Odd Girl Out

Laura flipped nervously through her pledge manual, not even pretending to read any more. Finally Beth saw that she wasn’t reading and smiled at the ruse.

“One hundred and thirty-seven pages of crap,” she said, nodding at the manual. “All guaranteed to confuse you. I don’t know why they don’t revise the damn thing. I’ve passed an exam on it and I still don’t understand it.”

Her attitude embarrassed Laura, who smiled uncertainly at her new roommate, thinking as she did so how many times she had smiled in the same way at Beth, not sure of how she was expected to react.

She had never known quite how to react to Beth from the first day she had seen her. It had been shortly after Laura’s arrival at the university, when everything she saw and felt excited her to a high pitch of nervous awareness. Even the sweet smoke of bonfires in the early-autumn air smelled new and tantalizing.

Laura walked around the university town of Champlain, down streets chapeled with old elms; past the new campus with its clean, striking Georgian buildings and past the old with its mellow moss-covered halls; past that copy of the Pantheon that passed for the auditorium; past the statues; past the students walking down the white strip of the boardwalk, sitting on the steps of buildings, stretching in the grass, and talking … always talking.

It thrilled her, and it frightened her a little. Some day she would know all of this as well as her home town; know the campus lore and landmarks, the Greek alphabet, the football heroes, the habits of the campus cops. Some day she wouldn’t have to ask the questions—she would be able to answer them. It made her feel a sort of grateful affection for the campus already, just to think of it this way.

She had been in school a week when she went up to the Student Union to join an activity committee. It seemed like a good way to meet people and get into the university’s social life. Laura had an appointment for an interview at three o’clock. She sat in the bustling student activities center on the third floor waiting to be called, clearing her throat nervously and sneaking a look at herself in her compact mirror. She had a delicate face shaped like a thin white heart, with startling pale blue eyes and brows and lashes paler still. A face quaint and fine as a Tenniel sketch.

She waited for almost half an hour and the sustained anxiety began to tire her. She stared at her feet and up to the clock, and back to her feet again. It was when she glanced at the clock for the last time that she saw Beth for the first.

Beth was standing halfway across the room, tall and slender and with a magnetic face, talking to a couple of nodding boys. She was taller than one of them and the other acted as if she towered over him, too. Laura watched her with absorbed interest. She tapped the smaller boy on the shoulder with a pencil as she talked to him and then she laughed at them both and Laura heard her say, “Okay, Jack. Thanks.” She turned to leave them, coming across the room toward Laura, and Laura looked suddenly down at her shoes again. She told herself angrily that this was silly, but she couldn’t look up.

Suddenly she felt the light tap of a sheaf of papers on her head, and looked up in surprise. Beth smiled down at her. “Aren’t you new around here?” she said, looking at Laura with wide violet eyes.

“Yes,” Laura said. Her throat was dry and she tried to clear it again.

“Are you on a committee?”

She was strangely, compellingly pretty, and she was looking down at Laura with a frank, friendly curiosity that confused the younger girl.

“I’m here for an interview,” Laura said in a scratchy voice.

Beth waited for her to say something more and Laura felt her cheeks coloring. A young man thrust his face out of a nearby door and said, “Laura Landon?” looking around him quizzically.

“Here.” Laura stood up.

“Oh. Come on in. We’re ready for you.” He smiled.

Beth smiled, too. “Good luck,” she said, and walked away.

Laura looked after her, until the boy said, “Come on in,” again.

“Oh,” she said, whirling around, and then she smiled at him in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

The interview turned out well. Laura joined the Campus Chest committee and turned her efforts toward parting students from their allowances for good causes. Every afternoon she went up to the Union Building and put in an hour or two in the Campus Chest office on the third floor, where most of the major committees had offices.

It was nearly two weeks later that Beth stopped in the office to talk to the chairman. She sat on his desk and Laura, carefully looking at a paper in front of her, listened to every word they said. It was mostly business: committee work, projects, hopes for success. And then the chairman told her who was doing the best work for Campus Chest. He named three or four names. Beth nodded, only half listening.

“And Laura Landon’s done a lot for us,” he said.

“Um-hm,” said Beth, taking little notice. She was gathering her papers, about to leave.

“Hey, Laura.” He waved her over.

Laura got up and came uncertainly toward the desk. Beth straightened her papers against the top of the desk, hitting them sideways the long way and then the short way until all the edges were even.

“Beth, this is Laura Landon,” the boy said.

Beth looked up and smiled. And then her smile broadened. “Oh, you’re Laura Landon,” she said. She held out her hand. “Hi, Laur.”

Nobody had ever called her “Laur” before; she wasn’t the type to inspire nicknames. But she liked it now. She took Beth’s hand. “Hi,” she said.

“You know each other?” the chairman said.

“We’ve never had a formal introduction,” Beth said, “but we’ve had a few words together.” Laura remained silent, a little desperate for conversation.

“Well, then,” said the chairman gallantly, “Miss Cullison, may I present Miss Landon.”

“Will Miss Landon have coffee with Miss Cullison this afternoon?” said Beth.

Laura smiled a little. “She’d be delighted,” she said.

They did. And she was. An occasional fifteen- or thirty-minute coffee break was traditional at the Union Building. Beth and Laura went down to the basement coffee shop, and came up two hours later because it was time finally to go home for dinner. Laura couldn’t remember exactly what they talked about. She recalled telling Beth where she was living and what she was studying. And she remembered a long monologue from Beth on the Student Union activities and what they accomplished. And then suddenly Beth had said, “Are you going to go through rushing, Laur?”

“Rushing?”

“Yes. To join a sorority. Informal rush opens next week.”

“Well, I—I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Think about it, then. You should, Laura. I’m on Alpha Beta and, strictly off the record, I think we’d be very interested.”

“Why would Alpha Beta want me?” Laura said to her coffee cup.

“Because I think it’s a good idea. And Alpha Beta listens to Beth Cullison.” She laughed a little at herself. “Does that sound hopelessly egotistical? It does, doesn’t it? But it’s true.” She paused, waiting until Laura looked at her again. “Sign up for rushing, Laura,” she said, “and I’ll see to it you’re pledged.”

“I—I will. I certainly will, Beth,” Laura said, hardly daring to believe what she’d heard.

Beth grinned. “My God, it’s nearly five-thirty,” she said. “Let’s go.”

After that it had been easy. Beth spoke the truth; Alpha Beta did listen to her. Laura had signed up for rush, with the secret understanding that she would pledge Alpha Beta. But even at that, it was a thrill when Beth called her two days after rushing was over and said, “Hi, honey. Pack your things. You’re an Alpha Beta now. Officially.”

Laura had cried over the phone, and Beth said, “You don’t have to, you know.”

“But I want to!”

Beth laughed. “Okay, Laur, come on over. You just joined one of the world’s most exclusive clubs. And you have a new roommate. In fact you have two.”

“Two?”

“Yes. Me. And Emily.”

Emily had spent the day with them, helping Laura bring things in and put them away. Laura was so tired now she could hardly recall Emily’s face; all she remembered was a warm, ready laugh and the vague impression that Emily was fashioned to please the fussiest males: the ones who want perfect looks and perfect compliance in a woman.