Odd Girl by Artemis Smith

a many-colored Indian print. There was a wide, suggestive belt around her waist.
    "We've been waiting for you," Carl said as if he had expected to see her. Anne wondered if he had kept them there for that reason.
    "I couldn't get away," she said coldly. Now she stepped out of the light, kicked off her shoes, and sat on the sofa opposite Anne. "Nice to see you again, Anne."
    Anne did not reply. She was studying Esther. Esther in a dress was a different person, self-assured, almost cruel, in many ways very much like Beth. Esther in a dress seemed somehow to belong to Carl.
    Esther laughed, feeling uneasy at Anne's gaze. "What are you staring at?"
    Anne looked down in embarrassment. She had been caught. "Just studying you," she said. "I paint, you see." She felt she had to add the last in order to give an excuse.
    Esther smiled victoriously. "I'm glad you came. I'm sorry I got here so late."
    "Carl has kept us well entertained," Jacques interrupted. "I told Anne she might visit tomorrow if she wanted," Carl said.
    "That's very nice." Esther's eyes were looking far into the corner of the room. "You must come tomorrow, Anne." She rose and walked to the doorway. "Please excuse me. Unfortunately, I have a date."
    Esther was gone again, and Anne found herself unable to make the adjustment between her having been there and having left. She rose abruptly and said, "It's getting late."
    Jacques rose, reluctantly, and Carl came to them and shook their hands, this time not detaining them. "Until tomorrow," he said to Anne.
    "Thank you," Anne said. She shook his hand with a firm grasp, and realized how weak he was. The sickness of his touch made her shiver.
    Anne had exhausted her conversation for the evening; she could think only of seeing Esther tomorrow. They drove back silently in Jacques' Model Q. Anne's nerves were on edge, and she wondered if Jacques could see the tremor in her hands. Seeing Esther and spending the afternoon with Carl had upset her. She could not hate Carl, but now she was beginning to loathe his connection with Esther, however passive that connection might be. Esther did not mind having Carl near her, could tolerate his presence. But Anne could not tolerate Carl's presence—she could not tolerate the presence of any man. They smell, her mind repeated, with or without cologne, like animals of a different species. Men were like that—alien, unnatural to her life, to be experienced only at a distance.
    "Shall I take you home?" Jacques said quietly. He had been leaving her to her thoughts.
    "Yes, thanks," she said.
    "Carl upset you?" Jacques said.
    "I don't know what to think of Esther," she replied, skipping several spaces in thought. "She's so much like Beth."
    "Alice, you'll be seeing Beth all your life!" he exclaimed, for a moment impatiently relapsing into gay terms. "Don't you ever expect to like someone else?"
    Anne gave only a sad laugh in reply.
    "Are you going tomorrow?" Jacques asked, now worried that it was not such a good idea.
    "Why not?" she said. "She's good for a night."
    He winced, and Anne was amused. Jacques was more easily shocked than it seemed. He was still so young; not half so experienced as he would have her think.
    She sat back in the seat and closed her eyes. She was full of plans for meeting Esther tomorrow. Again she was feeling the excitement of courtship, and again the fear, the deep-down fear that all would go wrong—that Esther would come to mean as much as Beth; and then—like Beth—would leave, would prefer Carl, a man.

CHAPTER 5
    Sheer will enabled Anne to sleep that night. The light from across the street, flashing on and off through the blinds, seemed to keep in time with her pulse and the throb in her forehead. It was not so much the expectation of Esther but the knowledge that Beth was near, in her apartment on the other side of town, waiting to go on the road. Anne ached to call her, had ached to call for two weeks. She had picked up the receiver many times and each time