Chapter 15
Sandra stood on the concrete steps, blinking in the sunlight, looking down at herself. After so long, she felt strange in a cotton print dress which was not white. And her high heels were a challenge. She wobbled in them like a teenager at her first dance.
But she had things to do, and worrying about how she looked or walked wasn't important-not now.
She began to move down the street, crossing the intersection without bothering to be careful, so that traffic stopped and honked with anger. She went several blocks before she came to another large building. She went inside and suddenly it was very clean and quiet.
People rustled in their starched uniforms as they walked past and she looked after them for a few moments before she went to the reception desk. A girl in a white uniform looked up, smiled at Sandra's pleasant face, and asked, "May I help you?"
"I'd like to see Hester St. Claire."
The girl flipped through an index of cards, her fingers moving rapidly. She pulled one out. "I'm afraid she's not to have visitors."
"I must see her."
She took a closer look at Sandra. "You're a member of the family?"
"Yes, her sister, and it's urgent family business.
At last, she was given the number, and she walked along a gleaming white corridor until she came to the room. She opened the door and went inside.
Surprisingly, the bed was not occupied. Hester was sitting by the window, a blanket about her knees, looking out. She wore a faded blue robe and her hair was a torn tangled mess.
Sandra cleared her throat and at last she turned, startled. "Oh, I didn't see you!"
Sandra wouldn't have recognized her. A wide swatch of tape ran across her nose and was anchored to each cheek. Both eyes were blue-black. There were a number of scratches on her chin and throat.
Sandra crossed the room and stood in front of her. "How are you, as terrible as you look?"
She sighed, looking tired, defeated. "Not really. A nose fracture, cuts and bruises everywhere else. No concussion and no permanent damage, thank heavens."
"I was afraid you might be worse. They were awfully stuffy about visitors."
Hester shrugged. "I wanted to be by myself with no one here except my husband..." Sbe looked outside again. "And he hasn't come."
"That's a shame!" Sandra replied, wishing she could feel compassion for Hester St. Claire, but her words came out as sarcasm. "It doesn't surprise me. I'm only here because I want something."
Hester looked down, at herself. "I'm a captive audience, but I'm not giving anything away."
"I want you to see that Candy is released from Juvenile Hall, and I want it done promptly." Sandra was pleased at the way her words snapped out with authority.
"You're insane! I wouldn't help that she-wolf for one second." She tried to smile, but the gesture was replaced by a grimace of pain. "I hope she rots in a cell until she's sixty-five and ugly."
Sandra shook her fingers under the older woman's nose. "If she does, you won't be much better off."
"You're boring me. Please leave."
"If I leave now," Sandra hissed, "it will be to go to the Treacher Foundation and tell them what you did to me. Then I'll tell your husband all about it and then I'll write a few letters to some show-business people. You won't be worth much as a human being, a camp director or an agent."
Hester's blotchy eyes widened. "You wouldn't dare!"
"No? You had me in the same position once, and I don't mind turning the tables." She shook her head. "I'm not here to threaten or beg. I'm giving you an order. I want you to call the police. Tell them your fight with Candy was honest and personal between you two. Tell them you provoked the whole shabby spectacle. Then tell them you aren't pressing charges-that you want her released."
Hester glared, hate spitting from her ugly eyes. "I'm not going to be blackmailed by anyone of your..."
"Yes you are," Sandra interrupted, "because you know I mean it. I'll do as I threatened if you don't pick up that telephone in one minute. Call the police and say the right things. If that doesn't convince them, invite them over. Whatever you do, get Candy out of jaill"
Hester's words dripped with acid. "If you do this to me, you can forget I offered to help you get a start in show business." Her expression changed, and she attempted to smile again, this time showing Sandra a gap where a tooth was missing. "On the other hand, I could do a great deal for you. It isn't easy for an unknown to break in at the studios."
"I'll manage in my own way. If I haven't the talent, I don't want your help. If I have the talent, I'll be able to make myself known to the right people." Sandra believed what she was saying. She wasn't going to drive herself crazy with agony over ambition for a show-business career. Not any more. There were too many other good things in life to be appreciated.
"I'd kill..."
"Stop arguing and get on that telephone!" Sandra snapped, stamping her foot.
Hester studied Sandra's face for a long moment. At last, she got up from the chair and, walking like an old woman, went to the night table by the bed. She picked up the instrument and dialed once.
She waited, holding the receiver to her ear, wincing when she accidentally touched her cheek. At last she spoke. "Operator, I want the police...
The three girls sat on Sandra's bunk. Sandra reclined at the head with a pillow propped behind her back, Candy at the other end, her legs tucked under her, Nola in the middle, leaning her back against the wall, her legs outstretched.
Their luggage was stacked on the floor, close to the door, a lonely, sad sight. The tent and the rest of the camp were unusually quiet. Almost all the Treacher girls had already been taken away, and only a handful waited for the last bus, which was to arrive at any minute.
Summer was over. It was Labor Day and time to break camp. Already, a work-crew was carting furniture from the vacant tents, storing it in the main building for the winter. Already, the breeze that rustled through the tall pines carried a cool hint of frost to come. The sun was lower in the sky, its heat noticeably less intense than only a few days earlier.
Sandra's face was drawn with weariness, saddened by her thoughts. She had come to this place ten weeks before as a naive coed who never had fallen from her pillar of virtue. Now she was off her pedestal. She had fallen in the worst way-with a man who took her and then tore her heart out, and with a woman who had made sex a vile, unnatural thing.
Tony would be in Santa Barbara by now, perhaps suffering with a wife who could not please him. For him, possibly, it would be a long, chilly winter.
She knew that Hester was being amply punished. Not only had Candy beaten her senseless, but now this other thing had happened ... something far worse.
She looked at Candy. "I suppose it had to get out about Hester. She took too many chances to escape discovery for long."
Candy raised her eyebrows and shrugged in agreement. "That's for sure. Most of the girls knew she was a dyke from the opening gun. So when the fight upset the applecart, somebody was bound to blow the whistle."
Sandra nodded, and so did Nola. What a shame that such a young thing as Nola, so sweet and unspoiled, should be exposed to such a scandal, Sandra thought, looking into the girl's eyes.
"You say somebody wrote home about the fight and told her parents all about Hester's reputation around the camp?"
"In spades," Candy muttered. "It so happens that the father who read the letter is a judge in San Francisco. Well, he wasn't going to have his little girl in a camp run by a bull dyke. He got on the horn right away, straight to the Treacher Foundation trustees in L.A."
"They didn't know about Hester."
Candy shook her head. "Not hardly, old girl! They couldn't believe it until they went to the hospital in Riverside and gave her the third degree." She grinned. "It's lucky you got to her first and had me sprung from the cooler, otherwise you would have been fresh out of blackmail ammunition."
They heard a motor and then the squeal of brakes. "Here comes the ticket to freedom," Candy said.
Sandra looked at the young girl. "Nola, you go on ahead. Tell the driver we'll be along as soon as we collect our things."
Nola hopped from the bed, picking up her suitcase. "Don't be too long," she said over her shoulder. Then she was gone.
Candy and Sandra looked at one another for some time, saying nothing, knowing that each had found a true, lifelong friend. Sandra extended her hand and Candy took it, their fingers squeezing in a firm grip.
"What will you do now?" Sandra asked quietly. "And you'd better have the right answers."
"Sure." Candy wiggled her hips seductively. "The old teenage terror of sex-ridden Los Angeles is dead. A nice, clean innocent Candace Simms has been born in her place. No Dropoutsville for this chick. I'm an honor student from here on it. Then it'll be college and, if I keep my nose clean, a nice respectable husband on the horizon."
Sandra nodded. "Be sure you pick him for love, Candy. Not for money or position or anything that isn't really important over the course of a lifetime."
"I'm not so square I don't know a wrong from a right guy, counselor." She wrinkled her nose in a reassuring smile. "I'll get along fine."
Sandra got up and went to the door, staring through the screen, and the silence was heavy. Somehow, she didn't want to go out to the bus. Not just yet.
"Sandra?"
"Hm?"
"What about you?"
"Oh, I don't know." Her voice was lifeless, without a spark of youth or innocence. "Perhaps I'll chuck it all and go home to dad's mill as a secretary or something."
Candy got up and came to her, putting her arm around her waist, and they leaned their heads together, looking out at the trees and the deserted, flapping tents. The bus tooted its horn.
"Listen," Candy snapped, whirling and gripping Sandra by the arms. "You're down now, honey, but you've got to come back. I know a man and a woman did you dirt, but if you're a good little pussycat, you'll fight. If you give up, you're no better than them. You'll just keep running downhill until you're worse off than I ever was."
Sandra's eyes filled, and she shook her head. "How can I fight when I have no heart?"
"Damn it!" Candy snapped, shaking Sandra hard so that her hair flew. "You lectured me on how to lift myself from the scum, how to get up and walk on two feet. If you can't do it now, I suppose that means you were feeding me a pack of filthy lies."
Sandra stared.
"Is that right, counselor?" Candy cried. "Were those lies about morality and education and ambition? Should I give up like you? Should I be a quitter, too?"
Slowly, a smile curved Sandra's lips, and there was a hint of twinkle in her eyes. "You're a tough nut, aren't you? A slugger from the slums."
"You bet your fanny I am, and I'm not going to give up on my old buddy." She made a fist and tapped Sandra softly on the side of the chin. "What do you say, coach? Do we ride to the top together?"
Sandra picked up her bags and waited for Candy. They stepped out into the cool breeze, walking briskly toward the bus. All the way back to the city Sandra thought of a phone call she was going to make. She had to say the right things, and she composed her message carefully.
She was going to call Bobby. She'd invite him over to her apartment, and if he wanted to take her to a drive-in movie, that was all right, too.
She needed him now, needed and wanted him near her-desperately.