Man, woman, and child(14)

"You're crazy."

"Yes. About you.*'

This was over coffee and dessert. No further mention of matrimony was made that evening. Bob felt he had said it all. And Sheila felt he'd just been teasing her.

But she really liked him. Which is why she put her arm around him.

At the doorstep of Josselyn Hall there was the usual mob of couples, urgently getting in their final smooches.



"I wish you didn't have the long trip back to Yale," said Sheila.

'*Ask me to stay/' retorted Bob.

"You're never serious."

''That is where you're v^ong, Miss Goodhart. I've never been more serious."

What happened next became the subject of debate for years to come. Who initiated that first kiss?

''I did/' Sheila steadfastly maintained.

''Come on, Sheila, you were petrified/'

"And you...?"

"I was cool. But when I realized that you wouldn't sleep a wink that night, I put you out of your misery."

"Robert, don't make such a hero of yourself. I remember you just standing there, humming and hawing and blathering about exams, checking your watch every second—"

"Lies, Sheila."

"—and my heart melted."

"Ah."

"And I said to myself, If I don't kiss him now he may go catatonic."

"You make it sound like first aid."

"Well, I'm a doctor's daughter and I knew a basket case when I saw one. Besides, I was already in love with you."

"Then why the hell didn't you say so?"

"Because I was afraid you'd ask me to marry you again."

"So what?"

"I might have accepted/'

"All right, Sheila, tell me everything." "About what?"

"About the boy you were kissing." "His name is Bob."



"'Bob who, what, how and since when?"

The interrogator was Margo Fulton, self-styled mistress of letters, femme fatale, wit, purveyor of news and dispenser of worldly advice. The Aspasia of Josselyn Hall. Also the owner of a private telephone, which she allowed certain campus divinities to make use of. Sheila had been among those so honored in the days when she was going with Ken, her high school beau. (He had subsequently received a Fulbright to England and in Margo's words, ''dumped you like the rat-head I always knew he was.")

''Well, Sheil, Fm panting for the details. Tell me all. Did he try anything?"

"I don't know what you mean, Margo," Sheila insisted.

"Oh, come on, don't be coy with your dearest friend." Margo's designation was, as usual, self-styled. "By the way," she added, "I had a fantastic weekend."

"Oh?" said Sheila.

Margo reluctantly gave in to this demand for full disclosure.

"I think it's love," she added. "I mean, it's passion for sure. His name is Peter, he plays polo, and he thinks Fm an absolute sex-bomb."

"Margo—you haven't..."

"No comment, Sheil."

It was rumored around the dorm that Margo was not a virgin. It was also rumored that she herself had started the rumor.

"How did you meet him?" Margo asked, suddenly changing the topic again.

"Last weekend at Yale. At a mixer, if you can believe it."

"A mixerl Good Lord, I haven't been to one of



those in years. Though actually I did meet Rex at one freshman year. You remember Rex?"

"I think so."

''He was an absolute volcano. I mean, Sheila, you have no idea. By the way, how tall is he?"

"Who, Rex?"

''No, your Yalie. I couldn't see how tall he was. He was bending over to, you know, kiss you."

Unwilling to provide Margo's rumor mill with the grist of Bob's vital statistics, Sheila answered with a question. "He's cute, isn't he?"

But Margo kept interrogating. "Is he sincere or jnst another rat-head sex maniac?"

"He's nice," Sheila answered. And thought to herself. He's really redly nice.

"He looks like a basketball player. Is he?''

*'I didn't ask him, Margo."

"'Well, what on earth did you talk about?"

'"Things," Sheila said, not wanting to betray a syllable of what they said to one another.

"Oh," said Margo, "that sounds tres piquant. Anyway, you're a lucky woman if he's a basketball player. They make the best lovers. Or so they tell me. Actually, Douglas was a bit of a disappointment."

Sheila did not bother to ask who Douglas was, for she well knew that she was about to hear.

"Just because he was Princeton's high scorer, he thought he could score with me on the first date. A filthy-minded tiger-rat. Do you remember Douglas?"

"Yes, the Princeton star," Sheila offered.

"Well, he thought he was a star anyway. He had jnore arms than an octopus. I was so insulted I told him never to call me again. And do you remember what he did after that?"