Part 1
Touch of teal to the eyelids, the rouge gloss over full lips, lightly puffed on powder, these were her instruments as she transformed herself from plain jane Odette Mainwood to Odette, flapper extraordinaire. The slim, black woman took a step back, to better judge herself in the mirror, sighing a little to herself as her calves bumped into the porcelain toilet. A glance around the cramped area reminded her, Madame C.J. Walker, she definitely was not. It wasn't a surprise that the self made millionaire came to mind as the young woman appraised herself in the mirror. It was Madame CJ's hair-straightening product that allowed her dark, usually crinkled curls to be cut in such a straight, becoming bob.
Her dress was in high fashion and her long straight silhouette was enhanced by it's tubular shape. It's hankie-cut hem brushed her knees, giving them a shocking exposure when she walked along and it served to emphasize the rolled down hose she wore. The dress was long, bright green and cylindrical, its waist around her hips. Her arms were uncovered almost to the shoulder (another shocking view) and the material gathered along the sides of her hips accentuated every movement she made.
The make-up, the hair, the almost indecent amount of skin showing would have given her mother a heart attack, if she but knew what her daughter was wearing out in public in this day and age. At the thought of her mother, Odette's dark brown eyes softened and glistened in the dull light of the small bathroom. Even now, several years after the accident, she still missed her immensely and grieved anew.
"Oooodddiiiiee!!!! Where is ya, ya good for nushin girl?!"
The strident tenor echoed down the hall, to break Odette from her depressing thoughts when the noise seemed to fill the small bathroom. A look of surprise was quickly followed by a variety of emotions akin to frustration, anger until eventually ending up in resignation. Martyrdom was always the hardest cross to bear, especially for those who did not seek it.
Part 2
Odette followed the hallway down towards the landing, her stocking feet making swishing noises against the beige carpet; determination evident in her gait. She wasn't going to let him get to her, not tonight. Eyes in photographs and paintings of her relatives and ancestors, which hung along the corridor, followed the young woman's path.
"Ooodiieeee!!! I knows ya here! What?! Am I not good enough for ya?!"
The nastiness, bemoaning, self pity and the whine, it was all a part of the betrayal evident in his mind. As she passed the opening to the dining room, she stopped and turned to face the man, her face not showing the torrent of emotion that went through her each time she saw him. He was seated by the pine dining table, with just the bare minimum of light; a silhouette in the shadows. With jerky, clumsy movements, he propelled himself forward till he was no more than 10 feet away from Odette, squinting at the light illuminating the hallway.
The man in the wheelchair had the same ebony hue to his skin as Odette did, the close resemblance in their features announcing their status as siblings. He was wearing his Army uniform; his pride and joy, rumpled and stained as it was. His haggard visage, sunken eyesockets and scarred face were almost painful to look upon and Odette had to steel herself anew each time she gazed upon his visage. Hanging limply from one hand was a bottle of some dark liquor and the other was clenched into a knobby fist, shaking with each of his words. "Where have you been?! I've been callin and callin ..." His diatribe wore down as he took in her outfit, dark eyes blearily focusing on the slight figure outlined in the light. "You look like a whore!"
Despite the words that wanted to claw up her throat and spew hurtfully at him, she spoke evenly , "And you're polluted." A deep breath, then she continued in her neutral, carefully controlled tone, "I'm going out. I'll be back late."
His bloodshot eyes narrowed as he stared at her, those dark chocolate eyes looking so cold and calculating, when once they were so full of life and good humor. "No you ain't! You s'posed to take care of me! Look at me!" He jerked the wheels of wheelchair, propelling himself backwards, as if by being so close, she couldn't see the whole of him. "I'm a cripple ... a damn cripple ... an' I'm hungry! You been gone all day! Prob'ly foolin around with your flippy frien's."
Fighting down the annoyance that surged when he spoke of her friends, Odette answered as patiently as possible, "The meatloaf, potatoes and greens are in the stove, the plate and silverware on the table." She didn't bother mentioning that she had been at school as well as work all day. He knew that as well as she did; he was trying to make her feel bad, to stop her from leaving. She opened the hall closet, steeling herself for the next verbal barrage. Even as she put her shoes on, her back was held ramrod stiff.
The honking of a car horn was a welcome distraction and Odette practically sighed in relief as she shrugged her shawl on, "That's my ride, 23 skidoo Jamal." She turned as she spoke, only seeing that once again he had retreated into the darkness, just the sloshing of liquid giving any indication he was still there at all. She paused for a moment, wanting more than anything for her brother just to ask her politely not to go, that he wanted to talk, anything that would give an indication that he was not a stranger to her, a visitor to her home and life. She would stay and gladly, if only he would just 'ask'. But from the living room there was only glacial silence. The honking came once more, only this time it was echoed by others; it seemed as if there was more than just her ride out there. Sadly, Odette left her brother to nurse his bottle alone and locked the door behind her.
As her heels clicked down the walk, she gazed about, surprised at the mass of cars in front of her house. The striking black woman hurried over to where Nancy was waving her over, her voice trilling on the wind, "Oh Odette, we've decided to take a tour!" The emaciated looking young woman giggled as Harold, the newest in a long line of boyfriends, picked her up and twirled her about. Nancy was the epitome of a flapper or a 'super flapper' as she liked to call herself. She was heavily made up, from the thick black outline around her eyes, to the powder upon her knees. Nancy revelled in the petting parties, the speak easies, the apoplectic shock she sent most of the older generation into with her wild and wanton ways and she never, ever apologized for anything she did. Her golden, short, sleeveless dress with dropped waist and swinging bedded skirt was all the rage and where Odette's was hand-made, Nancy's was from Paris. Blonde hair peeked out from underneath her cloche, the fashionable hat the same color as her dress. Nancy was the 'it' girl and she was the one who pulled Odette into her social circle, accepting her when many others wouldn't because she was 'colored'.
Like the crack of a starter's pistol, Harold's voice boomed out, "Yeah, we're going right now!" He threw Nancy over his shoulder, ignoring her laughter filled shrieks and pounding of tiny fists against his back. A long string of pearls swung from her neck, though now it seemed to dangle down to hit Harold's backside. Odette watched in bemusement, thinking that he looked more like a bear from the backside, with his raccoonskin coat on. Soon, cars of varying types and sizes were following Harold's Stutz Bearcat to who-knew-where, ready for a good time.
Before she knew it, Odette too was pulled into a steamer as the whole regalia set off on down the road. The car was full of laughter as it puttered along, the people inside taking sips of someone's purloined bottle of bathtub gin. Odette just sat in amongst the gaily dressed youths, torn between enjoying herself and depressing herself by thinking about her brother. Finally she called over the burble of voices, "Where are we going?" It looked as if they were heading outwards, the city of Buffalo fading out behind them.
The car quieted down almost immediately, with many amused glances and giggles sent her way. From the front seat, a sweet looking young man named Alvin turned to her with a grin, "No one tell you?" His voice turned to a conspiratorial whisper, "We're going to a haunted house."
Eyebrows that long ago had been plucked to almost nonexistance, to be replaced by a penciled-in line, rose at Alvin's words. "A haunted house?"
There was a general bout of giggling and laughter at her astonished tone. Even the driver, a young man Odette barely remembered being introduced to, turned around to look at her with a wide grin, "Yeah, surprised us too. That Nancy, she's the cat's pajamas." A few murmurs of agreement added to his statement for all of a second, before a shriek from a girl in front, who happened to be the only person watching the road.
That brought everyone's eyes to the road as they saw and heard the honking of the steamer closing in on a head-on collision. Several hands reached out to help the driver jerk his way back to the correct side of the road, while shrieks and yells echoed in the confines of the car. As the other car safely passed by, the driver shaked his fist angrily at the overcrowded steamer filled with wild and wooley youngsters.
Her heart slowing down to a more normal pace, Odette glanced at the others with a sheepish grin, seeing the same look on several other faces. Before they knew it, the car was once again filled with noise, this time laughter instead of shrieks of panick. For the next hour, all they could talk of was their brush with death, making them all giddier with the addition of the bathtub gin being passed around. All but Odette.
After she had gotten over her giggles of relief, she had quietened down, listening to the animated chatter around her. Odette had taken small sips of the hooch, but she wasn't too interested in alcohol. She hadn't been interested since her brother started downing jugs with frightening regularity, changing more and more into the boorish stranger she had so recently spoke with.
While the others talked about their brush with death, as if it were just another thing to be experienced and discarded, Odette became more withdrawn. She had an all too intimate affair with death and she wished nothing more than to be elsewhere, to not listen to these innocents with their ignorant views of that most horrible, if inevitable, time of all. Her mother figured prominently in her thoughts, with her strong, capable hands, smooth, flawless face and eyes to melt your soul. How she missed her.
Coming aware that she was being watched, Odette pulled away from her inner musings to glance up into the pale blue eyes of Alvin. His face had softened and he stared at her over the frontseat with sympathy emanating from his boyish features. He mouthed the words, "Are you alright?" She nodded, mouthing back, "Posi-lootly." feeling a silly sense of happiness that *he* had noticed her distress. She gazed a little longer at the young man, sitting in front of her, enjoying the knowledge that he was gazing at her just as intensely. He had a pale face, but then compared to her own visage, most people did. The interesting bit about him was his air of maturity, though he looked only to be in his late teens (Nancy had pulled her to the side a week before, to knowingly tell her that Alvin was older than he looked and perhaps Odette would enjoy being in his company). That and the intriguing shock of white on the right side of his short dark hair and through the middle of his right eyebrow.
Before their silent interplay could go any longer, there was a slowing down of the car, and people clamored about to take a gander out the windows. Their driver slowly started down an incline, a rough, bumpy road which led off of the main road. It had gotten darker in the past hour, the dusky night adding to the mysteriousness of their journey and the rough hewn, uninviting road in front of them. As they left the main road, the forest engulfed them, the steamer's beams dimly illuminating the path before them and the cars ahead. The flappers and sheiks in the car grew silent as they slowly puttered along, taking fork after fork. The trees passed by their windows, branches scrapping along the side and the top of the car, knobby fingers reaching out to pull and jerk at those that dared to enter their sanctuary.
Odette clutched her shawl a little closer to her body, rubbing absently at the goose bumps that rose along her arms. She had a brief urge to tell the driver, Bartholemew, to turn back and quickly, but caught a hold of herself before the words left her lips. After all, what would they think of her if she did? So on they drove, none in that car giving away to their inner anxiety, to meet with their destiny.
The rode along in silence, bodies jolted by the rough and ragged road. Odette could see a few of the other girls shudder as the never-ending supply of branches screeched along the outside of the car and she decided that perhaps a little song would brighten things up. Her voice started; a lone, solitary sound, fighting back the uneasiness brought with this impetuous trip.
"Flappers are we
Flappers are we
Flappers and fly and free.
Never too slow
All on the go
Petting parties with the smarties.
Dizzy with dangerous glee
Puritans knock us
Because the way we're clad.
Preachers all mock us
Because we're not bad.
Most flippant young flappers are we!"*
[*song from Tea for Two in the musical No, No, Nanette written by Vincent Youmans]
By the second sentence the other women had joined in, by the fourth, so did the men. Their voices rose, stridently trying to outdo the scraping by the intrusive branches. As they ended, they broke out of the forest into a large clearing. The relief in the car was almost palatable and the stiffness of their bodies, the defensive postures began to melt away as the oppressive darkness was lifted.
The moon shone upon the unnapealing landscape, it's yellowish tendrils of light undulating through the whispy clouds that dotted the night sky. The rutted track led through a copse of scattered trees, perhaps once an orchard, though the trees were long dead, their stark, bone-like branches swaying creakily in the cool night's breeze. Odette peered out of her window, gazing at the wooden corpses, moss creeping it's inexorable way up the rotting trunks.
Even with the windows rolled up, she could smell the dampness of the place and Odette glanced quizzically to the pug faced fellow sitting next to her, an orange clad flapper sitting upon his knee, "I didn't think it had rained in weeks?" He simply shrugged, taking a look outside with dark eyes, his hand possessively, protectively on the girl's unclothed knee, "Probably marsh or swamp nearby."
Desolate landscape creeped by their windows, but their eyes were no longer upon the rocky ground, with it's patches of grass and weeds, stumps and bony trees standing like cemetary markers in a plot overgrown from disuse and abandonment. Their gazes were glued to the massive site looming before them. The main body was a tall, stone tower, cloaked in creepers and moss. What was built on to it was varying styles from rococo, to gothic, sweeping arches, greek columns, a veritable mish-mash of architectural styles added to the tower. It was beyond eclectic, or eccentric and it hurt the eye to try and follow the forms, to find anything vaguely reasuring in the chaos of construction. The one and only repititive form were the windows. Every window had intricate, if garishly colored, stained glass, held in by thick, wrought iron, weaving a sinewy bond around the colored glass.
Their car pulled around the circular drive, parking behind the cars already stopped. Within the confines of the circle was a stone fountain and as Odette stepped out of the packed car, she alternated from staring at the building in front of her and the fountain behind her. There were several statues within the fountain, slime, mold and tarnish covering the once pristine, figures of women forever stopped in the action of pouring water from jugs. There was something disgustingly fascinating about the woman and the only thing Odette could think was that the pattern of mold and such reminded her of drawings of the sickly, covered with boils and pustulles and these women were pouring their filth and sickness into the murky water. The stench which just about overpowered her after she dismounted from the vehicle was one of rot, the sickly sweet, cloying smell of decay. A few of the more tender of the females held hankies to their noses, looking far paler than usual.
She jerked reflexively as fingers curled around her arm and she smiled apologetically to a surprised Alvin, "I'm sorry Alvin. You surprised me." The slim black woman wrapped her hands around his arm as he smiled that gentle smile of his and led her to the two massive front doors, where everyone was gathering. Nancy was there, her golden outfit glistening in the squalid moonlight. She and her boytoy were handing out lanterns, candles and candlesticks. She was reassuring one and all that the odor was lessened immensely once you got inside.
As Odette came near the massive double door, which looked to be at least fourteen feet high, she could more clearly see the carvings upon it. It was dizzying series of lines and curves which confused the eye when you tried to follow along them. Taken as a whole, the pattern upon one door resembled that of a man, with an exact match upon the door beside it. Jutting out a few inches from the doors were the large carved, curved fingers of hands, the fingers carefully delineated, palms turned towards the uncaring sky; two on each door, four in all. The color of the door looked bleached in places, the once dark wood leached of it's hue, it's vitality. Though it was interesting, that of all the rot, the mold, the fungus that inhabited the place, not a bit of it was upon these doors. Odette took her offered candle and candlestick absentmindedly, her mind still on those hands. What did they represent? Were they motioning for visitors to come inside or welcoming someone as they walked into the house?
Harold grinned as he pushed against the massive doors, the ethereal Nancy beside him as they pressed forward into the dark maw, their candlelight casting it's flickering light, emphasizing the shadows and doing nothing to dispell the eeriness or gloom of the place. The party of flappers and sheiks slowly drifted in, eyes wide as they took in an interior that looked far larger than the outside had seemed. Odette and Alvin were the last to enter and she was glad for his warm hand at the small of her back. It help stave off the chill that overtook her as they walked in. She turned at Nancy's voice speaking close at hand as she and Harold slowly pushed the smooth doors closed. "Odette, isn't this just ducky?" Her voice echoed, bouncing about in the cavernous interior till it came back to the hearer in distorted whispers of sound.
Odette curved her hand around her candle to stop the flickering of her candle's flame with the wind that attempted to stream through the ever thinning opening. The massive doors closed silently, imprisoning all within and all Odette could say, in a low, almost whisper was, "It's just swell." That lie caught in her gullet, but still she forced it out. Grinning brilliantly, Nancy grabbed Howard's hand and practically skipped on by Odette and the ever close-by Alvin, seemingly quite content with her pick of location. Shrugging off the sense of impending doom, Odette grasped Alvin's outstretched hand, smiling to his murmur, "Let's make the best of it, shall we?" With him by her side, what possibly could go wrong?
Her hand in Alvin's, Odette did not resist as he gently pulled her forward, after the gaily skipping Nancy and the booming laughter of Harold. They were walking through what she could only call a great hall. It was extremely wide, about 20 feet left to right and it continued on for what could be about 40 feet, though the flickering candlelight made it hard to tell exactly how far anything was.
Throughout the hall there were pillars, staggered in no particular order and in no particular style. Marble Roman columns stood not three feet away from a plain wooden pillar, decorated by nothing but its knotty burls. There were delicate-looking, interlacing lengths of wrought iron, not unlike that which decorated the stained glass windows, which grew from the floor to pierce the ceiling.
And the ceiling itself was a marvel, though she could only see the barest of it when she stretched her candle up towards it. It was incredibly high and adorned with thousands of little tiles, showing off a cacophany of colour, conforming to no particular shape that she could discern. A room to the left of the main doors had the stained glass windows taking up most of the front wall and an extremely large fireplace with a disturbing mantlepiece that looked like a conglomeration of horns and spikes.. What furniture that was there, was covered in sheets, their ghostly silhouettes fluttering softly with the flickering candlelight.
All along the halls there were doors and doorways, arches and windows into different rooms. People walked close to the walls, glancing into rooms and murmuring to each other about what they saw. Halfway down the hallway, through an archway on their right, they could see a wide, palatial staircase. The red carpet attatched to the stairs looked well worn and the stairway ascended into darkness. From the curve of the room, Odette guessed that this was the orginal tower and no doubt the stairs wound all about it.
A few more gentle tugs from Alvin and Odette stopped her sight seeing, more than content to follow the rest of the crowd, as they all gravitated towards the end of the hall, where Nancy was waving to them vigorously. Her voice called out to them to join her in the ballroom and Odette shivered at the distorted echo that reached their ears. Even their footsteps through the abandoned building seemed louder and more menacing with the eerie echo effect. She shuddered a little, hiking up her shawl and grasping Alvin a little closer to her; which he did not object to in the least.
They entered the ballroom last, gazing about in awe at the impressiveness of the room. Even with the large amount of light put off by the various lanterns and candles, they still could not see to the other end. Every twenty feet, there hung from the ceiling a chandelier as massive as her diningroom table. The delicate filligree and leaf moldings surrounding the empty holders were tarnished and rusted looking, but still sporting a terrible beauty. A thick panel of pale wood ran along the wall, as it did through out the hallway. On the walls above the panel was a richly textured entwining pattern of leaves and vines, the red satiny finish paled with age and dust. It had the look of beauty forgotten, lost in the ages past, with only a pale shadow of its former self to show to the small crowd of sheiks and flappers. There were squares of colour, where the rich scarlet bled through the leeched vitality of it's surrounding, the entwining vines looking more like veins and capillaries than anything born of a forest. Dotting the landscape of the room, a multitude of shapes were swathed in white linen, vague outlines giving form to chairs and more amorphous objects.
Odette's musings were brought to a halt as the blat of a trumpet caught her attention. Nancy tittered as she weaved through the slowly milling group, "I couldn't bring the victrola. Daddy chained it under lock and key. But this is still a party!" She waved her left hand towards the four men gathered in the right corner, pulling out trumpet, trombone, clarinet and fiddle. They started to play a shaky, but energetic rendition of Black Bottom Stomp. Odette's face showed her delight as Alvin gestured out towards an area where other couples were already starting to dance, placing down their candle on an uncovered side table. She grinned, her heart lightened at the sound and the prospect of dancing. She gyrated towards him, throwing her shawl over a cluster of brooms set against the wall beside the entryway; draping over the wooden handles along with other jackets and cover-ups.
Soon the dancefloor was full of young people, flapping arms, shaking out legs and generally looking as if they were marionettes caught in a hurricane. There were those who had unflattering called it the 'dance of the drunken chickens'. They contorted, twisted their appendages in the most awkward ways and did it all to bouncy music. It was as exhilarating as it was scandalous; raised the heart rate through vigorous bodily motions and also from the naughty glimpses shown with the lifting of a leg or wave of an arm. At the end of the the fifth song, Odette laughingly collapsed against a sheet covered chair at the edge of the dancefloor, dust rising around her. Alvin pulled her from the miniature dustcloud, helping her away from the dancefloor as she coughed and sneezed.
She clasped onto his strong arms, bleerily looking up at him as he gently stroked her head while she expelled the dust from her lungs. He was so handsome, caring and strong. Odette's eyes took in his face, still entranced with that shock of white in his dark hair. Her fingers reached up to gently trace the white in his eyebrow. She barely felt the wooden panelling against her back as he pressed her slim form against the wall, only seeing his face come closer to her own. Her eyes fluttered shut as his face came closer; she could feel his sweet breath upon her lips, tantalizing her with what was soon to come.
Lips as soft as silk touched hers; the lightest of pressures from those supple lips ...
A jarring noise interrupted them, both of them flinching apart from each other with the dissonance, nerves jangled. All those in the room stared at Nancy as placed her left hand, a metal rod interlaced in her fingers, on the metal triangle to quell the ringing. She certainly had everyone's attention, even several flappers who held a hand to their chests, to stop their hearts from bounding out. The band were also staring, obviously as shocked as the rest, instruments hanging from numb fingers. Even Harold was rubbing the back of his head, looking at Nancy as if she had sprouted another head, "For crying out loud!"
An impish grin on her face, ignoring Harold for the moment, Nancy waved the rod she had used to strike the triangle in the air with the aplomb of a maestro, "Now that I have our attention." She gestured with her makeshift pointer to the middle of the dancefloor, "If you will gather together, I shall tell you the story behind the haunted house. Then ...", here she looked around with a mischievous glint in her eyes, " ... we will play a game of hide-and-seek. The girls shall hide and the guys shall seek." There were quite a few titters and chuckles at that announcement, people obviously looking forward to this game.
Poking Harold in the gut as he came up to her, Nancy ordered him towards the dancefloor with all the others. He grinningly complied, kneeling on the floor in front of her, in a mock submissive posture. Alvin chuckled at that and held out a hand to Odette, which she took grateful and he led her to the dancefloor.
When finally everyone was seated before her, their attention solely upon her, Nancy began her story. "This story begins a long long time ago. Imagine if you will.." she spread her hands wide, face animated, pulling her audience in. ".. a large, rich family in the deepest darkest Russia, desperate for a respite from the freezing, unnatural weather that was killing their animals and ruining their farming land. It was as if they were under a curse. Animal babies were born with misshapen limbs, crops would fail. The weather was chaotic; sun burning brightly one moment, then raining the next."
Nancy paced around the group, all eyes watching her, heads turning with her fluid movement, caught up in her story. "Their prayers went unanswered. Nothing changed and years went by, with things getting worse with each passing day. Finally, the head of the household broke down, sending his eldest sun to the find the witch that legend said lived in the darkest, most dangerous, unknown part of the forest. She would know how to stop this horrible curse, but the payment for her services would be dire indeed."
She took a step to the group, spreading her arms wide, "They made a deal with a demon!" Her words echoed throughout the ballroom, causing men and women alike to flinch. Odette shuddered as those distorted whispers, those eerie echoes, reached her ears. Nancy was peppy and she was an amazing story teller, but right at that moment, Odette would have preferred if she were at least a trifle more boring. Despite her misgivings, Odette was pulled back into the story.
Her eyes searching each face, Nancy stood stock still, arms to her sides, hands clenched into fists. She was energy contained, constrained, ready to blow. Her voice was a whisper, wrapping around them, "The demon ... they called it Schadenfreude ... would live with them, through the first born of each generation."
The group moved unconsciously closer together, gaining communal support for their unease with the words spewing from the slender woman's lips. She continued in that goosebump raising whisper, her eyes burned with a fervor previously unknown, "They tried to escape from the unholy deal they made, moving to the Americas, hoping it would somehow be unable to follow. As they made their way into the new land, desperate for sanctuary, the family was slowly whittled down, insanity ran rampant and suicides plagued the family in increasing numbers. Finally they came to this place." She turned in a circles, beads jingling with her movement, hands raised to the ceiling. "There were a mysterious and savage peoples living in this area, who took pity on the poor refugees. The one they revered, he-who-spoke-with-spirits, tried to help the family, to banish the demon. Alas, all he could do was stop it from taking over their children and imprisoned it within these walls, but it still took their souls when they died, haunted them... haunted this place." Slowly she dropped her hands to her sides, "And it remains here still, waiting for another to die within these walls, so that it can feed on his soul."
And Nancy paused in the dead silence that answered her words, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Odette stared at the girl she thought she knew, wondering what sent her off her nuts. Slowly Nancy's eyes opened and a smile grew across her face at the wide eyed stares sent her way, "Jeepers creepers, I must've been better than I thought, looks like some of you've got the screaming meemies." Once again that teasing lilt was in her voice and she poked at Harold's shoulder, where he knelt in front of her with the look of a man seeing for the first time and it wasn't the pleasant sight he had been expecting.
A few people started to clap, then the rest joined in, their relieved laughter having a bit of an edge to it. Odette was almost deaf to the 'Atta girl!'s and various compliments sent Nancy's way. // Where did she get that story? It had been horrid to hear and Nancy looked like she had enjoyed the retelling ... savored it actually. // It was hard for Odette to see her friend in such a negative light and she stood up, ready to go speak with her friend, to reassure herself that Nancy had not changed from the fun-loving hedonist she knew her to be. A hand on her arm stopped her and Odette looked back, suprised at Alvin's gentle face, his eyes showing a bit of eagerness. He asked her, "Are you going to go hide now Odette? Before all the good hiding spots are taken?" Odette looked from the boyish face to where Nancy was being surrounded by her admiring fans, then back again to the young man, torn with indecision.
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