of childhood, the credulity. But at the time she had no perspective. She believed in the danger, and for weeks after that she had nightmares about the pigs looming and grunting over her. They'd be trotting past, back and forth, and then all of a sudden one would notice her and start to squeal. Mud sharks, that's what pigs seemed like to her. So the sounds she heard from Lissy and Lanny, they weren't erotic, they were disgusting and, when she admitted it to herself, terrifying.
But tonight was the last straw. Lissy wasn't even bothering to paraphrase now. She had taken Sylvie's old paper on the system of filing active documents during World War II - her senior thesis, for heaven's sake - and turned it in for a history class. She probably thought it was safe because Sylvie was in library science, not history, but there was a history professor on her evaluating committee and the paper was on an eccentric enough topic that it would be remembered. She had to find out if Lissy had already turned the paper in. If she had, then she had to withdraw it. If she hadn't, then she could take the incomplete and write another. That was it. There would be no compromise, no sweet-talking, no tears that could soften the hardest heart. It's not my heart that's hard, anyway, thought Sylvie. It's hers. Having no concern for what she's doing to me, the risks she's making me take against my will. My whole future down the toilet. She can marry Lanny, but my career is all I've got. My education and my career.
Midway down the tunnel, in the level stretch, Lissy had her candles lit, four of them, perched up on the two stone walls that lined the tunnel. She was alone, lying on a dirty old mattress, wearing only a t-shirt. Hadn't she worn more than this to come down here? But there were no other clothes visible. The things Lissy did when she was high.
"You missed the party," said Lissy. She started to laugh.
Don listened to the story, liking Lissy less and less - but how else could Sylvie tell the story? Turn the girl into a saint or something? Still, he believed her. Believed her, but also hated hearing the tale. He didn't need another dark story wrenched out of somebody's humid conscience.
"I confronted her about cheating," Sylvie said. "About how she had no right to put my whole life at risk, everything I worked for... I got emotional. That never worked with her, but I couldn't help it."
"Lighten up, Sylvie," Lissy said lazily. "You take it all too seriously." She settled back down on the mattress as if she meant to go to sleep.
Sylvie was used to Lissy's selfishness. It used to be that was part of her charm. Her unconcern, her childlike innocence of the complicated moral questions that plagued more responsible people - Sylvie used to admire it, back before they lived together. Used to laugh with Lissy about some fretful teacher or heartbroken ex-boyfriend. "Why do they have to get so intense?" Lissy would always ask.
Well, now Sylvie knew. They got intense because Lissy was so destructive. She wasn't childlike, she was devilish. Because she knew exactly what she was doing. She enjoyed it. Sylvie understood that now. Lissy had used Sylvie's senior thesis, not because she didn't know the harm it could cause, but because she did know. She liked the risk. She loved dragging Sylvie into it.
"You've got to live more on the edge," that's what Lissy always said. But Lissy herself, she never seemed to get near the edge. She lived on other people's edges. And when they fell off, she'd admire how pretty they looked as they fell.
So Sylvie lost it. She'd spent her life being quiet and well-mannered. She had to, with no parents to look out for her. If she pushed people, they slapped her down. But if she was quiet and endured all things patiently, yes, they took advantage of her, but they also tolerated her. Didn't throw her out. Let her stay in places where they didn't really want her. That strategy had suited her fine, for many years, until Lissy. Quiet endurance was over.
Sylvie had slid down the furnace and was sitting on the floor, her toes pressed against the basement wall. She didn't look at Don as she told her story.
"I screamed at her and finally she sobered up enough to scream back at