Blood Games

    ‘And we’ll have new adventures,’ Finley added. ‘New and daring exploits.’

    Cora smirked. ‘Like what?’

    ‘I don’t know. We’ll think of things.’

    ‘I know,’ Abilene said. ‘We can take turns thinking up exploits. Each year, it’ll be someone else’s turn to arrange the whole thing. We’ll all agree on whatever weekend…’

    ‘What kind of adventure can you have over a weekend?’ Finley complained. ‘Maybe we should try for a whole week.’

    ‘A week it is,’ Cora said.

    ‘This is great,’ Helen said. She polished off her champagne, tossed her pillow aside and leaned toward Cora with her glass. Cora crawled over and filled her up. ‘All of a sudden, it’s like everything isn’t over anymore. You know? This is great.’

    ‘Who goes first?’ Cora asked, and raised the bottle to her mouth.

    ‘The whole thing’s Vivian’s idea,’ Abilene pointed out.

    Vivian, smiling pleasantly, eased backward. She stretched out on the floor, glass resting on her belly, and crossed her feet at the ankles. ‘So I get to go first?’

    ‘Right,’ Abilene said.

    ‘We’ll all do whatever I want?’

    ‘Within reason.’

    ‘Fuck that,’ Finley said. ‘A choice oughta be a choice. It’s her adventure. We all have to do whatever she wants, whether we like it or not.’

    ‘A heavy responsibility,’ Vivian said, smiling at the ceiling.

    Cora popped a cork from a fresh bottle. It shot past Helen’s face. ‘Be careful. You’ll put someone’s eye out.’ She shut one eye and started giggling.

    ‘I don’t know,’ Vivian said.

    ‘You’ve got all year to think about it,’ Abilene told her.

    ‘And please,’ Finley said, ‘try to come up with something that won’t bore us all to death.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

VIVIAN'S CHOICE

    A year and two weeks after graduation from Belmore University, on the fifth night after their arrival in New York City, they stepped out of the Dunsinane Theater on Bleecker Street after a performance of Mother Courage.

    Vivian led them to the left.

    ‘Are you sure we shouldn’t be going the other way?’ Cora asked. ‘This doesn’t seem right.’

    ‘It’s not,’ Finley said. ‘It’s left.’

    ‘I don’t want to get lost again,’ Helen said. ‘My feet won’t take it.’

    ‘The subway entrance is just a couple of blocks from here.’

    ‘I sure hope so.’

    It seemed to Abilene that Helen had spent most of the week complaining about her feet. With good reason, she supposed. Vivian had taken them everywhere.

    They’d roamed Macy’s, Saks, Bloomingdale’s, F.A.O. Schwartz, and countless other stores. They’d gone to the Trump Tower and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    They’d explored Grand Central Station, astonished by the underground world of shops and tunnels that seemed to go on forever, but appalled by the squalor, unnerved by the filthy beggars who seemed to lurk everywhere, and finally so overwhelmed by the smell of the place that they had rushed for fresh air.

    They’d explored Central Park.

    They’d taken the NBC tour at Rockefeller Plaza and later gone to the top of the Empire State Building.

    They’d spent a day at Coney Island, not only trying out some of the rides but hiking far along the beach and spending a long time on a pier where they were fascinated by the assortment of people fishing, throwing out crab traps baited with Kentucky Colonel, cooking meat on grills they’d apparently brought from home, and hawking their barbecued specialities along with such things as ice cream, sodas, beer, hard liquor (in tiny ‘airline’ bottles kept out of sight under a table) and firecrackers.

    Except for subway rides to such distant places as Coney Island, the Battery and Greenwich Village, they’d walked everywhere they went. Throughout, Finley carried her video camera (at least during daylight hours), Vivian and Cora seemed tireless and Helen complained about her sore feet and Abilene didn’t complain but sat down every chance she got.

    Nightfall had provided some relief, but not much.

    They often hiked around the Times Square area for blocks in search of a ‘neat place to eat’ before deciding on Nathan’s or Sbarro or a Mama Leone’s or Houlihans.

    Then they’d be off, on foot, for the theater district. The plays had been great; you could sit down for a couple of hours.

    Then they’d be up again. And wandering 42nd Street to look again at the gawdy display windows and street artists and musicians and break-dancers and tourists and beggars and cripples and cops on horseback and guys peddling wristwatches.

    At last, they would head back for the Hilton, stopping along the way at a small grocery market to pick up sodas, beer and snacks. Finally, they would arrive at their suite, get out of their shoes, get into their nightclothes, and gather in one or the other of the connecting rooms to sit around and drink and eat and chat and moan and laugh for a while before calling it a night.

    Today had been the worst, Abilene thought as she walked with the others along MacDougal Street.