by Kelly Oliver
“I see a face plant in my future.”
“You’ll get used to them. Let me do your make-up.”
Jessica sat on the desk while Lolita applied eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, foundation, and blush. “Not too much,” she begged, but knew Lolita would do as she pleased. She closed her eyes and as her friend worked her magic on her face, Jessica’s mind wandered to the diary. She had a moral dilemma, mention her suspicions to the police or handle Fingal herself. Of course, she couldn’t tell the detective they’d stolen the journal. Then again, Donnette had stolen it from Schmutzig’s office. Maybe stealing operated according to Hegelian logic. Maybe a double larceny was like a double negative. It turned theft into gift.
“Do you think I should confront Fingal?” Jessica asked, eyes still closed. “Or maybe I should tell someone he plagiarized Wolf’s book?”
“Are you sure he did?” Lolita asked.
“Come on. Fingal O’Flannery hasn’t published anything in decades. And conveniently upon Wolf’s death, he sends off a book manuscript on the ear and the eye,” she said, opening one eye.
“Could be just a coincidence. You don’t want to accuse him unless you’re certain.” Lolita handed her a mirror. She had an artist’s touch--must take after her father and his preference for abstract art. Jessica’s face was an Expressionist painting, with its thick layers of contrasting colors. She wiped at her cheeks with a tissue.
“Stop it,” Lolita ordered and batted her hand away from her face. “I’m not done.”
“What are the chances The Wolf just finished writing a book called Phenomenology of Painting and Music and Fingal sends off a book called Phenomenology of the Eye and the Ear?” Jessica shook her head. “Absolutely none.”
“Hold still or I’ll mess up your face,” Lolita said. Given recent revelations about Lolita’s family history, Jessica smiled at the double entendre, and tried to talk without opening her mouth.
“What was it Dirty Harry said at the wake about Fingal taking Wolf’s Endowed Chair?” Jessica asked. “Is he for real? He must be nuts. They’ll never give him that Chair.” Fingal had been a professional partier for the last twenty-five years. No way he’d written a book worthy of a Distinguished Chair. Anyway, those babies weren’t just passed on to whoever was left alive.
“Why not? Assuming he didn’t steal the manuscript,” Lolita said. “Close your mouth and hold still. I need to apply lip-gloss. How do you know Fingal didn’t kill the professor so he could submit the book in his own name? Or maybe Dirty Harry killed the professor and stole the manuscript for his lover.”
“You think Fingal had Wolf killed to get a publication?” Jessica asked. “Interesting hypotenuse.”
“Well if Fingal or Harry did kill the professor, you may want to confront them in public with plenty of witnesses.”
There was a knock at the door, and Jessica hopped off the desk to open it. Jack saluted and sauntered into the attic with Amber in tow. She was sporting a stained paisley moo-moo and her usual Uggs with her snaky hair in two Pebbles tails sticking up off the top of her head. Jessica looked at Lolita and they both laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Amber asked.
“Good thing we have another hour,” Lolita said. “Here, sweetie, try on these dresses.”
“Why? What’s wrong with my dress?”
“I said sexy, not hippy.”
“What’s the difference?” Jack asked, and squeezed Amber in a hug.
Forty-five minutes later, Amber’s makeover was remarkable. Lolita had transformed her from a hippy earth mother into an elegant ethereal creature. Amber’s long serpentine hair was no longer threatening, just wild enough, and once Lolita applied lipstick, her little oval mouth became a perfect orange kumquat.
Lolita held up an emerald green dress with lace sleeves and a flared skirt. “Try this one.”
The extravagantly plunging dress showcased Amber’s braless breasts and narrow waist. Too bad she and Lolita didn’t wear the same size shoe. Her dirty Uggs were rough cobs at the end of silk stockings. Distracted by that impressive cleavage, Jessica doubted if anyone was going to notice Amber’s feet.
Jack looked up from his book. He had been rereading Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil while the girls were primping. “Supposing truth is a woman?” he asked.
“Then philosophy’s cruel gravity is not the proper way of winning a woman’s heart,” replied Jessica. Quoting Nietzsche made her think of the last time they were all together in Brentano Hall with the Wolf lying dead in his bathroom. She cringed.
Jack turned to his girlfriend. “Apricot, you take my breath away. You are my truth. I’m going to glue myself to your sexy hip lest some natty frat boy steal you away.”
“What are you drinking?” Jessica asked in alarm. “That’s not my coffee, is it?”
“What, I just had a sip,” he said, and put the cup back on the windowsill. “Too sweet for me anyway.”
“Alexander brought that to me earlier,” she said. “Let’s hope Lolita was wrong about the poisonous gift.”
“Alexander Le Blanc may suffer from delusional disorder,” said Jack. “But you’re starting to sound like you suffer from paranoid disorder. Must be this PhD program making you pathological.”
“What’s delusional disorder?” Amber asked.
“Delusions of grandeur,” Jack said, “defensive formations against low self-esteem and depression. I mean, think about it. Alexander is this scrawny, acne-faced, introvert seeking acceptance by the most popular guys on campus, the football players and frat boys.”
“We’ll fix those creeps,” Lolita said. “We’re going to give those thick-necked footballers and their fraternity buddies a night they won’t forget.” She flipped her ebony hair into her helmet.
“Let’s go.” Lolita started out the door. “Jimmy’s waiting in his cruiser around the corner from the party. Jack, you drive Jessica and Amber. I’ll meet you there.” The Russian commandant was in her element, barking out orders.
“Remember girls,” Lolita looked stern. “Don’t drink anything.”
She turned to Jack. “Did you bring the drugs?”
“Oh, right. Ketamine, crushed and ready to go.” When he handed her a snack-sized baggie of white powder, she tucked it into the pocket of her motorcycle jacket, and then bounded down the stairs.
On the way to the car, Jessica thought she spotted Alexander hiding behind a tree. She focused her eyes in the dark. No one. She must be seeing things. Probably hallucinating him out of guilt for not reading his paper. Or maybe Jack was right and she was paranoid. She didn’t care. Tonight, she planned to kick some ass on her first feminist revenge caper.
Chapter Thirty
Jubilant, Jessica was looking forward to a celebration, even if they were on a retribution mission. After the stress of Schmutzig’s death, the revelations about Amber’s parentage, and the secret of Lolita’s grandparents, she needed to blow off steam.
“How are you holding up?” Jessica asked, reaching over from the back seat to touch Amber’s shoulder.
“I’m okay I guess.” Amber turned around. “I’m not speaking to my mother.” She took a vial from her purse and placed several drops of homeopathic elixir under her tongue. “I don’t know if I should tell my dad or not. I mean my mother’s husband. I guess he’s not really my dad.”
“He’s your step-dad and he loves you. You don’t think he already knows?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“How do you think he’d react?”
“Probably divorce Mom.” Amber took out another tiny bottle and dropped another extract under her tongue.
“No wonder she wanted to bury that journal,” Jack said. “You don’t think Wolf, threatened your mom to tell your dad, I mean Mr. Bush, do you?”
“We’ll never know,” said Jessica. “But the last entry said he planned to tell his mother she had a granddaughter.”
“Wow, Zelda Schmutzig is my grandmother,” Amber said. “Weird.” She sprayed some kind of
mist into her mouth.
“What are you doing?” Jessica asked.
“Rescue Remedy,” Amber said.
Jack handed her a joint. “Here, try this Sweetie,” he said. “The best herbal remedy in the world.”
Lolita’s bike was parked outside the fraternity house by the time Jack pulled up in front. There were banners hanging across another converted mansion: Graduation Weekend: Red X Party. At the front door, a clean-cut frat boy stamped a red X on the back of Jessica’s hand, and said, “Welcome to the hottest party on campus.” He stamped Amber’s hand with a red X and motioned her inside. He made Jack pay a $10 cover charge and stamped his hand with a black X.
“Red for girls, black for boys,” Amber said.
The frat boy laughed. “Not exactly. The bar is around the corner. You girls drink for free.” He winked at them and rubbed his hands together. As if to prove his point, he stamped the gangly long necked girl behind them with a black X. Inside they noticed all of the boys had black X’s while some of the girls had red ones and some had black ones. By the end of the night, most of the girls with the red ones would be in the hospital.
As they headed towards the bar, Jessica reminded Amber not to take a drink from anyone.
“Not even Jackie?”
“Jack, keep an eye on her.”
“I’ll keep more than my eye on her.” When he took Amber’s tiny hand in both of his and kissed it, her grin lit up the room.
The three friends met Lolita at the bar. “Spread out and stay on your toes.” The bartender checked their hands and handed the girls punch in red cups. Jack tapped himself a beer from a keg. “Remember, no drinking,” Lolita whispered. “We’ll meet back here in half an hour.”
Jessica circulated around the party looking for suspicious frat boys, but they all looked pretty harmless. Most of them were well dressed and clean cut. Some of them were downright cute. Since her break-up with Michael, she’d been seeing attractive men everywhere, boys she’d never have given a second look a week ago.
She overheard a drunken frat boy say to his buddy, “Look for the sluts with the red Xs. They’re tonight’s rape-bait.” She high-tailed it back to the bar to find her crew.
She found Amber standing at the edge of the bar, picking at a pile of tiny wrappers. “Where’s Jack?”
“He was tired and queasy so he went to take a nap in the car,” Amber said.
“Oh no,” said Jessica. “I hope it wasn’t Alexander’s latte.”
“I gave him some Revive drops. He’ll be fine.”
Lolita soon joined them. “Where’s Jack?” Amber insisted that they let Jack sleep it off in his car. “Don’t worry. I realigned his cortices.” Doing a strange cat’s cradle maneuver with her fingers, she demonstrated.
Lolita gave her report. “If the doorman deems a girl “hot” she gets a red X, while “dogs” and boys get black ones. Then “hot” girls are offered the “special” punch at the bar. What did you two find out?” she asked.
“A frat creep said the red Xs were for their rape-bait,” Jessica said, arms akimbo.
“I found these cute wrappers,” Amber said. She presented her palm to reveal three little envelope wrappers stamped with Boris and Natasha.
“Let me see those,” Lolita demanded. Amber dumped them into her outstretched hand. “Where did you get them?”
“I found a few on the floor over there.” Amber pointed to a corner of the room.
“These are what they wrap drugs in,” Lolita said, examining the papers.
“I have an idea,” Amber said. “Give me some of that vitamin K.”
“Why?” Lolita asked, discretely handing her the baggie.
“You’ll see.” Amber flattened the tiny wrappers on the bar and some of the white sprinkled powder into each one, and then carefully folding the corners, rewrapped them into tiny packages.
“Come on, ” she said grabbing Jessica’s hand. “Let’s go dance.”
Jessica stumbled along behind the hippy goddess onto the dance floor. Amber pulled off her Uggs and tiptoed barefoot into the mass of gyrating dancers. The bass from the loud house music reverberated through the wooden floor, and a mist of perspiration emanating from the throng of dancing bodies formed a cloud in the middle of the room.
Amber smiled, and the flared skirt of her dress twirled as she circled around the boy who had stamped their hands earlier. She hiked up her dress with one hand and caressed his face with the other.
Jessica danced nearby and watched as the boy grabbed Amber around the waist with one hand, holding his drink in the other. She whispered something into his ear and he pulled back with a gleaming grin and held out his cup. She sprinkled some powder from one of the little wrappers into his drink, stirred it with her finger, then put her finger to his lips and he took it into his mouth. With her encouragement, he downed the rest of his drink and after a few more minutes of flirting, she left him sulking and moved on to her next victim, telling him that the powder was Ecstasy and would make sex even more fun.
She couldn’t bring herself to sidle up to one of those frat creeps even to give him a taste of his own medicine, so she squeezed out of the throng and headed back to the bar. She really wanted a drink and wished she’d brought her flask of whisky.
Before she’d reached the bar, Lolita flew by, grabbing her arm on the way. “It’s Emily. Come on.”
“Who’s Emily?”
“My roommate, Emo, as you call her.”
Jessica sprinted to keep up with Lolita as she strode across the crowded room towards the back where two fraternity brothers were hauling Emily out the door. One on each side, they were dragging her through the damp grass towards a gazebo in the back corner of the lawn. The girls slowed their pace and fell back into the shadows. The boys were laughing as Emily staggered between them, groaning.
“I hope she doesn’t heave,” said one of her captors.
“You get sloppy seconds since I found her.”
“What if she has a disease?”
“That’s what penicillin is for. We can just go back to the pharmacist.” The tall clean-cut, square-jawed creep laughed as his dark-haired muscular friend pulled Emily into the dark gazebo. They were wearing matching khaki pants, button down oxford shirts, and contrasting ties.
Watching the frat boys haul Emo across the lawn, Jessica was wondering if this was such a good plan after all. Maybe they should go for backup. She hoped Lolita wasn’t counting on her to take out one of these guys. Lolita pointed at the one with his pants down, and on cue, Jessica leaped onto his back, pulled his hair, and kneeing him in the kidneys. The rapist fell on top of poor Emily.
A black leather lightning bolt, Lolita’s foot crashed into “sloppy seconds” left ear. As his head whiplashed back, she landed a dead-on kick to the groin. Thwack and he was writhing on the floor. Jessica sat on the other one’s chest, a cowboy boot pining each of his arms to the ground. After she’d finished with “sloppy seconds,” Lolita pulled the other one’s pants off the rest of the way and then removed his boxer shorts. Jessica scooted up to the rapist’s shoulders to give her friend more room. The frat boy squirmed but could get loose.
“Hold his head!” Lolita shouted as she kicked him in the side. Jessica heard a cracking sound as the frat boy yelped.
“Pull his head back by his hair and make him open his mouth,” Lolita commanded. She followed orders, tugging on the rapist’s hair, and then her friend reached into the baggy and dumped a mighty pinch of white powder into his mouth.
“See how you like it asshole,” she said.
Sloppy seconds was trying to crawl toward the door, and Lolita kicked him in the face so hard his nose gushed blood like a crimson geyser.
“You’re not going anywhere until you get your dose,” Lolita said.
“Hold his head,” she commanded, and Jessica yanked this one’s head back by the hair. He tightened his lips shut, so she had to pinch his nose until opened his mouth, gasping. Then Lolita gave him a generous dose
of Ketamine. “See how you like being helpless. You’re falling through the K-hole, asshole.”
“How long does it take?” Jessica asked, and had her answer when she glanced over and no-pants was lying on his side, staring straight ahead drooling.
“Go get Jimmy. Hurry.”
Instead of trying to get back through the crowded frat house, she galloped across the lawn, and leaped over the hedge, running along the sidewalk around the corner. She was breathless by the time she got to Jimmy’s cruiser. He sat up at attention when he saw her coming full bore at his car. She motioned for him to roll down the window. “Hurry,” she panted. “Lolita has a couple of rapists trapped in the gazebo behind the frat house.”
The campus cop called for backup and then rocketed out of his cruiser and sprinted towards the party. Jessica ran after him, but couldn’t keep up, so she fell back to catch her breath.
When she reached the gazebo, Jimmy already had the two creeps handcuffed, and Lolita was holding Emily in her lap, rocking her back and forth. “Go find Amber,” she told Jessica. “I’ll take Emily home, but you guys make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else tonight.”
Jessica went back to the bar, but Amber was nowhere in sight. She was sitting at the bar waiting, when the bartender insisted she take another cup of punch or move on. Glaring at him, she took it, and then went from room to room, looking for Amber. Her brain was vibrating from the blaring music, and the colored flashing lights were making her head hurt. Crap. She glimpsed Alexander Le Blanc in her peripheral vision, and before she could duck into another room, he started towards her. She tried to slip away, but he caught up to her.
“What are you doing here?” Alexander asked.
“I could ask you the same.”
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.
“Why do you ask?” Jessica was suddenly very self-conscious. She was dressed like a tart and at a party talking to one of her students, a student who had probably figured out by now that she hadn’t read his paper.
“Your face is flushed,” Alexander said. “My dear, you look like you’re on fire. Maybe we should go outside and get some fresh air.”