Love and Lechery at Albert Academy

by Dolores Maggiore

  “What?” A woman of surprises, my mother. I guess she was living proof of the proverb “Hell hath no fury…” I was trying to grasp the fact that she felt scorned because I was scorned. Maybe this was beginning to make sense.

  “Mom, it’s not because she’s German. She’s got problems; she’s depressed and doesn’t like it when other people look better than she does.”

  “So. She’s the thief of other girls’ reputations.”

  “Mommy, we’ve got good reputations. Everybody likes us, well, almost everybody, kids, teachers. Well, they liked us. Then something got weird with Dorotea and Alda’s folks. And Miss Craney—she’s really weird.”

  “And you and Katie? That’s not weird?”

  “We’re not hurting anyone. I want you to go on liking Katie the way you always have.” I sobbed softly before asking, “Can you still love me?”

  “Oh, honey. I do love you. I’m stunned and confused.” As she reached for my hand, she sighed. “You may be right about my friend Rosa and maybe even Daddy’s sister Athena, but…”

  “Aunt Athena? Really? But you like her…and she’s my…my godmother.”

  I unfurled myself out of my snail position. And slid across the table to hug my mother. We both cried. It was a good time to end this for the evening—on a good note.

  My mother asked me to tuck her in at the Inn next door. The walk to the Inn proved brief but blustery. We walked arm-in-arm, quietly in step with each other, closer to her than I had ever felt.

  I hesitated at the door to her room, drained and afraid our chat would continue, but she leaned on my arm to help her in. Inside, I remained standing and watched as she modestly slipped into her flannel gown.

  She needed to sleep on all this, she said, and would send me back to school in a taxi. She said we’d have a lot to talk about the next day. She hugged me tight, and her next-to-last words were, “Give my love to Katie.” But my mother was always proper. Maybe her “love” meant nothing.

  As she turned her now-haggard face to be comforted in the soft down of the pillow, she mumbled, “Tomorrow…time enough…to talk to Miss Craney…to decide what to do.”

  In the taxi back to my dorm, I tried to relax and let the darkness and slap-dap of the tires calm me. I realized I had told my mother the most important thing. That was some relief. Not a whole lot, but some.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Back at the Dorm

  “You take care, Missy,” the cabbie said. “Sure you’re okay?”

  We had arrived at the dorm. No, I wasn’t sure I was okay. I dragged myself out of the cab.

  As I walked up the front steps of the dorm, I told myself I would worry about all this tomorrow. That wasn’t working. Different voices in my head quarreled: Face it. You are sick; nah, it’s just a phase. Still another, if you had just been more ladylike…

  I attempted to talk back, I’m okay; it just happens this way, sometimes. A stuffy authority explained, arrested development, that’s the Freudian view. Finally, a gentler, seemingly kinder voice piped in, we’ll take good care of her at our facility.

  There were so many voices, I no longer knew if they were all in my head. I did hear myself say out loud, loud and clear, “But it’s love…” My words echoed back at me down the long corridor to Katie’s room. “It’s love…it’s love…” I had to see Katie, now.

  I shook her gently. She pulled me close and held me for an eternity. The voices stopped.

  “Go on, tell me,” she said.

  What to tell? I was still numb from the fistfight in my head. All those voices. I couldn’t scare Katie like that. Ha! I couldn’t scare myself again. Couldn’t, wouldn’t, fall apart.

  “I don’t know…I really don’t. I think it went okay, like the way I expected my mother to be. ‘How could you, blah, blah…’ and that was after I kind of had to spell everything out.”

  “Everything?”

  “Katie, I’m so tired; you know what I mean. Like I love you and all.”

  Katie cupped my cheeks, her soft gaze begging me to tell her everything was okay.

  I was staring at the birthmark on her earlobe, getting lost in it. I needed to sleep, afraid the voices would come back. Finally, the voice that broke through my fog was Katie’s.

  “Pin, I love you. I have to talk to your mom, really. Let me…”

  “She did say she loved me still. Even talked about a friend of hers, Rosa. Sounds like she was a queer. And my aunt…”

  “That’s great, no?” Katie was smiling. I didn’t know why.

  “Katie, I can’t. I’m just petrified. Like tomorrow might be the end.” I was hiccoughing and sopping wet with tears. It was happening even though I told myself No! I was falling apart. I just had to get it together.

  I swallowed hard and mumbled, “We have to see Craney tomorrow. Tomorrow…”

  “Shush. It’s okay, Pina. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  Katie pulled the sheet up around me, taking care not to rustle too much. I felt a butterfly kiss on my forehead, and I knew I was warm and good and safe.

  ****

  I awoke to the tolling of bells. I couldn’t understand why Katie was scrambling over me, mumbling “stupid alarm.” I felt good and whole in every part of my body—and holy too. In my dream, we had entered a small Sicilian church from a movie, radiant in the shaft of sun piercing the crimson stained glass. I was murmuring, “Life is good.”

  “Wake up. The alarm just went off,” Katie said as she tapped my shoulder.

  “Mmm. Life is good.” I could smell the incense.

  “Life is good? Sweetie, you’ve got to wake up.”

  I opened my eyes: no crimson glass, no shaft of sun, no radiance. A wind-up alarm and a gray New England morning. Yet, the incense-filled church dream had left me warm and mellow. My church-going childhood sense of wholeness and holiness filled me.

  Katie stood smiling at me by the side of her bed. She leaned over and brushed the hair out of my eyes. “Life is good, sweetie. We’ll do this together.”

  I propped myself up on my elbow and just stared at Katie. God, she was great, but would my mother go crazy if Katie came? I reached for Katie’s hand.

  “What if my mother—”

  “Goes nuts? I’ll leave. I’ll start by telling her she’s been like a mother to me.”

  “C’mon, I can’t talk about this anymore.” I hurled myself out of the bed.

  “Let’s just go to the Inn; she won’t explode there. I’ll get ready right away.”

  We left the dorm bundled against the cold, me in a tightly stretched jacket over a Norwegian ski sweater, Katie sleeker in her goose down ski jacket.

  “I feel like a dough boy,” I said.

  “You look like one.” Katie laughed. “But at least you’re protected.”

  “I kind of feel like that. Thanks for coming.”

  “But it is like she’s my mom.” Katie wiped her eyes with her mitten.

  “Jeez, Katie. I forget sometimes it was just three months ago. You must miss your mom. I’d be…I mean you never say anything.”

  “I don’t know what to say. She’s gone, and I’m angry and sad.”

  I took Katie by the arm. We walked that way, arm-in-arm, in silence for two blocks. Katie sniffled occasionally. Then she stopped and turned towards me.

  “Pina, I loved her, but she was never, never, never there. Now, at least, she’s really gone.” Katie coughed and adjusted her scarf. She took a deep breath before continuing, “You’re here now. Your mom’s here. We’ve got to do this.”

  Katie took my arm again. She giggled. “Come on, dough girl.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Mother’s Room at the Inn

  Katie pushed ahead of me as we approached my mother’s room.

  “Let me, please. I’ll leave if she’s weird,” Katie said.

  I bit my lip and shrugged.

  Katie knocked and softly spoke my mother’s name. “Mrs. Mazzini, it’s me, Katie.”

  Th
e door opened immediately. My mother clasped Katie to her.

  “Oh, Katie, dear,” my mother said. “How are you?”

  Katie burst into tears. I had never before seen her cry like this. My mother had her arms around Katie and silently motioned to me to close the door. She led Katie to a chair and offered her a hankie.

  Katie managed, “I’m sorry” in between sobs.

  “No, dear, I am so sorry about your mom. She was good to me. I know I’ve told you this before. I’ve been wondering how you’re doing.”

  “I’m okay,” Katie said. “But I needed to see you, to explain.”

  “Shush, now. First things first.”

  “Yeah, good morning, Mommy.” I didn’t mean to be so relaxed, but…

  “Oh, Pina, come here. Let me fix your hair.” My mother pushed my straggly hair behind my ears and kissed me on the cheek. “You didn’t say you were bringing Katie.” She was all sugar and cream.

  “Uh, is it okay?” I said.

  “Of course. Should we eat here at the Inn?” my mother asked the two of us.

  “Mom,” I hesitated, not wanting to break this charming spell Katie had put on her. “We’ve got to talk about Miss Craney.”

  Katie made a face at me. “Pin, we’ve got plenty of time. Your mom’s hungry.”

  “You tell her, Katie,” said my mother.

  She had us out the door and down the stairs before we knew it.

  Unbelievable. She was acting like yesterday never happened. Katie was her ideal child, and I was a dutiful daughter whose hair and tomboyish mannerisms just needed a mild taming.

  Hmm. Always discreet. When would she explode? I knew Craney’s attempts to humiliate her would be pure torture. She would shrink into her little Italian girl self and fade into shame. It didn’t take much to mortify my mother, nor me. I knew it by heart; I was her daughter.

  “Pina, pancakes or eggs? Pina, pay attention.” My mother had been speaking to me.

  “Uh…A piece of crumbcake.”

  “You’ve got to eat something more.” She turned to Katie to ask, “Has she been eating right?”

  Between gulps of coffee, Katie managed, “Oh yes.”

  “Now,” my mother said. “Have you been discreet?”

  I was nibbling on a parker roll, lulled into a familiar numbness by my mother’s banter. She finally dropped the bomb. I looked around to see how many Albert girls were here. Not many, probably preferring the Exeter Inn down the road. Still, my mother wouldn’t make a stink.

  Katie kicked me under the table. Her smile could have killed. She blinked and lightly touched my mother’s hand across the table.

  “You would be proud of us. Pina’s a model Albert girl.”

  I almost gagged. I started to say, “Katie, she means,” when Katie pinched me.

  “Yes,” she said, “Your mom wants to know if we’ve embarrassed her.”

  “Well, ahem, yes. I hope people aren’t talking.”

  I think my mouth hung open for several minutes. My mother was wiping her hands on her linen napkin and leaning over to kiss Katie.

  “It almost feels like you’re my mom too.” Katie sniffled and stared up from under her long, wet lashes. Their looks mirrored each other.

  My mother patted her eyes with her second flowered hankie and then shook it gently in Katie’s direction, “Oh, Katie, you’ve always been a daughter to me.”

  Could this be? Was there going to be a real bomb? Was this just another level of the sand my mom hid her head in? Maybe that sand wasn’t such a bad idea.

  “Hey. What about me?” Oops! I really was glad my mother loved Katie. I wanted some of that for me too.

  “Yeah,” said Katie, shooting me that look. “It’s Mothers’ Weekend. Tell your mom how much you love her.”

  God. Katie’s right. Why was it so hard for me to do that? “I love you, Mom, thanks for coming up,” I said, almost a whisper. My mother squeezed my hand across the table.

  We had made papier-mãché with twelve tear-soaked paper napkins. Two hankies lay drying over the edge of the table. When my mother pulled out her Harriet Rubinstein Old Rose lipstick, applying just a genteel amount, that was the sign it was time to leave.

  As she stood up, my mother said, “That conversation, the one about Miss Craney, why don’t we continue it upstairs?”

  Katie excused herself and said she’d meet us there. I figured that was her way of leaving my mother and me some privacy. I didn’t know if I wanted any, but Katie had a clever way of making me face my fears.

  We were just about seated in my mother’s room when I said, “Thanks, Mom.” Too much silence was frightening. Who knew what my mother might ask.

  “What’s to thank?”

  “I mean the way you are with Katie. It’s great.” I could do this, I thought, like really try to talk to my mother.

  “Oh, that,” she said.

  Chicken!

  “Yes, that! You treat her as if she walks on water.”

  “Well, she is special, isn’t she?” she asked, standing up to fix one of the waves in her hair in the mirror. She pushed the loose curl up in place.

  “Right, Mom. She’s great. You’re great. That’s why I love…you…both.” Jesus. I’ve said it. Shoot. She’ll probably twist it all up.

  “What’s that, honey?” She squinted at me from the mirror above the mantle.

  “I was saying you’re both great, you and Katie, and…I uh…that’s why I love you.”

  “Hmm.” She sat back down and leaned over to flatten out my skirt. “Yes. I guess we’re two in a million.”

  I didn’t believe it. Yikes! Was it safe to let down my guard? I wished Katie would hurry.

  “So…” said my mother. “Miss Craney. Were you…? What were you…?”

  “Hi!” Katie burst in. “Oh, excuse me.”

  “My mother was just asking about Craney,” I said. I hoped she wouldn’t ask about sex in front of Katie. My mother had a real thing about sex. She couldn’t even use the word when she told me my sixteen-year old cousin was pregnant.

  “Katie, sit here,” my mother said.

  Katie sat at the edge of the wingback, studying our faces. I tightened up my jaw and squinted, hoping Katie would read “careful” in my look.

  She chewed her lip and cast the most imploring look at my mother. “Mrs. Mazzini, Miss Craney is wicked. My father thinks she might even be a child molester. He’s coming up tomorrow.”

  My mother blanched then fanned herself with her hankie as the wave of her flush crept up her neck. She opened her mouth but continued to stare ahead in silence.

  I approached my mom and touched her arm. “No, she hasn’t abused me that way.”

  “Yet!” said Katie.

  “Pina! Please tell me now what’s going on.” My mother was holding onto the arms of the chair.

  “Craney, uh…Miss Craney has been…”

  “The word is grooming,” said Katie.

  “Mommy, she’s threatened if I didn’t—”

  “Didn’t what, dammit?” My mother’s movements became staccato, her tone frigid.

  “Service her,” I mumbled.

  “Mrs. Mazzini, she won’t dare say ‘have sex.’”

  “Katie!” My glare was a gun with a silencer.

  “Or what?” my mother asked.

  “Well…I’ll be kicked out…like I’m a les…well, a…well, you know. But she’s also accused me of being involved in Dorotea’s disappearance. I’m not.”

  I started sobbing. I knelt down next to my mother and held onto her knees. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I swear. She’s crazy.”

  “Except…” My mother seemed to be searching for the right words. “You and Katie…” My mother swallowed hard and continued, “Did Craney see something?”

  “We don’t know,” Katie said. Katie got up and stood next to my mother and me. She placed her hand on my shoulder.

  “Miss Craney has been after Pina from the start, but we had no proof she was really sick.
Oh yeah, we have that journal where she wrote your name and hers.”

  “It all started on my birthday,” I explained, seeing my mother’s narrowing gaze.

  Katie threw me a sidelong glance, acknowledging in silence that our intimacy had also been a birthday present. Then she frowned, saying, “Remember how she warned you from the start. What was it? Yeah, ‘I’m watching you…’ but then, she got all chummy and made our skin crawl.”

  “Mommy, she was almost petting me. It was gross.”

  “And you said nothing? You couldn’t have told me?” My mother was puffing out her cheeks.

  “But, I wasn’t sure. And she invited me to her private room. I didn’t know. Maybe she was just being nice? I had no idea how things worked at a swanky place like this. I was out of my league. But she’s done far worse.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Pina, what?” She said, pulling out yet another hankie from her purse by her side. My mother was perspiring and fanning herself. Her chest heaved with massive sighs.

  I was sobbing again. I couldn’t do this. All I was doing was upsetting my mother, the last thing I wanted.

  Katie pulled me into a chair. She patted my shoulder and stared out at the hills through the window. I wanted to go away, far away from my mother’s gasping and Katie’s pensiveness. I just wanted out.

  Katie broke the silence. “Mrs. Mazzini, please. Miss Craney has been planting her things in Pina’s room and sending her books about…uh…suggestive books, and she’s like a lecherous, old man…only a woman.”

  “Enough!” My mother stood and turned to take her purse by the double handle. “We’ll see about this. Pina, get my coat, please.”

  “What are you going to do?” I helped her with her coat. After she finished buttoning the collar, she reached out and clasped me to her. She called Katie over and held the two of us a few moments more.

  “I’m going to do what should have been done a long time ago.”

  Katie and I hurried to put on our jackets. I had never seen my mother standing so tall. In her four-foot-something frame, she seemed to loom large as she walked solidly in her Cuban heels, bearing us along on either side. She informed us we would go directly to Miss Craney’s office, adding she didn’t give a whit about Mothers’ Weekend.