Free What Love Sees by Susan Vreeland Page A

her Braille novels after lights-out, and she wouldn’t tell the crazy things they did, like Sally Anne climbing onto the roof in her slip to look into the boys’ school beyond the stone wall. She never breathed a word about the Polly Gillespie orange escapade.
    Polly was a platinum blond from out west, “probably some sprawling ranch,” Dody told her once. Polly had a voice that clattered like cold emeralds tumbling out of a treasure chest, her words loud and older than her years. She’d been everywhere already even though she was youngest. Jean didn’t doubt that she’d done just about everything, too. She imagined her as gaudy butterfly fluttering her eyelashes and waving long, red-tipped fingers. Without fail, she always came back late from holidays because of an asthma attack. “How does she always plan it so well?” Jean asked Dody. Once after semester break Polly arrived a few days late with a basket of oranges.
    “For the girls,” she told LCW.
    “How thoughtful of you,” Miss Weaver had said. That was before the laughter got louder and louder on the floor above.
    Upstairs Polly drew the girls together in her room. “I’ve got something for everyone. Western oranges.”
    “What’s so different about western oranges?” asked Sally Anne.
    “Try one.”
    Sally Anne took the largest one and peeled back the skin. She separated the sections and popped a fat one into her mouth. “Ooh, juicy.” She let out a knowing squeal. “Pass ’em around.”
    Most of the girls grabbed, but a few held back. Jean slurped up the juice with the rest of them. “Why are they so juicy?” she asked.
    “I injected them.”
    “With what?”
    “Gin.”
    Amid the squeals of laughter, one girl quietly moved toward the door. “Oh, Cathy, stay,” urged Polly.
    “No, I’ve got to study.”
    A few moments later Jean heard her close the door to her room down the hall.
    “Lame excuse. She’s so dull. She’s got no personality. No sex appeal either.”
    Polly’s remark stunned Jean. The sex appeal wasn’t what bothered her. Admittedly, she had no notion of what that consisted of, but she had never considered Cathy dull, just quieter than the others. Did that make her dull too? She couldn’t stop wondering. The next day after lunch, Jean followed Dody into her room.
    “Is anybody else here?”
    “No.”
    “Close the door.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I feel stupid asking this. Is Cathy really dull? Do you think so, Dody?”
    Dody didn’t answer right away. “Sit down, here, on the bed.” She touched Jean’s hand to the bedspread. “I guess maybe you don’t see the way we do. Yes. She is. Polly was right. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with her.”
    “How could she say it, though? Right out there like that?”
    “Saying it doesn’t matter. We all know it anyway.”
    That night Jean didn’t read after lights-out. She sat up in bed for a long time. Here was someone else who probably felt on the outside of things. Jean imagined the hollow feeling Cathy must have had, sitting in her empty room the night before when the others were having fun, like swallowing a hard candy too soon and having it ache in your chest until it dissolved. But Cathy seemed happy enough. Maybe it didn’t matter to Cathy. Maybe it shouldn’t matter so much to her either. Andrebrook wasn’t all that the world consisted of, and school was ending soon anyway. And then what? That made her slide down and pull the covers up.
    A few days later, Jean attempted doing her hair herself again. When she went down to the dining room for dinner, Sally Anne said, “Oh, Jeanie, you look lovely.”
    But she knew she didn’t. Sally Anne’s sugary voice sounded just like Mother’s had in the dining room when she had ironed that dress herself.
    “Tell me the truth.”
    “I am, Jean. Don’t you believe me?”
    “No.”
    In June, 1936, after two years at Andrebrook, Jean was officially “finished.” There was a small ceremony out in