Rod Serling's Triple W by Rod Serling

Author:Rod Serling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2016-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

“Isn’t it funny,” she said, later, to Win. “If Lounze hadn’t pointed him out to me, I might never have known him at all.” And somehow—they never really knew how it happened—Lounze’s parties became a habit. They never exactly planned to go, but every Friday night about seven, or seven-thirty, one of them would begin to wonder, “What’s going on at Lounze’s tonight?” And before they knew it, they were washed, powdered, dressed, and on their way.

The long streets between her apartment and the college became as familiar as a child’s backyard. On the few nights that they did venture off, they felt confused, vaguely frightened, as if they had wandered off into an alien neighborhood after dark. “I really don’t know what we go there for,” Cynthia said, and Olive laughed.

“Free drinks, free food, and men galore.”

“We’re a bunch of freeloaders,” Win said, and they dropped it. But it was always there, reflected in the shining skull mirror behind each bright eye—the intimation that something was...wrong. It clung to their consciousness like a tiny hair in the eye.

And there was more. They would be sitting in their room, and the phone would ring down the hall. The housemother would send word. It was for Olive. She’d dash down quickly, and pick up the receiver. “Hello? Saturday night, to the dance? Yes, I’d love to go.” The words would be on her tongue.

“Olive? Olive? Are you there?” the boy would ask.

Then, slowly, “Yes, yes, I’m here. Only, I can’t go with you Saturday. I’m...busy. Sorry.” She’d stand there, baffled. She had wanted to go. Why, why had she changed her mind? Then quickly, before she really had time to wonder, an answer would spring, full-bloom. Of course, she’d think. I have to study, or I promised Bill, or any one of a million reasons. But later, oddly enough, she couldn’t quite recall just what it was.

The calls came less frequently now. When she complained, Win would laugh. “All the men think you’re going steady,” and she’d yell, “Well, I’m not!” One day she ran down the stairs to the smoker. “I’m not going steady with that Bill Watkins. I’m playing the field,” she announced, firmly, so that the word would get around.

It was a coincidence that she was always busy when someone else called. Of course it was. Only later, that Spring, did she begin to suspect that it was more. But then it didn’t make any difference. He was a transfer student, John Leggin, and she noticed him at once. It was easy to take on an extra course, so she enrolled in Oil Painting because he was an art major. Before long, as she had planned, he began asking her for dates. She felt wondrously free that first night, defiant, as if she were breaking some inexorable command. Looking back, she always wondered why the evening had turned out so miserably.

For two weeks after that she sat in art class watching him, planning to stop him outside in the hall.

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