Tell Me if the Lovers Are Losers

  “Is she ashamed of her breasts, Bess?”

  “She could be. People tease you, you know, if you’ve got large bosoms. Boys. Kids.”

  “She shouldn’t listen to them.”

  “Easier said than done,” Ann said.

  “Inside, she is quite proud,” Hildy said. “Inside, she thinks she is beautiful.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “In the way her eyes seek notice. She says she is fat but does not believe it.”

  “Volleyball has been good for her. For me too,” Ann said.

  “Bess is vain,” Hildy continued. “That is a degrading characteristic.”

  Ann considered that. “Hildy, did you always have all these thoughts in your head?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I never thought you did. I always thought you were too good to notice what the rest of us notice.”

  “These things seemed unimportant before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before I could see so well.”

  “What was important then? What did you think of Bess before?”

  “Like a goddess, but a sulky goddess. Zeus’ wife I think, the jealous one. I thought she needed to honor herself.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I see—it will be harder for her than I thought. She does not understand herself.”

  “Do you understand yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  They rode together to the observatory, although Hildy no longer needed accompaniment. Ann had grown accustomed to the evening rides and the silent hours of study there. She liked the change, and the cold, dark air. She found she could ride the bike almost all the way up to the observatory now.

  “How did you manage this ride before?” she asked Hildy.

  “That was easy. I could feel the road beneath the wheels and the hills flowing down to it, in their curvings. A car I would hear and pull off the road until it passed. And the sky above was lighter, not so heavy as the land. The center lines, like a ribbon of light, led before. I rode on its path as through clouds of darkness. It was easy.”

  “But unsafe.”

  “I suppose so, yes. Now I can see—everything. Every tree, every curve. The center line is not elusive. And yes, I can see the stars now, too. I am always looking about and seeing. The moon does have a face.”

  “I know.”

  “Not as I had seen it before.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  One of those evenings, Ann invited Eloise to come back from practice with them for supper “But you haven’t signed for a guest,” she protested. “Have you?”

  “You can be Niki.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Out,” Ann said, but Hildy answered as quickly, “In New York.”

  “She’s cutting classes?”

  They nodded.

  “A law unto herself, is that the idea?” Eloise said, adding: “I can’t help admiring her. But I don’t see why I should.”

  The dinner achieved its usual level of mediocrity, but Eloise said she didn’t notice it. “It’s no worse than I’m accustomed to,” she said. “Nobody in my family cooks well. I suspect I’m doomed to a life of mediocre sensual experiences, a chicken-a-la-king life, lived over Minute Rice, with frozen peas and box biscuits.”

  “Jello for dessert,” Ann added, “and fake whipped cream.”

  “Precisely,” Eloise agreed.

  “Does food matter?” Hildy asked.

  “In a world where there is rare steak—” Ann said.

  “Or a smoked ham, sliced so thin you can’t chew it but just let it lie on your tongue until every part of your mouth can taste it—” Eloise added.

  “Yes,” they answered Hildy.

  Eloise pushed at a mound of whipped potatoes with her fork. “Oh well.”

  “Maybe you aren’t,” Ann said. “And besides, there are compensations, aren’t there?”

  “I hope so,” Eloise said, wistful.

  “Food doesn’t matter,” Hildy assured them.

  “We were speaking metaphorically,” Ann protested. Hildy looked puzzled.

  After coffee they went upstairs to the room, where conversation floundered. Eloise admired the view and the Kennedy poster, then went to the door. “Well, thanks a lot,” she said.

  “Why are you leaving?” Hildy asked.

  “You have work. You always have work to do. I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “But you won’t. Not tonight. Not for half an hour, anyway. Have you something you must do?”

  “No, I don’t have anything particular.”

  “Do you want to leave now? I thought we would visit.”

  “Visit?” Ann asked.

  “The way women do at home. They visit with one another, of an afternoon. When there is an hour or two between dinner and supper and chores are completed. They sit and talk.”

  “What about?”

  “Children, men, diseases, recipes. Whatever is uppermost in their minds. It does not matter what they talk about, just to visit.”

  “My mother visits,” Eloise sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor. “She visits the sick or the grieving, or anyone else she can find who is needy.”

  “Good lord,” Ann said, “why? I’m sorry, Eloise, that was rude. I didn’t mean to be rude, just curious.”

  Eloise understood all that, and answered. “My father is a minister. My mother sees it as part of her work, as his wife, to dispense comfort and consolation wherever it’s needed. She used to take me with her when I was a child. I hated it.”

  “Why did you do it then?”

  “What else could I do? Anyway, since I won that first scholarship, I haven’t been home that much, which has caused them no consternation. A ministerial scholarship,” she explained to Ann’s questioning face. “Churches tend to have money. It’s the clergy that don’t. Of course, they prefer you to attend Christian school, but I chose the Hall and waited them out. It wasn’t so difficult to do. The committee wasn’t accustomed to rebellion of any kind, and that gave me a certain palpable advantage. I needed any advantage I could get.”

  “Was it worth it?” Ann asked.

  “The Hall? Yes, I think so. Don’t you?”

  “You know how I feel about it,” Ann said. “But you—”

  “Even so, I liked it. Friends aren’t everything. I’ve been alone wherever I lived, partly because of being the minister’s child, partly because of what I’m like.” She dismissed Ann’s protest with a wave of the hand. “But you, you’re so ordinary—no, that’s good, Ann; I don’t mean it with insulting connotations, not at all. I mean you’re what someone is supposed to be like. You’re easy to be with, because you know you’re all right. I’m surprising you.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Hildy, don’t you think I’m right about Ann?”

  Hildy nodded agreement, then asked, “Have you quarreled with your parents?”

  “Not exactly that. They don’t quarrel, of course, and consequently we don’t fight. They don’t understand—what I want to get away from. Or to.”

  “To what?” Hildy asked.

  “I’d like to teach. If I can get the degrees, I’d like to teach in a college. Failing that, I’ll go somewhere like the Hall, somewhere removed from the hurly-burly.”

  “You already know what you want to do?” Ann demanded.

  Eloise apologized. “I had to make plans early, or I’d have been trapped in an intolerable life. My parents don’t discourage my desire to teach. They merely want me to work somewhere I am needed.” She shook her head. “I don’t want that kind of life, the constant battle. I’m not even convinced that good can be done, that way.”

  “I have no idea what I want to do,” Ann said. “None. I guess I should.”

  “Of course not,” Eloise soothed her. “You’ll work for a year or two, at something you like, then get married and have children, whom you will raise well.”

  “That sounds horrible,”
Ann said. “Isn’t there anything more interesting, or purposeful, in your crystal ball?”

  “It sounds interesting to me,” Eloise said.

  “To me also,” Hildy said.

  “You want more glamour?” Eloise asked. “Romance? Excitement? Originality? I’m original. Niki’s original. Hildy’s original. Are we what you want to be?”

  “No.” Ann shook her head. “But sort of. I mean, Niki’s right about you, you’re like the Munchkin and I really admire her. She’s a scholar. Her life is dry and solitary, but it has integrity. So will yours. Whatever else happens or doesn’t. I can’t imagine you—belying your intelligence. That’s what I mean by integrity. My life won’t have that. And Niki has all that energy and will. I’d like to have that. Wouldn’t you? She doesn’t bend before anything. And Hildy—Hildy’s wonderful. You know I think that, don’t you, Hildy? Everybody thinks that. So I wouldn’t mind. Although—” She thought of what she would have to relinquish.

  “Yes. Although,” Eloise echoed her “What is it that Niki wants to do?”

  “Who knows?” Ann asked. “To go to Berkeley.”

  “Niki wants to relieve the misery of the world,” Hildy said, “but she does not want to wait to do that. So, she is angry and impatient. She wants to be where the institutions are under attack for their blindness and crimes. Where she can make changes happen.”

  “Then what is she doing here?”

  “She didn’t get into Berkeley,” Ann explained. “She’s going to transfer.”

  Eloise nodded. “What about you, Hildy?”

  “I will marry.”

  Eloise raised her eyebrows.

  “My husband to be is a farmer and has two children. There is much to do. I would like to raise chickens, I think, and have children of my own.”

  “You sound so definite about it. When will all this take place?”

  “July.”

  “Next July?”

  Hildy nodded. Ann nodded too, although she hoped something would occur to alter Hildy’s plans, or at least postpone them.

  “That rather depresses me,” Eloise said, voicing something Ann had never had the courage to put words to.

  “I have this year for my own,” Hildy said. “You cannot understand.”

  “But you know, I can understand it, better than most people,” Eloise said. “I’ve lived most of my life in rural towns. And I did make those calls with my mother. I am neither deaf nor dumb, so I understand quite clearly the terms of your choice. Of course, I wouldn’t think of attempting to dissuade you—but I can’t like it, can I? Not for you. Besides, what about the volleyball team?”

  “You will find others,” Hildy said.

  “It won’t be the same,” Eloise said.

  “How could it be? And why should it be?”

  “You can’t argue with Hildy,” Ann remarked to Eloise.

  “Moreover”—Hildy ignored Ann—“it is the same thing, in the microscope and the telescope. The details differ, but not the essential order.”

  Eloise changed the subject. “Ann. Let me look at your science notes.”

  “Want me to recite for you?” Ann offered.

  “Please, not that.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Niki returned on Friday, during lunch. Ann went upstairs after the meal to pick up books and notebooks for her afternoon classes and saw Niki on the bed, her legs stretched out, her arms folded under her head. “Hi there,” Niki said.

  “Hi. How was it.”

  Niki waited for Hildy to enter, then, still supine, made her announcement. “I am a woman.”

  Oh, no, Ann thought. Here it comes.

  Hildy did not speak.

  “I agree with you both,” Niki sat up. “It’s not worth discussing. I had hoped, I must admit, for more. The earth to turn, transcendental experiences, two becoming one, lightning bolts. Something. But it’s just another cheat, sex.”

  Good, Ann thought, then we can drop the subject.

  But Hildy took it up. “You think so? Truly?”

  “Truly, truly. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “What then did you expect from it?”

  “Honestly?” Niki asked.

  Ann wondered if by remaining in the room she was behaving in bad taste.

  “I expected something great. Something to take me out of myself. Or overwhelm me.” She shook her head. “The more fool I, right?”

  “But that is what happens to animals,” Hildy said. “They come into season and give themselves over to their matings.”

  “I kept wanting to laugh,” Niki said.

  “And you did not?”

  “Of course not.” Niki actually sounded shocked.

  “What kind of man was this, when you could not laugh?”

  “Hell.” Niki got off the bed. “What do you know about it anyway?”

  “Something,” Hildy said. “More than you, I think.”

  “Come off it. Ogling barnyard activities doesn’t inform you about people. People are supposed to be different.”

  “And they are,” Hildy said.

  “Hildy, do you mean to tell me . . .” Niki asked, slowly. “Tell me just what you mean.”

  “I have lived with a man for more than a year The man I am to marry when I return. He hired me when his wife died, to keep the house and the children. We have loved one another.”

  “How did you keep it from your parents?”

  “My father knew it must be so.”

  “That’s unbelievable.”

  “But you see, I do know. And you do not, not yet. It is not an exercise you do, to learn how. It is not like practicing volleyball. It is a human experience. When you ask it to be something other, you cannot have it so.”

  “You’re saying it’s my fault,” Niki said.

  “No,” Hildy said.

  “You’re telling me you got there first and did better.”

  “No.”

  “Then what are you telling me?”

  “You cannot separate the body and the soul. You make love not with only the flesh.”

  “Oh come on. It’s just nerve endings.”

  “You know that is not so.”

  “All right, lubricated nerve endings.”

  Hildy shook her head.

  “Anyway, I’ve got a class to make.” Niki pulled on a denim jacket and was grinning by the time she reached the door. “I’ll tell you. They talk about California,” she said. “If they only knew.”

  Ann congratulated Hildy. “You certainly took the wind out of her sails.”

  “Did I? I hope not. I wanted to put the wind back into them.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  They held a final practice early Saturday morning, just after breakfast, to prepare for the match with the juniors. They played for an hour, drilling passes, sets, serves. Afterwards, Hildy sat down on the floor of the gym, to discuss tactics.

  “But what do you think, Hildy, how will it go?”

  “I do not know. I have never seen the junior teams play, although I expect they are good. I cannot guess just how good.”

  “How good are we?” Bess asked.

  “We are solid,” Hildy said. “But there are so many small weaknesses—”

  “And I’m one,” Bess said.

  “In a team, weaknesses of that sort do not exist,” Hildy answered. “We have also strengths. Each player has strengths she gives to the team and takes from it.”

  “And weaknesses,” Bess said.

  “Yes. It is a matter of fitting those together. That is what I cannot see, how we will fit the parts together.”

  “You’re gonna have to make this on your own,” Niki said, not inappropriately.

  “Look at it this way,” Ruth remarked. “We’ve already broken the pattern. So even if we lose today, we have reason to be satisfied. What did we expect, after all?”

  “I expected to get about this far,” Sarah said. “I won’t be unhappy.”

  “But I will,” Hildy said. Even Niki looked surprised. “A
t first it seemed we could do well, but I was not sure how well. Then, I could see—so far ahead for us.”

  “You do care about winning,” Niki crowed.

  “Of course,” Hildy said. “Because it means you have done the best, because you have taken what you are and practiced until you are more. I cannot explain it. Except that when we all play together—then it is right. I had thought we might win though.”

  “To the very end. Even the seniors,” Niki said. “Right? That’s what I thought. That’s what I want. And who says we can’t?”

  “Nobody says you can’t,” Ruth answered. “It’s the rest of us that hold you back. Except Hildy when she’s on her game. If wanting it would do the trick, then you’ve got enough wanting to do it on your own.”

  “You don’t?” Niki asked.

  “It looks impossible,” Ruth said. “Doesn’t it?” she asked the others. “It’s not just me, is it? Don’t the rest of you feel that way?”

  “That last game,” Ann said.

  “Don’t remind me,” Sarah said. “It was a miracle that we pulled it off. Niki’s miracle, and none of my own.” She picked at the soles of her sneakers.

  “Oh well,” Niki said.

  “Yes. So what?”

  “What is impossible?” Hildy said. “If it can be imagined, must it not be possible?”

  “I don’t buy that,” Niki answered. “Dreams aren’t powerful, not in that way. The way we wish it would be. That’s part of what’s bothering us right now, that we had begun to dream and now we’ve begun to accept the loss. To dream the loss. Not only have we not lost it, we haven’t even played for it yet. No dreams please.”

  “But I could see it. I could see us doing it. I could see it for us. Not dream, see,” Hildy argued.

  Niki stared at her a moment. “We know about the clarity of your vision.”

  “Can you still see it?” Bess asked, hopefully.

  Hildy shook her head.

  chapter 8

  Another large audience awaited this match. “Come to see the kill,” Niki said. “People are more interested in the kill than the chase.”

  “I wish they would go away,” Ann said. “I wish we could all go away.”

  “Soon enough, Annie,” Niki answered. “Who knows? We may cream them. This is the bottom junior team, remember?”

  “Or we may hold our own,” Eloise encouraged.