“At least you folks down here in the basement don’t say ‘Golly’ or ‘Gee whiz’ all the time like all the other idiot employees at this park,” said Theresa’s father, trying to make nice-nice. “Okay, I give up, where is she?”

“She’s in a cell, Mr. Mendavey.”

“And what the hell has she done, pray tell, that has caused you to incarcerate the child?”

“Your daughter and a friend jumped out of one two-seater train car and into another.”

“That’s it?”

“Your daughter broke the rules.”

“And that’s why you locked my daughter up in your goddamn gulag?”

“There’s no call for that kind of tone, sir.”

“Is there some goddamn bail to pay or something, matron?”

“No. Just leave the park ASAP.”

Though Hector’s Rolls-Royce was packed with Theresa’s best friends, it didn’t stop Hector from berating his daughter the entire ride back to Los Angeles. Mr. Mendavey never stopped yelling until the car was safely parked in his garage. Then and only then did Hector Mendavey turn to his daughter and ask, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you get out of one train car and run and get into another one? What was the point?”

“To get away with it,” answered Theresa Mendavey.

When Theresa was sixteen, she blossomed into a very pretty young lady. She was short and petite with beautiful brunette hair that fell to her shoulders. She had alabaster skin, full lips, and sparkling blue eyes. And she was sexy. Very sexy. Theresa reminded adults, particularly males, of the actress Sue Lyon from the original Lolita movie.

And Theresa Mendavey was brilliant to boot. She skipped two grades at the academically tough Harvard-Westlake School in Sherman Oaks, California. Her attendance rate was always one of the lowest at the esteemed prep school, yet she continued to bring home straight A’s on every report card.

“Not that my parents give a damn,” complained Theresa to her friends.

Theresa Mendavey did well in school because she had a photographic memory. She could read a page of any book, magazine, or newspaper and remember every single word.

Theresa’s Mother, Edna Mendavey, was a bony woman with tight little curls on the top of her head and tight lips covering small dish teeth. When she smiled she showed lots of upper gum. Edna had little time for her daughter mainly because she needed so much time for herself. She was involved in more society charities than she could sensibly handle plus her weekly dermatological appointments for Botox shots and the occasional face-lift or tummy tuck. There were also her trips to the pharmacies for prescription drug refills so she could continue to enjoy her daily highs, tempered now and then by the need to come down a bit.