shipping room, only this time saddled with a wife and child. Oh God!
The pills had to work. That was all there was to it. If they failed, he didn't know what he'd do.
The book of matches was white, with Dorothy Kingship stamped on it in copper leaf. Every Christmas Kingship Copper gave personalized matches to its executives, customers and friends. It took her four strokes to light the match, and when she held it to her cigarette the flame trembled as though in a breeze. She sat back, trying to relax, but she couldn't tear her eyes from the open bathroom door, the white envelope waiting on the edge of the sink, the glass of water...
She closed her eyes. If only she could speak to Ellen about it. A letter had come that morning-'The weather has been beautiful... president of the refreshment committee for the Junior Prom... have you read Marquand's new novel?...'-another of the meaningless mechanical notes that had been drifting between them since Christmas and the argument. If only she could get Ellen's advice, talk to her the way they used to talk...
Dorothy had been five and Ellen six when Leo Kingship divorced his wife. A third sister, Marion, was ten. When the three girls lost their mother, first through the divorce and then through her death a year later, Marion felt the loss most deeply of all. Recalling clearly the accusations and denunciations which had preceded the divorce, she recounted them in bitter detail to her sisters as they grew up. She exaggerated Kingship's cruelty to some degree. As the years passed she grew apart, solitary and withdrawn. Dorothy and Ellen, however, turned to each other for the affection which they received neither from their father, who met their coldness with coldness, nor from the series of odorless and precise governesses to whom he transferred the custody the courts had granted him. The two sisters went to the same schools and camps, joined the same clubs and attended the same dances (taking care to return home at the hour designated by their father). Where Ellen led, Dorothy followed.
But when Ellen entered Caldwell College, in Caldwell, Wisconsin, and Dorothy made plans to follow her there the next year, Ellen said no; Dorothy should grow up and become self-reliant. Their father agreed, self-reliance being a trait he valued in himself and in others. A measure of compromise was allowed, and Dorothy was sent to Stoddard, slightly more than a hundred miles from Caldwell, with the understanding that the sisters would visit one another on weekends. A few visits were made, the length of time between them increasing progressively, until Dorothy austerely announced that her first year of college had made her completely self-reliant, and the visits stopped altogether. Finally, this past Christmas, there had been an argument. It had started on nothing-'If you wanted to borrow my blouse you might at least have asked me!'-and had swollen because Dorothy had been in a depressed mood all during her vacation. When the girls returned to school, the letters between them faded to brief, infrequent notes. . . There was still the telephone. Dorothy found herself staring at it. She could get Ellen on the line in an instant. . . But no; why should she be the one to give in first and chance a rebuff? She squashed her cigarette in an ashtray. Besides, now that she had calmed down, what was there to hesitate about? She would take the pills; if they worked, all well and good. If not; marriage. She thought about how wonderful that would be, even if her father did have a fit She didn't want any of his money anyway.
She went to the hall door and locked it, feeling a slight thrill in the unaccustomed and somewhat melodramatic act.
In the bathroom, she took the envelope from the edge of the sink and tilted the capsules into her palm. They were gray-white, their gelatin coating lustrous, like elongated pearls. Then, as she dropped the envelope into the wastebasket, the thought flashed into her mind-'What if I don't take them?'
They would be married tomorrow! Instead of waiting until the summer, or more likely until graduation-over two years-they'd be married by tomorrow night!
But it wouldn't be fair. She had promised she would try. Still, tomorrow...'
She lifted the glass, clapped the pills into her mouth, and drained the water in a single draught.
The classroom, in one of Stoddard's new buildings, was a clean rectangle with one wall of aluminum-framed glass. Eight rows of seats faced the lecturer's platform. There were ten gray metal seats to a row, each with a right arm that curved in and fanned to form a writing surface.
He sat in the back of the room, in the second seat from the window. The seat on his left, the window seat, the empty seat, was hers. It was the first class of the morning, a daily Social Science lecture, and their only class together this semester. The speaker's voice droned in the sun-filled air.
Today of all days she could have made an effort to be on time. Didn't she know he'd be frozen in an agony of suspense? Heaven or hell. Complete happiness, or the awful mess he didn't even want to think about. He looked at his watch; 9: 08. Damn her.
He shifted in his seat, fingering his keychain nervously. He stared at the back of the girl in front of him and started to count the polka dots in her blouse. The door at the side of the room opened quietly. His head jerked around.
She looked awful. Her face was pasty white so that the rouge was like paint. There were gray arcs under her eyes. She was looking at him the instant the door opened, and with a barely perceptible motion, she shook her head.
Oh God! He turned back to the keychain in his fingers and stared at it, numb. He heard her coming around behind him, slipping into the seat on his left. He heard her books being put on the floor in the aisle between them, and then the scratching of a pen on paper, and finally the sound of a page being torn from a spiral-bound pad.
He turned. Her hand was extended towards him, holding a folded piece of blue-lined paper. She was watching him, her wide eyes anxious.
He took the paper and opened it in his lap: I had a terrible fever and I threw up. But nothing happened.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and turned to her, his face expressionless. Her lips made a tight nervous smile. He tried to make himself return the smile, but he couldn't His eyes went back to the note in his hand. He folded the paper in half, then folded it again and again, until it was a tight wad, which he placed in his pocket. Then he sat with his fingers locked firmly together, watching the lecturer.
After a few minutes, he was able to turn to Dorothy, give her a reassuring smile, and form the words 'Don't worry' with silent lips.
When the bell sounded at 9: 55, they left the room with the other students who were laughing and pushing and complaining about coming exams and overdue papers and broken dates. Outside, they moved from the crowded path and stood in the shadow of the concrete-walled building.
The color was beginning to return to Dorothy's cheeks. She spoke quickly. 'It'll be all right. I know it will. You won't have to quit school. You'll get more money from the government, won't you? With a wife?'
'A hundred and five a month.' He couldn't keep the sourness out of his voice.
'Others get along on it. . . the ones in the trailer camp. We'll manage.'
He put his books down on the grass. The important thing was to get time, time to think. He was afraid his knees were going to start shaking. He took her by the shoulders, smiling. 'That's the spirit. You just don't worry about anything.' He took a breath. 'Friday afternoon we'll go down to the Municipal-'
'Friday?'
'Baby, it's Tuesday. Three days won't make any difference now.'
'I thought we'd go today.'
He fingered the collar of her coat. 'Dorrie, we can't. Be practical. There are so many things to be taken care of. I think I have to take a blood test first. I'll have to check on that. And then, if we get married Friday we can have the weekend for a honeymoon. I'm going to get us a reservation at the New Washington House...' She frowned indecisively. 'What difference will three days make?'
'I guess you're right,' she sighed. 'That's my baby.'
She touched his hand. 'I... I know it isn't the way we wanted it, but... you're happy, aren't you?'
'Well what do you think? Listen, the money isn't that important. I just thought that for your sake...'
Her eyes were warm, reaching.
He looked at his watch. 'You have a ten o'clock, don't you?'
'Solamente el Espanol. I can cut it.'
'Don't. We'll have better reasons to cut our morning classes.' She squeezed his hand. 'I'll see you at eight,' he said. 'At the bench.' Reluctantly, she turned to go. 'Oh, Dorrie...'
'Yes?'
'You haven't said anything to your sister, have you?'
'Ellen? No.'
'Well you better not. Not until after we're married.'
