Sister Agnes stopped writing on the chalkboard in mid-sentence, swiveled around to face the students, and said, “Class?”
“Good afternoon, Sister Mary Benedict,” the class stood, responding to the prompt, then fell silent.
Without returning the greeting, Sister Mary Benedict pointed a finger at Don. “Young man!” she said. Iris felt a sinking sensation in her gut, as Sister’s beady eyes scanned the room. “And you!” she said, singling out one of Don’s buddies. “And you!” Iris gasped audibly, as the crooked finger pointed to the third member of the band. When she puffed out her massive chest, it looked as though it would burst the seams of her habit, and when she pointed her finger at her, Iris felt all the blood drain from her head, then her heart, and possibly even her body, and imagined it pooling on the floor beneath her desk in a dark red puddle. “And you, young lady!” Sister said to Iris. “You four follow me to the library. Immediately!”
Thirty-two heads turned in Iris’s direction, sixty-four eyes bored holes in her flesh, sucking out any remaining drops of blood from her body, which had turned limp and cold. Steadying herself on the edge of her desk, she broke rank and took her place in the shamed procession that filed out the door and silently down the corridor to the library. Sister Mary Benedict pronounced her Accusations, while the Accused stood before their one-nun jury and judge. Confessions were dictated. Iris’s head was spinning with confusion and fear and a sense of injustice. It wasn’t fair, she thought. Don had been running his racket for days, whereas this was her very first time. She hadn’t even eaten any of the chocolate yet, or underpaid her fudged order, so technically she hadn’t really taken anything that couldn’t be put back. She would return the chocolate, and go to Confession, and promise to never steal again. If only Sister would let her talk, she could explain. But one did not question Sister’s orders. Not if one did not want to dig oneself into an even deeper grave.
Iris was handed a blank piece of paper on which she was instructed to write, “I, Iris Capotosti, stole $7.50 (seven dollars and fifty cents) worth of chocolate from Sacred Family.” Her hands trembled as she wrote, especially when it came to the word “stole.” She signed her name at the bottom of the page in quivering penmanship that looked like her grandmother’s.
“These confessions will be filed with your permanent records,” said Sister Mary Benedict. “Those records will follow you to your future high schools, and will be viewed by the admissions boards of colleges you may hope to attend, and by any employers for whom you may wish to work.”
A lump larger than the apple she wished she had eaten instead of following Don to the library formed in Iris’s throat, as she saw a desolate future stretch out before her. Hadn’t she always obeyed the rules and done her best to avoid sinning? How had one boy and one bite of chocolate convinced her to become so evil, so quickly? Who would ever want to have anything to do with her again?
“You have until Monday to return the stolen money. Report to me, in my office, before the morning bell. That will be all. Go, now. Go in shame.”
Weak-kneed, Iris retraced her steps back down the corridor. She fought back tears as she glanced at Don, who was already smirking again, followed by his two buddies, whose grins were only slightly sheepish. Visions of college rejections and a life on the dole mercifully receded to the wasteland of the distant future, as she braced herself for the more immediate consequences of her actions. First, she must endure the gawking of the other students as she reentered the classroom with the boys. She would manage somehow, she thought, suddenly buoyed by a wave of gratitude that no mention was made of involving parents in this scandal. Just as swiftly, she was knocked over by the undertow, and dragged to the depths of despair by the impossible task of raising seven dollars and fifty cents in three days.
No matter how many times Iris added up her financial resources, the result never varied, even by one cent. The six nickels that constituted the allowance she would receive on Friday night only amounted to thirty cents. She could kick herself for having cracked open her book bank to buy some green wool knee socks that didn’t have any holes in the toes and would hug her calves tightly in the cold instead of slipping to her ankles; as a result, the only money left in there was the special two-dollar bill she had received from Auntie Rosa for her First Holy Communion. That rare bill would still only be worth two dollars to someone as mean as Big Ben, though Iris was told if she saved it, one day it might be worth much more. She couldn’t bring herself to approach Lily, even in the unlikely event she had continued dropping part of her allowance in her own bank and resisted the urge to crack it open. What would Lily think, having a thief for a big sister? What kind of example was she setting for her? What path was she paving for the day when Lily would also be enrolled at Sacred Family?
At least Iris would be going to Auntie Rosa’s for the weekend, and Saturday she would earn a dollar by helping out Uncle Alfred at his guitar studio. That would bring her total up to three dollars and thirty cents. Which was still nowhere near seven dollars and fifty cents. Maybe an idea would come to her; Monday was still a few days away. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
Saturday morning saw Iris standing guard by the kitchen door at a quarter to eight, her blue valise by her feet. She had been debating about whether to ride the bus to Auntie Rosa’s, but one look out the frosty windows at the swirling snow resolved the matter. She would surely freeze before the bus passed by on one of its infrequent runs. Besides, she needed every penny in her pocket. Her only option was to bum a ride from Alexander, if he would have her. He went to the guitar studio on Saturday mornings, too, because Uncle Alfred had set him up with a few beginner students so he could earn some cash. Everyone in the family got free guitar lessons, and Alexander was real good by now. Iris thought Henry was even better, but he was still too young to teach. And anyway, he didn’t really like to play with other people around.
Although Iris knew Alexander would be driving to the studio alone, and there would be plenty of room for her and her blue valise in his rusty blue Volkswagen Beetle, she was terrified to ask him. Maybe it had something to do with her memories of his favorite game back in their days on Rugby Road, when he was charged with supervising his younger siblings. As soon as her parents were out of view, Alexander would announce playtime. “OK kids, it’s time for Prison Camp!” he would say with a smile that made Iris’s blood freeze. From that moment, any wrong answer, any unauthorized move, would result in the swift execution of the punishments he devised, ranging from tickle torture to being forced to drink hot water and pepper.
One thing Iris could do to grease her request was to be ready to run out the door when he did. She pulled on her coat and boots, never budging from the door as the minutes passed. The thought of the drive with Alexander made her uncomfortably warm in her coat, the dilemma of how she would get to Auntie Rosa’s if he said no made her perspire, and the predicament of the debt hanging over her head made the sweat flow freely. She was tempted to rip her coat open, when she heard feet thundering down the stairs. Alexander appeared, and headed straight for the door.
“CanIgettaride?” Iris blurted out before her courage, fragile as thin ice, could crack. Alexander’s only response was to stick a foot out behind him as he rushed through the door, so it wouldn’t slam in Iris’s face. Iris hurried out after him and into the fresh snow, sliding into the back seat of the Beetle so he would not even have to see her during the drive. She hated cars in the winter, and she hated the vinyl seats that sucked body heat from her legs and buttocks. Alexander turned the key in the ignition, and after a few attempts the engine sputtered to life. He hopped out to scrape two peepholes through the snow and ice glazing the windshield, then took some bricks from a pile beside the garage and loaded them into the trunk, like he did when it snowed a lot. Behind the wheel, Alexander blew into his bare hands, lit a cigarette and rolled down the window. He shifted the car into reverse and accelerated, slipping and sliding backwards down the driveway and onto
the road, while Iris squeezed her eyes tight, shutting out the numbing coldness of both the winter and her brother, wondering whether it was a sin to hate either.
“Good morning, Alfred’s Guitar Studio!” Iris said, thawed and seated at the desk. Sometimes she slipped up, and said “Uncle Alfred’s Guitar Studio,” which made people laugh, and made her embarrassed, but today she got it right, and thought her voice sounded rather grown-up. As she waited to hear who was on the other end of the line and what they wanted, her fingers toyed with the adhesive label stuck in the center of the rotary dial, imprinted with the number Fairview 8-5210. Later, she would spray the phone and everything else in the waiting room with Lysol. Uncle Alfred didn’t like germs.
“Hello, miss,” a woman on the other end answered. “My son Paul has a three o’clock lesson today, but we’re not gonna be able to make it.” Iris ran through the day’s schedule in her mind, trying to place Paul and the owner of the voice, who spoke over the sounds of a blaring television, a child whining, and a boy shouting. The medley caused a series of images to flash through Iris’s mind: a sink full of breakfast dishes smeared with congealed egg yolk, bowls with remnants of cereal clinging to their sides scattered about the table, spilled orange juice being tracked across linoleum tiles by the bare feet and knees of snotty-nosed toddlers in dirty diapers.
Iris scrunched up her shoulder to cradle the receiver, flipped open the appointment book, and fished a red pen from the pencil-holder. Cancellations were not good; they took a bite out of Uncle Alfred’s earnings and left a hole in Iris’s day, but she did relish the sense of grown-up power she felt when wielding a red pen. Her eyes scrolled down the page marked Saturday to the 3:00 slot. As soon as she spotted the name “Lewes,” Iris recalled the stocky woman who always asked for a second piece of candy while leafing through the Daily News in the waiting room. She and Mrs. Lewes shared the same taste in candy: her favorites were Brach’s caramels (even though they were to blame for pulling out one of Iris’s fillings), with butterscotch hard candy coming in a close second. Like answering the phone and dusting, passing out candy to the students and parents who transited the small waiting room was just one of Iris’s duties as Uncle Alfred’s “very private secretary.” The role came with privileges, like skimming a piece or two of candy off the top each time she passed around the tin canister, which was stenciled with musical notes, like everything else in the studio. She always felt a little guilty when she dipped into the candy jar more than usual, but that was nothing like how she felt now.
Iris sighed, and tried to muster up a tone of authority. “You know our cancellation policy, Mrs. Lewes. You are supposed to notify us twenty-four hours in advance, otherwise you could be charged.”
“I know that, honey,” replied Mrs. Lewes, politely but impatiently, “but try tellin’ that to my other little one who waited till a hour ago to come down with an intestinal bug, and to Mr. Lewes who got called to put in some overtime at the plant. We can’t afford to turn down that time-and-a-half pay so he can babysit. Especially if we want to pay off that guitar.”
“I’ll tell Mr. Capotosti.” Iris uncapped the red Bic with her teeth and drew two parallel lines diagonally across the three o’clock slot, printing the letters CXL in the space between them. She wished she could do the same with the last few days of her life. “We’ll see you next Saturday, then. Tell Paul to keep practicing.” He needed it; he was still working on “Bonanza.” The song was one of the standards Uncle Alfred used to teach his students to read music because of its simple notes on open strings, its peppy tempo, and the catchy tune that was readily recognizable from the television series.
As Iris hung up, a lanky colored boy emerged from the studio, guitar in tow. He dug a hand into the pocket of his dungarees and extracted a skimpy wad of crumpled dollar bills which he proffered to Iris on a amazingly pink palm crisscrossed with numerous lines. She heard that all kinds of information, like how long someone would live or how many children they would have could be read in those lines. Iris wished someone would read hers, and tell her where she could find the four dollars and twenty cents she still needed.
“Let’s see,” she said, as she glanced at the appointment book. “You owe for last week’s lesson, and today’s, plus two weeks of T.P., right?” Her uncle had devised a Trial Plan for students whose families could not afford to buy them a guitar. They were allowed to rent the instrument for a dollar and twenty-five cents a week and if they decided to proceed to its purchase, the sum of rental fees paid would be deducted from the price. Uncle Alfred had learned to play the guitar on his own, using borrowed instruments, and got all wistful looking when he talked about the joy of owning his first guitar. Iris knew he sometimes let the T.P. payments slide for families that didn’t have much money, and she had proof that more than once he had let ownership of a guitar shift nonchalantly to the hands of a promising but needy student after a few months. There was no ceremony to his actions, but Iris was always touched by the proud look on a student’s face when at the end of a lesson Uncle Alfred stepped out of his studio, leaned over the desk where Iris sat and in a tone of confidentiality instructed her to remove the (T.P.) designation that followed his name on the appointment roster. Those students always carried their guitars differently after that happened.
“Music keeps boys out of trouble!” Uncle Alfred would say, when Auntie Rosa suggested he might pursue a more lucrative profession. “All these boys need is a guitar in their hands, and once they learn to play a few chords, they can start up a little rock and roll band.” Her uncle was extremely soft spoken, as opposed to her vociferous father, and exuberant Auntie Rosa. When he talked about guitars and the power of music, his jaw quivered even more than when he sat down to a plate of steaming spaghetti.
The guitars came and went in Uncle Alfred’s basement studio, stopping briefly in the bathroom that doubled as a storage room. Once in a while Iris was lucky, and was granted the privilege of unpacking a shipment of guitars that arrived from New York City, or even all the way from California. She loved running her fingertips over the instruments before anyone had played them, and as she caressed the smooth curves of the bodies and the long, slender necks of the guitars, she fantasized about whose hands would hold them, and whether they would succeed in coaxing harmonious notes and chords from their strings. Iris was learning to play, too, and hoped she would have her own instrument one day. For now, Alexander and Henry were the only ones in the family who had their own guitars, which no one was allowed to touch, but there were a couple more lying around in the house for general use. Iris didn’t really like things for general use, whether they be guitars, bicycles, or roller skates, because no matter how diligent she was about tuning the strings, or filling the tires, or replacing the key, someone else more careless always came along and mistreated everything.
Iris thought that besides being a famous night club performer and the world’s best guitar teacher, Uncle Alfred must be one of the most sought after bachelors in the neighborhood. His manners were impeccable, his appearance dapper, and ladies were quick to accept his invitations to Sunday dinner at the Ponderosa steak house or, on a fine day, perhaps an outing to Canandaigua Lake. On such occasions, Uncle Alfred did not drive the battered station wagon he used to transport instruments, but sat at the wheel of Auntie Rosa’s gleaming Ford Fairlane 500. Regardless of whether any lady friends were invited, the Sunday drives included not only Auntie Rosa’s automobile, but Auntie Rosa herself, and also Iris, if she happened to be around and very lucky. At Uncle Alfred’s insistence, Auntie Rosa always sat next to him in the front seat, ensconced in her force field of Estée Lauder Youth Dew, and the ladies who sat in the back seat with Iris were always very kind, although Iris would have preferred to just look at the countryside rather than keep repeating the same polite answers to the same boring questions. Iris supposed Uncle Alfred didn’t care to have male friends, except for the men in the Hawaiian trio, and he seemed quite content to spend his free time with family, esp
ecially Auntie Rosa and Grandma, and the ladies who fluttered in and out of the Ford Fairlane 500. But, of course, he never looked happier than when he was playing the guitar.
Iris loved many things about those Sundays when Grandma and Grandpa were well enough to be left alone for an outing to be arranged. She loved the way Uncle Alfred held open doors and pulled out chairs for the ladies, herself included. She loved the grown-up way she felt when the waiter placed a menu in her hand, and the grand feeling when Uncle Alfred chuckled and said, “The sky’s the limit!” Iris never ordered more than she could eat, and always kept an eye on the prices, but sometimes she simply could not resist ordering the steak, even if the cheapest one did cost a couple of dollars more than the chicken Auntie Rosa invariably ordered. To Iris, it was easily worth a million bucks more to be served her own sizzling steak, with a colored flag on a toothpick sticking out of the juicy meat, as proof it had been cooked specifically to her preference, as if what she preferred actually mattered to someone. She loved dining in a place where people conversed instead of yelling, and having a cloth napkin in her lap, which she could use to dab daintily at the corners of her mouth, and sipping water from a sparkling tumbler filled with clinking ice, instead of having to drink milk from a plastic glass.
When dinner was over, Uncle Alfred always paid with the bills that filled his wallet on Sundays after a weekend of teaching and playing at The Luau, and he always placed the tip right in the waiter’s hand when they left, as he waved away Auntie Rosa, who always wanted to know how much he was leaving, and even if Uncle Alfred didn’t answer, which he never did, she always said it was too much.
Leisurely Sunday drives to Canandaigua would not be happening for a long time yet, if ever, Iris thought, as she sat in the studio that Saturday, smack dab in the middle of the frigid Rochester winter that blocked the basement windows with drifting snow, and made Iris wish she could be somewhere far away from the cold, and far away from the bridge she would eventually have to cross on Monday morning, and Sister Mary Benedict who would be waiting for her on the other side.
The Complete Series Page 18