I let out a huge sigh. “I couldn’t live with myself if you thought I was a coward—if I thought I was a coward.”
Katie kissed each eyelid, whispering, “I don’t.”
The door swung open; Alda rushed in, also in tears. “I don’t either.”
I didn’t know how much Alda had heard. I did know both Alda and Katie seemed like life jackets floating on either side of me.
Chapter Thirty-five
Dead Girl Walking
On the morning of the move, I awoke to a blackened room. It was too early and too stormy. I heard the thunder, as well as Alda’s soft snoring. At least, that brought a smile to my face.
Looking around this room in the dark, I still managed to see some of Alda’s treasures. I would especially miss her glow-in-the-dark, stone encrusted Our Lady of Pompeii, sitting next to the Venetian glass framed picture of Alda, Katie, and me taken at the Woolworth’s photo booth in town.
These were my last hours of relative freedom before the move to Albert Hall. I snuck over to Alda’s desk and munched on some of her biscotti. The long necked Vin Santo bottle was empty. I read the holy picture of San Sebastiano, martyr. Somehow, I felt like I, too, was going to be pierced through with spears, sacrificed in just a few hours.
I must have fallen back to sleep in Alda’s puffy chair. The thunder was really monumental, or was it the end of my dream? My executioner was sounding the drum.
I sat up; my blood ran cold. I didn’t know if I was awake, asleep, dead, or alive. Craney stood before me, cloaked in her black, flowing academic gown.
The ceiling light flickered on. “Your move is off.” She spoke each monosyllabic word with deliberate vocalization. “There’s been a reprieve.” Or did she say, after recess, winter recess?
The jangling of her keys preceded her. She disappeared in a swirl of black. The dry clack of the door confirmed her retreat.
I sat stunned. Across the room, Alda seemed plastered against her bedstead, arms spread out, hair seemingly electrified.
Light burst through the door as Katie flew in, tennis racket in hand. “Are you all right?” she gasped. “I saw her.”
I covered my eyes. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. A laughing/crying jag took hold of all of us.
I roared laughing when I told them I thought Craney said “reprieve.” I thought of crime movies and governors commuting death sentences at the last moment. Then I started wailing for real. The rollercoaster ride was fraying every one of my nerves.
Both Katie and Alda decided the winter break would give us all time to involve our families if necessary. I just wanted to sleep.
I was someplace in my head on a beach in Cefalu, Sicily. The froth of the warm ocean enveloped me while mermaids drizzled apricot nectar on my lips. Alda and Katie competing for the lifesaver of the year award broke my reverie; each one argued how to save me from the maelstrom.
“Stop!” I broke the spell. “Maybe Craney has definitely backed off. Let’s just cool it,” I pleaded when the door swung open.
Dorotea stood in the doorway apologizing. “I am so blue. My dream to be in the French dorm, chosen to be among the elite, le cadre francais. It is gone. Craney lied to me.”
Craney had gotten to her too. Katie went to Dorotea and put an arm around her shoulders. “Shush,” she said. “Come back to our room, I’ll explain.”
Chapter Thirty-six
A (Normal) Day in the Life…
Life had returned to its fall crispness and perkiness. We were drinking lots of orange juice and swallowing Vitamin C to make up for the lack of sunshine.
Our spirits had risen along with our hopes of normalcy. It had only been four days since Craney’s change of plans. For us, it constituted a new normal.
Craney made no more appearances. We didn’t question this reprieve or recess or retreat. We were on time for all of our classes and played by the rules, homework and lights out and all.
Alda and I spent some quiet evenings with Katie doing homework and board games in my room. Occasionally we invited Dorotea, whose mood continued to slump after Craney’s change of heart.
Katie was worried about Dorotea. Her nightmares had become more vivid. My dreams had, in fact, turned dreamier.
Katie said Dorotea spoke to Craney in her sleep, asking Craney if she, Dorotea, had been a good girl. One night, according to Katie, Dorotea had awakened screaming she’d do anything Craney wanted. When Katie tried to comfort her, Dorotea kept on repeating that she, Dorotea, was not a good person.
Katie and I actually tried to be kind to Dorotea since it was clear she was troubled. I even spent an evening with Dorotea, reading aloud in French, but it was too weird. Dorotea just stared at me. She gave me the creeps. I imagined her eyes were goats’ eyes. Alda insisted Dorotea was not troubled, just trouble, evil trouble that had to be stopped.
Alda couldn’t stop talking about the belated birthday present she had prepared for Katie and me. Everything was set to go off smashingly in a few days. Alda went around humming Eddie Fisher’s Oh My Papa. She reassured us he always took care of everyone.
Katie and I weren’t sure this was a great idea, but we were looking forward to some R&R. Besides, we had learned in our Classics class that you didn’t look a gift horse in the face.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Belated Birthday
Coronets could have announced the day. Alda had set the stage for my belated birthday celebration. Dorotea had left early, thrilled to receive her aunt’s invitation, Alda’s fiendishly skilled forgery. Before her own departure, Alda phoned Craney’s office. She let me hear Craney’s secretary say Craney would be out of the office attending an Albert Foundation meeting. The bedrooms belonged to Katie and me for an entire luscious day and night.
Katie appeared in the doorway. She stood for a few seconds, still and lovely. Both of us held the moment as we held our breath.
We seemed a bit shy. It had only been a month since our first encounter, but we were no longer impulsive, horny kids. It felt as if we were a seasoned couple on one hand and newly disrobed nuns on the other.
I approached Katie and lifted off her trench coat to reveal a beautiful cotton cut-lace gown. I was almost trembling.
She clasped me to her and softly stroked my throat and my neck. She unbuttoned my flannel nightshirt. She kissed each button as she undid them.
“I’m wondering how to do this. I love you so much,” she said.
I took her hand and pressed it to my lips. “I know,” I whispered. “This time is different.”
We lay on the bed and cuddled and stroked each other. I sighed. I was so free, so transported. I felt as if we had already touched each other deeply and become one.
Katie’s face had never seemed so open. I felt layered inside of her; she was my second flesh. She saw through my eyes; I breathed through her pores.
We must have been there, that way for hours. Or maybe a lifetime. Our arms, hands, and fingers found each other, open and magnetic. It was impossible to say where she began and I ended. Her legs were my legs, my breasts, hers.
I cried out with her in me, her breath, her moan echoed back on me. We fell back, full of each other.
We dozed off, spooning in each other’s arms. I never wanted this to end.
I awoke in the early morning to Katie’s honeyed smile, her head a few inches away.
“You’re lovely,” she crooned.
“You’re lovelier,” I whispered.
“I’m thirsty.” She coughed a silly, make-believe cough.
“I’ll get something.” I slipped on a robe and got money for the collective soda supply down the hall.
“Don’t disappear now.” I smiled as I grabbed the doorknob to exit. I twisted it back and forth a few seconds. Locked. Ooh, that sinking feeling. I tried to recover, laughing out of nervousness. “Ha! We’re trapped forever! Together!”
We giggled a bunch. Katie thought it was a joke. She got up to try the door and collapsed back in bed in a burst of
“ha-has.” We jumped back in bed. I just shrugged, sighing, “Oh well,” when a ray of light darted across the wall.
Katie started to hum the theme from The Twilight Zone. I grabbed her arm and scrunched up my face.
“What is that?” I said, pointing to a black spot, a large black beetle on the wall above Alda’s dresser. “A bug, a hole?”
When Katie got up to investigate, the black spot had turned back to the normal off-white of the walls. I ran to her side, dragging a chair. She went to touch the once-black spot when her finger disappeared into a hole.
“Aw crap, a peep hole. Quick. We’ve got to get out of here.” I pointed to the door.
“How?” she whispered. “It really is stuck.”
We put on a minimum of street clothes, with no idea where to go, except out. We’d use the fire escape. It led to the rear of Smythe Hall with only the privet hedges as backdrop.
I couldn’t see anything through the fog outside the window. I raised the window and stepped out, guiding Katie onto the metal cage. I thought I knew how to unlock and secure the fire escape hinges as I had snuck out with Alda one night. Panic set in this time.
We hardly let go of our handholds as we crept down to the hinge release point. After a few attempts at unlatching the last set of stairs, I was able to work the mechanism. We moved onto the first steps when I felt the stairs give way under us and start to swing back and forth. Someone had tampered with the swinging stairs.
Katie held onto me as we careened, a living pendulum, ten feet above the ground. We were truly unhinged.
As the dangling stair reached its low point, I pulled Katie away from the grille work and let go. We were sore but temporarily safe after our four-foot fall onto cement. We hid out under the privet hedge. I fought back the urge to faint. Katie had turned on her side to vomit. I cleaned her mouth with an old, compressed tissue I found deep in my pocket.
“Where do we go?” I asked through my gasps. “Craney saw it all through the peep hole. She’s going to get us.”
“Do we have money?” Katie had started to dig in her pockets. “We’ve got to get away.”
“Let’s think. Alda or your father?” I said, producing some crumpled dollars and two quarters and a dime. “I can’t think straight,” I was beginning to ramble. “Where the hell is Alda, anyway? It’s ten A.M. She’s supposed to be back.”
“Right. She’d look out the window, no?” Katie said.
It seemed like an eternity had gone by as we continued to gape at each other and the occasional ant also seeking refuge. It took a while to bring Alda’s face into focus. It was the only thing with some color and definition piercing through the fog coating the side of the building. She must have been waving at us for several minutes before we realized she was signaling she’d be right down.
She snuck into the privet hideout beside us.
“Minchia!” Alda cursed as she wiped the smeared blood from the scratches on our faces. “I didn’t screw up this time. I swear. But what? What the heck happened?”
Katie and I shrugged. “Locked door,” said Katie as if that said it all.
I shook my head and sighed. “Yeah, don’t forget about the peephole. Oh and the broken security hinge on the fire escape.”
The laughs that escaped from our mouths were anything but funny. Alda shook me, and held me by the shoulders as she raised her voice. “What?”
“Dorotea?” I asked.
“She’s not back yet. I checked,” Alda said. “What do you mean a locked door? I had no problem.”
Katie was able to roll her eyes at Alda. “Dammit, Alda. That friggin’ door was locked from the outside. Craney’s work.” Katie spit the last few words.
“Uh,” Alda seemed to be counting hours and schedules in her head. “She was supposed to meet with my father in New York yesterday and be back around noon today.”
“But did they meet?” I asked.
“But the peephole…” Katie frowned. “When did that happen? And, Alda, where the heck were you?”
“Yeah, Alda, where were you?” I yelled.
“Geez. Now you don’t trust me?” Alda stammered, “I have a…well, an arrangement with an Exeter guy.”
Silence and the near freezing air stilled the scene for a good five minutes when our combined sighs brought us back to pertinent questions. “What was on the other side of the wall containing the peephole?” was the latest inquiry. Theoretically, a broom closet. We had never investigated. And none of us had noticed the peephole before this morning.
“Hold on, everyone.” I stopped our musings. “What do we do now? I’m losing it. Enough of this cloak and dagger crap. I’m going to be exposed as a flaming lesbian. I’m a goner.”
I was seriously sick with fear, vomiting and weeping. I panicked as I pictured the life I had known wiped out. I didn’t see individual things and people erased; I just froze in the icy sensation of death. Tears and saliva coated me. I needed help.
“Okay,” Alda spoke up with an air of authority. “Katie, you’re safe because of your father. You go back to your room.”
Alda’s hands were around my waist. She was pulling me up. “C’mon,” she said. “I’ve got another plan for you. Katie, you go first. C’mon now, hurry. Back to your room, Katie. I’ve got Pina.” Alda was clearly in command.
Back up in the room and cleaned up, I remained almost comatose in extreme fear, delirious in the same bed where hours before I had been love-struck. Alda reported I had tossed and turned and ranted, “Dorotea, Craney. Craney, Dorotea.”
In my hallucinations, Dorotea appeared to be evil personified, fuming at Craney for cancelling our French program, suspicious that I may have caused it. Craney, too, made an appearance, issuing me a reprieve, maybe just until this torturous episode.
According to Alda, I screamed out, “Just kill her. She’s evil.” She told me that I had been whistling The Wicked Witch is Dead and called for my grandmother.
I woke up soaked in sweat. Alda told me I had wanted to kill both Dorotea and Craney. Thinking more clearly now, I laughed at this death wish. I hurried to admit to Alda that yeah, in a way, I wanted them gone, but of course, I wouldn’t kill them.
Alda rubbed her hands and said it would all work out. Her father would be pleased too. Had I really been thinking clearly?
After what had seemed like eons, I asked Alda what had been going on. “I didn’t kill Craney or Dorotea, did I?” At the time, I really wasn’t sure if I had been delirious or…could Alda have slipped me a pill?
“Nah. Don’t worry,” she answered.
“I think you kept saying your father would take care of business. You were joking, right?”
Alda produced a great big grin. “Sure!”
I was fighting hard to stay lucid now. I needed to make sense to Alda. I needed her to understand who I was. “I can never get ‘even’ with people. I can’t. It makes my skin crawl. When I make a mistake, I want forgiveness, you know?”
“Uh huh,” she said. “Pin, you worry too much. But you are right. They will throw you out.” She looked as if she were picturing this on a movie screen. “Your parents will be furious—or they will pity you and send you to that hospital, Bellevue. But after a little bit of shock therapy, you won’t mind.”
What was Alda’s problem? “Stop! Crap, Alda, you know that’s what I’m scared of, not just losing Albert. I’ll be excommunicated, officially, and from the pulpit. I guess I could live with that. But people will look at me like I’m dirty, like I’m wrong, all wrong. I’ll never see Katie again. How could I go on living?”
“You will. You just won’t know who she is after the shock therapy. But don’t worry, I keep telling you there’s always my father.”
“Alda. Drop dead!” I said, rubbing my eyes and wringing my hands. I was still kind of out of it. I shook my head to try to break through to the real truth. “I can’t. I can’t. I’m just not that kind of person. I don’t think.”
“What kind?” laughed Alda.
I don’t know how long I slept, if I slept, if I dreamt. I had a feeling something really weird had gone on with Alda, but what was going on now was definitely not weird and not illusion.
I felt something, warm and wholesome—it just had that safe feeling—by my face. I just wanted to hold on forever. Katie was whispering, “It’s okay, Pina. I’m okay too. But, sweetie, listen, I think you have an official note.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
The Official Note
A butter-cream light poured through my window. Katie was fully clothed, sitting next to me on the bed; Alda was nowhere to be seen.
I blinked a few times and tried to figure out the day and the circumstances. I was thinking more or less straight.
Katie repeated that she was okay. Why wouldn’t she be?
“Kat, I uh…What day is it?”
“It’s Monday. You’ve got to get up,” said Katie as she tapped an ivory colored envelope against her hand. “Sweetie, you have to read this. It’s on Craney’s stationery.”
“Oh Jesus. It’s all coming back to me.” I scratched my head. “Where’s Alda?”
“No clue. Listen, Pin, the note. You’ve got to—”
“Kat, Alda was really weird, really scary. Do you really trust her?”
Katie got up and came back with a washcloth. She wiped my face and held my head between her hands. She looked straight into my eyes and said, “Open it!”
Finally putting all the pieces together, I understood how this letter could change everything. I reached out for Katie’s hand and ripped the flap with my other hand. The note said, “Report to my office at once on a matter of extreme urgency.” Signed Mary Margaret Craney, Headmistress and dated that morning.
All I could think to say to Katie was, “What time is it?”
Katie was chewing her lower lip. “Seven. Why?”
Love and Lechery at Albert Academy Page 12