What Love Sees by Susan Vreeland Read Free Book Online Page A

bathroom with the door closed, they sat down on the floor. They’d never done it in the house before. Tready lit a cigarette and put it between Jean’s index and third fingers. “Hold your fingers straight and crook your wrist back, like this.” Tready moved Jean’s hand into position.
    “Ouch. Why?”
    “It looks better that way. More sophisticated.”
    Jean dragged on the cigarette and choked. “It still tastes brown.”
    “Brown?”
    “Like dirt,” she sputtered. “Awful.”
    “Don’t inhale. I never inhale. Just take a little draw and blow it out.”
    “Jean drew in another time, cautiously, and blew out the smoke.
    “Hey, don’t aim for me, Jean. Blow the smoke up, not out.”
    “Sorry.”
    “People sometimes do it in a puff just before they’re going to say something. It looks intellectual.”
    Jean tried it. “Like that?”
    “Yeah. I don’t know how you’re going to know when to flick the ashes, though.”
    “I can remember every few minutes. How do I do that?”
    “Tap it with your index finger after you’ve found the ashtray.”
    When they finished most of the cigarette, Jean put the butt in the toilet, opened the window and tried to wave out the smoke. They arrived late for cocktail hour in the library, a trail of cigarette smell following them.
    “What have you two been doing?”
    Father must know already. The tone in his voice told her that. “Smoking, Father,” she said cheerily. Maybe he’d be impressed with simple honesty. His glare burned through the darkness. How did he find out so soon?
    “I don’t ever want you to smoke again until you’re eighteen.”
    “Yes, Father.”
    But she did anyway, and swore Tready to secrecy.
    Just before the end of the school year, after a session studying German in the teachers’ room, Jean asked Lorraine if she smoked.
    “I did once, with Don. But I didn’t like it. Besides, I don’t want to start an expensive habit.”
    It was an odd remark. Jean had never thought of smoking as something to do or not do because of money. Then Lorraine asked Jean to her home for a Sunday afternoon dinner to celebrate the end of high school. Lorraine had never invited her there before. In fact, she never even talked about her house. Maybe it wasn’t an easy thing for her to do. Still, she said no. There was a lawn party at Farmington Country Club the same Sunday and Tready was going. If Jean went with her, she could show the others that she was smoking now, too.
    As soon as she and Tready got to the party, Louise Barnes drove up the sweeping driveway in her new Chevy roadster. “Graduation present from Pops,” she said. “I had to have some way to get to Bryn Mawr.”
    “But it’s too small,” Tready teased. “After you pile all your clothes in there, you won’t have any space for your golf clubs.”
    The boys swarmed around the car and lifted the hood to look at the engine, and no one noticed that Jean was smoking. Conversation swirled around her but nobody talked to her.
    “Do you know where you’re going yet, Cookie?” Tready asked.
    “Skidmore. To study art. It’ll be heavenly. Have you heard yet?”
    “Yes, Sweetbriar.”
    “Where’s that?”
    “In Virginia.”
    “You’ll come home talking like a southern belle on the arm of some handsome, slow-talking great-grandson of a confederate general, and poor Jack will be forgotten.”
    “Oh, don’t worry about poor Jack. Poor Jack’s headed for Harvard.”
    “Did you hear that Mavis got accepted at Knox? Her first choice. Because of the riding program.”
    Jean wished she could sink into the grass. She prayed she wouldn’t have to say she hadn’t been accepted anywhere. In fact, it looked like she didn’t even have enough credits to graduate. The afternoon stretched long and her feet hurt, but she didn’t know where a chair was and didn’t want to call attention to herself by asking. High school ended with a fizzle.
    That summer the Hill girls visiting the Treadway pool talked