Bettina said, “I think there’s Chester buses that come along here.”

“There better be. I’m not walking. I can tell you that much. I bet it’s two miles back to campus.”

Charlotte said, “It can’t be that far. Let’s just look around a little bit more. Maybe we will run into somebody we know.”

“Okay,” said Mimi. She rolled her eyes and pronounced the o in okay like a sigh.

Charlotte picked up the pace to lead Mimi on before she could change her mind. She felt a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t prodded the two of them all this way out of a spirit of adventure and discovery. She didn’t dare tell them the truth, which was that she hadn’t wanted to wander around here by herself, like some clueless freshman social stray. As for why she wanted to wander around here—

At the moment the three freshmen were walking by a Lincoln Navigator, a huge thing, out back of which a man, a woman, and two teenage boys were standing around the tailgate, eating lunch out of a big wicker picnic basket. The man was pushing sixty at least, and he was sipping from a wide, squat glass with brown liquor in it and staring dolefully into the distance. Had to be an alum. What other grown-up would stay here ten seconds? The woman, a pretty blonde—his daughter?—was sitting on the edge of the tailgate, eating a sandwich and looking bored to death. The younger boy was walking backward in imitation of a moonwalk and whining. “Yuckamamie…when does the game start?” The older boy, slouched back against the Navigator with his arms crossed, said, “What game? This is a Dupont tailgate, dummy.”

Another SUV. Girls and boys were crowded around a keg on the pavement. Lots of ironic cheering. Right by the keg, two boys were holding a girl upside down by her legs. Her jaws were wide-open, and another boy had the nozzle of a hose literally inside her mouth.

“Eccchhhh,” said Bettina. “That hurts just to watch. How do you swallow beer uphill with some guy hosing it into your throat?”

“Why should she care?” said Mimi. “She’s got all she wants, guys at either end and more guys watching.”

They moved on. Charlotte stopped in her tracks. They were coming to another pickup truck. Up on the truck bed was a startling sight, a hairy diesel of a guy clad only in a pair of plaid boxer undershorts with an enormous toy penis sticking out of the fly. His eyes were closed, he had his fists waist high in the disco dance style, and he was trying, and failing, to switch his hips in time to the music playing on the truck’s radio: “Aching for your wan love, sister, shoving Mister Johnson gently when he’s taking foreplay’s lazy torpor bending his big woody could be making his stones sorer maybe…”

“Ecccchhhh, crunk,” said Bettina. “I can’t stand it. It’s like rap forced through bars of melody. I think it sounds contrived.”

“Eeeyew, that guy looks so gross,” said Mimi, looking at the one with the plastic penis sticking out. “Oh joy, another frat.”

Charlotte said, “Maybe…ummm…” She had seen that grizzled head somewhere before.

“Hey! You! I know you!” It was a guy standing beside the pickup, on the pavement, pointing his finger straight at Charlotte. Tall, lean, wearing nothing but a pair of khaki shorts about to fall off his hips, the better to display his anatomy chart of a midsection. It was him, oh yes, Beverly’s lacrosse player, Harrison. Charlotte shuddered as if from a chill. Here he was, her entire reason for manufacturing this “exploration” to a tailgate—and now?

He came toward her, grinning broadly and still pointing.

“You were at Lapham! What’s her name’s—something or other.”

“Roommate. Beverly,” said Charlotte. How tiny and timid her voice was.

“Now that you’re here,” he said, “come on up and party.”

“Up?”

“Up on the truck. Come on.”

“Up on the truck,” said Charlotte. She looked at Mimi and Bettina and said, “You want to?” She said it in a small, conspiratorial voice with a wondering smile that was supposed to say, “Why don’t we? It might be fun.”

Mimi and Bettina just stared back at her. Bettina overbit her lower lip with her front teeth. Charlotte had no idea what to say to them. She wanted to stay, but could she possibly stay without them—or would they feel used or resentful of her as the one of their trio who attracts the cool guys?

“Hey, heyyy! Wuz up, babe?”

Up on the truck bed, standing beside the grizzled guy with the plastic penis, was a huge figure wearing only low-riding khaki shorts. Charlotte recognized him immediately. He was the gigantic lacrosse player who had confronted and frightened the Millennial Mutants on the steps of Briggs. And now she knew why she recognized the guy with the plastic penis. He had been with the giant. “I know you!” he said. “You’re the…the…the…” He was so drunk he couldn’t remember the end of his own sentence. “Come on up here with me!” He pointed at Harrison. “Guy’s an asshole. Come on up here with me and do the shake.” He began shaking his whole body violently, his arms hanging loose and his mouth open so that his big lower lip jiggled moronically.

Charlotte stared. He frightened her. He stopped shaking and staggered about with his immense frame stooped and his arms hanging way down.

She couldn’t bring herself to say a word. She shook her head no.

Faster than it would take to tell it, the big stoop leaped off the truck bed, over the tailgate, landed on the asphalt beside her, keeled over, broke the fall with his hands, struggled up, and stood beside her, grinning manically.

“Come on up, babe. Time to rock!”

Her tiniest voice yet: “No.” She shook her head slowly.

“Up we go!” said Mac, and in that same moment he clamped his big hands on either side of her waist and lifted her off her feet as if she were nothing more than a vase, up toward the grizzled guy and the monstrous glans of his toy penis.

“PUT ME DOWN! TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!”

She was frightened—and affronted. She was rising toward the grinning face and outstretched arms and impudent faux-phallus of the grizzled ape.

“Come on, Mac, put her down. She doesn’t wanna.”

Harrison. Charlotte could get a glimpse of him only in peripheral vision.

“Fuck off, dick. You know what you are? A pussy. You know how you fight? You wanna know what I think of you, Harrison? You’re a little girl.”

“Dude…put her down. She doesn’t wanna play.”

“Oh—you—pussy,” said Mac, trying to put Charlotte up on the truck bed and keep track of Harrison at the same time.

Harrison lunged, threw his arms around Mac’s waist, and started jerking him backward, away from the truck. As Mac shuffled his feet to get his balance, Harrison kicked a leg out from under him. Mac began falling backward, still holding on to Charlotte by the waist. The moment seemed to stretch out stretch out stretch out in the most languid slow motion. Charlotte wondered almost idly, out of curiosity, what was going to happen to her. Mac let go of her waist and thrust his hands behind him to break his fall. Charlotte landed on top of him, sprawled across his chest and midsection. She flipped herself off, rolled on the asphalt, scrambled to her feet, catching a glimpse of Bettina and Mimi looking on, bewildered. Bettina! Mimi! But no time! Mac was upright, too…groggy…He moved toward her, staring…His gaze went over her shoulder…In the next instant Harrison threw one arm around her and began pointing at Mac with his other hand.

“What the fuck, Mac? LEAVE HER ALONE! Use your fucking head! She’s not a groupie! You got the skanks on your case already! You wanna get fucking thrown outta school?”

Mac said, “The fuck—” but the rest degenerated into a growl. He gave Harrison a stalking tiger stare and began a stalking tiger creep. Harrison let Charlotte go and got in a crouch. Mac was much more powerful, but he was also far drunker. Harrison began feinting one way and another and another and another with his shoulders. Mac lunged, and Harrison spun out of the way. Mac stumbled but managed to regain his footing and came after his adversary again. Quite a spectacle…Their shorts were lower than ever…You could see the gulleys that ran from the ilial crest down toward the groin…They were sweating…The sun threw their muscles into glistening swells and dark depressions. Mac was wary this time—stalking…stalking…