Sisterhood is for life...
by Erin Halfelven
A young man rents a room in the basement of a sorority house.
What you don't know, can be taught to you.
by Erin Halfelven
1. Room for Let
Gayle checked the address on the slip of paper he held again. Four thirteen University Way. “Hmm,” he said. The advertisement had said nothing about the room being in a fraternity house, but the letters above the number on the house were Greek. Theta Gamma Gamma, he was pretty sure, from seeing the symbols in math textbooks.
The house had probably started out as a mansion, two-and-a-half stories in a late Georgian-style with an attic and what looked like a partial basement. From the number of windows, there might be eight or more bedrooms upstairs, with more in the attic.
Red brick with black and white trim and slate-blue roof tiles, a wide porch framed by columns in front with two balconies above. No garage unless it was a separate building off an alleyway in the back, but a small gazebo occupied a side yard. Gardens were visible in the gap between the little building and the main house.
He shrugged. If they were advertising rooms to let, they must have more than needed for the members, and he was having no luck finding another rental within convenient distance to the university.
An older woman answered the door. Her golden hair had mostly gone to silver, but her eyes were still bright blue in a still youthful face, and her body in the green paisley housedress was generously formed if not quite plump. “Yes?” she said when he inquired about the room. “But I’m expecting a young woman to apply.”
“I’m Gayle Rogers Summerfell,” he said, blushing. “Uh, I did say in my application letter that I was male.” This had happened to him before, with a name like Gayle and particularly with the Y-spelling. He ought to be used to it, but it sill embarrassed and annoyed him.
“Oh, I’m sure I would have remembered that,” the woman said. “This is a sorority house. I’m the house mother, Mrs. Hollander, Frances Hollander.” She suddenly dimpled, looking a decade younger at least. “The girls call me Miz Frankie and sometimes I’m such a goof.” She had a faint accent he couldn’t place and a sometimes odd way of phrasing things.
But Gayle had to smile. “I’ve looked all over the neighborhood around the school. You’ve got the only rental open this close to the start of semester. I sent you a check for a deposit.”
“I know,” said Miz Frankie. She sighed. “And I’ve already deposited it.” She opened the door wider. “Well, come on into the parlor,” she said, stepping out of the way. “We’ll work something out.”
“Uh,” Gayle stepped inside. A sorority? Would they be able to rent a room to him? Wouldn’t someone want to veto such an idea? In 1957, a man living in what was essentially a women’s dormitory would be a scandal waiting to happen. But the door was open, and Miz Frankie seemed optimistic, so he stepped in and followed her through the short entryway, which was a little like an internal porch.
The parlor itself was a large room just through the entry and might be twenty by sixteen with a few nooks adding a bit more floor space. A staircase curved upward from the right-hand wall and double doors opened to the left. Several more doors led off at various places, one just under the stairs near him.
Miz Frankie was talking, approaching the door. “We have a basement room, it’s a bit of a mess, and none of the girls want it. But we thought we might find another girl, outside the sorority, to rent it to. Hmm?” She opened the door revealing a small landing and a passage down to the left, deeper under the house.
Gayle felt a bit of hope. She wouldn’t be showing him this unless she really thought she could rent to him, would she?
The woman pulled on a light switch, illuminating a narrow staircase descending at a sharp angle into dimness. “The stairs are sturdy, but you should hold the railing. Some people get dizzy because they’re so steep.” She led the way, and Gayle followed, his hope rising as they descended.
“It’s an odd space,” Miz Frankie said. “There’s a tub down here but no toilet, so you would have to use the guest facilities off the parlor upstairs.” She pulled another light switch revealing the basement room.
“I see,” Gayle commented. Yes! He had a room, and he would be able to attend college and get a student deferment which would keep him out of the draft, which was the whole point of going to college in the first place. Gayle didn’t think he would do well in the army, and he didn’t intend to have to find out. There was no war going on, why were they still drafting people anyway?
He’d missed a bit of the house mother’s spiel.
“No cooking allowed but you have a small refrigerator down here, and the room comes with ten meals a week: breakfast Monday to Saturday at seven, and dinner Monday to Thursday at five. Served in the dining room upstairs. The rest of your meals are up to you. You may use bread and condiments from the house for your lunches if you are home.”
She smiled. “The girls often cook up something for weekend dinners and Sunday brunch, and I’m sure they would share with you if you add in your tuppence.”
“T-tuppence?” Gayle stammered.
“Just an expression, contribute your share.” Miz Frankie waved vaguely. “Those arrangements would be between you and the girls, but they are allowed to use the kitchen as long as everything is replaced and cleaned up.”
“Oh,” he nodded. He looked around the room, and Miz Frankie got out of his way so he could take a close look.
A sizeable old-fashioned frame bed took up much of the space right in the middle of the room. An armoire in one corner stood next to a dresser bearing a large mirror and a lamp at each end of it. Another corner held a table with two chairs and a small apartment-style refrigerator.
When he moved into the room, he discovered that the space under the stairs had a curtain closing it off, concealing a genteel, claw-footed, porcelain and cast-iron bathtub. A little short for someone five-foot-ten, but he had used smaller tubs. It wasn’t a lot of room, but he didn’t need much more than a place to sleep and study enough to pass his classes.
“I’ll take it,” he suddenly offered.
MIz Frankie raised an eyebrow. “Well, you’ve paid $80 already, two months worth with one held in reserve as deposit. So another $40 owed October first? That’s including the meals.”
“Okay,” he agreed. It wasn’t that expensive for a room only blocks from the college.
“There are two washers in the utility room attached to the garage at the back of the property. Lines to hang your clothes between there and the garden. There’s a signup sheet to reserve the washers on a hook back there, too.”
He hadn’t thought of laundry, but he nodded.
Miz Frankie looked him over again, from brown crew-cut to chambray shirt to dungaree pants to white high-tops. “We’ve rented this room to young men before but this being a sorority house, we’ve developed some rules to protect the reputations of the girls. You see?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“The house is locked from 10 p.m. To 6 a.m. But your curfew will be 6 p.m.; we don’t want any men seen going in or out after that. If you’re not inside by the end of the dinner hour, weekends included, you will not be allowed to enter. Understand?”
“Uh,” Gayle murmured. “What-what would I do if I’m locked out?”
“There’s a flophouse down the street, by the highway. Fifty cents a night, so you won’t have to sleep rough.” She clarified when he looked confused. “Outdoors, you won’t have to sleep outdoors.”
“Oh, right,” he said. “I’ll try not to have to resort to that.”
“Good thought,” she agreed. “It doesn’t have the most savory repute.”
He blinked but let that pass as being clear enough. Looking around the room again, he noticed something else. “No windows?” he asked.
“No,” she agreed. “You’re directly under the middle of the house, nearly. But there are two airshafts.” She showed them to him, one beside the tub leading through the wall to an opening near the entry, she said. The other was above the refrigerator, connecting with the airshaft for the kitchen upstairs.
“The furnace is behind that wall, too,” she noted. “It’s cool enough down here in warm weather, and I think you’ll find it warm and toasty in winter.”
The lack of windows bothered him for a moment, but he shrugged it off. “I like it, Mrs.-uh, Miz, uh?”
She showed her dimples again. “You can call me Miz Frankie, just like the girls do. Oh! The school is closed half of December, but you’re welcome to stay here, and at any rate, we charge for the full month. Semester ends in January, so new arrangements may be made starting February, but the offer will be the same.”
“Good,” said Gayle, stepping into the room to look around again. He had only a few things to move in with him stored at a hotel and would have a few more shipped from his aunt’s house. A pattern on the floor disappearing under the bed caught his attention. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Just an old mosaic one of the previous tenants worked on. But one other thing,” Miz Frankie said. “No moving the furniture. Well, you can’t move things anyway, it’s all fastened to the floor. Vin soir, you know.”
Gayle nodded though he didn’t speak French at all. He didn’t speak or read Greek, either, and so did not understand the motto that had been clearly written above the front door. Θα γίνουμε γυναίκες.
*
Miz Frankie watched the young man scurry away, satisfied. He was as perfect a candidate as the House could hope for. He even had a good name. The girls would have their semester project.
What kind of ink do you sign with?
by Erin Halfelven
2. Covenant
It took Gayle only a few hours to fetch his duffel and bags from the hotel. The taxi driver looked at him curiously when he gave the address. “You sure that’s right?” he asked. “That’s like a boarding house for dames only.”
“I’m renting the basement from them,” he explained.
“Yeah?” The cabbie sounded interested. “Planning to get a little action?”
“Uh,” said Gayle. “No, probably not. That could get me kicked out, and I need this place to stay in school and, uh, avoid getting drafted.” The cab started with a jerk, pushing him back into the cushions.
“Pfft,” said the driver. “I was you, I’d volunteer for the draft now, while they ain’t no war going on. My time in the service was no picnic, but it was after WWII and before Korea. Stationed in Germany and stayed drunk the whole two years.”
“I don’t, I don’t, uh, I don’t…” Gayle stammered.
The cabbie lit an unfiltered cigarette, disgusted, and to further demonstrate his disregard for Gayle’s announced and implied morals, spewed the smoke so it would be blown into the younger man’s face in the back seat.
The cab started with a jerk accent, pressing Gayle back into the seat before he could begin to complain about the smoke.
*
The cabbie smoked the whole trip, and when they arrived at the sorority, Gayle exited the cab still coughing and waving his arms. He gave the driver a scowl along with the fare plus a half-generous tip, and ended up with his duffle over his right shoulder and his suitcase in his left hand, staggering toward the flight of stairs into the stately former mansion.
Three girls at the top of the steps watched his approach with some curiosity. Stella, the tall girl with the mane of brown hair, started down the steps but a touch the slender, elegant blonde stopped her. “He’s a guy,” said Ash. “He doesn’t want you helping him.”
The third girl, Mallory, giggled. “He’s doing okay. It’ll be good to have someone in the house that can open jars and reach the top shelves.” Mallory was notably short as well as exceptionally curvy.
Stella grinned and shrugged. At the moment, such jobs fell to her, but she didn’t mind. She’d grown up on a ranch and was used to physical work. Still, she called out to the boy, her drawl sounding friendly. “Y’all need any help there?”
Gayle resisted the urge to look around to see if anyone was with him, he could hear the driver putting the cab in gear and recognized the polite Texas use of the plural form of you. He laughed. “I’m fine, but if someone could get the door?”
Giggling again, Mallory opened the big, wide front door and all three girls stood aside as Gayle moved in, doing his masculine best not to show any strain.
“I hope you’re the new renter,” Ash commented as he passed by her.
“Yup,” he said. “I’m Gayle, and I’ll be renting the basement room at least for this semester.”
“Uh, huh,” Ash murmured. “Miz Frankie told us you would. I’m Ash, and I’m second year, physical education major.” All the girls were checking out Gayle’s physique and exchanged winks and glances after he passed them.
“Oh, first year, undeclared major, so far,” Gayle amended his introduction.
“I’m Stella,” said the tall girl. “Second year, food science.”
Mallory giggled. “First year, also undeclared, my name is Mallory.”
None of them had used last names since they were all young Americans in a casual setting.
Mallory scurried ahead of Gayle to open the door leading to the basement stairs. “Be careful,” she called to him as he began the steep descent then thought better of it. Ash reached into the space from the hallway and found a light switch to relieve some of the gloom, but the stairs were still narrow and awkward.
Putting half his load down on the tiny landing, Gayle ferried it into the depths in two trips, thanking the girls for their help. “I’ll put things away later, but I want to be sure I got acquainted right now. Have I got your names right?” he asked. “Ash, Stella and Mallory?”
They all nodded, but Ash put in, smiling, “My first name is actually Ashleigh, and Mallory is usually known as Bunny.”
Stella laughed and Mallory, or Bunny, turned bright red. “I started here in Spring semester, and I wore a rabbit costume to an Easter party for some kids,” she confessed.
“It was just so appropriate a nickname,” put in Ash. “We all love Bunny.”
“You guys!” protested the younger girl. But Gayle noted she didn’t tell anyone not to call her Bunny.
He tried the name out. “Bunny?” he said to her.
She rolled her eyes but smiled and nodded. “Mallory is my Grandpa’s last name, and it’s a mouthful, huh?” Everyone laughed, not because it was funny but because Mallory—Bunny—obviously enjoyed sharing a bit about herself.
Ash glanced at the big timepiece on the mantle above the fireplace. “The grandmother clock says we’re having dinner in less than an hour. Anybody hungry?”
Everyone agreed that they were, but Gayle had a question. “I see the antique big, old clock, but what’s the difference between a grandmother clock and a grandfather clock?”
Bunny giggled, and Stella rolled her eyes as Ash replied, “Duh! A grandmother clock doesn’t have a peen-dulum.” She distorted the last word to get the punchline.
“Oh,” said Gayle with a slow grin. “I walked into that one, didn’t I?”
And everyone laughed again, but this time because it was funny.
“Do we have to do anything to help prepare dinner?” Gayle asked.
Ash shook her head. “We take turns, theirs a chores signup in the kitchen. Besides helping with meals, there’s vacuuming, setting out the trashcans, mowing the lawn or shoveling snow, depending on season. And sometimes Miz Frankie adds some special chore.”
“Huh,” said Gayle. This hadn’t been mentioned earlier, but it didn’t surprise him. It was a usual sort of arrangement in any co-operative living.
“Counting you,” Ash continued, “there’s twelve us and usually only thirty chores or so. You’re expected to sign up for two or three, but Miz Frankie will assign chores if there aren’t enough volunteers. Oh, and don’t sign up for any chores that would have you going upstairs. At least, not until we get to know you better.”
All the girls nodded, and Gayle did too.
“Have you signed the covenant yet?” Ash asked.
“Uh, no?” Gayle made it a question, not sure what a covenant might be.
“It’s like a contract between all of us,” put in Stella.
Bunny nodded, making her ponytail bounce. “Uh, huh. We rent this place and Miz Frankie is really our employee to run it for us.”
“Oh, uh, I thought she was the landlady,” Gayle admitted.
“No,” Ash explained. “The owner is a foundation trust whose members are all people who enrolled here and were chosen to fill vacancies in the board by the other trustees. They’re almost all former sorority sisters and graduates. The whole thing was set up by a group of women about fifty years ago who bought the building, started the sorority, and donated money to the trust.”
“Wow,” said Gayle. “I had no idea.” He followed the girls through the entry hall and into the dining room. The smell of dinner preparations in the kitchens beyond began to penetrate the building.
“The Articles of Covenant are the agreement between people who live here and the sorority and the trust. You have to agree to abide by the rules in order to stay.” Ash gestured at a large, ledger-style book lying on the buffet in the dining room.
“What kind of rules?” asked Gayle, moving toward the buffet.
“You can read them before you sign, but they’re pretty simple and obvious, like pay your bill on time, keep your space clean, and don’t offend visitors or your roomies with your behavior,” said Ash.
“Yeah,” Bunny agreed. “Not that hard to do, even for me.” She giggled.
“Common sense for living in a group,” added Stella.
Gayle made a noise, “Hmm, mm. I’ll read it and probably sign tonight. How long do I have?”
Ash waved a hand. “A month before the Covenant has to be signed. And even then, you might be able to stay, month to month. We’d vote on it. But if you sign, then you have a guarantee that your room is available as long as you want it, and you abide by the Covenant which includes being enrolled and attending classes. And you get a vote, too.” She grinned.
“Yeah, wow,” said Gayle, picking up the Covenant. Fifty years worth of signatures filled the last few pages. Turning to the beginning of the book, he started to read.
The girls all exchanged smiles.
*
In the kitchen, working to prepare the evening meal, Miz Frankie spoke to herself. “What is the collective noun for everyone who shares the same Covenant?” she asked.
Knowledge is power, wisdom is a plan...
by Erin Halfelven
3. Wisdom's Eve
Gayle first read the Covenant with some care but began to skim the boring parts as he went along. It all seemed pretty standard except a paragraph had been added for male residents at the end, specifying that they had an 8 p.m. curfew, Monday to Thursday, which could turn into a pain. Weekend curfew would be 11 p.m. which could be a bother too.
If I stay out late, maybe I can sleep on someone’s couch, he thought. Or if I get a girlfriend…. He left that part unvoiced, even to himself. He hadn’t ever had a girlfriend that would have let him sleep over, but college girls might be different.
Another added paragraph said he was forbidden to date members of the sorority but could attend public functions if accompanied by two or more of the girls. Protecting their reputation, he supposed. Well, the girls he’d met so far, Ash, Stella and Bunny, were delightful but it was a big campus.
Miz Frankie called them all into dinner just then, and he left the Covenant on the buffet, unsigned so far. This would be his first meeting with the whole sorority, and he didn’t want to be distracted.
“Hey!” said one girl as he entered. “It’s the designated jar-opener!” Almost all the girls laughed and Gayle did, too.
“Don’t mind Charlie,” said a tall brunette, “she’s a joker.” Which got more laughter, including from the blonde identified as Charlie.
The brunette, who had a touch of red in her hair, was called Bailey. Gayle got introductions to all of the girls but wasn’t able to keep who went with which name straight. For one thing, several girls seemed to go by more than one name like Mallory/Bunny and, it turned out, Estel/Stella. So that didn’t help at all.
But the food was good, the company enjoyable and Gayle had a good time getting acquainted. Being in the same room with nine beautiful young women was certainly no hardship, he reflected. Two of the girls weren’t at dinner, he was told, Hillary and Jayne had gone out with friends. More names to remember, thought Gayle.
After the meal, two of the girls helped clean the table and washed dishes with Miz Frankie in the kitchen while everyone else went their own way. Ash stopped by the buffet and picked up the Covenant. “Have you signed this yet?” she asked Gayle.
“No,” he said. “Let me do that.” He’d read enough, despite some antique phrasing in a few places, it seemed a pretty standard rental contract with the added stipulations to protect the girl reputation.
Ash handed him a fountain pen and held the papers open at the appropriate spot. Some of the names on the page he recognized as belonging to girls he had just met. Mallory and Charlie were the names just above the line Ash indicated he should sign on. The dates next to their names would have been in the early spring.
“Huh,” said Gayle, beginning to write his name. “This pen writes brown ink. In fact, this whole Covenant thing is in brown ink.”
“It’s craft ink,” said Ash. “Miz Frankie makes it right here in the House.”
“Oh, that’s kind of cool,” he commented as he finished, dating his own signature.
Ash, Bunny and Stella beamed at him and he smiled back.
“Well,” he said. “I guess my curfew kicks in, since this is Tuesday night. But I’ve got plenty to do, getting things arranged downstairs.” He headed toward the door to the basement. “I’ll be in my suite if I’m needed to open any jars or reach a high shelf.”
The girls giggled. “Jayne is going to be happy, she’s the tall one,” said Stella. She looked at her own hands. “But I’m a farm girl, I’ve been the one who had to open jars.” More giggles.
“Spiders,” said Ash with a shudder. “We need a spider killer, too. Gayle, you’re not afraid of spiders are you?”
“Uh, no,” he admitted. “I don’t like to kill them, though. I usually scoop them up on a piece of paper and carry them outside. Except for black widows, those I will kill.” He glanced at the door to the basement. “Uh, there aren’t any black widows down there, are there?”
“Who knows?” said Ash callously.
“There weren’t when Charlie and I were sleeping down there last year,” Bunny put in. “We moved upstairs in June when two other girls graduated.”
“So, it’s been empty over the summer?”
The girls nodded.
Gayle sighed. “I’ll keep an eye out for creepy-crawlies,” he said and the girls giggled again. He put his hand on the door to the stairwell. He liked the girls, and this whole experience seemed to be worth a few spider hunts.
Ash added something. “Just as you’re not supposed to go upstairs without an invitation from three or more of us, we’re not supposed to go down to your quarters alone or without you inviting us.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “Consider yourselves invited.”
“No,” said Ash. “No blanket invites, but we might take you up on it some other time?” This time, only Stella and Bunny giggled.
“Do you have stuff to do in the morning?” Stella asked.
“I do,” he said. “Eight a.m. registration, in fact. I couldn’t register earlier because I didn’t have a residence.”
“Classes start week after next,” said Stella. “But Ash, Bunny, Keane, and Charlie are cheerleaders; they have practice tomorrow.”
Gayle smiled at Ash. “You look like a cheerleader, but I wouldn’t have guessed it.”
She snorted. “Because I seem to have more than half a brain, I bet. No, it’s great practice for gymnastics in the winter. Then I’ll do track and field in the spring. Huh?”
Mallory giggled. “She just wants to get out there and prance in front of the football teams.” She showed her dimples in a big grin. “That’s why I do it.”
Ash turned red but denied nothing, and everyone had another laugh.
Only a few minutes later, Ash commented that she needed to put the Covenant back in the safe in Miz Frankie’s office and reminded the other girls that they had a meeting of the Sorority Steering Committee at nine.
“It’s a committee of the whole, so we all have to be there,” she explained to Gayle. “Except you,” she added with a grin.
“Yeah, yeah, you girls have to have your secret meetings,” he allowed, grinning back. “But why on a Tuesday?”
“Because tomorrow is Wednesday, of course,” said Bunny.
Gayle chuckled, but the other girls only rolled their eyes.
“Seriously,” said Ash, “it’s the only night of the week, we can be nearly certain no one is doing anything away from the house.”
“Oh, yeah, huh?” Gayle nodded, seeing the logic. Mondays were often holidays and Wednesday to Friday nights often had school or social functions.
After that exchange, the girls finally escaped up the stairs, and Gayle could retire to his subterranean man-cave. That particular description made him smile as he negotiated the narrow stairs, pulling the chain for the large ceiling light as he descended.
At five-ten, Gayle was about average height for America in the 1950s, but he was a slender man with a lean body and a boniness to him that showed in his face, too. Prominent cheekbones, deeply set hazel eyes and a wide jaw combined with his neatly-trimmed mane of reddish-blond hair to make him handsome and his looks and easy grin gave him charm.
He sighed, though. The girls of the house certainly seemed interesting, and interested, but he’d read the Covenant carefully enough to know they were decidedly off-limits. His dating experiences in high school didn’t seem as relevant to college life—no sock hops, malt shops, or letter sweaters in evidence.
He set about distributing his belongings around his new space. Shirts, pants, and coats into the armoire; socks, underwear, and sweaters into drawers in the dresser. His toiletries he left in a leather bag near the tub where he could easily use them or carry them upstairs to the full bath. How odd to have a bathtub in his room but no sink or toilet bowl.
The bed had already been made, but he found the spare sheets and tore it apart to remake it, still a bit worried about the suggestion that there might be spiders about. It would be an odd basement that didn’t harbor a few, he thought.
He considered it lucky his mother had insisted he bring pajamas, since otherwise he would have had to plan on getting dressed to go up to the bathroom. Changing to his PJs, he sprawled across the bed and took out one of the books he had brought along. It was a curious book, two novels bound so that one book could be turned over to reveal the front cover of the other.
The books were by Andre Norton and Gordon Dickson, two science fiction writers he was familiar with already, and he looked forward to reading both books—a darn good value for just 35 cents. He could read a few hours before he needed to go to sleep.
*
Upstairs, the girls settled in for naps, since they would all be getting up later for their regular, weekly Wisdom’s Eve meeting—aka, the Steering Committee.
Puzzling prank...
by Erin Halfelven
4. Crossdraft
Wednesday morning, Gayle woke up with a sudden cramp, a spasm in the small of his back. It got him up and moving around quickly, with a heartfelt, “Yipe!” and a desire to curse which he repressed.
He was down in his own room, in the basement and the girls couldn’t hear him, but he had decided not to curse at all for fear of doing it in front of the girls or Miz Frankie and maybe losing his accommodation. He really didn’t want to drop out of college for lack of a place to stay, causing him to lose his student deferment and maybe end up wearing a green uniform doing a tedious job for two years or more.
With no war at the moment, (the Korean Conflict had been completed), the Armed Services only needed warm bodies for garrison duty, here there and everywhere. They even had a base somewhere called Ultima Thule up above the Arctic Circle. He shivered and winced, that would be somewhere cold enough to make your bones ache, he thought, as a twinge in his back reminded him of why he woke up before his alarm.
Still walking back and forth and gently twisting at the waist to work out the cramp, he reflected that the thing to do was to take some snap courses. He knew he wasn’t the greatest of students. He’d barely passed high school algebra and from what he had scored on his entrance exams, would probably have to retake it at the college level.
He did like to read and frequently devoured any sort of book that came within reach. In fact, he’d been reading science fiction later into the night than he probably should have. But he hated writing papers on the sort of books that got assigned in English classes, so… his one strength did not really translate into good grades. He sighed.
At least, his back had stopped hurting, even though he felt as if he were walking funny from avoiding the pain. Well, it would go back to normal when he had enough exercise.
He’d woken up lying on his stomach, not under the covers. “Must have been a cold draft,” he mused. The underground room was surprisingly cool in early September, and he could feel a crossdraft moving from one air shaft to the other, directly across the bed. He’d have to make sure to stay covered in case it happened again.
Checking the clock, Gayle saw that he had most of a half-hour before breakfast. Time enough, he reasoned to check over the college catalog again.
Late registration would start at 9:30 a.m. So he had time if he didn’t take too much of it dithering. He took out the newest catalog that showed only the courses that had not already been filled in pre-registration, as of Friday last week. He hadn’t been able to do this part ahead of time because of not being able to show the college he had a place to live.
He’d need five or six courses to be pulling a full load, and the school had some requirements on which ones he had to take as a freshman with an undeclared major. He hoped he’d still be able to put together a course schedule that would satisfy the school and match his preferences.
“One from Column A and one from Column B,” he muttered looking through the revised catalog for that magic combination of easy courses that he could qualify for, none of which conflicted with each other or with his desire not to have to go to classes before nine or after four.
To meet freshman requirements, he would need one lower-division course from each of five departments, Language Arts, Science and Technology, History and Social Studies, Mathematics and Astronomy, and Physical Education. Curious, why the heck was Astronomy with Math instead of Science?
He did have another skill: he was a whiz at puzzles (at least, ones that didn’t involve math) and enjoyed working them out. Putting together a schedule was a lot like doing a puzzle, wasn’t it? Sure, it was. If he’d thought of it that way, he’d probably have already got it done before the morning of the day when he needed it completed.
He combed through the listings quickly. Astronomy 103, Survey of the Heavens, that would count as a math class, but it probably had little or no calculation though it still might have funny Greek letters.
A History of Suffrage in America…huh? Like The Grapes of Wrath? A possible, so he checked it for later consideration.
English 107 was An Introduction to the Romantic Poets. Another possible: poems were short and if you had to write something about one, who could possibly mark you down, no matter what you said?
Kitchen Chemistry? Was this a real class? What the heck. I remember building a baking soda volcano in the kitchen. Might be fun.
Why not a CoEd P.E. Class? They existed, and the idea of seeing some of his roommates maybe running around in gym shorts appealed to him. Hmm.
He juggled class schedules around, making sure to consult his map of the campus so as not to have any impossible dashes to be on time for a class on the other side of campus.
By the time he needed to go up to the dining room for breakfast, he had a tentative schedule worked out, including one elective, Interior Decorating fit in his program along with co-ed volleyball. He was all set.
It wasn’t until he was dressed and putting on his socks to go upstairs that he discovered the pink nail polish on all his toes. How in the world?
He suspected he’d been pranked by the girls but how had they managed to paint his toenails in the night without waking him up? How had they even gotten downstairs, considering the creakiness of the steps?
With socks hiding the evidence, he wondered if he should confront the girls, accusing them of creeping into his room to play a trick on him. Somehow, he couldn’t see how that would work out. Would they deny it? Accuse him of painting his own nails? How far would they go with the joke?
It was kind of funny, but how the heck had they done it? Still a little puzzled, he headed upstairs to breakfast. He’d have to buy or borrow some polish remover, too.
*
Upstairs he emerged into a raucous morning chaos of girls running this way and that, in and out of the dining hall, up and down the main stairs, some of them still in nightgowns or pajamas, and many of them showing a surprising amount of skin.
“There he is,” squealed Mallory, just coming down the stairs. Bunny, as she was more frequently known, grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the dining room. “Come have breakfast with us!” The girl’s enthusiasm and good cheer were contagious, and Gayle found himself laughing and letting himself be towed like parade float through the tumult of eleven girls all trying to talk at once.
Bunny wore a paisley housecoat thrown over a set of pink babydoll pajamas, the look completed with a pair of fuzzy slippers and her voluminous blond hair tied back with an aqua ribbon. The get-up bemused Gayle, but he followed her through the crowd willingly.
Miz Frankie and two of the girls were helping the table with platters of sausages, scrambled eggs, potatoes fried with onions and peppers, stewed prunes, sliced apples and decanters of milk, juice and coffee. Two toasters at each end of the table were kept busy turning bread into suitable conveyances for butter and marmalade.
Stella, Ash and Charlie were already seated, and eating and they laughed when Bunny towed him into a seat beside them.
“How’d you sleep?” Charlie asked. She had even less on than her ex-roommate, being dressed in a lavender shortie nightgown that was just transparent enough to reveal that she had no bra on underneath “Bunny and I shared that room last semester. The place has weird drafts, don’t it?”
Gayle could barely hear her, though she sat right next to him. “You did?” He asked. Then agreed, “Yeah, it does. I woke up with a cramp.” He helped himself to the food, it all looked good and there sure was plenty of it. Resolutely, he kept himself from ogling his roomies’ charms and concentrated on breakfast.
“You know, you don’t need to get fully dressed every morning,” Ash observed, “most of us don’t.”
“I noticed,” he commented, pulling some toast from the machine to pass down to Bunny. “It’s quite a view.”
“What?” said Stella, the surrounding noise level choosing that moment to peak.
“I said, ‘it’s quite a view,’” Gayle repeated, louder.
“Well,” said Stella, “we all love you too.”
They all laughed, and Bunny accused Stella of crowding her act. “I’m the ditzy one, remember?” More laughs.
“But, yeah,” said Ash. “Unless you have a class right after breakfast, you can traipse around in your pajamas or gym clothes. You live here now.”
Bunny put in, “You signed the Covenant, you’re just like one of the sisters, you know.”
Gayle glanced down at himself. “Well, not just like one of you girls, huh? I’d look awfully silly wearing what Bunny or Charlie is wearing.”
Everyone laughed, and the girls all traded grins.
* * *
Later, after almost everyone had gone out for the day, Miz Frankie commented to Hillary, the redheaded senior who was the current president of the sorority chapter, “His walk this morning? So cute!”
Hillary grinned. “I don’t think he’s aware of that but I’m sure he must have noticed the toenails. And soon he’ll find out what classes he’ll be attending.”
Pearls and walruses...
by Erin Halfelven
5. Water Polo
Gayle went over his schedule again. Turned out he couldn’t take Astronomy to fulfill his Math requirements, after all. And with his test results, he was going to have to take one of the remedial Math courses. The counselors had basically ripped up his plans and put together their own idea of what he should be studying.
At least he would still have his co-ed volleyball, MW at 2.p.m. In fact, it was a great schedule in many ways, no eight a.m. classes, nothing after four, and on Friday, nothing in the afternoon at all. Couldn’t be better, really.
Sitting in the student union after visiting all his classrooms and locating them on the map, he sipped coffee and took time to admire the classic old building he was in.
The ceiling was made of hammered tin tiles, and the walls were decorated with ornamental flourishes, fake columns made of plaster and wood in some places. Little cherubim on the columns here and there often looked crosseyed or were falling through instead of climbing up the fake ivy. Architecture with a sense of humor, who could have thought of that?
Tall windows between the fake columns on one wall looked out over the Campus Green toward the Haiyakoosie River and the foothills of the Arkoona Mountains beyond.
He could even see the peak of Mt. Blount, a purple majesty if ever there was one, though the name of the mountain always made him smile. The limp outline it made against the sky had earned it the nickname of Old Blunt locally which was also worth a giggle.
The young man sitting at the long table across from him looked up, smiling a little crookedly. “What’s funny?” he asked.
Gayle shook his head and looked back at his paperwork. Had he laughed out loud? Was he blushing? Was the guy still looking at him? He glanced up to see that the other student seemed to be gazing out the window, too, now.
A sizable specimen, Gayle noted. Probably an athlete. Firm manly jaw, craggy eyebrows, large rough-looking hands; almost surely a jock. The man wore a light, open, denim shirt over a cotton tee so tight that the outline of his pecs was clearly visible. Gayle could even see the circles of masculine nipples poking out.
He blinked. Was he staring?
The man stood, well over six feet Gayle noted, then he left with only a nod in Gayle’s direction. Handsome guy, thought Gayle. Wonder if I have any classes with him?
*
Later, Gayle wandered back over to the sorority house. Classes wouldn’t start until Monday so there was, in effect, a long weekend ahead.
“Hey, Gayle,” Charlie called to him as he entered. She was sitting at the square table in the parlor (there was a round one, too), and she appeared to be doing some paperwork. “Whatcha doin’ with the weekend? Huh?” Charlie was from somewhere out west and often affected an exaggeratedly casual style, like someone from a sitcom. It sounded a bit off to a Midwesterner like Gayle, but Charlie made it work.
“Hadn’t planned anything,” Gayle admitted. Oh, right, he did need to get some polish removal, since his toenails were still pink but he wasn’t going to mention that.
“Well, we’re kinda having a party tomorrow, Friday afternoon. Just those of us who live here. We usually do this every Friday and get dinner for everyone who isn’t going on a date or something,” she explained.
“Oh? So, should I -uh- clear out?”
“No! Course not.” Charlie explained, “Just letting you know, you signed the Covenant, you’re a member of the household. We’ll have snacks and play records and dance and do each other’s hair—you don’t have to do that.” She laughed. “We have a good time.”
“Uh?” Gayle wasn’t sure. But being the only guy at a party of as many as eleven girls had an appeal. “I guess I’ll be there.” He shrugged. “I don’t have anything else to do, and it’s too far for me to be able to go home for a weekend.”
“Great!” said Charlie. “We’ll make it special, just for you.” She added a giggle and a movement of her body that got Gayle’s attention.
Wow, he thought, Charlie is really a hot chick. But no, trying to date one of the sorority would be a bad idea. He laughed out loud to defuse the situation. “Now I really want to be there,” he said.
*
Discussion at dinner that night centered around the Friday Pre-Date Party as everyone called it. Already an ongoing tradition, several of the older girls had some stories about goings-on at previous parties, years back.
“It was the first party in my second semester, late January that year,” Hillary said, tossing back her mane of intensely red hair. “And really, my first date in college was that night. A hunky Russian guy from the polo team — yeah, polo. The school used to be nationally ranked in polo and Pyotr Tergenev was a big reason why. Pete, we called him.”
Bunny asked, “Polo? With ponies?”
“No,” said Dana. “It was water polo—they all rode walruses.”
“What?” Bunny asked amid general laughter. Gayle put a hand over his mouth to hide his grin.
“Anyway, Pete was going to pick me up at six, and I wanted to make a supergood impression on him since I was just eighteen and really inexperienced.” Hilly rolled her eyes to emphasize how inexperienced she was. “And polo players have to be rich, ‘cause you have to have your own mounts, at least two of them.”
“Wow,” said Bunny. “How much does a walrus cost?”
Hilly ignored her and talked over the giggles. “I wanted to go all out, hair, nails, clothes, shoes, everything had to be perfect. I even borrowed a necklace from…” she looked at Isadore, “Who was the French girl, a senior that year?”
“She wasn’t French, just her name. Brie,” said Izzy. “Spelled like the cheese. We called her Breezy. Short for Breezy-Cheesy.”
“Yeah,” agreed Hilly. “Breezy loaned me this necklace; her dad owned a department store or something. No, he ran the jewelry department of a chain of stores. Yeah. She had the necklace, like, as a permanent loan from her dad. It was gorgeous. Pearls and crystals of different sizes alternating on three strands. Real pearls and the crystals were -uh- leaded glass that looked like diamonds and were heavier than rocks would have been.”
“Ooo,” said several of the girls and even Gayle was impressed.
“So there I was, the sisters had jumped in, and I was done to the nines. New lingerie, a bullet bra out to here,” she gestured at her chest, and everyone laughed again. “French nails, silk hose, a black dress with lavender checks at the hem and cuffs, hair piled up on my head, earrings, bangles, the works. And this $500 necklace, I shit you not, that’s what it cost.”
Someone passed the cuss jar for Hilly having said ‘shit’ at the table, and she put a dime in from the little heap she kept in front of her at every meal. Half the money in the jar was usually from her, and she always tried to recoup her losses when the money was cashed in on pizza or take-out Chinese.
Hilly continued her story while the table giggled at her paying her latest fine so nonchalantly. “I’m standing at the top of the stairs above the parlor, waiting for Pete to arrive so I can make an entrance,” she waved a hand in self-mockery. “And I’m clutching my pearls because I’m nervous….” She paused dramatically, holding a fist clutched under her chin.
Everyone looked expectantly at her. “The doorbell rang, and I spasmed, my arm jerked down….” Again she paused. “I broke the chain, all three of them, actually.” Gasps. “Almost sixty pearls and a couple hundred crystals fell to the top of the stairs and bounced down them and over the sides and all over the parlor.”
Hilly rolled her eyes as the room exploded in laughter. When it had quieted a bit, she went on. “Everyone in the house ran in to see what I was shrieking about and started trying to catch the pearls and crystals and…. No one got the door until Pete rang the bell the third time, and Jan,” she looked toward Izzy. “Remember, Jan? Tall blonde from Minnie-Soda? Jan finally let him in.”
Gayle almost choked, imagining being the man at the door.
“So Pete comes in, and here are eight or ten of us, crawling around on the floor, picking up pearls and crystals, and I’m in this gorgeous gown, crying my eyes out, and some of the other girls were all dressed up for dates, too.” She had to talk louder at the end to overcome the volume of laughter at the table.
She looked directly at Gayle, grinning. “And that’s why we have our Friday Pre-Date Party, to get ready for the next embarrassing disaster!”
When the laughter subsided, someone asked, “Did you find all the pieces?”
Hilly nodded. “All but one pearl and dozen or so of the crystals, which may have got crushed, but it cost us forty dollars to get it restrung. Everyone chipped in, and Pete paid half. And we found that last pearl a year later.”
Gayle had enjoyed the story and told Charlie so. “Hilly is so gorgeous, but now I know she’s human.”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah, so you’re going to be here Friday afternoon?”
“Sure,” Gayle said. “It’ll be fun.”
Bunny leaned into the conversation. “We always have fun. And I figured the water polo thing out….”
They looked at her.
She explained, “Pete had to be rich ‘cause it’s not buying the walruses that costs so much, it’s keeping them in a stable when you’re not playing the game.”
They all laughed at the cockeyed logic of it, but Gayle noted that Bunny had a twinkle in her eye when she delivered the punchline.
*
Later, Bunny asked Charlie, “Did you tell him that everyone comes to the party barefoot?”
“He’ll find out,” Charlie assured her.
Bacon...
by Erin Halfelven
6. Early Riser
Friday morning, Gayle woke up a little sore and without his usual morning woody. He didn’t notice that, but he did know he needed to pee. Pulling back the covers to get out of bed, he made another discovery. He had slept in the nude, not his usual thing at all.
What the heck had he been doing last night? He didn’t have time to figure out the answer to that. He needed to get upstairs to the bathroom quickly though so he grabbed the robe he found hanging in his closet and put it on, belting it around his middle and scooting up the stairs to the guest bathroom in the parlor.
He didn’t see anyone on the way, but he did notice the dawn colors through the front windows. Apparently, he was the first one up this morning. He did his business, noticing that his toes still had polish on them. Damn, he kept forgetting to get some polish remover and take the girly color off his nails.
Today for sure, he told himself. Remembering to put the ring down—the girls sometimes used this bathroom—he started back to his room. The grandmother clock on the mantelpiece gave the time as a quarter till six (it was a very old-style clock), but now he heard someone in the kitchen, running water and making a quiet racket with pans.
Miz Frankie’s bedroom was on the other side of the kitchen where she had a private entrance to the house, also used by her outside assistants. The two local girls who helped her in the mornings had probably already arrived and were getting ready to make breakfast.
His tummy growled discreetly. Maybe if he went back to his room and got dressed, he could come upstairs and cadge a bit of food before the seven a.m. official breakfast time. A roll or something. With butter and that English marmalade that came in the eight-sided jar. His mouth watering, he hurried down the stairs to his underground retreat without anyone seeing him, still naked under his robe.
His room had eleven drawers, two deep ones in the bottom of the wardrobe, one shallow one in the side table, four in the lowboy chest and four in the desk. And none of them contained his clean underwear. He could have sworn he had put a stack of clean boxers and t-shirts in the second of the lowboy drawers, but they weren’t there, even after he had rechecked twice.
They weren’t anywhere else he could find either. None of the other drawers and not lying on any surface in the room, not even on top of the armoire nor inside his folded and put away duffel and suitcase. A third search turned up an unopened package of underwear, all right, but they were tighty-whities, not the colorful, looser boxers he preferred. Had his mother included those in his packed luggage?
But he’d taken long enough looking for his boxers, and he was hungry. Nothing for it, he thought, opening the package and slipping on the briefs. At least, they fit. Plus, they were the softest, nicest feeling pair of underwear he’d ever had on. Go figure. Maybe he’d be switching permanently from boxers?
He quickly pulled on a pair of slacks and a thick, long-sleeved t-shirt and headed up to try to talk Miz Frankie into a pre-breakfast snack. Once again, he forgot totally about his painted toenails.
Walking into the kitchen, he greeted the house mother. “Good morning, Miz Frankie.”
“Well, aren’t you up early, Gayle,” the woman replied, sliding a tray of buns into one of the ovens. The two other women looked at him and giggled. “This is Nadine and Opal. They help me in the mornings. Ladies, this is Gayle, our basement boarder. He’s probably here to try to charm us out of a snack.”
All the ladies wore gray and white striped smocks over black skirts and flowered aprons over the whole ensemble. They had their hair up in nets while they worked and Opal wore big yellow gloves as she scrubbed at something in the sink. Nadine was a tall black woman and Opal a petite blonde.
He grinned at them. “I wouldn’t turn it down, but is there anything I can help with?” Gayle had never considered himself particularly charming, but it didn’t hurt to put a little effort into it.
Frankie put a finger to her cheek, thinking. “I suppose there is,” she motioned toward a door in one wall. “Go in the pantry there and bring in one of those five-gallon bottles of water. Then you can replace the empty one in our fountain here.” She pointed to the water dispenser device in the corner, which sure enough had an empty five-gallon bottle inserted in the top.
“Sure thing,” Gayle agreed. He grabbed the empty and carried it with him into the pantry where four full bottles and three empties sat against a wall under one of the cabinets. Another large door there led outside to a concrete porch where deliveries were made for the house.
“Those things weigh about fifty pounds, full, and are a bit much for me or most of the smaller girls,” Frankie said from the kitchen. “Nadine can manage cause she’s tall, but it ought to be easier for you.”
“Easy enough,” Gayle agreed. He brought the full bottle in, set it on a counter, removed the plastic tear-away cap, and had it inserted back in the fountain in less than two minutes.
Frankie handed him a glass of milk and a toasted and buttered roll. “Thanks, Gayle,” she said. “You saved us some effort. Now get out of here before I give you an apron and put you to peeling potatoes.” The other ladies giggled again.
He fled, munching happily on the roll and draining the milk glass in one long gulp. No marmalade this time, but the milk was bonus, he thought. Leaving the glass on a paper coaster on the dining room table, he crossed through the parlor and went back to his subterranean digs to read, get fully dressed and wait for the real call to breakfast.
He didn’t hear the ladies in the kitchen talking about him.
“No shoes, and did you see his toes?” Nadine chortled.
Opal’s giggle was higher pitched. “He’s cute, even without the pink toes. Maybe we should have had him stay and open a few jars for us.”
Frankie laughed. “He’s going to fit right in here.”
* * *
Downstairs, Gayle didn’t need an alarm to tell him it was time for breakfast. Several rapid sets of footsteps descending the main stairs alerted him.
While putting on his socks, he’d noticed his painted toenails again. He determined to deal with the problem this morning. Surely, one of the girls would have some polish remover he could borrow, he thought. But how to ask for it in a non-embarrassing way?
The parlor was full of giggling housemates when he emerged on the ground floor. A few were dressed smartly for class, sensible shoes, modest skirts, and pretty blouses. The rest of the girls wore more casual clothes, not having any Friday classes to attend. Some were even in shorts, long legs on display.
Gayle stood at his door a moment, just enjoying the view, wondering a bit if it would ever become a humdrum part of his day. I hope not, he thought.
“What are you grinning about?” Charlie challenged him, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. She was one of the girls wearing shorts, khaki walking shorts with big pockets. Her yellow blouse was tied at her waist, and she had her blonde hair up in a ponytail. She wore no make-up, but her fresh morning face didn’t need any.
“Oh, nothing. Just congratulating myself on my good fortune,” Gayle turned his grin her way.
“Oh, ho,” Charlie grinned back. They each took two steps toward the dining room, moving closer to each other. Close enough that Charlie’s quick hand got a dig into Gayle’s ribs before he could react.
Startled, he let out an “Eep!” and tried to grab her hand but she was too quick for him, pulling it back and dancing away giggling.
“Luck, huh?” she teased. “Maybe it’s destiny?”
He blinked, not understanding. Was Charlie flirting with him? He’d better be careful how he responded, coming on to one of the girls could get him kicked out of his draft shelter. Still grinning, he just shook his head and moved toward the breakfast table.
Laughing now, Charlie followed him.
He took the same seat at the table he’d used before as Frankie and Nadine brought in platters of eggs, baskets of rolls, and sizzling trays of bacon.
“Lucky, huh?” Charlie repeated as she landed in the seat beside him. She reached out and snagged a slice of bacon. Nibbling on the morsel while sitting sideways on her chair, she examined him as if his luck might be visible. “Feel lucky enough for a round of mini-golf?” she asked.
Gayle didn’t know where to look. Charlie was right there, facing him and the way her blouse was tied, he could see the lace of her bra peeking out along with a good expanse of cleavage. He tried to look past her at the basket of bread on the corner of the table.
Charlie continued nibbling until half the bacon was gone, then she waved it at him and around their end of the table. “Mallory, Ash and I are going to play some putt-putt. Wanna make a fourth?” She chomped on the end of the bacon, then winked at him, waiting for his reply.