Lunatic Fringe Read Online Free PDF Page B

restraint and become the kind of man who fought
for what was his. Though Summer never belonged to him, Lexie would
have liked to believe that her mother belonged to her, and that
Lexie was worth fighting for, or at least sticking around
for.
    Turning the corner onto Umpqua Road,
Lexie spotted the massive Victorian house that belonged to the
Pack. Or rather, she heard it: laughter, conversation and music
stacked in layers on top of one another, like hastily shuffled
cards. As she approached the house, she saw that it edged up onto
the forest. Between the deck and the tree line, a couple dozen
women milled about on the grass, lounged in lawn chairs, and picked
over folding tables that held platters of food.
    Sunshine filtered through towering
storm clouds, shaped and reshaped by an autumnal breeze. A fire pit
sat at the far edge of the lawn, the A-frame of fresh, dry logs
waiting for dusk and their chance to shine. Beyond the pit, a worn
path led into the woods. Lexie scanned the crowd for familiar faces
until she spotted Mitch manning--womaning?--the barbecue. Her
dimples flashed as she flipped burgers and spun spatulas like a
juggler in a gustatory vaudeville act.
    A warm hand enveloped Lexie’s shoulder
from behind. Blythe smiled as she leaned forward, icicles of blond
hair falling softly against the frames of her glasses. The lenses
glinted in the storm-filtered sunlight.
    “ Lexie, I’m glad you came.”
Blythe reached around her chest for a hug. Blythe’s beer, cold and
wet, skimmed Lexie’s arm as she pulled away.
    “ I’ll introduce you
around,” Blythe said, looking along Lexie’s gaze to the groupings
of women dotted across the lawn. “But first, what do you want to
drink?”
    Lexie pointed at the beer bottle that
had pressed cold against her skin. “That works for me.” Blythe gave
her shoulder a squeeze of acknowledgement and strode off into the
crowd.
    With Blythe distracted,
Lexie resumed her scan of the faces at the party. Hazel, wearing
nothing but a smile, bounced in a steaming hot tub, dazzling the
two blushing, swimsuit-clad freshmen with her. Mitch flirted with a
pretty brunette who held an empty plate at the barbecue. All
through the yard, girls lounged, eating food from each other’s
plates and laughing. Looking at all these women, Lexie was
astonished to realize that there were no men there at all. Lexie
hadn’t been expecting, nor hoping, to meet men, but she had never
been in a space without male presence, either real or implied. None
of the conversations she overheard involved boyfriends or male
crushes; no one even referenced male professors, even in dry
complaint. There was a significant lack of regard for, or even
attention to, malekind. Lexie wondered if this was by design, or if
it was just a natural side effect of having so many women in one
space. Out of sight, out of
mind , she guessed.
    How strange that, in all
her eighteen years on the planet, she had never been among a group
of people in which there wasn’t at least one man. Well, there were
public restrooms, of course, but that was circumstantial and so
fleeting as to be meaningless. Having a single father didn’t help.
Lexie had been raised in a world in which men were everywhere,
their presence nearly inescapable, while nearly devoid of the
presence of women. She had never been invited to a slumber party--
though she would have invented an excuse to say no even if she had
been; there weren’t even locker rooms in her high school. Where she
came from, women did not lead book clubs or athletic teams, stage
all-female versions of Hamlet , or organize all-women’s
canoeing trips. She was never even a Girl Scout, a fact she took
pride in: her father had taught her to be a better outdoorsman than
those cookie-hockers ever would, merit badges be damned.
    “ Hey there.” Lexie turned.
A tall woman held a celery stick like a cigarette. She nibbled at
the ends as she spoke, her voice low and even, as though she had
plenty of time