Of the three of them, only Corliss had been running the trail from the first week she had arrived. She was at Spindrift a good month before Donna and Mayfair were. On nights when they “spilled the beans” about themselves, they revealed the social reasons and the unpleasant personal events that had been the primary catalysts for their school’s guidance counselors to suggest and then find them a place at Spindrift.
It had always been difficult for each of them, indeed for everyone here at Spindrift, not to think of herself as abnormal. That was the way others their chronological ages at their former public schools thought of them. Every negative name in the book was thrown at them at one time or another. Those familiar with Star Trek called them Spocks. Others tritely referred to them as eggheads, which Merriam-Webster defined as a highly educated person who may not know much about real life, real life being a social life. Still others used meaner, crueler words.
Consequently, each of them was a loner before coming here. The social contacts they eventually had at their public schools had only led them to bigger problems.
Which students here had parents who were upset that they were no longer at home? None. After all, they had done the right thing, donating them to political, social, and scientific progress for the good of humanity. From this group of geniuses, surely there would come Nobel Prize winners. Trouble was, most of them really didn’t yet feel like winners, least of all Mayfair, who was still crawling up and out of a pit of depression and didn’t have any real ambitions for herself yet. Maybe she never would.
Lately, Corliss and Donna were competing for that unflattering honor, the honor of caring the least about her practical future or being recognized as someone special, someone important. This general lack of direction for themselves was another thing that helped them bond. They were truly “drifting” together.
The three quietly started down the circular stairway, with its polished mahogany banister and gray-carpeted steps. Spindrift was located in the Coachella Valley of Southern California, about a mile and a half outside the small city of Piñon Pine Grove, so named for the piñon pine trees that populated its borders. It was mid-April, and the lower desert was already experiencing temperatures in the mid-eighties with occasional high eighties and low nineties.
One of the problems some of the students at Spindrift worked on was the subject of climate change. Many places in the world were already experiencing unusually high temperatures, and the extended ocean warmth was creating longer and more vicious hurricanes and tornadoes. Peter Townsend, Spindrift’s current resident pessimist, whose father was a well-known weather expert at the University of Missouri, claimed the planet was already lost. Civilization was sliding toward oblivion at a rate impossible to stop.
“Why study if you can’t save it?” Mayfair asked him after he had made one of his dire comments in the science lab.
“I’m an observer. I diagnose.”
“You’re a walking microscope,” she told him. “When you look at other people, what you see is cells.”
He pulled in his face with such indignation she had to laugh. She was starting to enjoy this place, especially how she could get under the skin of some of the other drifters, who were never supposed to succumb to peer pressure.
The girls stepped out once Corliss unlocked the side door. Spindrift was located in the high desert, which fortunately provided for temperatures five to ten degrees lower than in the low desert. This morning, the Supremes would be jogging in the low sixties. There were some high clouds as well, but once they entered the heavy foliage of the surrounding forest, it would feel more like the mid-fifties.
The security guard on duty looked their way. He was a tall, lanky man with graying, thinning dark brown hair, spidery with his long arms and legs.
“I hope he’s a reader,” Donna said. “It has to be the most boring job. You can count the number of visitors, excluding teachers, on the fingers of one hand.”
“Every one of them is a retiree looking to supplement his income,” Corliss said. “My father, who, as you know, heads security at Ram Studios in Burbank, hires some for what he calls the ‘dead hours.’ ”
“You have to wonder what’s left of the self-esteem of someone like that,” Mayfair said. “A recent survey of adults by the American Psychological Association determined that self-esteem is the most important factor in happiness and well-being.”
“No wonder we’re all so unhappy,” Corliss said. They all laughed.
The security guard was still staring at them.
“Creepy,” Donna said. Corliss and Mayfair looked at her and then back at him.
“Forget it,” Mayfair said. “Dr. Marlowe surely had his DNA checked back through his great-grandparents.”
“He probably just thinks we’re all weird,” Donna said. “Maybe even aliens.”
“Aren’t we?” Corliss asked, and started for the entrance to the Darwin Trail.
Mayfair looked at Donna. “I’m not going to keep up with her.”
“Maybe she has Kenyan ancestors,” Donna said as they started out. “The combination of high-altitude training, consumption of a low-fat, high-protein diet, and expectations make them long-distance champions. It’s not simply because she’s African-American. I read Kerr’s The Myth of Racial Superiority in Sports yesterday.”
“You’re just trying to get me to run faster,” Mayfair said.
“So I am,” Donna replied, and pulled ahead.
Mayfair glanced back. The security guard had returned to his booth but still looked their way. She picked up the pace, and soon they were only six or seven feet apart.
After ten minutes of running, Mayfair had to confess to herself that she was feeling invigorated despite her attitude. She knew every aspect of the physiological changes her body was experiencing as she quickened and lengthened her stride. The cooler fresh air was sharpening all her senses. She inhaled the scent of the fresh foliage and then the heavy fragrance of pine. She could practically taste it when she opened her mouth. Small branches crackled like popcorn beneath her feet.
As the sun threaded its rays through the leaves and around the thicker, older trees, the forest seemed to awaken. She heard the mourning doves off to her left and an enthusiastic ladder-backed woodpecker to her right. Her own deep breathing resonated in her ears, as did the trailing sound of a fighter jet leaving the Palm Springs airport and then booming above them. Reluctantly, Mayfair admitted to herself that she liked being away from all the urban static. She was obviously not the only one.
Corliss, who had grown up in the urban jungle of Los Angeles, truly seemed to undergo a metamorphosis in nature. She took longer strides, seeming to float over the dark earth, fairylike.
“She looks like she sprang wings,” Donna called back.
“Yes,” Mayfair said. This was crazy, but her new girlfriends’ energy spurred on her own, and she found the urge to run faster. If only her stepmother could see her now, she thought, and smiled to herself at her envisioned look of shock and disgust. Sweat? Ugh. You could ruin your makeup.
They all slowed at a turn that soon opened to a short incline. Coming down from it, they had to slow and be careful because of the small area of rocks. They hit another straightaway and sped up and then came to another turn, descended, and went up another short incline that dropped into another turn. When Donna and Mayfair completed it, they stopped.
Corliss had already stopped. She was standing there, barely breathing hard, and staring at something.
“What’s happening?” Donna said. “I was just getting into it.”
“Check out the bottom of the fence at around one o’clock,” Corliss said, nodding in the direction she was looking.
Both girls joined her and looked.
“How did you spot that?” Mayfair asked.
“I saw a small coyote go under and charge over the hill.”
“That’s man-made for sure,” Donna said.
Corliss looked at her, nodded, and started through the brush to
ward the fence. The other two girls followed. It was clear to all of them that someone had dug a deep, wide path under the fence to either get out or get in.
“Shall we?” Corliss asked them.
Donna looked around.
“Stop worrying, Donna. We’re too deep in for the security cameras to pick us up,” Mayfair said.
“It’s still a serious violation,” Donna said. “Going off property without written permission.”
“Going off property? Sounds like Daddy’s talking,” Mayfair said.
Donna stepped back indignantly. “Excuse me?”
“Serious violation? Please. Spare me,” Mayfair said.
“Well, it is, isn’t it?” Donna asked Corliss.
“I’d just like to see where it goes, why someone would dig here, and what’s to see beyond that hill,” Corliss said, nodding at the incline just a dozen or so yards from the fence. She knelt and studied the ditch. “This isn’t recently done. See these roots? New extensions.” She looked to her left at the large red maple tree. “Red maples have thick, strong roots that grow near or above the surface of the soil, but this took some time.”
“Let’s go through,” Mayfair said.
“Donna?”
“I think we’d all feel better if we did it together,” Mayfair added quickly.
Donna looked back.
“We weren’t followed, Donna,” Corliss said. “Mayfairy is right. Stop worrying so much.”
“Okay, okay.”
Corliss moved first, slithering under the fence as carefully as she could, and then stood up on the other side and smiled back at them.
“The air is different here,” she joked.
Mayfair laughed and followed. They waited for Donna, and then all three started for the top of the rise. When they got there, they realized they were looking down at the village of Piñon Pine. There was a clearly worked pathway down the slope, leading off toward what looked like the rear of a large, U-shaped mall.
“Little less than a mile, I’d say,” Corliss said.
“Someone from there went through all this trouble to invade Spindrift?” Mayfair wondered aloud.
The girls stared down at the community below. It was as if they were looking at another planet with an alien population.
“Invade?” Donna said. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, wouldn’t you say?”
“You pointed it out first, Donna. We’re off-limits, aren’t we?” Corliss said. “For us, mingling with mere humans is another one of your serious violations, social problems for us, and for them it will be . . .” She ran her right forefinger across her throat.
Mayfair laughed.
“Not me,” Donna said sharply. “It wasn’t always a problem for me.”
“But it was big enough at least once to get you a first-class ticket here,” Corliss reminded her.
Donna looked back. “We’d better return before someone sees us. Someone else could have decided to jog this morning,” she quickly added.
Neither Corliss nor Mayfair moved.
“You do remember that if we are expelled from here, our families lose whatever money they invested in our education. My parents worked very hard to save for my future.”
Corliss turned to her. “I’m here on a full scholarship, but it would not please my parents, either.”
“My stepmother would be devastated. She finally got rid of me, and here I am being sent back,” Mayfair said. “I could be tried at least for involuntary manslaughter when she died from the sight of me.”
“Still,” Corliss said, “it’s tantalizing, isn’t it? The possibility of meeting average, normal people our age again, and secretly. I love secretly.”
The three stared in silence at the community below, a toy world, so close and yet so far.
“I’m going back,” Donna suddenly said sharply, then turned and hurried toward the fence and the ditch.
Corliss watched her. Mayfair continued to stare at what had quickly become the Forbidden Village.
“Let’s finish the trail,” Corliss said. “Come on, before she uses us as an excuse and turns back.”
“Not the worst idea I’ve heard this morning,” Mayfair said.
They caught up to Donna, who was slipping under the fence.
“Maybe we should report this,” Donna said from the other side.
“Don’t you dare,” Corliss said. “This is our secret.”
“I don’t want Marlowe to think we dug it,” Donna said.
Corliss and Mayfair slipped under.
“Like I said, it had to have been dug a while back, certainly before we arrived. Get real. Marlowe would realize that.”
Donna looked down at it.
“It’s not a grave,” Mayfair said. “Stop fixating on it. Unless it calls to you and fills your mind with wonderful sexual possibilities.”
Corliss laughed.
“Oh, you’re so funny,” Donna said.
“Let’s go, wimps,” Corliss declared. “Don’t look at this as an excuse to abort the jog.” She hurried back to the trail and continued.
“I’m envisioning breakfast,” Mayfair said, and hurried after her.
Donna suddenly became the slowest of the three. It was as if she wasn’t in a rush to get back.
After all, something new had been added to Spindrift: fear of what awaited them on the other side of that hole.
2
Dr. Jessie Marlowe stood in the cafeteria doorway and keenly observed some of her student population getting their breakfast. How they interrelated with one another was always of interest. Her expertise was in child psychology. It was mainly why the board of directors had chosen her to oversee this institution.
The three whom she knew had been tagged the Supremes by the others entered. She was aware that they had gone on a morning run. They looked revitalized. Maybe the other students would see and decide to engage in more physical pursuits. That was always a concern. It was why she insisted that Carl Morton do his lecture on what had become known as the Athens and Sparta syndrome. Besides, she thought it was mentally healthy for them to care about their bodies as well as their minds. She had no expectation of turning any of them into what even they referred to in group therapy with Dr. Lester as “normal, more well-rounded people,” but she wanted them to at least be concerned about physical fitness.
When they finally left Spindrift, they would have to live in the “outside world” and learn how to integrate, have romances, and perhaps marry and have children, although the success rates for that sort of lifestyle were not very high for these unique young people. She was continually looking for ways to improve their social skills. Sports was one pathway to that. However, few had participated in extracurricular activities in their previous schools, and there were no clubs or teams here. They didn’t put on plays or hold dances. Even birthday parties were rare, because the individuals sometimes refused to be so honored.
The Supremes got their food and sat at their own table. Rarely did any of the others join them. But it was also true that none of the other twelve had formed close relationships with anyone else to the extent that they ate together regularly. These three were somewhat different, and they recognized that difference in themselves. In fact, she thought they feathered it. She wondered if that was good. It did keep them from socializing with others, and others seemed to avoid them. There was good reason to observe them more. There was truly something special about them in the midst of very special young people as it was.
She approached them when they sat and began eating breakfast.
“How was your run, girls?”
The three paused and looked at her and then at one another, as if they couldn’t decide which one of them should respond.
Corliss finally did. “Stimulating,” she said.
“Fascinating,” Mayfair added.
Donna remained silent.
“I wish you would spread the word a bit,” Jessie Marlowe said, looking at the other students. “Most are not doing much in th
e way of physical activity. For some, it’s like pulling teeth to jog like you just did or even to do some yoga, and I can count on the fingers of one hand how many have even tried swimming in our beautiful pool.”
“Perhaps it’s wrong for you not to make some so-called ordinary things mandatory,” Mayfair said. “Unless this whole thing about the importance of the physical is just lip service to please the board of directors.”
Jessie Marlowe didn’t even wince. Caustic comments were common for the students she oversaw here. None was shy about expressing their opinions, and for most, hurting someone’s feelings with a statement of fact was not even a consideration for a bad conscience. The ones who didn’t express their opinions weren’t being considerate, either; they were basically saying they didn’t think you were worthy of them. You could almost smell the arrogance in the rooms and hallways.
“I’m toying with that idea,” she replied.
“Just add it to your list of serious violations,” Mayfair continued. “ ‘Going two days without any physical activity such as swimming, jogging, or exercising under one of the programs outlined is forbidden.’ ” She glanced at Donna, who quickly looked away.
“Why don’t you write it up for me, and I’ll consider it?” Jessie Marlowe said.
“Surely you can write that up for yourself, Dr. Marlowe,” Mayfair replied.
“I’ll do it if you like,” Donna said quickly.
“Thank you, Donna. I appreciate it when any of you volunteer to do something for the good of Spindrift. We all need to expand beyond ourselves.”
“ ‘I am a part of all that I have met,’ ” Mayfair quoted from Tennyson’s poem Ulysses. “By definition, we expand beyond ourselves every moment we are alive.”
Dr. Marlowe smiled and swallowed back her pang of annoyance. Such condescension stung. She did, however, take a deep breath. “I agree,” she said, hiding her true feelings. “We simply have to show it so others will appreciate it even more. Enjoy the remainder of your day, girls. And thank you again, Donna.” She walked to another table.