Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers (8 page)

“It is not like that at all.”

“What is it like then?”

“I don't know how to describe it. What does it matter?”

“What about summers?” Ann asked. “What do you do during summers?”

“I weed, I harvest. My brother and I also raise chickens.”

“Raise chickens? How do you raise chickens?

“Oh, well, we buy the chicks. There is a woman in Huger Ford who will hatch out the eggs for us in June. Then, we feed them over the summer as they grow. In August, we sell them to the dealer.”

“What do you mean, sell them to the dealer, how do you transport them?”

“That is simple. We pack the truck bed with ice and straw, and put the chickens upon that. You must do it early in the morning, or they will spoil.”

“They're dead?”

“Of course, she does not want them alive.”

Ann couldn't see it. Hildy eluded her imagination. “How do you do it?” she asked. Meaning, how could you bring yourself to kill another living creature.

“I hold the chicken down and my brother cuts off the head. That is quick. Then we dip them into boiling water and pluck them. That is the part we don't like. You must work fast, and you are covered with sweat and feathers. Usually, he will gut the carcasses and take off the claws while I pluck.”

Ann stared into Hildy's face, trying to see it in a place, the slaughter, the evisceration, the defoliation, and Hildy's face and hands working. Niki interrupted: “It's not the kind of thing our Annie likes to think about,” she said. “Annie thinks chickens emerge, somehow, by spontaneous creation, as fryers
and roasters, breasts and drumsticks. She doesn't want to hear about how they get to the grocer's, Hildy.”

“That's not it,” Ann protested. Sometimes, she thought Niki deliberately misunderstood; only, of course, Niki was too close to being right.

“Isn't it?” Niki asked, her chin jutting at Ann. She explained to Hildy: “She'll never understand. She doesn't really want to.”

“Then why does she ask about it?”

Niki couldn't answer.

But Ann couldn't have answered either, because what she had found out did not enlighten her about what she wanted to understand. She noticed, however, that Niki also questioned Hildy. In a different way but, Ann suspected, to the same purpose.

“Why do you talk so funny?” Niki demanded.

“Do I?” Hildy asked, looking up blankly at her dark roommate. Ann also lifted her head from a book to follow this conversation.

“Can't you hear it?” Niki asked. “You do. Ask Annie.”

The face turned to Ann, who offered, “Not exactly funny, but—”

“You do talk funny and your mother dresses you weird,” Niki announced.

“You understand what I say,” Hildy answered.

“I wouldn't be too sure of that,” Niki muttered.

“Why not?” Hildy asked.

Niki couldn't answer that, either. The expression on her face was part interest, part rage. Hildy went back to her work, but raised her head after a few minutes to say, “I think, sometimes, there is so much talking here. At home, we are working and there is no need to speak. In the evenings, my father will read to us from the Bible, while I sew and my brothers oil the machinery or replace the rushes on the chairs. Of course,” she added, “that is only in the winter In the summer we go to sleep.”

“What about at school?” Niki demanded. “You must have talked to people at school.”

“No.” Hildy shook her head. “To my friend when she was free from class. Not often.”

“What about the other kids?”

“What should I talk with them about? We were there to learn.”

“Didn't anybody ever tell you you talk funny?” Niki demanded.

“Oh yes,” Hildy said.

“What did you say?”

“I asked if they could understand me,” Hildy answered patiently, “and like you, they said yes.”

Niki snorted, shook her head either in amazement or affection. Ann wasn't sure.

“But,” Hildy continued, “my mother does not dress me. I dress myself.”

Days went by, weeks, and Ann continued to wonder About Hildy. And Niki. And Ann.

♦   ♦   ♦

They met people, they ate and slept and washed their faces, they read and wrote and sometimes thought; while around them the fall deepened its colors and brought variety to the landscape. Later, all this blurred together in Ann's memory, while the volleyball games remained vivid.

Ann did sign up to take volleyball. The freshman volleyball class met three times a week, as did all freshman sports classes, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, from four to five. They shared the gym with the sophomore volleyball class. They also shared the instructor.

The instructor was a graduate student from the Education Department who knew, or so she said, “not much about volleyball but lots about teaching.” On the firt day of class, she was joined by the chairman of the Physical Education Department, Mrs. Franklin, who coached juniors and seniors. Mrs. Franklin explained the volleyball ladder, its system of challenges and the time allowed for responses. All classes played within the ladder for the ten-week sports semester At the end, the top freshman team would hold the Freshman Cup, the top sophomore team the Sophomore Cup, and so on.

Niki raised her hand. “The team on the top of its ladder. Can it challenge a team from another class?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Franklin said. “You can challenge one step above you. Although I should tell you, such challenges are seldom successful, not even in some of the more popular sports, where the contest can be quite close. For example,
many preparatory schools now offer good training in hockey and tennis, but even so, cross-class challenges don't succeed. And volleyball—well, it isn't the kind of sport taken by those who take athletics seriously, is it? Or by competitive girls. I'm not insulting anyone, am I?” She nodded her smiling face around the circle. Hildy raised her hand.

“Yes?” asked Mrs. Franklin.

“What?” responded Hildy.

“You had a question.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Why was your hand raised?”

“You asked if you were insulting anybody, and I raised my hand,” Hildy explained.

The circle tittered. The chairman's face grew pink. The graduate student entered the conversation: “I'm sure Miss—”

“Koenig,” Hildy said. She raised herself to her knees and extended her right hand. “How do you do?”

“Miss Koenig meant no disrespect,” the assistant addressed the chairman over her shoulder, as she leaned to shake Hildy's hand.

“Of course not,” Hildy said. “I would not mean disrespect. I meant to answer the question.”

“Ah. Has the disrespect come home to roost?” Niki employed her stage whisper.

“Well,” Mrs. Franklin said, her eyes searching the group.

“Does that answer your question about the ladder?” the assistant hastily asked Niki.

Niki nodded her head.

The chairman left them then and the assistant instructed them to form themselves into four teams. This they did, with five people left over. The assistant placed those five people on one team or another and tossed two balls toward the two courts. “Go ahead and play,” she said. For good measure she gave a toot upon her whistle before turning her attention to the sophomore teams, who had a game in progress.

Niki's face gleamed with laughter. Ann, pulled into a team from the sidelines where she had been quite content, stood uselessly by a pole. Eloise was there, and the lovely blonde, Sarah, and Carol the redhead. Ann greeted Trudy Wallenbach, who had earned the reputation at the Hall of being the least athletic person there in its entire fifty years. On the same team
as Ann was the brown-haired girl she had noticed at Sunday's game, Bess, and a friendly girl named Ruth whom she'd seen in her science class. They played out the remaining time of that first class. Ann volleyed two balls, both badly.

At the next session, Ann noticed Hildy talking with the assistant, who alternated shrugs with nods with glances at her watch with reassuring remarks to the sophomores. Hildy returned from the conversation and proceeded to divide the freshman group into beginners and experienced players. Ann, Eloise, and Trudy were among the beginners. They were instructed in the basic overhand and underhand shots. Ten of them practiced these, while the remaining nineteen played a game on the other court.

Midway through the class, Carol and Hildy came to the beginners' court. “We're going to play a game,” Hildy said.

“What are
they
doing?” asked Trudy.

“Drilling, set and spike,” Carol answered. “Can you get into your places? Do you know what the places are? There, and there; that's right. I'll play with this side, OK, Hildy?”

Ann stood between Hildy and Eloise. Hildy switched Ann and Eloise around. They began a point.

“Pass it forward,” Hildy urged, while from the other side of the net Carol's voice advised, “Move where it's going to go. Hands ready.”

The points they played were neither elegant nor exciting, but were played as well as their skills permitted. Ann enjoyed herself, concentrating on the ball as it descended to her waiting palms, trying to send it forward, then sideways to Eloise at the net. “Yes, that's it,” somebody said.

On the opposite side, Trudy ran into Carol, toppling her over and then tripping, not over the body of her downed teammate but, incredibly, on her own ankles. “What are you doing?” Carol cried. Her face reddened, the freckles framed in white. “What's your name?” she demanded.

Trudy hunkered up on her hams. She twined her arms around her long calves. “Trudy. Wallenbach. I'm sorry. Are you all right? I just—”

“Try that point again?” Hildy called. “Our serve, isn't it? How about pulling your back line further forward?”

Carol nodded. The game went on.

With Hildy on their side, Ann felt an uplifting of spirits. She
was able, she discovered, to think before she made a play, as long as she concentrated her eyes on the descending ball. Ann sensed that Hildy knew what she was thinking, what play she would make, not so difficult, after all, when Ann knew only two plays, sideways or forward. But the four other girls also seemed able to know what she was thinking. And more surprising, she was able to guess what they would do too. Ann listened for Hildy's quiet instructions. “Move up.” “Cover me.” “Somebody back Eloise.”

They were winning, easily, until Hildy switched sides. Carol was not as good a player, missed more hard shots and passed less exactly. At the end of the session, Ann said to Hildy: “That was fun. Did you mind not playing?”

“I did play,” Hildy said.

“When can
we
learn to spike?” Trudy asked.

Carol's eyebrows raised. “Ten years? Maybe eight.”

“Next week, I think,” Hildy said. “It's soon, but I think that's the way we'll do it. Don't you, Carol?”

“If you say so.” Carol was unconcerned. “It's your problem.”

They gathered up sweaters and jackets and said good-bye to the instructor Outside the heavy gym doors, the evening was turning violet and crisply cool. “It's Thursday the next practice, isn't it?” Hildy said. “Shall we do it the same way?” Murmurs of agreement sounded.

Niki turned to Ann: “Stick around. I'll show you how to spike.”

“Now?”

“We've got an hour 'til dinner. You could begin. You're coordinated enough.”

“I'd like that,” Ann said, surprised at Niki, surprised at herself. “I've only got Greek for tomorrow, and that philosophy reading. What about you, Hildy?”

“No. I must study.”

“If I may, I think I would like to stay on a little,” Eloise said.

“Who're you?” demanded Niki.

“Eloise Golding. Niki Jones,” Ann introduced them.

“Another preppie,” Nike said.

Eloise could make her face expressionless, more bland and square even than ordinarily. Ann had observed this and, for a
second, despised Eloise and wished she would leave them. Then she despised herself. And Niki.

“I've got to go, I remembered,” Eloise said.

“Stay anyway. What the hell,” Niki said. “We'll need three people. You can fetch.”

Eloise hesitated.

“C'mon!” Niki was impatient. “First you say you do and then you say you can't. What is it with you?” Eloise plodded back into the gym.

Niki showed Ann how to jump, revolve her body, and bring her hand down. She passed some balls to Ann, who attacked them. Sometimes Ann connected, sometimes she missed, sometimes she succeeded only in sending the ball weakly over the net. “It's like serving,” Niki finally said. “You can do better than this.”

“No, I can't.”

“Then you can set for me.” Niki was not interested in Ann's frustration.

“No thanks. I'll fetch. Eloise, do you want to set or go?”

Eloise agreed to try setting. Ann passed the ball over the net, to Eloise. Eloise hit it up, a low, floating curve; Niki pounded it into Ann's court. Ann gave up lunging for it after two tries, and just ran after it. They did this many times.

“I'm going to shower now,” Niki said. “Thanks, Eloise.”

Eloise nodded.

Ann joined Eloise. Unthinking, Eloise sent the ball up into the air and Ann, recognizing it as an easy shot, spiked it. Her spike was the best she had yet done.

“Hey,” Ann said. “Can you do that again?”

Eloise fetched the ball and repeated her shot. The ball came down at another point of the net, but it was where Ann could comfortably approach it and bring her fist down on it. They did this several times before Ann said, “Eloise, you're good at this. No, I mean it. You put the ball consistently into the right place. Spiking's like serving, where if you don't have the toss right, you
can't
serve well. Eloise, you're a secret weapon.”