for a while."

When the door opened, both girls struggled up. But it wasn't Sister

Immaculate. Teresa Louise Alcott, the bright and annoying girl from

across the hall, popped in wearing her pink cotton robe and feather

mules.

"What's going on?"

"We're having an orgy." Marianne flopped down again. "Don't you ever

knock?"

Teresa only grinned. She was one of the feverishly pert girls who

volunteered for everything, always completed her a.s.signments, and wept

at the Stations of the Cross. Marianne detested her on principle. Being

thick-skinned as well as pert, Teresa considered the insults signs of

friendship.

"Wow. You're getting your ears pierced." She knelt down to study the

strings dangling from Emma's lobes. "Mother Superior'll have a cat."

"Why don't you have a cat, Teresa?" Marianne suggested. "In your own

room."

But Teresa only grinned and sat back on her heels. "Did it hurt?"

Emma opened her eyes and wished Teresa to everlasting h.e.l.l. "No. It

felt great. Marianne's going to do my nose next. You can watch."

Teresa ignored the sarcasm and studied her newly manicured fingernails.

"I'd love to have mine done. Maybe after Sister Immaculata comes

through you could do it."

"I don't know, Teresa." Marianne pushed herself up to change the record

to Bruce Springsteen. "I haven't finished my report on Silas Mamer. I

was going to work on it tonight."

"Mine's done." Thresa smiled her pert smile. "If you do my ears, I'll

give you my notes."

Marianne moved her shoulders as if debating. "Well, okay then."

"Great. Wow, I almost forgot why I came over." She dug into the deep

pocket of her frilly pink robe and pulled out a magazine article. "My

sister sent this to me because she knows I go to school with you, Emma.

She cut it out of People. Have you ever seen that magazine?

It's just great. It has pictures of everybody. They have like Robert

Redford on the cover and Burt Reynolds. All the hunks."

"I've seen it," Emma said, because she knew it was the only way to shut

Teresa up.

"Sure you have, because your dad's been in there lots of times. Anyway,

I knew you'd just be dying to see it, so I brought it over."

Because her stomach had settled, Emma propped herself up then took the

article. The nausea came back with a vengeance.

ETERNAL TRMGLE

There was Bev rolling on the floor with another woman. And Dad, with a

look of stunned fury on his face, reaching down for her. Bev's

dress was ripped, and there was a kind of wild anger in her eyes. The

same kind, Emma remembered, as had been there the last time she'd seen

her.

"I knew you'd want it," Teresa was saying cheerfully. "So I brought it

over. That's your mother, isn't it?"

"My mother," Emma murmured, staring at Bev's picture.