“You mean you really noticed me?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Why?”
Alison was now looking at her closely, the little scowl on her face that gave her a kind of dramatic intensity, implying that a great deal more than Lisa supposed might depend upon the answer, and Lisa was suddenly shy and dumb, unable to respond, color creeping up under the clear, pale skin of her face.
“You’re blushing,” Alison said.
“Am I? I didn’t know it.”
“Why are you blushing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you want to tell me why you noticed me?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Tell me, then.”
“Well, because you’re so attractive and everything.”
“Oh, go on. You’re just saying that.”
“No, I’m not. It’s perfectly true.”
The declaration came out much more fiercely than Lisa had intended, and this seemed to please Alison immensely. Her scowl was replaced by a small smile that was at once satisfied and secretive, and she stood up abruptly.
“Those stupid boys are finally finished,” she said. “Now we can play tennis.”
They went out onto the court and started to play, and it was soon apparent that Lisa was no match. Alison moved swiftly on her strong brown legs, her reflexes functioning with the speed that is essential to excellence in physical games, and there was a masculine power in the flat trajectory of her drives. After four games, Lisa had not won a single point, but Alison did not for this reason relax her game in the slightest. There was a deadly, almost vicious purposeness in the way she scored her points, as if she took a savage pleasure in humiliating her opponent. Strangely enough, though, Lisa did not feel humiliated, or even angry. Ordinarily she was not a particularly good loser and would have quit playing when it became obvious that she had no chance to win. But now she found a pleasure in submitting to her beating that was as strange in its own way as Alison’s in giving it to her.
After the final point of the fourth game, more because she was exhausted than because of her inability to score, she left her side of the court and came around the net to Alison.
“You’re much too good for me,” she said.
“Do you want to quit?”
“Yes. I’m very tired.”
“Are you? I’m not. I’m not tired at all.”
“You’re stronger than I am.”
“That’s true. I’m really quite strong.”
“Besides, I have to be getting home. I enjoyed playing with you, but I’m afraid I didn’t give you much opposition.”
Alison laughed suddenly, her teeth flashing white in her brown face, and put an arm around Lisa’s waist. Lisa could feel the strength in the arm and the heat of Alison’s body, was aware intensely of Alison’s smooth flank against her own.
“That’s all right. I’ll teach you.”
“Really? I shouldn’t think anyone as good as you would want to be bothered.”
“Oh, nonsense. The truth is, I like you. I’ve had a feeling right along that we could be very good friends. Would you like to be friends?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s settled, then. Will you play tennis with me tomorrow afternoon?”
“If you really want me to.”
“Of course I want you to. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t ask. I’m quite sweaty, aren’t you?”
“Yes. It’s still very hot playing in the sun.”
“Do you suppose we could go inside and have a shower?”
“In the school?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know about that. I don’t think we’re supposed to use the showers except after gym classes.”
“Oh, come on. What could be the harm in it? You have a locker in the dressing room, don’t you?”
“Well, yes. Everyone has a locker.”
“I don’t. I haven’t been assigned one yet. Come on. I’ll just share your towel, if you don’t mind.”
“I ought to be getting home.”
“That’s all right. I have my father’s car. I’ll drive you home afterward, and you’ll be there just as soon.”
The arm around Lisa’s waist was imperative, directing her in the way it wanted her to go, and they walked up from the tennis court to a rear entrance to the school and up on the inside to the dressing room on the girls’ side of the gymnasium. Miss Mackson, the physical education teacher, was not in the dressing room when they entered, nor was anyone else. Lisa’s excitement was out of proportion to the circumstances, but she was also a little uneasy, for she had an idea that there would be trouble if she and Alison were discovered showering after class hours. Her mother and father would be very angry with her if she got into trouble at school, and it would, besides, be very humiliating to have to go before the principal or something. Wishing to get finished and away, she began to undress quickly, sitting on the bench in front of her locker to remove her tennis shoes and socks. Then, standing to complete the undressing, she was conscious all at once of a strange inner conflict, reluctance and eagerness at odds over taking off everything in front of this rather confusing and compelling girl she had only just met and could not quite understand.
Hesitating, she looked at Alison and saw that the other girl was already naked and was watching her with the small smile on her lips that seemed to be the emotional antithesis of the intent smile that expressed her dislike. Stripped, its smooth brown broken in two places by bands of white the sun had not reached, Alison’s body had a hard clean look of grace that even her thin shirt and brief shorts had not completely shown, her hips assuming in nakedness a boyish narrowness, her shoulders an added breadth.“What’s the matter?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“I’m not waiting for anything. I’ll be ready in just a minute.”
She finished undressing in a hurry, and they went back to the shower stalls and stood for quite a while under the hot water and for a few seconds under the cold, and then Alison shut off the water and turned to Lisa, and it was perfectly plain all of a sudden that they had come to the time for some kind of decision, but afterward, when Lisa thought back to it, there didn’t really seem to have been any decision or choice at all, but only something that had to begin and did. At first, for some time after the first time, there was a fear that sometimes assumed the dimensions of terror, and there was a feeling of guilt that was based less on a conviction of transgression than on the certainty that her mother and father and brother and practically everyone else would consider it so. But against the burden of fear and guilt, which gradually lightened, there was the compensation of Alison and Alison’s special friendship. They were together almost all the time, and spent nights at each other’s house and all things like that, and everyone thought how inseparable they were and that it was really quite sweet and charming; and everything was fine, except for the sickness of fear and guilt, all through the fall and the winter and right up into the spring, which was the time Miss Mackson found the note.
Lisa had written the note to Alison and was going to pass it to her when she got the chance, and this was nothing new or different, because she wrote a note every once in a while to tell Alison again how wonderful it was to be her friend and just how she felt about everything, but perhaps it was foolish to put it down on paper that way when you couldn’t possibly expect anyone else to understand about it if it became known. It wasn’t really necessary to write the notes, of course, because all that was in them could have been spoken, but somehow it seemed easier to find just the right words for it when there was time to select them carefully and write them down. Anyhow, the note was written, and it was in her jacket pocket when she went in to gym, and later, when she came out, it was gone. She was very frightened and went back to the dressing room to look for it, but it wasn’t there. After that she didn’t know what to do, and though she didn’t know it yet, there was nothing to be done at all, because Miss Mackson had found it.