—
THEO AND HILDE, on the other hand, didn’t think anybody was joking about anything unless they were explicitly told so. Theodora Ackner, Nebraska’s finest, was still disconcerted by Europe’s ghosts. Hilde, Ed, and Grainne could no longer hear them, but the ghosts seemed to wake up again around Theo, since she actively listened for them. Lisbon, Paris, and Vienna were tough places for her, beauties clotted with blood. Hilde refused to accompany Theo to Oslo. “About a quarter of my family lives there, Theodora. Let me know these things in my own way.”
—
AND THEN THERE was Grainne Molloy, who had lobbied to be recorded in the annals of the Homely Wench Society as “the irrepressible” Grainne Molloy, unsuccessfully, since, as Hilde pointed out: “Sometimes you are repressible, though.” While Grainne did truly lose her temper several times a day, that frenetic energy of hers occasionally served to obscure another trait: the cool and calculated collection of incriminating anecdotes.
—
THE NEWEST HOMELY WENCH was half in love with every single one of her fellow Wenches, but she wasn’t sure what she, Dayang, brought to the mix. She’d been a member for just over three months and hadn’t had an idea for an article or a group activity yet. She snapped the group photos so she wouldn’t have to see physical proof of her being odd man out. Maybe she could do something toward recruitment; a few of her friends from college and faculty had seemed interested when she mentioned the Wenches.
—
FLORDELIZA, the youngest Wench, their first-year, arrived late. As expected. “Afternoon, ladies!” She grabbed a handful of biscuits and flopped down onto Day’s bed. She’d been growing out a side Mohawk since the summer, so her front hair was still much longer than it was at the back. Her clothes were crumpled and she’d clearly slept without removing her eyeliner; Day had barely noted this before Flor announced that she had a tale of shame to tell. But also a tale of possibility.
“Go,” Theo commanded from the window seat; she’d arranged Day’s curtains about her so that they resembled a voluminous toga.
“OK, first of all, you’re not allowed to judge me…”
“We’re all friends here,” Marie said, sternly.
Flordeliza revealed that a member of the Bettencourt Society was into Yorkshire Filipinas. “Or maybe just into this?” She pointed at herself.
“Oh God,” Grainne shouted. “Oh God, Flordeliza, what did you do?”
—
DAY WAITED to hear about Flor and Hercules. She felt a bit sick but that was just obstructed emotion, a sensation the Dayang Sharifs of this world know all too well. Spring was definitely in the air, even as early as February. Everyone except Day was in some sort of romantic relationship — Marie with a townie who rode a motorbike, Willa with a curator at the Fitzwilliam, Theo with a guide who led tours of Dickensian London, Ed and Grainne with each other, and now Flordeliza with her Bettencourt boy. Day’s only hope was that Hercules Demetriou would come out of this story sounding so greasy that Day’s physical response to his proximity would be mercifully dulled forever.
(The other day she’d passed him and a few other boys she suspected were Bettencourters on King’s Parade, apparently conducting a survey that involved soliciting the opinions of women. “More like ranking them,” she muttered, and Hercules had smiled at her and said: “Sorry, what was that?”
“Nothing. Hello.”
“Hi. Listen, do you want to—”
“Sorry, I can’t. Bye!”)
Flor wasn’t talking about Hercules, but about a third-year at her college named Barney Chaskel, a boy she hadn’t pegged for a Bettencourter because, “Well, he’s sort of low-key and makes fun of his own obsession with conspiracy theories and… he’s sweet.”
“Sweet?!” came at her from every corner of the room. Day asked it loudest, more with curiosity than incredulity. Hilde said: “Flor, aren’t you going too far?”
“Look… on the way over I actually thought about presenting all this as if I’d seduced him on purpose to get info, but the truth is I didn’t know Chaskel was a Bettencourter until this morning! I said I had to run to a Wench meeting, and he was like… surely not the Homely Wenches? And I was like, yeah, the very same, and then he went, ‘How funny, I’m a Bettencourter…’”
“‘How funny’…? This ‘Barney Chaskel’ thinks our decades of enmity are just a bit of fun…?” Theo wondered aloud.
“Flor,” Marie said, in sepulchral tones. “So far this is the tale of our enemies evolving into ever more superficially pleasing forms. You mentioned that this was also a tale of possibility?”
“Flordeliza, if there’s a twist introduce it now or there might be beats in store for you…” Ed added.
But Flor did have something good for them after all. She’d followed Barney Chaskel to Bettencourt Society headquarters and had seen him punch in the code that let him into the building. That was why she was late: She’d seen the sequence, but not its exact components. So she’d cased the joint, observed that the Bettencourters left through another door, and given herself three chances to repeat the code Barney had punched in.
“Babe,” Willa said. “BABE. Third time lucky?”
Flor laughed and said: “Second.”
Grainne and Willa hooted and jumped on her, but Hilde, Ed, and Theo were unmoved.
“There’s no need for us to enter Bettencourt premises,” Hilde declared.
Theo agreed: “The Wenches made the ultimate gesture years ago.”
“No, come on, come on, we’ve got this so it’d basically be folly and sin not to use it!” Grainne said.
But Ed backed up Hilde and Theo: “Yeah, it’d be nice to fuck with the Bettencourters’ heads a bit more, but I’d rather we move on, concentrate on building ourselves up. We need more pieces for The Wench… weren’t we just about to hear an idea from you, Day?”
“I think we should go in,” Day said. Everybody went quiet, but her words were mainly for Marie, who hadn’t expressed an opinion either way. “I think we should go in and do a book swap.”
“A book swap?” Marie echoed.
“Yup. I’m betting the Bettencourters don’t have many, or maybe even any, books by female authors on their bookshelves. And speaking collectively we don’t have that many male authors on our own shelves—”
“Yes, but that’s personal preference and our desire to honor what’s ours, Day,” Hilde said.
“I know,” said Day. “And I do. But I want to read everything. When it comes to books and who can put things in them and get things out of them, it’s all ours. And all theirs too. So we go in, see what books they have, take a few and replace them with a few of ours.”
“No muss, no fuss,” Theo said, grudgingly.
“I’d have voted to trash the place but I don’t care what we do as long as we do something,” Willa said. “I suppose that would’ve wrecked Flor’s budding romance, though.”
Flor covered her face but didn’t deny being keen on Barney Chaskel.
Marie spoke up: “I do want us to do something. I have been waiting for a chance to do something to the Bettencourt Society, ever since a Bettencourter used me as a human shield on my very first Thursday at this university…” She stared out of Day’s window and into the very moment of the incident. Her face was transfigured with wrath.