‘No. Huh-uh.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Vivian muttered.
The news cheered Abilene. If it’s true, she thought, we can relax for a while. We’ll be safe till after the sun goes down. ‘What is it, about three now?’ she asked.
‘Three or four. I’d think,’ Cora said.
‘Shouldn’t be really dark until about nine.’
‘Gives us plenty of time to get ready for him.’
‘We could go to him,’ Finley said. ‘Stage a little surprise attack.’
‘Yeah, right. I’m not walking anywhere. The three of you want to go off after him and leave me here?’
‘Forget it,’ Vivian said.
‘Where’s your place?’ Finley asked.
‘Other side a the lake.’
‘And he’s there alone?’
Jim nodded.
‘What about the rest of your family?’ Vivian asked him. ‘All the others. Don’t you have… a lot of kinfolks?’
‘Just me and Hank.’
‘We heard it was a whole bunch that attacked the lodge that night. You said your brother was there.’
‘Yeah. We had us a right big family, back then. The rest of ’em, they all died off. The fever got ’em. Now there’s only just us two. Wish the fever’d gotten Hank. Him ’n me was spared, though.’
‘Too bad about that,’ Finley said.
‘So he’s the only one we’ll have to deal with,’ Cora said. ‘And not till after dark. This is looking better and better.’
‘Waiting’s gonna be a bitch,’ Abilene said.
‘It’ll give us time to get ready for him.’
‘We should probably eat and rest up,’ Vivian suggested.
‘Is the sun over the yardarm yet?’ Finley asked.
‘We oughta lay off the booze,’ Cora said.
‘A couple of drinks can’t hurt.’ Finley grinned up at Jim. ‘How about you? You look like a guy who could use a libation.’
‘He can’t drink with his hands tied,’ Abilene said. ‘Somebody could hold the glass for him. How about it, fella? Do you like tequila?’
‘I don’ know.’
‘Good stuff. It’ll put hair on your chest.’
His chest was darkly tanned. It was smooth and hairless. You don’t need any hair on your chest, Abilene thought. And she remembered that she’d spoken those very words. Only last year.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CORA'S CHOICE
They gathered in San Francisco exactly one year after the Big Apple adventure. But they hadn’t come to see the city. This was Cora’s turn to choose, and she had no interest in exploring urban attractions.
They took connecting rooms at a Quality Inn on Van Ness, had pizza delivered, drank margaritas and ate while they talked about all that had happened since they’d been together for Cora’s wedding.
Abilene showed off the engagement ring that Harris had given her.
Helen announced that she’d met a terrific guy named Frank.
Vivian told them about being signed to do ads for Tipton shirts.
Finley recounted tales of her adventures as the assistant director for Zombie Zone. Then she said, ‘I’ve got something interesting I want you to see.’ She got busy hooking up her camcorder to the room’s television.
‘Your movie?’ Helen asked.
‘Hold your water. You’ll see.’ Done with the wiring, she slipped a tape cassette into her machine. ‘I meant to have this for last year’s reunion, but didn’t get around to it.’ She turned on the TV, then fingered the Play button on her camcorder.
On the screen appeared Finley wearing her old gorilla head and a green silken evening gown. ‘Greetings,’ she said, her voice muffled by the mask. ‘Fill your glasses, sit down, shut up and get ready for fun. What you’re about to see is a documentary laboriously pieced together by the Finman from hours upon hours of tape. This is the authorized, uncensored version of what I like to call, Daring Young Maids.'
‘Oh, no,’ Vivian muttered.
‘It all begins on a hot September evening…’
It began with Finley showing herself in a mirror just inside the restroom of Hadley Hall. She wore the gorilla head, a tank top and shorts. She was holding the video camera to an eyehole of the mask. She vanished from the screen as the camera swept across sinks and toilet stalls. Abilene heard faint, hollow-sounding voices. Watched a shaky, jumping view of the dressing-room entrance as Finley approached it, entered, and turned toward the shower room. Then she glimpsed Helen, herself, Vivian and Cora, all naked in the steam, shocked and wet and shouting as the camera rushed by. Cora lunged forward, reached out, fell. Her rump slapped the tiles. Her feet flew into the air.
‘Beaver shot!’ Finley blurted through the laughter of the others.
Then Abilene was in front of the camera, blocking Finley’s escape.
‘Ooo, you look pissed!’ Helen gasped.
Abilene’s breasts filled the TV screen.
‘Hot stuff, huh?’ Finley said.
‘Bitch,’ Abilene said when the camera lowered to show her belly and pubic curls.
And everyone cracked up as her voice came from the television snapping, ‘You bitch!’
She suddenly vanished. Walls, ceiling, floor. Then Helen straight ahead, face grim, huge breasts swaying as she swung a fist. Quick tumbling views of tile and girls. A jolt. Then a steady view of bare feet. Mine, Abilene realized.
The laughter in the motel room stopped when Cora slammed Finley against a wall of the shower room and punched her in the belly.
‘You gals were not very nice to me,’ Finley commented.
‘You got off easy,’ Cora told her.
‘All my friends thought you over-reacted, when I showed this at a party last month.’
‘You what'.’ Vivian blurted.
Abilene felt her skin go hot. She saw Helen turn a bright shade of red.
Cora scurried across the bed and got a head-lock on Finley.
‘Just kidding! Hey! Nobody’s seen it.’
Cora released her.
‘Touchy, touchy,’ she said. ‘Come on, you’re missing the epic. Settle down.’
‘We oughta burn the epic,’ Cora suggested.
‘This is just a copy.’
‘Hey, quiet,’ Vivian said. ‘Get a load of this.’
On the TV screen, Vivian was talking to a guy in the doorway of the Sig house.
Finley rushed forward and pushed a button on her camera. Vivian, Cora, Abilene and Helen, all in evening gowns and carrying beer bottles, stepped quickly backward - away from the frat house door and up the walkway.
They started forward again, moving at a normal speed but staggering and weaving as if drunk. Finley returned to her seat on the corner of the bed.
‘We looked pretty sharp,’ Abilene said.
‘God, I was so scared,’ Helen said.
‘You and me both. I wanted to hightail it.’
‘Shhh,’ Vivian said when the door opened. Her voice from the TV slurred, ‘Do y’know who I am?’
They watched.
They watched and commented and laughed, distracting themselves again and again from the scenes of their past so that Finley kept bouncing up to rewind. Often, they asked her to go back so they could take a second look. They ended up missing nothing, but saw much of the epic two or three times.
They watched themselves dance for the Sigs, dump their bottles of gasoline on the carpet and flee as the flaming bills fluttered down. They watched themselves party in Hardin’s office and paper it with the glossy nudes. They watched Vivian vomit on the floor. They watched Cora make her phonecall to Hardin’s home. They watched themselves attack Wildman and leave him tied beneath the bridge in Benedict Park. They watched the antics of the Merry Halloween Team, and Abilene got a special kick out of witnessing her first encounter with a zombie named Harris. Then they were trashing the house of the mean guy who’d yelled at the kids.
And Abilene found herself looking at the horror in the whe
elchair.
‘You were gonna erase this,’ she said.
‘Couldn’t. It was too weird, you know?’
‘Jesus,’ Vivian muttered.
‘That fella’s mother definitely hit him with an ugly stick.’
‘It’s not funny,’ Abilene said. She shut her eyes as the camera lingered on the hideous face.
Then came Finley’s voice, ‘Say cheese.’
And the low voice answering, ‘Cheese.’
‘The good, the bad and the ugly,’ Finley said.
Abilene got over feeling sick when she saw herself with Harris in Benedict Park. They were pretending to be those characters in the ‘Mess Hall’ story. Soon, she was down on the ground with Harris on top of her.
She was there again, feeling the twigs and leaves under her back, feeling the weight of Harris’s body, feeling the way his trapped erection prodded her through her panties.
‘You should’ve gotten an Oscar for this,’ Vivian said.
Cora laughed. ‘That’s not acting.'
Helen nudged Abilene. ‘Getting hot?’
‘I was till the peanut gallery chimed in.’
‘Want me to rewind?’ Finley asked.
Cora chuckled. ‘We’ll promise to be quiet. We’ll just sit here and watch you pant. ’
‘I could be home with him right now.’
‘Getting a taste of the real thing,’ Finley said.
‘Here comes that asshole, Baxter,’ Helen said.
Abilene watched, growing apprehensive, as Baxter killed Harris and took her away in the car, as he dragged her into a clearing and tied her under a tree, as he tormented her with the knife.
‘Couldn’t you maybe fast-forward through some of this?’ she asked when Baxter started licking her chest. ‘This is a stroll down Memory Lane I could do without.’
‘Yeah, but you really nailed him good,’ Finley said as Baxter started kissing Abilene. ‘You wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?’
‘Finley.’
‘Okay, okay.’
Finley was on her way to the TV when Baxter broke the strap of Abilene’s bra and grabbed her breast and she kneed him in the thigh.
In fast-forward, Baxter pulled her skirt up, yanked her panties down, was flung backward by Helen, and barely hit the ground before Helen, Cora and Vivian, dressed as zombies, pounced on him.
‘Hey,’ Helen protested. ‘We’re missing the good part.’
‘Fine with me,’ Vivian said. ‘It was awful, beating up on him like that.’
‘Fucker deserved it,’ Cora said.
But Finley didn’t stop fast-forwarding until the TV showed their farewell party at Belmore. They were lounging around the living room of their apartment on Spring Street, dressed for bed and holding champagne glasses. ‘Just act natural, babes,’ Finley advised them. ‘You look great. What was your big idea, Viv?’ Later, she said, ‘One of these days, we’ll get together and watch all this stuff and have a few laughs.’
‘Was that a threat or a promise?’ Cora asked.
‘I came through, right?’
‘I wouldn’t have minded missing some of this,’ Abilene said. ‘I think it’s great,’ Vivian said. ‘Most of it, anyway.’
‘Come on,’ Helen protested, ‘we’re missing stuff.’
Finley got up and rewound.
The farewell party came to an end. Then it was the next morning, and they watched tape of their tearful departures.
Finley appeared on the screen. She had removed the gorilla head, but still wore her formal green gown. ‘And thus ends,’ she said, ‘the saga of the Belmore girls. But it was not the end of the Daring Young Maids, or our adventures. True to our word, we gathered one year later. This time, we were far from the hallowed halls of the university, and eager to take our bites out of the Big Apple.’
‘What com,’ Cora said.
They watched Vivian struggle to yank a suitcase off a carousel in the baggage claim area at Kennedy. Then she and Finley were apparently in the back seat of a taxi. There were views of the driver’s head, and some scenery along the way to Manhattan. They’d been the last of the group to arrive. Finley was ready with her camera when Cora opened the door to their room at the Hilton.
‘We oughta fast-forward through this,’ Cora said. ‘Hell, it was only last year.’
‘And it’s getting late,’ Vivian said.
‘Don’t be party-poopers. There isn’t all that much.’
‘Have you got my wedding on here?’ Cora asked.
‘But of course.’
‘Let’s just move on to that.’
‘Fine with me,’ Helen said. ‘This New York stuff’ll just remind me of what you people did to Wayne.’
‘We didn’t do anything to him,’ Cora said.
‘He’s not on the tape, anyway,’ Finley explained.
‘Even so, it’s making me think about him.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Finley went to the TV and pushed the fast-forward button on her camcorder. Scenes of their days in New York City flashed by.
‘It would’ve been stupid to let him into the room,’ Cora said.
‘He was a nice guy.’
‘Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. We were just playing it safe.’
‘Maybe we misjudged him,’ Abilene said. ‘But who knows what he might’ve done if we’d let him into our rooms?’
‘He could’ve been a rapist,’ Vivian explained.
‘Helen had her hopes pinned on it,’ Finley said. ‘But I would’ve called firsties.’
‘That’s not funny,’ Helen muttered.
Finley, shaking her head at the television’s speeding images, said, ‘It was almost a waste of tape. Nothing happened. It’s like looking at a travelogue.’
‘Maybe my choice of activities will turn out to be more interesting,’ Cora said.
‘I sure hope so.’
‘He was a nice guy,’ Helen muttered.
‘Let’s have some quiet,’ Cora announced as the scenes of her wedding began.
The next morning, they rented a Pathfinder recreational vehicle, loaded their sleeping bags, luggage and supplies, and headed north across the Golden Gate.
Following Abilene’s directions, they took the tum-off to Mill Valley. She pointed out some of her favorite places as they drove through the town. Her parents had moved to Flagstaff three years ago, but she wanted to see the old house. Unfortunately, the final stretch of hillside road was too narrow for the RV. ‘No big deal,’ she said.
‘Looks like Wolfe was right,’ Vivian said.
She laughed. ‘Can’t go home again… not without a tiny car, anyway.’
They retreated to wider roads. ‘Anybody want to visit Muir Woods or the top of Mount Tam?’ she asked. ‘They’re on the way.’
‘Have you got your heart set on it?’ Cora asked.
‘I’m gonna bring Harris over here on our honeymoon. Give
him a guided tour of where I spent my callow youth. Unless you guys are interested, we can skip ’em.’
‘I guess I’d rather get on over to the coast,’ Cora said. Abilene navigating, they made their way along twisty roads and down the side of Mount Tamalpias to the town of Stinson Beach. In a shop there, Cora selected a wetsuit and a surfboard. ‘I’m the only one gonna surf?’ she asked.
‘You can count me out,’ Finley said. ‘I’ll record your wipeouts for posterity.’
‘I’ll borrow yours if I get the urge,’ Abilene said. ‘Which I doubt.’
‘I’m not going in the ocean,’ Helen said. ‘There’s sharks out there.’
‘This’ll do it for me,’ Vivian said, holding up a string bikini.
‘You’re planning to wear that in public?’ Abilene asked.
‘If Cora’s right, there won’t be any public. Right?’
‘That’s the idea,’ Cora agreed. ‘That’s why I decided we should go north. Miles and miles of deserted coastline. If we stop in the right places, we’ll have the water to ourselves.’
‘B
ecause it’s too cold for sensible people,’ Abilene pointed out.
‘That shouldn’t bother any of you pansies,’ Cora said. ‘Sounds like I’ll be the only one going out in it.’
She purchased her surfboard and wetsuit. Vivian purchased her bikini. Then they returned to the RV and headed north on Pacific Coast Highway.
***
They stopped for lunch in Bodega Bay. Helen was thrilled. This was where Hitchcock’s The Birds had taken place. Their table at the restaurant overlooked the very same stretch of water that Tippi Hedren had been crossing in a motorboat when a bird had swooped down and pecked her head. ‘I can’t believe I’m actually here,’ she said, and took an eager gulp of her Bloody Mary.
Abilene laughed. ‘Last year, Grandpa Munster’s. This year, Bodega Bay. You’ve really been lucking out.’
‘Yeah,’ Finley said. ‘Even if the rest of the trip turns out to be a total bust, you…’
‘It won’t,’ Cora interrupted. ‘We’ll have a great time.’
‘Watching you ride a surfboard?’
‘It’s great so far,’ Helen said. ‘And next year’s my turn. We’ll go some place really cool.’
‘Lining up a haunted house for us?’ Abilene asked.
‘I’m still working on it. But you can bet I’ll find some place just dripping with spookiness.’
After lunch, they went to a market and stocked up on supplies: groceries, soft drinks, booze, ice, sun block, and fresh batteries for their flashlights.
Before leaving town, they drove past the old schoolhouse that had played such a prominent role in The Birds. Helen gaped out the window at it. ‘Fantastic,’ she muttered. ‘Incredible.’
‘You’ll have to come to L.A. sometime,’ Vivian told her. ‘Fin and I’ll take you to Universal, and you can see the Psycho house.’
‘Yeah! Neat!’
Then they left Bodega Bay behind. In the late afternoon, the fog came in. It had been lingering over the ocean, but moving slowly closer until its white, smoky fingers began creeping over the edge of the bluffs and scurrying across the road ahead of them.
‘You’d better start looking for a place to pull off,’ Abilene warned.
‘Gotta find a way down to the water,’ Cora said, and kept driving. Soon, the fog was so thick that it blocked out the sunlight. They were moving through a murky grayness that hid the ocean and the cliff at the left edge of the two-lane highway and the rocky slope to the right. The pavement itself seemed to dissolve into fog. Its yellow, center lines faded and vanished only a few yards in front of the vehicle. ‘Can’t see shit,’ Cora finally said.