Our theater club was small and amateurish – it was an engineering school, after all – but the core group was close. We were annoyingly involved with each other – all of our dating relationships came back to other people in the circle, and everyone pretty freely fucked everyone else.
In the fall of that senior year, the club decided to go to Chicago to see a show. My friend was able to hook us up with rooms in a Hilton in downtown Chicago. He hooked us up with two heavily discounted adjoining suites, each of which had a bedroom and living room area – we planned to sleep two to a bed, making 8 total spots, but only 6 people joined our little cabal, the rest – about 12, I think – opting to stay a few floors down in standard rooms. Their loss, our gain…
We drove up in a pair of vans provided by the college, one driven by a Mr. Mach, another driven by a Mrs. Mach, or “Kitty”, a young married couple who worked in the theater managing booking and finances. I was in Mrs. Mach’s van, which I did not mind – she was a gorgeous petite woman with auburn hair who didn’t seem to have let go of her college days. There were always rumors about her going around the school, and they were… Fun.