Chapter 5
By the end of September, the story of Eleanor Landers' outrageously iconoclastic feat of making a prominent senior climb up to her third-floor room via the drainpipe, only to turn him down, had spread around campus. The green-eyed, coppery-haired sophomore found herself the cynosure of all eyes, both male and female, whenever she walked to and from class. In the sweet shop, afternoons, a hush would fall over the crowd when the screen door swung open to admit her, and a few low wolf whistles would rise to tribute her arrogant sensuality. She took all this like a queen who expects a retinue to fawn on her, a coy little smile about her scarlet-lip stick painted mouth, pretending not to notice, but secretly reveling in the knowledge that she had turned the spotlight of Marwell attention on herself.
Suzy Mersh, who was starting the throes of a complicated love affair with a black-haired junior of Herculean build, the son of a wealthy dairy farmer from upstate who happened to believe that a man ought to marry the girl he slept with, confided in Eleanor, whom she now considered as her golden goddess of good luck. As a matter-of-fact, she even credited Eleanor with her discovery of Sam Grunnerson-her devoted junior suitor-because she had been in the sweet shop spreading the news about Eleanor's man-destroying maneuver just when Sam wandered in for a malt and had been smitten by the animated way she was talking, leaning forward with her lush bosom just brushing the table, four girls hanging on her every word. He had smiled shyly at her, and Suzy had pretended not to notice, but she had been fascinated by his sturdy build and the dumb-calf-like worship on his face.
"He's driving me crazy, Eleanor," she said despairingly as the two girls sipped double chocolate malts this Thursday afternoon of the last week of September. "I'm nuts about the guy, and he's such an innocent lamb, I don't even think he's ever even kissed a girl. When I hint I'd love to have him take me out for a long drive over the weekend, he just blushes and hems and haws and says he's got class work to catch up on. You should see his muscles, Eleanor! I know he's mad for me, but he says he won't get married till after graduation, and that's over a year away. So I suppose I'll have to wait and give up sex till then if I want him. Now why couldn't I have gone and fallen in love with a louse who was after a romp under the covers, instead of a nice honorable sap like Sam Grunnerson?"
Privately, it was Eleanor Landers' studied opinion that Suzy was a birdbrain and ideally mated with the muscular junior, but she had the tact for once not to air that opinion. Suzy had been very useful to her, spreading the rumor all around, and it had paid off. The Delta Gamma Theta house was holding an open tea next Wednesday afternoon, and any girl might drop in and introduce herself. That would be the preliminary screening. Gert and Trudy, the two big wheels of DGT, had already found out about the nocturnal shinnying stunt, and had unofficially expressed admiration, Suzy had faithfully reported. So after the open house, the following week would see invitations mailed to a select group of unaffiliated girls who had made a good impression the week before and were considered possibles. That would be the really important interview, when the Big Sisters sized you up and decided whether to pledge you or skip you for the rest of your campus career.
"Let me buy you another malted, hm, Suzy?" she proffered, and silver-haired Suzy, who had no problem with weight and could eat like a horse without showing it on her lush figure, readily assented. She beckoned to the acne-spotted youngster who was waiting on tables: "Two more of the same, Walter." Then, turning back to her chum, she whispered, "Now there's a kid that needs some love life. Bet it'd clear up his pimples in a hurry."
"Ugh!" Suzy grimaced, "don't even think of such a thing. What girl would be self-sacrificing enough to contribute to Walter's cause? Besides, my problem is contributing to Sam's without making him think I'm just a round-heeled hussy. But I just can't wait a whole year or more till the big lug gets his sheepskin! And I've got it so bad for him I couldn't think of sleeping around with anybody else."
"Just keep working on him, honey," Eleanor laughingly advised. "Expose him enough to your fatal charm and he won't want to wait a year, either, you'll see. I'll put in a good word for you if I ever meet your Prince Charming, though he's not my type."
"He'd better not be," Suzy Mersh threatened glumly. "Maybe if I got an invite from DGT, Sam might take more notice of poor little me."
"The way you talk, honey, one would think you had knock-knees and braces," Eleanor laughed. "You're a sexpot and you know it, and just because you've finally run up a naive guy who happens to have honorable intentions, you're buffaloed. Just play it by ear and let nature take its course. It usually does, you know, Suzy."
"It's easy for you to talk, you with your trips to Paris and all," Suzy dolefully complained. "But I'm just an average small-town girl with a pretty good body and not much future unless I get the right guy-and I've decided that Sam's it."
"Oh, come now, Suzy, don't downgrade yourself that way," Eleanor whimsically chided. "Suppose you were setting your cap for somebody really hard to get, like that gorgeous hunk of man who teaches our English lit class. Now that would be a real challenge."
"Oh, you mean Professor Torrance," Suzy chimed in, bobbing her silver-haired head in ready agreement. "Yes, he's awfully nice, but I get the feeling he's bored with college girls. I bet he's got himself some sexy girl friend stuck away in Chicago and goes visiting her weekends, that's what I bet." And for once, lightweight Suzy wasn't entirely off the beam.
Of course, neither she nor Eleanor Landers knew that Mark Torrance had just kissed that unknown "sexy girl friend" goodbye for the very last time, and had decided to act the part of an indifferent, bored lecturer in his own classroom.
He was doing that in virtual self-defense, because a number of girls-the class comprised fifty-two pupils, and thirty-eight were of the tender sex-had already shown overt inclinations in his direction. The usual gambit was for the girl to go up to his desk after class and ask him to explain something which, if she had been listening attentively during the hour just concluded, she would have known. Another tack was to ask if she mightn't consult him about the theme he had assigned last week because she was having trouble with it. To that hoary old chestnut, Mark Torrance calmly proposed a visit to Cobb Hall, which housed the excellent and comprehensive Marlowe library.
Eleanor Landers had already noted that Mark Torrance was a considerably interesting specimen of the male species, but at the moment she was concentrating solely on that invitation to the sorority. Once that was accomplished, there would be ample time to go after a new project, and his name topped her list in that regard. He had a vigorously resonant voice, and she liked the set of his jaw and the flash of his blue eyes when he was enthusiastic about a topic under discussion from his lecture podium.
She had already made a few preparatory notes about how to proceed with Mark Torrance. One of the most vital was that he had never really assigned any permanent seats in his classroom. You came in and sat down by preference. Of course, you usually took the same seat you had previously had. But it would be very simple to get to class a few minutes early some afternoon and take a seat in one of the front rows.
Then, with an especially sheer pair of nylons and the properly deliberate crossing of one's legs, a girl could compel even the most stolid male professor to turn his eyes in her direction. And the rest would be child's play. Particularly because Mark Torrance wasn't at all stolid in Eleanor's opinion; she rated him as a demon lover, just out of an instinctive feeling she had about him.
At the present time, she sat in the fifth row, and Kathy Andrews was in the second, way over to the right. That was the way she wanted to keep Kathy at a distance. There was nothing to be gained by renewing that childhood companionship. Kathy was now synonymous with pallid Elly Douglas in her discerning rating system.
Her first real mistake had been with Henri de Rochembeau. She had no way of knowing, impervious as she was to other people's feelings, that in so estimating Kathy Andrews, she was well on her way to committing the worst blunder of her selfish and self-centered career.