Mary Lou, with her customary unbudging justice, and Sarah, who usually agreed with her, thought Emily and Bud should shake hands and call it quits. The dean had called and arranged a conference with Emily. The incident was in the town papers and the campus was having a good laugh. The faculty and the alumnae of Alpha Beta were furious. Emmy began to feel a little desperate.
“Can anyone possibly think I did it on purpose?” she said.
“Look, Emmy,” said Mary Lou. “We know you didn’t do it on purpose. That isn’t the point. The point is that it happened and it happened to you. And you were very drunk and very bare and in mixed company at the time. Nobody’s saying you deliberately undressed in public, but if you’d been willing to wear a little more costume in the first place this wouldn’t have happened at all. And this came on top of four months of a pretty hot romance that everybody’s been talking about. You just haven’t been too careful, Emily. You just haven’t cared very much about anything but yourself and Bud.”
“But I have, Mary Lou.”
“You’ve completely ignored your obligations to the university and the sorority. You’ve disgraced us all and it could have been prevented.”
“I don’t see—” Emmy was near tears.
“It could have, Emmy, if you hadn’t insisted on being the barest girl at the party. If you hadn’t gone out and gotten drunk.”
“I wasn’t the only one—”
“If you hadn’t led Bud to expect that he could treat you—” she cast about for a word—“promiscuously in public and get away with it.”
“It wasn’t promiscuous. He was just tickling me. I mean—heavens, it was just—” She stopped, sensing that her own words did her a disservice.
“Well, just what kind of behavior do you think that is, Emmy—proper? What do you think a man thinks of when he sees a girl squirming and wriggling in practically no clothes at all?”
“I didn’t ask him to tickle me, Mary Lou.”
“Yes, you did, Emmy. Don’t you see? For the past four months you’ve been letting him tickle you; you just never told him not to. You let him do it and you let him know you like it. What more do you have to do for a man? Spell it for him?”
Emmy hung her head.
“Emily,” said Mary Lou and her voice grew kind again. “I’m not trying to hurt you. Believe me, I’m not. I’m trying to do what I can for the sorority. And it, as a whole, is more important right now than the individual, because it’s within the power of an individual to do the whole group a harm, to punish everybody for her one mistake. Well, we have to correct that mistake. We can’t let everyone point at Alpha Beta and laugh because one Alpha Beta did something wrong. That one Alpha Beta has to correct the error. It’s simple logic, and only fair.”
Emmy rubbed her head. Simple logic was the hardest kind for her. It always struck her as being inarguable and senseless at the same time. She was awed by it.
Mary Lou sighed and ditched her cigarette. “Emmy, it’s up to you,” she said. “I don’t want to impose any silly useless detention on you. I don’t even want to campus you. You’ll see the dean; you’ll talk it over. I know you’ll be sensible about it.”
“What can I do?” said Emmy.
“Well….” Mary Lou looked around at the others and then sighed and looked back at Emily. “Em, I know you’re terribly fond of Bud. I guess that’s been the cause of the difficulty, really.”
Emmy nodded. It seemed as if Mary Lou was beginning to understand her now and wanted to help her; it gave her a false sense of security.
“And I know, too, how much affection you have for the sorority, for the university….”
Emmy nodded fervently again.
“Well, somehow the two just don’t seem compatible. I know it’s hard, Emmy….”
Emmy didn’t get it at all for a minute.
“But—I think we have to take a positive step right now. Undo the wrong, sort of….”
“Oh, yes, I do too,” said Emily, walking innocently, willingly, into the trap.
“And I think you just have to make a choice.”
“A choice?”
“Yes. Because if you keep on like this, Em, the university and the sorority are going to suffer. That’s all there is to it.”
“Oh, but Mary Lou, I won’t keep on. I mean, the party’s over.” She couldn’t believe they would be so harsh. She laughed a little apprehensively as the light began to dawn.
“Is it, Emmy?” Mary Lou’s bright, steady eyes hurt her.
“Well, of course.”
“Emmy, I think it might be a good idea—for all of us, and especially for you—if you didn’t see Bud for a while.”
Emmy stared at her, speechless and appalled. “But I love him,” she whispered finally.
“I think that’s exactly the trouble, Emmy. I think you either ought to leave school and marry the guy, or not see him for a while. I think the temptation is just too great.” She said it very kindly.
“But my parents would never let me leave school. My father has his heart set on my getting my degree.” And Bud might not marry me. Brought face to face with the problem, she admitted it to herself for the first time.
“Then I think you ought not to see Bud for a while.”
Emmy was thunderstruck, trapped. “For a while?” she murmured in a hardly audible voice.
Bobbie put an arm around her and said, “Don’t cry.”
“For a while,” Mary Lou repeated. “It’s the only way, Emmy. I think you’re headed straight for real trouble, otherwise. And you’re pulling all of us after you. Don’t you see, Emmy? It’s for everybody’s good, really. It won’t be forever.”
Emmy saw; she saw very clearly now. She tried to steady her breath. “What if
