Ivy Secrets (11 page)

She pressed a finger to her aching temple. “Mother, there is one small problem.” She stared at the wall, wondering when the music’s vibrations would send her macramé wall hanging crashing to the floor.

“What is it, darling? Is the food terrible? I’ll speak to the alums about that.”

“No Mother, the food is fine. But it’s my headaches. They’ve come back.”

“Are you taking your medication?”

“Yes, but it can’t keep up with the noise. I know how much you loved living in the Quad, but it’s too noisy here for me.”

“But, darling, the noise is part of the fun.”

“You were here in the fifties, Mother. You didn’t have rock music.”

“We had Bo Diddley. And Buddy Holly.”

“Not exactly Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.”

“Who?”

Tess stifled a groan. “Mother, I can’t study. I can’t concentrate.”

Her mother laughed. “If you want to study, go to the library. Living in the Quad is important.” The tone of her mother’s voice was beginning to turn from enthusiastic to apprehensive, which is how it sounded whenever she was bracing herself for Tess to drop another bomb.

“Mother,” Tess said slowly, “I want to move. I want to live in another house. A quieter one.”

Silence hung on the line. Finally, her mother spoke. “We paid a lot of money for you to live in the Quad.”

Tess sighed. Outside her room, the music had changed. Santana now rang through the corridors. “I have to move,” Tess said. “If you won’t let me move, I’ll have to leave Smith.”

“You cannot leave Smith.” Her mother sounded
stunned, as though Tess had suggested she should commit mass murder.

“I will leave, Mother. Unless I can move from the Quad.” She held her breath, aware that her heart was beating too quickly. She hated disappointing her mother. She was always disappointing her mother.

“All right. I’ll make arrangements in the morning.”

After hanging up the phone, Tess hugged her pillow hard. She would try harder. She would stay at Smith, and next year, when Peter returned to Amherst, she would wear the polyester pantsuits and the sable brown mascara. Maybe he would even fall in love with her. Then, she would finally have made her mother happy.

    The following Saturday, Tess packed her bags and moved across campus to the fourth floor of Morris House. The building was old, the amenities few, the laundry facilities in the basement scary. But most of the girls here wore little makeup and dressed in faded jeans and flannel shirts. For Tess, it was love at first sight.

While she was hanging Georgia O’Keeffe watercolor curtains at her new windows, there was a knock on her open door. She turned from her position atop a desk chair and recognized the girl from English 101. “Hey,” Tess called. “Do you live here?”

She nodded. “I thought you were in the Quad.”

“Too noisy.” Tess stepped down. “I forgot your name.”

“Charlie. Charlie O’Brien.”

“Charlie. Right.”

“Would you like a hand with those curtains?”

Tess smiled. No one at the Quad had ever offered any help of any kind, in any way. She was definitely going to like Morris House. “Thanks, but I’m finished. Where’s your room?”

“Across the hall. In the double.”

“This is great. You can help me with my grammar.”

Charlie laughed. “I was thinking about getting a pizza tonight. Would you like to join me?”

“Sure. Why not. Do you have a roommate?”

Charlie looked at Tess a moment. “Well, yes. But she’s out tonight.”

“On a date? Wow,” Tess said, then had an instant fear that her early assessment of the Morris House girls might have been wrong: They could merely be Quad Bunnies on a budget. “It didn’t take her long to find someone.”

“What do you like on your pizza?”

“The works,” Tess replied, wondering why Charlie had ignored her last comment, but decided it didn’t matter. The important thing was that Tess seemed to have found one person at Smith who wasn’t a snob, even though she was certainly pretty enough to be.

    They sat on the floor of Charlie’s room eating pizza, listening to Carole King. About nine o’clock, the door opened.

“It smells like a deli in here,” came a husky voice from the hallway.

A girl peeked around the corner into Charlie’s room. She had the most gorgeous face and magnificent black hair that Tess had ever seen.

“Oh,” the voice with the beautiful face said. “I didn’t know you had company. Sorry.” Her words carried an accent Tess didn’t recognize. It wasn’t Boston and it certainly wasn’t Brooklyn.

“Come meet our new neighbor,” Charlie called when the girl began to back out.

She hesitated in the doorway.

“She just moved in across the hall,” Charlie continued. “This is Tess. We’re in English class together. Tess, this is …”

Tess watched Charlie look quickly from one girl to the other. “This is Marina.”

“Want some?” Tess offered, gesturing to the now soggy cardboard box that sat between them. “There’s a couple of pieces left.”

Marina shook her head. “I have studying to do.”

“How was your date?” Tess asked. Something about Charlie’s easy acceptance made Tess brave enough to be friendly.

“My date? Oh. Well, it was fine. Nice to meet you, Tess.”

Marina disappeared around the corner, into the other room of the suite. It may have been the accent, the perfectly
put-together clothes, or the confident strut with which she exited … whatever it was, Tess suddenly realized who Charlie’s roommate was: Marina Marchant,
Princess
Marina Marchant. She had heard the princess was going to school here; she had no idea she’d be living on campus, and certainly not at Morris House, in a double room, no less.

Tess picked a piece of pepperoni off a now lukewarm pizza slice. “You didn’t tell me your roommate was the princess,” she whispered. “Jesus, I moved out of the Quad so I could be around real people.”

Charlie smiled.

“I heard that,” came the accented voice from the other room.

Tess swallowed the pepperoni, and her embarrassment. “Sorry,” she answered to the wall. She looked at Charlie and made a face. “Sorry,” she mouthed.

Charlie shrugged.

Tess knew that, among other flaws, she also lacked the graciousness her mother had tried to impress upon her. Still, she never meant to hurt anyone’s feelings. She stood up. “Well, I guess I’d better get across the hall. It’s been fun, Charlie, thanks. But I’ve done enough damage around here for one night.”

She turned to leave and bumped squarely into Marina.

“I have changed my mind about the pizza,” she said. “The truth is, I had a horrible evening and I could use a couple of friends.”

“Lousy date, huh?” Tess asked.

“It was not a date. I went to the movies. With Viktor.”

“ ‘Viktor’ sounds like the name of a date.”

“Not exactly,” Marina answered and reached for a slice without onions.

    They became a threesome. Well, actually a foursome, if you counted Viktor Coe, who was never far behind.

It was strange having Viktor always in earshot. Tess couldn’t feel free to say things like, “God, I hate having my period,” or “That bitch of a professor dumps too much work on us,” or even a playful “fuck you” to her friends. But Viktor wasn’t going away, so Tess got used to saving her
intimate discussions for their rooms. And for pizza on Saturday nights.

Though she talked to her mother every week, Tess did not mention her new royal friend. Her mother’s delight would be too annoying, and she’d ask too many questions, tell too many people. Having Marina as a friend was more important than showing her off, but Tess knew her mother wouldn’t understand that. Besides, it wasn’t as if Marina talked very much about herself—or talked very much at all. It was Charlie and Tess who did most of the talking, and Marina who did most of the listening. Still, there was a spark to Marina, a hint of rebelliousness combined with a great depth of intelligence that made their friendship richer, and more fun. Besides, if trying to impress anyone was what mattered to Tess, she’d have stayed living in the Quad.

Everything seemed to be going great, until the phone started ringing. Boys calling girls. Boys from UMass and Amherst and Hampshire College. Boys from as far away as Springfield College and American International. Boys calling girls: girls like Charlie and Marina.

The calls were never for Tess. She didn’t have to be told why: she only had to look at Charlie, at Marina, then look in the mirror. Why would the boys want to be with her when they could be with them? Tess tried to reassure herself that it didn’t matter. She was who she was and she couldn’t change that. And anyway, Peter Hobart would be back at Amherst next year and she wouldn’t have to worry about any of it. Hopefully.

Late one Saturday afternoon Tess was gathering her laundry to take down to the creepy cellar, when Charlie knocked on her door. She was dressed in a pink cowl-necked sweater and black jeans. She looked magnificent. Tess wanted to ask her what it felt like to have such a slim body, to know you always looked great, to know others thought so, too. Instead of asking, Tess whistled.

Charlie smiled.

“Who are we impressing tonight?” Tess asked.

“Does this look okay?” Charlie asked. “I bought the sweater today. I shouldn’t have spent the money, but …”

“No buts allowed,” Tess said. “You look great. Heavy date?”

Charlie shrugged. “A guy from UMass. His name’s Dean. I met him up there at the library.”

“Ah,” Tess said as she tossed a dirty sweatsuit into her growing clothes pile. “The notorious library.”

Charlie leaned against the doorjamb. “Maybe you’d meet a guy if you’d go out more often. Other than with Marina and me.”

Tess took a small box of Tide from her bureau, then bundled her clothes and dumped them into the plastic basket. “My schoolwork is more important to me right now.”

Charlie shook her head. “It doesn’t seem right. You’re only nineteen. And you have such a great personality.”

Tess felt her jaw tighten.
Such a great personality.
If she heard that term one more time she’d scream. It was as bad as the other one her mother always told her: “You have such a pretty face.” But Tess knew the truth. She was fat and plain and would never have the boys lined up at her door. Peter Hobart was her one chance.

Tess changed the subject. “Where are you going tonight?”

“Aqua Vitae.”

“Is Marina going out, too?”

“She’s been out all day with that guy from Hampshire College. Who knows when they’ll get back.”

Tess heaved the laundry basket onto her hip. “She’s going to wear Viktor out.”

Charlie nodded but didn’t smile. “Tess, I wish you’d think about what I said. About going out …”

“Look,” Tess said, passing Charlie on the way to the door. “Stop worrying about me. I’m fine. I have tons of laundry to do. I’ll survive quite nicely spending a Saturday night alone. Besides, it’s a hell of a lot quieter without you two around. Hey—I might even get some studying done.” She crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue and made Charlie laugh. But as she walked down the hall toward the stairs that led to the laundry room, Tess felt a sting of tears. Even though her mother had big plans for Tess and Peter Hobart, it would be nice if the phone rang—just once—and it was for her.

    The following week, Charlie didn’t go out on Saturday night. She told Tess she had a research paper to do, and Tess
believed her. She’d actually heard Charlie turn down two dates. Tess couldn’t imagine turning down any date, never mind two.

They walked along Main Street, without Marina who seemed more interested in men than in studying, and without Viktor, thank God. Tess had told Charlie about the Old Book Shoppe, owned and run by Dell Brooks, a Smith alumna from her mother’s class, and a woman who, according to Tess’s mother, could find any research material on any subject dating back before the big bang. Until now Tess had avoided the store. She’d learned from experience that any friend of her mother’s was probably no friend of hers. But Charlie needed a book on Franklin Roosevelt that the library didn’t own, and Dell Brooks would most likely have it.

They found the bookstore on a side street and climbed down the stairs to the basement door. When Tess opened the door a small bell rang. She liked its sound: It was friendly and cheerful and didn’t seem at all like something her mother would have liked. Neither was the shop’s interior decorated in Sally Richards’s style. Books were crammed on overflowing shelves, papers and magazines were piled in tipsy stacks on the floor and in the aisles, and a mismatched collection of colorful rag dolls was scattered about, planted on window-sills, tucked between books—one doll with a huge painted smile sat atop a pile of books, poised at a round table, a coffee mug set before her. Friendly, cheerful, yes. Warm and inviting, too. Definitely not Sally Richards’s taste.

A woman sat at another small table talking with a young red-headed policeman.

“May I help you?” she asked, standing. She had curious chocolate eyes and her gray-streaked hair was pulled tightly from her round face. A long black shirt ballooned over the humps of her thick hips; her brown cardigan sweater was buttoned over small breasts.

“Yes,” Tess said. “My friend needs a book on Franklin Roosevelt that the library doesn’t have.”

The woman smiled, revealing crow’s-feet around her eyes and parentheses of unabashed age at each side of her mouth. Tess was startled at the contrast between this woman and her mother. “Are you Dell Brooks?”

“That’s me.”

Tess introduced herself and Charlie. Then she added, “You were at Smith with my mother, Sally Spooner.”

“I remember Sally,” she said, her smile broadening. She reached behind her neck and drew her long braid over her shoulder. As she spoke, she combed the ends of her hair with her short-nailed fingers. “I was at your mother’s wedding. In the chapel.”

Ah, Tess thought, the chapel. The Helen Hills Hills Chapel—
the
campus chapel where it was expected that Tess Richards would marry Peter Hobart. “I’d like you to meet my nephew, Joe Lyons,” Dell continued. “
Patrolman
Joe Lyons.”