Girl Meets Class

by Karin Gillespie

  I opened my mouth, wishing some saving words would spring out. It didn’t happen; there were no saving words.

  “Thought so,” Carl said.

  “I can’t do anything about Darnell. But Dr. Lipton will be leaving Harriet Hall after mid-year testing in January. After he does, I can stop falsifying my attendance records and grades.”

  Carl drew back, startled. “What do you mean, January? Lipton’s not due to leave until the end of the year.”

  “He told me Dr. Scott’s taking early retirement because of his wife’s illness.”

  A wild look entered his eyes. “You didn’t tell him anything about poker nights, did you?”

  “No! What kind of person do you think I am?”

  He was silent, too polite to answer the question honestly.

  “Speaking of Lipton, you need to be careful. He’s suspicious of you. He even told me I needed to break up with you if I wanted to keep my job.”

  Carl stiffened. “And how did you respond to that?”

  I couldn’t answer, couldn’t bear to tell him that I hadn’t yet made up my mind.

  “I’m curious,” Carl said, blinking rapidly. “What wouldn’t you do for five million dollars? Where do you draw the line?”

  “It’s just until after mid-year testing. Then you and I—”

  “I’m sorry, Toni Lee. There is no you and I anymore,” he said quietly.

  I watched him stride out of the room, my heart leaping in his direction. I wanted to chase after him, but I’d just make a fool of myself. The guy was done with me. He’d seen who I really was, with all my warts and blackheads, and decided he wanted nothing to do with me. Who could blame him?

  Twenty-Six

  The morning after Carl dumped me I couldn’t get out of bed. I was afraid to, terrified of myself and what kind of wild stunts I might pull if I were up and walking around. Chug Johnny Walker Black straight out of the bottle. Drink and dial every man in my address book. Spend the little bit of money I had on a decadent weekend at the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta.

  Early that morning Lipton texted me with a question mark. I texted back: “It’s over.”

  Later on in the afternoon my phone buzzed. For a second, my heart pulsed with hopefulness. Carl, Carl, Carl!

  But it wasn’t him. It was Jenny Simmons, reminding me of my promise to donate one of my old tennis racquets to the silent auction at the Spinsters’ Ball, and could I please bring it over immediately. She called me a couple of times earlier in the week but I’d forgotten all about it.

  “I’m feeling ill. Could I drop it off tomorrow?”

  “The ball is tonight,” she said brusquely. “I need it by seven p.m.”

  Around six-thirty I willed myself off the mattress. My whole body ached from lying in bed for hours. I padded to the bathroom and flung open the medicine cabinet seeking my Goody’s Powder. My eye caught a prescription bottle of painkillers I’d gotten after a root canal in July. I hadn’t taken a single pill because the label said in bold letters, “Do not mix with alcohol,” and back then alcohol was like oxygen to me. In any case, if I ever needed a pill to blot out all my pain, mental and physical, it was now. I rattled out two pills into my palm and dry swallowed them.

  The night was cold and starless, and the air was sharp with the smell of sulfur from the paper mill on the South side of town. I drove my Porsche to the Club, the site of the Spinsters’ Ball. I got out of my car, and the muffled sound of the band drifted from the main ballroom.

  A half dozen couples were filing into the building lit with gold fairy lights. The men strutted in tuxes, and the women floated in jewel-toned gowns that shimmered under the halogen streetlights.

  I could feel the painkillers kicking in. A swell of wooziness pitched me forward, and I nearly stumbled. The pills were stronger that I thought. Best to drop off the racquet and get home as soon as possible.

  I made my way to the entrance, occasionally careening, as if on the deck of a sailboat in rough waters.

  Once inside I crab-walked past the coat check gal and the fifteen-foot Christmas tree festooned with hundreds of gold and silver balls and bows. “Jingle Bell Rock” played in the lobby.

  On the way to the ballroom, Baby’s huge face, big as the moon, zoomed into focus.

  “Where’s Jenny?” I waved my tennis racquet about.

  “You trying to kill flies with that thing?” She looked me up and down. “What’s wrong? Are you high again?”

  “Meh,” I said.

  Damn. The pills were kicking my butt all over the place. Needed to find Jenny. I dragged a hand along my cheek. Face melting.

  Took a step. Someone pulled the floor out from under me. Bam. On the ground.

  “Toni Lee!”

  Joelle stood over me. White-faced and far too skinny. Looked like she was being eaten up from the inside.

  “She’s plastered,” Baby said. “Worse than Lois’s funeral. If anyone’s wearing a hat they’d better hang on to it.”

  Joelle’s face came in closer. She wore an expression of concern. “Is this about your boyfriend?”

  How could she possibly know about my split with Carl? I hadn’t told a soul except for Lipton. Hadn’t bothered to change my Facebook status to single.

  “I saw it on the news earlier,” she said. “Did you have any idea he was capable of something like that?”

  I struggled to my feet. What was she talking about?

  Trey manacled my arm, holding me upright.

  “Time for somebody to go home. I’ll get Toni Lee a cab. You and Baby go on in. I know you two promised to help supervise refreshments.”

  “Are you sure?” Joelle said. “She’s pretty wasted. Maybe I should—”

  “You have an obligation, Joelle,” Trey said sternly. “I’ll take good care of her.”

  Baby tugged on Joelle’s arm. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before she blows.”

  “But she’s upset,” Joelle said. “I can’t just—”

  “Go!” Trey said, as if he was addressing a golden retriever.

  That’s all it took. Joelle scurried off. Over her shoulder she said, “I’ll call you later.”

  Stop, I wanted to yell. What were you saying about Carl? But she was gone, and Trey was dragging me down the hall, his fingers pressed cruelly into the tender underside of my arm.

  I felt a swirl of cool air, and we were outside. The smell of grease and old garbage curled from a nearby dumpster. Clouds floated out of my mouth.

  Trey’s gray eyes bored into me, hard and cold like diamonds.

  “What did I tell you about your boyfriend from the hood? What do you think of him now that he’s shown who he really is?”

  Before I could respond, he grabbed my shoulders and shoved me against the building. My skull banged against the bricks. He forced his tongue into my mouth, and squeezed my breasts as if checking for ripeness. I struggled to get loose from his grip. Finally he let go of me

  “I was right.” He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “You are sullied.”

  He straightened his black bowtie and said, “Stay away from Joelle. Don’t call her, and don’t stop by to see her. She’s going to be my wife, and doesn’t need to hang around white trash like you.”

  I wanted to spit in his face but my mouth was too dry from the pain medication. He pinched my breast once more before going back inside. I remained flattened against the wall, wondering what Joelle and Trey had been talking about.

  A door opened, and I cringed, thinking it might be Trey again. Instead it was someone in a white uniform.

  “Toni Lee,” said a familiar female voice. “Are you out here?”

  “Yes.” It came out more like “yeth.” I was relieved to see Henry; maybe she could tell me what was going on with Carl.

/>   She slowly approached me, head cocked, lips pursed in disappointment. “I saw Mr. Winston drag you out here. Are you drunk? You look terrible.”

  “Bad night.” One of my shoes fell off, and I was trying to slip it back onto my foot.

  “Is this about Carl? Are you upset because of what happened?”

  “What is it?”

  “You really don’t know?” Now that she was closer I could see hollow, dark smudges beneath each eye. Whatever it was, it had to be awful. I’d never seen Henry look so stricken.

  She let out a protracted exhale of air. “Carl’s in jail.”

  “What?” I shook my head in denial. The movement stirred up everything in my skull.

  “This morning a female student accused him of making sexual advances. She burst into his classroom and said he took her virginity in the field house. The whole floor heard her. Security was called; they interviewed the girl, and the girl’s sister also confirmed the accusations. After that the police took my son away.”

  “Who?” Although I could make a pretty good guess.

  “Someone named Rose Wyld.”

  I shook my head again, even though it made me dizzy. “She’s lying.”

  “You don’t think I know that? You don’t have tell me what kind of man my son is.”

  “Gotta get him out.” I fumbled with my bag, wanting to give her money, anything I had. I’d sell my soul, my body, my bone marrow. A couple of quarters spilled out. Some lint. An unwrapped Werther’s caramel.

  “His younger brother Mitt is working on bail money as we speak. He should be out by tomorrow morning.”

  I was listing to the left, and Henry uprighted me with a gentle shove to my shoulder. “I wish I could take you home, but we’re too busy. This is one of the club’s biggest events, and if I didn’t show up tonight I’d have been fired. Come on. You need to sleep this off for a while.”

  She led me to the ladies’ locker room and told me to lie down on the chaise lounge inside. I wanted to protest—how could I sleep while Carl was incarcerated?—but the painkillers in my system overruled my troubled mind. Reluctantly I stretched out on the chaise, and within moments I was asleep.

  Later I woke up with a gasp. Where was I? Then it came back to me. I was at the Club and the Spinsters’ Ball was going on above my head. The thump of the bass threatened to come through the ceiling. My mind was still muddy, but I wasn’t as bad off as earlier. Henry had taken me down here and…

  The memory came back like a slap across the face.

  Carl.

  Arrested.

  Jail.

  I forced myself up off the chaise. It’d been a humiliating night, and I was certainly the talk of the Spinsters’ Ball. Someone might even call my aunt, but I couldn’t think about that. Carl’s troubles were foremost in my mind.

  I left the locker room and headed to my car. I didn’t want to go home, didn’t trust myself there, what with a rack stocked with cheap wine and a closet full of party clothes. No telling what I might do to keep my pain at bay.

  I drove ever so carefully to Tranquility Hall. My daddy was out of town as usual, on his annual holiday gambling junket to Atlantic City. Aunt Cornelia would be there. Not that she was a comfort, but she was all I had.

  Twenty-Seven

  Tranquility Hall was dark and silent. Aunt Cornelia must have already turned in. I scribbled a note for her and left it by the teapot in the kitchen. Then I climbed the double-helix spiral staircase to the second floor where my childhood bedroom was located.

  Daddy had changed nothing since I left. My mother had my bedroom professionally decorated before I was born. In the center of the room was a canopy bed with a lacquered gold-leaf finish headboard and billowy ivory curtains. They closed with the pull of a tasseled cord. Twin armoires stood like sentries on each side of the bed.

  It was a room fit for a princess—in fact the material surrounding my bed looked as if it had been stolen from Princess Diana’s taffeta wedding dress. Clearly my mother had been expecting a fairy-tale type of daughter and had been disappointed when she’d gotten me instead.

  I’d never been comfortable in my bedroom. Many times when I was a kid I’d drag a Little Mermaid sleeping bag into the hallway and camp outside Daddy’s bedroom.

  But tonight the lilac-water scented linens looked especially inviting. I shed my clothes and crawled nude between the sheets, falling into a deep slumber.

  Hours later I was jolted out of dreamland by my aunt’s voice. “What’s wrong with you? It’s nearly noon and you’re still in bed.”

  “Don’t feel good.” It was true; my eyelids weighed ten pounds each, and I felt boneless with exhaustion.

  “I’ve gotten some calls. Is it true you were drunk last night?”

  “Took painkillers I got from the dentist. Had no idea they had such a kick. You can see the bottle if you want.”

  I didn’t care if she believed me or not. I was too exhausted.

  Aunt Cornelia sniffed around my face. “I don’t smell spirits.” She pressed the palm of her hand on my forehead, her numerous rings cool against my skin. “You seem clammy. I’ll check on you later.”

  Yes, later, I thought. When the thirteen-year cicadas return. Before I went back to sleep again, I texted Carl. Maybe he was out of jail by now.

  I sunk into a foggy hibernation; hours passed without notice. Periodically I lurched to the bathroom, eyes closed, bumping into furniture, all in a dreamlike state. Now and then I heard Aunt Cornelia’s voice, but it was faint and faraway like a distant train whistle.

  I got caught up in a nightmare, trying to find Carl behind an endless series of silk curtains. I felt the covers being pulled away from my body. Desperately I grabbed them but they slipped through my fingers.

  Aunt Cornelia stood over my bed, an apparition suspended in a haze of perfume. “Good. You’re ready for your shower. After you’re done, you’re to come downstairs and eat something.”

  I curled into a fetal position. “No shower.”

  She tickled the sole of my foot. “Get in there now. I’m not leaving until you do. You’ve been sleeping for forty-eight hours.”

  Had it been that long? I checked my phone. No messages from Carl. I knew our relationship was over with, but it still seemed unnecessarily cruel to withhold information from me. I reluctantly abandoned my bed and crept to the bathroom. I showered, dressed, and went downstairs, my senses still muted.

  My phone dinged. Someone had left me a voicemail.

  “This is Henry. Got your number from Carl. He’s home now, and we’ve secured one of the best attorneys in the state. Deena and Katherine came down from Atlanta to be with him. Sounds like they might be rethinking the divorce. It’s best for everyone if you leave him alone.”

  The next few days I sat in the den at Tranquility Hall, watching TV. No horror movies. I’d lost my stomach for knife-wielding fiends. It didn’t matter what was on; it was background noise.

  One morning my Aunt Cornelia blocked my view of a Proactiv acne treatment infomercial.

  “This isn’t normal. What’s the matter with you? You need to tell me.”

  “I’m tired. Teaching takes a lot out of a person.” I craned my neck to see around her.

  “This is more serious than being tired. You haven’t talked to a soul since you’ve been here. I assume you’re planning on going to Joelle’s house for Christmas as usual?”

  “Not this year. She’ll be with her fiancé.”

  “What about that fellow of yours? Carl?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “We’re taking a break,” I muttered. Cornelia had no interest in Rose Hill news so she certainly hadn’t heard about Carl’s arrest.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

&nb
sp; “What?”

  “It’s obvious you’re suffering from a broken heart.”

  “No.” My voice was as faint as a fly buzzing under a Mason jar. “Don’t feel a thing.”

  “This lolling about won’t helping matters.” She clapped her hands together. “I’m sending my assistants home, and I’m taking the rest of the day off. It’s Christmas Eve. You and I are going to celebrate the holidays.”

  I wouldn’t have been more surprised if she’d suggested nude hang gliding.

  “You always work during the holidays,” I said.

  “Not this year. Get your coat.”

  Our first stop was the mall. It was riotous with holiday decorations: multicolored lights blinking, tinsel twinkling, and strung ornaments twirling.

  Cornelia lamented the lack of a Saks Fifth Avenue or a Nordstrom’s in the Rose Hill Mall. “Dillard’s will have to do,” she said.

  She picked out Christmas sweaters for us to wear, saying, “If we want to get into the spirit of the season, we need to dress the part.” After the mall, we stopped at the grocery store for cookie making supplies.

  When we got home, Aunt Cornelia put on Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” and suggested we don our new sweaters.

  Her sweater was appliquéd with Rudolph. The nose lit up. My glittery snowman sweater was every bit as tacky. If you poked his stomach, it played, “Frosty the Snowman.”

  “Time to bake the cookies,” she said.

  At first, she seemed relaxed, singing along to the Christmas music, periodically saying, “Isn’t this festive?” But as the task wore on, she got more intense about it. Batter had never been beaten so hard; dough had to do her bidding or risk being tossed in the garbage disposal. An hour into baking, she was barking orders at me. “More sprinkles on those cookies. Silver balls not gold. You call that a candy cane?”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed away a bowl of cookie dough. “Maybe you should do this yourself.”