Come and Join the Dance by Joyce Johnson Read Free Book Online

thought!”
    â€œThat’s not exactly true, you know,” Susan said painfully.
    â€œI know,” Kay said. “I guess I’m jealous.”
    â€œI wish you were coming with me.”
    Kay was silent. “I couldn’t,” she said at last. “Even if I had the money. It’s a big thing just to go below 110th Street. I’m too—committed, I guess. No, stuck—that’s less elegant.”
    â€œYou’ll finish school next year,” Susan said lamely.
    â€œYes,” Kay said, “I’ll go back and get my Bachelor’s. I think I’ll give my diploma to my parents. It’s really theirs. Everything’s theirs. Even my books. And these pajamas—my mother made them.”
    They were cotton batiste, white with blue rosebuds and a little lace around the collar—exactly, Susan thought, what a mother would make for a young daughter, someone soft, protected. Kay was furiously picking at the buttons. “I’m not ever going to have children!” she cried. The pajamas dropped on the rug in a little heap. Kay began to pull open all the drawers in her dresser. “Everything’s dirty,” she groaned. “I can’t find anything.” It was strange to see Kay without clothes; she was always so well hidden in her dark skirts and shapeless sweaters that it was difficult even to imagine her body. It was terribly round and white, a woman’s body, not a girl’s. Kay was beautiful, Susan realized. She stared at her in astonishment, until she caught herself staring, and then suddenly Kay’s nakedness in the little room and the way she pulled open the dresser drawers as though there was no one there to watch her at all seemed unbearably intimate. For a moment Susan was almost angry with her, not that she was shocked. She walked over to the hot plate and peered down at the boiling water. “Kay, where are the cups?” She didn’t want to just sit there on the edge of the bed trying to look unconcerned. It was stupid to be so uncomfortable. After all, Susan thought, Kay wasn’t a virgin. Perhaps once you had irrevocably gone to bed with a man, you took your body for granted—you knew, which was different than knowing about . She remembered asking Kay once, “What’s it really like? How does it feel?” And Kay had only answered, with the maddening smile of an adult, that everything changed too much if you thought about it. Susan still despised herself for having had to ask.
    Perhaps she should have gone to bed with Jerry. She had always put it off, telling him, “It’s just not the right time yet, Jerry,” without ever deciding when the right time would come. And yet she hadn’t been afraid. Maybe it was just bitchiness; it would have been different if she had been able to love him—then she could have done it blindly, without questions or afterthoughts. But surely she had loved him a little, at least in the beginning. They had been too shy with each other to think of it then. And now she was graduating a virgin, which was against all her principles. She was sick of being a child, sick of being only a member of the audience. It was time for her to move into the Southwick Arms Hotel.
    The pot of boiling water shook in her hand and slopped on the table. “Oh, no!” Susan wailed.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” Kay asked.
    â€œI don’t seem to be able to do anything. Can’t even make instant coffee. I wouldn’t last a week on a desert island.”
    Kay laughed. “Most deserts are probably civilized deserts like this with bad plumbing. You’d get along after a while.”
    â€œMaybe I wouldn’t. I really wish I knew how I’d turn out, Kay, whether I’d survive. I want to test limits. Do you know what I mean?”
    â€œI hear the plumbing’s really bad in Paris.”
    â€œOh, Kay! I’m serious.”
    â€œYou mean you want to go