The door had opened before Elise could say a word, but she knew that Phyllis Ann expected her to remain silent, that Phyllis Ann believed—
Elise sat now wondering if for once in her life she might not disappoint her friend—but she knew she could not. If she told the truth, if she told that the notes had belonged to Phyllis Ann, then her best friend would be immediately expelled from the school, sent home—and Phyllis Ann would go back to Endicott County to face her father, and her father’s temper, and a hell that Elise could only imagine. But, if she remained silent—
Elise stared out the window now, at the rain washing away the self-assurance of a world she thought she knew. If Phyllis Ann was wrong, then they both could be expelled, sent home in disgrace—but she could not let herself think about that, about going home now to face her own father should everything go wrong. Damn you—Elise thought. Damn you for putting me in this situation. Something inside of her told her that she should protect herself, that she should tell the truth, that she should make the other choice—
The door to the principal’s office opened and Phyllis Ann walked out. The girl stopped for a moment, looking at Elise, the fingers of one hand toying at the long strand of beads that hung about her neck, a clear confidence in her eyes that her friend would never betray her—damn you, Elise thought again, staring at her as she rose to her feet. Damn you for knowing me so well.
Eva Perry sat behind her desk, looking at Elise Whitley as the girl sat with her head lowered, her eyes staring down at the hands folded quietly in her lap—Elise looked frightened, worried, more ill-at-ease than Eva had ever before seen her in all the months she had been at the school, allowing the principal at least the brief hope that she might be able to get the truth out of her. But she knew she would not. She had known that from the moment Elise had walked into the room, had read it in her eyes, and, for once in her life, she wished she did not know girls of that age so well, for she would have liked nothing more now than to hear Elise Whitley speak the truth.
Phyllis Ann Bennett had been the one to cheat; Eva knew that, just as surely as she also knew she could do nothing without proof. The cheat notes had been so hastily scribbled as to make the handwriting unrecognizable, and their position on the floor could have laid either girl to blame, but Eva knew, of the two girls, that Phyllis Ann would have had to have been the one using the notes. Elise was too good a student to have a need to cheat, and, besides, the girl was not even the type to think of employing such a device. But Phyllis Ann Bennett was another matter altogether. There was not much in this world the principal would put past a girl like Phyllis Ann.
“Well, Elise?” Eva prompted, hoping against her own instincts that the girl would tell the truth and admit it had been her friend using the notes—but something in the girl’s expression dashed that hope. Elise would remain silent, or she would deny any knowledge of the cheat notes altogether as Phyllis Ann had done—but there had been an underlying nervousness behind Phyllis Ann’s denial, a poorly-concealed fear that had spoken the truth, and a twist to her words that had said she would very much have liked to have laid the blame at Elise’s feet, if she had only known how to do so. But this girl before her now would protect her friend, even at a risk to herself and her position as a student at this school, with all the blind and often misled loyalty of youth. Somehow Eva could respect that loyalty, much as she at the same time pitied the girl who held it.
She sighed, shifting in her chair, suddenly feeling much older than her forty-two years would allow her. “Well, Elise, is there something you want to tell me?”
The girl remained silent, her eyes set on the hands in her lap. She straightened a fold in her skirt, then clasped her fingers together, seeming to realize suddenly that they were trembling.
“Tell me what happened. Who was using the cheat notes? Was it Phyllis Ann?” She knew those words had placed her beyond a boundary she should never have crossed. She should never have prompted the girl with such a question—but it was done now. She watched Elise, feeling that the girl might be close to tears. Eva knew this had to be the hardest thing Elise had ever gone through, making the choice to either protect herself, or to protect her friend at a risk to herself. The two girls had grown up together, and were closer than many sisters—it would be a hard decision for any sixteen-year-old to make, and Eva could see the cost of that struggle on the girl’s face even now.
“You aren’t helping Phyllis Ann, you know,” she said, her voice softening. “It never helps to protect someone when they do wrong—”
Elise’s eyes rose quickly to meet hers. “I never said—”
“I know, but it was Phyllis Ann, wasn’t it?”
Elise looked at her for a moment, and then averted her gaze again. She seemed to realize her eyes told too many secrets. Eva had already read the truth in them.
“I don’t have anything to say.” The girl’s voice came quietly, her hands trembling in her lap even though her fingers were clasped tightly together.
Eva got up from her chair and went around the desk to sit where Phyllis Ann Bennett had sat such a short while before. She moved the chair closer to Elise, looking at the girl with a motherly affection she felt toward many of the students at her school—she knew she would never have a child of her own; time and the death in the World War of the tall, red-haired sergeant who would have been her husband had seen to that. But she had these girls, and something she could give the world in the lives they led, and the things she could teach them. She took both Elise’s hands in her own, knowing somehow she had to get through to the girl, that whatever decision Elise Whitley made this day would affect the remainder of her life.
“Look at me, Elise,” she said quietly, and the girl’s blue eyes rose to meet hers. Eva smiled. “That’s better. Now, you and I have to have a serious talk. I know Phyllis Ann is your best friend, and I know that you want to protect her if you can, but this is one case where you can not protect her, not if she’s done something wrong. Elise, you’ve got to realize one thing. If you don’t tell me the truth, if you don’t tell me who it was using the cheat notes, I’m going to be forced to treat you both just as if you both had been cheating—” She paused for a moment, hoping to see some spark of understanding in the girl’s eyes. “Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you want to be punished for something you haven’t done?”
Elise lowered her gaze again, but did not speak.
“You’re too good a student; you don’t need to cheat—I know that; you know that; and so does that selfish little friend of yours out there.” There was a flicker of something in the girl’s expression that Eva hoped was understanding. “Don’t you see that Phyllis Ann is only trying to protect herself; that’s all she ever does. She doesn’t care about you or that you’ll be hurt by all this. She’s only concerned about herself, nothing more, nothing less, just as she always is—” She paused again for a moment, letting her words sink in. “You have to think about yourself this time. You have to tell me the truth—who was using the cheat notes?”
For a long moment the girl did not speak. She withdrew her hands from those of the principal, and clenched them tightly in her lap as she stared down at them. When she spoke, her voice was forced, but steady. “I don’t have anything to say, Miss Perry—” she said, her eyes rising to meet those of the principal at last, fear in them, but also decision. “I don’t have anything to say—” And Eva knew she had lost.
But she knew it was perhaps Elise Whitley who had lost most of all.
Elise sat with her hands pressed together in her lap a few moments later, trying to calm their trembling. She had made her decision, and she knew now that she would have to live with it, no matter what consequences it might bring. Phyllis Ann was beside her now, sitting in the chair so recently vacated by the principal, a well-masked nervousness apparent beneath the seeming disinterest on her face. The girl toyed with the long strand of beads she wore, one foot bobbing
up and down absently as she sat with her legs crossed, the tops of her rolled stockings visible below the edge of her skirt—she had smiled at Elise when Miss Perry had called her into the room, had smiled at her with a calm self-assurance, and with an absolute belief in her loyalty; and for once in all her life Elise cursed her for that belief. It was all up to Miss Perry now. Everything was up to Miss Perry. And, not for the first time, Elise felt a shadow of doubt.
“I guess I’ve known all along that this day would come,” the principal was saying, settling herself behind her desk again after having closed the door. “You both have been in and out of trouble almost continuously since the day you first came here. I had just hoped that—” She paused for a moment, then shook her head. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. It’s over with, finished—”
Over with, finished—Elise’s heart gave a start. But surely she did not mean—
“You have left me with no other alternative but to expel both of you from this school effective immediately—”
Elise’s throat tightened. She had known it could happen, but she had never really believed—Phyllis Ann had said everything would be all right if only they would stick together; that Miss Perry could never expel them both, knowing that one was innocent of any wrongdoing. Phyllis Ann had said—
“I will notify your families of what has happened,” the principal was saying. “You will have until the end of the week to—”
“No!” Phyllis Ann shouted, rising suddenly to her feet. She reached and with one movement of her arm slung things from the desktop before her, sending water and dispossessed flowers from the vase there over the floor and the varnished wood of the desk, soaking a stack of students’ files, and staining the front of her own dress. She leaned across the desktop, holding a finger only inches before the principal’s face. “You can’t expel me! I won’t let you!”
Miss Perry did not move, but her eyes narrowed in anger, her hands clenching on the ruined desktop before her as if to keep from striking the girl. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, but steady. “I can expel you, young lady. And I have—”
“My daddy helped you build your goddamn new gymnasium, and to stock your library. He won’t put up with you throwing me out like—”
“This school got along perfectly well without your father’s money before, and it will do so again—”
Phyllis Ann’s hand tightened into a fist before the principal’s face, and, for one moment, Elise thought she would strike the older woman—but the girl reached instead to sling the wet files from the corner of the desk, her bobbed hair suddenly wild about her head, spittle gleaming at one corner of her mouth. “You goddam fat-assed old whore! I won’t let—” She lunged suddenly across the desktop. Miss Perry tried to stand, but only stumbled backwards instead, knocking her chair over and landing with a hard jolt against the wall. Elise froze for a moment, then was suddenly on her feet, grabbing Phyllis Ann’s shoulders and holding her back. Phyllis Ann screamed with rage and spun toward her, her jaw clenched, her fist raised—
For one brief moment, Elise could do nothing but stare at that fist, then she slowly brought her gaze to her friend’s eyes, seeing a stranger there before her now for the first time. Phyllis Ann’s chest rose and fell with heavy, angered breathing. Elise could feel her shoulders trembling beneath her hands—never before in all her life had she truly known what it was to be afraid of anyone. She did now.
“Are you going to hit me, Phyllis Ann?” she asked, hearing her own voice shake. “Are you going to hit me?”
Phyllis Ann stared at her for a long moment, then slowly lowered her fist, letting her arm drop to her side. Elise did not take her eyes from those of the girl before her, did not release the hold she held on her shoulders. She felt a trembling now fill her own body—from shock, from fear, from nervousness, from anger; she did not know which.
“We’re going to our room to pack now, Miss Perry,” she said, her voice continuing to shake. “We’re going to our room to pack—”
Phyllis Ann did not speak. After a moment she pulled free of Elise’s hands, turned to look at the principal one last time, then walked toward the door without another word, leaving it open behind herself as she walked through and out into the room beyond.
Elise took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart—none of this was supposed to have happened. Everything had gone wrong. They were not supposed to be expelled. Phyllis Ann had said—but Phyllis Ann had almost struck her, had almost struck her with an anger so like that of the father Elise had been trying to protect her from. My God, how could everything go so wrong, Elise wondered, so completely wrong. She had remained silent only to protect Phyllis Ann, for she had known that to speak would have meant Phyllis Ann’s immediate expulsion—now they had both been expelled, and Elise wondered if she would ever be able to forget the sight of that fist that had been raised against her, that fist of the person she had gambled everything for. Gambled everything for, and lost.
She shivered and hugged her arms, suddenly cold. She looked toward the flustered principal, wanting to say something, to apologize—she turned without a word and started toward the door. She had made the wrong decision; she knew that now—by God, how clearly she knew it. But there was nothing she could do. Nothing. It was a decision she would have to live with. It was too late for anything else. There were no other choices left.
Martha Whitley sat on the brocaded sofa in the front parlor of her home that April afternoon, the needlework in her lap all but forgotten. She stared across the room at her husband, William, where he stood by the writing desk in the corner, the candlestick of the telephone clenched tightly in his hand.
“Yes, I understand, Miss Perry,” he said into the mouthpiece, a forced-calm tone to his voice that only served to tell Martha that something was very wrong. She stared at him, unable to take her eyes away, knowing that the principal of Elise’s school would never have called all the way from Atlanta without good reason. Her mind raced, going over all the things that might happen to a girl of sixteen away from home for the first time, her stomach tying itself further into knots with each thought. She laid aside the needlepoint she had been working on and rose to her feet to cross the room, but stopped a few feet short of William, seeing the look of anger, of pure rage, on his face, and she wondered what it was that Elise might have done to earn such a response.
“Yes, Miss Perry, I quite agree,” he said, anger in the gaze he now directed at his wife, his dark brows lowered, knit together. The knuckles of the hand holding the telephone began to turn white as he clenched it even tighter. “Yes, it’s unfortunate this had to happen, but I can see you had no other choice but to expel both girls—”
Expel—Elise had been—but what could she have done to—
“When will she be coming home?—yes, I see. Yes, I’ll be meeting the train. Thank you very much for calling, Miss Perry. Yes—goodbye—”
As soon as the receiver was replaced in its cradle and the telephone set back down in its usual position on the writing desk, William turned on her, anger filling his dark eyes. “Elise was—” she began, but got no further.
“You should be pleased with your daughter this time!” he yelled, staring at her. “Giving in to her all her life, spoiling her—she’s managed to get herself expelled from that fancy school of yours for cheating.”
“Cheating—but Elise—”
“That’s what that damn principal said. Elise and Phyllis Ann are being sent home—they found cheat notes that could have belonged to either girl, and neither one would say who had used them, so they expelled both girls—”
“But, they had to belong to Phyllis Ann! Elise would never—”
“Don’t you think I know that, woman!” he shouted, and she fell silent. “It’s that damned Phyllis Ann again, always putting fool ideas into Elise’s head. Elise is just covering up for her—you just wait until I get my hands on that daughter of
yours; she’ll tell me the truth or I’ll—”
“You won’t lay a hand on that child!”
“That’s what’s wrong with her now! You coddling her and spoiling her all her life—but this time it’s going to stop! She’s sixteen now, and it’s about time she started to act it. That’s what you sent her off to that school of yours for in the first place—”
Martha stared at him for a moment longer, and then turned and went back to the sofa to take up her needlepoint again. She sat down and angrily jabbed the needle through the fabric, but refused to say a word. It had been his idea to send their daughter off to school in Atlanta, his idea, and not hers, but of course it would do no good to remind him of that now. Martha had agreed only reluctantly, not wanting to send her only daughter so far away from home, but hoping the time away from Phyllis Ann Bennett would do Elise good. The two girls had been friends from the time they had been little more than babies, and, though Phyllis Ann had always been selfish and self-possessed, the friendship had never presented a problem—until Phyllis Ann had returned from spending a few weeks in New York City with a cousin more than a year before. She had come home with a new wardrobe, a new bobbed hairstyle, and a new and rather shocking manner. The girl had become only more spoiled and self-concerned the older she had gotten, and now she had become daring as well, unconventional, flaunting herself in a manner that was totally unbecoming, and saying things in a way that Martha knew was more often than not meant only to shock.
What was even more horrifying was the way Elise now seemed to want to emulate her friend, wanting to copy her new manner and appearance, to be shockingly modern, as so many young girls were trying to be now days. The short skirts, the bobbed hair, the rolled stockings, the lipstick—William had been fit to be tied when he had seen his daughter.
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