None of us would tolerate any sort of arrogance or attitude that some with money liked to wield like a club. We were excited by a bargain, and would only tell the price of something if the telling revealed some remarkable find for a dollar. If Anarkali wanted to spring for tickets to Tortola or London, I would accept her spending her father's bottomless expense account without guilt, and I would spring for food and cabs, etc. with my more modest wallet. We were NOT the types to buy Dom by the case, and saw that as a good example of flash gone wrong.
Margaret's house was within a determined walking distance from the Bryn Mawr campus, but having risked the winding, sidewalk lacking speedway to get there, one walk was enough. The house was a huge, dark-stone-with-much-glass, 1950s Moderne home. Set back on wooded acreage, it's size was deceptive from a distance. The back of the house was multi leveled, with a large, heated pool and cabana houses. The heart of the house was a room that had been designed around a famous British painting that her grandfather had bought at Christie's 50 years earlier. A colossal, Near East Romantic Period nude with a Souave in the background, menacing anyone who would look upon her with his scimitar, the painting was impossible not to look at or be aware of when in the room, impossible not to anticipate when heading towards the room.
They called that room the parlor. We called it the Orientale room, said with a grin. The room was an odd, dark 50s reinterpretation of 1870s Near East Romanticism. The furnishings were 80s; gigantic, broad, square, cushy divans (with tassles added in a nod to their surroundings) around a huge, square coffee table. Though the heart of the house, this room was isolated enough to feel secure in.
Margaret was tall and slender, and dressed in a casual, scrumpled lineny way that often completely hid the fact that she was so striking when naked. Her hair was a mess, and she often wore it with two rolled scarves, one just above her scalp and another gathering the hair a little further on. The effect, to me, was like the Bride of Frankenstein, except dusty red and without the wavy white stripe. On formal occassions, she would spend hours turning it into cascades of very long, oiled coils (say that three times, drunk!) or staightening it into some remarkably scaled chignon, sort of society meets the B52s. Margaret had beautiful skin, freckled, which she had to maintain with various unguents, which we all were happy to rub in at any time.
Annie, Jo, Anarkali and I would meet at Margaret's at least once every week. We'd cook a great meal, drink, and break off into comfy chairs to study. Sometimes that was all there was to an evening, and that was fine. But as often as not, after we all felt like we'd gotten enough done to maintain our self respect as hard working students, we would undress and put on one of Margaret's collection of over the top vintage robes, and one by one we would all settle into the Orientale room for tales of adventures and misadventures, and, if our drinking carried us that way, the occasional grown up version of truth or dare. This was usually some challenge to some sort of public display of sex, usually between myself and Anarkali, or between Jo and Annie. Margaret remained a wild card in all this, which kept us all guessing.
It took us a few months to be this comfortable and out in the open about sex, but once we arrived at this point, it was if we owned a remarkable game which the rest of the world hadn't figured out yet.
