And now this girl with her angel face reduced him to thoughts of love. It was pathetic that’s what it was, spoke up the Ned Sparks of his intellect. He drank down mental draughts for months on end. Then in one swoop, he was gone. One unknowing flap of eyelashes and he was a dead duck. From one extreme to the other.
Perhaps that was the cachet.
He stretched his body taut and then relaxed. He listened to the silence and made believe he was back in his army tent after a grueling day on the obstacle course. The branches rustling outside were the swaying Georgia pine tree branches high above. The mattress was softer than the ground but he could pretend. He fell asleep and dreamed that he was trying to get over to that chair by the record player. But people kept putting obstacles in the way and he couldn’t get close enough to see her face.
* * * *
He walked right by her in Sociology class.
He didn’t realize it for a second. It was only at the last moment that he recognized her and returned her smile hastily. Then, instead of taking the empty seat beside her, he walked back about five rows, his heart beating rapidly, cursing himself.
He looked at her after he sat down. Once she turned around and looked around the class room without looking at him. Maybe she disliked him, he thought. But why? He consulted memory. He hadn’t done anything particularly odious at Professor Walton’s house that night. Had he?
All through class he had the insane fear that when he got to speak to her he wouldn’t have the courage to ask her to attend the first Workshop play with him. His heart kept beating violently, his hand shook so that he couldn’t write his notes. When the class bell rang, he almost jumped out of the seat.
He got up shaking and went out of the room, heart thudding furiously. He stood in the hallway, waiting. If she comes out with a man, he thought, I’ll go mad and hurl myself out a window. Then, as he was reluctantly smiling at his own hopeless urges, she came out with two girls.
As she passed, he swallowed a lump in his throat and said, “May I see you a moment, Melissa?”
“Yes, “she said. And stood before him. He felt as though his legs were turning into water. Her lips were so red, her yellow sweater double pointed. Her green eyes directly on him.
“A friend of mine gave me a couple of tickets to the first Workshop play tomorrow night. I wondered if you’d care to go with me.” His mind did a double take and stared incredulously at the lie.
“Why I’d love to,” she said.
A warm wave of joy and relief flooded through him. He felt like tearing down the building, grabbing her in his arms and kissing her, shouting something noble.
“Fine,” he said.
“I don’t know whether they’ll let us stay out that late though,” she said, “We have freshman hours, you know.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” he said. The shaking was back. He felt like squirming and moaning.
“But I think they should let us out for that.”
“I should think they would.”
Damn! Howled his mind. Rational conversation when he wanted to crush her in his arms and kiss her lips and neck and eyes and shout—I love you Melissa! I don’t know why or how but suddenly I love you completely. I want you. I need you. Everything is meaningless but you. I love you Melissa!
He went to his next class, imagining himself pouring out all those tempestuous words in that motheaten hallway. It made him chuckle in spite of himself. He imagined his mother standing nearby, listening. That amused him even more.
When he called her that night, she told him she couldn’t go to the play. Quickly he suggested Saturday and she said yes.
The next night he went to the play with Lynn and didn’t go over to speak to Sally when he saw her.
Wednesday he sat in class with Melissa and they talked about trivial matters. All he found out about her was that she was seventeen and came from a small Illinois town whose name he immediately forgot.
They were to go on a hayride Saturday night.
* * * *
He called for her at seven. When she came down she had on blue jeans, a white silk blouse and a red corduroy jacket.
“Hello,” she said, smiling.
“Hi. How are you?”
“Fine. How are you”
They walked to the church and she told him about her family and her school going. At the church they waited in the basement for the trucks to come. The basement was crowded with young couples from the college.
Melissa took off her jacket while they waited. Erick noticed the soft contours of her breasts through the blouse. They were more graceful, more Grecian than Sally’s upright, swelling bust. But he tried not to think of Melissa sexually. It was different he told himself. The thought of holding her hand was almost a mountainous expectation. The expectancy of the first kiss was endlessly burning in him.
They went outside, holding hands when the trucks came.
“Gawd,” he said, “Here I visualized mountains of hay on a wagon and all we have is a few moldy straws on a truck floor,” she smiled.
They sat down inside the truck, their backs leaning against the sideboards. Dust rose from the thin layer of straw as people stumbled and trampled in the arranged themselves. Melissa didn’t like the dust. She sneezed once prettily and made a displeased face. Erick felt angry with everyone for making the dust.
The truck filled up fast. The couples were laughing and some of them started singing. His legs pressed against Melissa’s. There was a chain stretched across the top of the truck for the standees to hang onto.
“Walk it,” Melissa said to him.
“Wite a minnit,” he replied, “Wite till the vee-hickle is in motion.”
She laughed and her green eyes glittered from the light of the street lamp. And he loved her with all his heart.
They were all pressed and massed together. The motors started up and the trucks moved away from the church. The wind whistled overhead and swooped down to rub its cold fingers over them. Everyone huddled together in the lurching truck. Street lights winked down on them and were gone in a flash. The trucks roared through the cold night into the country.
After a while Erick took one of her hands and intertwined his finger’s with hers. She said nothing. It felt good to have her warm hand against his. It was getting quite cold now. Everyone slid around the floor, changing position and saying—brrrr.
There wasn’t much chance to talk. The rushing wind and the roar of the motor were too loud. All he could do was caress her hand and hope that she understood what he felt.
She leaned back and when he looked at her she was looking at the stars. He took her other hand and moved closer to her. Sometimes their heads rested against each other’s. And her hair blew down over her face and some of the long dark strands whipped in fragile tautness against his face. Oh God to kiss that black gossamer hair, he exulted, to feel that perfumed breath on my cheek!
He rested his head on her shoulder. She took back one of her hands, both, and brushed her hair back. Then she plunged them back into Erick’s hands and they held each other tightly.
The ride seemed endless. He had only a thin sweater and he was chilled before the trucks stopped. His feet were numb.
At last they rolled into a dark glade and everyone got up and stretched. He felt the warmth suddenly as the wind stopped blowing on them. He jumped down and held up his arms for her. His hands tightened under her warm armpits as she swung down.
They went into an open field.
No one seemed to know where to go. People stopped and waited for instructions. Melissa hesitated in front of him. He put his arms around her and crossed them over her stomach. She leaned back against his chest. He felt how soft her stomach was under his hands. He looked down and saw the swell of her young breasts through the silk blouse. He saw her face, the shining eyes, the cryptic half smile, the white flawless skin. She put her hands over his.
Then, out in the field, three bonfires flared up. And they moved out there with the rest of the cou
ples.
They stood in front of one yellow crackling blaze and thawed out. When it got too warm they moved away a little. He put his arms around her and she rested her cheek against his chest and looked into the fire. He hoped someone saw them there. He felt proud to stand there with her. For some reason he wished more than anything else that Lynn could be there watching them. He had tried to talk Lynn into getting a date for the hayride too but Lynn had only looked vaguely disgusted and gone back to his Gide.
Her warmth flowed into Erick. He looked up at the stygian sky, saw the stars clustered in the night, felt the heat toss against his face and the cold wind at his back. He saw the fireflies of sparks born in the flames and dying in a second in the cold blackness.
And, for a split second, he thought he had the complete meaning, the complete sensation of love and beauty.
It was a delight to forget intellect and philosophies and absolutes. It was wonderful to think only of love for a girl in his arms. He felt an awe at simple things. A sky above, a fire with young people around it, singing their well known songs, their faint voices rising up into the huge night. A girl and night and love. It was an end in itself. There was nothing more. And if, as the last efforts of his other mind would insist, it was all a trick of nature, then it was a pleasant jest. One that defied deep-sought analysis. One that he was, happily, not immune to.
Only briefly he wondered why he had never felt like this with Sally.
Someone called out for everyone to come and eat. Erick and Melissa went over and stood in line. His hands rested on her stomach again, her hands over his.
The line moved slowly. There was only the sound of feet shuffling on the ground, the wild crackle of the fires. He felt drawn into it all.
And, suddenly, as her hands caressed his in mute tenderness, a surge of emotion when through him. He tightened his clasp and felt her fingers tighten in turn. She moved her head a little as he kissed her temple, then her cheek. Then he pulled her around wildly, and pushed his mouth over hers, breaths hammering at his chest.
He straightened up dizzily. She was breathing heavily too. But they didn’t speak. All they did was hold hands tightly. It seemed as if words were out of place in the darkness and the coldness. As if theirs was some sort of primitive attraction, consummated before there were words to speak of it.
They stood before the fire again with frankfurter and coffee and doughnuts. And once she smiled at him but that was all.
It seemed only moments before they were going back.
He put his arms around her and her arm moved around his waist. They walked back through the tall grass to the truck. They sat on the hard floor again and he put his arm around her and she moved closer. Someone offered them part of a blanket and they huddled together under its heavy folds.
His hand went under her jacket and he felt her warm flesh through the silk blouse. He pressed against her, bent over and kissed her throat. It was so completely different from being with Sally. Maybe, he half guessed, the magic came from the silence, from the utter needlessness of words. It was almost as if they communicated by touch and looks and he, with his eyes, told her over and over that he loved her.
They walked from the church to her sorority house in dead silence except for a word here and there.
At the door to her house there was too much light and too many couples lined up, making love. He could only touch her hand before leaving. He asked her to go to the movies with him the next night. She said she had to study for a test Monday morning. He walked home muttering to himself. He loved her.
When he got home Lynn was still reading.
“Hello, Lover, “he said.
* * * *
Dear Sally, he wrote, I guess you’ve been wondering why I haven’t called you. I may as well tell you right off. It’s that girl we met at your singing teacher’s house; Melissa. I’m in love with her. I think it’s kinder to tell you right away. I can’t help it. But I have to see her as much as I can. I know you’ll understand. You always have.
When he dropped it in the mailbox he felt a jolt of prescience. He had an inclination to stand there until the mailman came and asking for it back. Why did he have to do it? He could have still seen Sally without telling her. Why did he always have a need to feel clarity in situation, a sense of one thing at a time? Why could he never combine and wait and see?
He wondered what Leo would say if she read the letter.
The afternoon of that day he accidentally mentioned it to Lynn. Lynn looked at him strangely. Then he shook his head and blew out a disgusted cloud of cigarette smoke.
“One down,” he said, “One to go.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Erick asked coldly.
“It means you’re a fool,” Lynn said.
Monday morning he sat next to Melissa. A girl friend wanted to sit by her to tell her something. When Melissa asked him to let her friend sit there he said no, smiling. This made her surly instead of pleasing her.
One of his jokes about small towns offended her. She wanted to know what was wrong with small towns; just because he lived in a big city that didn’t mean that …
He passed the day in a fog of agony. He couldn’t study. He called her five times at her house before he got her, each time feeling more absurd.
He tried to sound casual. He asked her to save him Saturday night. She told him that a friend’s brother was visiting the college for the weekend and she had to go out with him.
He stuttered a few words and then hung up and felt as if the walls were going to fall in on him. Rage built itself up. Oh, God, you stupid bastard, his unaffected mind yelled at him. What’s the matter with you!
“Where are you going?” Lynn asked as Erick threw on a coat dramatically.
“I don’t know.”
Erick heard her laughing as he slammed the door. Then he heard the door open quickly and Lynn called, “Wait, I’ll go with you.” But Erick went out the front door quickly and had turned the corner before Lynn got out of the house.
He paced the streets, muttering to himself. “Damn, damn!”
He couldn’t think straight for dreaming of her. What kind of stupid idiot was he? He had renounced romantic love for the ways of the mind. And then fell over dead with love at the first provocation. Ended up deep in the pit of it.
“Oh, Christ.”
He could see it all coming. Heartbreaks. Troubles. Her busy when he wanted to see her, when he had to see her. Her with other men. God! In love with someone else!
Or the other way. His love returned. Arguments and sleepless nights. Reconciliation. Him getting distant as her love became a thing of assurance, became taken for granted. More arguments. Her crying. More sleepless nights.
Oh Jesus, what a stupid world it was!
* * * *
A week passed. He stayed in Saturday night reading while Lynn slept. Later they went to a midnight show which he didn’t enjoy at all because he kept looking around for her all through it dreading the possibility that he might see her laughing with another man. He saw Leo in the back row with a man and turned away quickly, feeling ashamed.
Melissa’s friend was sitting next to her on Monday morning. He had to sit three rows behind her.
He left the class without talking to her although it almost tore out his heart. He made up his mind never to see her again. That night he called her seven times.
He finally got her to accept an invitation to see a concert at the college field house two weeks later. She told him she should really study that night and he wanted to scream at her—For Christ’s sake that’s two weeks from now! What the hell are you, a clairvoyant!
“I see,” he said, “I know you’ll enjoy the concert though.”
* * * *
Somehow, the two weeks passed. By the night of the concert he was weak with tortured thoughts. He felt stolid, beaten.
He called for her at seven thirty.
She wore the same dress she wore the night he met her at Professor Walton’s house.
He told her he liked at. She said it was the only good dress she had, in a tone that seemed to blame him for the situation.
He tried to think of something say as they walked toward the field house.
But everything he thought of he had said a dozen, a hundred times in his imagination. He had visualized so many conversations with her that there was nothing left. It was as though he had lived this moment already and now when it finally came he was bored and surfeited with it. Only the throbbing of his heart showed him that he was still excited by her.
They got to the field house and took two seats in the stands. With trepidation, he asked her if she’d mind moving two seats over so they could save two places for Lynn and his date.
Melissa looked annoyed. She clutched her coat and edged along the row. He thought he was going to scream.
They put their coats on the two extra seats. They looked around. Erick dreaded the thought of seeing Sally. He hoped she wasn’t there. He felt tight and ill at ease, afraid to speak. He went over every thought that occurred to him, turning it over reflectively in his mind to see if it could possibly offend Melissa if he spoke it.
Melissa took a small book from her handbag. It was a catalog from the University of Michigan.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“I’m going to transfer next semester,” she said.
His heart jolted.
“Wh-why?” he asked, wondering if his voice could possibly be as thin as it sounded.
“They have more to offer,” she said.
“Shucks,” he said, trying desperately to be flippant.
He looked over her shoulders. He noticed her breasts moving as she breathed. He felt a weighted, sickening sensation of loss. As if in the next second she were going to disappear completely and he would never see her again. He felt almost an uncontrollable urge to stroke her arms, put his hands on her body, kiss her, tell her he loved her.
“No grass on the campus,” he said, commenting on one picture in the catalog, “See? How can you go to a place with no grass on the campus.”
“As if that was so important,” she said disdainfully.
Melissa!