“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.
“Why?” Hildy asked.
“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 c
ircuits 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, up
stream. 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.
chapter 6
Hildy went to an optometrist late the next afternoon. When she returned, her pupils were dilated but her step did not waver. She seemed unexcited by the experience, although perhaps a little amused. “He was first angry,” she said. “But not at me, I think. He says what you say, that I cannot see. I asked him then, What is it I have been doing all my life? He stopped being angry and became curious. I am a challenge he says.”
“Why?” Ann asked.
“He says there are so many things wrong about my eyes.”
Niki tried to peer closely at Hildy’s eyes, to descry the flaws.
“You cannot see it, he said. He said astigmatic in both eyes. It is so serious for me because of the other flaws, which cause one eye to be nearsighted, the other farsighted. He said that he will have the glasses ready on Friday, because I am in mortal danger until I get them.”