Alma Mater

by Rita Mae Brown

  Chris opened the door. The rain, steady but not slashing, had filled the gutters, which spilled out everywhere.

  They bolted for the Impala.

  Vic pulled away from the curb, water tumbling along it. Leaves and small branches were scattered everywhere. "I'm glad St. Bede's door was open."

  "Me, too." Chris pointed out an uprooted tree. "You know, we should have lit a candle for luck."

  "I believe we make our own luck."

  A

  soggy pile of clothes dampened the floor. Vic dried off in one changing booth, Chris in the other, separated by high partitions. The clerk, another student, gave them towels.

  "I am so cold." Chris giggled.

  "Put your clothes on. The coral sweater will help."

  Chris yanked on the sweater, stepped into the jeans, and then tiptoed barefoot to Vic's booth. She put her hand on the doorknob, thought a minute, and returned to her booth.

  "We forgot shoes. I'm not putting on those espadrilles. My feet are already a fetching shade of navy blue."

  "Shoes are expensive."

  "I said I was paying for all this."

  "Chris, you can't do that."

  "Sure I can. I can do anything. It's not like I'm on food stamps. Are you decent?"

  "Yes."

  Chris opened the door and walked out of the booth. Vic, hair pulled back, wore a soft-green sweater and a pair of Levi's.

  "Green looks fabulous on you. Come on, shoes."

  Vic looked out the store window, the name CASEY'S emblazoned in an arc on the glass. "What we need is duck boots."

  "It's raining pretty steady." They started toward the shoe department. Chris found a pair of rubber boots, bright yellow. "I'll do yellow, you do green." She reached the stacks of socks, stuffing socks in each pair of boots.

  "Chris, this will be a lot of money."

  "I told you, just let me do it." Chris carried her pile to the counter.

  With a slower step, Vic did the same. She had a keen sense of what things cost and how, hard it was to earn money. And much as she liked Chris, she didn't want to owe her anything.

  Chris motioned for her to move a little faster. "Here, while I do this, you can put our wet clothes in this plastic bag. You don't care if we take an extra bag, do you?"

  The clerk, a redhead with an upturned nose, said, "No_ Take two." The door opened and tourists, bedraggled, came in. "I'll be with you in a moment."

  "Almost forgot." Chris threw in two bandannas. The clerk rang them up and they left the store, darting from awning to awning, overhang to overhang.

  "We're going to get soaked again." Vic laughed as the rain intensified.

  "Never underestimate the purchasing power of a woman." Chris reached in her pocket, flashed her credit card, and opened the door to a luggage store that also carried multicolored umbrellas. She bought a green-and-yellow one.

  Once outside she opened it. They squeezed under it together, taking turns holding it.

  "Sorry I had to park so far away. I should have dropped you off." "This is fun. I have a lot of fun with you. In fact, I have more fun with you than anyone I've ever met."

  "Uh-huh." Vic's tone sounded playful, disbelieving.

  "I do."

  They reached the car.

  "Damn, I forgot to buy a towel!" Chris put her hand on her waist, her elbow sticking out in the rain. "Okay, where do we go to get towels?" "I'll drive you—"

  "No, we'll get wet."

  "You didn't let me finish. You sit in the back."

  "I'm not going to be seen in public with a woman who has a wet ass. Let's put our stuff in the trunk and we can buy a towel somewhere."

  That took another twenty minutes. Finally, behind the wheel, Vic cranked the motor. She congratulated herself for putting a new white convertible roof on the car two summers ago. Not a drop of water worked its way inside the car.

  "Where would you like to go?"

  "I'm starved. Where can we go where there won't be a million people?" Chris pulled down the sun guard, reaching for the comb in her purse. "You know everyone."

  "To say hello. That's about it. Hamburgers? Barbecue? Salads? Or fake food?"

  "What?"

  "Tofu, bean sprouts."

  "Too bad we can't go to your house. Your mother is a fabulous cook. I'm not as good as she is, but I can cook. But I'm too hungry to buy the stuff and make it. Let's just eat somewhere, anywhere. I promise I'll cook for you soon. My mother, who could win the worry-ofthe-week award, did actually teach me how to cook. This way even if stranded on an island, I could make a fire and survive."

  Although Dukes was one of the most popular places in town, the rain kept most people at home or in the dorms. Vic and Chris shared the place with six other people.

  By the time they'd finished their fried chicken, fries, and coleslaw, they felt that glorious glow of contentment that attends a full stomach.

  "Dessert?"

  "Coffee. I'm too full for dessert," Vic answered. As they drank their coffee, Vic told her which were the best shops, restaurants, and bars. Then she asked Chris questions about herself.

  "When I was a freshman at Vermont I partied every weekend. That got old by my sophomore year. Same old faces. Same old stories. I got tired of hearing myself talk." Chris stirred in more cream. 'Luckily, I never partied so hard that my grades were in jeopardy. My dad would have killed me. Were you ever a partier?"

  "No. Once there are more than eight people, I feel like 1 have a job

  to do. I have to speak to everyone, help the hostess. Hate it." She smiled. "Cotillion."

  "Hey, we have it in York. We just call it dance school. I had to do it."

  "Sports. I was always doing sports.' Vic's long graceful fingers wrapped around the coffee mug. "That killed what vestige of socializing I might have had left."

  "Golf?"

  "No, I leave that up to Aunt Bunny. Baseball. I loved baseball, and then I reached the point where girls weren't allowed to play baseball. I mean, I could play with the boys in the summer but at school, only softball. So I took up tennis, and that was okay. Field hockey. Lacrosse. Track and field. Anything and everything. I liked track and field the best, but Mother and Aunt Bunny kept saying the long-term applications of running the one-hundred-meter dash were few."

  "I thought you and Jinx played lacrosse for William and Mary?" "We do. Jinx. I do it for Jinx. I'd be just as happy playing tennis for ,r Mary not William." She laughed.

  "Well, I used to swim backstroke. Being blonde and on the swim team isn't a good idea. Your hair turns green."

  "How punk."

  Soon they split the bill and ran for the car.

  The rain on the windshield and the tempo of the wipers were the only sounds in the car. Through the rain, the blurred headlights of cars going in the opposite direction added to the sensation of privacy in the Impala.

  "I see what you mean about each rain having its own character," Chris noted as Vic pulled into Chris's driveway. "Would you like to come up? Actually, we can wash our wet clothes. I can use the washer and dryer."

  "You are so lucky." Vic had to take her clothes to the Laundromat.

  They got out of the Impala and ran inside the house. Chris guided them to the washer, happily sorted their sopping clothes, and loaded the machine. Then they walked up the stairs to her apartment. She lit candles instead of clicking on the lights.

  "John Coltrane, A Love Supreme? Bob James? David Sanborne? Or—?"

  "The rain. I'd rather listen to the rain." Vic sat on the sofa.

  "I'd better turn on the heat. I can't believe how raw it is."

  "Late September. The changing seasons. You never know. I love it.

  When I was little I'd sometimes be out on the river; Aunt Bunny had a sailboat. We'd be out and within seconds the water would get a chop, the clouds would roll in. Magic."

  "Where you live is magic." Chris sat down next to her. "The Savedges are magic." She leaned against the large curling arm of the sofa, kicked off her yel
low rain boots, and put her feet on the sofa. "Take your shoes off. Get comfortable. You know, visiting you was—" Chris struggled to find the right words. "—a glimpse into another world. A happy world."

  "We're all a little nuts, so take that into account."

  "Your family is happy. Mine isn't." Chris stated this as a fact. "Mom and Dad go through the motions. Mom is real critical. Life has to be her way. She's a perfectionist, and she makes the rest of us miserable."

  "But she loves you." Vic couldn't imagine having a mother who didn't love her.

  "Mother wants a carbon copy of herself. She wants the table set exactly her way, the thermostat at seventy degrees, the clocks set at the correct time, not one minute fast or one minute slow. If I do all those things and agree with everything she says, she loves me." Chris smiled ruefully. "My mother is a control freak and not a very happy woman."

  "What about your dad?"

  "Works hard. Makes a lot of money. Puts up with her. Plays the role." She plumped up a sofa pillow. "Your family is happy. You all accept one another. In my family what you hear constantly is this is wrong, do this, do that. Your mom and dad might give you a chore but afterward they don't tell you what an awful job you did. Your parents love you. Being with your family, it's, I don't know, it's like being able to breathe."

  Vic listened, not sure how to respond. "Well, you can come visit us anytime."

  Chris tossed her head, her hair spinning out and then falling back

  into place. It was still a little wet. 'Do you ever think about tomorrow? About who you'll be and what you'll do?"

  "Sometimes. Mostly about what I'll do. You?"

  Chris shrugged. "Off and on. Sometimes I'm off and sometimes I'm on. I get sick of everyone telling me my whole life is ahead of me. How do they know? No one knows. Especially me."

  "I suppose it would take the fun out of it if we did know." Vic smiled. "Or the terror."

  "I'm not afraid."

  "Really?" Chris, often tense inside, wondered how Vic could say that, feel it.

  "Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. You'll drive yourself and everyone else crazy if you try to change it. I think you accept life. Accept yourself."

  "It's probably the accepting yourself that's the hardest part. Accepting your limitations."

  Vic watched Chris's mouth, well shaped with finely cut lips. "Maybe the accepting yourself is what makes life good. You only realize what you can do if you know what you can't do."

  "I never thought of it that way." She lay back against the sofa arm. "People live their whole lives without knowing what they can do. They kind of drift along. I'd go mad."

  Vic laughed at her. "It's not worth it. Nothing is worth going mad over."

  "Do you really believe that?"

  "Yes. Whole societies have been destroyed and people didn't go mad. Maybe some people did, but most didn't. Russia. France during the revolution. World War I swept away an entire world order. After World War II people in Europe and Japan lived in rubble. But they lived."

  "See, that's the advantage of being a history major. English majors read the novels that come out of those wars. Of course, everyone is miserable or alienated or whatever. Maybe only unhappy people write."

  "Nab. Chaucer. Shakespeare. I'm not an English major, but I think there are unhappy people and happy people. That's life. So you might as well spend time with the happy people. You can find them everywhere—even in bomb shelters in England during the Blitz."

  "What makes you happy?"

  "New clothes." Vic smiled. "The new clothes you bought me." "That's easy."

  "The river. Piper. My family. What about you?"

  Chris noticed that Vic did not mention Charly. She didn't bring it up. "Beautiful things. Order. Beautiful people. You." She blushed.

  A ripple almost like hunger startled Vic. She liked hearing that. She liked being in a candlelit room with Chris. She wanted to touch her. If Chris had been a man, she would have known what to do. She didn't want to offend her. But she trusted her instincts and her instincts told her that Chris wanted her as much as she wanted Chris.

  Chris drew her legs up under her, shifting toward Vic. "I think the laundry is done." She paused. "And I don't care."

  Chris slid over to Vic, rested against Vic's drawn-up knees and leaned over to kiss her on the mouth.

  Although startled, Vic kissed her back. She put her hands on Chris's shoulders, dropped her knees, sliding her legs around Chris, pulling her up to her. They kissed for half an hour, kisses of liquid gold.

  Chris bit Vic's neck and slid her hand under the new green sweater, feeling the hard stomach, the thin line between the abdominal muscles. She moved up to Vic's breasts.

  Vic gasped. "You are driving me crazy."

  "I thought you said nothing was worth going mad over." Chris bit Vic's lip lightly.

  "I take it back." Vic pulled off Chris's sweater, kissing her breastbone and then her breasts.

  "That feels good. That feels so good." Chris dropped her hand back for a moment; then she inclined it forward to bite Vic's neck again. She took the crew neck of Vic's sweater between her forefinger and thumb, pulling it over Vic's shoulder. She kissed her shoulder, then pulled the sweater back over it. She reached down with both hands, pulling Vic's sweater over her head. She pressed her body against Vic's, the cool flesh intoxicating, the air in the apartment still chilly.

  Chris unzipped Vic's jeans, running her tongue alongside the zipper. Vic reached around Chris, putting her hands down the back of Chris's jeans, feeling her smooth ass, pulling her tighter.

  Chris exhaled. "I have never been so excited in my entire life." "Me neither."

  "Come on." Chris stood up, her breasts reflecting candlelight on smooth skin. She led Vic into the bedroom. She yanked Vic's jeans down to her ankles and stepped out of her own. She pulled back the covers on the bed, sliding underneath.

  Vic slid in next to her. They lay on their sides kissing. Vic wrapped her arms around Chris's waist and then released her as Chris rolled onto her back, pulling Vic with her. She wrapped her legs around the tall woman. She kissed her hard. She ran her hands over Vic's muscled back, surprising Vic again with how strong she was.

  Sweat trickled between Vic's breasts. The rain beat on the windowpane.

  "Vic, Vic, I am so excited I can't stop."

  "Don't." Vic inhaled traces of perfume on Chris's neck, a fragrance she couldn't identify.

  Chris whispered in her ear, "I'm going to come all over you." Then she bit Vic's ear.

  When Chris moaned, Vic followed, swept along. She had no control over her body. Like a dancer, she moved to the music, feeling for the first time the sonorous freedom of lust.

  T

  he world was sharper, more colorful, when Vic slipped down the stairs of Chris's apartment. She felt she could see every raindrop touch the pine needles, bouncing off into tiny frag-

  ments of water.

  The white lintel over the doorway, the slight wave in the hand-blown glass windowpanes, the deep green of each grass blade, the world jumped out at her in its richness and beauty.

  She'd left a note for Chris, sound asleep. Vic had an early morning class.

  As she drove down to the campus, the texture of the brick buildings, dark persimmon, glistening in the rain, was exquisite to her eyes.

  The faces of her classmates intrigued her. She couldn't concentrate on the French Revolution, but she sat there watching the rain, remembering Chris's breath on her neck, her hands, the sweet smell of her.

  When class was over, she hurried down the stairs back out into the rain. There were two people she wanted to see, Jinx and Charly. Jinx because she could talk to her, Charly because she hoped she'd feel the pull toward him she felt for Chris. She hoped, somehow, that a sexual awakening meant she would awaken to him, too.

  She stepped inside the science building. She usually picked him up after class. Then they'd go to the stadium and run steps.

  "Beautiful!" He bounde
d toward her.

  'Say it again." She hugged him, wanting to feel his body, needing him to banish the sneaking suspicion in her mind about herself. She needed his stability and his love.