Our collective sigh of relief was audible. I leaned back in my chair, limp.
“Pamela,” Liz said, “how do we know that after all we’ve said here, you won’t have another talk with your mom and let her change your mind?”
“Because,” Pamela answered, “I’d already written a letter to New York, telling them I wasn’t coming, and … just before I came over here this afternoon, I tore it up. I just … I needed additional reinforcements, that’s all.”
“The Enforcers, that’s us,” said Gwen, smiling at her.
“But do you promise?” Liz wanted to know.
“I promise,” Pamela told her. “You can even come over tomorrow and help me pack.”
Was it always this hard, I wondered—this breaking away? Always so painful to move from one place to the next? Always so exciting and wonderful and … yes, so scary to make a pact with life that no matter what it might throw your way, you would deal?
“Know what?” I said. “I think—right now—we ought to make plans to go to California together.”
Three faces turned my way, staring.
“When we’re through with college, I mean. Like we talked about once. After we graduate, we should take a couple of weeks and just go. Do everything we ever wanted to do.”
“In a red convertible!” Pamela said.
“I’m serious,” I told her.
“So am I,” said Pamela, and I think she meant it.
Gwen looked from one of us to the next. “I’ll be in med school, but if I can make it, I’d sure like to.”
“Count me in,” said Liz.
We grinned around the circle in the darkness. We actually had a plan. It was a time for taking chances.
“And I get to drive,” said Pamela.
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Alice on Board
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