Thrown for a Look cover

THROWN FOR A LOOK

Book Three of BOLSTER, NOT MOLEST HER

click here for the full-length Split Infinitive Edition

Vicki Volester and her friends, acquaintances, and enemies maneuver through punk rock, volleyball, race relations, possible diabolic possession, and their first semester of senior high school


31—Looky-Loo

Vicki's summer vacation takes several surreal turnsat the beach in Fort Lauderdale, a country club fitness center, a contentious family reunion, and especially a bombshell exposé by (and of) her sister Tricia.
    “You are not going back to the beach tonight, young lady!”
    “I wasn’t planning to, Daddy! It’s raining again.”
    (Still, if the rain should tail off…)
    Which it didn’t till next morning, at the same time and in the same way as before: after Vicki’d pulled on the mulberry maillot, grabbed a towel, strolled past the Los Vistazo pool deck and down the drive to cross the street... and set Gidget Goes to Florida back in motion. Again her flipflops touched the sand; again this caused the rain to stop and clouds to part and sun to shine through; again an invisible director cried lights! camera! action! and the throng of beach party extras sprang up with a gladsome shout. Again Vicki was encircled by her Studly Trio, for a second day of fun and frolic and funnel cakes, chase-and-catch between pelican fly-bys and warily sipped beer—till five o’clock struck and the rain resumed its descent, washing away A Whale of a Time Part II.
    Weird...

32—Downbite

Fiona Weller spends her summer vacation in the Punkamonium that is '77 on the Sunset Strip—with sidetracks into Jazz Age starlet-harlotry, and arrival at the "L" Station that has no train.
    —since this was breakneck, a plunge into the jungle, as abrupt and precipitous as the doomed plane’s to the island in Lord of the Flies
    —and here came a stormburst of shredded riffs and stompdown chords to engulf the mob and pound it with pulsing throbbing thunderbolts, galvanize it into savage tribal chants that celebrated darkness and lightning, without and within—
        FEEL THE BEAST!!  BURN YOUR THROAT!!  BOIL YOUR BLOOD!!
    —so no choice but to dance and no room to do so except by jumping up and down, as if at a demented trampoline convention (pig’s head on a pogo stick!) yet space enough for you to be swept off your feet and knocked to the floor, fearing you’d be bouncily flattened—
    —but a dozen hands promptly reached to haul you upright. Only one belonged to Rerun (who stuck so close by your side you could feel the metallic nibble of her safety pins) and one each to Tawdry Meadows and Shudder Bugge (who honed in on you unerringly through the Whisky crush) but the others belonged to stranger-neighbors, unknown friends; and when they too took tumbles, you in turn reached and helped with their uprighting. It might be a savage mob, yet not a brutal one; no biting, no mauling, no tearing with teeth or claws. However...

33—A Pitcher of Gossipade

Laurie Harrison (everybody's favorite blabberyap) spends a rainy summer day watching her entire life unreel before her tearful eyes.
    ...so hitch the sarong-towel more snugly under your armpits and trudge upstairs, remembering the “Tropic Island Cruise” costumes at last May’s Cicada Dance, and how Kim Zimmer’s had fallen off when she’d tried to hang herself afterward. Now there was talk that the Zimmers had separated and left Vanderlund, neither parent wanting custody of poor Kim, which in spite of all the mean things she’d said and done to you was a terrible thing to contemplate—
    —but nowhere near one-hundredth as bad as entering your own personal private bedroom wearing just a couple of wet towels to find your own little sister making out with Patrick Baxter while both were stretched out on Susie’s mattress WITH NOTHING ON ABOVE EITHER ONE’S WAIST—
    Laurie let out a scream that set the Clevinger sheepdogs to barking and Susie to saying “Can’t you knock first?” and Patrick to going “All riiiight!” at the sight of so much Laurie in so little covering, for which topless Susie slapped his face just hard enough to leave no doubt that no ménage à trois would be taking place here or anywhere, now or ever...

34—The Vhite House

Their bunch fragmented by unfeeling schedulers, Vicki & Co. face the First Day at venerable Vanderlund Township High School—where they are joined by a standout dash of color. 
    “We’re going to have so much fun! This is going to be the time of our lives!”
    And other axioms to similar effect. Leave it to Alex to associate so much fun with going to school—especially the First Day at a new (Joss would say old, old) school.
    The Big Green Limousine, mercifully on time, trundled into view; as did a figure racing up the sidewalk alongside it. This enlarged to a cobalt skimmer containing a young black female who clearly wasn’t cut out for cross country. “Running like a girl,” as an epithet, might be hotly resentable; but seemed apt for the ladylike flaps and flails propelling this latecomer and threatening to lose one or both of her shoes, if not the satchel jangling dangerously from its shoulderstrap.
devil with a blue dress blue dress blue dress
devil with a blue dress on
echoed in Vicki’s brain for no good reason, as she raised a hand in what she hoped would be taken as reassuring encouragement...

35—Vo-Dee-Oh-Doe

Vicki, somewhat against her will, joins the JV volleyball team and attracts attention from both a fast-talking madcap and a vengeful identity-confuser.
    —wha’?
    (we now rejoin this program already in progress)
    Hands up to block the incoming torpedo… no longer in flight. Hands taken and squeezed by teammates on either side… of a really weird perspective.
     Are you lying (or is it laying?) on the floor? With Coach Celeste pressing a chilly something to your nose? If it’s smelling salts, it’s (or is it they’re?) not doing its/their job: your nose feels completely stifled. And the wrong size. And the wrong shape. And so hot it authenticates you as a Broil. And IN PAIN
     —Marcia-Marcia-Marcia “Oh my nose!!” PAIN
    —that’s in no way lessened by Celeste saying “Tell me your name.”
    —OhmyGahd don’t you know me? Did I trip and stumble into the Twilight Zone?...

36—Una Gran Mano Para La Pequeña Dama

Vicki and Laurie each have to deal with impairments of their capabilities, on and off the volleyball court and at the hands of Dennis Desmond; while Fiona seeks professional (mercenary) retribution.
    Vicki instinctively executed an upright reverse dig-and-roll, overturning her popcorn tub and Filbert’s root beer as she wound up at arm’s length but with its end still clamped snakelike around her wrist as Dennis flung the driver’s door open:
    “Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume! Off, off your lendings! Come unbutton here! Naked as jaybirds shall we dance the night away, and not go to bed till noon!”
     Springing backwards into the deluge, he was promptly engulfed: fair hair turning sodden green in the murky neon, face bone-white in a fresh FLASH of fulguration, wide bright Joker-teeth all a-slaver...

37—After School Specials

Vicki's presence is requested by three different girls on three consecutive afternoons, for artistic/neurotic/disclosive purposes.
    For a minute they sat listening to the familiar lickety-click of public transit in motion. Then, just loudly enough to be heard, Is said: “When I was little, Mauly’d tell me the noise a train makes is really chains being dragged by the ghosts of everyone who’d ever ridden it—and are still riding it, there beside us. Not friendly ghosts like Casper, but zombie vampires that crawl inside your head through your mouth and nostrils and earholes, to suck your brains out while you sleep.”
    “,,,well, y’know, big sisters,,,”
    “Then she’d hide under my bed and make sucking sounds. Night after night. ‘Cause I’d scream every time…”

38—Shade Air

Vernonique Smith unburdens herself of a story (in G Minor) about what she'd gone through before coming to Vanderlund, and what she was up against now.as a New (Black) Girl in the 'Burb.
    So Nonique finished that First Day of New School feeling miserable, and ever more so during her solitary walk “home” from the bus stop—solitary as in the only brownskinned person visible on the length and breadth of Kessell Road.  True, no Caucasian accosted her by word or glance; but all the other really fine places along both sides of that lilywhite street sounded the same challenges as the Rented House’s interior:
     Who are you?  What do you think you’re doing here?  State your business.  Show some ID.  Servant’s entrance is through the REAR door.  No excuse for failure to wear a maid’s uniform.  How long before you turn tail and go the hell back where you came from?...

39—Soph Wars

Vicki and her fellow sophomores contend with the drive to revive Vanderlund's semi-sorority literary societies, while Laurie Harrison faces an intervention and Gigi Pyle contemplates a controlled substance.
    An antique looking-glass such as Alice might’ve gone through is removed from the wall.  No combination safe behind it, but a small white envelope tucked inside the frame.  Jive lays out its contents on the flattened mirror and wields a razor blade while your heartbeat reverberates faster and faster and you take hold of your wet skirt so as not to reach for Britt’s hand like a scared baby but she leans over like she does at school to let you know “(Your troubles’ll melt like lemondrops, ‘cause you’ll be away above the chimneytops...)”

40—International House of Punkettes

Bunty O'Toole, Vanderlund's notorious teen girl mob boss, seeks a way to tap into a rival's illicit trafficking—and finds an unexpected means of doing so.
    Then falcon-eyes raked the Sister Dopesters like talons feinting at a pair of sparrows.  I am a predator, they were reminded.  You two could be prey at any time, any day.  Nothing personal—strictly business.  Be aware of that.
    And with no further word or glance, a Very Dangerous Person took her leave...

41—Nevermore to Roam

Vanderlund's Spirit Week culminates in a Homecoming parade, game, and dance, as well as Vicki's reunion with an unlit old flame: much of which is observed from the peculiar POV of Spacyjane Groh.
    “I can’t find Tony,” she gulped.  “I don’t think he’s here and he didn’t call before I left so maybe he’s just late but what if he isn’t coming like he didn’t to the track meet last spring but at least then he had the decency to say so and tell me ‘cause it really is getting stood up if he didn’t even bother to do that ‘cept I don’t feel ‘stood up’ (gulp) I feel knocked flat like at that dumb old volleyball match I didn’t even want to play in and why does this keep happening to me again and again, Space?  It’s not fair, it really truly isn’t…”

42—Eraserlip

Vicki negotiates her way through unwelcome revelations and romantic complications (her own and other people's) while Latter-Day Laurie, on behalf of Bunty O'Toole's crew, infiltrates the snowbound Traverser cult.
    One weirdo is obviously a teen witch, and not named Sabrina either.  Instead of a platinum bubble cut her hair is lank and stringy, and in place of a broomstick she clasps an ornate leatherbound book (obviously of sorceress incantations) whose occult gravity has shriveled her down to skin and bones.  This is Linda (spelled L‑Y‑N‑N‑D‑H‑A) who takes it upon her rigid dogmatic self to present you to her companion guru.  This appears to be a homeless young hobo given charitable shelter and cleanish dryish clothes, though he could do with a shampoo and shave and twelve-step program.  (He’s devoidly absorbed in an unseeable movie on the projection room’s blank screen...)

43—Wintersault

Gigi Pyle falls into the clutches of Dennis Desmond while Laurie plays hostess to the Mostest, Fiona has a reunion with a fugitive from the Sunset Strip, and Vicki goes on a "four-timing" date with Tony Pierro.
   “I told you, didn’t I, that Petty Hills took him on regular-parttime after the Brawl?  So he called me last night to say he’d put in so many hours they were giving him tomorrow night off, and he’s got money in his pocket again and his self-respect back so finally it’s time for us to go on our First Real Date, right?  Just the two of us, him ‘n’ me, ‘a night out by ourselves’ like he promised, right?  HA!  He takes it for granted we’re gonna double with Buddy ‘n’ Junior again ‘n’ when I go ‘But—but—but—’ he goes ‘I thought you liiiiked them’ ‘n’ ‘Bud’s my best friennnnd’ which he sure wasn’t during the Trial last spring ‘cause Buddy didn’t excuse himself off Tony’s jury so don’t ask me when they got so palsy-walsy he’d rather hang out with him and his girlfriend instead of just me just for once ‘n’ I’ve got a good mind to stand HIM the hell up once ‘n’ for all, except… I really do want him as a boyfriend, if he’d behave like one for a single solitary night, is that so awfully much to ask for??...   

44—Duck Shutters

Nonique wrestles with a shadow overclouding her mind; Laurie grapples with the demands of Mostest-hosting; and Vicki, attending a masquerade ball, confronts nightmares from her past in the costumed flesh.
   …you both tumble over Freeze’s writhing legs and land with Batgirl on her back you prone on top and the raygun between you like a barbell she bearing up on it you bearing down more weight! more weight! the raygun making occasional b‑z‑z‑z‑z‑es and a gray mist slowly rising but not so foggily that you can’t peer through the cowlsockets below you to the fastbatting eyes which aren’t gaslight-blue like Britt’s nor gorgon-green like Kinks’s but deep dark brown like a newly-dug grave filled with furious violent hate—they’re the Mad Man’s! out to get away with murder! and there’s nowhere to hide or take off running for and just like Tricia’d predicted long ago your Gardening Angel will come too late to save you from hideous destruction nothing will be left but a few bloody bones—