Free Weekend by Andrew Neiderman, Tania Grossinger

women that her friends at work liked to call “on the make.” Being aggressive was foreign to her personality and it certainly didn’t help when a girl at the next desk told her the day before, “The Congress is such a meat market. Everyone out to try before they buy, looking for the best piece.” It was definitely not Fern’s style. The not unattractive, but certainly not striking, blond preferred dealing with men on a one to one basis. To be just a face in a crowd, to have to be so competitive …
    Charlotte pulled out her compact and took one last look before the bus pulled in. Not bad, she thought, not bad at all. A little more tan would have helped, but a few hours at the pool would rectify that in no time. She tipped the mirror slightly so her bosom was reflected. Her breasts protruded evenly, the Bali’s wireframe making her look bigger than she was. That’s fair play up here, she thought. She’d take all the help she could get.
    Fern watched her girl friend inspect herself. Despite the act Charlotte put on, always the girl with the quip, a laugh a minute, Fern knew she was deadly serious about finding a man. It was the most important thing in her life.
    “Watch your step, everybody, watch your step,” the driver sing-songed as he opened the exit door. “The bellhops will take your tagged luggage to the lobby so you can go directly to the registration desk and get your room assignments.”
    Charlotte followed Fern down the steps. “I don’t see him,” she said.
    “Who?”
    “My Don Juan. I thought I’d step off the bus and fall right into his arms. My mother promised it would happen like that this time.”
    “So much for mother always being right,” Fern said, feeling not a bit unlike Daniel getting ready to enter the lion’s den. “Well, here goes nothing!”
    They headed through the main door and for a few minutes, simply stood in the lobby taking in the scene. At the top of the stairway to the right, large billboards featuring the faces of entertainers were hung just above the round double doors that led toward the nightclub. From their perspective, Charlotte and Fern could make out that Buddy Hackett and Alan King would be featured Saturday and Sunday nights.
    Things had quieted down quite a bit at the reservations counter. What an hour ago had seemed an impossibility, that the right people would get their right keys and right luggage to their right room, had actually come to pass.
    Early check-ins had already changed into their resort outfits—women dressed in colorful cotton blouses and pedal pushers and men strutting around in brightly designed shirts to match their plaid or striped bermuda shorts. Some of their kids ran around wearing polo shirts with the name “Congress” emblazoned across the chest.
    A gust of cool air swept across their faces. Fern brushed back her bangs and looked around for the source. Air-conditioning came out through vents carefully hidden in the wall paneling. It was part of the hotel’s unique heating system that permitted cool air to circulate through the ducts in the summer and hot air in the winter. They were about to move forward when a bellhop turned his cart too sharply and spilled half a dozen pieces of luggage on the floor. A number of people began clapping and shouting
Mazel Tov
, all to the extreme embarrassment of the bellhop who worked frantically to right the cart and restack the luggage.
    “Let’s get going,” Fern said, “before we get run down. It would be a heck of a way to start a holiday.”
    “You’re right. We’ll check in, change and go straight to the pool. And don’t forget, if any strange men approach you, be grateful.”
    “I’m a strange man,” Manny Goldberg said, overhearing her last words. He had just come out of the Flamingo Room and was headed for some fresh air. The ever present cigar twirled in his mouth as he rolled the end of it with his tongue. Saliva formed disgustingly at the corners of his lips. Charlotte moved