Odd Girl Out

“I know I have,” Beth interrupted her. “I’m sorry, Laur. You mustn’t take me so seriously. I’m only teasing. I like to tease, but I don’t like to hurt people. You just have to get used to me, that’s all. Take me with a grain of salt.” She looked earnestly at her with the shade of a smile on her lips and she thought how good it would be to skid her hands hard up Laura’s thighs and…. So she kept talking. It was better to ignore the peculiar feelings Laura awoke in her; she covered her confusion with words.

“Because I want us to be good friends,” she went on. “And I’ll try not to—to shock you any more. I guess I’m a little crazy—the result of a misspent youth, of course.” And she grinned. “But I’m not dangerous, honest to God. Now—” she smacked Laura’s knees amiably—“we’re over the first crisis. Are we going to be friends, Laur?”

Laura wanted desperately to pull her knees together. “Yes,” she said to Beth. “I hope so.”

“Good!” said Beth and she bounced to her feet. “Come along then. Let’s make your bed.”

It hadn’t taken long to make up the austere box bed and Laura found herself back in the room and faced with the humiliating problem of undressing in front of somebody else. Her shyness settled in her cheeks and neck like a heat rash. As soon as she felt the burn, it spread to her shoulders and bosom. She blushed very easily and she despised herself for it. She wanted to scratch at her arms again, but because Beth would notice it she had to content herself with biting the tender flesh of her underlip until she was afraid it would bleed and cause her more grief.

She turned as far from Beth as she could and unbuttoned her blouse, somehow feeling that Beth’s bright eyes were doting on every button. But Beth was subtle; she was humming a tune and busy with her pajamas. She saw Laura without seeming to and Laura began to envy her pleasant abandon. After a moment she said, “Laur, do you have a sweatshirt?”

“Yes.” Laura eyed her quizzically.

“Better put it on. The dorm is a damn deep freeze.”

Laura found the sweatshirt and pulled it over her head, and Beth led her up to the dorm. On the door was posted a wake-up chart with a pencil on a string hanging beside it. Beth signed Laura’s named under “6:45.”

“Think you can find your bed?” she asked.

“There it is,” said Laura, pointing.

“Okay, in you go,” said Beth.

Laura studied the upper bunk, which looked unattainable. “How?” she faltered.

Beth laughed quietly. “Well, look,” she said. “Put your foot on the rung of the lower bunk—no, no wait!—that’s right,” she said, guiding her. “Now, get your knee on the rung of the bed next door. Now, just roll in. Whoops!” she said, catching Laura as she nearly lost her balance. She gave her a push in the right direction. Laura rolled awkwardly onto her bunk, laughing with Beth.

Beth climbed up where she could see her and said, “You’ll catch on, Laur. Doesn’t take long.” She helped Laura under the covers and tucked her in, and it was so lovely to let herself be cared for that Laura lay still, enjoying it like a child. When Beth was about to leave her, Laura reached for her naturally, like a little girl expecting a good-night kiss. Beth bent over her and said, “What is it, honey?”

With a hard shock of realization, Laura stopped herself. She pulled her hands away from Beth and clutched the covers with them.

“Nothing.” It was a small voice.

Beth pushed Laura’s hair back and gazed at her and for a heart-stopping moment Laura thought she would lean down and kiss her forehead. But she only said, “Okay. Sleep tight, honey.” And climbed down.

Laura raised herself cautiously on one elbow so she could watch her leave the dorm. Beth went out and shut the door and Laura was left to her strange cold bed in the great dark dormitory. She felt cut loose from reality.

It took her a long while to get to sleep. Her nerves were brittle as ice and they all seemed to be snapping from the day’s pressure. She lay motionless on her back and studied the luminous checkers on the ceiling, laid there through the window by the light of the fire escape. She though of Beth: Beth beside her watching her, whispering to her, reaching out to touch her.

The stillness grew and lengthened and Laura lay in it alone with her thoughts. Far away on the campus the clock on the Student Union steeple pulsed twelve times through the waiting night. Laura pulled her covers tight under her chin and tried to sleep. She was just drifting off when she heard someone stop by her bed and she opened her heavy eyes and saw Beth outlined by the night light.

“Still awake?” she whispered.

“I’m sorry. I’m dropping off now.” Laura felt guilty; caught with her eyes open when they should have been shut; caught peeking at nothing; caught thinking of Beth.

“Just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

“Shhh!” hissed someone from a neighboring bed.

“Sorry!” Beth hissed back, and then turned to Laura again.

“Okay, go to sleep now,” she said, and she gave Laura’s arm a pat.

“I will,” Laura whispered.

Two (#ulink_e4abfc7c-db52-5b5f-9e8a-53de2d2b5757)

At six forty-five, Laura heard a soft voice whispering, “Time to get up, Laura.” She sat up immediately in her bed as if pulled by a wire, and looked over to see an unusually pretty face staring up at her.

“Thank you,” she said.

The face smiled and whispered, “Wow, are you easy to wake up!” and moved away.

Laura had a good morning. She spent a lot of it wondering about her strange desire for a good-night kiss from Beth, and hoping Beth hadn’t understood her sudden aborted gesture. At lunchtime she sat with everybody in the big sunny dining room, talking while she ate. She glanced over at Beth, who sat two tables away from her, and found Beth returning the look. Laura answered her smile and turned, in confusion, to prospecting for nuggets of hamburger in her chili.

After lunch they studied together for a while. Laura sat down with her book in a large green butterfly chair in the corner and struggled to get comfortable. She was still trying to conform to the incomprehensible chair when Emily ran in from the washroom, grabbed her coat and a notebook, and ran out again. Seconds later she was back.

“Hey Beth, if Bud calls tell him I’ll see him at Maxie’s at four.”

Beth pulled her reading glasses down to the end of her nose and looked over them. “Right,” she said.

“Thanks.” And Emily was gone.

Beth stared after her, shaking her head and smiling a little.

“What?” said Laura.

“I just don’t get it. Or rather, I get it but I don’t like it. He’s too crazy for her. Emmy needs a steadying influence.” She winked at Laura and turned back to her book.

Laura began to glance furtively at her, half expecting her to be looking back, and she was rather disappointed when Beth kept her nose in the book. After a while Laura gazed openly at her, resentful of the book that claimed all Beth’s attention. And then she forgot the book and thought only of Beth….

The two girls walked to their afternoon class together. It was a brisk day, snappy and sunny and invigorating. Beth walked with long, smooth strides. She liked to walk and she walked well, as if she were really enjoying her legs; enjoying the rhythmic cooperation between legs and lungs, crisp weather, space and speed. She had a lusty health that almost intimidated Laura, who was breathless with trying to keep up. And breathless, too, with pleasure at walking beside Beth.

They arrived in class five minutes late, and the instructor had already started his lecture. He interrupted himself to note, while gazing out the window with a wry smile, “Glad you could make it, Miss Cullison.”

Beth, slipping out of her coat, looked up at him with a grin. They were friendly enemies, she and the teacher; they liked to catch each other slipping up somewhere.

“I see,” he added, “you’re leading the innocent astray.”

Laura blushed in confusion. It scared her to see someone flirt with authority as Beth did: she expected to see the hallowed rules and traditions crash down on Beth and crush her, and when they didn’t she was as surprised as she was relieved. To Laura, the things Beth said and did were daring in the extreme. To Beth, who knew herself and people better, it was just a half-hearted revolt; a small-scale protest that was more in fun than in earnest. She didn’t want to be an out-and-out character any more than she wanted to be one of the herd, so Beth beat herself a path between the two. Laura was happy, when she saw the letter was from her father, that Beth and Emily weren’t in the room. Her divorced parents were a faraway sorrow she tried to pretend out of existence. She opened the letter slowly.

“Glad to hear you like your new home,” she read. “I understand Alpha Beta is a pretty good sorority.”

Yes, father. Pretty good. If you say so. She hated the way her father phrased things.

“Anyway,” the letter went on, “they had a good house when I was in school. Your roommates sound like nice girls, especially the Cullison girl. That’s the kind of friendship you should cultivate, Laura, with people who can really do you some good. This girl sounds like a real go-getter—president of the Student Union and etc. That’s quite an honor for a girl, isn’t it? She can probably do a lot for you—get you into the right activities and so forth. I’d treat her well, if I were you.”