Gossip of the Starlings

by Nina de Gramont

  No wonder she loved this new feeling, its faux exhilaration made real by the consequences of discovery.

  “That’s coke,” I said. “Especially this coke.”

  Skye got up and began straightening my bed. “I was thinking,” she said, tucking the sheets into neat hospital corners. “Maybe next weekend we could go to the Cape.”

  “With your parents?”

  “No,” she said. “Just us. Maybe you could invite your friends from Waverly. That’s not far from Cape Cod, right? I’d really like to meet them. And we can get more. Of the cocaine, I mean.”

  “I’ll ask them,” I said, knowing that of course they would come.

  I gathered my bath oil and shampoo and turned to examine Skye, who had sat back down on my now-perfect comforter. Long legs tucked underneath her, long red hair spilling over her shoulders. We had come together at cross purposes—me to shed wild ways, her to cultivate them. So far, her resolve had proved stronger than mine.

  I tried to imagine Skye on Cape Cod with my old friends—who of course would be dying to meet her—and felt a strange combination of jealousy and protectiveness. I preferred the picture of the two of us, Skye and me, walking along a rocky beach.

  Which surprised me. Usually it was difficult to imagine anything without Susannah, who had been my best friend since first grade. At our private elementary school in Old Lenox, I had sat behind Susannah in chorus. We all huddled unnaturally close together on the narrow risers, and I would sit there and stare at her shiny black hair—worthy of an Indian princess. My hands would tremble with the effort of staying in my lap, longing to plunge into that thick, black curtain, so much more luxurious than my own stringy corn silk. I was young for my grade, only five years old. Perfectly common, in those days—at private schools—to start children too early. Both of my older sisters had entered kindergarten months before their fifth birthdays.

  The school was in an old Episcopal church—gray stone and stained glass. Restored murals covered by Plexiglas to protect them from children’s grubby fingers. Everywhere, things we weren’t allowed to touch, hands by our sides as our Mary Janes padded down beige looped carpets. I knew how to keep my hands to myself. But the back of Susannah’s head looked so electrically beautiful. Not touching it would have been like not singing. And who could resist joining in the airlifted rising of little voices?

  It must have felt like an errant firefly: my light fingers, scuttling down from the crown of her head. Susannah whipped around, startled and indignant. Her face settling upon mine in a puckish, gap-toothed smile of discovery. From that day forward, I knew everything about Susannah’s life. She narrated it to me in endless letters, and even more endless conversations. She told me her important events, and she told me her philosophies. She told me her fears and her disappointments—describing every interior and exterior view. What I told her amounted to scarcely nothing, and at the same time more than I told another living soul.

  My second day at Esther Percy, a few hours after I met Skye, I had called Susannah at home. Fall semester at Waverly hadn’t yet started.

  “There’s always something wrong with him,” Susannah said, when I told her I’d met Senator Butterfield’s daughter.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, surprised. “I thought you liked him.”

  “Oh, I do,” Susannah said. “I like his politics very much. It’s just when you see him on television, there’s always something wrong, like a stain on his collar or a cowlick or something. It distracts me.”

  I tried to picture Senator Butterfield on-screen and couldn’t imagine any kind of imperfection.

  “Anyway,” Susannah said. “You sound happier.”

  I realized immediately she was right. With Skye’s appearance the world had widened—sun breaking through my resigned fog.

  “Get the details.” Susannah’s disembodied voice—deep and smoky—was a distinct contrast to her tiny, ethereal form. “Find out everything about that scholarship kid, and what really happened.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Really do it, Catherine.”

  I nodded into the phone to her exasperated sigh. She knew me well enough to know: I would find out everything, and tell her nothing.

  Now Skye kicked her legs out across my bed and leaned back against the pillow.

  “This is the best time of year on Cape Cod,” she said, closing her eyes—the first hint that last night had affected her. “The beach is empty, the weather’s just right.”

  Her breathing had slowed slightly, and I had the feeling she would still be there, fast asleep, when I returned from my bath. Remarkably, no blood stained my bed from the night before. But watching Skye, her pink-cheeked stupor and her bandaged hand, I felt a sinking sensation—the sort of panic teenage mothers must feel. As if Skye were my own creation, and here I stood: distinctly unprepared to care for her.

  “Skye?” I said. “Maybe you should go back to your room and get some rest.”

  She smiled, eyes still closed. “Eleanor’s clattering around in there,” she said. “It’s more peaceful here. I wish I’d asked for a single.”

  In the two months since we’d been at Esther Percy, Skye had spoken to one other person besides me: her roommate, Eleanor Blakeley. Eleanor’s father was a congressman, and the two girls had known each other since infancy. According to Skye they’d always been close, but I hadn’t seen much evidence of that this fall. Eleanor was short, shy, and bookish. She worked hard at concealing her beauty with thick glasses, shaggy hair, and oversized clothing. Slouched and morose, next to Skye she looked like a charcoal smudge. Apart from academic excellence and glamorous families, I couldn’t guess what they might have in common.

  “How do we do the permission slips?” Skye asked. “Do we forge them? Or is there some other trick?”

  “I’ll sign yours,” I said, with the careful tone I sometimes used with her, this visitor from a foreign planet. “You sign mine.”

  She nodded, memorizing the new ways even as she drifted off to sleep.

  3

  I DIDN’T HAVE TO forge a permission slip. The next weekend my mother showed up at Harrisburg, my last important event before the National Horse Show. The year before I had been disqualified at Regional Finals for going off course—ruining my chances after a year of championships. My mother and I had agreed she wouldn’t come to any of the top shows this time, not wanting to add extra pressure. She had already skipped Regionals and the indoor show in Washington, DC.

  I spotted her in the stands after my first blue ribbon, in the Under Saddle phase. With no jumping course to worry about, only a circular exhibition of Pippin’s paces and my seat, we won easily. The announcer called my name and Pippin’s show name: Catherine Morrow on Corner of the Sky. I pressed Pippin forward and let my eyes roam up toward the stands. My mother was instantly recognizable—disguised like a movie star, the only person in the sunless arena wearing a big hat and sunglasses. Born and raised on the outskirts of Paris, my mother had a Frenchwoman’s way of looking bored even in the most high-pressure situations.

  My trainer, Captain Zarghami, saw me locate her. He plucked the ribbon off Pippin’s bridle and snapped his fingers in the air, willing my attention back to him.

  “Catherine,” he said, in his crisp Middle Eastern accent. Cat-erene. “You have important things to accomplish this weekend.”

  I never once saw my trainer wear anything but riding clothes—jodhpurs, high leather boots, white button-down shirt. His silver hair combed back behind his ears. Ready to lead a cavalry squadron rather than coach equestrians at a girls’ boarding school. He tapped his crop against my custom-made Vogel boots, then adjusted the scarlet bow on one of Pippin’s braids. The horse shook his head in protest and pawed the dusty floor.

  “Do not think of her,” Zarghami said, jerking his silver head toward my mother. I wondered if he’d known she planned to come. I wondered if he knew John Paul was also in attendance—feigning injury, he had stolen away from a soccer game at the
Phelps School. I concentrated on not glancing toward where he sat in the stands.

  Zarghami answered my question by picking up his crop and pointing behind me, to where John Paul sat on one of the front bleachers. I hoped my mother didn’t notice.

  “You’re far too good,” Zarghami said, “to have spent all these years without ever getting to the National Horse Show.”

  Despite the implied admonishment, this was as close to a compliment as I’d received from him. What’s more, it was the truth. I regularly appeared in the Chronicle of the Horse as a first- or second-place winner in the Medal Maclay division. Even as champion. Every year I entered the fall indoor shows as a front runner, then managed to blow it—disqualification last year, seventh place in Under Saddle the year before after I’d lost my stirrup during the canter. Nine times out of ten, my performance in the ring was flawless. But the tenth time—the time I failed—always seemed to occur when it mattered most.

  “You just need to focus,” Zarghami said, tapping his temple with his forefinger. “Head on the horse, not in the clouds.”

  Pippin backed up a few steps and did a quarter turn, as if he wanted to avoid this scolding—as if it were directed at him rather than me. I could see John Paul now, leaning on the empty seat in front of him, dark hair grazing the collar of his soccer jersey. My mother had only met him once, when I was suspended from Waverly. I hoped her usual vagueness would keep her from recognizing him in the crowd, but I doubted that it would. John Paul was hard to forget, even in the most ordinary circumstances. His good looks would have made him memorable enough to most women, and my mother especially would recall his humble but confident calm. John Paul possessed a certain air of exiled royalty—the kind of boy you’d expect to step forward and pull the sword from the stone.

  I threw my leg forward while Zarghami tightened Pippin’s girth. John Paul saw me watching him and lifted his hand. I waved back with a barely perceptible shake of my head, telling him not to come over.

  Zarghami absorbed the entire exchange in one glance.

  “Catherine Morrow,” he said, lowering his voice to fatherly modules. “You can pursue greatness or you can pursue girlhood. Eventually, you will have to choose.”

  He kept on talking, the sound of his voice in fierce competition with the day’s sensory overload. I loved the indoor shows: the rising whorls of dust in the foggy spotlights, the grassy scent of manure and the musky, steaming sweat of horses. Black velvet helmets rose and fell, posting or sailing over jumps. A swirl of colorful ribbons on the sidelines—triumphant blues and disappointed pinks.

  And in the midst of it all, John Paul, whom I hadn’t seen in months, respecting me too much to come forward even while my reasons remained a mystery. Gazing at me, the preposterous blue of his eyes visible from our hundred-foot distance.

  A loudspeaker droned announcements of winners through the clip-clop of horse hooves, the same names I’d heard for years. Pippin jittered beneath me, and I gave his withers an absentminded pat. My first Thoroughbred, we had bought him last year. My mother—convinced that I needed un vrai cheval to reach the next level of competition—had talked me out of my devotion to Bloom, the chestnut mare I’d been showing since I was a child in the Short Stirrup division.

  With Bloom, I’d shared a deep and intimate love. Growing up in a house full of animals, she had been my most cherished pet. After battles with my father, I’d cried gallons of tears with my face pressed against Bloom’s golden withers and even slept nights on the bales of straw in her stall.

  My feelings toward Pippin were strictly business, with a little admiration thrown in. I patted his neck as he twitched restlessly beneath me. Zarghami held a finger to his lip as they announced the final Under Saddle class. When they called my name he smiled and clapped his hands, then went into the stands to talk to my mother. I was still in the saddle when John Paul appeared, standing on the other side of Pippin so that the horse blocked Zarghami and my mother’s view.

  “Congratulations,” John Paul said, stroking Pippin’s neck and looking up at me—a vantage point I seldom had, his face tipped upward. Never mind the importance of this event. In John Paul’s presence I always wished the world away: no outside noise to impede or threaten our relationship.

  “My mother’s here,” I told him. As soon as the words escaped, Pippin back-stepped, exposing John Paul. Even if my mother didn’t remember him, she couldn’t miss WAVERLY emblazoned across his chest in bright blue letters.

  He ducked back behind the horse. “I have to go soon, anyway,” he said. “The team bus leaves at four.”

  I told him about the possibility of meeting on Cape Cod. He squeezed my leg in the improbably personal spot between the knee and the rim of my boot.

  “I’ll see you next weekend,” he said. “Good luck.”

  I watched him walk toward the nearest exit. I could see my mother’s eyes following him, a heavy enough gaze that he must have felt it, her curiosity boring into his handsome back. He turned and waved at me, then looked up into the stands. His already straight shoulders lifted—not defiant, or prideful, so much as determined.

  John Paul wasn’t especially tall, but he had long strides. It only took him a few minutes to reach my mother. I saw her stare at him dubiously from beneath the rim of her hat. I imagined the habitual twitch of her lower lip. He held out his hand. I could see his lips move and guessed that he was speaking French. My mother smiled and gave him her hand in a distinctly European manner—limp, as if she meant for him to kiss it. He hesitated a moment, then turned her hand over and shook it. My mother patted the seat next to her, and he sat down. As John Paul threw his head back—a quick gesture, too nervous to be triumphant—my mother looked over at me and wagged her finger. But I could tell she was smiling, properly charmed.

  HALF AN HOUR LATER I rode Pippin through his flatwork with nine other riders. We rode through our paces—walk, trot, canter—wearing identical custom boots and wool blazers. All of us bone thin, with our hair tucked into our helmets. Perfect seats and easy hands. I felt John Paul’s eyes on me, and my mother’s. Zarghami’s and the judges’. I willed my body to relax in precise synch with Pippin and not glance at the other riders, which would have deducted points. My competitors formed a blazered, peripheral blur as I felt my body—erect but relaxed over the daisy cutting of Pippin’s hooves, skimming the ground just so.

  All my anxiety had melted away. John Paul’s courage seeped into my marrow, and I knew clearly as hindsight: I would win.

  4

  AT THE RESTAURANT in Harrisburg, the waiter didn’t question my mother when she ordered a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  “Your young man is lovely,” she said, running a hand over her sleek dark hair. Its perfection confirmed, she tilted her head and waited for my reply. I stared hard at my plate, knowing that if I didn’t respond this would be the last I heard of it.

  “So,” she said, after a minute. “You’ve made friends at the girls’ school?”

  “Just one, really. Her name’s Skye Butterfield. Her father’s the senator?”

  I watched my mother’s face respond, impressed and then gratified. Even though she never followed politics, she recognized the name instantly.

  “There, you see?” she said. “You don’t meet people like that in the public schools.”

  My mother—whose own tuitions had been paid by benevolent relatives—considered private education as imperative as oxygen. Whereas my father had reluctantly agreed to send me to another boarding school on two conditions: that it be all girls and I spend the summer working as a maid in a local hotel.

  “No horses,” he’d said, when my mother tried to commute this sentence to a stable. The sounds of Lowell were clear in his voice as he made his favorite pronouncement: “Catherine’s problem is that she’s never had to work a day in her life.”

  My father had a particular grudge against each of his children. My brother, Etienne, disappointed him by going to law school instead of showing proper inte
rest in the family business. Beatrice spent too much money on too-skimpy clothes. Claire spoke very quietly; my father always took his inability to hear her as a personal affront. But it was for me, the youngest, that he reserved this accusation: I exhibited a woeful lack of industry.

  That summer, the scent of Clorox and Murphy’s Oil Soap didn’t seem to reverse his assessment—as if these chemicals only represented the lowly station I had brought upon myself. My father would never be impressed by the glamour and old money of Skye’s family. But I knew they would hold great sway with my mother, and I poured her a little more wine.

  “Actually,” I said, “the Butterfields have invited me to Cape Cod next weekend. They have a house on the beach. May I go?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  I swirled the good wine in my glass, not tasting it. I thought how if my father only understood my current physical state—the flushed warmth, the sore legs and clear head—he couldn’t help but approve. The sense of accomplishment from a strong performance. If my father could just occupy my body for this single moment, he might understand that I had indeed arrived at this state through hard work, instead of insisting that horseback riding—no matter how much I achieved—constituted nothing but leisure.

  I imagined my mother showing him the ribbons as proof of my virtue. Telling him that I’d finished in the top ten. Outwardly he would dismiss the news with a craggy scowl. “She won plenty of ribbons last year,” he would say, logically denouncing their worth as testaments to my good behavior. But one spark in his skeptical blue eyes would betray an oblique sort of pride. That I’d be going to the National Horse Show. To Madison Square Garden. Whatever my father might think of my character, he appreciated excellence. He couldn’t help but respond when glimpsing it in his own daughter. All I had to do was qualify tomorrow, and even he would not be able to withhold his approval.