This installment written by Mary Ann
Continued from August 13
When Prentice and I arrived at the Italian restaurant just after seven o’clock both Robert and Gwendy were already there, seated side-by-side in a booth in the back corner of the dining room. There was some business to be done tonight. Prentice and Robert would be meeting the mysterious girl at the Holiday House at 9 o’clock, but no one was letting that interfere with dinner.
All through dinner Prentice and Robert talked politics. They talked about the war and President Nixon’s upcoming trip to China that had been all over the news for the past week. Robert reached around to his back pocket, then tossed a copy of “The Crusader” on the table. He went on to tell us that reprints of the ultra-radical, pro-violence newsletter, which had gone out of print in ’69, were turning up all over and being widely circulated among radical black students on campus.
“On the one hand we’ve got this war,” Robert observed with genuine concern in his voice. “On the other hand we’ve got this kind of hatred being spread among a bunch of radicals who already have an appetite for violence, and the radicals on all sides are getting more traction with non-political students every day. Everybody’s choosing up sides, and it feels like this whole place is about to spontaneously combust. Where does this all stop?”
It was a good question.
As the waitress was clearing the dinner plates from the table and placing saucers of cheesecake in front of us, Prentice reached into his jacket’s inside pocket and placed a red envelope on the table in front of me. It was Valentine’s Day, and he hadn’t forgotten.
I leaned over in the booth and kissed him on the cheek, and whispered in his ear that I had left a card for him on his pillow back at our apartment. I wanted him to have an extra incentive for completing the evening’s business quickly and without taking unnecessary risks.
When eight o’clock came, Prentice and Robert placed their napkins on the table and slid from the booth. Prentice leaned over and gave me another kiss and told me not to worry. He’d meet me at Gwendy’s dorm room in a couple of hours. I calculated that he would be there by ten or ten-thirty. I knew that if he was later, something would have gone wrong. I was worried already.
Once at Gwendy’s dorm room I settled into a giant bean bag chair in the corner and admired the cylindrical lava lamp that gave the darkened room a candlight glow. Gwendy sat cross-legged on her bed just a few feet across from me. We were both drinking sodas from the machine in the hallway.
“How did all this happen?” Gwendy asked. The question surprised me, as did what seemed to be her genuine concern. “I mean, I was over at the student health center the other day, and I was hearing some spaced out girl tell one of the nurses about an acid trip she’d taken and all the weird stuff she’d seen while she was trippin’. It was freaky weird and scary, but it wasn’t any weirder than this real life stuff you and Prentice have been going through.”
I nodded agreement and sank deeper into the bean bag.
“Maybe it’s too personal or something,” Gwendy continued, “but you’ve gotta admit, you’d be curious too.”
“How much has Prentice told you?” I asked her, wondering if I ought to let this go any farther.
“Not much. Not much at all,” she responded. “I asked Robert about it, but he didn’t answer me. Everybody’s trying to keep this a secret, right?”
“It’s not really a secret at all,” I told her. “It’s just that, well, people tend to choose up sides real quickly when they hear our story, and I guess you could say that, so far, most people who’ve heard it didn’t choose our side.”
“So you keep it a secret?”
“I guess we do. We just don’t talk about it if we don’t have to,” I continued. “We’re not looking for trouble.”
“Well, it looks like trouble found you, anyway,” Gwendy commented. “Want to listen to some music while we wait? Not loud, though. I want to continue our conversation. I just thought a little background music might cut the tension in here a little. I know you’re worried, Mary Ann.”
Gwendy’s taste in music wasn’t at all what I had expected. She struck me as a Rita Coolidge or Buffy Sainte-Marie type. Tony Bennet was a surprise.
“I know he was a crazy man when I met him last summer,” Gwendy renewed the conversation. “Prentice, I mean. By the end of the summer he was one of the crazier people I’ve ever met. Tell you the truth, I really thought he had to be imagining all of this. Then, well… I’m sure he told you what changed my mind!”
“Yeah, he told me. Quite an eye opener wasn’t it?” I quipped.
“I don’t know how anyone goes through that kind of thing for as long as both of you have and comes out the other side with their head intact,” Gwendy finished her thought. “Mary Ann, I don’t know how he kept himself together well enough to stay put here and wait for you.”
“He loves me,” I responded.
“Yes sir, I believe he does,” Gwendy concluded, reaching for a small box of Nag Champa dhoop sticks and a smaller box of wooden matches.
After lighting one of the sticks and placing it on the lamp table next to the lava lamp, Gwendy continued.
“”Mary Ann, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to help the two of you. Prentice has become one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and you became a dear friend before you ever got here.”
“We feel the same way about you, Gwendy.” I answered, “and we appreciate the chances you sometimes take for us.”
The hands on the alarm clock next to her bed ticked precisely into the nine-o’clock position. Several blocks away over on Guadalupe, I imagined, Robert was going through the front door of the Holiday House and approaching the mystery girl, then trying to reassure her that I sent him and that she could trust him. I couldn’t imagine what her reaction would be.
In my mind I was scanning the street outside the restaurant for anyone who might have followed her there. I scrutinized every imaginary person my mind placed on the street, and my eyes swept across the street to see if I could readily spot Prentice in whatever vantage point he had taken. God, I hoped no one would see him there. God, I prayed he’d be back soon.
“I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be on your side. I mean, if you decide to tell me how all this came about,” Gwendy said, trying gently to nudge a response from me.
“You sure?” I started, “We can’t afford any more enemies right now.”
To be continued.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Glad to see you’re back with more! I’ve become addicted to this story. I’m still waiting for you to spill a few more beans, though.