, Ann thought about Penelope. If she had recognized him. If she was the master, not the gull. Then Penelope too had excellence, human excellence. And there were some scenes of high comedy. Ann knew how she would approach the paper, how she would place fact atop fact and have an impregnable wall built, before she named her thesis. What would Hildy do, being earth and not water? Ann cleared her head and turned to the Greek middle and passive voices.
But Niki interrupted her concentration by slipping a sheet of paper before her eyes. It was labeled The Socrates Award. Niki had drawn a prize ribbon, then shaded it in with blue pencil. To Ann Gardner, the writing went on, under the ribbon. Here’s to you, Annie. At the bottom of the page a hand held out a crude goblet inscribed with the word hemlock.
If she and Hildy were water and earth, then Niki was fire, Ann thought. Crackling, hot, destructive. She put the award into the center drawer of her desk, considered a minute, and pulled out a blank sheet of typing paper Thanks, Niki, she scrawled. She dotted the i’s in Niki with circles, in which she drew little smiling faces, each topped with a curlicue of hair. This she placed on Niki’s desk.
Niki looked up at her, “Sweet, very sweet.”
Hildy was bent down over the paper on her desk, her pen moving methodically along.
Ann read this second paper. The ideas were orderly and strong. They were not skillfully presented, but the argument was clear, direct. It sounded like Hildy. “Penelope is always in control of things,” Hildy declared in her first sentence.
“Is it good enough?” Hildy asked.
“I think so,” Ann said. “You need to rewrite it for polish—”
“No,” Hildy said. “I could not. That is the best I can do, for now. I think my next paper will be equally good, so I have learned. I cannot yet polish.”
Niki typed it up and the next day Hildy handed it in. She told Niki and Ann that the professor read it through while she watched, nodded his head, and said he would accept it although it was not in the style he understood all Stanton students had mastered.
“But he took it,” Niki said to Hildy. “It’ll be all right. I was afraid, from what you said about him, that he’d refuse it because of the ideas.”
“Why should he do that?” Hildy asked.
“You said he didn’t care for Penelope. Your paper contradicted him.”
“He told me my thesis was an interesting one,” Hildy reported.
“I’m glad,” Niki said. “Really I am. I’m just surprised.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Ann remarked. “This is the Northeast.”
“No gloating,” Niki answered. “Gloating’s not allowed.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Inevitably, the next Saturday arrived. Ann found herself surprisingly calm before their match with the fourth-ranked sophomore team. Eloise was pale and speechless. She polished her glasses vigorously. Niki bounced onto the court with taut energy. She stared at Eloise before she spoke: “You’re a fledgling Munchkin,” she announced. Eloise smiled a little. Niki punched her lightly on the arm. “Buck up. We’ll murder them. You won’t have to do a thing: I’ll be right beside you.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Eloise asked.
Niki laughed. “To make me feel better,” she answered.
“You’ll be fine.” Hildy spoke from behind Eloise. “You know how to keep the ball in play if you can’t make a shot.” Elois nodded and polished her glasses again.
An audience had come to this game. It was mostly freshmen from the volleyball class scattered sparsely over the benches, but the Munchkin’s gray presence occupied one end of the front row.
The first few points were played tentatively, by both sides. The sophomores had played together for almost two seasons, and that experience showed in their control and confidence. Even Niki was subdued by this. The score was tied at five-five when the sophomores quickened the pace. They gained five more points, in quick succession. Ann felt herself growing still more calm. This was what she had expected, to lose.
Niki’s face was dark as she served. She seemed about to explode, all knotted muscles and angry eyes. Ann looked around. The faces of defeat, she said to herself, heavy, expressionless faces. Hildy alone held her body ready to move, her face alert.
Niki tried for too much power in her serve, mis-hit the ball, and gave the opposing team an easy return. They sent it floating over to Ann, who debated seeing if it would go out of bounds, then moved too late to save it.
“You twit,” Niki muttered. “Annie. Even you could get that.” Ann responded with familiar sullen self-pity and anger.
“She is right,” Hildy’s quiet voice remarked. Ann flooded with shame. “We should win this match, but we cannot if we expect to lose it.”
Her voice carried around their court, no further “OK,” Ann said to herself. “OK, OK.”
Eloise flexed her knees and polished her glasses, yet again. Bess straightened her shoulders and spread out her strong arms. Ruth touched her toes twice, quickly, and all the laughter was gone from her face when she raised it the second time. Niki crouched, fiercer, if possible.
They won back the serve. Then Hildy served for them, the balls placed so as to force the opponents to return shots from off-balanced positions. Eloise executed a perfect set, which Niki drove into the feet of the sophomore facing her. Ann returned a long shot to an unwary back linesman. Ruth passed quickly to Bess who as quickly sent it full across court. The score was tied. More important, they had assumed control of the game.
The sophomores spoke among themselves. “When that tiger moves off the front line,” they said. “Hit to the one with glasses, they’re protecting her.” But Eloise could keep a ball in play most of the time, and the girls beside her and behind her covered efficiently. Niki spiked, time and again. Hildy spiked seldom, but blocked with dazzling accuracy. Once she called to Ann to block with her and, to her own amazement, Ann did. She did not touch the ball, nor did she jump as high as Hildy; but it was as if Hildy could pull her upward. “I see,” Ann said to herself, “I see how.” This too she would practice.
Eloise muttered Latin declensions to herself, dried her hands on the seat of her shorts, and played with unwavering steadiness. Niki perspired abundantly. Hildy, like a beam of light, moved among them.
They took the first game seventeen to fifteen. The teams changed courts without speaking. Ann muttered to Eloise, “You might move on to conjugations.” Eloise nodded her head, but could not answer.
It was halfway through the second game that the opposing team creaked, cracked, and crumbled. Ann felt it. The freshmen did not relax their efforts, but all sensed the collapse. More and more, individuals tried to take shots, crowding the net to spike, or calling for returns that were not properly theirs.
After the freshman victory, the sophomores congratulated them. “Good game,” they said. “We’ll try again.”
Niki shook her head. Sweat flew off her face. “You won’t have a chance,” she said.
“Eat it,” a sophomore muttered.
“Watch your language,” Niki snapped, and Ann suddenly understood how Niki was keeping faith with Hildy.
“What are you, a bunch of effing saints?”
“You’re that ashamed of losing,” Niki observed. “Is it humiliating?”
The sophomore glared. “We’ll catch you on the way down.”
“Hold your breath. Apoplexy becomes you.”
The girl turned angrily away. “Gracious me,” Niki said.
Ann answered her: “I thought it was more of a meeting of the minds.”
“Annie. You, vicious? I never would have thought it.”
The Munchkin approached their team. The girls fell silent. “You have done well,” she said. “I shall make a point of seeing more of your matches.” She left abruptly.
Eloise still sat where she had collapsed at the end of the last point. “That was terrible,” she said. She took off her glasses and polished them. “Look, I’m trembling.”
Hildy gave her a hand up. “You were fine.”
They showered and agreed to eat out. Hildy said she would join them. She had never had pizza, so they walked to the local pizzeria.
Ruth wolfed down two succulent slices before she asked. “Could you feel it? Everybody. I want to know, could you feel them giving up?”
“Yeah,” Ann said. “I’ve never felt that happening before, even when I was winning a tennis match. Which wasn’t often,” she hastened to add.
“People will always give up,” Niki said. “If you go at them hard enough, long enough. That’s right, isn’t it, Annie?”
“I guess so,” she said. “I do.”
“We know,” Niki said.
“Lay off,” Bess directed mildly. “This is a celebration, remember?”
Niki continued. “The secret is to hate the opposition. There’s only so much hatred people can withstand.”
“You’re kidding,” Ruth said.
“No. I always do. Don’t you, Hildy?”
“Because you have to break them in order to win,” Niki said.
“They will lose when we outplay them. To break them? I don’t want that. Then I have not won, but destroyed.”
“And it’s only a game,” Ruth contributed. “It matters not if you win or lose,” she sing-songed at them, “but how you play the game.”
“Hah,” Niki said.
“Anyway, I could feel them giving up, or seeing it slip away from them.” Ann continued her own thoughts. “What happens in professional sports?”
“The same thing,” Niki said.
“How can it, when everybody has that drive? When everyone feels the way you do?”
“One team or even one player has it more. The killer instinct.”
That evening, Sarah called long distance and asked for Ann. “What happened? How did we do? We’ve only got a minute or two.”
“We won.”
“How was Eloise?”
“OK, she was OK. Poor kid, it gave her the fidgets. She was a brick.”
“How many games?”
“In two, like before.”
“Then we still haven’t lost a game.”
The operator interrupted.
“Having a wonderful time?” Ann asked.
“Now I will,” Sarah answered. “Tell Hildy I’m glad.”
Ann gave Hildy Sarah’s message later that evening. Niki sat up in bed to greet the third girl and remarked: “Have you ever thought, Hildy, that if there is something wrong with your eyes and you had glasses, you might spend less time studying?”
“I enjoy studying,” Hildy said. “The library is quiet, as a church.”
“You ought to think about it, at least,” Niki said.
Hildy shook her head, patiently.
Niki threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. She pulled on jeans and a shirt. “You know how to give orders but not take them,” she said. She slammed out of the room.
Ann watched Hildy’s smile. “You don’t mind her being angry?”
“That is not anger. That is acting.”
Ann found Niki downstairs, dealing a hand of bridge, entirely cheerful.
♦ ♦ ♦
The next morning, Sunday, Niki woke Ann. Hildy had already left for church. “Ann? Wake up. How can you sleep through those bells?”
The music of the bells reverberated among the hills. Ann listened.
“Seriously. Tell me. Don’t they drive you crazy?”
Ann fixed Niki with a beady glance. “They don’t wake me up. They don’t drive me crazy.”
“I’m gonna get those bells before I leave,” Niki said.
Ann closed her eyes, then opened them to remark, “The sun’s out.”
“Yeah. It feels like a warm day. I always thought once fall began the weather here just gave up the ghost.” Niki paced the room. “Don’t go back to sleep. Are you going back to sleep? Let’s play tennis.”
Ann sat up. “The courts will still be damp from dew.”
“Even after breakfast?” Niki pulled down the top section of window and stood looking out, her arms resting along the window top, her chin resting on her arms. “Is this Indian summer?”
Indian summer it was, a sun to bake crisp the fallen leaves. Indian summer is internal weather Slow, mellow, golden hours, daylong. Ann lifted her head and smelled the air. “I’ve got some reading to do,” she said, “and we’re having practice this afternoon.”
“That’s this afternoon,” Niki protested. “Why not one quick set?”
“The courts will be wet, I said that. Clay absorbs water And think of the leaves all over them. Besides, it’s the wrong kind of morning to hate the opposition. Take a bike ride.”
Niki had purchased a racing bike, with ten speeds. She took long rides on it, although she never used it for short trips. “Maybe I will.”
“We could eat breakfast,” Ann said. “I think I’ll read outside.”
“Reading is not doing anything,” Niki said.
“Says you,” Ann answered placidly. “Besides, we’ll have a day off soon. Bell Day.”
“You said the magic word!” Niki shrieked. “Where is that duck?” She hunched her body over, waggling her eyebrows in imitation of Groucho Marx. With one hand she groped at the ceiling to pull down the duck, with the other she mimed the tapping of a fat cigar.
“No,” Ann giggled, “it’s a tradition.”
“Oh goody.”
“They ring the bells at breakfast. All classes are canceled for the day. The student center packs free lunches and you can take off, for anywhere you want.”
Niki stared at Ann. “Are you telling me that there is another day besides Sunday when these damned bells will rouse me from my honest slumber?”
“Yep. Always during Indian summer.”
“Is there always an Indian summer?” Ann nodded. “It could be tomorrow? It could be that the bells will ring two days in a row?” Ann nodded. “Out in civilized country we don’t do that, you know. We don’t ring bells. Nobody would dare even suggest it—he’d be lynched.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Niki was engaged in glaring back at two fried eggs the next morning when the bells rang outside the closed windows. Somebody rose to open a window and let the sound in. The housemother entered, in a long sateen robe, to make the formal announcement.
“We will miss our classes today,” Hildy protested.
“I’m ready for that,” Niki said. “I’ve been a model student too long.”
“But I go to the observatory tonight.”
“I know the classrooms are closed. I don’t know about something like the observatory,” Ann said. “Anyway, what do you want to do with the day?”
“I shall go to the library,” Hildy said.
Niki groaned.
“Closed,” Ann said.
Niki grinned. “Tradition.”
“I shall study in the room then.”
“We’re supposed to do something outdoors,” Ann said.
“Yes, why?” Niki turned on Ann.
“I don’t know. It’s traditional, my aunt said. The dining room is closed for lunch and the box lunches are ready at the student center We’re supposed to go on picnics and hikes. Maybe as a last blast before winter settles in. I don’t really know why, and I don’t much care. I’d like to do something, wouldn’t you?” Ann noticed that they were all three assuming that they would do something together.
“We could ride up to Falls Park,” Niki suggested. “Hildy, you could borrow a bike, couldn’t you? I’ve been there once. It’s only five miles and there’s a good waterfall.”
“Five miles uphill,” Ann said. “Why not? Even for a bad waterfall. Anyway, it’ll all be downhill returning.”
Hildy considered this. “If we could leave later in the morning, I would like that. There is work I must do.”
“There are a few short downhills going up,” Niki said to Ann. “It’s worth the trip. We’ll walk most of the way, how’s that? You can walk five miles.”
Ann looked out the window. It was a honey-colored day, the shadows lying cool on the ground. “OK with me. Hildy?”
“Could we leave at noon?”
Niki jumped up. “I’ll get the bike if you’ll get the lunches for all of us, Ann.”
♦ ♦ ♦
The narrow road wound up from the College. They coasted downhill and, after a few muscle-straining attempts, walked their bikes up the long grades. There was almost no traffic, an occasional car, one or two trucks making deliveries to towns further up in the hills. The observatory was half an hour away from the College, Ann noted. She saw the telltale dome among pine trees. A small wooden sign announced its presence, where the gravel driveway entered the road.
The park had no guard house, just a wooden gate and a map etched into a slate stand. They left their bikes and followed a short path toward the sound of water.
Niki led them to a clearing at the top of the falls where a broad creek tumbled down over a cliff into pools below. “Here it is,” she said.
Hildy squinted.
“I thought waterfalls were supposed to be deafeningly loud,” Ann said. “Roaring thunder, and all that.”
“It isn’t Zambesi,” Niki allowed. “But it does spray up rainbows; isn’t that good for something?”
“Maybe I’m too hungry to appreciate it,” Ann answered.
They ate sandwiches, fruit, cookies. They scooped out handfuls of icy creek water to drink. Hildy took off her shoes and waded away. Niki crouched in uncompanionable silence, tossing stones into the water. Ann followed Hildy, going along the damp mossy bank. She stopped to bend down and watch water beetles busy at something incomprehensible in the eddies that preceded the rapids at the top of the falls.
If she watched long enough, Ann thought, she might figure out what the water-skaters were doing. The gliding circuits they performed couldn’t really be as random as they seemed. She looked back to where Niki sat, tossing stone after stone. Ahead, Hildy stood in calf-high water that foamed at her knees and burst gladly up around her legs. At that part of the rapids around Hildy some larger rock had been caught and lay partly exposed, partly covered with moss. Hildy bent to touch the rocks. Behind her, Ann saw the distinct line of the falls. Hildy moved forward.
It seemed to Ann that she stood up from the bank in slow motion, but her mind worked rapidly, checking her eyes’ perception of how close Hildy was to the edge of the falls. Where the rapidly moving water swept over, and down.
“Hildy!” she called. Hildy hesitated. “Hildy, don’t move!”
Hildy’s puzzled face waited for Ann, where she clambered through the icy water. Ann’s sneakers slipped on the bigger stones beneath her feet. The water pulled at her legs, to take her off-balance.
“What is it?” Hildy asked, as Ann approached, but not yet to arm’s reach.
“You’re too close to the edge,” Ann panted, holding out a hand.
Hildy smiled and shook her head. Turning away, in a motion as smooth as daffodils bending under the wind, she lost her footing and fell forward.
Ann grabbed at the arm Hildy flung out for balance. She caught Hildy’s forearm in both of her hands and pulled the girl back.
“Wait,” Hildy said. “My leg is over—” She put one hand down into the water and brought her leg back under her. She stood up beside Ann.
Ann legs were shaking, whether with cold or fear, she did not know. She could see the height of the drop now, down six feet into restless black pools of water. It wasn’t Zambesi, but it was dangerous enough.
“I thank you,” Hildy said.
“You couldn’t see it, could you?” Ann demanded. The worst damage to a falling body would be done by the boulders it hit, tumbling down among the waters. “You couldn’t see it and you were going to just ignore me. Goddammit, Hildy, tell the truth.”
“I always tell the truth,” Hildy said.
“And you refuse to have your eyes examined,” Ann cried. She held tight onto Hildy’s arm as they waded back to the bank. Hildy tried to pull away, but Ann wouldn’t let go. “Well, I won’t have it. Do you hear me? Damn you, answer me.”
Hildy’s face was dimmed, meek. “You are right, of course. I will make the appointment.”
Niki ran up. “What appointment? What happened? Are you OK?” She looked at Ann, then at Hildy. “You didn’t see how close you were, did you?” Niki asked quietly.
“I have already given Ann my word that I will go,” Hildy said.
“Why will you do it when Ann tells you and not me?” asked Niki.
“She was so very angry. She swore at me.”
“Hell, if I’d known that would work, I’d have done it long before,” Niki said.
“It is not the same for you,” Hildy answered.
Niki grunted. And grinned. “All’s well that ends well?” she suggested. “Except, both of you are wet and shivering.” She jabbed Ann in the shoulder with her finger. “You’re it,” she declared, and ran away.
“I don’t want—” Ann protested. Then she quickly reached out for Hildy, before the blonde girl could realize the game; but Hildy had swept away and was running back toward their empty lunch boxes.
They played a senseless and exhausting game of tag until they all sat, flushed with heat, beside the creek.
“I don’t know about you,” Niki said, “but that makes me feel better. I got a letter from my dad this morning,” she announced without transition. “It seems I may have a stepmother. Replete with three ugly step-siblings. I’ve never thought of myself as the Cinderella type.”
Ann grinned. Hildy spoke from Niki’s opposite side. “Will he marry her?”
Niki shrugged. “It’s none of my business. Only she’s not as young as we thought. I figured it out and she can’t be. The youngest she can be is twenty-six because her oldest kid is ten. Her husband is a barber, Dad says. They want to go to Acapulco during Christmas to get her a divorce. Among other things. He didn’t exactly say he was going to marry her, but it’s in the cards.”
“You haven’t even met her,” Ann said.
“Don’t think I want to.” Niki let another handful of pebbles slide back into the icy water.
“Would he marry someone you haven’t met?” Ann asked.
“He thinks I won’t like her. He hasn’t said so, but it’s pretty clear. I mean, I’m not invited to Acapulco.”
“What’ll you do over Christmas?” Ann asked.
“Who knows? I’ve got a couple of friends in New York. Let me ask you, both of you, don’t you think eighteen is the right time to lose your virginity?”
“What? Why?” Ann said.
“I’ve got a feeling. If you hang onto it, it gets to be a bigger and bigger problem. Lots of women aren’t virgins before eighteen—Kinsey made that clear enough. Eighteen is well away time to learn what it’s like, sex. If you don’t want sex to take over your life. I mean, I want a lot of it, I expect I will, but not to tie me down. Hildy? What do you think?”
“I think this woman of your father’s is married now. While he is taking her out. Is that so?”
“Sure. What does that matter? Before or after, what’s the difference?”
“What of her husband?” Hildy asked.
“Dad says he’s stupid.”
Niki thought, “That could mean anything,” she went on. “It could mean he’s a failure. Or slow-witted. Or that he works hard and is the reliable sort. Or just that he doesn’t like Dad.”
“I can understand that,” Ann said. “What does your father think you’re supposed to do?”
“He doesn’t,” Niki said. “I’m on my own.”
“They are adulterous,” Hildy said, in continuation of her own thoughts.
“Root word adult, as in consenting adults,” Niki responded.
“That is wrong,” Hildy said.
“Spare me the fundamentalism.” Niki dismissed her. “My problem is more immediate.”
Ann felt sorry for Niki. “Come home with me,” she said. Then she felt sorry for herself.
Niki shook her head. “Your mother would have fits. It’s a bitch of a problem.”
“Hildy could come too.”
“And we could continue our gay camaraderie unabated through the entire year? No thanks, Annie, it’s not my idea of a vacation.”
“You should not let him do this,” Hildy said. “He is your father and you are responsible for him.”
Niki’s laugh contained no mirth. “You’ve got it backwards. He’s responsible for me.”
“As you say, you are on your own, and he has permitted this. You should stop him.”
“How? I’ve played my ace. As far he’s concerned, I can go live with my mother. He said I’d like her, Letitia—Letitia, can you believe it?—when I got to know her That’s the kiss of death.”
“He holds his soul in jeopardy,” Hildy said.
Niki looked at her. “Yes, I think maybe. But not in the way you mean.”
“That doesn’t matter, does it?” Hildy answered.
“Oh, I hope not,” Niki said. “But—what can I do?”
“Go and stop him.”
“You know, you’re right.” Niki stood up and stretched. “I’d have a couple of days with him before they’re scheduled to leave. Maybe I’ll try it. Although what the hell I’ll say I don’t know.”
“You’ll think of something,” Ann remarked.
“Yeah, I will, won’t I? Right as always, Hildy, and you too, Annie. Right as always. I owe it to him to try at least. He’s taken some trouble over me, in his day.”
“Maybe she’ll be nice,” Ann said. “Maybe you’ll like her when you meet her.”
“More likely, maybe she’ll be after his money and I can explain how it’s not as much as she thinks it is and a lot tied up in a tidy little trust for me.”
Niki walked away, upstream. She kicked at stones as she went.
“I meant that about Christmas, Hildy,” Ann said. “I’d like it if you would come home with me.”
“I know,” Hildy said.
“Think about it, OK? I’ve got to check it with my mother first, of course, but I’m pretty sure you’ll like her.”
“And she’ll like me?”
“Of course.”
“She did not like Niki?”
Ann shook her head.
“And you, do you like Niki?”
“I haven’t thought about it,” Ann answered. “Not recently at least. We’re getting along all right, all of us. Why? Do you?”
“Of course.”
“Sometimes she embarrasses me. Sometimes she’s pretty funny. Sometimes she makes me angry. Sometimes she scares me. I don’t know. I haven’t thought about liking her. I’m kept busy living with her.”
“Niki dares much.”
“I think she plays it safe,” Ann said. “In a backwards way, that’s just what she does.”
“No,” Hildy said. They were silent.
Evening was drawing in when they returned to their bicycles. Hildy asked if Ann and Niki would like to come to the observatory with her. “Saturn will be visible,” she offered them.
Niki refused, saying she was going to make a call to New York. Ann thought it sounded beautiful, Saturn surrounded by its blazing rings.
Niki rode off fast, pedaling to gain all possible momentum for the roller coaster return. She waved a rodeo rider’s hand as she disappeared around a sharp curve. Ann kept Hildy right behind her and held them to a carefully controlled speed. Hildy did not protest.