“What? Oh, no. It stings, but…well that’s not the real problem, Rachel. The problem is that these three girls weren’t smoking cigarettes at all. They were smoking pot! And the things they were talking about. They were giggling and bragging about…about…”
She stopped and looked at me.
“Well, about really disgusting stuff they had done…at the last party they’d gone to. I think it was over this past weekend. I really didn’t hear any names, I was just so shocked, and…and I was afraid to leave the stall. I just stood there wondering what to do. Then one of them said she had…I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“It’s okay Abigail. Just tell me what they said. You can trust me.”
I have no idea why I said that. If she was about to tell me a crime had been committed she couldn’t trust me to be silent.
“Rachel they were bragging about sucking…well, you know?”
“Sucking?
“You know, boys. Their…penises.”
She buried her face in her hands and sat that way for several minutes, breathing heavily. But she wasn’t crying. I watched while the rest of her face turned as red as the hand mark.
My own emotions vacillated wildly from shock to hilarity, to disbelief. Surely freshman girls weren’t really talking about fellatio. Seniors, maybe. But not freshmen…only two months into the school year? Good grief, what were they learning in middle school?
And then through her hands she continued.
“Then…I heard another stall door open. Someone else was in the bathroom with us. I bent down to peer under the door to see who it was. I don’t know why I did, except maybe because I heard her shoes on the tile floor. She was wearing heels. And then she spoke. Rachel it was the Vice Principal, Mrs. White. She was laughing with them.
“She never said a thing about the pot, or their behavior or what they were talking about. She just tossed some inanity out and left…like it was no big deal at all!
“I kept thinking surely she was going to come back with reinforcements and take the whole bunch of them to detention. But nothing. I was just trapped in the stall with these filthy minded girls, all still giggling like they hadn’t a care in the world. Then the bell rang. And one of the girls, I don’t know her, told me I should come out now so I wouldn’t be late.
“Of course, I knew they knew I was there. But the audacity! Well, I just didn’t know how to deal. Finally I was so worried about being late back to class that I opened the door and one of them grabbed me and slammed me up against the stall and threatened me. She was in my face with her stinky breath whispering that she would hunt me down like a dog if I told on them.
“For crying out loud, the Vice Principal had just walked out and she knew everything! What could I do to them? I started to say that, but then she slapped me, and told me it was a small sample of what would happen to me if I ratted.
“I don’t know, Rachel, I just grew so angry. I was just furious, so I yelled at them that they were sluts and that I not only would tell on them, I’d make sure they were expelled.”
Oh no.
“Abigail, maybe….” I began, But she rushed right on.
“Then I ran out into the hall. There were still some kids, mostly boys actually, some of the Hispanic boys, you know the ones that wear their clothes falling off their butts. The Pintos. But the girls in the bathroom where white. They weren’t Hispanic. So I was confused. And I really didn’t know what to do, so I just started walking toward my classroom, stopped running, you know. So I didn’t look afraid, even if I was. And those guys started taunting me, calling me Rubia and Puta. Right in the hallway, Rachel. Calling me a whore in Spanish.
“Some of the classroom doors were still open. I know the teachers in those rooms heard. Why didn’t they do something?”
She stopped and looked up at me with red rimmed eyes, her face now flaming from anger. She was gauging my reaction. I smiled weakly.
“Well…then…I turned on them, too. I know I shouldn’t have. But you have to defend yourself. You can’t let people think you are weak. I know this. I don’t even remember what I said, but I do know I shouldn’t have said it. It was in their eyes. They’re evil looking to begin with, those gang members. But now they were just dripping hatred.
“And then one of the white girls leapt at me. I didn’t even see her coming, and she grabbed my blouse…and….”
She stopped speaking. Now she was shaking.
Abigail pulled down the shoulder of her sweater and showed me that the sleeve of her blouse had been torn. There were red marks on her upper arm.
I tried to talk her out of returning to school. But all she wanted me to do was drive her home so she could change, then I was to take her right back to school.
This time I didn’t sit in my car. I marched right up to her front door with her, hoping Gloria was up. Or at the very least, Nana would help me.
But I don’t know where her grandmother Nana was. I just stood in the small foyer as Abigail raced up the stairs and grabbed another shirt. A few seconds later she flew back down—her slap mark miraculously covered with makeup—and back out we went.
I didn’t call Gloria as I probably should have. I didn’t do anything, because I’d told her to trust me. But now I was having trouble trusting my own judgment in this matter and guilt was overtaking me.
I did take the time to talk to her a little, give her some advice to keep her head down and not speak up so much. I told her I’d wait in the parking lot for a while, in case she wanted to change her mind.
I was beginning to wonder if Abigail was in serious danger—mostly because she was unschooled in the ways of school interaction. I know as well as the next fool how to piss people off, have been doing it all my life and quite often when I didn’t even mean to. But until now Abigail’s human interactions have been very select. She didn’t seem to have the common sense a girl her age should have. Picking a fight with three female toughies like the ones she’d described to me wasn’t smart. It was downright dumb.
Abigail was lacking in street smarts.
At least the school day was about to end. But then what? Would she be safe walking home?
Matt was in court, Will was serving papers, and Luis was too far away. I sat in my car for a half-hour, but she never came back out.
An hour after that, when I’d returned home my neck was aching so badly, I fell asleep on the bed, comforted by my neck brace. When Matt woke me up hours later, and told me Luis was on for tomorrow I decided not to tell him about my trip, or any of what had happened to Abigail. I should have. But I found excuses not to.
Matt was feeling too negative about my new friends as it was.
I was beginning to hate the sound of the phones in our home, but there it went again. Holding back a burp and the consternation at being disturbed, I climbed out of the death-grip recliner chair and fast-walked to the kitchen.
I snatched up the phone and said hello, completely forgetting my anti-telemarketers rule.
“Have you seen slap mark?”
I loved the way this Ukrainian woman started her conversations. She didn’t waste her breath on little niceties, she went right to the heart of things. Always caught me off guard, always elicited the first words that came into my head.
“Yes.”
Not really a big word, ‘yes’, but it can result in a big world of hurt.
“What? When?”
Poop! Abigail had not told her mother that I’d picked her up at school in the middle of the day and driven her all around Pinto Springs and then delivered her back to ‘that evil campus.’
Manure!
“She…told me about it, is what I meant.”
I’m usually pretty good at lying--it’s actually a PI job requirement--but not right after I’ve stepped in it, and not right after being woken up.
“You saw her today. Ven?”
I paused, collected my thoughts and finally found a path out of the doggie dodo.
“I’m beginning to
think we aren’t talking about the same thing, Gloria. Why don’t we start at the beginning again?”
Okay, that was lame, but it worked.
But my neck started hurting again. I reached for the blasted neck brace and tried attaching it while holding the phone to my ear.
“Rachel, I svare, my daughter Abigail is in dire danger. She is my only child. I cannot let this evil happen to her.”
She was practically crying. Shit.
“I understand Gloria. Really, I do. Tell me from the beginning what’s happened.”
She told me she’d discovered the torn blouse and finally forced her child to take off her bathrobe and show her the bruises—“all over her body”.
This would turn out to be a prescient comment, but at this point I believed there were only three “bruises” on her, a slap mark on her face and two hand prints on her upper arms from where the ugly fellatio expert had grabbed her. At least, that was what Abigail had assured me.
Of course, I hadn’t actually seen Abigail’s body, but I was also thinking Gloria hadn’t either. I remember being thirteen and I wasn’t getting nude in front of anyone at that age, even my own mother.
So either Gloria was exaggerating, extrapolating, or emoting. Or Abigail had been brutalized in the bathroom and had lied to me about it.
Gloria’s yelling at her daughter brought me out of my contemplations. She was practically screaming at Abigail about wearing makeup to school.
“This is vy the other girls attack you! They don’t like hussies!”
Maybe that’s what she said. She might have said the other girls don’t like huskies.
“Gloria! Talk to me or yell at your daughter, but not both.”
“What’s going on?” Matt said. He was standing behind me listening to my kitchen conversation. At least half of it. He finished reattaching my neck collar for me.
I turned around to look at him, and shook my head. Neck pain shot into my head during which I made several faces, first don’t disturb me, then ouch that hurts, and then, uh-oh, I didn’t tell him. Must have been a sight to see.
“Rachel, she has clothes in her closet I did not buy her! Where did she get the money to buy clothes? Did you shop for clothes with her Saturday?” Gloria said.
“Make excuses, hang up and tell me what’s going on,” Matt growled. He was controlling his voice, but his emotions were coming through loud and clear.
I turned sideways to him and closed my eyes. I was in a mess.
Matt whispered in my empty ear, “Do you want me to talk to Gloria?”
It was probably time. I handed the phone to him with a sigh and stood by listening.
He said, “Uh-huh. Yes. Uh-huh.” Then several more uh-huh’s.
Only hearing one side of a phone conversation can be extremely frustrating.
Finally he said, “We’ll have a young man on campus tomorrow morning keeping an eye on her whenever she’s in the halls. His name is Luis Lewis. Tell her to take a friend to the bathroom with her. And not to go anywhere without a friend. ”
Gloria said something else.
“No that’s his real name. And yes, we’ve thought about that. Rachel has talked with the librarian, Stephen Norton, and he’s agreed to keep Luis in the library looking like a busy volunteer during classes so he doesn’t look out of place. But whenever Abigail is out and about in the halls or in the cafeteria, Luis will be watching.”
Gloria said something else.
“No problem, Gloria. We’re happy to help.” He hung up and turned to confront me.
“Were you going to tell me about Abigail being attacked at school this afternoon?” Matt said. We were standing. I hated when he did stand up chats with me. They’re so One-Minute Manager.
“You’re already nagging me about going back to the bees, Matt. I didn’t want to add to your negativity about the group. And…you were tired when you got back. I thought I could handle it.”
“One, I’ll try to stop nagging you about going back to the bees. Two, I’m always tired at the end of the day, but you still need to keep me in the loop. And three, no one can handle serious problems alone. No one.”
“Really? Then why don’t you share all your serious problems, like what went down today?” I was fishing. I knew something had been bothering him since he’d got back.
He sighed and deflated, and looked down at the kitchen floor, which reminded me I had to mop.
“Fair enough. When I contacted Luis today about going in tomorrow I heard Sandy yelling in the background. She’s definitely not on board about this.” Double poop.
Chapter 35
Tuesday, October 28, 11 am
Things seemed to go better for Abigail today, something close to normal I hoped.
Luis had yet to report in, but I was taking that to mean there were no problems. Meantime I was making plans to attend this evening’s memorial service for Jimmy and Judi. This smaller event would be held at a Lutheran Church in the heart of Pinto Springs, unlike the one for the other five boys, which had been at the school gymnasium—and frankly had been a fiasco according to Abigail.
The kids at the school lost it completely in an orgy or grief. Two of them ended up at the emergency room downstairs from Gloria.
I was about to make a call about this evening’s event when my phone rang. It was Gerry Patrone calling again—the billionaire’s wife.
“Are you ready to sew your hands off again?”
“Hi Gerry, I think so. My neck is much better. How’s your family?”
“Up to no good, of course. The boys, that is. I get older by the second chasing them from one after-school event to another.”
“They play sports?”
“Well, of course the youngest two don’t, but Mack and Jack are always into whatever the seasonal sport is. Football is about to wind down. Then it’ll be basketball.”
“Mack and Jack. How cute.” It was out before I could catch it.
“Thanks. Yeah, Marshall thought it would be fun to name them something we could rhyme. Their four nicknames are Mack, Jack, Zack and Pack. Pack is our own made up ‘ack’ nickname, he’s really Patrick.”
“Oh.” I hoped that didn’t sound critical.
I quickly moved on.
“So what’s up?”
“The reason I’m calling is to ask if you’ve heard anything about Ruth? Well, and of course, Hannah. How’s Hannah doing? I can’t imagine having to watch my mother slowly slip away….”
“She may not be slipping away,” I said.
“Oh?”
“No, I…I didn’t mean there’s anything concrete, just a feeling I have that maybe Ruth will pull through.”
“Her heart is strong.”
“Yes.” I was feeling foolish, like I was speaking out of turn.
Gerry said, “I mean, I know she’s still semi-comatose, but I’m wondering how bad off she really is. Martha Stowall just called me to say her sister Anne would be sewing in Ruth’s place Saturday night…” Martha and Anne were two of Victoria’s daughters. “…and Martha said she’d heard Ruth was actually getting worse.”
That took my breath away. I made a mental note to visit Hannah ASAP.
“I don’t really know, Gerry. I talked with Hannah Saturday and she didn’t say much then. Actually we were conferring about Abigail at the time. I’ll try to get over to Hannah’s house this week and see how they’re doing.”
“Okay. Please let me know what’s up Rachel. You know, Marsh and I could help. I mean, it’s hard to take care of an invalid in your home and Hannah and Peter are living on a shoe string. Peter’s only employed halftime, and I hear Hannah’s massage business is falling off too. It’s the California economy.”
“Yes. Things are tough everywhere right now.” I was really feeling uncomfortable. Like a gossip.
There was a pause in the conversation, as if Gerry expected me to continue. I waited her out.
“The other reason I called, Rachel, is that Andrea tells me Abigail has started
going to school. And she says Gloria is just about nuts over it. Says she called you guys to come pick Abigail up on Friday. How’d that go?”
Not good. Abigail and I had a bad day—including witnessing a gang initiation.
No, I wouldn’t tell her that.
I pondered how I should answer. On the one hand, this was a business matter, and client confidentiality was all-important. On the other hand, these bee women have known each other for far longer than I’ve known them. And on the third hand, I was wishing to become one of them.
But if this was common knowledge among them why was she asking me?
Stalling, I quipped, “Like a hyena hunt in the middle of stampeding wildebeest.”
“Huh?”
Okay, that made no sense. But then Gerry’s attention went elsewhere as I heard quarreling voices of kids rising in the background. Maybe that was what made me think of wild beasts. When she returned her attention to me again I’d finally decided what to share.
“Actually Gerry, Gloria has formally hired LIRI to help her so I’m not at liberty to discuss details, but…well, let me just say that Abigail isn’t transitioning as well as you might hope.”
“I wouldn’t hope at all, Rachel. She’s a genius. She doesn’t belong in our dumbed-downed public schools.”
“Oh. You, too.” Maybe the bee ladies were all in agreement that Abigail shouldn’t attend school. But Gerry was a school teacher. I was surprised at her words.
Gerry said, “Yes, me too. I’m afraid I agree with Gloria on this. So, with all due respect to your privacy issues, Rachel, let me again ask you to keep me informed in case there’s some way I can help out. Just to put it bluntly, sister, I know private schools are expensive, and I also have avenues through which I can donate assistance to folks in need that don’t make it personal. You know, like scholarships and ‘volunteer nursing agencies’ that show up out of the blue. It’s one of the ways we give back to society, Rachel. So let me know what you find out about both Hannah and Abigail, okay?”
Sister. I liked the sounds of that.
“Definitely. But the situation with Abigail is tied up in a legal dispute now, and we’re helping her work through it.”
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