Cindy and the Prom King

by Carol Culver

  “And he had a part in the film.”

  “No way!”

  “Way!”

  “We’ve got to watch that movie again.”

  The consensus was that not only was Marco rich and titled, he was also a champion soccer player and totally gorgeous, which was obvious to anyone with 20-40 vision.

  Every day on the way to and from school Brie and Lauren competed with each other to see who could top the latest Marco story or who had the inside track with him.

  Stuck once again in the backseat of the Cherokee, Cindy was subjected to their ravings. At least they’d stopped trashing her for a few days.

  If she’d had a wool hat she would have pulled it over her ears and tuned them out, but the usual September temperatures were in the eighties.

  Or, like an ordinary teenager, she could have turned up the volume on her iPod. Of course Cindy was not ordinary in any sense, and had no consumer electronic devices. She had an old Macintosh computer that her father left her, with a dial-up Internet connection. It was set up in the corner of her tiny closet that Irina had designated as her “office” when legal services had come to check on her status as a minor child under Irina’s guardianship. If she really hated hearing them talk about how princely and sexy Marco was, Cindy could have tried meditation as a way of tuning their remarks out, but the fact was, she hung on every word and filed it away.

  Even when the stories bordered on the scandalous.

  “You know why he’s here, don’t you?” Brie said to Lauren in a hushed voice with a glance over her shoulder at Cindy. “Because he wants to go to an American university next year.”

  “That’s just a rumor,” Lauren said.

  Cindy sat up straight and leaned forward. If she didn’t take advantage of this opportunity she would hate herself later. “Speaking of rumors,” she said lightly, “did either of you hear that I’m supposed to be gay?”

  The girls laughed.

  “No, really?” Brie said. “Are you?”

  “No,” Cindy said.

  “It’s a logical assumption,” Lauren said as if she even knew what logic was. “You’ve never had a boyfriend. How were we supposed to know? Besides, who cares anyway? It’s cool if you’re gay or bi or transsexual or whatever at Manderley. So if you’re thinking of a sex change operation … go for it.” This was enough to send them into gales of uproarious laughter.

  “I’m not,” Cindy said glaring at the back of their heads. So it was true. They really were spreading rumors about her. She blinked back angry tears. What could she do? Go around telling people she wasn’t gay? Her sisters had been there for three years. They had friends and she didn’t. Who would listen to her? Who would believe her? Who would care what she was?

  After they’d recovered from that burst of hilarity, they went back to the subject of Marco.

  “The real reason Marco’s here,” Lauren said to her sister, “is that his family is in the Mafia, his father is the godfather, and there’s a price on his head, so they sent him here to escape being killed by a rival family.”

  “Oh my God, then if the bad guys find out he’s here, we could all be in danger.”

  “I don’t care. I’d protect him. We could hide him at our house.”

  “What I heard was that he got some girl pregnant back in Italy and he didn’t want to marry her, so he left without telling his family and they don’t even know where he is.”

  With these rumors ringing in her ears, Cindy was dropped off at the spa after school every day. She decided that reacting to their scummy gossip about her was just what they wanted, so she forced herself to stay cool and pretend she didn’t care what they said. As for the gossip about Marco, she didn’t know what to believe and she couldn’t ask him.

  Unfortunately the warm weather didn’t keep women from tanning themselves artificially or subjecting themselves to exfoliations or rich chocolate scrubs. So Cindy had to fold towels, sweep the floor, answer the phones and make appointments for sunless fake tans and Swedish massages.

  One thing she didn’t do, to Irina’s disgust, was pressure any clients to sign up for a weekly package of spray-on tan plus mud wrap. Nor did she push the sale of instant towelettes for touch-ups at home. Irina pursed her gel-augmented lips and told Cindy she was a failure as a salesperson. Cindy tried to look apologetic as she nodded in agreement.

  The next Friday she got a break. Instead of heading for the salon after school, she was on her way to the library to tutor a student when her cell phone rang.

  “Where are you?” Irina asked. “I have three clients here for spray-on tans and one for a hand and foot reflexology.”

  “I told you I couldn’t come in today,” Cindy said patiently. “I have work-study.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s part of my scholarship. Some days I work in the office during my free period. Today I tutor.”

  “Forget work-study. There’s work and there’s study. This is work. Real work. It’s about time you learned the difference. I can’t run this salon by myself.” She didn’t say she was too cheap to hire decent help when she could get Cindy to work for minimum wage.

  Cindy could just picture Irina frowning, though it was hard to tell when no lines appeared on her smooth Botoxed forehead.

  “Maybe Brie or Lauren …” Cindy suggested.

  “They have cheerleading after school. You know that. Cheerleaders are getting good scholarships these days. Because it’s an actual sport. You can’t just be beautiful anymore. You have to be athletic too. Cheerleading incorporates dance, tumbling, you name it.”

  Cindy was tempted to name it something else, but she kept her mouth shut and Irina went on.

  “I have to think of their future. I’m just lucky they’re so talented. And beautiful. And hardworking. Two girls in college at the same time. That’s some expense. Think about it. It’s not going to be easy for me even if they get the scholarships they deserve.”

  As if she hadn’t inherited all of Cindy’s father’s money. Just when Cindy was sure Irina never gave a thought to her own future, Irina showed she did give her a thought. “You could have a future here, you know.”

  “Here?” Cindy was so shocked she almost dropped her bag. “Where?”

  “At the salon. You’re good at math. You’re not very good at sales or service, but you could keep the books for me.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Cindy said. She’d rather haul king crab from the Bering Sea onto a sinking trawler in an ice storm than work for her stepmother after high school. She had other plans for the rest of her life that didn’t include her stepfamily.

  “Remember, there’s no money for you for college, but you could take some classes in massage therapy at the community college if you want to improve yourself.”

  Cindy bit her tongue to keep from retorting, “Just what I’ve always wanted, a career pounding the backs of rich, vain women.” She knew Irina could spend her father’s money any way she liked. She certainly didn’t like spending an extra penny on Cindy. And, legally, she didn’t have to, as long as she kept a roof over her head and food on the table. Cindy managed to say a noncommittal “Uh-huh” before she hung up.

  Cindy loved the library. Instead of the smell of grape washes and seaweed enzymes, there was the smell of new books and new carpets and a view of the grassy fields and the classic buildings from the huge floor-to-ceiling windows of the state-of-the-art, one-year-old, T. J. Ransom Memorial Library.

  She set her backpack on a table in the comer. She had no idea who the academically challenged person she was supposed to tutor was. Probably some dumb jock. Or a freshman who wasn’t used to Manderley’s high standards and demanding assignments. Or a senior who was in danger of not getting into the college of his choice unless he passed English. It didn’t matter. The school office knew what she was good at and would never assign her to help someone in, say, advanced Latin, for example. She’d tutored at Castle last year and she knew it was satisfying to get someone to make pr
ogress in a subject they sucked at. If they cared, if they were willing to try. Even if they weren’t, anything was better than working at the salon.

  This quiet corner of the library had been set aside for individual help sessions. She was early so she took her notebook out and started working on her geometry homework.

  A few moments later, when she was in the middle of the extra credit question, she heard footsteps.

  “Uh, Cindy?”

  She looked up. Oh, no, the one person she didn’t want to see. Was she going to have to tutor her slacker history partner who’d already stood her up for their meeting after class to discuss the paper, in addition to doing the whole paper by herself?

  thirteen

  I think war might be God’s way of teaching us geography.

  —Paul Rodriguez

  “Hi, Toby, are you looking for me?” Please say you aren’t.

  “Not really, but I saw you and I was wondering …”

  Whew. He was not here to get tutored. It was bad enough she had to do this report with him. For him, was more like it.

  “About our report?”

  “Yeah, we’re supposed to be doing something, aren’t we?” he asked vaguely.

  Just as Cindy feared, Toby didn’t have a clue.

  “We have an outline due on Monday.” She reached into her backpack, pulled it out and handed it to him. “I hope you don’t mind I did it without you, but you haven’t been in class and you blew off our meeting so I called you and left a message. I wanted to know what part of the war you thought we should concentrate on.”

  “Sorry, I haven’t been checking my messages. I’ve had a few problems.”

  She nodded. Didn’t everyone have problems? Even her stepsisters were having problems deciding what to wear to the Welcome Dance next weekend. She had no idea what Toby’s problems were and she really didn’t want to find out.

  “Wow, this looks great.” He sounded surprised. “Says here our report’s gonna be on the Pacific. So who was fighting out there?”

  “America and Japan, mostly. I didn’t think we could do the whole war, so I picked a few battles.”

  Toby nodded. “Leyte. Corregidor.” He stumbled over the pronunciation. “Wherever that is. I’ve heard of them. Somewhere. Somebody. I know, it’s my grandfather. He was there.”

  “There? Where? In the war you mean?”

  “Yeah. He’s got all these medals and stuff.”

  “Really? Is he still alive?”

  “Pretty much, but he’s not doing too well. He lives at Lily Langtry Gardens in Palo Alto with all the other old people. He hates it there. He hates old people.”

  “But…”

  “I know, he’s old too, but he’s kind of out of it, you know?”

  “So out of it, he couldn’t come and talk to the class about the war? That would be so cool if he could. Better than a PowerPoint presentation. More interesting. More personal.”

  “I don’t know. I could ask him. He’s still got his uniform.”

  “No kidding?” Cindy could see it now. An old man, a proud veteran in his uniform with his medals, sharing his memories with a class of smart-ass kids who needed to be shaken out of their complacent lives by someone from the Greatest Generation. Kids who might think history was irrelevant. It might be a way to impress their teacher too. She knew how important it was to score points at the beginning of the semester, in case something came up and she had to slack off at some point later. At least that’s what always worked at Castle.

  “Would he wear it?”

  Toby shrugged. “I guess.”

  Cindy snatched the outline back from Toby. “Can you find out exactly where he was in the war and when it was? I’ll redo the outline. This could be really good.”

  “Good enough to get a B on this? I could use a good grade in something.”

  “A B? I plan on getting an A.”

  “An A in history?” He sounded incredulous.

  “An A in everything.” Cindy could have bitten her tongue. What made her brag like that?

  Toby’s eyes opened a little wider than his usual half-mast.

  “An A would be good. An A would be awesome. I’ll go see him. Some days he’s out of it. Some days he’s full of himself. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Toby gave her a lopsided smile. Maybe he wasn’t really stupid, he just looked that way. At least she had his attention.

  “Whatever happens, let me know,” Cindy said firmly. “We have to decide what we’re doing this weekend.”

  He nodded, backed away and knocked over a tall stack of books on his way out. Cindy started to get up to help him pick them up, but the librarian suddenly appeared out of nowhere and told Toby to pretty much get the hell out of there before he did any more damage and let a professional put the shelf back up again.

  fourteen

  You can’t prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.

  —Chinese proverb

  Once Toby was out of sight, Cindy went back to the extra-credit geometry problem the real teacher, Mr. Nelson, had assigned. She and Scott, her new friend from geometry, had a competition going to see who could solve it first. She’d seen Scott in the far corner of the library on her way in. He was listening to music on his iPod and had an intense look on his face.

  She was just drawing triangles on her paper when Scott leaned over her shoulder.

  She jumped. “You scared me.”

  “Sorry, what’s that?” he said, pointing to her paper.

  “That is going to be the answer to the problem,” she said, flipping the page over. “Don’t tell me you haven’t solved it yet.”

  Instead of answering, he took the seat next to her. “Did you find AB and CD?”

  “I think so. By using the Pythagorean theorem.”

  “Me too,” he said. “But how are you going to find EF?” “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “Hah, I already know. I just worked it out.”

  “Show me.”

  “Not till you admit I won our bet. You owe me.”

  A soft voice broke into their conversation. “Hi, Cindy.”

  It was Victoria, her other new friend who she’d been eating with every noon since that first day. “Victoria, this is Scott. He’s in my geometry class.”

  “AP geometry? You must be smart,” Victoria said with a sigh. “I can barely balance my checkbook.”

  “I am,” Scott said with a grin. “Okay, I’ll leave you gossip girls. Cindy, I’ll collect tomorrow.”

  “What did he mean?” Victoria asked.

  “We had a bet on who could do the extra-credit problem first.” She flipped her paper over. “It’s hard. Look at it. If he won, I have to bring brownies to the Gay-Lesbian Alliance meeting next week. And no, I’m not gay, but anyone can go to the meetings. Sit down. You’re not here to get tutored, are you?” Cindy asked.

  “No, I’m tutoring somebody in Chinese. Have you seen him?” “I haven’t seen anyone. I’m waiting for someone too. Someone who needs help in English, I hope.”

  “How will we know? Why don’t we have their names?” Victoria said with a tiny frown on her perfect oval face.

  “When I checked with the office, they were overwhelmed,” Cindy said. “They had too many kids asking for tutors. I just hope whoever they are got the message and they’ll be here. Otherwise, I should be at work.”

  “I wanted to tell you I just paid my parking tickets.”

  “Good for you. I hope it wasn’t too expensive.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I just ask my parents for more money. They can afford it.”

  If anyone else had said that, Cindy would have been put off, but Victoria was so matter-of-fact about being rich, Cindy couldn’t be offended.

  “They keep me busy. I handle their bank account here, which isn’t easy since I’m so terrible at math, along with the mortgage payments and the other bills. It’s a big job, considering I’ve got so much hom
ework to do. No one told me Manderley was going to be so hard.” She rubbed her forehead with her palm as if to make sure no facts came leaking out before she had a chance to use them in class.

  “You could go to Castle. Believe me, you’d have a four point without any effort,” Cindy suggested.

  “But would I get into an Ivy League school or Berkeley? Isn’t that the point of a Manderley education?”

  “It is for me,” Cindy said. “So after you get your prestigious BA degree, then what? Back to Hong Kong?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder where I belong. I don’t really feel at home here or there. My father is more Chinese than my mother, even though he’s from Fresno, if you can believe that. They have this house, but whether they’ll ever live in it is another matter. My mother says no. You know that Ella Fitzgerald song, ‘The Lady Is a Tramp’? ‘… hates California, it’s cold and it’s damp.’ ” That’s my mom. But she wants me to go to Berkeley or Harvard or Princeton. It would give her something to brag to her friends about. Sometimes I envy you, Cindy. You don’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations.” “Except my own,” Cindy murmured. She didn’t say those same schools were where she wanted to go too, but what if Victoria didn’t take her seriously? What if she thought, How can you, Cindy, even dream such a dream without any money or support from your family? No, it was best to keep such plans to herself for now.

  Just then a tall, blond, tanned athletic guy came loping casually toward them with a big smile on his face. He looked upbeat, like he was looking forward to learning something and getting help. If this was the guy who was assigned to her, she’d never complain again.

  He was obviously the kind of student every tutor wanted. Eager and enthusiastic. After tutoring for the past two years she had a pretty good idea of who would try and who wouldn’t.

  Besides looking like the caring type, he was cute too, in a certain all-American athletic way. The kind of guy her sisters would fall for.

  Cindy pushed her chair back and gave him a welcoming smile. Just in case. She couldn’t be that lucky, could she? No, she couldn’t.

  “Who’s Victoria Lee?” he asked. “I need help with my Chinese.”