Catherine House

by Elisabeth Thomas

  Anna examined her cuticles. “This was all your plan, wasn’t it?”

  Theo held an affronted hand to his chest. “Me? I just made the cake.”

  “Excuse you,” Nick said.

  “Helped make the cake.”

  The cake, a mess of gloppy frosting and rainbow sprinkles, was stationed on the tea table. I now saw that Theo and Nick were covered with flour.

  “I think you’re wanted in the bridal suite,” Anna said, poking me. “She’s been calling for you all afternoon.”

  “The bridal suite?”

  She nodded at the door to the bathroom.

  I found Yaya leaning over the sink, eyes widened as she swiped on mascara. Her dress, a short white pouf made of tulle and sateen with a plastic lace collar and sleeves, fell open to the small of her back; she hadn’t been able to reach the line of buttons. A teacup full of pink wine sat on the toilet tank.

  “Oh, there you are,” Yaya said, glancing at me in the mirror. “Close the door, quick. Can you do me up?”

  I buttoned the dress, then sat on the toilet. “How long have you been planning this?”

  “Oh, since about two, three in the morning. Last night.”

  “That’s when you found the dress.”

  She twirled, hands arched back to keep makeup off the sateen. It shimmered. “Do you die?”

  “Yes.”

  She bent closer to the mirror. “I have to share the most wonderful gossip with you,” she said. “Do you remember Deandra? That nasty little second-year with the perfectly enormous breasts? Well. She won’t be around much longer. She got knocked up.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. By some idiot first-year who’s also getting kicked out. She tried to cover it up, but the doctor found it, and that’s that. Yesterday, when you were at work, they came for her in the great hall and she started screaming like a demon. It was spectacular. Made me like her a lot more. Anyway, I’ve just been dying to tell you.” She reached the blush. “My dear, what reading have you prepared for the ceremony?”

  “A poem,” I said.

  “What poem?”

  “‘The Charge of the Light Brigade.’”

  “Do you have it memorized?”

  “No.”

  “I guess that’s okay.” She smiled wisely into the mirror. “On such a big occasion, with so many details to arrange, you just have to focus on what’s really important. You’ll see one day.”

  I took a sip from her teacup. “Where’s Diego?”

  “Writing his vows. He’s such a nervous groom.”

  She gestured for the cup. I passed it to her, then kissed her on the cheek.

  “You make a beautiful bride,” I said.

  She stroked the ends of my hair.

  I went back to the main room and sat next to Theo. He put his arm around my shoulders.

  The chandelier winked. The whole room smelled full of roses. I felt full of roses, too.

  The door to the parlor opened and Diego strode in wearing a crisp white tuxedo. He’d slicked his hair back with severe efficiency. His expression, as he walked down the aisle, was rigid and solemn.

  Watching Diego, in that moment, I had a sudden image of him as an older man, a renowned architect, maybe, crouched over his desk in an all-glass office, or a professor lecturing to a room full of students. Some things would be the same, probably; he would have the same smart eyes and graceful hands. But his skin would be tough and thick, his hair grayish, his stomach paunched. He would be a grown-up, like he’d said. He wouldn’t do silly things anymore, like burlesque weddings on Thursday nights. Most nights he would go to bed early. We would all go to bed early.

  Well, I thought, at least I would always remember him as young, stupid, and sweet.

  Diego proceeded to the fireplace, which served as the altar. Nick, the officiant, gave him a beatific nod.

  When Yaya walked in, the room fell silent. The only noise was her dress shushing against her legs. Her cheeks had a pretty, girlish flush, and her hair was braided into a garland around her head.

  My throat hurt. She looked like the fairy bride from my book.

  Yaya took Diego’s hands as she met him at the altar. They stared at each other without smiling.

  “What a blessing,” Nick began, “to be here, now, in witness to such an auspicious occasion.”

  Theo’s arm tightened around my shoulders. I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand.

  When the ceremony was over, we feasted on chicken salad, cake, and ice cream that Theo had stolen from the kitchen. We drank wine. We put a Duran Duran cassette in our rented stereo and stripped down to dance. We sang into our fists and jumped on the chairs.

  It was a long time before we grew tired, but when we did, we slumped: Nick and Theo asleep, together, on the couch, Anna snoring, head on her arms. Yaya and I lay on the carpet, forking cake straight from the platter. The frosting was so sweet it made my gums ache.

  “I really do love Diego, you know,” Yaya said. “And he loves me, too. Not like, la-la, love-love. I’m not an idiot. But really, it’s better than that. We have the most fabulous time together. And he’s never going to break my heart.”

  “How do you know he won’t break your heart?” I poked at the cake crumbs. “Maybe he’ll change. Or you will. Maybe you won’t be friends forever.”

  “Of course we’re going to be friends forever. We’re married.” Yaya set down her fork and sat up. “Me and him, we have a plan, you know. When we graduate, we’re going to Los Angeles. We’re going to drink coconut-banana coladas and party on the beach and sleep with the most gorgeous men. And we’re going to dance and sing and have a fabulous time.”

  “Diego doesn’t sing,” I said.

  “Well. He’ll play the piano for me. He’ll adore it.”

  The room was spinning. I closed my eyes, but that made it worse. I opened them again.

  “We’re going to be stars,” Yaya said. “Big, big stars.”

  *

  We spent two days camped out in the art studio creating our fall festival costumes. We mixed bowls of papier-mâché paste and crafted masks, cut out poster-board skirts and glued feathers onto headdresses. I had decided to be a mummy. I spent a lot of time wrapping bandage strips around my face and staring at myself in the mirror, getting used to the idea of seeing myself undead.

  The night of the parade, Viktória visited us in the studio. We gathered around her and chanted.

  We are in the studio, in the house.

  Our hands are folded.

  We are here.

  We are here.

  There was no experiment that night, there were no plasm pins. But somehow, I could still feel them in me. I could still feel everything.

  As we chanted, aides cleared off the dirty, paint-splattered tables and set down platters of beef, buttered peas, and carafes of wine. We ate and drank as we helped each other into our costumes.

  We started our parade in the studio. Then we roared, banging drums and blowing whistles, through the halls, past the lounges, and onto the frozen black yard. There, the gathered first-and second-years clapped and whooped as they threw candy at us. We let them touch us. We laughed.

  We crossed through the courtyards, then back inside, through halls, parlors, and music rooms. We saw ourselves, happy spirits, reflected in the windows.

  When we arrived in the ballroom antechamber, we pulled off our masks. We could hear the music pounding as we drank more wine and helped each other out of our costumes. Naked, we pushed into the ballroom.

  The space was almost black, but a white light strobed somewhere. I didn’t know where my body was. I wasn’t sure if I was alive. I couldn’t recognize anyone. No, I could, but it was as if I recognized their bodies and faces from some long-ago dream. Or was this the dream?

  Light became music. Music beat in my heart.

  I danced. I lifted up my arms. I felt the night, hot and divine, and felt myself as part of a boundless whole. I didn’t just feel good. I felt full. Ful
l of light and flowers, full of the whole world.

  And when I found Theo—was it Theo?—I touched him, and I was gone.

  I hadn’t really understood plasm. I had thought of it as a substance, some kind of semi-liquid, or a subatomic particle essential in all things. I had thought, if you tried hard enough, you could almost touch it.

  But right then, I understood. Plasm wasn’t a substance; it was the beginning of substance. The fabric connecting all things and all people. The language that created me, the chandelier, the floorboards, the light. When I touched Theo, I could feel us together somewhere between now and tomorrow, this world and the next, on that eternal surface connecting everyone and everything. I felt him and myself and the glowing lamps and the courtyard’s flagstones and a hundred yellow teacups and the sky and the planets, the whirling planets, a galaxy of things, and I was here. I was so wonderfully here, inside that infinite horizon, here—in love—forever, always.

  *

  Long cold nights faded into strange cold days.

  I stayed up for hours the night before my Philosophy of Law final. My study partner, a reedy girl with violent acne and red-rimmed eyes, sniffled constantly as we worked, reviewing study sheets and flipping through flash cards. She thought I was an idiot, I could tell. Whenever I got an answer wrong, she blinked at me with disgust.

  I didn’t mind her glares. I didn’t mind anything. I didn’t even mind studying. I wasn’t going to get a good grade, but I could pass, at least. And it felt nice sitting here, wrapped in a snug blanket by the radiator, surrounded by the kind warmth of the library’s lamps.

  I fell asleep. And when I woke up, it was morning. The girl had disappeared.

  I looked out of the window as I stretched. I could feel winter coming. The sunlight that morning was sharp white, and the specifics of the Molina courtyard—the stone boy in the fountain, the dead brown leaves tripping across the walk, a blue ribbon tied to a branch, fluttering in the breeze—all appeared super-precise. I didn’t know how I had slept so well, but right then I felt very awake. I was seeing things very clearly.

  Two figures bundled in sweaters walked across the courtyard. I recognized them as two of M. Neptune’s plasm students, the angelic blond girl and the odd boy, Sandy. The girl was pulling an empty red wagon. Sandy followed slowly behind.

  Sandy stopped in the path, suddenly frozen for some unseen reason. He turned to the library window—had he forgotten something here?—but he didn’t turn around. He didn’t move at all.

  When the girl realized he wasn’t following her anymore, she skipped after him and tugged on his sleeve with a huff and a sigh. He turned back. He kept following her.

  But when he had turned to face me—eyes to the sun, chin out—I saw him. I saw him exactly.

  I padded barefoot to the library reference room. The rug was nubby against my bare feet. I shivered as I ran my fingers along the scrapbook spines and pulled out the one from six years ago, the year the boy had died.

  We hurt, Viktória had written, because we miss him.

  I examined the photograph, as I had many times before. The dark curls. The mole next to his lip.

  In the photograph, even frozen in stillness, the eyes shone with vibrancy. His eyes still shone—I remembered them flickering in the dining hall—but they shone with some stranger kind of life.

  A life in suspended animation.

  I closed the book and slipped it back on the shelf. I went to gather my philosophy notes. I couldn’t be late to my final.

  SOS

  As fall descended into winter, I watched Sandy more closely. I watched him follow M. Neptune’s students to class, then follow them back out again. I watched him wait for the blond girl outside the bathroom as she peed. I watched him hover by the dessert service, his hands held out with inhuman patience as Burt handed him apple slices one by one. I watched him follow Burt back to the table and sit when Burt told him to sit. He gathered food but never ate. He just stared at the apple slices or lemon custard pie or fatty, broken pieces of chicken without appearing to understand their function.

  I was watching Sandy now. But M. Neptune’s students watched him even closer. Everywhere he went, to class or the bathroom or dessert, one of them was there with him, shrewd eyes tracking his every movement. Sometimes they even jotted down notes. They pulled at his curls and examined his fingernails. They laughed when he tripped over his shoelaces.

  He never laughed back.

  Diego’s words kept ringing in my brain: M. Neptune is going to do whatever he can get away with. More, even.

  Sandy and M. Neptune were walking across the yard down below. The tiles were clouded white with an early frost. M. Neptune placed his hand on Sandy’s shoulder. Sandy didn’t react.

  How many times had I looked at that photograph in the library and not recognized him? How could I have been so stupid? Wasn’t it obvious?

  Of course it was obvious. Of course M. Neptune would test his experiment out in the open, right before our eyes. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? To create something so real that it could live seamlessly among us, its people and its objects?

  I glanced at Anna. We were in one of Ashley’s parlors, a crooked blue room, sitting with our books in the window seat. We were supposed to be studying, but Anna, like me, was staring down at the yard, watching Sandy and M. Neptune. I couldn’t read her expression.

  Did everyone else already know what was going on? Did anyone care?

  “Anna,” I said.

  She turned to me, blinking.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Not really,” she said. “Are you? Tea should be soon.”

  “I don’t want to wait.” I got up. “I need to go.”

  She was already looking back down at her notes.

  I went down the stairs, through the halls, across the Molina courtyard, to Theo’s room. He wasn’t there. I climbed into his bed still wearing my clothes. His bed smelled like sex and sweat. I pulled the blanket over my head.

  Bitter December winds whistled through the courtyard. I could hear leaves skitter over the tiles, rattling like bones. I shivered.

  Afternoon became evening. Time shifted. I couldn’t move.

  I opened my eyes, then closed them again. The heat wasn’t on. The room was so cold I felt afraid.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move.

  I tried to scream but no sound came out.

  Help me, I wanted to say. Help me.

  But no one could hear me. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t ever there.

  Theo was shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes.

  “Hey,” he was saying, “wake up.”

  His breath was warm on my face.

  “Wake up,” he said again. “Shh. Stop yelling. You’re having a nightmare.”

  I sat up, kneading my palms against my eyes. It was night now. The sky through the windows was black and starless.

  *

  Days passed. I did nothing, and nothing happened. Until the morning I received a notice with my tea tray.

  Viktória wanted to have tea with me. Here in my room, the following afternoon.

  I stared at the note until the words blurred. Then I folded it up and slipped it into my back pocket.

  I hadn’t had an official meeting with Viktória since my first year, when I’d almost failed out of Catherine. Was my tutorial going that badly?

  Or was it something worse?

  Would they send me to the tower again?

  My hands were shaking. I clenched them into fists.

  Before Viktória arrived, I spent two hours cleaning my room. I swept under the desks and used an old T-shirt to wipe down the windowsills. I folded my clothes. I even aired out and remade Baby’s bed. I was running a hand over her coverlet when a knock sounded at the door.

  Viktória’s face, when I opened the door, was so close, so magnificent and large, that it startled me. Her eyelashes were thick and dark today, her cheeks china-pink. She was carrying a tea tray.

  “My apo
logies. I’m a little late, I know.” Her green raw silk dress shushed against her legs as she swept into the room in a haze of perfume. She set the tray on the tea table. “I got caught up in—well, it doesn’t matter. Thank you for hosting on such short notice. I like to get out of the office.”

  “Hello,” I breathed.

  She glanced around the room. “How tidy.”

  “I cleaned.”

  Her eyes flashed on me. She smiled.

  I watched her as she poured the tea. Her wrists were thin but strong and the skin of her inner arms was as luminous as I remembered. The porcelain chittered as she handed me my teacup.

  “Beautiful,” she said, after taking a sip from her own.

  I sipped. It was jasmine tea. It tasted like the gardens in summer.

  “So,” she said, setting down her cup. “I hope you’re not nervous, meeting me. I wanted to check in and see how you’re progressing with your classes. I know from your professors, of course, how wonderfully your studies are going. But I thought it would be nice to hear from the girl herself.”

  She watched me with a soft smile.

  “I thought,” I said, “you were about to throw me out.”

  “Throw you out? Of Catherine?” She laughed lightly, touching my knee. “Ines,” she said, “your professors, your advisor, your coworkers at the gallery—everyone can see that you’ve grown into quite a star.”

  That didn’t make sense. My grades were better than when I first started at Catherine, but they still weren’t great. And my boss at the gallery constantly corrected my work. I was not, as she said, a very detail-oriented girl.

  “I’m doing okay?”

  Viktória laughed. “More than okay. Your work these past semesters has been truly remarkable. And I know it hasn’t been easy. I’m quite proud of you, really.”

  She smiled.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Viktória kept talking. She asked about my Great Exhibitions seminar, and Freud, critical theory, and my tutorial. It all sounded fascinating to her. And she loved Agnes Martin’s paintings as much as I did. The abstract expressionists had been her favorite when she worked in the New York galleries “oh, a lifetime ago.”

  “And how about your friends?” She poured herself a third cup of tea. “You all seem very close.”