I shrank into the doorway and fluttered my fingers at my science fiction hippie. In honor of the weekend, he’d combed the crumbs out of his wispy beard and tied his ponytail with a relatively clean shoelace. His blue workshirt was unsoiled, if also unironed. He braked in front of me and put a foot down to steady himself.
“You ever find that copy of Bimbos?” he asked. Behind the smudged lenses of his glasses, his eyes sparkled, either from friendliness or from the recent inhalation of an illicit substance.
“No, but I ordered one for you, and it should be here next week. Would you like to join me for fajitas and beer? My treat, naturally.”
“Is this like a date?”
“This is like a dinner” I said firmly, although inwardly
I was quivering like an adolescent at a junior high dance.
I was on the verge of withdrawing my offer and scurrying away when he nodded, and shortly thereafter I was perched on the back of his bike and we were zooming down the sidewalk.
Several hours later I emerged from the restaurant, satiated not only with food and beer but also with a heady conversation about the manuscript he was writing, well over a thousand pages already and still in the germinal stages of its plot. It was an alternative history that concerned the impact on our modern culture had Napoleon refused to us (as in U.S.) the eight-hundred-odd-thousand square miles known as the Louisiana Territory.
I was pondering the convolutions of Nebras qué as I approached the Kappa Theta Eta house. It looked innocent, as if the tragedy of the previous evening had never taken place. Lights were on in the front room, and in Winkie’s suite. With Debbie Anne still in hiding, only three occupants were left: Winkie, Pippa, and Rebecca. Pippa was threatening to leave for the summer, which meant Eleanor Vanderson might decide to close the house. For her, a coup d’autorité, for me, a coup d’éclat.
I may have been smiling complacently when I saw a tiny light in a third-floor window. It blinked out, but after a moment, it appeared in another window, illuminating a construction-paper cat on the wall for a brief moment, and then again blinked out. I tried to convince myself I’d had one fajita too many, but when I spotted the light in yet a third room, I dismissed the heresy.
Someone was prowling on the third floor, moving through the rooms at the front of the house, apparently unimpeded by locks. And doing so stealthily, in that a person with a legitimate presence would find it more expedient to switch on the ceiling light fixture rather than risk stubbed toes and bruised shins.
I had no idea what to do. I was barely able to prevent myself from clasping my hands together and fluttering my eyelashes in the timeless tradition of gothic heroines. I had options, but racing upstairs to confront the prowler was not high on the list. There were three people living in the house; one of them might have been doing some sort of ritualistic room check, as required by National. Or Debbie Anne might have been hiding up there since the previous night, I told myself slowly. The police had been told no one currently lived on the second or third floor, and therefore might have searched in a perfunctory manner, ascertaining only that lights were off and doors were locked. If she’d hidden until they left, she could be staying in her old bedroom and using the communal pay telephone in the hall. And creeping from room to room in search of clean towels or pink paper cats.
As I congratulated myself on the theory, a face appeared in a window. It was not Debbie Anne Wray, unless she’d shaved her head and put wadded cotton in her cheeks. I wasn’t completely sure, but the man bore a remarkable resemblance to the one who’d driven up to the house the previous evening, parked for a minute, and left. He jerked away from the window so abruptly that I assumed he’d seen me staring at him from the sidewalk.
I forced myself to shrug and stroll toward my apartment, seemingly unconcerned by his presence on the third floor I was unable to whistle, but I made every effort to look as if I might at any moment. Only when I was in the foyer of my duplex did I go storming up the stairs, gasping in a most unattractive fashion. I pounded on the front door and yelled, “Caron! It’s an emergency! Hurry up!”
I’d dumped the contents of my purse on the floor and was pawing through the litter for my key when the door opened. “Mother,” Caron said, her lip curled in distaste, “what on earth are you doing?”
I told her to pick up everything, hurried around her, and dialed the fateful three-digit number “There’s a prowler in the Kappa Theta Eta house!” I said. “It’s on Campus Boulevard near the corner of-”
“You’ll have to call campus security, ma’am. It’s in their jurisdiction.”
“I don’t have time to-” I stopped, lowered my brow, and growled, “Give me the number.”
After I’d reported the problem to the campus police, I banged down the receiver and nearly knocked Caron down on my way to my bedroom window, where I did my best to watch the front and side yards for any sign of the prowler
“Are you having a hot flash?” Caron asked from the doorway. “Most women don’t have them until after the age of fifty, but it’s not totally unheard of in medical circles. You can look forward to osteoporosis, urinary incontinence, and my favorite, genital atrophy.”
“Will you shut up!” I said without turning.
“Irritability is another symptom, you know. Watch out if the doctor puts you on a combination of estrogen and androgen. You may feel great, but side effects include hirsutism and acne. You might turn into a spotty troglodyte.”
This time I tried a bit more vigorously to knock her down as I went past her, through the living room, and downstairs to my porch to await the campus police. My two old chums pulled up within minutes, and I trotted across the yard and caught up with them as they headed for the Kappa house.
“Another prowler, Mrs. Malloy?” said Officer Terrance. “I saw a man in that room.” I pointed at the pertinent window, which was black and blank, and then explained the progression of the flashlight and tried to describe the face I’d seen in the window. All I could do was hope it sounded less preposterous to them than it did to me.
He and Officer Michaels exchanged skeptical looks, but continued across the porch to the door. I followed them, praying that the delay hadn’t resulted in mass murder in the lounge, and was relieved when Winkie opened the door with a puzzled frown rather than a bloody gurgle.
“Your neighbor here reported another prowler,” said Terrance. “This time, according to her, he’s up on the third floor, carrying a flashlight and-”
“Men are not allowed on the third floor,” Winkie said automatically, then put her hand to her mouth and stepped back. “Don’t just stand there-go find him and bring him down here!”
She looked so small and frightened that I edged past the policemen and put my arm around her “You need to give them the keys to all the bedrooms and storage rooms, Winkie,” I said. “Until we’re sure he’s not hiding up there, you’re not safe. Where are the girls?”
“They went out together to see a movie.” She glanced at the dark staircase. “How could someone be up there? I made quite sure the back door was locked, and I’ve had my door open all evening, waiting for Pippa and Rebecca to return just to reassure myself that they were safe. No one came through the front door”
“The keys, ma’am?” Terrence said impatiently.
“Yes, of course, but I’ll have to accompany you. Even with no girls in residence, I cannot…“ She went into her suite and returned with the key ring. The keys clinked and her voice was thin and uneven as she said, ‘Well, then, shall we go upstairs, gentlemen?”
I trailed along, telling myself I was doing so to give moral support to Winkie. She switched on the lights as we came to the third-floor hall, then began unlocking doors and waiting as the officers searched each room. The storerooms that were used for luggage were empty, as were the pink-tiled bathrooms and the shower stalls. The bedrooms were incredibly small, some jammed with as many as three or four bunk beds, all with built-in furniture, well-worn textbooks, electronics equipment, oddments that had been overlooked during frenzied departures, a plethora of construction-paper cats, and the aura of a shabby hotel that had seen way too many better days.