Page 20 of One of Them

The letter was circulating now—Midge, Peggy, Carol, and Tabitha each signed and then passed it on.

Now it was Anne’s turn. Hours ago, Delia had confided in her.

She’d wept in Anne’s arms and hugged her when they parted.

And now Anne was going to betray her trust, and poison a friendship that was only just starting to blossom. “I don’t know if I can,” she said.

“Why on earth not?” Virginia sounded incredulous.

“It just seems like too much. I mean, we can avoid her. Ignore her—we kind of do that anyway. But do we really need to get her kicked out of school?”

“If you don’t sign, it’s like saying you condone what she did. What kind of a girl does that make you?”

“Of course I don’t condone an affair with a married man.” Anne felt her face growing red and most likely blotchy, which was what happened when she was upset.

“Then you have to sign.” Virginia pushed the pen in her direction.

Anne saw the other girls watching. This had become something more than whether or not she signed the letter.

This was Virginia exercising her power. If Anne resisted, she’d have to face the repercussions, the cold shoulders, the very real possibility of being lumped with Delia, her reputation ruined. Still she hesitated.

“Anne, I don’t have all day.”

Anne took the pen and gripped it tightly as she wrote her name at the bottom of the page; it seemed much larger than all the others. She handed the pad to Virginia so she wouldn’t have to see it.

“There, that’s done.” Virginia tore the sheet of paper from the pad.

There was murmuring from the girls as they got up and moved toward the door. Anne was the first to leave. She didn’t want to be alone with Virginia for a single second.

But though she could flee from Virginia, she couldn’t flee from herself and the lacerating knowledge of how she’d betrayed Delia.

She never imagined she’d find herself in this position.

Deciding to keep her Jewishness to herself, she’d thought she’d found a shield against a hostile world.

And for a time, it seemed to have worked.

She did feel a part of things; she was grateful and relieved to be spared the worry about her background, the fear that it was going to trip her up, or keep her from—from what?

Just living a happy life, she thought. A life that she made for herself, not based on other people’s biases.

She hadn’t thought about the other side of it, though.

Pretending not to be Jewish meant that the Gentiles with whom she mixed felt entirely unfettered; they said even worse things about Jews in her presence because they assumed she shared their noxious beliefs and opinions, that she was one of them.

Guilt stalked her for the rest of the day, and all night too; she was unable to sleep.

As the sky lightened to gray and then pale blue, she got up, dressed, and left her room.

She couldn’t imagine how she would be able to concentrate in her classes that day.

But somehow she muddled through, and late that afternoon, as she left her French class, she caught sight of a notice pinned to the bulletin board just outside the department office.

A PPLICATIONS F OR S TUDY A brOAD N OW B EING A CCEPTED

Do you want to improve your foreign language skills, gain proficiency and fluency, expand your horizons and see the world? Then apply for the Junior Year Study Abroad programs being held in these four European cities:

Paris Madrid Rome Lisbon

Application forms are available in the Study Abroad Office, Main Building, Room 202.

Paris. What if she applied to go? It would be an escape, a way to get herself out of this horrible predicament.

And she’d been longing to visit the city, to see for herself its fabled streets and landmarks, improve her admittedly execrable French.

Tired though she was, Anne sped out of the building and across the campus to Main.

“May I please get an application form?” she panted as she stood in front of the desk.

“Can it wait until the morning?” said the white-haired woman—the name plate on her desk read Miss Vane—with the hankie pinned to the front of her dress. She was straightening a pile of papers. “We’re about to close up.”

“It really can’t.” She must have sounded so desperate that Miss Vane took pity on her and reached down into a drawer.

“Here you are,” Miss Vane said. “Oh, look—” She turned and pointed to the calendar that was tacked up behind her. “The deadline is tomorrow. I guess you really shouldn’t wait.”

“Thank you,” said Anne. “Thank you so much.” She took the form to her room and filled it out immediately.

She had the money to do this—her father had left her well provided for—and in her mind, there was no better way to spend it.

She thought Barney Weiss, her father’s partner and the executor of his estate, would agree.

That night she skipped dinner and ate only the banana and the orange she’d taken from a previous meal in the dining room.

She was able to fall into a deep, if troubled sleep.

In her dreams, she was forced to take long, complicated French examinations that were well beyond her capability; the other students seemed to know, and jeered at her.

The room emptied, she was the only one left, but the more she struggled to answer the questions, new ones kept appearing; the test would just go on and on.

The next morning Anne was back at room 202 even before the office opened; she brought the application to Miss Vane as soon as it did.

And when, a couple of days later, she received notice that she had been accepted into the program and would spend her junior year in Paris, she was flooded with relief.

This opportunity represented a new chance, and she was going to take it.

But it didn’t stop her from feeling terrible about the way she’d betrayed Delia, and she knew it wouldn’t.

What it would do was put some distance—thousands of miles and an entire ocean—between her and the worst thing she’d ever done.

She’d told Delia she wasn’t defined by a single, reprehensible act. Was that true for her as well?