and ran down the graveled drive. In her hand she clutched her felt purse, and at the corner she caught a taxi.
At the Blue Ribbon there was a crowd of students waiting at the rail with trays, sitting in the booths with books piled high beside their plates, pushing and standing near the juke box with nickels and dimes, the pin-ball machines ringing up scores in her ears as she looked for Mitch.
The Den was quieter, and the waitresses were lingering lazily around the front of the room near the bar, where a few boys munched liverwurst sandwiches and drank draught beer. The bartender dropped a glass and cursed enthusiastically. Leda pushed the revolving door and felt the cold autumn wind.
Mac’s, Donaldson’s, the Alley, French’s, Miss Swanson’s, all of them alive with hungry students swarming in and out, the smell of hamburger predominant in each cafe, the sizzling crack of French fries cooking in grease on hot open grills.
“Ham on rye.”
“One over easy.”
“Hey, Mary, catch the dog.”
“Well, hell, you’re almost an hour late!”
Leda stood finally on the curb in front of Miss Swanson’s. She fumbled in her pocket for a nickel and ran into the drugstore on the corner. She made a mistake dialing the number, and she held the hook down until the nickel came back and then tried again. When the voice answered, there was a long wait, the far-off sound of voices shouting down the halls, and then the answer, quick and flip. “Robin’s out to dinner. Call back later.”
Her heart was pounding, and she could feel the perspiration soaking her body. If Mitch was eating with Robin, she might have it arranged already. Where was she eating? With the car, she could be anywhere, but it was unlike her to drive far at night. The clock read seven-thirty. In half an hour the chapter would meet and Mitch would go back to the house for her bags. Leda shivered in the night air and wished she had found Mitch before she had a chance to see Robin and carry her plan through. Now Leda would have to tell Marsha she was sick, that she had gone for medicine because she was sick and she could not attend the meeting. She would be in the room waiting for Mitch when she came.
A car swerved away from her as she stepped off the sidewalk into the street. The cab driver grunted, and skirted the curb narrowly as he drove fast.
“Hurry!” he said. “You girls always gotta be someplace fast. That’s all I hear is ‘Hurry, driver!’ Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
“Marsha’s in the Chapter Room,” Kitten said. “Thought you were sick.”
Leda said, “I am.” She found the door to the room locked, and she knocked three times fast and once slow.
“Who goes?” she recognized Jane Bell’s voice.
“Pledged in blood,” Leda said. “Promised in the heart.”
“Enter.”
The bolt was slipped off and Jane Bell stepped back. She was wearing a silky white gown with a deep red scarf on her hair, drawing her hair back behind her ears. There was a sharp odor of burning incense in the dark room, lighted only by five single candles on a small table covered with the same silky white material. Marsha knelt at the table, arranging a red velvet-covered book with a black marker on the open page. When Leda walked in the room, panting, her face damp and hot, Jane stared at her.
“My gosh,” she said, “you look feverish.”
“That’s what I came about. I can’t attend the meeting tonight. I feel lousy.”
Marsha looked up from the book at Leda. There was an angelic look to her face by candlelight, a look that she was fully aware of, cultivated and practiced. When she conducted the weekly chapter meetings, this look lent an air of piety to the conduct of the service. With the members of the chapter standing in a solemn semicircle before her, she felt that there was something spiritual about her leadership, celestial and sacrosanct.
“We’re having a formal meeting tonight,” she told Leda, as if to persuade her sickness to end.
“I see you are. I’m sorry. I just feel lousy.”
“You look feverish,” Jane Bell remarked again.
“I hope you feel better.” Marsha smiled. “Did you know that Mrs. Gates, our Kansas City vice-counsel, gave us three new robes? Jane has one on.”
Jane twirled and the robe floated on her gracefully. Inwardly Leda thought, Jesus! Oh, silly Jesus! but she pacified them by touching the material and exclaiming, then apologizing again. She backed out of the room just as the electric buzzer gave the signal for the members to line up in the hall and prepare to enter in single file.
The halls were still, the pledges confined to their rooms for study hour. Leda found the room dark. Mitch had not come yet. She struck a match and lit a cigarette, and in the blackness she went to the window and watched the street. Ten dragging minutes later the convertible pulled up in front of the house, and Mitch slammed the front door and hurried up the walk. Leda lay down on the bed, watching the cigarette smoke curl to the ceiling, and waited.
After the light went on in the room, Mitch felt a flood of surprise in her stomach as she saw Leda. She shut the door and set Robin’s large empty suitcase on the floor. Leda sat up and looked at her.
“You’re going to pack now?” she said.
“Yes. I thought you’d be in chapter meeting.” She tried not to look at Leda, but she could feel the girl’s eyes piercing her, stopping her attempts to avoid those eyes, and she went to the bureau and began removing socks and handkerchiefs and scarves.
Leda let her click the suitcase open, and watched her while she placed the things inside it. She could feel the sharp edges of the letter against her chest there near her bra where she had put it before dinner. With her left hand she reached down and fished the letter out and stuck it under her pillow.
“I decided,” Leda said finally, “that the least I could do was to say good-bye to you.”
Mitch felt choked up and agonized with desire. She scooped out an armful of slips and panties and pajamas, and thrust them in there with the other clothes. Her lips formed the word “Thanks,” and she meant to say it, but there was no sound. On the floor of the closet there were fluffy swirls of dust near her tennis shoes, and she brushed them away with her hand. She tossed the shoes onto the bed, and took the chair from the desk over to the closet to reach the boxes at the top.
Leda said, “Want any help?”
“No. Thanks, though. I can do it myself.”
“You’ve got an idea,” Leda said, “that you can do everything yourself. I don’t know where you got that idea.”
“Sometimes it’s up to yourself,” Mitch said.
“You’ve got a lot of ideas, I bet. I bet you’ve got thousands of good ideas.”
The box slipped from Mitch’s hand and fell to the floor, spilling out two round hats, one black, one brown, both alike—round and plain.
“Someday you’ll find out that most of the ideas don’t work. None of them work.”
Mitch stopped tying the strings on the top of the box and looked up at Leda. “What are you trying to say?” she asked. “What are you trying to tell me? You never say anything right out. You always talk around and make it hard.”
“I’m trying to say, don’t go. Going isn’t the answer.” The tears came in her eyes, and Mitch looked away at the shoe bag on the closet floor. She thought of Robin, her friend, of the swimming team, of other years and anything to keep them from being the same, but this made it worse and the sob started low in her throat. Then Leda bent and caught her shoulder and held her, kneeling on the rug, listening to the stifled crying.
“Mitch,” she said, “don’t go. Don’t leave me,