Daughters of Eve (5 page)

"Laura Snow is as nice a girl as you'll find anywhere," Ruth said defensively. "She can't help it if she's overweight. It runs in the family."

"I bet that's the only thing that 'runs,'" Niles said. "Old Laura looks as though she can hardly waddle."

"Oh, come off it, Niles," Peter said lightly, zeroing in on the conversation for the first time. "Laura's not so bad if you like them well padded. She's got a couple of good points in her favor."

"Good points!" Niles burst into laughter. "Hey, Pete, that's a hot one! Good points!"

"Boys, stop that," their mother scolded. "That's not the land of talk I like to hear at the dinner table. Ruthie, I'm sure this is a lovely club. That's not the issue. The problem is that you are needed at home in the afternoons."

"Darned right," Mr. Grange said firmly. "Your mother's only human. She can't hold down a full-time job, do all the housework, and get dinner on the table at a decent hour without some help. Besides that, we can't have Eric coming home to an empty house. He's only nine, and he needs some supervision."

"It's only one afternoon a week," Ruth protested.

"That's one afternoon too many if last Monday is any indication," her father said. "When we got home that evening, this place was a shambles—breakfast dishes still in the sink, dinner not started, and Eric and his friends had burst one of the sofa cushions playing catch with it in the living room. Your mother and I don't need to face that sort of mess at the end of a long, hard day."

"Besides, it wouldn't be 'one afternoon a week,'" Mrs. Grange said. "I know what school clubs are like. There'll be after-school projects and parties, bake sales and poster-making and decorating the gym for dances and Lord knows what all else. Please don't badger us, Ruthie. It just can't be managed."

"That's not fair!" Ruthie cried. "Why can't the boys do some of the work around this place? All they do is mess up, and I'm stuck with all the—"

"Oh, Sis, cut it," Peter said briskly. "Niles and I aren't about to go into training to become housewives."

"There'll be no more discussion, Ruthie. The subject is closed." Mr. Grange laid his knife and fork side by side on his plate and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "What's for dessert?"

Laura Snow lay back in the bathtub, letting the scented water grow tepid around her as she relived the events of the day. It had been, without doubt, one of the happiest days of Laura's life. Actually, all of her days had been happy since the arrival of the magical invitation two weeks before, but this particular day had been filled with one sparkling moment after another.

First there had been the invitation to Holly Underwood's seventeenth birthday party a week from Saturday. It was the first party Laura had been asked to since she started high school. Then, between first and second period, Ann Whitten had beckoned to her in the hall and drawn her aside for a whispered disclosure.

"Dave and I are engaged!" she had told her ecstatically. "We haven't told anybody yet except our parents, but I wanted my sisters in Daughters of Eve to know about it. Oh, Laura, I'm so happy!" She had given Laura a quick hug and run off down the hall calling, "Miss Stark? Can you wait a minute? There's something I want to tell you!" and Laura had carried the glow of the wonderful secret around with her for the rest of the day, incredulous that she had been among the ones chosen to share it.

At noon she had carried her sack lunch to the cafeteria and found herself at a table with Fran Schneider and Paula Brummell. They had laughed and chattered and included Laura in their conversation as though she were truly one of them, a friend and a sister, and on her way back to class Paula had asked her if she would like to be on the social services committee to investigate the needs at the Modesta nursing home.

"Kelly and I are going out there next Tuesday," Paula had said. "Then we'll make up a list of suggestions for things the club can do to help out, and we'll present it at the next meeting. Do you think you could go with us?"

"Why, yes, I'd like to a lot," Laura had said, and Paula had exclaimed, "Oh, great," with real enthusiasm in her voice, and had said, "I'll call you tonight about the details."

But the crowning event of the day, the one she had saved in her mind until last to savor at the end of her reverie, had occurred when she walked home from school with Ruth Grange. It was strange, when she stopped to think about it, that they had not walked home together before, because they lived within two blocks of each other, but somehow this had never happened, and today when Ruth had called, "Hey, wait for me!" Laura had thought at first that she had meant somebody else.

But a moment later Ruth had caught up with her and fallen into step beside her, as though they were old friends who had made this walk together with regularity. Within minutes they had been chatting easily and naturally like just such friends.

When they reached her gate, Laura said impulsively, "Do you want to come in for a while?" and felt her heart sink as Ruth shook her head.

But then she realized that she was not really being rejected.

"I've got to get home to baby-sit my lad brother," Ruth told her. "Why don't you come to my place? You can keep me company while I shovel a path through the kitchen."

"Shovel a path?" Laura repeated in bewilderment

"Have you ever seen the mess three boys can leave in the mornings?" Ruth grimaced. "If you haven't, you've got a real experience ahead of you. Come on."

So they had walked the short distance from the Snow home to the Granges', and had entered the house, and Peter had been there. He was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream, with the sports section of the morning paper propped up in front of him.

As the girls came in, he glanced up and said, "Hi."

"Hi, yourself," Ruth said. "Laura, this is my brother Peter. The one with his head in the refrigerator is my second brother, Niles. And my third brother, Eric, will be charging in here pretty soon now, and at that point you'll probably decide you want to go home."

"I know Laura from algebra class," Niles said without turning around. "Hello, Laura."

"Hello," Laura said, but she could not tear her eyes from Peter. In all the daydreams she had had about him, she had missed this scene—Peter in his' own home kitchen, greeting her casually with the wave of a sticky spoon.

The empty ice-cream carton lay on the counter, oozing brown liquid from its open end. Ruth picked it up and put it into the garbage pail.

"It looks like the human disposal here has managed to put away what was left of the ice cream, but we have some Cokes and I hope we've still got some cookies. Sit down, Laura, and I'll see what I can dig up for us."

"That's all right," Laura said. "I really don't want anything."

"Of course you do," Peter said pleasantly. "You haven't lived till you've had some of my sister's cookies, fresh from the package. She opens the cellophane with a flick of her nimble wrist. So, sit down and tell me all about yourself. What's a nice girl like you doing with a twirp like Ruth?"

And for the next few minutes, until he had finished his ice cream, she had sat at the table across from Peter Grange, and they had talked. Now, in the rapidly cooling water of the bath, Laura tried to recall exactly what it was they had said to each other, but no words came back to her—only Peter's face: that handsome, movie-star face, with the dark hair curling over the forehead and the brown eyes smiling out at her from beneath the heavy lashes. He had freckles on his nose. She had not realized that before. They didn't show up at a distance, but when you sat directly in front of him, you could see them spattered lightly under his summer tan.

Then, too quickly, it was over. Niles had said, "Hey, Pete, we told the guys we'd meet them back at the gym to shoot some baskets," and Peter had said, "Okay, okay, don't split a gut"

He had shoved the bowl into the center of the table and gotten lazily to his feet.

"Great ice cream, Ruthie. You cook better every day. So long, Laura. See you around."

"See you around." Laura repeated the words softly" to herself, trying to remember the exact inflection of Peter's voice. Was it as casual as it seemed, or might it, perhaps, have been a question? "See you around?" Could it have been meant that way—"Will I see you, Laura?" If so she should have answered in some encouraging manner. "I hope so," she should have said, or, "That would be nice." What had she said? She couldn't remember. Something nothingish. Maybe she hadn't answered at all, as when he had said it he was already halfway to the door.

Not that it mattered, because, of course, it hadn't been a question. Everybody knew that Peter dated Bambi Ellis, and no boy who went out with Bambi could possibly have an interest in a fat nobody like Laura Snow.

There was a rap at the bathroom door, and her mother's voice called in to her, "Laura? You haven't drowned in there, have you, baby?"

"No," Laura said. "I'm just about ready to get out."

"That's good, because you had a phone call. I took the number and said you'd call back when you were out of the tub."

"Who was it?" Laura was surprised to hear her voice emerging in a hoarse whisper. It would not carry through the door. She drew a long breath and tried again. "Who was it, Mama?"

For a moment her heart stopped beating.

"It was somebody called Paula," her mother told her. "She wanted to talk about going to the nursing home."

Laura let her breath out in a sigh.

The living room was dark except for the muted glow of the end-table lamp. At the edge of this circle of light there lay a shattered ashtray. The coffee table had been overturned; the shelves of the bookcase by the door had been swept clean, and books lay scattered about in the shadows like bodies on a deserted battlefield.

"Is it over?" Jane asked.

The figure stretched on the sofa raised her head.

"It's over," Ellen Rheardon said. "What are you doing down here? I thought you were sleeping."

"I was," Jane said from her position in the doorway. She glanced nervously about the quiet room. "Where is he?"

"I don't know. Gone out somewhere to cool off, I guess."

"Are you all right?" Jane came into the room and crossed to stand, looking down at her mother. "Your mouth is bleeding. Do you want me to get some ice?"

"I've got some in this towel," her mother told her. "It'll keep down the swelling. I'll look all right by Sunday."

"What's then?"

"You know—the church potluck."

"That's right. I'd forgotten." For a moment Jane continued to stand there beside her; then she drew away and sat down in her father's armchair. She leaned back against the headrest and caught the faint odor of lemon hair tonic and pipe tobacco, and for an instant she thought she was going to throw up.

She drew a deep breath.

"Mother," she said quietly, "when are you going to leave him?"

"I don't know," her mother said in a flat, emotionless voice. "I've asked myself that a lot of times, and I never have an answer. Next week? Next month? Ten years from now? And then what happens? Where would I go? What would I have without your father?"

"You'd have—yourself."

"Myself? What's that?" Mrs. Rheardon said wearily. "Face it, Jane, I don't have any self except what your father's given me. I married him when I was eighteen years old, and I thought I'd hit the jackpot. A handsome man—a college graduate—a lawyer, for heaven's sake—what else could any girl ask for? I was so much in love my head was swimming with it. We settled here in my own hometown, and he took the job with the bank. We built this house, and it was all so wonderful, and somehow it all got out of hand. I started irritating him. He should have married somebody smarter, somebody more like himself, and then he'd be happier."

"Mother, don't," Jane said. "It's not you who's responsible. There's something terribly wrong with Dad. Normal people don't act this way. What set him off tonight? Your watching television? Some book he couldn't find when he wanted it? I'll bet you can't even remember, can you, it was so minor."

"What does it matter what it was?" her mother asked her. "So it's one thing—so it's another—it's Friday night and he's tired. He works hard all week, Jane, and he's under a lot of pressure. He comes home, and he feels he has to let off steam, get it out of his system—"

"You're defending him," Jane said incredulously. "My God, Mother, how can you lie there with blood smeared all over your chin and defend somebody who hit you in the face!"

"He didn't mean to," her mother said.

"Of course he meant to!"

"In his heart, he didn't. It was his temper that got away from him. Hell be sorry tomorrow, just see if "he isn't—the way he was sorry a couple of weeks ago about how he acted about Daughters of Eve. He apologized for that, didn't he, and he said you could join? He begged you to join. He had tears in his eyes, and he said, 'Janie, chicken, I'm sorry. You go out and buy yourself a new dress for that initiation meeting, and I don't care how much it costs.'"

"And he brought you a corsage."

"Yellow roses. My favorites. That's what I carried in my bridal bouquet, Jane—yellow roses."

"So you had your corsage, but you couldn't wear it anywhere because your face was so banged up you couldn't leave the house." Jane shook her head in bewilderment. "So you forgave him. And tonight it happened again, and tomorrow you'll forgive him, and maybe hell bring you another corsage, and if the swelling goes down you'll wear it to the potluck, and everybody will 'oooh' and 'ahhh' and say, 'Isn't that the most romantic thing,' and you and Dad will be holding hands and smiling at each other, and—"