Spring Fire by Vin Packer Read Free Book Online Page A

help you find your way back home. You didn't have to tell them anything. They'll have their own stories circulating before morning. God!"
    "Is there anything I can do?" Mitch looked at the beautiful girl and her eyes ached where there should have been tears.
    "Yes," Leda answered coolly. "There is. You can grow up! You can forget yourself and come out of your lousy damn shell and grow up! Don't you think I know how you felt? Don't you think I know what Roberts is like and how you felt? Do I look dumb and stupid, Mitch? Mitch, look at me! Do I look dumb and stupid?"
    Mitch stared. The tears had welled up and were held fast and there was a heaviness about her lids and the drummer was back inside her, beating away fast. Leda stood before her in her sheer white pajamas with her face red from excitement and her voice harsh and sharp.
    "No," Mitch answered her. "I'm the one that's dumb and stupid, I suppose. But I can't help it Everything's so dirty and nasty. I can't understand —"
    Leda cut in and held Mitch's shoulders. "You make me sick, Mitch! You make me retch! I bet you still think babies grow under cabbage leaves. Well, they don't. I've got news, Mitch, they don't grow under any goddamn cabbage leaves. I had to learn it! I had to learn it the hard way. Goddamn you, anyway!"
    The tears broke then and came to Mitch's eyes in a great rush and down her cheeks onto her slip and she said Leda's name over and over. Leda sat beside her and began to talk as though she were not talking to the girl, but to the wall and the curtains and the Venetian blinds.
    "When I was ten — ten —I was out in the back yard and Jan was sitting there with Dave, the man she was sleeping with then, and he came over to me and felt me. He said, 'Boy, she's a nice one!' and Jan laughed. Jan said, ‘You won't even stop at kids, you bastard,' and then they both laughed. You know what I did, Mitch? I laughed too. I've been laughing ever since. You should know what I laughed at. You should know some of the goddamn funny jokes I laughed at!"
    "Leda, please stop. I started all this. Please stop."
    "Why? Because you don't want to hear the story of my life? Is it raising the hair on your head, Mitch? You want to know something else? I used to be in bed and listen at night. We had a bungalow out in L. A. when Jan and I lived there, and Jan's room was right next to mine. I used to hear them. I used to hear them plain as everything —the springs creaking and the breathing."
    There was an eeriness about the room and the way Leda looked straight ahead with her eyes fixed and un-moving. Mitch squirmed uncomfortably, not wanting to hear any more, but Leda kept on.
    "And Jake! Want to know what Jake did tonight? After Bud announced that the Tri Eps were black-listed, Jake and I got to the house and heard the news. Jake took me back to the car. And after, Mitch, after it was over, Jake said, 'We'll find some way to have this, even if I can't take Tri Eps out They won't stop this, baby.' He didn't say, 'The hell with the whole goddamn bunch of them. They can't keep us apart' He said, 'We'll find some way to have this.' But what's funnier, Mitch — what's even funnier—was that I felt that way too. I didn't say it, but I felt it. That's all I want from him. I hate his guts and it's all I want from him. Sometimes I don't even want that and then there's nothing. I don't know what I. want, Mitch. I'm afraid of what I want"
    She looked at Mitch and she said, "Mitch, that was why I was mad when I first came in the room. Because you brought it out in the open. Because you made the whole thing as goddamn plain as the nose on my face. You caused the trouble —you and that bastard Roberts. Because now the whole damn sorority is black-listed and I've got to act as if I care and as if Jake cares and oh, my God, it's hell. We don't care. What a laugh!"
    Mitch saw Leda's face, and it was strange and unfamiliar. The features fell apart and they would not unite again. There was the