Tell Me if the Lovers Are Losers

by Cynthia Voigt

  Hildy had them do a passing drill, around and around the court. At times she required them to shoot only overhead, then only underhand. After that, she set them in one long line and passed shots to them with apparent abandon, because most of the balls fell low, close to the ground, out of reach. Bess was the only one who could tackle such shots, and she did just that: she dived for them. She tried only to get a fist beneath the ball and shoot it aimlessly up. Ruth tried diving, missed, and looked up with a grin. They all tried it. Sarah could save a ball that way, Bess could, and—to her surprise—Ann could. Eloise was hopeless, but when Hildy altered the drill slightly, having them in two lines with the second giving instructions to receive these frantic shots, Eloise proved more able.

  One and a half hours later, with the sun’s last rays semi-blinding them, Hildy set them up on the court and instructed them, as in the first drill, to pass the ball among themselves. “But I can’t see a thing,” Ruth protested. “Look,” she declared, tapping the ball up and hitting it across the court. “Eloise? you over there?” Eloise was, and she returned the ball to the center front, identifying Ann as the receiver she intended; Ann angled it back to Bess, who sent it across to Sarah.

  “I get it,” Sarah said. “Why didn’t you tell us, Hildy?”

  “Tell us what?” Ann asked.

  “We’re good enough not to have to watch one another all the time. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I thought you knew. I’m sorry, or I could have explained.”

  “It’s amazing,” Ruth said, her voice pleased.

  “It’s alarming,” Eloise added, giddy. “Astounding, appalling, abounding, abashing—”

  Ann joined in: “Incredible, ineluctable, intangible.” She knew how Eloise felt, feeling the same way herself.

  “What’s all that about?” asked Bess. “Can we do it again?”

  They could, completing almost twenty passes before Ann missed a shot that fell unexpectedly at her ankles. She had judged it to be nearer her waist.

  “The next step,” Hildy said, “is to do the drill without calling the names.”

  “Why is there always a next step?” Bess groaned. “And I’ve got two tests. Not today, Hildy.”

  “No, not today,” Hildy agreed.

  “Not tomorrow either,” Bess continued.

  “No, not tomorrow either,” Hildy smiled.

  They all waited. Smoky, slender clouds, patches of mist really, rose from the ground into the purple sky.

  “But someday,” Hildy said. “Is someday all right?”

  Someday was just fine.

  They were too late for dinner, served early and behind resolutely closed dining room doors. They planned to discuss their prospects over sandwiches at the student center and Ann tried to persuade Hildy to join them. Hildy was adamant. All the way back to the dorm, she resisted. She was not hungry, and she could ask the cook to give her a plate of something if she was, and she was putting on weight. It was when Hildy claimed any concern with weight that Ann knew she was lying. Even the intonation was Ann’s own. It was not anything Hildy would say. Unless she was pressed.

  Ann stopped pressing her Instead, she returned from the student center with two tunafish sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. She placed these in the center of Hildy’s desk and then, satisfied, returned to her own work. That evening it included reading over notes to write the outline for a history paper, as well as memorizing class notes from science.

  Ann knew how to concentrate, and her mind was quite occupied by biologic terms when Hildy came back from the library. Ann had forgotten the sandwiches, until Hildy placed them quietly before her. “Thank you, but I cannot take these,” Hildy said.

  “Why not?” Ann asked. The girl did not answer, just smiled apologetically. Ann argued, “I can’t eat them. I’m stuffed. They’ll just get thrown out.”

  “What a waste,” Hildy said.

  “Are you hungry?” Ann demanded.

  Hildy’s clear eyes met hers: “Yes.”

  “Are you angry at me then, that you won’t let me spend ninety cents on you and buy you a couple of tunafish sandwiches?”

  “It’s not that,” Hildy said.

  “What is it then? I mean, I really don’t understand, Hildy.”

  “I have no money. Well, not much. None for extravagances.”

  “I know that,” Ann said. “Why do you think I wanted to buy you supper?”

  “For charity,” Hildy said simply.

  “Oh,” Ann said, wondering if the accusation was accurate. It was an accusation. And Ann was, possibly, guilty.

  “I am grateful for your thoughtfulness,” Hildy apologized. “But I cannot accept.”

  “It’s only two sandwiches,” Ann protested. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Charity is a big deal, to accept it,” Hildy said. “I will tell you something. When I received the scholarship to come here, and my father said I might come for a year, I promised myself that I would be careful of charity. I have had enough.”

  “You’ve earned it,” Ann said. “They don’t give scholarships away because you’ve got beautiful eyes or play a good volleyball game.”

  “Oh, I know that. But I don’t know what they gave me a scholarship for. My SAT’s were not high. Low six hundreds.” No, that wasn’t high at all. “My grades were good, not excellent. I am not brilliant. Other scholarships went to brilliant girls. Yes?”

  Ann had to agree. “I just assumed you were that smart. I wonder why they did it?”

  “I don’t know. When I first wrote to the College, explaining why I wanted an application blank even though it was most probable I would not be admitted, the letter sent to me in return was most encouraging. I wrote to them, ‘I don’t know why you encourage me, but I am grateful.’ ”

  Ann looked at her roommate, the blonde hair grown a little longer and now below her earlobes, curling unconcernedly. “I know why,” she said, knowing. She couldn’t have explained, except to say the words virtue, excellence, and to say them in their ancient Greek form—arete.

  “Can you tell me?” Hilde asked.

  Ann shook her head. Betraying innocence to itself, that must be wrong. She returned to the sandwiches at hand.

  “OK. I can understand why you won’t let me buy you dinner,” she said, “and I won’t ask it again. I understand, I do.”

  “I thought you would.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Hildy said, firmly.

  “Not for charity.” Ann pushed her chair back and stood, sandwiches in hand.

  “For what else?”

  “For friendship,” Ann said.

  Hildy’s eyes widened briefly in surprise. She lowered her eyes, then raised them again. “Yes,” she said. “I thank you.”

  She reached out for the two packages. Surely not worth such serious argument, Ann thought, and probably soggy by now. Taking them awkwardly, Hildy dropped one onto the floor and, in kneeling to pick it up, she planted her knee on it.

  “Oh dear,” she said.

  “So much for pride and friendship.” Ann grinned.

  “It will still be edible,” Hildy answered. “Only no longer attractive.”

  “Oh that,” Ann said. She returned to work. Hildy went to her own desk. Ann heard the rustle of waxed paper combine with the rustling of a book. Ann recited incomprehensible terms, trying to implant definitions in her unwilling memory. She muttered to herself, irritation barely losing out to training, and she was stopped by a thought: “Hildy, you said one year, why one year?”

  “The scholarship is for one year,” Hildy answered, without raising her head from the text. “That is one reason.”

  “Scholarships are renewed, unless something unseemly happens.”

  “I know. I have been given one year.”

  “By who? Whom.”

  “My father.”

  “Why only a year? What’ll you do when you go home?”

  “Marry.”

  Ann turned to stare at her. “M
arry? Marry who? Whom.”

  “I am promised to a man. A widower with young children, a neighbor. A good man.”

  Ann couldn’t think about that. “Do you want to stay here? I mean, would you rather?”

  Hildy turned clear eyes to her “I didn’t ever think of it. Why should I think of it?”

  Ann couldn’t answer that. “They won’t like it.”

  “Who?”

  “The College. The Munchkin, for one.”

  “But she knows. I knew when I filed my application that it must be so.”

  “Oh,” Ann said. “Did you tell them?”

  “Of course.”

  “How much money do you have? I mean spending money, for the year.”

  “Ten dollars and fifty cents. If there is an emergency, I can cash in my return ticket, which should be worth over twenty dollars. I am just fine.”

  “Good,” Ann heard herself say. She was having an idea. She was having two ideas in fact, two possible ideas. For one, she needed her parents’ advice and help, so she couldn’t think about that until she had written them, or called, or gone home for a weekend.

  She worked in the silence of the room for another hour Hildy sat motionless at her desk. At such times, when Hildy and Ann were alone in the room, Ann felt as contented, as relaxed, as she had ever been, except within her own family. The light in the room was yellow, warm. The sound of quiet breathing or murmuring memorization suited the light. The dark outside the window did not enter, but remained afar, tame as a painting.

  At such times, Ann concentrated deeply and swam upward into self-consciousness refreshed. This night, however, she was continually diverted, until her restlessness drove her out of the room to find Niki. At the door she looked back to Hildy, who peered into an English textbook, squinting at it as if by such narrowing of the field of vision, she might hone her understanding.

  Niki was in the living room, engrossed in a game of Clue.

  “I thought you might be out,” Ann said, sitting down by Niki. The six girls were playing on the floor, each hiding her sheet of information behind a large book, each busy with a pencil.

  “Damn you Ann, do you have to come barging in like that?” Niki greeted her.

  “I’m sorry,” Ann said. Always sorry. Even though Clue, as far as Ann could see, was never a serious game.

  “Fat lot of good your being sorry does me. Kathy, what did you ask for? And Marsha, you showed her something, right?” Niki’s eyes glazed in concentration. Her eyes crackled and her teeth showed.

  “I want to talk with you,” Ann said.

  “For God’s sake then—will you wait? It won’t be long.”

  “Won’t be long! Niki, have you been cheating? I don’t even know one.”

  Niki rolled the die, moved her piece, asked her questions, then made an accusation. It was correct, Ann knew, by the blank looks exchanged around the table. If an incorrect accusation was made, it showed immediately. You could feel it in the air. Then, if you looked around, you could see who held the card you’d named, the person with a little smug smile on his face.

  Niki threw down the three cards triumphantly.

  “It’s a system,” she answered their cries of protest. “All logic, logic and careful notation. I’ll be back in a few minutes, OK?”

  She whisked Ann into the dining room, where they sat at a corner table, far from the girls who were typing papers or letters. “OK. What is it? It must be something, for you to come to me. You need an abortion?” Niki leaned toward Ann, who sat back, away from the thrusting face.

  “No, no,” Ann said too quickly, inwardly angry at being off-balance again. “It’s Hildy,” she went on.

  “What about her?” Niki’s interest faded.

  “She really doesn’t have any money. Really. Like, ten-fifty for the whole year.”

  “One thousand fifty? Or ten dollars and fifty?”

  “Ten dollars. That’s not right is it?”

  “I don’t see that it’s any of our business.”

  “But there are so any things she can’t do. Movies and dinners, weekends. Books.”

  “Not that I think it’s any great loss, but what do you want me to do about it?”

  “You’ve got money, haven’t you?”

  “Oh no. Not that. Not the Lady Bountiful act. You can masturbate yourself with it, but you’re not going to get me to play too.”

  Ann’s cheeks flamed. “You’re not being fair.”

  “Annie. I’m not rich, to begin with. My dad has a good income and he spends most of it. Some on me, yeah, but it’s not like we have oil wells or hosiery companies. That’s one thing. But I don’t give charity—on principle. What are we going to do, go trundling up to Hildy and say, ‘Oh we are so sorry you don’t have an allowance like everyone else so we are going to give you an allowance Ann and me aren’t we wonderful?’ Holy crap, Annie. I’m not wild about you, but I never figured you for such an ass.” Niki put her finger in her mouth and watched Ann’s face.

  Ann’s enthusiasm gave way before Niki’s negative force: she was close to tears, baby tears, whiny tears of frustration. “You’re right,” she said, quite adult. “Of course, you’re right. I should have thought.”

  Ann started to rise, but Niki’s long arm shot out and held her wrist to the table. “Why do you give up like that, so easily? So what if I’m right?”

  “What are you doing?” Ann pulled her wrist free. She had had about all she could take, she felt sure of that.

  “Think you’ll cry?” Niki needled. “Annie?”

  Tears welled up behind Ann’s eyes.

  “You’re a quitter, Annie.” Niki stood and left the dining room, deliberately not closing the curtained doors. The two typists raised irritated faces, and Ann hurried out, her head bobbing apologetically.

  Ann went out outside. The air was cold, iron-edged. Ann’s lungs were offended at it, but she remained on the porch, breathing deeply. “Ohellohell,” she crooned to herself, until her emotions settled. The leaves rustled in a light breeze. The grass looked purplish in the artificial light. Ann stepped off the porch and onto the grass. She moved away from the light into the dark created by the tall presences of oaks and maples, sycamores, birches, beeches. She rubbed at her upper arms, to warm herself.

  The bleak sky was sprayed with points of light, and the arc of the new moon hung close to the earth. Ann turned her face to the stars. Specks of light, bright, white, crisp—golden fire, Shakespeare had said, and fretted. Fretted had two meanings. Fretwork, as the filigreed Indian screens. And to fret, to bother, irritate, annoy.

  Was Niki right? Was she a quitter? It could be. Niki seemed to enjoy causing pain, but she was usually astute about people. She had a good sense for where a person was vulnerable, and she would go for that spot, like a dog leaping for the jugular, clamorous in attack. Not silent, skulking. Niki wouldn’t skulk anywhere, not after anything.

  So she might be a quitter But what more could she do? She had thought that if she and Niki together did it, then Hildy couldn’t refuse, but if Niki wouldn’t cooperate—there wasn’t anyone else. Roommates were different. She had wanted to do something good, something kind and generous. And Niki made her feel—awful. And then told her she was a quitter A tear was running down her nose. What more could she do?

  Two juniors walked toward the house, talking loudly. Pride dried Ann’s eyes and spirits. She would have been so ashamed, caught sniveling—the very thought humiliated her.

  “Hey, Ann. What’re you doing?”

  “Taking a break.” Ann kept her voice quiet. “Smelling winter coming down.” She smiled, because she had thought of something else she might try, if she could work herself up to it.

  Ann would talk with the Munchkin about Hildy. Miss Dennis would know if anything could be done. Hildy was virtually teaching the freshman volleyball section. She set up all the matches, saw to supplies, kept the balls inflated, took attendance, everything. Hildy was coaching them.

  Ann ran back inside
the house. It was cold out there. She stopped in the reception area where the girl on watch commented on her nuttiness in going out without a heavy sweater Niki emerged from the living room, a few Clue cards clutched tight. “You know what worries me?” she said, walking with Ann to the stairs. “Not this surface crap. Money and clothes, they’re not worth pissing on. You know what I wonder?”

  “What?”

  “Look at me, will you?”

  Ann turned.

  “The way she reads with the books so close to her eyes.”

  “I haven’t noticed,” Ann protested, trying to move away.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Niki said. “When you go in, see how close her eyes are to the page, then try reading with yours that close. I think she needs reading glasses. And ten dollars and fifty cents will not buy you those. Not in this world, Annie.” Niki clapped Ann on the shoulder for emphasis and loped back into the living room, shrieking, “It’s my turn! Mine!”

  chapter 5

  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.