Alma Mater (11 page)

Charly hated it, but the coach felt it built camaraderie. It did and it
didn't. A surfeit of red meat, vitamins, and the steroids illegally used by
some of the players created a combustible mix of male hormones.

Vic parked, walked up to the front door, and knocked. Women
were allowed in the lobby but not in the rooms. Coach thought segre
gating the boys would make it more difficult for them to get laid. He
was right. He subscribed to the old theory that sex before a game
robbed a man of his competitive drive. Of course, science had proved
the exact opposite was true. Sex boosted testosterone levels. Perhaps it
was just as well he subscribed to the old theory
_;
otherwise a line of nu
bile young lovelies would have been enlisted as a training aid.

"Charlyr Tareq Nassar bellowed as he let Vic in the door.

Wiry and lean, Tareq, a cornerback, contrasted sharply with Orion
Chalmers, the right guard, who was sprawled on a lobby chair. Orion
looked as though he'd sucked on the air hose at the filling station and
inflated himself.

Charly appeared. "Vic." He threw open his arms and gave her a
bear hug. "Let's go for a walk. Away from these animals."

The men in the lobby howled, with a few wolf whistles added.
Once out in the twilight air, Vic noticed Charly's legs. He was

wearing Bermuda shorts. "Jesus, you look like a Dalmatian."

"They hit hard." He reached for her right hand as they walked

through the campus, the leaves on the trees swaying gently.

"Mom, Dad, Mignon, and Aunt Bunny send their regards. Oh, Aunt

Bunny won the club championship again. She retired the trophy."
"Great." He leaned down to nuzzle her. "And you look great. I

missed you."

"I missed you, too." She liked the scent of him, his aftershave, not too strong, added to his own clean smell.

People waved to them as they walked along, half leaning on one
another, the picture of young love. He described the game and Coach's
outbursts in the locker room, directed mostly at the defensive linemen.
She told him about Mignon's pierced ears and Edward Wallace's butt
full of ratshot. She didn't tell him about how bad it was with the money,
nor did she mention the overpowering attraction she felt for Chris.

Seeing him was a relief to her
_;
the familiarity of him soothed her. Apart from Jinx, Charly was her closest friend.

Yet the emotions Chris had ignited, the sheer feeling of lust, was
something she'd never felt for Charly. She felt physical attraction,
happiness, comfort, and trust with Charly. Walking with him, she felt
as though she could breathe at last, as though she hadn't taken a deep
breath since Friday afternoon. She also knew
_ev
erything was the same
but that she was somehow different. She made herself focus on what he was saying.

". . . it's only the middle of September!" His voice ros
_e
. "So she's
going on about planning ahead and how Thanksgiving is so impor
tant to Uncle George since Nana died." He waved his hand in front
of his face as though chasing away a bug. "Anyway, she went on and on. Compromise. I'll go home for Thanksgiving, do the family thing,
but I'll come on over to your house that evening. Think of it as a
dessert call."

"I'll
think of you as a dessert call." She stopped walking and kissed him on the lips, his smooth lips.

"I like that idea." He hugged and then released her. "Hey, Vic, I'm
starved."

"Did you eat—?"

He interrupted. "I did, but I'm starved. Maybe I've got tapeworm."
"Nah. You need to make up for all the torn
_m
uscle tissue, all those bruises. You really do look like a Dalmatian."

"I wonder if I'm a real shit. I love my mother, but she drives me
crazy."

"Charly, she's" —Vic weighed her words— "
_a
controlling woman."

"Yeah." He grabbed her hand again and then
took two swinging steps
to the right followed by two swinging steps to the left.

Charly delighted in Vic's presence. He felt he could say anything
to her and she wouldn't judge him. He had never felt so free with an
other human being. She made him laugh. She made him want to be
better than he was, to make her proud of him. He loved to listen to her
stories of Surry County, to her sizing up of the people around him. He
was often amazed at her insights, terse and on target. He was the talker

of the two of them, and she used to tease him that he was perfect for politics. There were worse jobs than being governor, but he knew he wanted to make a lot of money. A man doesn't really make money in
politics
_;
he needs to go into it with money. Whatever the future held,
he imagined Vic by his side. And even though he would inherit plenty,
he wanted to make money on his own. He wanted Vic to be proud
of him.

_T

he
click, click, click
of her heels tapped against the gleaming black
floor of the dealership, sending out an invitation. Hojo swayed slightly, enticingly, perched on those open-toed sling-backs with

heels halfway between a flat and a stiletto.

The curving receptionist's desk reminded Hojo of the bridge of a
battleship. She loved manning her station. As she sat higher than the
floor, she could see over the salesmen, giggle to herself about their
shiny bald spots. She felt above all of them.

She climbed up to her seat, picked up a mechanical pencil, and started scribbling sales figures. Being a receptionist had advantages,
one being that there wasn't much pressure. But she wasn't stupid. She
knew sales equaled money. Her salary might grow a little, but she'd
never make a commission sitting on her butt overlooking the dealer
ship. Quietly she was learning the business, learning the product. She
wanted to be the first female car salesman at McKenna Dodge/Toyota.

The front door opened. She smiled broadly at Bunny and R. J. Like
most women, she unthinkingly studied R. J., whose understated manner
of dressing suited her perfectly. Hojo firmly believed more was more.
She admired R. J., though, understanding that R. J. had found her style
and stuck to it. Hojo considered herself still a work in progress, and at twenty-five, she believed she could and would progress.

"Good morning, Mrs. McKenna, Mrs. Savedge."

"'Morning, Hojo." Bunny didn't smile but walked to the back of
the receptionist's raised area and ascended the three steps that put her on the platform with Hojo.

Hojo reflexively covered her papers with her forearm. R. J. stood
below her.

"Hojo, you pierced Mignon's ears, am
I correct?"
Bunny folded her
arms across her chest.

"A needle and ice cubes. She didn't squeal a minute." Hojo smiled.
"Now why would you do a thing like that?" Bunny liked lording
over the staff as much as they disliked her doing it.

"She asked me to." Hojo's amethyst earrings reflected the lights
from the overhead tracks.

"She's fifteen," Bunny snapped.

"I didn't know that. She's a big girl." Hojo wasn't
intimidated by
Bunny.

"She is big," R. J. concurred. "She didn't say why she wanted you to
do it? I mean, most girls will go to the mall to get their ears pierced with
one of those, I don't know what you call them, guns. Of course, she'd
have to show her ID there, which may explain why she came to you."

Hojo stood up and leaned over toward R. J. "Mrs. Savedge, she
said she liked the way my earrings looked and she saw Courtney's ears at school, so she wanted me to do it."

Courtney, sixteen, was a class ahead of Mignon at school. "It showed bad judgment." Bunny dropped her arms.

Hojo breathed in, counted to three, and then evenly replied, "I
didn't know she was only fifteen and I didn't know Mrs. Savedge didn't
want Mignon's ears pierced."

"Bunny, I'm satisfied." R. J. glanced out the window at the new
trucks, which looked as bright as shiny jelly beans. "Hojo, the reason
we're asking you these questions is just so I know whether Mignon told
me the truth. She did."

"How are her ears?" Hojo asked, a touch too solicitously.

"Fine. Vic and her friend, Chris, bought her gold posts. Actually,
she looks cute. I wanted her to wait until she turned sixteen, that's all. You didn't do anything wrong. Mignon can be very persuasive."

"She's a live wire." Hojo leaned farther down, her breasts touching
the counter surface. "Vic is so quiet and Mignon's just bubbling
over."

Bunny stepped back down. "Be back in a minute, R. J." She headed
toward Don's office, which was filled with photographs of Bunny win
ning a variety of golf tournaments and of Don holding up sailfish and
barracudas caught during his annual escapes to Florida each January.

"Mmm, mmm, mmm," Hojo half sang the sounds, three long notes
indicating not disapproval but amusement.

R. J. pointed out a fire-engine-red Dodge half ton and smiled up at
Hojo. "That's a beauty."

"We should take a picture and use it for an ad. You could be a model.
You and Vic could do commercials, you know, like those mother-and
daughter commercials for soaps and stuff."

"Hojo, that's sweet of you to say."

Hojo trotted down the steps, joining R. J. to admire the truck. "She
keeps that man on a short leash."

R. J., not about to criticize her sister with an employee, said, "She likes to stay involved in the business. She has a good mind for it."

"Mr. McKenna says Bunny will be the one that gets us the Mer
cedes dealership." Hojo lifted the edge of her skirt to wipe off a finger
print on the plate-glass window, thereby exposing even more of her fit,
feminine body. "He says Bunny wants to drive a Mercedes, but as long as we only carry Dodges and Toyotas, that's all she can drive."

"Bunny would look quite wonderful behind the wheel of a silver
SL, top down."

"Wouldn't we all?" Hojo laughed. "Bet you two had fun as sisters." "We still have fun."

"I mean in school and stuff."

"Yes. Bunny was always clever. She could figure out the angles. I
more or less forged straight ahead. She's a lot smarter than I
am," R. J.
said appreciatively.

"But you're so beautiful—" Hojo stopped herself, quickly adding, "And smart. I've never heard anyone say you were anything but smart, Mrs. Savedge. People respect you and people know your life hasn't al
ways been easy."