Olivia (Logan 5)

Daddy and I left without telling Mother any

details. Daddy simply said we were going to bring Belinda home. Actually, he didn't know any details either.

"All Mrs. Elliot would say," he told me after we left, "is I must come to take her off the property. She wouldn't discuss the matter over the phone, but would wait for our arrival at her office. It sounds very bad, very bad. What could Belinda have done?" he wondered aloud.

"Knowing Belinda and what she has

done recently, anything imaginable," I replied dryly.

Daddy said nothing. We rode in silence for a while.

"What will you do about her now, Daddy?" I asked. "There is still a great deal of summer left and you've got to make plans for the fall. She's not registered in any other school." He sighed and shook his head.

"I don't know, Olivia. What do you suggest?"

"How about the Foreign Legion?"

He almost smiled.

"I guess we'll have to find something for her to do at the office for the remainder of the summer at least," he said.

"Why don't we wait to see what horrible things she has done at the school, Daddy? If it's as bad as they seem to suggest, you might want to put her under house arrest. I'm serious," I said when he glanced at me. "Don't permit her to socialize or go on dates, to the movies, to the beach. She has to learn sometime. You're always telling me to find something

worthwhile from every situation, no matter how bad that situation is. Well, do the same here," I concluded.

He was silent again. Why couldn't he agree? Finally, why couldn't he do something about Belinda before she ruined our family?

My own memories of the finishing school returned as we approached the beautiful grounds and buildings. While I was there, I had made only one real friend, Katherine Hargrove from Boston. We studied together, revealed our thoughts about boys and the other girls at the school to each other and promised each other we would stay in touch, but shortly after we left the school, Katherine became engaged to the boy back home her parents had wanted her to marry. I received a few letters and wrote back. She invited me to her wedding, but I didn't attend. I made up some excuse about being too involved with my father's business, and I know she was offended. She wrote no other letters, not even a postcard, never called and never responded to the one letter I wrote months afterward.

How easily friends drift apart, I thought. It was almost as if we became different people once we were apart, and the people we were and whom we knew became strangers to us. I realized I should have been at her wedding, but it bothered me that she was engaged and getting married while I hadn't even struck up an acquaintance. Everyone else at the school had predicted I'd end up an old maid and I knew many of those girls would be there, smiling smugly, convinced their prophecies would prove true. I should have had the courage to face them down, I thought, for Katherine's sake as much as my own.

No, I wasn't perfect. I was capable of making mistakes, but nothing I did ever approached Belinda's errors and sins. She was so much of a problem, I was practically overlooked. Even in our younger days, I found myself neglected, found Daddy paying more attention to her because she was such a handful for our mother. How many intimate father-daughter talks had Belinda enjoyed? How many times had he done what he was doing now: running to her rescue? Yes, I told myself, I did resemble the good child in the Biblical parable of the prodigal son, wondering if being dutiful, productive and responsible wasn't the reason I was being ignored when I needed attention and affection as much Belinda.

We went directly to the administrative building and the head mistress's office. When the secretary saw us, she practically fainted, her blood draining from her face in anticipation of some ugly and unpleasant scene. What could Belinda have possibly done? I wondered, now struggling with my own imagination to think of something that would merit such a reaction.

"Mrs. Elliot will see you," she said a moment after going in and out of the office. She stepped away from the door as if touching us might contaminate her.

Mrs. Elliot, a woman of about sixty with bluishgray hair and gray eyes, rose from her wooden desk chair. She was only about five feet five, but her demeanor, the power in her eyes, the stiffness in her shoulders and her imposing bosom rising with each deep breath made her look much taller. She had an emphatic chin and strong, masculine, pale red lips, now pressed tightly together in an effort not to frown or scowl.

"Please have a seat, Mr. Gordon," she commanded, gesturing to a chair. She looked at me, deciding whether or not to invite me to stay.

"I'd like Olivia to be here," Daddy said quickly.

"Yes, that will be fine. Olivia was one of our better students. I can understand your reliance upon her. We had expected the same high quality behavior from your younger daughter," she added dryly. "Which makes all this that much more of a

disappointment," she continued with her eyes small and dark.

"What happened? Why are you expelling her?" Daddy asked, his body still tense, his hands gripping the arms of the chair so hard the veins were embossed around his knuckles.

"I'll get right to the point, Mr. Gordon, even though this is all quite unpleasant to imagine, much less to discuss. I don't want to pretend everything has always been perfect here at our school. We have had our share of problems. Our girls come from diverse backgrounds and from many places. We're bound to experience some difficulties. After all, we're educating young people, some of whom haven't had the best possible upbringing.

"Girls have had liquor in their rooms, broken curfew, violated no-smoking regulations, not kept their rooms in proper condition. Olivia knows that to be true while she was here herself," she said nodding at me. I nodded quickly. "We have, on occasion, had a male visitor remain too long, but never, never have we had a young girl bring liquor into her room, permit smoking and entertain two young men at the same time all evening," she added without pausing for a breath.

"What?" Daddy asked, as if he hadn't heard anything she'd said. "Entertain two . ."

"Entertain, you understand, Mr. Gordon, is rather a euphemistic term for what occurred." She looked at me and then back to him. "Both young men were disrobed and in the same bed with your daughter, who was also naked," she said and swallowed as though she had just taken a tablespoon of castor oil.

Daddy stared.