Free Girls In 3-B, The by Valerie Taylor Page B

said, grinding out her cigarette in Pat's ashtray and sauntering back to her own desk. Needn't bother, Pat thought bitterly. Nobody's going to be calling me about anything private.
    "Pat? Annice. Look, darling, will you do something for me? I told Jack last night I'd go to Penny Williams' party tonight, in fact I had a hell of a time to make him say he'd go. I don't want to get him mad at me, Pat, but there's going to be somebody else there I want to see about something important."
    "Sure, sure, and you want me to take old Jack off your hands."
    "Not exactly. After all, I told him I'd go with him," Annice said smugly. "I sort of thought maybe we could all come home together, sort of -- "
    "And drop old Jack off first." She thought, I'd be crazy to go, all I want to do is just quietly lie down and die. Let Annice work out her own problems . She said, "I don't think I will."
    "Oh, come on. I'll do something for you some time."
    "Well -- " She considered. Noise, smoke, and talk till hell wouldn't have it. Might as well be smoked and talked to death as sit home alone, feeling bad. "Okay, I'll go. But I don't want to stay out all night -- you remember it."
    "You're a doll."
    "Sure."
    When she came back from lunch Blake Thomson's office was empty. She worked half-heartedly all afternoon, jumping every time the door opened, but he didn't come back. She was dully thankful.

CHAPTER NINE
    All schools smell alike. Kindergartens, grade schools, high schools, even these temporary college buildings thrown together to take care of the influx of students. Chalk and sandwiches and the girl's perfume, and -- of all things -- old overshoes. Annice shut her eyes and sniffed, standing in the main hall with the home-coming crowd milling around. Definitely overshoes. She must remember to tell Jack, the next time they were out together.
    Not Alan. You didn't share ideas and observations with Alan; he wasn't interested in anyone but himself, and if the conversation turned into someone else's channel he quickly turned it back again or lapsed into glowering silence. Last night, on the way home from the ballet theater, she had tried to tell him how excited she was at seeing Swan Lake the first time, the way the dances and costumes looked exactly as she thought they would from hearing the music on records. Unfortunately Alan had been reading up on Mies van der Rohe and was full of theories on modern architecture. "You're a conceited fool," she told him finally, giving up. "You don't think other people ever have any ideas worth listening to.”
    "They don't."
    "I hate you."
    "No, you don't. You wouldn't go out with me if you hated me. I fascinate you."
    He did too, damn him. She opened her eyes quickly before the current of traffic could wash her downstairs and out of the building. There was something about Alan that made everybody else seem dull and colorless. She couldn't stop thinking about him and wanting to see him; when she sat beside him on the front seat of his ratty little car she couldn't help wanting to touch him. Being with him made her feel more alive than she had ever felt before. If I'm not careful I'll end up doing whatever he wants me to, she thought, scared and thrilled at the same time. No matter what it does to me.
    She had decided, after the first date, that she would Go All the Way if he asked her to. After all, she had come to Chicago in search of love more than fame or independence -- she was dedicated to love. She went to a party with him, shaking with mingled pleasure and terror, and he didn't make a single pass. He had been polite to her -- for Alan -- and he had escorted her home at one a.m. and deposited her on the doorstep as if she had been somebody's maiden aunt, without so much as a good-night kiss. It was maddening. "What's the matter, don't you like me or something?"
    Raised eyebrows. "Sure. Why?"
    "Oh, no reason." She flounced inside, slamming the front door. That goofy janitor, Rocco, was loitering in the front hall,