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

on the davenport, balancing plates and beer glasses on their knees. Half a dozen people were on the floor, the boys sprawled out, all arms and legs, the girls with arms wrapped around knees. When the door opened, the volume of talk rushed out and hit the newcomers in the face. Someone had left a lighted cigarette on the table; there was an acrid smell of scorched varnish. Someone else had upset a stein of beer in a girl's lap. Everyone was having a fine time.
    Annice's misgivings vanished. She hadn't wanted to come -- a poetry reading sponsored by an English professor didn't sound very exciting. Not what she had pictured in her dreams of studio parties, the great world of people who wrote and did Interesting Things. Now she was glad she had come. She threw back her shoulders and took a deep breath.
    The thin bearded boy at her feet said lazily, "Hi. I'm Alan. Who're you?"
    "I'm nobody," Annice said smiling. He turned his back on her, then turned around again so she could get the full impact of his sneer. "Emily Dickinson yet. She's reactionary. You ought to read Henry Miller and learn a new idiom."
    "I disagree," the dark man beside the fireplace said. "Emily's in the vanguard. You kids are old-fashioned. But then," he said sadly, "your whole damn generation's reactionary."
    "You're quite right." The popeyed girl pushed up her pink-rimmed glasses. "We're still hanging on to the standards formed in the Twenties, the Golden Age of revolt. Kerouac says -- "
    Annice was torn between pleasure and self-doubt. This was what she had longed for back on the farm, listening rebelliously to the supper-table talk about the price of soybeans. Nobody was interested in ideas there, and she had to go around in a fine poetic isolation, scorning her relatives and neighbors. Here, ideas swirled on the air almost visibly, like the smoke that hung above the heads of the talkers or the body heat that made the room uncomfortably warm even though the outside was cool. Two small logs smoldered in the fireplace. She walked across the room and held out her hands to the blaze. Jack stood against the wall watching her progress, unwilling to risk stepping on any outstretched hand.
    She said wistfully, "I love this fireplace."
    "A pretty act," the bearded boy said. He unfolded his lean length from the floor and moved to join her. He had bold eyes; he looked at her as though he could see through the peasant skirt and the padded bra. She put a hand to her chest to hide her innocent deceits, then dropped it, angry. "You're rude," she said.
    "Rude -- of course I am. There's too goddam much fake politeness in the world. Intelligent people have a moral obligation to be rude."
    She hated him. He was arrogant and unkind. His eyes were clear and bright, and his chin was firm under the arty beat-generation beard. Suddenly, returning his unwinking stare, she wanted him to like her. More than anything in the world she wanted him to put his arms around her and kiss her, instead of looking so superior. Her desire frightened her.
    One of the boys said, "Old stuff, Alan. That's reaction against the reaction against conformity." Annice accepted a plate and glass from a pleasant fortyish woman who had too much bottom to be wearing toreador pants. The hostess, probably, or a faculty wife called in for the evening. She gave Annice a friendly wink and went away again, leaving her to balance the refreshments and clutch her leather notebook at the same time.
    It had been Jackson who told her about this party in the first place. "They talk a lot of crap, but maybe it's the sort of stuff you'd like. Lot of arty guys. I don't think any of them had anything published yet. Anyhow, you might as well get it out of your system." She had been offended by the condescending tone and at the same time pleased by what was probably a concession to her tastes. At least he was willing to spend an evening being bored in her company.
    She had spent a lot of time getting ready, discarding the striped