G Malliet - Death at the Alma Mater

Leaning into the mirror, she took stock: bright red lips, flawless white skin, bright blue eyes. Check. Blonde hair feathered about her face and neck in a much-imitated style that had become her trademark. Check. Uncapping a tube, she darkened the cherry red stain on her full lips. Thoughtfully, she pressed her lips together as she snapped the cap back into place.

She'd tried the traditional therapists, as well. This had advantages; they could write prescriptions, for one thing. But it wasn't, she told herself, like scoring pills for a party or whatever. Not an addiction.

Doctor Mott, one of the traditionalists, had told her she must confront her demons of the past. But some demons were best left undisturbed, surely? Even Lexy knew that. Let sleeping dogs lie. That was the ticket. What was important this weekend was that everyone see that she was over it. She really was, too. The water had long gone under that bridge. They'd see her with her dishy Argentine, who was unpacking next door at the moment and no doubt flexing his muscles as he did so. The man flexed his muscles as he brushed his teeth, for God's sake. If seeing her with Geraldo didn't signal to the world the end of her interest in that poo-wipe James and his donkey-faced wife, she didn't know what did.

She reached into one of the elastic pockets lining either side of her suitcase. These, she'd packed herself. She pulled out a sheaf of financial statements that had come in the post from her broker just as she'd left for Cambridge. Yes, that would need seeing to this weekend. Keep an eye on things. Never completely trust the experts-one would have to be a fool to do that. Stashing the pages back into the pocket, she rootled around some more. Success.

She unscrewed the cap from a plastic vial, shook out a tablet.

One extra couldn't hurt. It was going to be a long weekend, after all. -- "Part of the thrill of the whole weekend is that we're all allowed to use the SCR, a room from which we were roundly banished when we were students here," Gwennap Pengelly was saying to Hermione Jax. The women were sitting on a bench in the Fellows' Garden, basking in the filtered sunlight. "Personally, I can't wait. I may take off my shoes and run barefoot through the carpet. And to have allowed us the use of this heavenly garden! They must really be quite hard up for donations. Before you know it they'll be letting all of us walk on the grass, Fellow of the college or no." She paused to adjust the tortoise-shell slide holding back the caramel-colored curls from her square face. The teeth of the thing bit into her scalp; it felt as if it were cutting off circulation to the brain. What price beauty.

Hermione, who held Gwenn's intellect in no high regard, might have agreed. She was shocked at hearing this truthful assessment of the college's financial situation spoken aloud, and merely said repressively, "No indeed. I believe the Master's only thought is that we should all enjoy ourselves."

"Make a change then, won't it?" Seeing her companion's aghast countenance-she'd forgotten how Hermione worshipped the Master-she tried to jolly her along. Always rough sailing with Hermione, but still, worth a try.

"Hermione, my dear old thing. You don't seriously think any of us is fooled by this invitation? One only has to look at the guest list to see we're all what the Americans would call 'loaded.' Am I supposed to pretend this was a random sampling of old members drawn up by the Bursar? Names drawn from a hat? No indeed. Much better, really, that we all know what we're in for. It will save ever so much need for subtlety and subterfuge on the part of the Bursar. I've brought my chequebook in anticipation."

"Really, Gwenn." Hermione stroked the nubby arms of her sweater, as if smoothing her own ruffled feathers. "You needn't always say whatever comes into your head, you know."

"Why ever not? It's an inclination that made me a telly reporter, and a jolly good one. And a highly compensated one, to boot."

Again, disapproval settled over Hermione's lugubrious face. Such things were never spoken of when she was a girl.

"Which brings us full circle," Gwenn continued. "I don't think for a minute I was invited along to help this lot parse the Dead Sea scrolls. Neither were you, even though you're probably the brightest of the bunch. Why pretend otherwise?"

Hermione, unused to praise-in fact, unused to any attention whatever, flushed, tongue-tied. But no matter. Gwenn swept on.

"You saw who else is coming, of course. How do you think that's going to play out?"

"You mean Sir James and Lady Bassett, of course," replied Hermione. "And Lexy. Yes, I still have reservations about that. I did mention it to the Master. He doesn't seem to have fully realized until it was too late that there might be… a problem."

"Too right. To invite both the ex-wife and current wife to a gathering under the same roof with the husband. Well. Bound to end in tears, especially if Lexy hasn't changed much."

"Lexy was always given to letting her emotions rule, yes. But not without cause in this case, as you know."

"I never understood, really." Giving up on beauty for the moment, Gwenn removed the slide and massaged her scalp, sending her curls flying in all directions. "James leaving Lexy for India. It was like trading in a new Rolls-Royce for a beaten up old Land Rover." But he'd gravitated, quite obviously, to his comfort level, she thought. People did.

"How long do you think they'd been at it before Lexy found out?" she wondered aloud. "Did anyone ever hear?"

"Really, Gwenn! It's hardly our business."

"Oh, come on. It was the scandal of the year, if not the decade. Don't pretend you aren't just a bit curious. All I ever heard was that Lexy discovered the pair of them-in flagrante, no less-and went ballistic. I never quite got the details; it was all hushed up so quickly and I never got a chance to speak with Lexy in private about it before she-before they all-left. Too bad-there's quite a story there."

"You wouldn't!" Hermione stared at her friend in staggered disbelief. Gwenn shrugged her thin shoulders impatiently.

"Who wouldn't? Once they're all dead and gone, the truth might just out. The only thing preventing me now, really, is Lexy. I always felt sorry for her, somehow. India is a different story. She was a troublemaker always."

"Certainly, there was always a man involved," agreed Hermione, caught up, despite herself, in remembered outrage. "What basis there could have been for the attraction-indeed, that struck many as a mystery. Pheromones?" she wondered, calling on remembered reading in her botanical research.

"Yes, certainly something primitive like that was in play," replied Gwenn. "But I would call it an uncanny ability to get into the head of your victim-it's the only possible word, other than 'target'-and charm the pants off of them." She smiled, a slow lazy smile of reminiscence. "I suppose I mean that literally. India always had this ability-seldom wasted on the likes of me or you, I assure you-to talk on whatever subject most interested the object of her affection. It's as if she herself doesn't exist-all bug eyes, and little interjections of 'ooh' and 'ah' at the relevant points in the narrative. I'd say she had no personality at all but of course she has the most powerful personality I've ever come across. Not to mention, destructive. That son of hers is much the worse for her brand of mothering, if you ask me. That's one unhappy kid. I ran into him earlier on the stairs, looking like thunder."

Hermione nodded. "Sebastian is a bit of a worry."

They sat in silence a moment, contemplating the possible future for the handsome if troubled offspring of their former fellow student.

"Have you spoken with Karl yet?" Gwenn now asked.

"No. I saw him and Constance arrive, but they must have gone straight up to their rooms."