The Wrong Kind of Woman

by Sarah McCraw Crow

  She thought of Randolph and Garland and the others in Oliver’s department. “Oliver was a team player, and I don’t see how it served him all that well,” she said. “And I can think of a lot of his colleagues who aren’t team players. It sounds like Louise is being held to a standard that no one else is being held to.”

  He leaned forward, pipe in one hand. “Here is the thing, my dear. It is a delicate time, and while it may not look like we’re moving forward, we are. We simply can’t have our faculty acting like radicals when we’re trying to change. It hurts our case, subverts our argument. When there appears to be chaos, it annoys the alums and spooks the trustees, which makes it harder to get them on board.”

  She got it. Appearance, that was all that mattered. She let out a sigh.

  “Mrs. Desmarais, I am trying.” He looked weary, his whole face a frown, with his eyes turned down at their outer edges and the lines around his mouth deeper now. The job had aged him, worn him down. “Surely you know that I have been trying. I can see what Clarendon needs, it simply cannot go on as it has in the past, it must find a new way forward, and I have done what I can. And the young women have made their point. I don’t blame Professor Walsh for the women’s rights meeting—”

  “I was there too,” she said. “It wasn’t just Louise.”

  He nodded. “The other day we received some information that certain groups are trying to make trouble on East Coast campuses,” he said. “Outside groups, agitators. Clarendon isn’t immune.”

  She thought again of the security officer sitting on her couch. Perhaps all these men had turned paranoid. But she’d been a fool to think that she could make a difference, an outsider like her. A housewife. Also a woman who started things but didn’t finish, who made one bad choice after another. “But do you think it’s right?”

  He frowned at her, parsing her meaning.

  “To just take away Louise’s tenure like that.”

  “I don’t think you’ve heard what I’ve been saying, my dear. And of course in the end, it depends on the committee, what they decide.”

  “No, I want to know if you think it’s right.” She heard herself sounding like someone else, someone who could ask hard questions.

  He smiled. “I’m sorry, but I have another meeting I must get to in a minute. I’m so glad we had time to chat.” He stood, waiting for her to stand up too, then walked her out, shaking her hand and kissing her again on the cheek.

  He’d sent her away, just like that. With his usual courtesy, and without remorse. Oliver, I hope you’re still with me, she thought. I know a little of what you were up against.

  Chapter Eighteen

  To get to the chapel, Sam cut behind Lawrence dorm, avoiding the sidewalk and the Clarendon green, not that anyone would care what he was doing. The darkness felt thick tonight, heavy low clouds blocking the moon and stars. It would probably start pouring in a minute. In the gloom behind the chapel, he slowed down, but he didn’t see anything. Good, because he didn’t have the balls to do this—he wasn’t brave enough or crazy enough.

  He heard a harsh whisper, and then he caught the outlines of two people sitting with their arms around their knees, their backs against the far side of the chapel wall.

  “What’s happened to you, Hank?” Elodie was saying. “Where did your rage go? How can you not be enraged every single moment?”

  Sam moved closer, cleared his throat. “Hey.”

  “Thank God you’re here.” Elodie reached up to press something into Sam’s hand. A flask. He took a drink, passed it back.

  Hank spoke up. “I am enraged, Elodie. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

  “We’re all tired. But this project is your baby as much as anyone else’s. You went and got the materials, remember? You scouted the locations—”

  “Yeah, well, where’s Jerry, huh?” Hank passed the flask back to Elodie. Hank was drunk, Sam saw.

  “What is wrong with you? Jerry was never going to be part of this.” Elodie gestured up at him. “Sit down, Sam. It’s the simplest little timer and a very small amount of combustible material. You probably made this kind of thing in grammar school.”

  “Um, no. No one makes that kind of thing in grammar school.” The things Sam had made as a kid—a potato clock, plastic models of WWII bombers and sleek jets—and the times he’d helped Zayde Waxman tinker with his shortwave radio—sure, he’d made a lot of things, but nothing meant to cause harm.

  “Ohh-kay,” Hank said, hoisting himself up to standing. “I’ll drive.”

  “Maybe we don’t need you,” Elodie said.

  “Yes, we do,” Sam said. Ugh, he’d just said we. He’d been sucked into this project.

  Elodie was still talking. “...just a handful of the frats. Hank scoped out the ones with the easiest entry. It’s only symbolic, Sam. It’s a Thursday night. No one’s going to get hurt.”

  “How do you know?” Sam asked.

  “Because we’re being strategic, not stupid.” A quarter moon slipped out from behind a cloud, and Sam and Hank followed her to the parking lot below the chapel, Hank whispering the frats he’d chosen like a chant: KA, Phi Rho, Delta Mu, Beta. Sam had to figure out how to take part in their crazy plan, but also stop them, all at the same time. It was like those dreams where he was both the main character and the audience, silently watching the action unfold.

  In the lot, Elodie opened the trunk to Dougie’s car.

  “Huh. So you guys—” Sam decided not to state the obvious, that they’d taken Dougie’s car. Elodie could have used any of the cars from Topos, but instead had stolen Dougie’s, which she only knew about because of him.

  “Less noticeable,” Hank said. “He’ll get it back, don’t worry, man.” Hank’s flashlight illuminated a box. “All you need—wires, clocks, batteries, the material—is in there,” Hank said, as Elodie pulled papers from her pocket and began to unfold them. Sam stared at the box, frozen with confusion.

  “Okay, we’ll each do two,” Elodie said, then clicked the trunk shut. “Fair?”

  “Elodie,” Sam said. “We can’t just walk right in and—”

  “So it’s an excellent thing you’re here, Sam. You just tell me the best way in. I’ll handle the rest.” She was close enough to him that he could see that her eyes were big and pleading. She believed in this project, this action, and right now, at least, she believed in him. He reached for her free hand; she squeezed back.

  As half his brain shouted to get out of here and away from Elodie, the other half went to work on this plan as if it were a perfectly logical thing to do late on a Thursday night at Clarendon. He could slip into the frats in a way that Elodie couldn’t—he could come up with a story, someone he needed to talk to. But they couldn’t drive Dougie’s car down Frat Row, that would be insane. Sam heard himself agreeing that he and Elodie would put together the first kit—better not to dwell on what they were making—while Hank parked and waited over by the hospital, then regroup.

  * * *

  KA was the third house on Frat Row, first on Hank’s list geographically. Sam thought of Teddy Burnham, Charlie Biddle, and all the other KA assholes who’d been giving him threatening looks since Spring Sing, and he felt a surge of nerves and energy. If anyone deserved a scare, they did. Where was a place where no guys would hang out on a Thursday night? KA had a library that was a dumping ground, a place to throw coats during parties, and to stash KA’s trademark collection of old exams and papers—KA guys did all their studying and copying from them, sometimes selling them to guys in other frats. At least Sam had never paid for an old exam; at least he did his own work.

  He went in through the back door, just like he would have if he were there legitimately, and he planned to say he was here to ask Charlie Biddle about Dougie’s lost car, if he ran into anyone. But no one was around. Two guys were passed out in the flickering blue-gray light of the TV room, and from t
he basement came the banging of paddles on the pong table as someone scored a point. The main living room was deserted. He veered right, into the little paneled library, where he pushed open a side window and waved his hand to summon Elodie. From outside, Elodie handed up the components, and he crouched under a table to sort them out. His flashlight illuminated the directions, a simple drawing. He took a little comfort from the fact that no one had used his cipher for these instructions. One thing had to lead to the other. He attached the packet of gunpowder to the paper-covered block of TNT, wrapping the block and the batteries with wire. The chemical formula for TNT floated through his head—he’d learned it in chemistry class when they’d used it for charge transfer experiments, and now he was just doing another experiment. He twisted the wires around the clock, and then wound the clock, setting the alarm for an hour from now. He was like Max from Get Smart. “Good thinking, 99,” he whispered. He was an utter fool.

  Once Sam was outside again, Elodie took his face in her hands and kissed him, a real kiss at last, and he kissed her back, wanting to linger there. “One down,” she said. She took his hand and they ran for the parking lot to find Hank and the supplies for the next house.

  * * *

  Sam waited with Elodie in the empty hospital parking lot, trying to stay out of the glow of the streetlights, crouching behind the bushes that lined the lot. Still no Hank. “He’s probably just circling, trying to lie low,” Sam said. But maybe Hank had bailed on them; Sam hoped that was what had happened. One crime per night was enough. There was no way to convince Elodie of anything, though, since she was pacing from one corner of the lot to the other, as if she could make Dougie’s car appear by perambulation.

  Sam’s brain veered back and forth too, telling him to bail out now, go tell someone. At last Elodie said she’d find a pay phone in the hospital, and that Sam should keep watch. She sprinted off in the direction of the hospital.

  This action wasn’t going to work. The success of it depended on a bunch of things happening at the same time, and Hank’s disappearance had screwed up the timing. Sam had put an hour on the timer, but that wasn’t going to be anywhere near enough time to get all four devices set. He’d made a giant mistake, he’d fucked up badly, and he couldn’t unravel the logic of how he’d arrived at this point. He still wanted Elodie—wanted her to see him the way he saw her—but this action’s violence was too much. Jerry had been right all along. He couldn’t set any more of those things. He turned and sprinted back toward Frat Row, legs pumping, his body moving faster than his mind could think.

  * * *

  After last week, Molly’s mom had probably told her to be nice to Rebecca, Just hang around with her more, which gave Rebecca plenty of time to talk to Molly about her plan. Molly had been doubtful at first, a surprise, since Molly was the brave one, the one who used to talk Rebecca into doing crazy things like climbing onto the roof or skipping lunch at school.

  But until now, as they approached Frat Row, Rebecca hadn’t considered how scary this would feel. The frat houses loomed up, stolid brick and white-columned things, like a neighborhood for demented rich people. She’d already sussed out the location of KA, a brick house with green shutters and a columned porch, three houses down. In the Koslowskis’ station wagon that bad night, Kath had said she and her friends usually went around back, headed right down to KA’s basement, and no one noticed or said boo to them.

  Rebecca led the way, slipping through the side yard, staying close to some scraggly overgrown bushes, looking for the frat’s back door. But once they got to the door, how would they keep going? They needed Kath, someone older to tell them what to do, or to talk them out of it. She pictured Heloise and Dear Abby watching her and Molly, Abby saying to Heloise what a foolish girl Rebecca had turned out to be.

  They’d reached the back door of the frat, which stood half-open—practically an invitation. Even with the mascara and lip gloss they’d put on in her mudroom before they left, they didn’t look anything like college girls. Technically they weren’t even high school girls yet. She couldn’t do this, and she spun around, bumping into Molly.

  “Oh, come on, loser,” Molly said, taking her hand. “This was your idea. We’re going in.” Molly pulled her through the door, and then they were inside the frat, at the start of a long hallway that led to a big front parlor kind of room. They took a couple of steps down the hall, still holding hands.

  “Heeyy, girls,” a guy said in a comfortable drawl, as if he knew them already. There was a room to their right that they hadn’t noticed, where couches lined the walls and a TV up front played some old black-and-white movie. Empty bottles and plastic cups covered a table, and empty chip bags and newspapers littered the floor.

  “Hey yourself,” Molly said back.

  Rebecca said nothing. She felt sick to her stomach.

  The guy who’d just called to them got up, and two others had turned from the TV to see who was there. “So hey there,” the guy said, in the hall with them now. He had wavy light hair, and even in the low light she could see his dimples when he smiled. He wore a button-down shirt, untucked over his bell-bottoms. “Join us for a beer?”

  “Sparky, man,” one of the other guys called from the couch. “Now’s not the time.”

  “One beer isn’t going to hurt anything,” he said. “Follow me.” He turned and went a little farther down the hallway, motioning them through a door and down a flight of stairs to a basement. He introduced himself—Teddy, his name was—and asked if they’d gone to the party that had taken over all of Frat Row last weekend. He kept talking without waiting for their answer, about how KA was on probation so they’d had to keep their party pretty quiet, which had only made it more exclusive, you know? Exclusive was good, but they’d have a bigger party, a complete blowout, in the fall, he said.

  Rebecca took Molly’s hand again as they followed him through the basement, which smelled sour and gross, to a long bar. Teddy went behind the bar and filled two cups from the beer taps, pushing them across the bar to them. “You’re from Gilman Junior College, I take it?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Molly said, before Rebecca could figure out whether he was making fun of them, or what. “I’m Jenny, and this is Jessica.”

  Teddy came around the bar and clinked cups with them. “Nice to meet you, Jenny and Jessica.”

  Rebecca tried to sip at her beer as if she did this kind of thing every day. Teddy led them back upstairs and into the big parlor room, where she and Molly sat close to one another on a couch, and he turned a folding chair backward and perched on it. Two other guys came downstairs laughing about something and stopped near the couch. The guy with the louder laugh sank down onto another couch. His friend’s sideburns reminded Rebecca of one of the Monkees.

  Noisy-Laugh Guy asked who these chicks were.

  “My new friends,” Teddy said. “Jenny and—and—”

  “Jessica,” Rebecca said.

  “From Gilman Junior College,” Molly said.

  The two other guys cracked up. “Gilman Junior College, we love goddamn Gilman Junior College girls,” Noisy-Laugh Guy said.

  She didn’t know what was so funny, and she pinched Molly to get her to stop saying they went to Gilman Junior College.

  “So give us a reason you should hang out with us,” Sideburns Guy said.

  “We know every word to ‘Joy to the World,’” Rebecca said. “The Three Dog Night version, not the Christmas carol.” She didn’t know where that had come from, or why she’d said it; it had just popped out. Molly looked at her, her eyes big with surprise.

  “Okay, sing it,” Teddy said.

  Still looking at Molly, Rebecca started to sing. After that first line, Molly joined in, and they were singing together, badly, right through the chorus. But they did know every word. Now Sideburns Guy and Noisy-Laugh Guy sang with them, and Teddy went downstairs for more beers.

  After a while, mu
sic blared from a stereo. Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, and she and Molly sang that too. Then she drank another beer, listened to another Marvin Gaye song. She watched as Molly got up to dance with one of the guys, Bill, he’d said his name was.

  Rebecca couldn’t pinpoint the moment, but she realized that she’d been having fun for a while now. This was okay! She accepted another beer. A Ringo Starr song that she liked had started, so she got up and danced by herself, drinking her beer. Then someone was dancing with her, oh, it was Teddy, she knew him, and he was so cute and sweet. She liked his button-down shirt. He was a little more dressed up, maybe a little more proper, than the other guys in their ratty T-shirts. He took her hand and twirled her and they sang along with Ringo. He kept giving her sips of the drink in his other hand, which wasn’t beer; she didn’t know what it was, but it tasted pretty good.

  She felt floaty and happy, dancing and drinking and singing, she floated around the big room holding Teddy’s hand. And then, as if she were the lead in a movie, he told her how much he liked her, and she told him how much she liked him. He was going to show her the house, if that was okay with her, and of course it was okay because she was having a good time, she just had to go back and tell Molly that she was going upstairs for a minute, but Teddy pulled on her hand, tugging her toward the stairs.

  “My room,” he said—somehow they’d arrived at the doorway to a big room, with one bed in the corner and another on top of a high wooden platform. “What do you think?” He maneuvered her into the room, his arm draped heavily over her shoulder, and he kicked the door behind him so that it clicked shut.

  * * *

  Sam slipped back inside KA, where he could hear a couple of guys heading upstairs, the usual late-night banging around, and the thwacks and shouts of pong coming from the basement. Once again no one noticed.