I hate Astrid Fry.

On this point, if you believe nothing else, make no mistake:  I hate Astrid Fry.

Have I always hated Astride Fry?  Indeed I always have.

Will I always hate Astrid Fry?  Indeed I always will.

I shall hate Astrid Fry until the day I die.  Actually, that's not correct.  I shall hate Astrid Fry until Old Sparkie has his way with her.  And so Florida's electric chair will, have its way with Astrid Fry.  Just one week from today.  Zap-zap-zap and no more Astrid Fry.

But, I do get ahead of myself.  My Daddy always said:  “Enid, start at the beginning. If y'all got somethin' to say, then start at the beginning.”

And so, I shall.

The beginning, as far as my hating Astrid Fry is concerned, occurred at the 1956 Spring Fling on Harbor Beach in Ft. Lauderdale.  Harbor Beach was a place on the sand where all the good families in my childhood neighborhood regularly recreated.  Harbor Beach is, above all, a nice place for good people.

The Spring Fling is still an event, a get together for high school students, that includes an evening picnic supper, dancing on the beach under the stars and a marvelous bonfire struck up right at midnight.  The Fling started in 1950 and has continued for thirty years ever since.  In fact, The Fling was held just Saturday a week ago.

You see, in 1956 I was a Senior at Sacred Heart Academy, which was and is the school for the well bred Catholic girls of Ft. Lauderdale.  Astrid Fry went to public school, of course.

Well naturally, I went to The Fling in '56 with my best girlfriends Peggy Hammer, Beth Carole Fitzgerald and Candy Pierce.  Candy spelled her name properly with a “y” at the end and not in slutty fashion with an “i,” lest you get the wrong idea.

The four of us – Peggy, Beth Carole, Candy and I – we all bought identical spring dresses at Litwin's, in Boca Raton, each dress a different pastel color.  Mine is tangerine.  I still have it.  The Litwin's who owned the dress shop were Jews.  With our bouffant hairdos and flattering dresses, we looked every bit like those girl singing groups that were becoming popular at the time.  But, I do get myself off track.

Beth Carole drove us all to Harbor Beach in her daddy's 1955 Cadillac, a cherry red convertible.  He was something of a cad, Beth Carole's daddy, that is.  I heard tell he smoked marijuana and had his way with Bernice Wilkenson, a divorcee who actually lived right in our very own neighborhood.  Could you just imagine?

The day was marvelous, weather wise that is.  The day The Fling in ‘56, I mean to say.  I remember the breeze . . . a nice breeze . . . a nice breeze blowing in off the water.  That nice breeze . . .

Course, in ‘56 I was pinned by Corky Hubbard, a fellow two years older and off to college at Yale University.  We'd been steady since New Years Eve when he gave me his Phi Delta Phi pin at Candy Pierce's party.

Expecting Corky to be up in New Haven, I received such a surprise when my girl friends and I pulled in to the Harbor Beach parking lot and there stood Corky Hubbard.  He'd come down from Connecticut, just for me, to be my escort to The Fling.

Now, as I'm sure you imagined, Corky Hubbard was a real looker.  Blonde hair, cut just right.  Hazel eyes.  And he ran . . . Corky ran and ran all the time, to keep in good shape you understand.

Course, poor Corky Hubbard . . . poor Corky, he was found dead not a day after the Fling in '56.  He turned up dead, under most peculiar circumstances, in a ditch off the Intercoastal Highway just north of the city.  His pants, they were missing.

Naturally, I was crushed by Corky's untimely passing.  That's what I called it, Corky's death, I mean.  I called it ‘his untimely missing.'”  Ladylike, don't you think?  But I do get myself off track.

I was so happy to see Corky at Harbor Beach, I was so surprised as you can imagine.  I think I must have just squealed.  My girlfriends, all three of them, they were happy for me, as you could guess.

So there we were, Corky and I, walking hand in hand across the parking lot and to the beach, my girlfriends' right behind.  Corky and I were just walking on the sand when I saw her for the very first time, Astrid Fry.

There she was, Astrid Fry, standing on Harbor Beach in a two-piece bathing suit.  And, can you imagine, that bathing suit was exactly the same color as my pretty tangerine dress.  Naturally, I hated . . . hated Astrid Fry.  Who wouldn't?

My girlfriends and I did our best to stay away from Astrid Fry.  I heard, that day, that her parents recently moved into our neighborhood, coming from Ft. Myers, can you imagine?  She was in public school, so how was I to know her anyway?

Pretty much, The Fling went along well until just after the bonfire was lit.  Corky left me, saying he was going to go get us a couple of colas.  He was a gentleman, that Corky sure was.

Corky was gone not two minutes when, of all things, Astrid Fry was standing right next to him . . . and she was talking to him.  Astrid Fry was talking to my boyfriend, standing right next to the bonfire, wearing that bathing suit that was exactly the same tangerine color as my pretty dress.

That hussy, I thought.  I wanted to staple a scarlet S – for slut – right to her forehead, right that very moment.  I surely did.  But, being the lady I am, I refused to talk to Corky Hubbard for the rest of The Fling.  Course Corky was dead not long after and in that ditch off the Intercoastal Highway and all.  So, that's too bad.  But, I do get myself off track.

So, as you can see, I hated Astrid Fry from the very start.

Summer came that year, '56 and I'd been accepted to Welsley.  My grades were wonderful, during high school, even there at the end of my senior year with that tragedy.  You know, the tragedy of Corky Hubbard ending up in that ditch.  Dead and with his pants off and all of that.

What turned out to be a true horror that summer, in 1956 . . . a true horror, I tell you. That hussy – slut, Astrid Fry, she'd been accepted to Welsley too.  And Mother . . . my mother . . . she made arrangements for Astrid Fry to be my roommate at Welsley.  Without ever asking me, Mother did such a thing.  Can you imagine?  The likes of me . . . a girl from Sacred Heart Academy . . . rooming with a hussy-slut who wore a bathing suit the same color as my pretty dress to The Fling.

But there it was.  I was all signed up to be Astrid Fry's roommate and there was nothing . . . not a thing, I tell you  . . . that I could do about it.

Course, you know, Mother died that fall . . . Fall of '56.  Just right before Thanksgiving, Mother died.  Drowned really.  I'd come home for the holiday, Thanksgiving.  Mother and I went down to Harbor beach for some sun, a swim . . . you know.

Well, I guess the current just got her . . . That's what the Broward County Sheriff's Deputy said.  Current just got her . . . the undertow, I expect.  And Mother drowned.

I carried on, though.  Yes I did.  We buried Mother, Daddy and I.  And then back to Welsley I went.  Back to Welsley and that awful Astrid Fry.

The spring of my Freshman year at Welsley was so eventful.  I had a beau, a new since what happened to Corky Hubbard and all. He was actually an associate professor at Welsley.  Yes, I suppose dating a prof is a bit naughty, but I so fell in love with Cliff.  Cliff Payne was the prof's name.

By April, Cliff and I were hardly apart, that is until my hussy-slut roommate Astrid Fry moved in.

Believe this, I tell you.  One Monday morning I walked into the student union to get a nice cup of cocoa.  Don't you just love a nice cup of cocoa?  It's just perfect, almost all the time. Well, course not in Florida.  But up north, it's nice.  In Florida hot cocoa isn't good.  But I do get myself off track, don't I so.

So, now where was I?  Oh yes, that damn hussy-slut was in the student union drinking a cup of coffee while she was talking to my fellow, my Cliff.  Can you even imagine?

Needless to say, Clifford and I were finished.   F-I-N-I-S-H-E-D. Finished!

And the time was just so awful, really you see, just two days later, Cliff was found dead as marble in his bed.  Dead as marble.  Foul play, it was suspected.  Someone somehow seemed to have gotten into Cliff's apartment in the middle of the night and slit the poor man's throat as he slept.  Can you just imagine?

Course, despite my having to break up with him because of the infidelity and all, I was so upset.  I could hardly concentrate on my studies.  But, you know, I really did fine on my examinations . . . despite all my grief and what not.

Fortunately, with my Mother dead, I did not have to live with that vile Astrid Fry my sophomore year.  I'd been accepted into a fine sorority, naturally.

Really, I must say, the rest of my life at Welsley went along perfectly.  I hardly ever laid eyes on that hussy-slut, Astrid Fry.

I ended up getting married two years after graduation, to a stock broker of all things.  John was ten years older than me but that age difference worked so well.  I have always been mature beyond my years, you see.

John and I ended up building a beautiful home along the Intercoastal Waterway.  We were so happy, as you can imagine.

Eventually, I took a position as the Director of the Broward County Homeless Shelter.  Everyone says I'm just that kind of gal, wanting to help those downtrodden people and all that, you see.  I suppose I'd been at the shelter for four or five years when hussy-slut Astrid Fry reared her floozy head again.

Astrid Fry ended up marrying Howard Phipps, you know.  And, the Phipps family owns half of Lauderdale.  Can you imagine?  That awful tramp marrying so well.  I was ill, positively ill.

Astrid Fry and her husband ended up living in a house just down from John's and mine on the Intercoastal Waterway.  I was mortified by it all, really I was.

Somewhere along the line, Astrid Fry took an interest in horses.  So, her poor husband has to buy stables west of the city where Astrid Fry can raise her bloody horses.

And that's where the police finally found the evidence, out at those stables of Astrid Fry's.

Such a small world, it is.  Don't you agree?  For six months I'd been reporting to the police regularly.  I'd been reporting regularly that this homeless person who regularly came to the shelter seemed to be unaccounted for can you imagine?

Of course, because this poor person was, you know . . . homeless, nothing much happened.  That is, nothing much happened until the police received an anonymous tip to dig around a small wooded area at Astrid Fry's stables.

Imagine what they found?  A dead body . . . the homeless person.

Course, Astrid Fry was arrested . . . that hussy-slut.  She was convicted and now that hussy-slut is going to fry, she is.

And you know what?  I'm going.  I'm going to the execution.  The dead man's family asked me to come, because I'm the Director of the Broward County Homeless Shelter and all that.

So, next week, I'm going to Astrid Fry's execution.  And do you want to know a secret?  I'm going to wear my pretty tangerine dress.