The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

downstairs said, and when I said yes, she said, “There’s a man to see you.”
    I was surprised to hear this, because of all the blind dates I’d had that year not one called me up again for a second date. I just didn’t have any luck. I hated coming downstairs sweaty-handed and curious every Saturday night and having some senior introduce me to her aunt’s best friend’s sonand finding some pale, mushroomy fellow with protruding ears or buck teeth or a bad leg. I didn’t think I deserved it. After all, I wasn’t crippled in any way, I just studied too hard, I didn’t know when to stop.
    Well, I combed my hair and put on some more lipstick and took my history book—so I could say I was on my way to the library if it turned out to be somebody awful—and went down, and there was Buddy Willard leaning against the mail table in a khaki zipper jacket and blue dungarees and frayed gray sneakers and grinning up at me.
    â€œI just came over to say hello,” he said.
    I thought it odd he should come all the way up from Yale even hitchhiking, as he did, to save money, just to say hello.
    â€œHello,” I said. “Let’s go out and sit on the porch.”
    I wanted to go out on the porch because the girl on watch was a nosy senior and eyeing me curiously. She obviously thought Buddy had made a big mistake.
    We sat side by side in two wicker rocking chairs. The sunlight was clean and windless and almost hot.
    â€œI can’t stay more than a few minutes,” Buddy said.
    â€œOh, come on, stay for lunch,” I said.
    â€œOh, I can’t do that. I’m up here for the Sophomore Prom with Joan.”
    I felt like a prize idiot.
    â€œHow is Joan?” I asked coldly.
    Joan Giling came from our home town and went to our church and was a year ahead of me at college. She was a big wheel—president of her class and a physics major and the college hockey champion. She always made me feel squirmywith her starey pebble-colored eyes and her gleaming tombstone teeth and her breathy voice. She was big as a horse, too. I began to think Buddy had pretty poor taste.
    â€œOh, Joan,” he said. “She asked me up to this dance two months ahead of time and her mother asked my mother if I would take her, so what could I do?”
    â€œWell, why did you say you’d take her if you didn’t want to?” I asked meanly.
    â€œOh, I like Joan. She never cares whether you spend any money on her or not and she enjoys doing things out-of-doors. The last time she came down to Yale for house weekend we went on a bicycle trip to East Rock and she’s the only girl I haven’t had to push up hills. Joan’s all right.”
    I went cold with envy. I had never been to Yale, and Yale was the place all the seniors in my house liked to go best on weekends. I decided to expect nothing from Buddy Willard. If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.
    â€œYou better go and find Joan then,” I said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I’ve a date coming any minute and he won’t like seeing me sitting around with you.”
    â€œA date?” Buddy looked surprised. “Who is it?”
    â€œIt’s two,” I said, “Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless.”
    Buddy didn’t say anything, so I said, “Those are their nicknames.”
    Then I added, “They’re from Dartmouth.”
    I guess Buddy never read much history, because his mouth stiffened. He swung up from the wicker rocking chairand gave it a sharp little unnecessary push. Then he dropped a pale blue envelope with a Yale crest into my lap.
    â€œHere’s a letter I meant to leave for you if you weren’t in. There’s a question in it you can answer by mail. I don’t feel like asking you about it right now.”
    After Buddy had gone I opened the letter. It was a letter inviting me to the Yale Junior Prom.
    I was so surprised I