Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers Read Online Free PDF Page A

volleyball game next door Do you want to come play?”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œVolleyball.”
    â€œI’ve never played it.”
    â€œWe play it on the beaches. It’s easy. Why not?”
    â€œWhy not?” Ann rose. “I’ll find you. I’ve got to change if we’re going to be doing a sport.”
    â€œGood.” Niki left. Ann hung her dress in the closet, folded her slip into a drawer, and pulled out a pair of shorts and a matching blouse. Both were freshly ironed. She wished she owned a T-shirt. She wondered if she should wear one of her men’s shirts. She got down on her hands and knees to find the sneakers she had kicked off near her bed. From that undignified position, she heard company arrive.
    â€œDid you know Ann was such a meticulous housekeeper?” “What did she do this summer to cause the miraculous change?” “Hi, Ann, how was your summer?” “We’re going around sort of collecting everyone from the Hall.” “Come with us?” “You won’t believe what my roommate wants to major in.” “How come you’re in this dumpy old dorm?” “How did you get into one of the old houses? I tried but they gave me a modern one.” “Are you coming? This is just the third house we’ve been to and there are lots more of us.” “Are you coming?”
    â€œYou bet,” Ann said. She tied her sneakers and picked out a sweater, glad that she had one to match the shorts. There were four of them as they passed the lighted outdoor volleyball court. Ann saw Niki leap up to punch down at the ball, herteeth biting her lip and her eyes glittering. Niki did not see her, she thought. The pack from the Hall ran on and she was there in the middle of it, among familiar faces, familiar voices.
    It was late when Ann returned, just before weekend curfew. The room lay in moonlighted darkness and had that unreliable clarity moonlight seems to give. Ann let her clothes fall in a pile by her bed and rummaged blindly in a drawer until she recognized the fabric of her red nightgown. She dropped it over her head and turned to see if the third girl had arrived.
    Only Niki was in the room. Ann thought she was asleep, but could not be sure. If she was asleep then she slept more quietly than she did anything else. Her dark hair spread over the pillow behind her, her eyelashes lay darkly on moon-whitened cheeks, her mouth was slightly open. Her naked shoulder, her naked arm, curved gently. She looked like a statue, Ann thought. A statue of what? Some mythological creature, half-goat, half-woman. She liked Niki better asleep than awake, Ann decided.
    Ann carefully folded back the top sheet of her bed and slipped in. She could never sleep in the nude, she thought. The night sky was dark outside the window. (Why hadn’t Niki pulled the shades down? They would need curtains.) The empty third bed held a rectangle of moonlight. Ann closed her eyes and slept.
    She woke early the next morning. She never slept well her first few nights in a new place, never deeply, never late. The other bed had someone in it; then Hildegarde had arrived in the middle of the night, after twelve certainly.
    It was as if the girl had materialized out of that rectangle of moonlight. From what Ann could see—white-blonde, curly hair covering the back of her head, the crescent edge of face beyond the hair, a tanned forearm extending from cotton pajamas—Hildegarde had the moon’s colors. Curled in the privacy of sleep, she seemed also to have the moon’s qualities, some untarnished mystery removed from the human sphere. Ann was surprised not to have awakened when the other entered the room. On the best of nights she slept lightly.
    The sleeper rolled over, enabling Ann to study her face. Round and moonlike, broad cheeks, broad forehead, light eyebrows, a fine, narrow, straight nose. Her jawline was clear, strict. Her full lips were