Come and Join the Dance Read Free

through them. But the streets had since taken on color, had slowly accumulated layers of significance. By now they even had an odd glamour. Susan wondered what she would find if she ever came back—perhaps there would only be grayness again, as though Broadway had faded.
    She pictured herself someday saying ruefully to a faceless, bored young man: “It’s really a depressing place, isn’t it? What on earth did people do there?” Perhaps by then it might be difficult to remember, or necessary to pretend not to. She had often, without being able to stop herself, chipped off little pieces of her past and added other little pieces—a fascinating game but the meaning of it had begun to scare her. What if you lived your entire life completely without urgency? You went to classes, you ate your meals, on Saturday nights a boy you didn’t love took you to the movies; now and then you actually had a conversation with someone. The rest of the time—the hours that weren’t accounted for—you spent waiting for something to happen to you; when you were particularly desperate you went out looking for it, you spent an evening in the Riverside Café, you walked down to 110th Street.
    This year she had found herself taking certain risks—especially­ after Kay had quit school and moved out of the dorms into the Southwick Arms Hotel. She had kept library books out for months, she had handed in her term papers late, she had cut a dangerous number of gym classes—it was all very unnecessary, but something had made her want the feeling of living a little close to the edge; perhaps she had chosen to feel frightened rather than feel nothing at all. For the last two months she hadn’t picked up her Student Mail. She was somehow unable to. She knew what would be in it—notices of events that had already taken place, terse administrative warnings: “… the books you borrowed on 2/25 are now overdue … you have not paid your assembly fine … you have not registered for tennis … ” Perhaps there was even one note that began, “You have not picked up your Student Mail for some time.” It had been sort of a private joke at first; now it was a secret source of terror. She would go out of her way to avoid meeting the postmistress—Mrs. Prosser, with her spectacles dangling genteelly from a ribbon, and her timeless gray dresses, and her sad, disdainful puzzlement over any behavior that was out of the ordinary. Why should she be afraid of Mrs. Prosser? Why should she have to make “plans” to pick up her mail some vague day when Mrs. Prosser was not on duty? She would have to confront her before graduation. There was only one week left now… .
    Should she go uptown? Should she go downtown? She had no reason, no desire to go in either direction.
    All around her people were being carried to their destinations. There was a stout man on the corner shouting, “Taxi! Taxi!”; busses stopped to absorb passengers; the subway rumbled beneath her feet; and each pedestrian was marching to an unknown, inevitable door. She was the only one in the street who walked aimlessly—except for the young man a few feet ahead of her, who was waiting now for the light to change.
    She had watched him for several blocks. He had paused at every newsstand to read the same headlines, had lingered in front of shop windows that couldn’t possibly have interested him, and he too had methodically peered into all the luncheonettes. He had a loping, undecided walk, and a head that hung forward as if it were too heavy for his shoulders. She felt a curious tenderness for him, for the back of his head, at least—she had not seen his face, but perhaps if he turned around they would recognize each other. Sometimes you came face to face with someone you didn’t know, yet found yourself and the stranger exchanging a look of recognition. It seemed wasteful that she and