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.’
‘So we’re safe, right?’
‘I think so.’
‘Can we turn on the lights?’
‘That’d be pushing it.’
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, they drank root beer by flashlight. They ate cheeseburgers and french fries. When they were done, they turned off their flashlights. They talked softly and waited.