In the Field

by Rachel Pastan

  “But you get to go to four times as many parties,” said a girl in lavender ruffles.

  “But then you need four dresses,” the first girl said.

  “But surely you don’t get a bid or not based on what you wear,” Kate said. The other girls glanced at her dress and then looked away. Kate looked down, scrutinizing the baked potato–colored garment as though it were message in code. Then, spying Marian across the room, she strode over. “Is there a problem with my dress?” she demanded.

  “What kind of problem?”

  Kate was beginning to feel light-headed. “I may have made a mistake,” she said. She put her hand out to steady herself on something, but there was nothing there to hold on to.

  Marian grabbed her arm and caught her before she fell. “Careful,” she said.

  “I might just need to lie down for a minute,” Kate said, and began to sink to the floor.

  “Not here.” Marian tugged her back up and guided her through the room and up a staircase, then up another staircase. They were at the top of the house now, in a dark hall. Marian had to duck to get through the doorway into a room halfway down the corridor. It wasn’t much bigger than Kate’s room, though it was better furnished. The eiderdown, for example, was like a pink satin cloud. Kate sank onto it and shut her eyes as the walls revolved. “I must have caught a touch of something,” she said.

  “Silly,” Marian said. “You’re just tipsy. All that punch.”

  Kate opened her eyes, incredulous, then quickly shut them again. Marian sat down and put her arm around Kate and patted her shoulder. “It’s all right,” she said, and Kate leaned her spinning head against Marian’s breast. Marian was as soft as the eiderdown. Softer. “There, there,” she said in a motherly way. How odd, Kate thought, that she was comforted by this, whereas, when her actual mother did the same thing, it made her shriek. Was it being tipsy that made the difference? Or maybe that Marian smelled so much better than her mother, who exuded an odor of cold cream and silver polish. “You smell like oranges,” Kate noted, inhaling. “Or maybe almonds.” She sniffed at Marian’s collarbone, trying to decide.

  “That tickles,” Marian said, giggling.

  Kate, who as a rule did not like giggling, found she might be changing her mind. She sniffed and snorted, pretending to be a pig, and Marian let out a gratifying little screech and fell backwards, pulling Kate with her while pretending to push her away. Then they were wrestling, almost like the boys in the neighborhood used to do. Kate pinned the bigger girl with a scissors move. Marian pressed and wriggled. Kate pressed back against Marian, who lay under her breathing hard, and, feeling deliciously fuzzy, she wrapped her legs around one of Marian’s. Marian shimmied and sighed. A minnow seemed to be swimming inside Kate. Marian’s face swam in the gloom, slack and golden against the white pillows. Kate had no idea what the rules were here, so she shut her eyes and let Marian take the lead, like when they were dancing. Marian’s hands darted here and there, stroking and probing, apparently in accordance with some well-understood system, one even more unfamiliar and mysterious than the one decreeing that milk could not be drunk with a chicken sandwich and that candles must be put in the sink rather than blown out. Which reminded her.

  “Marian?” she ventured when they were lying quietly, squeezed close on the snug bed.

  “Mmm?”

  “Would the Delta Gammas ever give a bid to a Jewish girl?”

  Marian giggled. “You’re not telling me … Your nose is so nice and small, like a rosebud.”

  Kate touched her nose, finding it oddly warm and spongy. “But if?”

  Marian’s bright hair was spread across the pillow and her pearls glowed like little moons. “Oh, Kate, you’re so funny,” she said. “A kike in DG!” Then she turned over, curled up like a kitten, and went to sleep.

  Feeling suddenly much worse, Kate scrambled over her and ran out into the hallway, where luckily she found a lavatory in which to be sick. Then she groped her way back downstairs, leaving Marian snoring gently in her pink satin nest. The gramophone was blaring in the half-empty main room, and shrieks of laughter and strange tuneless chants—or were they songs?—swirled along the corridors as though a coven of witches had taken over the party, mixing potions in the punch bowl.

  Out on the cold street, the moon sailed high. The air was full of the rustle and moldering smell of dry leaves, which tumbled and swirled through the night air and swept in hushed conspiracies along the streets. Somewhere someone had lit a bonfire, and the scent of burning stung Kate’s nose and eyes, which must have been why they were spilling over. She felt weak, and still slightly dizzy, but if she concentrated on putting one foot in front of another, she was all right. Luckily the way home was mostly downhill. Occasionally a picture from the evening rose up shimmering out of the confusion of her brain: the anchors marching in columns up the wallpaper like white ants, the bright pink flush of the punch in the crystal bowl, which was also the color of Marian’s face when—

  But here was the familiar mailbox on the corner where she needed to turn. She stopped and leaned against it, pressing her burning head to the cold metal, wondering if she was going to be sick again. She could tell there was more foul noxious matter churning in the depths. One hand gripping the mailbox, she bent over, willing it up. Nothing. Whatever was inside her wouldn’t be rooted out that easily.

  How could she have been so stupid? She remembered Thea’s face in the kitchen, damp with the steam rising from the pot of soup, her eyes stony. Don’t you know about those people?

  At last Kate reached the house and stumbled up the steps onto the porch, where the jack-o-lantern they had carved last week leered up at her with its dark face. By some miracle, her key was still in her pocket. It took perhaps a minute to fit it in the lock.

  Inside, no lights had been left burning for her. She felt her way past the coatrack, past the high stern back of the one good armchair and the table that held the bulky telephone set. Her throat burned with shame—her whole wretched body burned—as she flung open the door to her tiny room.

  A ridge under the coverlet made her jump back. Someone was in the bed. A slender shape bisected the puddle of moonlight that streamed in through the high window. “Kate?” Thea said sleepily.

  Kate sank down on the edge of the bed, her heart galloping.

  “I was waiting up for you, but I must have fallen asleep. I wanted to tell you I was sorry. I shouldn’t have told you what to do. It was none of my business.” She yawned, her breath warm with sleep.

  Kate flung off her coat and kicked off her shoes. “No.” Her voice came out low and full of phlegm. “No. I was the one who was wrong. They’re horrible! And they don’t— That thing you said. It’s true!”

  “You’re not telling me you asked!” Thea sat up.

  “How else was I going to find out?”

  Thea laid a hand on Kate’s arm and began to laugh. “Did you go around asking everybody? ‘Excuse me, are you Jewish? And you, are you a Jew?’ Was it like that? I can see you with a notebook and a little pencil, recording responses in columns.” She clutched the sleeve of Kate’s hateful dress. “‘Excuse me,’” she said. “‘I just need to gather some data before I decide whether to rush the DGs!’” Loosed from its braid, her hair fell in gleaming waves down the flowered cotton of her nightgown. Kate touched it. It felt like corn silk, faintly electric. Thea was still laughing. From above, moonlight fell in a rippling stream, making the mother-of-pearl buttons of her nightgown glow silver and green. Kate lifted a lock of Thea’s hair. She thought of the way seaweed wrapped itself around your legs when you were swimming. There was a warm heaviness in her arms and behind her breastbone. She was floating, breathless, through the greenish shimmer toward Thea.

  “Hey,” Thea said, as Kate’s fingers grazed her face.

  Kate stroked her jaw, traced a line to the ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” she
said. “I will from now on.” She moved closer, burrowing into the slender shoulder. Her cheek found the softness of Thea’s breast under the cheerful daisies of the thin gown.

  “Kate,” Thea said.

  “Hmm,” Kate murmured. Her body rocked gently, as though tugged by little waves.

  “Kate—” But Kate covered Thea’s mouth with her own. A long moment passed, then another. Their mouths pressed together, exploring. Thea’s skin smelled like the ocean, salty and clean.

  Then, abruptly, Thea tensed. Kate opened her eyes as Thea pulled away, scrambling across the bed onto the floor, her tangled hair flaring behind her.

  Kate felt wide awake now. Gooseflesh stood up along her arms.

  Thea stood in the doorway, her face white, her eyes glittering in the moonlight. If she’d had a lightning bolt, she would doubtless have flung it at Kate’s heart. “I wish you had never come to live here!” she cried. Then she ran.

  Kate leapt up from the terrible bed. Boiling with shame and confusion, she found her suitcase and flung it open. The only thought in her head was that she must leave. She had to get away from here at all costs. She began to grab things—clothes, shoes, books, hairbrush—throwing them into the suitcase, her mind feverish and blank.

  It was foolish to run off in the middle of the night. She knew that! It was farcical. She forced herself to sit back down on the edge of the bed, her hands gripping the mattress, her wrinkled dress spreading like a stain across the rumpled sheets. She loved this room, this house. She didn’t want to leave. She wanted—

  What did she want? She tried to focus the ragged beam of her attention.

  In her mind’s eye she could see Thea: her shocked face, her electric hair. The scorching horror of Thea’s horror. She had to stand up to push it away, sweat springing out all over her body. Her thoughts raced. There at her feet, the empty suitcase waited to be filled, inviting her to flee. At least she would be in motion. She piled in skirts and underwear. She had no idea where she might go.

  Slow down, she told herself. Slow down! But she could not. Her palms closed the lid, her fingers snapped the latches. Her eyes took a last look at her room, at the blank dark rectangle of the high window.

  In the hall, faint smells of bread and oily fish, and the lavender scent that clung to the bathroom, where the girls washed their hair. She dropped the key on the telephone table and pulled the door shut behind her.

  CHAPTER 4

  The day after the first night Kate spent in the storage room was sunny. The trees around the quad blazed yellow and orange, scores of leaves breaking free every minute, plunging through the bright morning. Kate’s suitcase, now colorfully festooned, was where she had left it to climb into the building, which seemed like a good sign. She carried it up the stairs, keeping her eyes down, trying to be invisible. In the afternoon she walked into town and bought a blanket at a thrift store, then concealed it, along with her suitcase, behind some of the storage room’s crates. At night she shut herself in and made a nest of the blanket and her coat, feeling a kinship with the mice scrabbling in the walls. Once she got used to it, it wasn’t so bad. She could take her meals at the cafeteria nearby, study in the library, wash in the gym. The trick was to think expansively—to consider the whole campus to be home.

  In biology class she sat in the back to avoid Thea, among the boys who dozed or poked at each other, whispering loudly behind their hands. Why were they here if they didn’t care to learn? At another time it would have made Kate furious, but her emotions didn’t seem to be working properly. She didn’t feel anger or pleasure or sadness. A great muffling blankness saturated her, keeping her foggy and dull, even when she caught a glimpse of Thea at the front of the room. Her slim figure, her long braid swaying back and forth like the chain of a hypnotist’s watch. In Kate’s chest, where her heart should have been, there was a frog desiccating in formalin.

  “Your partner has transferred to a different section, I’m sorry to say,” Dr. Krause told her when she went numbly to lab. “Perhaps you could join up with one of the other pairs?” His eyebrows waggled as he scanned the room for likely candidates. “Peterson and Jones,” he called.

  The boys’ eyes slid away.

  “I’d prefer to work by myself, actually,” Kate said.

  Dr. Krause looked doubtful. “I think it will be difficult alone,” he said. “Science is a collaborative enterprise.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Hadn’t Gregor Mendel worked alone? She’d looked him up at the library, learned that he had labored without assistance on his vast project for decades, and that his work had not been recognized till he was dead. Genius, hard work, solitude: was that a tragic life, or a glorious one?

  Anyway, the microscope was a reliable partner. She liked how, looking through the eyepiece, she gazed down over the field of view like a hawk hovering over a field of grass and wildflowers.

  The freckled boy at the next bench, whose name was Jimmy McFadden, leaned over. “What happened to your girlfriend?” he asked. “She figure out that science isn’t for dames?”

  Kate straightened up and stared at him. “She was invited to join the honors lab. It covers extra material.”

  Jimmy blinked. “Thatch,” he called to his partner, who was fixing a bean section to a slide. “Did you know there’s an honors lab?”

  The tall, gawky boy looked up. “Is there?” They had bragged about the As they got on their write-ups. Or rather, Jimmy had bragged, though Kate suspected it was his partner who did most of the work.

  “Don’t feel too bad,” she said. “After all, I’m not in it, either.”

  On her other side, the square-jawed pre-med student, again wearing his diamond-patterned sweater, was struggling. “Hey, McFadden,” he said. “Mind if I take a look?” He nodded toward the freckled boy’s paper. Jimmy looked around, saw that Dr. Krause was busy on the other side of the room, and pushed the paper over. Diamond sweater began to copy down the answers.

  “Stop that,” Kate said.

  “Why don’t you mind your own business.”

  By instinct, Kate looked around for Thea, who would have tossed her braid and said something barbed and brainy. But there was nobody there but Jimmy McFadden with his freckles and his ugly orange hair.

  “That’s cheating,” she said. “You’re as much of a cheater as he is.”

  Jimmy leaned toward her, smelling of gluey cafeteria oatmeal. “And you’re an ugly witch.”

  “If I were a witch,” Kate said, “I’d make you disappear.”

  That night, too restless in her makeshift nest to sleep, Kate wandered down the hall and borrowed a microscope from Krause’s cabinet. She lugged it to the storage room, set it up on a rickety table, pulled a hair from her head, and fixed it to a slide. She took out her notebook and sketched the forking veins. She looked at a fingernail paring, a thread from her scarf, a whorl of dust, diagramming each one, pretending she was the first person ever to record these shapes and structures. The next day, as she walked around campus, she collected things to look at through the lens later: a leaf, a feather, a shred of orange rind. She imagined a book full of her diagrams, people taking it down and admiring it, their eyes opened for the first time to what had been hidden. In her mind’s eye, she saw her father taking it down, turning the pages. Smiling at her, his mouth half hidden under his soft moustache.

  Her father hadn’t had to go to France. He’d been nearly forty when the war started. But he was a physician, and they needed doctors there.

  She remembered how, when she was young, her legs would ache as she tried to keep up with his tall figure in its tweed jacket and boots, when he would occasionally take her with him on his long weekend walks. Every now and then he would stop and wait for her to catch up so he could point out an interesting weed or flower: Queen Anne’s lace, feathery goldenrod, pokeweed with its heavy dangling tendrils of dark berries that people once made into ink.
Overhead, finches and nuthatches plunged from tree to tree; underfoot, rigorous ants drew lines with their bodies across the skin of the ground. Butterflies probed the openings of flowers: mourning cloaks and painted ladies, monarchs and their less famous doppelgängers, the viceroys.

  Her father taught her to distinguish between the two species. The viceroy flew quickly and erratically, while the monarch elegantly glided. “Look closely,” he used to say, even when she thought she already was.

  She’d look harder, opening her eyes wide to take everything in.

  “Are you looking, Kate?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you see?”

  Black lacy outlines surrounding shards of orange on the flat wings. A hundred shades of green in the woods and meadows all around them. The sun throwing moving shadows across the ground.

  Her father explained mimicry, how the monarch was poisonous to birds, which learned to avoid it, and how the viceroy borrowed the monarch’s colors for protection. “Just because things look alike, it doesn’t mean they are alike.”

  Was he talking about Kate and her mother with their limp brown hair and pale blue eyes? Seer’s eyes, her father said, teasing, which made her mother blush and scoff.

  When Kate asked what seer’s eyes were, he laughed. “Hocus pocus,” he said. “Never you mind.”

  A better question: how did the viceroy know to mimic the monarch? And what exactly happened inside a chrysalis? Several times as a child Kate had carefully cut open one of the lucent jade green packages, hoping for a glimpse of the secret chimera—half caterpillar, half butterfly—inside. But there was never anything in there but goo.

  CHAPTER 5

  One morning, pushing through the door at the back of the lecture hall at the end of Intro Bio, Kate found herself face to face with Thea.

  “Hello,” Thea said. She looked tired, her eyes narrow and fish-gray in her thin wan face.