The Taming of the Drew

by Gurley, Jan

  “I did,” I said.

  Everyone in the room looked away. At the floor, at fingernails, at the ceiling.

  “Think, before you speak, child.” The fury still crackled in Dean Verona’s gaze, but some hint of softness emerged, asbestos-strong.

  I told myself it was time to end the deceptions. There was no point to any of it any more. My trees were gone. Now my friends were in serious trouble, all because of me. I wasn’t brave. I had to tell myself, don’t look scared, don’t look scared. I swallowed twice before I spoke.

  “Dean Verona, I did everything you said. All those illegal things. And I made friends. Not just to get them to do illegal things. But I roped them into it. I wanted everyone to help me. Not a single one of the Greenbacks would have done anything wrong, except that I made them. They even called me the obsessed demon that drove them. That goes for Tio and because I’m the one who committed Tio to the tutoring arrangement, that goes for Gremio, too.”

  The truth hung heavy over the room. Only Dean Padua smiled his oily smile.

  Gremio muttered from the hollows of his chair, “That’s Mister Gremio to you, young missy,” but no one paid him any attention.

  Dean Verona, with a heavy sigh, as though she dreaded doing it, picked up her bifocals and put them back on.

  “In that case, Katharine Baptista, you deserve this pod’s most severe punishments, which means expulsion and fines, all of which will be, of course, on your permanent record. Our city’s law enforcement will be consulted as well. I intend to press for the maximum charges allowable. I also will personally insist on written, sincere, and public apologies to all individuals you have affected with your activities.”

  “I think we should start now.”

  Everyone turned to see Drew, my mother, and two other adults standing in the still-open doorway. It was Drew who’d spoken. I’d been holding it together, but the sight of him and the scratch on his arm brought back the memory of the tree’s chainsawing and the way I’d clawed and fought him. For the first time my upper lip shook and I pressed the back of my hand against it.

  I thought my mom would come across the room to me, but she didn’t. She went and stood behind Dean Verona’s chair. Mom leaned against the window ledge, arms crossed, as relaxed as if she was watching the end to an interesting bit of theater, instead of the beginning of her daughter’s downfall.

  Drew gave a nod to his mom but walked to me and stood on my right, his hands at his sides, not touching me, not looking at me.

  Dean Verona re-settled her glasses on her nose. “I understand you have a stake in these proceedings, Andrew, since you are one of the photographed — ahem –locker room boys, but I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.”

  “Oh no,” said Drew, this time putting his hands on his hips. He took up a lot of space, “I’m not one of the locker room boys. I’m the locker room boy. And the one person old enough to go to state prison for the missing camera.” As he talked, the couple who’d arrived with my mom and Drew moved separately into the crowd. One was the Botox-ed woman who’d staffed the snack table at the Uni Leadership dance, Mrs. Snyder. The man with Mrs. Snyder walked to the front of the room, put a large pile of papers on the desk in front of Dean Verona, and said, “I’ll get your signature on those before I leave, to prove you’ve been served,” then joined his wife. Mrs. Snyder had moved through the crowd to stand behind Celia, and, seeing them side-by-side, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed the resemblance before.

  Drew said, “Kate ought to start the personal apologies now. Why wait?” He turned to face me. “Go ahead.”

  The room got swimmy and my throat clogged. I said, “Drew.” I cleared my throat and tried again, avoiding his face but staring at the raw red scratch down his arm. “Drew, I’m sorry I hurt you—”

  “—No.” He interrupted, his voice firm and patronizing as a Pottery person’s, as though he was talking to a beginner. “You mean you’re sorry you stopped me from destroying my life.”

  That’s when I looked at his eyes. They were so soft, I took a deep shuddery breath to keep the tears inside. His lips tilted up at one corner and he reached out and hooked my hair behind my left ear. “Now start again,” he said, his voice deep and warm.

  Alex said, into the silence, “That’s right. She needs to apologize to me too. You say it, Kate. Say you’re sorry you were my only friend.” Alex’s voice cracked.

  Robin, shoved through Tio and his dad. “You’ve got a lot to answer for. You apologize now. In front of everyone. You apologize for believing in us. For caring about us when no one else did.”

  People were blinking and looking away, a sniff here, a rubbed eye there.

  I tried to keep my eyes on Drew, afraid that I couldn’t keep control if I didn’t.

  I heard Phoebe say, “After everything she’s done, Kate’s lucky I don’t tear her limb from limb. Of course, she’s the reason I don’t do that kind of thing any more, which makes it kind of tricky.”

  Helena said, “Apologize, Kate.” Her voice edgy with emotion, “Apologize now for giving us something to care about. How dare you make us believe we could make a difference.”

  Into this silent, aching hurt, Mrs. Snyder reached out a thin arm and wrapped it around Celia, pulling Celia back against her chest in a loose hug.

  Suddenly, I wanted my mom. So badly.

  When I turned, blinking and blinded, to find her, to at least have the comfort of her gaze across the room, I was shocked to find her leaning over Dean Verona’s shoulder. My mother, oblivious to her only daughter’s emotions and peril, was actually pointing down at a page, in front of Dean Verona. Then, with an evil smile, she said, “Oh, and look at that! Another writ!”

  Dean Verona raised narrowed, napalm-torching eyes at me. “Katharine Baptista. What is the meaning of this?”

  “What?” my voice creaked like timber strained too far.

  “Subpoenas, injunctions, cease and desist orders? Kate Baptista, are you honestly claiming emotional distress from having nearly lost your arm at 7:45 am today in a —” she adjusted her bifocals and read aloud, “—‘potentially catastrophic industrial accident caused through school negligence?’”

  Okay, I closed my mouth. Eventually. It just took me a while to realize it was hanging open.

  Dean Verona went on, “And you, Katharine, on behalf of your club, have also filed a formal complaint pursuant to a future lawsuit with the state school board, the local school district, and — the Sierra Club? — for Legacy’s failure to file an environmental impact report?”

  I whipped around and stared at Celia. She shrugged, like it was no big deal and said, with just a hint of pride in her voice, “Lawyers.”

  Her mom wrapped her forearm tighter against the top of Celia’s chest, pulling her closer into a hug. “Well some of us are,” her mom added with a smile.

  Dean Verona, though, once she’d gotten the meat of the matter between her teeth, wasn’t letting go. “Katharine Baptista, you have a lot to answer for here.”

  I felt Drew’s hand drop from my neck, the missing warmth leaving an after-tingle on my skin.

  Drew said, “Yes, she does. You’d think everyone would know what happens when you get a prison sentence, but all that just seemed so far away. Other people commit felonies. Not us Uni students.” Dean Padua shifted like he wanted to object, but Mrs. Bullard deflated him with a glare. “Kate dragged me into a different world. Where kids work on the weekends, and let each other be themselves, and…”

  It was like Drew realized everyone packed into the room watched him. His voice died out, as suddenly as if Mrs. Gleason’s timer went ding.

  Drew added, lamely, “I even took Pilates.”

  There were a few smiles around the room.

  Mrs. Bullard stepped forward and said, her voice blaring like a vice-principal’s mega-phone, “I saw this online last night. I want to know who’s responsible for this?”

  She slapped a printout on the desk and people leaned and jostled forw
ard to see. It was the cell-photo of me and Drew kissing. My mother raised an eyebrow at me. Viola, Helena, Phoebe and Bianca shifted and looked away, smiling but not meeting my gaze. This was way worse than having your mom hold up your love-doodles. I stared back at the desk and I could see bits of my Twitter feed highlighted in timeline sidebar. My face kerosene-glowed with embarrassment. The full-page article was titled The Taming of The Drew.

  Celia said, raising her hand half-way up and giving it a little wave, “Me.”

  The tension in the room ratcheted tighter, Mrs. Bullard staring at Celia, Celia’s mom staring right back. A silent sword-fight of wills clashed in the room.

  Mrs. Bullard looked up at Celia’s mom and said, “Is she available for contract work?”

  Without hesitating, Celia’s mom said, “Depends on the rate. And the subject. Nothing unethical.”

  “We can negotiate specifics later,” Mrs. Bullard added, “Over mah-jongg.”

  “Excuse me!” Dean Verona clapped her hands, “I’m not finished. Katharine Baptista, I’m waiting for you to justify this, this legal overkill.”

  I knew I should have had an impassioned speech ready. I even tried, by closing my eyes, to picture the redwoods, the way they swayed and sighed in the dawn light. But as the silence stretched and I gave up trying, and my frantic eyes bounced around the room at my friends, my mother, all the people who tried to help save them, all I could come up with, my voice cracking, was “The trees…”

  Even if I had failed to find the words, somehow emotion still hung in the air. Dean Verona cleared her throat, her voice raspy as she peered over bifocals and said, “All this, so we wouldn’t remove one diseased tree?”

  “One? Diseased?” I said, “you’re only going to cut one?”

  “My child,” Dean Verona said, “you’re not the only person who values those trees. We’ve been in negotiations with both old Mrs. Hathaway who owns the trees, and Dean Padua, who insists the plot be razed for a snack shack.” She shot him a glare and his puffed outrage deflated again, “We reached an impasse months ago because Uni’s official position is that the revenue from a snack shack is vitally important to their sports program.” Thunderclouds of frowns roiled around the room, like a time-lapse photo of a storm-front building. Seeing it all focused on him, like a tornado vortex building, Dean Padua got a panicky look on his face.

  “Academy’s position, however, is that trees are a vital creative force.”

  Dean Padua snorted in response to this, but the snort turned to a squeak when the high-pressure front built around him again.

  “Mrs. Hathaway, an elderly, frail woman, refused to sell the plot of land to the school. Her motivation to sell the small plot is due to her concerns about what may happen after her passing, since she has no heirs. However, to her mind, leaving the trees in the hands of a school not willing to commit to preserving the trees was worse than leaving them to the whim of a future unknown owner. Until this week, she has been somewhat ambivalent, not trusting the school’s conflicting priorities, or our handling of the affair. Apparently, however,” at this point Dean Verona pulled out from a desk drawer a note on pale blue almost-transparent paper, the writing so scrawly that it looked like a drunken, ink-soaked spider had dragged its carcass from one corner to the next hoping to sober up, “from last week’s note, Mrs. Hathaway stated that she now feels convinced of our motives, given the -” Dean Verona peered over her bifocals at us all, “I’ll read directly here, shall I? ‘Given the laughter, early morning visits and youthful energy I have seen in my fairy circle these last few months, I feel like it is time to trust to the future, that these trees shall be in good hands.’”

  The silence in the room this time was different, as though a breeze had shifted through, leaving the kind of settled calm that allows motes of dust to drift through beams of light.

  Dean Verona peered around the room, and continued, “Then Mrs. Hathaway adds, ‘Fortunately, however, I am no fool, and thus I would like assurances that the hands that I would entrust with my trees are likewise invested in their enduring future. Therefore, I require, prior to sale or transfer, a monetary commitment, raised solely through student efforts, equal to the valuation that the school has set. To this amount I will provide a matching scholarship fund. Signed Anne Hathaway.’” Dean Verona’s hand shook as she placed the letter back onto the desk. “Unfortunately, however, such an agreement is no longer possible. Mrs. Hathaway passed away in her sleep two days ago. Her executors have already notified us that they wish the estate settled promptly and they will only recognize the prior offer to buy the land for a snack shack. The school year is at an end and it is too late.”

  Into the stunned silence, one-by-one, all the faces turned to stare at me.

  I swallowed. “We raised some money.”

  Dean Verona peered sharply at me. “Young lady, you expect me to believe you and seven other students, through purely legal means, raised,” she pulled another piece of paper from the pile on her desk, “in eight months, $3,387? And you did it without anyone noticing?”

  Gonzo said, “We ate a lot of putrid bananas…”

  “Hey!” said Phoebe.

  Dean Verona looked momentarily confused by the outburst, but said, “Is this true?”

  I said, “Small amounts add up. I can give you a break-down by activity, if you want.”

  Dean Verona went pink around the eyes. “And you did this for these trees?”

  A hush settled over the room. “Yes,” I said, “We all did. That’s what the money is for.”

  Dean Verona shifted her bifocals, “My, that’s a, that’s a lot of money. By Academy standards, I mean. This amount should go some ways toward helping support and protect the--” she looked like she struggled to not weep.

  “Why didn’t you try to wait?” I blurted at Dean Verona, my voice clogged with angry tears. “You cut one down.”

  Dean Verona took off her bifocals. Her eyes looked sunken and soft. “Katharine, that tree was already gone. During negotiations, Academy had an arborist in during weekends. On their recommendation I hoped that removing the one tree would slow the fungus’ spread to the others until a decision was reached. Then, after the loss of Mrs. Hathaway, there certainly was no reason to delay removing it.”

  Dean Verona replaced her bifocals, straightened and glared at Dean Padua. “There’s more that would need to be done to save the rest of the circle. The arborist also recommended that the other trees would benefit from thickening the ground cover, removing the encroaching lawn and installing an aesthetic and safe boundary between the school and Mrs. Hathaway’s home. But of course, there’s no money for that sort of thing. Not when our school sports require so much.”

  Really, for the first time since the chainsaw, I felt my heart begins to lift and dance, swaying like the branches, reaching for the sky. I turned and smiled at Drew. He raised one eyebrow, the way he’d done in my camera lens so many weeks ago, that knowing look, sparkling with suppressed laughter. Drew threw an arm around my neck, and turned to Dean Verona. “Funny, you should mention money. Thanks to my surprisingly excellent behavior, I’m thinking there might be even MORE cash available. University-level bucks. Right, mom?”

  All eyes Wimbledonned over to Mrs. Bullard. She hitched her purse higher and glared at Drew, “Did you two plan this?”

  My mother stood up from where she leaned against the back wall, “Now Eileen,” she said, “it’s one thing to be competitive. It’s another to be a sore loser. Think about it. Technically you lost. But no matter how you look at it, you won.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’s going to have to bring snacks to the next four mah-jongg sessions.”

  Drew and I stared at each other. “That’s it,” I said, my voice rising to a screech in outrage. “That’s what you two bet?”

  Mrs. Bullard gave a small smile, like she didn’t really want anyone to know how pleased she was. She gave a sniff, “Certainly. And it was double or nothing. Hig
h stakes always bring out the cut-throat in your mother.”

  Afterward, I staggered into the hallway, my nerves hacked to sawdust. Without saying a word, Drew pulled a white earbud out of his pocket and handed it to me. I clutched in it my fist, oddly reassured.

  I said, “We should call you Luke, right, Tio? I mean Luke. You’re going to have to be patient with me.”

  He said, “No worries. I’m okay with either.”

  I said, “Yeah, but Tio doesn’t feel, I don’t know, okay any more.”

  Bianca said, “How tall is your dad?”

  “Six-five. My mom’s six even.”

  Drew said, a fist in his hair. “Why, oh why do none of you people do sports?”

  Phoebe said, “Do I look like chopped meat? Am I or am not the person who cleaned the court with you in twenty-one last week?”

  Drew said, “Dream on, hoop-girl.”

  Alex and Robin appeared, and Alex said, nonchalant, “We’re throwing a pool party. Does that count?”

  It took a second for the fuse-of-thought to burn down, but when the realization detonated, all the Greenbacks, including Tio/Luke, were decimated by the impact.

  Helena said, her voice tentative, “You’re going to, you’re going to wear, maybe we should all wear board shorts and tees?”

  Robin gave Alex a slow smile. “Nope. Bathing suits.”

  In the aftershock of silence, Alex said, “And Lysander wanted your phone number, Helena. I told him to just come to our party after school’s over.”

  “When?” said Helena, her voice with this new, not-at-all-efficient, tremble.

  Robin said, “We’ve got to get through finals, Drew’s got graduation, I’ve got to survive summer camp the first few weeks of break, so we can’t do it until July. Midsummer night’s eve, we thought. For a theme.”