Chapter 3
Beanpole Deidrich was a senior from Spokane who had enough money to maintain his own comfortable apartment a mile and a half from the college. Sophia learned within minutes after stepping through his door that he had some of the students here at erratic times of the day and night and on weekends, to dance, to cut up, to sit around and participate in semi-drunken bull sessions.
The radio was on and a few couples were dancing much more intimately than they'd have dared to dance at Lancaster Hall. Sophia was momentarily stunned to see Joan, her otherwise serious-minded, almost prissy roommate, exchanging feverish kisses on the couch with one of the football boys.
Tommy, pleased, plunked a dark-colored drink into Sophia's hand and grinned.
"May I have this dance?" he inquired.
"I'll have to check my dance card, sir."
He embraced her. "I tore it up."
"No, Tommy, don't...."
From the radio, Sinatra was offering his expert job on Bring on the Clowns; the tune was melancholy, taunting. Sophia was caught up in Tommy's arms and his lips brushed over her cheek. The glass in her hand put her at a slight disadvantage, allowing her only one hand with which to struggle away.
But his strong frame was molding against hers as they swayed back and forth and she was wholly aware of the fact that she hadn't the remotest desire to move away.
"I saw you onstage this afternoon," he confessed. "You were reading Plough and the Stars."
"I didn't know you were there," Sophia muttered, impressed that she could get volume into her voice.
"'Way in the back of the auditorium. You know your way around a stage, Sophia.
The other girls trying out for the part were looking daggers through you. That's the sincerest form of flattery."
"You're holding me too close, Tommy."
"Uh-huh," he agreed pleasantly, making no move to release her.
When the song was finished, and Beanpole called out that frankfurters and sauerkraut were on the kitchen table, Sophia saw most of the eight or ten guests walk to the kitchen. Blinking, she noted the drink in her hand.
There seemed to be no time span between the time she swallowed it and the time the party had indeed begun to get rough.
Still blinking, unable to focus clearly, she discovered herself being freed from the troubled state and joining into the loveliness of the party. She couldn't remember when she'd slipped out of her shoes, but now she was in her stockinged feet, dancing alone to a frenzied rock beat from the radio.
She had an audience. The group, men and women, who hadn't given her any particular attention before, were seated on the couch and chairs and floor, applauding her, urging her on.
Somehow she had started to dance for them. Or was she dancing only for Tommy, with the others merely on hand?
She was giggling with the warmth of the liquor and the joy of being in the spotlight. For a moment she considered running away, for her behavior was definitely not the symbol of dignity. But, seeing Joan now on the floor, clapping her hands and resting her head on Bob Downing's shoulder, Sophia remembered that the prissy girl had checked her reserve at the door. And the other girls here, all with men, had checked their reserve, too. Sophia felt on trial. She would have to prove herself.
Encouraged, she executed a mock-sultry solo, wriggling the lower half of her torso, spreading her arms in the charade of embrace. She was drunk. She knew she was drunk. But there was no guilt attached to it. Not as long as Tommy Elliot sent out waves of love.
The hands, that were hers but that were nevertheless foreign, moved the zipper at the side of her dress. An aura of ecstasy clogged in her throat as Tommy laughed appreciatively and she continued to sway.
When the alcohol she'd consumed commenced to take its sickening effect, Sophia worked hard to disregard it. But abruptly (everything tonight, she thought, had happened abruptly) she no longer had strength in her legs or hands.
She blacked out and collapsed.
Beth Armstrong testified the next day that nothing worrisome had occurred after Sophia passed out, that the gang regarded Holland as a lot of fun. But Sophia lay crumbled in remorse. There'd been no enjoyment last night, at the dance, at Beanpole's, in drinking. She knew why. She'd tried too hard. Nothing had happened spontaneously. Her brutal hangover this noon didn't oppress her half so much as the memory of having dipped her toes into the pool of fun, and failed so abominably in every step of the way after that.
During the remainder of the school semester, she agreed to accept dates. But each time, though, she started out with the most hopeful resolutions, the date ended disastrously. She was intelligent and witty, and as long as she sat across a room from her escort, she could conduct herself maturely. But somehow it wasn't enough. The boys who didn't make passes at her were dullards to begin with. The ones who did attempt to take liberties were much too sure of themselves, in one way or another threatening her with abandonment if she refused to "be a good sport."
So she became a good sport.
Mr. Jeffries, the school psychologist, came into the picture near the end of her freshman year. She had met him once or twice, when he'd given her the formalized aptitude tests, when they'd nodded to one another on campus. But she'd never availed herself of her right to sit and talk with him about her growing problem. But, once she'd come to the realization that her trouble was one she couldn't handle herself, it had seemed too late to go to him.
Finally she did.
"I can't trust myself any more," she told him, sitting taut in his office, afraid to look squarely at him. "I don't think I ever did trust myself. I'm-not one of those wild women, Mr. Jeffries. I mean, I don't go out on a date with everything all calculated in advance. But something happens, somewhere along the line during the evening. I keep telling myself there's nothing more important than developing a relationship with a young man. Slowly, sensibly. But ... something happens. I get frightened. I'm afraid I'm dumb or unpleasant or-or something. If he starts to make like a huffing and puffing male, I let him. I struggle for a few seconds, but I-respond. Even on the first date, sometimes....
"It isn't what I want!" she went on, weeping. "They either never ask to see me again or, if they do, it's for more of the same. It-it isn't enough. I can't live with myself the next day. I keep promising myself it won't happen again ... not so quickly, not so thoughtlessly ... but it does, it always does."
"What are you afraid of, Miss Holland? You're intelligent, selective. You're quite lovely. There are other ways to hold a man than to-be accommodating to him the first time out."
"I know. But it's like drinking. I lose myself completely. I have to keep proving to myself that I'm popular, that I'm wanted, that I'm needed. But it's never enough. It's never satisfying."
"What about this other thing you were discussing?" asked Mr. Jefferies. "This exhibitionism?"
Sophia nodded. "That's what terrifies me the most." She stopped crying. She spoke calmly now, resignedly. "The clothes I wear on dates, the way I walk, the way I sit ... it's all unconscious at the time, honestly, but it's all designed to bring attention to me, to make the man notice me more than they'd notice anyone else. I ... tease them. I accidentally-on-purpose leave the blinds up when I change clothes. I accidentally-on-purpose straighten my garter belt when I know I'm being seen. Mr. Jeffries, if I ever did have any self-control, I've lost it. It's bad enough with the kind of boys I go out with now, the anything-for-a-laugh kind. But I'm afraid that someday I'll meet someone who really means something. Someday I'll meet the man I truly want and who wants me ... and I-"
Mr. Jefferies didn't attempt to solve everything all in one hour. He did mention in passing that she should have come to him earlier, that they could have been working together on this over the past year. But he would do what he could to help her from now till the end of the term.
Sophia felt a ray of hope. She saw him for three more visits and each hour seemed to help. She was able to discuss her father and her sister and her own stifling sense of competition. She was able to listen intelligently to his interpretations and suggestions. Genuinely she felt her problem was not insoluble. She was on her way to growing and maturing.
But Tommy Elliot invited her to what promised to be a gala party, to celebrate the end of the term, at Beanpole's.
She fought it, but she went.
She didn't spy the motion-picture machine till she'd been at the party for an hour or so and she'd downed a few stiff highballs prepared by Tommy.
"What's all this?" she asked, pointing. "Are we going to see a travelogue on. Pike's Peak and the Grand Canyon?"
"You're going to be a movie star, baby," advised Tommy, as Beanpole and several of the other fellows busied themselves at setting up the camera apparatus.
"Uh-huh," gaily agreed Beth, who obviously had known all about this before Sophia. "We want to immortalize your famous dance for the films, Holland. Got your dancing shoes handy?"
Not yet drunk enough, Sophia frowned. In the spirit of belonging to the group, she had, over the past few months, fashioned a sultry dance which she performed shamelessly for the gang. (She had learned not to faint.) It was a flexible, instinctive striptease, yet it boasted the precision of a professional, creative dancer.
"Oh, no, I couldn't!" she cried.
"Why not? It'll be for kicks."
"Nope. For kicks is one thing. For movies is another. Count me out, kiddies."
Another highball, though, changed her mind.
At the piano, Sally began the sensual rhythm which acted as Sophia's call to arms. When Beanpole, the "director" of the film, ordered her to start, Sophia found herself in the center of the living room, performing the dance that had been so successful here before.
She pulled out all the stops and while she danced, while she was applauded, she couldn't remember having ever had more fulfillment in her life.
The next day, dragged with guilt and the sureness of defeat, she knew there was only one thing to do: contact Mr. Jefferies, confess everything, and demand a working plan from here on out. Her life had taken a shape of sorts, and everything it implied was torturous.
But she didn't get to keep her appointment with the psychologist.
She was summoned to the office of the dean.
In his office, off to one side she saw the motion-picture camera.
She was invited to introduce her side of the story, which the dean gave every evidence of unwillingness to believe.
She tried to explain, without success.
She was expelled from Poindexter, that afternoon.
Now Sophia crossed Fifth Avenue and continued on to Madison and the Chandler Television Network Building.
She entered the mammoth lobby, gave her name to the efficient-looking young lady at the reception booth. She waited as the young lady contacted the McClure rehearsals, spoke the name Sophia Holland as though it were an onerous disease, and then, after a pause, looked up at her with friendly eyes.
"Yes, you're expected," said the young lady. "Seventeenth floor. You'll see a sign up there."
"Thank you."
"Are you related to Margo Holland?"
"I'm her sister."
"Well! How does it feel to be so lucky?"
"Great," Sophia replied dryly. "Just great. Can I use this elevator?"
On the way up (ignoring the examining gaze of the insolent elevator operator), she reflected on her luck. Maybe, after all, it would be the best thing in life for her to flub the audition this afternoon and start out on her own, free of all ties and responsibilities to anyone but herself.
Yes, lucky was the word. Lucky Sophia. She wasn't in prison or in a mental institution yet. She'd heard of other girls who had experimented with the forbidden, and had been crushed completely.
Sophia was still all in one piece.
So far, she thought somberly.