by Carol Culver
“Like me.” He gave her a slow conspiratorial smile.
Like him? There was nobody like him.
“I’m coming from Italy just for a few days and I’m always lost.” She didn’t know a macho guy could shrug like that or admit he was lost, but he did. “Then I see you and I notice you are bringing your … how do you say, clarinetto to school, and this means they may have the jazz music here at school.”
“Yes.” Cindy’s hands were shaking so much she dropped the math textbook she was holding. “They do. But I’m not actually in the band. Not yet. There may be tryouts for it, I don’t know.”
He picked her book up and handed it to her. His knuckles brushed her palm. His face was so close she could see flecks of green in his dark eyes. She tried to say thank you, but it came out like a wheeze.
He leaned against her locker. “I don’t know too. But I know I love the American jazz. But you think I must do these tryouts?”
“Maybe. What do you play?”
“Piano. I would like to play like your Teddy Wilson and Oscar Peterson.”
Piano. A soccer-playing jazz pianist who looked like he stepped out of one of those European fashion magazines at her stepmother’s spa, and who knew who the great piano players were? Was she still dreaming? If she’d had a free hand, she would have pinched herself.
“But I have not had the lessons, you know. Maybe I’m not good enough for the band.”
Make that a modest, soccer-playing jazz pianist. Now she knew she was dreaming.
“Oh, I’m sure you must be, I mean if you … if you’re …” What was wrong with her? English was her native language and yet she couldn’t seem to spit out an entire sentence. She glanced at her watch.
“I am keeping you from your class. Addio, then,” he said and with a wave he was gone.
Somehow Cindy managed to gather the right books, close and lock her locker, only to start walking to her English class in the totally wrong direction.
four
Friend. One attached to another by affection or esteem.
-Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
After she turned around, Cindy checked her schedule and realized she had a free period before English. She walked out onto the quiet leafy campus and sat down on the Joyce and Eric Barber Stone Bench. When she flipped open her cell phone she saw a text message from Lizzie filled with the usual first-day angst.
Cindy punched in Lizzie’s cell number. Now was not the time for text messaging. She needed to talk to her friend and give her the usual first-day-back-at-school pep talk.
“Where are you?” Cindy asked.
“In my car. I’ve had it. I can’t take it anymore. I’m outta here.”
“Already? Come on, Liz, you can do it. Go back inside and go to class. You’ll get used to it. You always do.”
“I always had you around before,” Lizzie said. “Tell me about Manderley. What have they got, valet parking, complimentary hot breakfast, and free massages? They should for what they’re charging. Some people have all the luck.”
“Luck? You call this luck? At Castle I never got assigned a history partner who thinks I’m a dork and that I’ll do all the work on the project for him. At Castle I never had to spend all day at school with my snotty stepsisters only to see them at home after school. And I never noticed that everyone in the whole school was richer than God, because even if they were they wouldn’t throw it in my face. And nobody ever laughed at me for waving to someone I don’t know.”
“Well if you put it that way …”
“There’s no other way to put it.”
“Then you’re coming back?”
“I can’t. I’m stuck.”
“Met any guys yet?” Lizzie asked hopefully.
“A guy named Toby.” No way was she going to mention the Italian. She didn’t even know his name. And she might never see him again.
“What does he look like?”
“Who?”
“Toby!”
“He looks like he just got out of bed. He’s got this vacant look in his eyes that tells me he’s spaced out and high on something. I know the type. If I don’t do all the work on the project, he’ll drag my grade down. Oh, yeah, I met a guy. But I wish I hadn’t.”
“Come on, what does he really look like?”
“Remember how Jake Gyllenhaal looked in The Good Girl? Well, that’s what this Toby looks like.”
“He looks like Jake Gyllenhaal? Ohmygod, that is so cool. Wait till I tell Georgie and everyone.”
Cindy shook her head. She should never have mentioned Toby or Jake Gyllenhaal. Now Lizzie still envied her even after what she’d said. Lizzie had begged her parents to send her to Manderley but they couldn’t afford the $28,000 a year. Not if they wanted to eat on a regular basis.
“Don’t tell anyone but Georgie. This is between the BFF. You wouldn’t like it here, Liz. You know my sisters? Imagine a whole school full of them and you’ll get the idea.”
“I thought it would be better, you know.”
“It’s not better,” Cindy assured her. “It’s just… different.” She wished her friend could spend a day there. She’d go running happily back to Castle. Because Manderley was just another school—a little cleaner, a little smaller, a lot richer, but filled with kids who were also stumbling through the halls on their way to class the way they’d soon be stumbling through life. And one Italian, who even though he claimed he might be lost, probably knew his way around the world just fine.
“Then I feel sorry for you,” Lizzie said.
“Don’t!” Cindy said. If there was anything she hated, it was pity. She’d do anything to avoid it, even lying.
“But I do. Because even though you’ve got a Jake Gyllenhaal look-alike, you haven’t got your best friends.”
“That’s right,” Cindy conceded. “But I’m okay. Really. I’ll be fine.” Liz was right. She had no best friends at school and no real family at home. No longer was her father tinkering in the garage, hoping to invent something to make them rich. That dream finally came true. At least it made Irina rich when he died and she inherited all his money. The dream that didn’t come true was thinking Irina would blend their families into one big happy whole.
“I’ve gotta go now,” Cindy said soberly. “Talk to you later.” A few minutes later she was walking behind two senior girls who were friends of Brie and Lauren. They didn’t notice her. No one did. With her red hair and her nearly six feet of height, you’d think she’d be hard to miss. Not at Manderley. Here she was invisible.
“How was your summer?” one asked the other.
“Borrring.”
“I saw you with Parker at the Bridge concert.”
“I so did not want to be there. She’s such a geek. But her father got us tickets. What could I say?”
“No?”
“No! Besides, Trevor went on this stupid five-hundred-mile charity ride with Lance Armstrong. His butt still hurts. He thinks he might be impotent. I said he shouldn’t worry, that way he won’t have to wear condoms anymore.”
“Do you care?”
The girl shrugged. “Why should I?”
Cindy hurried past them, but she couldn’t move far enough from the inane conversation going on there and everywhere else on this campus today. She felt a rush of blood to the head, and swear to God, she was that close to running out the front door of the school and down the street to the Starbucks for a double decaf latte and then taking her clarinet and hopping on a bus to go back to Castle where her friends were. Where they’d welcome her with open arms. NOT. She could not throw away everything because of a few shallow girls. Even a whole school full of shallow girls.
Of course she didn’t leave. The shaking hands, the knocking knees and the inability to speak clearly were just minor symptoms she would get over. She knew what was wrong with her. It was Culture Shock. She was a stranger in a strange land.
She’d wanted to go there. She would give it a chance. Never mind the classes we
re so far just so-so and the kids were obnoxious. She’d gotten her wish. She never looked back. She never cut class. She never quit anything. She wasn’t that kind of girl.
five
A free lunch is found only in mousetraps.
—John Capozzi
At noon in the cafeteria the sight of the salad bar, sushi bar and steam trays filled with teen favorites like mac and cheese made Cindy feel nauseous. It wasn’t the food—it was the fear of eating alone. There was no complimentary hot breakfast, but the lunch was included in the tuition. She couldn’t get sick today. She’d have no way to get home. Irina was at work and if she came to get Cindy, she’d take her to work and make her help out at the spa as she’d done all summer.
She supposed there must be a school nurse at Manderley. If someone got sick there, they’d have their housekeeper come and get them. Their mother would be busy playing tennis and their father was probably power-lunching at one of the gourmet Google cafeterias.
The rich cheesy smell of the macaroni and cheese reminded her of her father. He used to make it for her when her mother was sick. He’d come in from the garage, cook something for them and go back to work for hours, driven by the will to succeed. A will that Cindy hoped she’d inherited.
She was proud of him for sticking to it later when her stepmother told him to get a “real” job. Now all she had left of him were the memories, the precious clarinet he’d left her and his love of swing music.
Cindy piled some lettuce on her plate and ladled on some fat-free dressing. Amazing what you could get for $28,000 a year. Back at Castle there’d be dried-up chicken tenders oozing trans fats and calories, and they’d cost five dollars.
Now came the moment she’d been dreading all summer: looking pathetic by eating lunch by herself. She headed for a table in the corner and as soon as she sat down, an exotic looking girl with straight shiny black hair cut in layers and with stylish glasses framing her almond-shaped eyes put her tray on the table and quietly slid into the seat across from her.
“Is this seat taken?” she asked.
“Now it is,” Cindy said with a smile. Usually when a person was that beautiful she never had to ask permission to sit down. Maybe the girl didn’t know what she looked like. Cindy couldn’t believe she didn’t have any friends to sit with.
Thank God she didn’t. On Cindy’s first day she wasn’t eating alone after all. It didn’t matter that she’d never seen this girl before and might never see her again. Life suddenly looked a lot brighter.
“Can I ask you a question?” the girl asked in a slight accent, part British, part Chinese, part East-Coast American. Where was she from, anyway?
Cindy nodded. Anything. Just don’t get up and move when your friends arrive.
The girl reached into her Coach bag and pulled out a handful of parking tickets.
Cindy gasped. The name on the tickets was Victoria Lee. “Are you Victoria?”
She nodded. “Almost every day I find one on my car. Why? What did I do wrong?”
“You parked in a no-parking zone.” Cindy said. “Maybe just the wrong side of the street.”
“I didn’t see any sign. And in Hong Kong you can park wherever you find a place.”
You’re not in Hong Kong anymore, Cindy thought. “You need to pay the fines or you’ll be arrested,” she told Victoria.
Victoria gasped. “Arrested? Oh, no, can’t I just pay someone off? That’s what we do at home.”
“You could try, but it probably wouldn’t work. You’d get arrested for trying to bribe an officer.”
“Okay.” Victoria slowly put the tickets back in her bag.
Cindy wasn’t sure the girl understood the gravity of the situation. “You should take care of it today,” she said. “Have you been here long?”
“I came this summer.”
“You speak English very well.”
“Thank you. I should. My father’s American and I went to an international school in Hong Kong. I wanted to stay there with my friends, but my parents decided to invest in California property, so they sent me here to live in the house they bought. Then they went back. My mother wants to live close to her family and my father …” Victoria bit her lip and looked down at her sandwich. “I’ve been told by certain people that I have a tendency to overshare with strangers. I hope I haven’t bored you with the details of my life.”
“No, not at all. I’m new too. You mean you live alone?” “For now, but my parents are going to hire a housekeeper. Actually I’m getting used to being on my own,” she said a little defensively.
“So am I,” Cindy murmured. Now who was oversharing with a stranger? Maybe it was because she was a complete stranger.
“Where are your parents?” Victoria asked.
“They’re dead.”
“I’m sorry. Then you know what it’s like to live alone.” “No.” Unfortunately. “I live with my stepmother and stepsisters.”
“You have sisters? You’re lucky. I’ve always wanted a sister.” “These are stepsisters. We’re not really related at all. What happened was their mother married my father. That’s how I got them.”
“Oh, I see. How many do you have?”
“Two. Two too many,” Cindy added lightly.
Victoria nodded but she looked puzzled. Maybe in Hong Kong people’s fathers didn’t marry witches with two awful daughters. Or if they did, the father’s daughter kept her mouth shut about how she felt about the new additions to the family. Usually Cindy did keep her mouth shut and never complained, but there was something about Victoria that caused her to say what she felt.
A certain awareness showed in the way Victoria looked at Cindy. “There’s an old Chinese story my grandmother told me about a girl who lived with her stepmother and stepsisters,” she said. “They were very mean to her.”
“Really?” Cindy asked faintly. Maybe the Cinderella story was a universal myth. If only it was just a myth. Unfortunately Cindy was forced to live out the reality of the myth every day in every way. She didn’t want to act too interested in case Victoria felt compelled to launch into the story, and then Cindy would have to pretend she’d never heard it before and it had no bearing whatsoever on Cindy’s life.
On the other hand, since Cindy really shouldn’t be talking about her family problems anyway, maybe she should just let her tell it and hope it had the requisite happy ending. “How does it go?”
“A poor girl named Yeh-Shen who lived with her wicked stepmother and her sisters had nothing, no clothes and no friends, until she got a beautiful azure outfit made from magic fish bones.”
“Fish bones?” Cindy asked. This was not the same story. Or perhaps there was something lost in translation. “It must have been kind of scratchy,” she murmured.
“You’re right,” Victoria said. “But Yeh-Shen only cared about how she looked, not how she felt. She had to have the beautiful azure clothes as well as golden slippers to wear to the feast where she could choose a husband. But along the way she lost one of her slippers.”
“I think I know how this ends,” Cindy said just as a group of loud-mouthed girls descended on their table, plunked their trays down and, ignoring Victoria and Cindy, proceeded to trade first-day-back-at-school experiences.
“Have you seen the new headmaster?” one girl asked the others.
“Not yet. All I know is his name is Kavanaugh. My parents said Mr. Gregory got fired for being too easy. We’d better not have a dress code,” the girl said, tugging at her bra strap, “or I’m outta here.”
“Yeah, where to? Castle?”
The others burst into derisive laughter until the first girl dropped her fork and stared off across the room.
“There he is,” she announced, halfway out of her seat.
“Who, the new headmaster?” her friend asked, grabbing her glasses and swiveling around in her chair.
“No, you idiot,” the girl hissed. “Stop staring.”
Since she wasn’t talking to her, Cindy turned around an
d stared. The room was full of kids. She had no idea who they were talking about.
“Oh my God, he is so hot.”
“Who?” another girl asked, getting up from her chair to get a better look.
Her friend yanked her back into her seat.
“The Italian exchange student. The soccer dude. And he’s all alone. I could cry.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m waving to him. I can’t stand to see someone eat by himself.”
Cindy craned her neck and looked around the room. Her eyes widened. Her heart rate jumped. It was him again. This time she had a full frontal view of him from a safe distance. And time to notice he was wearing an unlined jacket, like the kind she’d only seen in fashion magazines, over a sexy black T-shirt, straight-leg jeans and smooth leather shoes probably straight off the Via Veneto. As different from the all-American boys in their flip-flops, baggy shorts and T-shirts as a Ferrari was from a Ford. And this Ferrari was heading straight for their table.
six
Lord, confound this surly sister,
Blight her brow with blotch and blister,
Cramp her larynx, lung and liver,
In her guts a galling give her.
—J. M. Synge
“Hey, is that your little sister?” Bo Bradley cut in the cafeteria line at Manderley and helped himself to a handful of fries from Lauren Vanderhoffer’s tray.
“Who?”
“The redhead. Sitting over there in the corner.”
“Who cares?”
Bo shrugged. “A friend of mine wants to know.”
Lauren looked over his shoulder at Bo’s homies, who were sharing a joint on the lawn outside the cafeteria. One thing about Manderley, it was a closed campus, but weed was always available in the parking lot. Good thing, otherwise they’d have to buy it on a street comer on the east side of the freeway and God knows what kind of shit they were selling.
It was probably one of those stoned-out losers who wanted to know about Cindy. But why? No guy had ever shown any interest in her that Lauren knew. And Cindy wasn’t interested in guys. All she cared about was … well, who knew what she cared about. And who cared, really?
