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PROLOGUE: June, 1979
Briarwood, Pennsylvania. It is mid-morning on Sunday, June 12th, graduation
day for the class of '79. It promises to be a beautiful sunny day, warm but
not hot, perfect for the exercises to be held on the massive, rolling quad
at two o’clock this afternoon. Exclusive, expensive Briarwood College for
Women is backyard to strictly Main Line Philadelphia, and even the weather
dares not disappoint on this special day.
Inside Brooks Hall, one of the stately, ivy-covered quarry-stone
dormitories, four of the graduates are holding their own private goodbye
party before the early afternoon commencement ceremonies. Suitcases, garment
bags, totes and boxes, all in varying stages of packing, are strewn about
the room. Today, the four young women will be leaving this haven forever,
each heading to a different part of the country. They have been inseparable
during these college years, and they will miss each other terribly. They are
alternately giggling, laughing raucously, hugging, and sobbing.
Patricia Farnsworth Carroll, called Trisha by her friends, is a Philadelphia
girl whose parents had planned to send her to Briarwood even before she was
born. Most of the Carroll women and all of the Farnsworth women had gone to
Briarwood, tracing back to when the college was founded in 1880.
Trisha was a golden girl, five-foot-seven and lean, with high cheekbones and
clear, hazel eyes, a dazzling, Grace Kelly smile, and a halo of blond hair
cut just under her chin -- thick, lustrous hair that always seemed to fall
right back into place each time she tossed her elegant head.
In fact, everything that Trisha did seemed nothing short of perfect.
Majoring in Communications, she had tackled the work, as she did all areas
of her life, with a no-nonsense efficiency that made it look easy. In her
senior year she was class president, captain of the debate society,
high-scorer on the basketball team and the lead actress in the drama guild,
and still, she managed to place high on the Dean’s list.
Her goals included a wonderful husband, bright, healthy children,
magnificent homes in several places like her parents had, and a glamorous
career -- Trisha wanted it all, and if anyone could have it all, she was the
most likely candidate.
Trisha’s roommate was Lane Hurley, a mischievous Boston girl with dewy pale
complexion and a mass of dark Irish curls. Lane had transferred in as a
second semester freshman, after having been quietly invited to leave Smith
College in Northampton when she and two other young women were caught
smoking marijuana in her dorm room.
When the dean called the Hurley mansion in Boston’s tony Lewisberg Square
with the news, Lane’s mother fainted and her father was livid, and she was
given one chance to reclaim her future. Just one, her father had emphasized
-- one more screw-up and she could go out and earn herself a living without
any help from her mother and him. God knows what her brothers got away with
over the years while he looked the other way, but no matter, Lane was
practical, she had her father’s business savvy, and she determined from the
outset that it would be in her best interest to fly right at Briarwood. And
she never once veered off course. At least she never got caught.
Of the four, Lane was the adventuresome one, yet she navigated uncertain
waters with a particularly level head -- the perfect combination of
qualities to make it in business, which had been her major, and was her
dream.
Kathryn Blakely Spenser, of the New York publishing Spensers, had the kind
of face that melted men’s hearts before she said hello. She was medium-dark
complected with huge, smokey brown eyes, a finely sculpted cleft chin, lush,
full, wine-tinted lips, and heavy, mahogany-brown hair with reddish glints,
which she wore blunt cut and cascading to her shoulders.
Dreamy, romantic Kate majored in English Literature. She’d been content to
immerse herself in the novels of Jane Austen and the love poems of the
Brownings, while barely passing all of her courses with a C-minus average.
Under her picture in the Briarwood yearbook, class of ’79, it was written
that beautiful Kathryn Spenser would get anything she wanted in life. What
she wanted was to marry the handsomest, most loving, most passionate man on
earth, have a house full of gorgeous children, and be treated like a
princess.
All during their college years, men she hadn’t even met, or certainly didn’t
remember meeting, would routinely send her mash notes, gifts and flowers.
Katie would usually shrug them off, while her roommate, Molly, would be
unabashedly green with envy.
Fiery Molly Adams was small-boned and short in stature, but she made up for
her diminutive size by a spirited feistiness that played perfectly with her
dancing green eyes and wild mane of orange-red hair.
Molly was the only one of the four not born to wealth and privilege. A
street-smart urban southerner, Molly had come to the school on a
fully-funded scholarship, given each year to the top female student at
Miami’s Matignon High School in memory of a departed Briarwood Alumna. The
scholarship paid four years’ tuition, provided the candidate kept her grades
up, and Molly did.
In fact, except for her math classes, Molly earned straight A’s. She was
ambitious, driven, a tireless worker, and totally success oriented. She had
actually scored lower on IQ testing than each of the other three, yet her
grades had been consistently higher than all of theirs by far.
Along with her driven work ethic, Molly was an enormously gifted artist.
She’d majored in Fine Art, and she was leaving Briarwood with the full
confidence of youth that she would conquer the art world. She would start
out working in galleries to pay the rent, while honing her painting skills
in her off hours. And she would, one day, create great art.
Kate and Molly roomed directly across the hall from Lane and Trisha, in the
east wing on the third floor at Brooks Hall. The four had been inseparable
during their years at college, and the prospect of leaving Briarwood today
and going their separate ways was bittersweet -- exciting, but sad.
Molly had landed a job in a small art gallery at a summer resort on the New
Jersey shore. When summer was over and she had a little experience on her
resume, she hoped to make a move to a big time gallery in New York.
Trisha was going home, to her own room at her parents’ estate in
Philadelphia. With her dad’s help, she would make the rounds of the city’s
top public relations firms, interviewing for the perfect job.
Beautiful Kate was madly in love with Elgin Horner, her blond, Nordic,
football star steady from Brown University who was also graduating this
month. Kate would spend the summer at her family’s place on the beach in
upscale East Hampton, relaxing and planning her wedding.
Lane was going back to Boston, which her friends knew she was dreading. As
she put it, from the moment she got home tonight, she would spend all of her
waking hours plotting her escape. Meantime, this symbolic pre-graduation
gathering of the four longtime college friends might be the last time for a
long time that they would all be together.
“Alright, I have presents for everybody,” Trisha was saying to the others
now, taking a sip of the champagne they were sharing, even though it was
still morning.
“Oh, no, we weren’t going to do that!” Molly protested. While the other
three never lacked for money, Molly never had an extra dime. “We agreed, no
graduation presents all around--”
“This is different, Molly,” Trisha cut her off. She dropped to her knees and
fumbled about in the space beneath her bed, and came up with four large,
unwrapped cardboard boxes.
“My dad sent these for all of us,” she said, “after he heard me whining so
much about how I’m going to miss you girls.”
She handed up the boxes to each of her friends, then sat back on her bed and
held the fourth one on her lap.
“Okay, do you know what these are?” she asked then, as the others studied
the glossy green and white boxes with bold, black lettering that read ANSA-PHONE.
“Sure -- those new answering machines that you hook up to your telephone,”
Lane beamed. “My brother has one.”
“Exactly,” Trisha smiled. “Daddy says to tell you all that they have
detailed instruction pamphlets inside, and even a child can work them.”
“What about somebody who can’t do algebra?” Molly laughed.
“No excuses,” Trisha decreed. “Kate, you are not allowed to toss this in the
back of your closet for a decade!” Kate was known to procrastinate.
“I insist that we all take time out tomorrow, as soon as we’re home, before
we’re even settled, to plug these things in, okay?” Trisha went on. “Then I
expect three messages on my answering machine tomorrow, reporting that each
one of you is up and running. Got it?”
“Got it,” Molly laughed. The other two concurred. Trisha was the organizer
among them.
“Your dad’s a genius,” Kate said reverently.
“Fabulous!” Lane chimed in, as they all came together for a group hug before
each had to hustle off to finish packing and get ready for the graduation
ceremony.
“Thank you, Trisha,” Lane spoke for all of them. “Now we will never, ever
lose touch.”
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