Val was also suddenly left without plans, because Curtis had to fill a shift for someone. Val seemed relieved, yet desperate for something, anything to keep her occupied—she was one of those people who had to stay busy every single second. She sat at her desk (Sherri thought it was funny that the dorm rooms had them), throwing dime after dime at her box of Vantage cigarettes, trying to topple it over. Both of their desks were cluttered with makeup, fake eyelashes, roll-on deodorant, and bottles of Love’s Baby Soft, what Val called her “signature scent,” and crumpled pink messages scattered all over the desk like dirty Kleenexes. Ola and Biata were like secretaries, because they had access to the only phone the girls could be reached at. In their hasty block handwriting they’d write CURTIS CALL FOR YOU. CURTIS SAY CALL NOW. Sherri had received only one message the whole time she’d been there. It had been from Jerry Derzon, whom Sherri called frequently to see if there’d been any movement on the sale of the building. JERRY D. NO NEWS.

Sherri sat on her bed looking at the photos in the latest issue of Playboy. There was an article about sex in Chicago. At least people were having sex somewhere, she thought, wishing she weren’t a virgin. Rhonda was in the next room practicing shorthand so that she could become a legal secretary, and Maryellen was probably writing letters to a prison inmate in Arizona she’d been communicating with for years. Whenever he sent her a letter, she’d run into Sherri’s room, sit down on her bed, and read the whole boring thing aloud. “Did you know there’s a cactus that takes ten years to grow just one inch? That’s what Hank says. He says he once saw a jackalope, too, but my dad says there’s no such thing as a rabbit with horns.” She’d clutch the letter to her chest, his handwriting like child’s scribble. “I’m going to marry Hank when he gets out. He’s already proposed to me and we’ve never even met. Hank knows my heart.”

This was not the Playboy lifestyle the magazine promised. Men wrote letters to the advice columnist asking about the best ways to please “my lady,” and used words Sherri couldn’t say out loud, words she’d only heard whispered about at slumber parties by girls like Roberta. They still made her cringe. All her life she’d had ideas about sex being dirty and forbidden, but every page in the magazine expressed that it was OK to look and that sex wasn’t a sin, and it wasn’t dirty. The revolution had happened. The more sex you had, the better, but Val was the only girl she knew who was getting any action.