"You're a funny kid, Pill," Gloria said. "You'd be all right if you just gave yourself a chance."
Jackie and Erna came in then and Gloria turned back to making her bed.
9
Jackie pulled Flip aside one evening after chapel. They waited until everyone had gone into the Common Room; then Jackie pulled Flip into the dining room. The maids had finished clearing away and the tables were already set for breakfast the next morning. Jackie seemed embarrassed and unhappy.
"Philippa, I want to say something to you." They stood under the long box of napkin racks, each little cubby hole marked with the inevitable number. Flip stared at Jackie and waited. Jackie looked away, looked up, over Flip's head, over the napkin racks, up to the ceiling. "I want to apologise to you."
"What for?" Flip asked.
"My mother said I should apologise to you," Jackie said rapidly, still looking up at the ceiling, her hands plunged deep into the pockets of her blue blazer, "about our laughing about your going to the chapel. I always write my mother everything and I wrote her about our thinking it was funny and laughing and she wrote back and said who am I of all people to laugh. She said if you got down on the floor in the middle of the Common Room and bowed towards Mecca I should honor and respect your form of worship."
"Oh," Flip said. She felt that she ought to try to explain to Jackie that it really wasn't a burning question of religion that led her to brave Miss Tulip's annoyance and go to the chapel but she was afraid that Jackie would not understand and might even be angry.
Jackie had finished her uncomfortable quoting from her mother's letter and she looked down at her feet. "So I do apologise," she said. "I'm very sorry, Pill."
"That's all right," Flip answered, embarrassed, but making an effort to sound friendly.