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  ‘What would they do?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Depends. Joe’s the kind of guy who’d keep it to himself and just enjoy the memories. Ray, though - he’s more aggressive. He might sneak back, hoping for seconds. He might even bring along some friends. It’d be a big, exciting thing for them, but they wouldn’t do anything. Just try to see us again.’

  ‘We don’t know anything about this kid,’ Vivian said. ‘There’s no telling what he might do.’

  ‘The way he ran,’ Abilene said, ‘I don’t think he’ll be back.’

  Cora nodded. ‘Let’s just go on about our business. We’ve still gotta check out the rest of the lodge, and it’s almost time for Happy Hour.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Abilene asked. None of them wore wristwatches.

  ‘My thirst tells me.’

  ***

  Vivian and Helen, finished dressing, waited while the others got into clothes. Abilene used her blouse to wipe herself dry. Finley put on her baggy shorts and shirt without drying, tucked her knee socks into the deep pockets, and slipped her bare feet into her shoes. Cora didn’t bother to dry, either. She put on her T-shirt. It clung as if melting into her skin, but was long enough to hang like a very short dress. She stepped into her shoes and picked up the rest of her clothes.

  She started to climb the stairs. Abilene took up the rear, carrying her damp blouse.

  At the top of the stairs, they found themselves in a dimly lighted corridor beneath the stairway to the second floor. On the right, the hall led to the rear of the lodge where it met a windowed door to the porch. The far side of the corridor had two shut doors. There were no numbers on them, and Abilene guessed they might open into rooms that had been the living quarters of the lodge’s owners. On the other side of the corridor, near its end, was a single door. Picturing the layout of the place, Abilene figured it must lead into the back of the kitchen.

  She followed the others out from under the stairway and around it. There, just ahead and to the left, was the front door.

  She felt very glad to see it.

  Vivian walked straight toward it. As she stepped outside, Cora and Finley wandered into an open room to the right. A parlor or library, Abilene supposed. Much of it was walled with built-in, empty bookshelves. There was a fireplace, smaller than the one in the lobby, on its north side. At the front, some limbs from the huge branch on the porch reached through the shattered window.

  Helen gave the room little more than a glance before going out to join Vivian. After a few moments, Abilene followed.

  It was good to be outside. It was especially good to see the familiar car parked a few yards from the porch.

  Vivian and Helen stood in the sunlight beside the car. They were talking softly. They turned their attention to Abilene as she trotted down the stairs.

  ‘Do you want to leave?’ Helen asked her.

  Shrugging, she spread her blouse on the hood of the car to dry.

  ‘Vivian does,’ Helen said.

  ‘I don’t think it’s safe.’

  ‘It might not be,’ Abilene admitted. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked at Helen. ‘I take it you’d rather stay.’

  The girl’s face twisted as if she were in misery. ‘At least for one night, you know?’

  ‘What’ve we got here, a mutiny?’ Cora asked, striding out the front door.

  ‘We’re just discussing the situation,’ Abilene said.

  Cora trotted down the porch stairs, Finley close behind her.

  ‘Shouldn’t we just climb in the car and drive out of here?’ Vivian asked. ‘I’m not suggesting that we fly home right away, nothing like that. We could find a nice motel for tonight and maybe spend a few days driving around, exploring.’

  ‘That kid really rattled you,’ Cora said.

  ‘This whole place rattles me. It gives me the creeps.’

  ‘It’s supposed to,’ Helen pointed out. ‘That’s why I picked it.’

  ‘I think it’s neat,’ Finley said, climbing onto the hood. She put down her camera, then sat beside Abilene’s blouse, lay back, raised her knees and folded her hands under her head. ‘We haven’t seen the upstairs yet, either,’ she added.

  ‘I think we should stay at least tonight,’ Helen said.

  ‘It’ll be really swift after dark,’ Finley said, sounding as if she longed for nightfall.

  ‘What about you?’ Cora asked Abilene.

  ‘It’s Helen’s choice. And we came all the way out here to see this place.’ She thought about the lodge for a few moments. It was spooky. She didn’t care for that aspect, but she realized that she did rather like the mysterious and nostalgic sides of its atmosphere - the wonder it inspired in her of peaceful times that were gone forever. Also, she knew she would hate to leave the hot spring behind. In the cool of the night, the caressing water would feel wonderful. ‘I think we should stick around overnight,’ she said. ‘See how it goes.’

  ‘Right on,’ Finley said.

  Abilene turned to Vivian, who was not looking happy. ‘I know you’re worried about that kid. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open. If anything happens, we can hightail it.’

  ‘Okay?’ Cora asked.

  Vivian groaned.

  ‘We’ve stuck with you,’ Helen reminded her. ‘Like traipsing all over New York City. Not to mention that time with the Sigs.’

  ‘Low blow,’ Finley commented from the hood.

  ‘Yeah,’ Cora said. ‘It’s not like she owes any of us. She’s done plenty.’

  ‘We’ve all done plenty,’ Abilene added.

  ‘I’ve just got a bad feeling about this place.’

  ‘We’ve all had bad feelings about some of the crap we’ve done,’ Cora said. ‘But we always stuck together.’

  ‘And had a gas,’ Finley said.

  ‘And we’re all still alive and kicking,’ Helen said.

  ‘Some kicking more than others,’ Abilene put in.

  Vivian nodded. ‘Why don’t we at least hoist a couple before we go back in?’

  ‘Now you’re talkin’,’ Finley said.

  Cora squinted into the trees to the west. ‘Looks to me like the sun’s over the yardarm.’

  Everyone but Finley went to the rear of the Wagoneer. Helen found the keys in her pocket and opened the tailgate. Cora climbed in, spent a while searching, then shoved the ice chest down past her feet. Abilene picked it up. Moments later, Cora crawled backward dragging the box of plastic glasses, liquor, mixes and snacks.

  They carried the ice chest and box to the front of the car.

  ‘Ah-ha!’ Finley said. ‘Goodies!’ She scooted down off the hood and joined them.

  Abilene opened the chest. Before leaving the motel that morning, they’d packed it to the brim with ice. Some had melted. But plenty of the ice remained - enough for tonight, at least.

  They scooped up cubes with their glasses. Cora opened a bottle of pre-mixed margarita and poured some for each girl.

  ‘To us,’ she toasted.

  ‘The daring young maids,’ Finley added.

  ‘On our flying trapeze?’ Abilene said.

  All five touched the rims of their glasses, and drank.

  ‘Isn’t this just the greatest?’ Helen said.

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ Vivian said. ‘The margarita sure hits the spot, though.’

  ‘We really oughta be imbibing down at the bar,’ Cora said.

  ‘Too hot,’ Abilene told her.

  Finley climbed back onto the hood and sat with her feet on the bumper. Cora, following, looked over her shoulder. ‘Do you mind if I sit on your blouse?’ she asked Abilene.

  ‘Help yourself,’ Abilene said.

  Cora dragged the blouse toward the front of the hood, then climbed up and sat on it.

  ‘We oughta get good and polluted,’ Vivian said, refilling her glass.

  ‘So we can watch you throw up?’ Cora asked.

  Helen laughed. ‘Just like she did in Hardin’s office. Remember?’

  ‘Good ol’ Hardas
s,’ Finley muttered.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BELMORE GIRLS

  Meredith Hardin, Dean of Women at Belmore University, chose the wrong time to throw a fit of shrieking indignation.

  It was in May. Almost a full month of classes remained before the end of the semester, the start of summer break. The weather was warm, the air rich with moist and flowery aromas. The girls were restless.

  Meredith Hardin also chose the wrong girl to crush.

  The girl was Barbara Dixon, Finley’s roommate.

  Abilene returned to the dorm late from Benedict Park, where she’d spent more than an hour pressed between the trunk of a tree and the body of Robbie Baxter. Her back felt a little sore from the rubbing bark. Her face felt hot and raw from Robbie’s whiskers and too much kissing. So did her breasts. Robbie was crazy about them. Since Abilene wouldn’t allow him any liberties below her waist, they’d received the brunt of his attention. They’d been caressed, kissed, squeezed and sucked so much that they itched and burned.

  Entering the room, she found it crowded with Helen, Finley, Cora and Vivian. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You sure took long enough getting here,’ Finley said.

  ‘I was busy.’

  ‘You look it.’

  ‘Who took sandpaper to your mouth?’ Cora asked.

  Helen, laughing, said, ‘Robbie ought to shave better.’

  The sound of his name made Abilene’s heart pound faster, warmed her and gave her a funny tightness in the throat. ‘Yeah. Next time I go to the park with him, maybe I’ll take my Lady Schick.’

  ‘Did he pork ya?’ Finley asked.

  ‘Screw you. And no, he didn’t.’

  ‘What’re you waiting for, Hell to freeze over?’

  ‘Keep holding out,’ Vivian advised her. ‘Once they get it, they act like they own you.’

  ‘I might like that. As long as it’s Robbie.’

  ‘Wooooo,’ Finley said. ‘The babe’s hooked.’

  ‘Anyway, what’s everyone doing here? Just hanging around to interrogate me about Robbie, or what?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Finley said. ‘Drop your pants for a cherry check.’

  Helen giggled.

  ‘In point of fact,’ Cora said, ‘we’ve been trying to conjure up some fun. Too damn dull around here. We haven’t had a real blast since we nailed the Goddamn Sigs.’

  ‘And that’s ancient history,’ Finley pointed out.

  ‘We’re trying to come up with an idea that’s really daring,’ Vivian said.

  ‘Like what?’ Abilene asked.

  ‘Haven’t figured it out, yet. But something to do with Hardass.’

  ‘We want to get her,’ Vivian said.

  ‘I’m all for that.’

  Until coming to Belmore, Abilene had been convinced that people like Meredith Hardin didn’t actually exist in real life. The woman seemed too awful to be real - a caricature of prim bitchiness. Finding such types in the movies and on TV, and in the pages of melodramatic novels, her eyes had rolled skyward in disbelief. She’d pitied the poor writers responsible for creating characters so totally, unbelievably excessive in their evil, self-righteous, cold-blooded prudery. There simply weren’t people like that.

  Then she caught the Meredith Hardin show at Freshman Orientation.

  The woman stepped up to the lectern and, even before she opened her mouth, the audience of noisy co-eds went silent. This was the Dean of Women. This was Bad News. This was a crone with a cruel face and eyes of ice - all the worse, it seemed to Abilene, because she was neither old nor ugly. She was dressed like a man in a tailored gray suit. Her white blouse was buttoned at the throat. Her face was pallid, her lips nearly as gray as her suit. Her red hair was pulled back tight and bundled into a knot behind her head. She wore no jewelry at all that Abilene could see.

  When she began to speak, Abilene was surprised she didn’t have a thick German accent.

  Abilene could still remember bits and pieces of Hardin’s ‘welcoming’ speech. ‘As students at Belmore University, you will always conduct yourselves as ladies… Loose behavior will not be tolerated… You will attire yourselves at all times with appropriate modesty… There will be no gutter language at this university… The consumption of alcoholic beverages on campus is strictly forbidden… Any and all infractions of what we deem to be proper and decent behavior shall be dealt with by yours truly. I am fair, but I am strict, as you shall no doubt come to appreciate.’

  It might have been funny, but it wasn’t.

  As the direct result of Hardin’s opening remarks, four freshman girls - including Abilene’s initial roommate, immediately dropped out of Belmore. In the words of the roomy while she packed, ‘There ain’t room on this campus for me and that tight-ass cunt.’

  ‘Hey now,’ Abilene had said. ‘Watch that gutter language.’

  The girl had laughed, then added, ‘She’s probably a dyke, to boot.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that. You’re giving a bad name to the entire lesbian community.’

  ‘She’ll get you, you know.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll get her first.’

  ‘Rotsa ruck.’

  ***

  During the months following Orientation, Hardin had shown herself to be true to her words. She’d caught Vivian on the way to class wearing a tube top and mini-skirt, fixed her with an outraged glare, and demanded, ‘Just where do you think you’re going, young lady? I’ll tell you precisely where you’re going -back to your room where you’ll change out of that sluttish costume and put on proper attire.’ She’d once caught Helen chewing gum. ‘Swallow that immediately, young lady. You look like an empty-headed cow masticating its cud.’ And she’d once nabbed Abilene dressed in a sleeveless sweatshirt and cut-off jeans. ‘This is a university, not a slum.’ Abilene had politely explained that she was on her way to play basketball. ‘Did you hear me request an excuse? No, I hardly think so. There is no excuse for slovenly attire - nor for backtalk. Am I understood?’

  The woman was ridiculous. But a master of intimidation who seemed to revel in her talent for reducing girls to tears.

  She’d failed to win tears from Vivian or Abilene, but Helen had wept in humiliation over the bovine reference. And yesterday Hardin had driven Barbara Dixon into mindless, blubbering hysteria.

  Finley had found the girl in her room afterward, in such a state that she herself had tears in her eyes while she told the story to the others.

  Barbara had been alone at a table in the student union, pouring a dollop of rum into her Pepsi just as Hardin walked in and spotted her. Hardin took the flask. Sniffed it. Said, ‘Come with me.’

  In her office, she’d raged at Barbara for an hour. She’d called the girl a ‘drunken degenerate,’ a ‘social misfit,’ a ‘blight on Belmore University,’ a ‘filthy, booze-sucking slut.’ On and on. And worse. She’d phoned Barbara’s mother at home. She’d phoned Barbara’s father at work. She’d ranted at them and explained that their delinquent daughter would be placed on probation. Finally, she’d concluded her show by emptying the flask onto Barbara’s head.

  After hearing the story from Finley, the girls had tried to cheer Barbara up. Without success. Today, she’d rented a car, packed all her belongings, and headed for her home in Seattle.

  ‘What’ll we do to her?’ Abilene asked, sitting down on her bed between Finley and Vivian. ‘It’s gotta be something good.’

  ‘Get her drunk,’ Finley suggested. ‘Strip her naked and leave her tied to a tree in the quad.’

  ‘That’d be great,’ Cora said.

  Helen beamed.

  ‘I don’t think she’s worth a prison term,’ Vivian said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Abilene agreed. ‘We’ve gotta come up with something realistic.’

  ‘If it doesn’t at least include kidnapping, assault and battery, it’s too good for her,’ Cora said.

  Finley nodded. ‘She oughta be gang-banged by a slobbering crowd of escapees from an insane asylum.’

  ‘And that�
��d be too good for her,’ Cora said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Abilene said. ‘And it’d be cruel to the lunatics.’

  ‘Besides,’ Helen pointed out, ‘she might enjoy it.’

  ‘Let’s get real, gals,’ Vivian said. ‘Come on. There must be something we can do that’ll really nail her.’

  Abilene nodded. ‘Nothing we could go to jail for. Just something that’ll piss her off so bad she’ll go ape-shit.’

  ‘We can’t do that,’ Vivian said after they’d finally hit upon a plan.

  ‘I will,’ Abilene assured her.

  ‘I dare you.’

  ‘I dare you.’

  ‘Double dare you,’ Finley added.

  ‘Double dares go first,’ Vivian said.

  ‘You bet.’

  The five of them dared and double-dared for a while. Nobody backed out.

  ‘Then it’s settled,’ Cora finally said. ‘Tomorrow we go for it.’

  On the ground floor of the administration building that housed Meredith Hardin’s office was the campus bookstore, which closed each weekday afternoon at five.

  ***

  At ten minutes before five on Wednesday, the day after Barbara fled from the campus and her friends plotted conspiracy in Abilene’s room, Finley led the bookstore clerk away from the counter to help her locate a textbook. Abilene and Helen rushed behind the counter, ducked into the stockroom, and hid themselves in the maze of file cabinets, shelves and stacked boxes.

  A few minutes later, the clerk entered just long enough to turn off the stockroom’s lights.

  When she was gone, Helen nudged Abilene with her elbow and chuckled softly.

  They waited in the darkness. After a while, Abilene removed her flashlight from the sack of food she’d brought along. She crept to the door and eased it open. She glanced around the silent, deserted bookstore. Then she reached down to the outside knob. She tried to twist it. The clerk had left it locked.

  She shut the door and went back to Helen. ‘Just like I thought,’ she whispered. ‘They keep it locked. I bet the custodians don’t have a key, either. Not for the stockroom. Maybe not even for the bookstore.’