“Tomorrow is Thanksgiving dinner,” Rose reminded her. “They let us have seconds on turkey.”
“I’ve never had Thanksgiving dinner before,” London admitted. Sometimes she found herself telling Rose things she’d never told anyone else. She didn’t know why.
Rose grabbed her hand. “You can have my seconds tomorrow. That will be thirds.”
London snatched her hand away. “We can’t touch, remember, Rose? That’s a rule.”
“But you never follow the rules.”
London saw that she’d hurt Rose.
“I don’t mind breaking rules that get me in trouble. But I don’t break rules that get you in trouble. Do you understand?”
Rose’s eyebrows bunched together. “I understand stuff.”
“Rose, don’t be mad, okay. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“But you said it like that.”
“No,” London said. “I didn’t. I just wanted you to know that…”
“What?”
“That… I like you. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Rose’s smile was bright and large, and it startled London every time she saw it.
“I like you too.” Rose beamed. “We’re friends. Right?”
London smiled. “Okay.”
“Say it. We’re friends.”
“Rose!”
“Say it.”
London really couldn’t understand how this puny monster was about to force her into saying they were friends. Though, she knew it was true. The realization had hit London a couple of days before, on her way to dinner, when Rose had asked London to tell her what was happening with the Count of Monte Cristo in her book, and London had said she would once they’d gotten their plates. And then London hadn’t been able to wait while Rose took all the time in the world on the food line and making her way to the table. That girl did not move fast under any circumstances. London had watched her slowly walking past table after table, saying hi, and “Excuse me,” and smiling at people, and London was like, That bitch better hurry it up… because she wanted to be with her. And now here London was, about to say something she’d never said before in her life.
“We’re friends.”
“Ha!” Rose laughed. “I knew we were. Even if you couldn’t say it. I knew it.”
“Goodness, dears. Morning walks are for our constitutions, not our mouths,” Miss Sweeney complained, frowning as she passed.
London had a friend. Her very first.
If she didn’t count Alby, that fuck.
Maxine had gotten it into her head once again that she would like to be a singer. This year she also added the goal to learn the piano. In Maxine’s mind, all singers needed to play the piano, because Miss Petruskavich sang and played the piano. Maxine ignored the facts that Dottie sang rather prettily and didn’t play the piano, and that Mary played the piano and didn’t sing. The Christmas concert always featured a solo or two, and Maxine had finally secured one.
Since London had arrived at the school, Maxine had more time to think about things like singing. Rose had been spending much of her time with London, walking the circles, sitting with her at meals. London was even reading that book to Rose, the one with the silver writing on its spine. Maxine and Alice would listen to a chapter or two now and then. It seemed to be all about escape and revenge—a little strange of Mrs. Vetter to give this story to a girl who seemed overly obsessed with both these things. Maybe the nurse had never read it. Maybe she’d just had it lined up on her shelf with other books, as a sort of display. So much about the institution was display—the large brick buildings with their massive columns, the well-tended walkways, the deep and comfortable couches in the family visiting room. Couches Maxine had never sat on. Until, maybe… Christmas.
Maxine had convinced herself that her entire family would arrive at Christmas. She and Rose would be fifteen and fourteen this coming year. She would be an adult. And besides being able to take on full-time work, she’d be a tremendous help with her brothers. It made sense for their mother to wait until Christmas to bring them home. With the entire school and community present and her family sitting among them, Maxine would come to the piano and sing. The homecoming would be triumphant. Hope flooded Maxine’s heart.
When they’d first arrived at the school, Maxine’s heart had been flooded with righteous anger. How dare her mother send them away! Maxine had done nothing. Or, at least, barely anything. Also, she and Rose had never given their mother a moment of distress. They’d always looked after themselves, allowing their mother to concentrate solely on their younger brothers.
But over time, that day in the alley had begun to weigh on Maxine. It grew larger, and her feelings more intense, and she doubted her innocence. How could she be innocent when even then she had admitted she was wrong? She walked the circles morning and afternoon, begging her mother in her heart to forgive her. She could change. Anyone could change. It had been a mistake. Her heart was so broken, she was sure her mother could feel it all the way in Somerville. How could she not? How could she not know how desperately sorry Maxine was… and come for them?
But she never did.
It was then that Maxine had turned to her last resort: God.
At night, after Rose fell asleep, Maxine prayed. Both her parents had been pious, church-loving people, and Maxine knew many good prayers by heart. But being so tired from the long days in the institution, she’d fall deeply asleep before she’d even finished saying “Dear Lord.”
But she worked at it. Maxine loved to work hard. She might not catch on quickly to things, like Alice, but she saw that over time, if she put in the effort, she became better, and in this way she grew into quite the devoted worshipper. Her bad thoughts, the terrible aching, that day in the alley… each night she stripped herself bare before the Almighty. Yet in spite of cracking open her heart, Maxine and Rose remained at the school.
If Maxine had been laid low before, she now slipped even further into despair. She had never been a great thinker, but she searched her mind for reasons why this could be happening. Using the very few years she’d had to observe the world in all its wonder, she hadn’t been able to come up with an answer. In a state of pure unhappiness in the face of an uncertain future, she had reached out to the aging Dr. Fernald.
Surprisingly, the superintendent of the school had granted Maxine an interview. She was sure he would wipe away the sadness and confusion she felt upon being exiled from her home, for this was the man who ran the large institution she and Rose now existed in. The very person who decided when the whistles blew, how many claps of the hands meant quiet, what the inmates ate, when they slept, and even the times when it was correct to move one’s bowels. Not only did he manage all of this, and more…. He also constantly tested and measured them, and therefore certainly understood the contents of their hearts and minds.
Maxine sat across from the doctor in his office as she waited for him to finish reading her file, which he read straight through in front of her as she patiently swung her feet to and fro underneath the wooden chair. She felt sure this grandfatherly old man with a thick mustache and thinning hair would have the answers she was looking for. After she sat listening to the ticking of the office clock and watching the dust float in the sunshine streaming through the office window, he removed his glasses to look across his wide desk down at Maxine.
“Dear child,” he began, and Maxine felt the confusion and sorrow already lifting. “You have committed no crime.”
Maxine’s mind reentered the alley, as it had done so many times before, and like so many times before, she felt shame. It was as if she and the doctor now both stood there, in that glorious moment that had turned so terribly wrong. Maxine felt immediately weakened. Vulnerable. She stared into the watery eyes of the old man and waited for him to forgive her.
“It is lucky that your mother recognized your feeblemindedness at an early age, before you could acquire the facility to commit crime. Because, my dear, every moron
, especially the higher-grade moron, such as yourself, is a potential criminal, needing only the proper environment and opportunity for the development and expression of his criminal tendencies.”
“I’m a her,” Maxine had whispered.
“I don’t believe you’re understanding me,” he said, returning his glasses to his face. It was a sign that he was finished. Although, he had one last thing to say, and he said it without looking at the withering child in the chair, whose boots were now still.
“The moron is a most dangerous element to the community. From a biological standpoint she is an inferior human being. It may sound harsh, but it is scientifically objective.” He seemed to emphasize the “she” as a gift to Maxine.
She’d climbed down from the chair and calmly left his office, and naturally, rage had taken over. Pure. Complete. Rage. Maxine had burned with it, day in and day out. There was Rose to think about—which Maxine did, and therefore she locked her intense anger inside, where no one could see it, like the deep, fine punctures she made in her fingertips using needles stolen from the sewing room. The hate she felt could only be satiated by slowly shoving the tiny slivers of metal through the pink of her flesh—physical pain masking the emotional, a beautifully welcome trade-off. And afterward, Maxine would drift off into blessed sleep.
In this way, from the tiniest annoyances like the constant lack of toilet paper to the very real physical dangers from the bigger girls whose anger whipped outward instead of inward, Maxine quenched her fury by sinking needle after needle into her fingers.
She’d thought about killing herself. Thought about all the ways in which it could be done, some less nasty than others. But there was always Rose. Maxine was stuck, and without hope. The only peace being the pain of the needles.
It was Alice who’d saved her. A beautiful love story, that’s how Maxine thought of it.
One night, in the dark dormitory, with everyone asleep, Alice had reached across the six wide inches from her cot to Maxine’s—their eyes locked on to each other’s—and had gently taken the needle from Maxine’s finger and plunged it into her own.
There had not been the faintest twitch of Alice’s beautiful lips, nor a tinge of pain in her deep-set steady eyes. But to say that there was nothing would be wrong. It would be very wrong. Because there was absolutely something. There was connection. One so raw and real that Maxine vowed in that moment to love Alice forever.
After this, Maxine’s hope returned, and though the hoping hurt so much worse than any needle ever could, she didn’t care. She was in love with Alice.
Of course, she’d loved Rose all her life, and Rose had been the one to keep Maxine from death, but Alice was another kind of love, a love that made Maxine want to live, to once again imagine her mother forgiving her, and coming for her, and for Rose. This love made Maxine want to get a job and find a home, close to the ocean. Where she and Alice could hear the waves. It made Maxine want to dream of old houses to paint and nice furniture to arrange, soft furniture, like that found in the visiting room. Alice was a love that made Maxine want to plan a life.
It was like she’d lived through a long fever, and now she saw life the way it really was. All the dreaming would pay off one day. All the hoping. Maxine now had no doubt. Alice didn’t see it this way, but that was fine. Maxine understood. Alice wasn’t ready yet, and so Maxine dreamed for the both of them.
Singing. Playing the piano. It was all part of the plan. Christmas was the best day for her mother to come. Christmas was special everywhere, but especially here at the institution. It was still early December, but the lights were already strung across the fronts of the buildings, and red and green tinsel was hung inside the main rooms and offices. There was even Christmas music in the dining hall playing on an old phonograph placed in the corner by the door. Everyone chewed as quietly as possible to hear it, even London. There was change in the air. Maxine could smell it. She could also hear it, since all she did was sing, sing, sing.
Miss Pet was caught up instantly in Maxine’s enthusiasm. She arranged to meet with Maxine at special times before or after choir practice. Maxine was an attentive student. She was also a terrible singer, a fact that bothered neither student nor teacher, and together they decided on “Deck the Halls” as Maxine’s debut as a soloist. Miss Pet believed it a perfect fit for Maxine’s voice. Miss Pet would invite the entire school and community to join in behind Maxine with the “Fa la la la las,” and Maxine’s performance would be the great finale to the evening.
Maxine turned out to be a much better pianist than she was a singer, and Miss Pet gave her exercises to practice between their sessions. Maxine wasn’t allowed more time at the actual piano, so her teacher showed her how to strengthen her fingers when she was away from the instrument.
“Place your hand on the table as though you were resting your fingers on the keys,” she instructed, closing the piano and showing Maxine on the lid. “Now play the sequence one-three-five-two-four, repeating it over and over.”
Maxine gave it a try.
“Make sure you keep to a rhythm and that each note you play is given equal pressure.” She showed Maxine how some of her fingers were stronger than the others, and how she shouldn’t favor those but make sure her weaker fingers did their share.
“It’s easy to allow one, three, and five to carry the weight for you. Don’t. Make that two and four work.”
Maxine practiced everywhere: at the table during meals, on her thighs as she walked the circles, while she and Rose folded clothes and towels, even during periodic excusing, where she stood in front of the sinks, playing on the porcelain. Sometimes Maxine thought she could actually hear the music in her head as she played.
Over time, she graduated from one-three-five-two-four to the actual notes of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and then to “Deck the Halls,” and even to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.
* * *
Sitting in the day room on Christmas Eve, Alice gave Maxine a “Pst.”
Maxine quit playing and looked up. The matron was passing.
“Don’t let her see you doing that.”
“Why? The concert’s tomorrow. I need to practice my piano.”
“That’s just it. There is no piano.”
“There is in my mind.”
Alice sighed. “That’s worse.”
Maxine would have loved to tell Alice not to worry so much. But Maxine would never tell Alice not to worry—worry was what held her together. Instead Maxine moved her fingers only in her head, like all ten of them sat inside her brain, and the only things that actually moved were her thoughts.
“Stop,” Alice said.
Maxine smiled at the wall across from her, being careful not to turn to Alice. Mrs. Ragno was on duty tonight, and Ragno was always on the lookout for special feelings of friendship she could use against the girls. “Are you inside my head as well?” Maxine said.
“As well as what?” Alice asked.
Ragno clapped her hands four times, saving Maxine from answering Alice’s question. It was time for periodic excusing.
Since Ragno locked them in, the girls were free to roam about the bathroom for the twenty or so minutes before they changed for bed. Maxine happily took her place in front of one of the only sinks that wasn’t broken, and began to practice.
“Move,” Bessie said.
Maxine moved on to the next sink in the long line of sinks. It was cracked, but it would do. She started from the top.
“Move,” Bessie said, shoving Maxine away from the second sink.
“This one doesn’t even work.” Maxine was so caught up in her practicing, she didn’t realize she was challenging Bessie.
Bessie realized it, and she grabbed a fistful of Maxine’s hair and dragged her over to the working sink, and shoved her head under a cold stream of water.
Sputtering for breath, Maxine caught sight of Alice standing up from the toilet, and reacted. She ripped her head from Bessie’s grip, leaving a large clump of hair tang
led in the girl’s fingers.
“You—you can have all the sinks, Bessie,” Maxine sputtered, with the intense sincerity that comes from fear. She had to stop this before anything else happened. Before Alice made another move. Any girl could be punished here, horribly punished, but Alice and Mary were especially vulnerable.
London stepped between Maxine and Bessie, and Maxine knew she was losing control of the situation. She looked around for the only person who had the power to stop this now. Ellen. Who sat quietly on a toilet, smiling and watching with interest. This was about to explode.
“Bessie,” Maxine said, trying to get around London—who wouldn’t allow it—though Maxine knew all was lost even before she heard London’s next words.
“Come at me, bitch.”
Before Bessie could react, Rose leaped at London and hugged her tightly around the arms, shouting, “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!”
Maxine was in shock. All she could do was watch as London struggled to free herself from Rose while Bessie attacked, pelting London directly in the face, knocking both Rose and London into the sinks, and then onto the tiled floor.
Rose scrambled to her feet ahead of London, and now Maxine leaped in between Bessie and Rose. “Bessie,” Maxine tried. “Bessie, please.”
This had to stop. It was Christmas tomorrow. The day when she’d sing for the entire institution. The entire community. Her mother.
“I have nickels,” Rose shouted from behind Maxine. “I’ll give you nickels.”
Ellen gave a cough, and Bessie reacted by dropping her fists to her sides… but not unclenching them.
London was now back on her feet, but Edwina, Dottie, and Helen had ahold of her. Between the three girls, and Bessie’s well-placed punch, which had landed hard, London was wrestling to clear her head and stand straight.
The lock in the door turned.
The girls froze, except for Edwina, who let go of London’s arm and stepped in front of her.
The Degenerates Page 9