Daughters of Eve (15 page)

Laura Snow's parents were divorced. That was the main reason that Kelly had voted for her when she had been proposed as a prospective member of Daughters of Eve. She had felt so sorry for her. "The poor girl," she had said when the name had been raised. "Her folks are divorced, you know. No wonder she's fat; she probably compensates by overeating."

Laura's father lived in another state. She hardly ever saw him. He was remarried, Laura had said once, and there was a baby half brother whom she had never even seen. Would her own father remarry? Kelly wondered. It seemed likely that he would, since he was in love with somebody. Would there be a baby, another Johnson child living right here in Modesta? Would it look like Kelly and Chris, with a round, rosy-cheeked face and brown eyes and brows that almost met over its nose? Whose genes had produced that look, her father's or her mother's? "Those Johnson girls look so much alike," people were always saying. "They're two peas in a pod." Teachers who had had Kelly in middle school kept calling Chris by her name. "I keep forgetting," they apologized. "It's like having the same student twice."

Would they now have the chance to have the "same student" three times? Or four? Or even five? Would her father start all over again with a new life as though this first one had never existed?

And what about her mother?

What, in God's name, would happen to "her? What did a forty-year-old housewife do when there was suddenly no man to keep house for? Get a job? If so, what? There had been a discussion about this at one of the Daughters of Eve meetings. "When the middle-aged housewife gets forced into the job market," Irene had told them, "the male employer isn't going to excuse her lack of experience." Poor old housewife, Kelly had thought. Nice, kind, stupid Kelly Johnson, always concerned about the fate of the unfortunate, but never applying the facts to herself or to anyone close to her. Poor Mother. Why couldn't she show some compassion for her mother? She loved her mother, didn't she? Of course, she loved her. This was Mother, not some strange "other person" housewife—it was Mother—Mother—so why didn't she unlock this stupid door and go out into the hall and down the stairs to where her mother sat in the living room and put her arms around her and hold her and break through this terrible wall that held them both in check, so that they could cry together?

"You need your friends more than ever now," her mother had told her. Concerned about her. Loving her. Worrying over Kelly, not over herself. Wonderful, self-sacrificing Mother, and what had it gotten her? A load of crap, that's what. A load of crap, is what Bambi would call it—outspoken Bambi who called a spade a spade. Kelly had never called anything by an ugly, unladylike word like that. Words like "crap" weren't used in the Johnson household. Maybe that was why Bambi didn't have any hang-ups and Kelly did.

That's why she couldn't go down to her mother, Kelly told herself now. It was because she had a hang-up. A hang-up about being stupid, which, in its way, was just as terrible as being cruel, because both things hurt equally much in the long run. Her mother had trusted in love, and that was stupid. Her mother had built her whole life upon the premise that she was half of a perfect couple, and now she wasn't anything. She was a cartoon character, walking around the house, emptying ashtrays that didn't need emptying, cooking big meals that no one could eat, changing beds that didn't need changing, and it was all so stupid because she should have known. She should have known!

"It's the woman who gets it in the teeth," Irene had said. "Always." Calmly, she had said it, without anger, the words cold and careful. And now Kelly understood something she had not grasped before. The woman Irene had been talking about had been herself. The teacher who had been forced out of that Chicago school had not been a "friend" at all—she had been Irene. No wonder she knew—no wonder she had been trying to warn them!

"You need to talk to your friends," her mother had said. All right, then, she would do just that. She would talk to the one friend who would really understand the situation.

Kelly sat up on the bed. The record was still playing—or was it another record? She had piled them up so that they would continue dropping into place. No, it was still John Denver—"You fill up my senses..." He was singing "Annie's Song," the one he was supposed to have written for his wife. "Let me lay down beside you—let me give my life to you..."

"Bull," Kelly said aloud.

She got up from the bed and crossed to the door and unlocked it. She opened it and went down the hall to where the wall phone hung by the stairs. The sounds of the television drifted up the stairwell. Her mother and Chris were watching a play.

Irene's number was not in the book, since she had not been living in Modesta long enough to have made it into the last edition of the directory. Could she be located through Information? Sometimes teachers requested unlisted numbers so they would not be bothered by student phone calls during their off hours. But Irene was not that sort of person, Kelly knew. Irene was a friend, a sister.

Kelly dialed Information.

"Do you have a listing for Irene Stark?"

There was a pause. Then the operator read a number.

"Thank you "Kelly said.

She dialed the number carefully. It was not until the phone had begun to ring that she remembered that this was the night of the Homecoming Dance. Irene, as sponsor of Daughters of Eve, would be acting as one of the chaperones.

Well, so much for that, Kelly thought, as the phone continued to ring with no response. Then, just as she was ready to hang up, there was a sudden sharp click and Irene's voice, sounding hurried and breathless, said, "Hello?"

"Hello. This is Kelly." She could not believe her luck. "I thought you'd be at the dance."

"I was just going out the door," Irene explained. "I'm running a little late this evening. I'm sorry. Were you girls worried that I wasn't going to get there?"

"No, it's not that," Kelly said. "I'm not calling from the school. I'm at home. I just—just—" She did not know exactly how to continue. What was it that she did want anyway? Irene would think she was crazy.

"I just wanted to talk a little while," she finished lamely. "I'd forgotten what night it was. I don't seem to have my head together these days."

"Small wonder," Irene said sympathetically. "I don't really need to be at the dance until time for the presentation ceremony. Would you like me to come pick you up?"

"You don't have to do that," Kelly said hastily. "It isn't that important."

"I think it is. Needing to talk is very important." Irene spoke firmly. "You live on Third Street, don't you?"

"At one twenty-seven," Kelly said. "The big white house on the corner. Look, you don't have to—"

"I know I don't. Stop worrying, Kelly. There's no big problem. We can come back here to talk and later stop by the dance for the drawing. Put on a dress, why don't you, and I'll be by for you in about ten minutes."

"I wasn't planning on going to the dance," Kelly said.

"You might change your mind. If you decide not to, I can drop you back at your house on my way over to the school." She paused. When she spoke again it was quietly. "It's all right, my dear. I know what you're going through. I know all too well. You see, I've been through it also. When I was your age exactly, my father walked out on my mother and destroyed her completely. I've never forgiven him for his callousness, and I never will."

"He—destroyed her?" Kelly said shakily.

"She had a mental breakdown. She never recovered. You see, I know—" Her voice hardened. "I do know, Kelly, what it's like to have a father incapable of giving love. You're terribly hurt, aren't you?"

"Yes "Kelly said softly.

"And you'd like to punish him, wouldn't you? To make him suffer the way he is making you and your mother suffer? That's natural, Kelly. It's nothing to be ashamed of. For men, marriage is a game, something they can walk into and out of as the mood strikes. They think they can have it all without giving anything themselves. Women have to be tough to make it in this world, Kelly. Women have to band together, because when it comes right down to it, our women friends are all we have."

At 10:30 P.M. the three-piece band took its break, and Mr. Shelby, the principal of Modesta High, announced the results of the elections for Homecoming Queen. Peter Grange proudly escorted a smiling Bambi Ellis to the front of the gym to don her crown and conduct the drawing for the prizes that had been donated in support of the athletic fund.

Most of the winners were not present for the drawing. The exception was Tammy Carncross's parents, who were chaperoning. They received a set of stainless steel steak knives.

"Now all we need are the steaks to go with them," Mrs. Carncross said gaily as her husband returned from his trip to the band platform to collect the prize.

"Look on the bright side. There's no law that says we can't use them on hamburger."

"The way I fry hamburger, I'd say that's a good idea."

They laughed together. Lil Carncross's hamburgers were a family joke.

"It's just that hamburgers are such dull things to cook," she would explain apologetically after each disaster. "They lie there in the pan doing nothing for so long that your mind starts to wander, and the next thing you know they've taken off on you and turned to charcoal."

After twenty years of marriage, Dan Carncross accepted his wife's wandering mind in the same way that he accepted the dreamy eyes that floated soft and unfocused behind the lenses of her horn-rimmed glasses and the disarray of curly hair that would not lie in one direction. They supplied a certain winsomeness in sharp contrast with the image of the professional journalist whose witty commentaries on small-town life appeared on the pages of national magazines.

"Congratulations!" Ann Whitten called as she worked her way toward them through the crowd. "That's what Dave and I were hoping to win, but Bambi flubbed it. She didn't pull our ticket!"

"You're the ones who should be congratulated," Mrs. Carncross said warmly to the bright-faced girl and the broad-shouldered young man beside her. "I haven't seen you to talk to since the announcement in the paper. Will it be a June wedding?"

"It was going to be," Ann said, "but plans have changed a little. Now we're thinking more like a year from this coming Christmas."

"Ann's won herself a scholarship to art school," Dave Brewer told them. "A real well-known one in Boston. It seemed like too good a chance for her to turn it down."

"That's great, Ann," Dan Carncross said. "I didn't have any idea you were applying for something like that."

"Well, actually I didn't," Ann said. "Miss Stark is the one who did it. She mailed in some of my sketches. It seems she studied under Mr. Griffith, the head of the institute, back when she was in college. She wrote and recommended me. I almost fell over when I learned about it. I still can't believe it. It's like a miracle."

"Which reminds me, I've never seen the miracle woman," Lil Carncross said. "All you girls talk about Miss Stark so much, I'd like a look at her. Is she here tonight?"

"She was supposed to be chaperoning, but I haven't seen her," her husband said.

"Oh, she's here now," Ann told them. "She came in just a minute ago with Kelly. That's another miracle. Tam and I tried and tried to get Kelly to come tonight, and she wouldn't even discuss it. Then, somehow, Irene got hold of her and got her here.

"There she is, Mrs. Carncross. That's Irene up there on the edge of the platform, talking to Bambi. They must be getting ready for the presentation."

"The woman in green?" Lil stood on her toes, steadying herself with a hand on her husband's shoulder to get a better view. "My goodness! She's certainly not what I expected."

"What did you expect?" Dan Carncross asked with interest.

"Wonder Woman, I suppose, from Tammy's description. Actually, I guess I pictured her as one of those swinging young teachers right out of their education classes, the kind the kids relate to so easily. Pretty, and very mod. Bambi Ellis, as she'll be five or six years from now."

"She's surely not that!" Ann said, laughing. "But I think she's awfully attractive in her own special way. And she understands us all so well, it's like she was one of us. If you're mixed up about something, Irene can sort it out so that it makes sense, and all of a sudden everything falls right into place."

"What's Fran doing up there?" Mr. Carncross asked.

"As club president, she's going to be with Bambi when she makes the presentation. Paula is too. She's our token athlete. It was her idea to—oh, there they go now! They're going to start!"

Fran and Paula were mounting the steps at the side of the bandstand to join Bambi at the microphone.

The Queen reached up a graceful hand to adjust the weight of the crown and smiled at her audience. "Will Mr. Shelby and Coach Ferrara please come forward?"

There was a hum of friendly chatter as the young people on the dance floor parted to make a path so that the two men could reach the front of the gym.

"Did you girls do well with your raffle this year?" Lil Carncross asked Ann in a low voice.

"Just great! Much better than last year."

"Ferrara will be happy about that," Mr. Carncross commented. "Those warm-up suits the basketball team's wearing are just about in shreds."