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

out and look for trouble.”
    â€œYes,” Susan said, “even trouble. I think trouble’s better than nothing. Kay … I just can’t stand myself sometimes. Why doesn’t anything ever happen to me? Why hasn’t anything ever happened to me here ? I don’t even know whether I want to go away. It’s just an idea. I just happen to have some tickets… . Kay, if you were going you’d know , wouldn’t you? Things really happen to you.”
    Without looking at Susan, Kay said, “Well, I’ve had a pretty strange few months. I’m not sure what it all means yet.” She walked over to the table and picked up her cup of coffee. “No … that’s a lie.” Kay sounded as if she were talking to herself. “I do know. I do know.”
    â€œKnow what, Kay?” She wasn’t quite sure that she had any right to ask.
    â€œWell … I think I’m going to be a failure,” Kay said slowly. “I think that’s already settled. And that’s all right. But I do want to be a magnificent one. A gigantic smoking ruin. It’s the mediocre failures that clog up the world.” Kay was staring at her now. “You’ll probably stop talking to me, Susan.”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous!” Susan cried. “Besides, I don’t believe you. I think you’re just feeling depressed.”
    â€œI’m not depressed today.”
    â€œWhat about Peter?” Susan found herself asking. “Is he a magnificent failure?”
    â€œPeter’s very beautiful,” Kay said gravely. “But I don’t know what’ll happen to him.”
    â€œBut he is a failure.” There was a look of pain on Kay’s face. “But I didn’t mean it that way—I do like him.” She smiled at Kay anxiously. “I forgot to tell you—I ran into him yesterday on Broadway. We had coffee.”
    â€œI saw you pass,” Kay said.
    â€œYou should have come with us!”
    Kay stirred her coffee. “Oh … ” she said, “I was feeling antisocial. Anyway, you wouldn’t have talked to each other if I’d been there. He told me it was the first time he’d ever had a conversation with you.”
    â€œI’ve been shy with him, I guess.”
    â€œThat’s pointless.”
    â€œKay,” Susan asked abruptly, “are you in love with Peter?”
    Kay’s face reddened. “Really now! Don’t I have enough troubles?” She walked quickly over to the dresser, fished out a black sweater and yanked it over her head. “Let’s get out of here and look at the morning. I haven’t been up this early since I left school.”
    â€œWhere to?”
    Kay was studying herself in the mirror. “Want to walk me over to Peter’s?” Her voice was elaborately casual. “I promised to wake him whenever I got up.”
    â€œI think I really ought to go back to the dorms, Kay.”
    â€œOh come on, you can just walk me there.”
    Susan hesitated. “All right,” she said.

CHAPTER SIX
    T HEY DIDN’T TALK at all until they got out of the elevator and heard the music blaring behind Peter’s door at the other end of the corridor. “My God!” Kay said then. “He must have left the radio on all night.”
    â€œI really can’t stay very long,” Susan whispered as Kay pressed the buzzer. No one answered. “Maybe he isn’t home, Kay. We could go and have some coffee.”
    But Kay had tried the door. It was unlocked. “He always leaves it this way,” she said. She was holding it open, and there was nothing for Susan to do but walk into Peter’s living room, where there was no one to listen to the jazz. All the lights were on, though, and underneath the music they could hear the rush of the shower. “Might as well wait,” Kay said. She pushed aside a tangle of army blankets on the sofa and sat