Meredith was fascinated by what she was saying and the questions it aroused. Claudia had a much broader view of the world, on certain subjects anyway. Meredith felt as though she had led a very sheltered life, and in many ways she had. Her parents were ultra traditional in their lifestyle and ideas, although she assumed they were sympathetic to Jewish people, given how hard her father had worked at the Nuremberg trials, and having seen concentration camps firsthand. How could he not be sympathetic after that? Obviously, he was.
While Meredith and Claudia discussed more serious issues, the rest of the girls only seemed interested in the upcoming mixer that weekend and the boys they were going to meet. Betty and the clique she had formed as soon as she arrived spent days choosing what they would wear, borrowing clothes from each other and talking about their hair. Betty had found a new way to pin curl hers, and had discovered some curlers at the local drugstore that would give her more waves. The dresses they had picked out were sexy and showed off their figures, and Betty had the perfect high-heeled shoes for her outfit and a short swing coat the same peacock blue color as her silk dress. They were in a frenzy of excitement over the boys they were about to meet from West Point.
Meredith watched the comings and goings from her room with a combination of dismay and amusement. She was sure she hadn’t brought the right thing to wear, and didn’t even own it, and she didn’t want to go anyway. She said as much to Claudia. Claudia’s roommate was out a lot of the time, and to get away from “Betty’s girls,” Meredith preferred to go upstairs to visit Claudia instead of wading through the crowd of giggling girls in her own room. They used her record player all the time and she didn’t care.
Claudia stunned her the night before the event. They’d been at school for a week by then, and Meredith liked most of her classes, but Claudia was the only girl she wanted to hang out with, and Claudia felt the same about her. She was concerned that the other girls wouldn’t want to be friends with her because she was Jewish and most of them were Christian, which Meredith told her was paranoia but secretly wondered if it was true. She’d overheard one or two nasty comments about the Jew on the third floor, and was afraid it was Claudia, but she didn’t tell her, and didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“I think we should go,” Claudia said, as she lay on her bed, and Meredith sprawled in the room’s only chair, with her long legs stretched out ahead of her.
“Go where?” Meredith looked distracted. She was thinking about a paper she had to write for their German class and wasn’t sure exactly how to approach it, and she wanted to impress the teacher.
“To the mixer,” Claudia said in a soft voice.
“Are you crazy? Why? I’m not looking for a husband, and neither are you.”
“No, but it might be nice to meet some boys. There are a lot of girls here.”
“That’s for sure,” Meredith commented and rolled her eyes. And most of them were like Betty, boy crazy, and more worried about their hair than their grades. Vassar was a serious school that offered a great education, but the freshman girls were notoriously more excited about the coed social events than their studies. Supposedly, they eventually settled down, especially once they were engaged. “Why would we go to the mixer?” Meredith looked baffled. She didn’t want to meet a bunch of snobby boys or would-be soldiers at West Point. If she met a boy, she wanted it to be someone interesting, intellectual, smart, and different. And Betty and their crowd had made it seem like a circus. Nothing about it appealed to her.
“I think we should. We might make some new friends, boys for a change,” Claudia said. Meredith thought about it for a minute and wasn’t convinced.
“You really want to go?”
Claudia nodded. “It’ll be fun to get dressed up. My mom made me pack a couple of nice dresses for social events.”
“My mom did too. I didn’t want to, and she insisted.” They exchanged a smile. Their mothers sounded similar, no matter their religion, it didn’t seem to make much difference in their concerns for their daughters. They both thought their mothers worried too much.
They debated for a while, and Claudia finally overcame Meredith’s objections. The following evening, they were dressed and ready to get on the bus to go to West Point. Claudia and Meredith sat at the rear. Claudia had worn a navy silk dress that showed off her slim figure, with a white silk coat over it, and she was wearing a small hat and gloves and high heels. Her dress had long sleeves. Her mother had taken her shopping at Bergdorf Goodman for her school wardrobe. She had her long braid wound into a small bun at the nape of her neck. She looked very pretty. Meredith had worn one of three black dresses she’d brought, and her heels weren’t as high so she didn’t look too tall. She was also wearing a short fur jacket that had been her mother’s and made her look very grown up. Betty and her crowd had gone all out, and looked perfect with dresses in jewel colors, or white or black, high heels, dressy coats, evening hats and gloves and small evening bags. And their hair looked glamorous in a variety of styles it had taken them hours to achieve.
The cadets at West Point were about to receive the best that Vassar had to offer with three busloads of very attractive young women who had made every effort to impress them. The boys in dress uniform were waiting for them in long formal lines when they arrived, as the girls stared at them in delight and whispered to one another. The chaperones were right behind them, to keep an eye on them all night and see that everyone behaved like the ladies and gentlemen they were supposed to be, and looked like in their dress uniforms and pretty dresses, whether borrowed or owned by the girls wearing them.
“I feel stupid,” Meredith whispered to Claudia, as they got off the bus after the hour’s drive from Vassar. But she had to admit, the cadets looked very handsome, and were offering the girls an arm to escort them inside to the ballroom, where refreshments had been set out. The West Point band was going to play dance music for them until midnight. The uniformed West Point chaperones greeted the women from Vassar with amusement, knowing that their charges would keep them busy all night. And whether in uniform or not, they were a bunch of eighteen-year-olds out to have fun and get away with whatever they could.
“They look nice,” Claudia said, glad they had come. It felt good to get dressed up, and she told Meredith she looked very pretty in the black dress. Several of the young men had already noticed them, as they all chatted for a while and helped themselves to fruit punch.
“They’re all going to grow up to be killers one day, in some war or other,” Meredith said cynically, and Claudia scolded her.
“Well, they’re not killers yet. Be nice, Merrie.” They exchanged a smile, as a particularly good-looking young cadet with blond hair and blue eyes approached them and introduced himself. His name was Seth Ballard, and he seemed riveted by Claudia, who blushed when she introduced herself, and Meredith smiled. The freshman boys had arrived at West Point as recently as the girls had arrived at Vassar, and they talked about their schools back home. Seth was from Virginia, and had just the faintest trace of a southern accent. His father was a retired colonel, and his grandfather a general, and his family had a horse farm in Virginia. He was third-generation West Point.