Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

“Then we’ll play in the caverns after Christmas vacation,” Jay Jay said. “All in favor say aye.”

“Aye!” they chorused.

Then they all looked around at each other excitedly and smiled with anticipation. “And the game has to be our secret,” Daniel said. “If the Dean finds out we’re using the caverns we’ll be expelled.”

They nodded conspiratorially.

They thought they were beginning an adventure.

Kate found it hard to throw off the spell of the game at first when she went home to San Francisco. Here at home she was a different person: a daughter, a sister, an old school friend. Robbie called her every day, and they agreed not to discuss the game on the phone in case anyone picked up the receiver. But after a few days back with her family she took up her life just where she had left it.

She loved the big old airy house with the bare wood floors, the old rag rugs her mother collected, the antique quilts she’d bought before they became fashionable and so expensive, the silly painted antique toys. Her mother believed in plants instead of curtains, so from her bedroom window Kate could see the faraway hills and bay sparkling through a forest of green leaves. There was always a cat or the dog underfoot, or jumping into a lap to be loved. How could her father have left all this?

There had been some changes since she’d been away at college. Her mother, who was both frightened and exhilarated by law school, had lost weight and started wearing jeans. Her younger sister Belinda had grown three inches and had her braces removed; she was taller than Kate. Belinda had gone completely boy-crazy. There was always a group of noisy, giggling little girls in her room, talking about boys, and those same sex objects — gangly, shy, pimpled — came ringing the doorbell at all hours as if their families didn’t own a phone. But there were also plenty of boys who did use the phone, and Kate had to fight to get a chance to use it to speak to her own friends.

Her best friends Liz and Janny came over and they made tofu in the kitchen, a long drawn out process. Liz had decided to try becoming a vegetarian. She was at Harvard, and Janny was at Berkeley: the three of them had known each other since first grade. Kate had never told them about The Incident in the Laundry Room — it had been too painful and now it was too late.

“How’s the food at Grant?” Liz asked.

“Vile. Beyond vile.”

“How’s your love life?”

Kate smiled. “Great! I’m in love, and he loves me. His name is Robbie, and he’s really gorgeous. Blond hair, green eyes, and he swims. And he’s smart.”

“Do you live together?”

“No. He wants to, but I don’t.”

“You’re right,” Liz said. “When you live with a man you have to get along with his roommates too. You really have to like them because you’re all on top of each other.”

“He doesn’t have any roommates,” Kate said. “I just like to be independent.”

“How come all these soybeans make so little of this gunk?” Janny asked.

“That’s the way it is,” Liz said.

“Are you sure it’s a lot cheaper to make it? It’s a lot of trouble.”

“It’s good — you’ll love it.”

“I have had three tragic romances since September,” Janny said.

“Tragic for who?” Liz asked.

“That’s a good question.”

“We’re thinking of going to Europe this summer,” Liz said to Kate. “Do you want to go?”

“This summer?” It wasn’t even Christmas yet and they were making plans for next summer. Kate could hardly imagine summer, it was so far away. “Is it expensive?”

“Not the way we’re going to do it.”

“Let me think about it.”

“Okay.” Liz busied herself efficiently with stirring and straining.

Neither of them had said: Bring Robbie. Kate realized they didn’t think her romance would last that long. She herself had kept from thinking about it. She thought how much she would really like to go to Europe with her two lifelong friends, the places they would see, the adventures they would share. She couldn’t bring Robbie if they didn’t each bring a man because she’d always have to be with Robbie and it wouldn’t be the same. She thought guiltily how being in love made you so committed; you couldn’t go off with other people for a long period of time because you missed the person you loved, and knowing he missed you made you feel like a rat. Maybe she could go to Europe with Robbie next summer, just the two of them. They could meet Liz and Janny somewhere for a week or so. She’d see how things went.

The first part of Christmas vacation passed very pleasantly for Kate — there were parties almost every night, and sometimes just a few friends got together for dinner or to go roller-skating or dancing. Even though her mother had a lot of studying to do, she had managed to decorate the house as she always did with fragrant pine branches and wreaths, and there was a big tree Kate and Belinda and their mother decorated together with all the old ornaments they’d had ever since they could remember, which her mother saved carefully every year for the next Christmas. Kate’s favorite was the tiny winged horse her father had bought her when she was little. He’d told her its name was Pegasus, and it was legendary. Each Christmas after he’d left, the little winged-horse decoration had made her feel sad, but now she felt nothing but a resigned nostalgia. She knew that somewhere deep below there was real hurt, but she refused to allow herself to feel it anymore.

She had spoken to her father on the telephone, and he had insisted that she come to stay with him and Norine for a few days. Norine, his twenty-three-year-old wife, whom Kate called Chlorine behind her back, who embarrassed Kate because she was too young and sexy in a trite-looking way to be married to her father.

“I could just come for the day, Dad.”

“Don’t just come for the day. Come for the weekend. What are fathers for?”

I’ll tell you what they’re for, Kate thought.

“Besides,” he went on, “you have to try our new hot tub.”

“The attack of the giant mold,” Kate said. The game jumped into her mind.

“It’s not moldy, silly girl, it’s clean.”

“I’m not taking my clothes off,” Kate said.

“We won’t. Bring a bikini. And your running shoes. We’ll run and you’ll feel terrific.”

“Okay,” she said, trying not to sound ungracious. She wanted to see him, she missed him, but she couldn’t stand to see him with Chlorine. But she’d just have to get used to it, the way she’d gotten used to everything else.

“I have a blind date this weekend,” her mother told her. “Actually I met him once — I was introduced to him at Marie’s party last month. I know it’s going to be a disaster, but Marie says he’s the best bachelor in California.”

“I.e.: breathing,” Kate said. Her mother laughed. “You’re going to wear makeup, I hope.”

“Of course. I always wear lipstick.”

“Lipstick isn’t makeup. You have to do your eyes too, and wear blusher. I’ll teach you.”

“All right,” her mother said, surprisingly compliant. Kate realized she was beginning to notice there was a whole new life out there waiting for her to take a piece of it. She wanted her mother to have a good time and be popular. She shouldn’t have to be alone.

As she put eye makeup on her mother in front of the mirror, demonstrating what she should and shouldn’t do, Kate felt as if she were the sophisticated grown-up and her mother the child. It was a nice feeling and made her feel even closer than usual.