It was an important event at college, one of those things that came once a year and lasted all weekend. "We're all one happy family," the dean said. "Let's get to know everybody better and in that way get to understand everybody better." "Bull," one of the girls said. "They meet my old man and that'll be the end of me," another girl decided. "He hasn't been sober in the last fifteen years and he wouldn't lay off just to make a decent impression." Nobody except the dean and some of the instructors wanted parents' night. For the students it would be a dull, depressing series of cocktail parties without liquor, dry lectures, and a speech by the dean about the objectives and lofty ideals of Cooper Community College. "I'll have to get a new girdle," Evelyn Carter said. "If my mother and father get an idea that I'm pregnant they'll cut off my money." "I'd think anybody would know," Cathy Barnes said. "You bulge." "Not much." "I think you do and I've heard other people say so, too." "What other people?" "Marie Thatcher, for one." Evelyn snorted.
