The Glory Hand by Paul, Sharon Boorstin Page A

a cocktail party, oblivious to their children. 'When do you think was the last time any of them set foot in a bus station?'
    'When was the last time I did?'
    'Where have I failed?'
    'Face it. You raised me like a rich kid.'
    'Correction. Your mother was the one with the money. When / went to camp they picked us up in an old army truck. Marine Basic would have been cushier. Talk about tacky. We had to sleep in tents that leaked when it rained and the cook never bothered to fish the maggots out of the stew.'
    'PleaseV
    'At twenty-five bucks a summer, the price was right.'
    'Twenty-five dollars?' Cassie had seen the check he had mailed to Casmaran the week before, for fifteen hundred.
    'My folks couldn't even afford that. Camp Cottonwood -we used to call it Rottenv/ood - let me in for free.'
    'You almost sound like you wished I was going there.'
    'No. That's not it, Cassie.' His direct blue eyes concealed nothing. 'I don't want you to go. Period.' 'Dad. . .'
    i mean, it would be fine with me if you just decided to chuck it and come back to Washington. When I'm not busy we could take off, and . . .'
    'You know you're always busy with the investigation.' Her answer was the same as it had been whenever he had broached the subject. 'I'm going. Mom would have wanted me to.'
    He shook his head. 'One thing I do know - once a Cunningham woman's got her mind made up, it's better to just. . .'
    'Stay down for the count.' She smiled a little sadly. It was what he had always said when he had yielded to her mother.
    'Still,' he nodded in Runt's direction, 'I'd feel a hell of a lot better if you'd let me send him along.'
    'No way! What do you think's going to happen to me?
    Everyone up there is the kid of someone even richer and more famous than you are!'
    He laughed. 'Thanks!'
    'I'll blend in with the crowd. Really.'
    'I suppose that could be a good thing.'
    He walked over and slotted a quarter into a Coke machine. It took the coin, but denied him the bottle, and as if to express his anger at more than that petty theft, he banged the machine with his fist until finally the Coke clunked out.
    He popped it open, and when Cassie refused his offer of a sip, he nursed it philosophically, staring at the campers and their parents. 'Christ, I can't believe I'm doing this. I mean, I would have put up with staying out on the island if that's what you had wanted. Now you get it into your head that you've got to be independent, and what does it mean? I won't see you all summer.' He downed the last of the Coke and made a face, as if it were cheap whiskey.
    'Casmaran didn't do mother any harm.'
    'No. She turned out pretty damn well.' He looked at the empty bottle before he threw it away, like the last of his objections. 'I won't argue with that. But Ann went there twenty-five years ago. If you get up there and find it's a slum . . .'
    'You worry too much.' She was going to say, You worry too much, like mother used to, but stopped herself. The sadness she thought she had under control was starting to well up in her throat, and she didn't want to cry, not when she wanted him to think she had made the right decision.
    The yellow school bus with a 'Casmaran' sign in the window began to rev up, and it hit Cassie with the engine's roar - she was leaving her father for a place where she wouldn't know a soul.
    'CassieV
    A familiar figure barged through the crowd.
    'Robin!' Cassie ran over and hugged her.
    'Come on. I saved you a seat.'
    'But what . . .?'
    'You didn't expect me to stick around Nantucket after I heard where you were going . . .'
    'But how . . .?'
    'Are you kidding? My mom's been bugging me to go to Casmaran since last summer. She's been driving me out of my gourd, telling me what a great time she had.'
    'Your mother went there, too?'
    'Dahling , the girls from all the "right" families wouldn't be caught dead anywhere else.' Robin put the back of her hand against her forehead in mock agony: 'What I go through for you.'
    'I'm counting on you to keep