“If it’s a boy, I’m getting dressed. If it’s a girl, come on in,” Kit said as she imitated Ian’s lyrical Welsh accent. “I wonder what he would say now if he saw you pull out your gun and snap handcuffs on somebody.”

“He’d probably ask to borrow them.”

Over a meal of shepherd’s pie they expressed surprise at Claire’s ability to snare another guy when she didn’t seem to have any redeeming qualities.

“But Kit, we’ve never met either one of them. I can just imagine what they’re like.”

“Like your blind date who wore the big furry hat into Spago’s?”

“Exactly. And to think he was listed in some magazine as one of the ten most eligible bachelors in the country.”

“You never told me that. What magazine?” Kit asked eagerly.

“I don’t remember the name,” Regan replied, “but I think his mother was the publisher.”

At four o’clock they returned to the dorm, observed for themselves the invitation to Llewellyn Hall, decided they could squeeze in an hour’s nap and in their room dove again for the cots with the dank green bedspreads.

Chapter 4

TWO SCHOOL VANS, whose new-car smells had faded away sometime in the late sixties, were waiting at 6 P.M. to pick up the fifteen alumnae who had shown up for the reunion and take them for the two-mile drive to Lady Exner’s house. As the van bounced along, Regan began to catch up with some of her former classmates she had not yet seen. On one level her mind was registering how some people looked different, others almost exactly the same, while absorbing what they had been doing over the past decade. On another level her mind was insistently serving a nagging worry that had begun this morning when she’d learned that Athena had never resurfaced.

The driver of the van, one of the new young professors, almost overshot Llewellyn Hall, slammed on the brakes and went into immediate reverse, throwing them all back and forth like kernels bursting into popcorn. “So sorry,” he chirped more to himself than the others as he steered the van down the long oak-lined driveway, rattling to a stop in front of the mansion.

Kit turned to Regan. “Are we having a good time yet?”

Faint moans of agony accompanied the movements of the visiting alumnae as, stooping and bending, they stumbled out of the van on their insulted limbs.

“I need a drink,” Regan heard someone mutter.

I need two drinks, Regan thought.

Lady Exner had obviously been watching for them. The great entrance door of Llewellyn Hall flew open and with crows of delight she started jumping up and down with glee, rattling off their names as though she’d seen them yesterday.

“Oh my God, look at her.” Kit sounded awestruck.