The food was good, but not nearly as good as the food Nina made for us back home. After the meal had ended and the girls from our quad began clearing the table, Gisselle ordered me to take her back to our room.
"I won't wait for them," she said. "They're absolute idiots."
"No they're not, Gisselle," I said. "They're just participating in what's ours. It's fun. It makes you feel like this is your place, your home away from home."
"Not to me. To me it's a nightmare away from home," she said. "Take me to the room. I want to listen to some records and write some letters to my friends, who will want to know about this poor excuse for a school," she said, loud enough for everyone around us to hear. "Oh, Jacki," she said, calling back. "When you girls are finished with your chores, you can come to my room to listen to my records and learn what's up to date."
I pushed her out as fast as I could. She screamed I was going to crash her into a wall, but that's just what I hoped to do. Abby followed us. We had already decided that she and I would take a walk to the lake after dinner. I was going to ask Gisselle to come along, but since she had already decided on what she wanted to do, I didn't mention it.
"Where are you two going?" she demanded after I had brought her to our room.
"Outside, for a walk. Do you want to come?"
"I don't walk, remember?" she said curtly and shut the door.
"I'm sorry," I said to Abby. "I'm afraid I’ll be apologizing for my sister forever."
She smiled and shook her head.
"I thought I had a cross to bear and should feel sorry for myself, but after seeing what you have to put up with . Abby said when we walked out of the dorm.
"What do you mean, you thought you had a cross to bear? What could be your cross? Your parents seemed very nice."
"Oh, they are. I love them very much."
"Then what did you mean? Are you suffering from some disease or something? You seem as healthy as a young alligator."
Abby laughed. "No, thank God, I am very healthy."
"And pretty, too."
"Thank you. So are you."
"So? What's your cross to bear?" I pursued. "I trusted you with my story," I told her after a moment.
She was quiet. We started down the walkway, heading toward the lake. She kept her head down, but I looked up at the half moon peeking over the shoulder of a cloud. The silvery rays coolly illuminated the warm night and made our new world ethereal, like the setting of a dream we were all sharing. Off to our right, the other two dorms were all lit up, and here and there we spotted other girls taking walks or just gathered in small groups talking.
When we made the turn that would take us down to the water, we could hear the bullfrogs, cicadas, and other nocturnal creatures coming alive in their ritualistic night music, a symphony full of croaks and clicks, rattles and thin whistles.
Because we were so far from any highways, the sounds of traffic never reached us, but in the distance I could see the red and green running lights of the oil barges on the Mississippi and imagined the sounds of foghorns and the voices of riverboat passengers. Sometimes, on nights like this, people's voices could carry for more than a mile over the water, and if you closed your eyes and listened, you could feel either your movement or theirs as more and more distance fell between you.
Below us, the lake had taken on a metallic sheen. It was so still that I could barely perceive a bobbing in the rowboats tied at the small dock next to the boathouse as we approached. It was a good-sized lake with a small island in the middle. We were nearly down to the dock before Abby spoke again.
"I don't mean to be so secretive," she said. "I like you and appreciate your trusting me with your story. I don't have any doubts," she added with bitterness, "that most of these girls would look down on you if they knew you came from a poor Cajun background, but that would still be nothing compared to me."
"What? Why?" I said. "What's wrong with your background?"
We stood on the dock now and looked out at the lake. "Earlier you asked me if I had a boyfriend, and I said yes, and you tried to make me feel better by telling me he would write or call. I told you he wouldn't, and I'm sure you wondered why I was so sure."
"Yes," I said. "I did."
"His name's William, William Huntington Cambridge. He was named after his great-great-grandfather," she said, in that same bitterness she had intoned before. "Who happened to be one of the heroes of the Confederacy, something about which the Cambridges are very proud," she added.
"I suppose if you scratch everyone around here, you'll find most have ancestors who fought for the South," I said softly.
"Yes, I'm sure. That's another reason why I . . ." She spun around, her eyes bright with tears. "I never knew my grandparents on my father's side. They were kept a family secret, which was why they weren't supposed to have me," she explained. She paused as if she expected me to understand everything, but I didn't and I shook my head.
"My grandfather married a black woman, a Haitian, which made my father a mulatto, but white enough to pass as a white man."
"And that was why your parents never wanted to have children? They were afraid . . ."
"Afraid that I, the offspring of a mulatto and a white woman, would be darker," she said, nodding. "But they had me eventually anyway, which you know makes me a quadroon. We moved around a lot, mostly because whenever we settled somewhere long enough, someone, somehow, suspected."
"And your boyfriend, William . . ."
"His family found out. They consider themselves bluebloods, and his father makes sure that he learns as much as he can about anyone his children get involved with."
"I'm sorry," I said. "It's unfair and stupid."
"Yes, but that doesn't make it any easier to endure. My parents sent me here hoping that by having me surrounded with the crème de la crème, it would rub off and no matter where I went from here on, I would be considered a Greenwood girl first, upper class from a good family, special, and therefore never suspected of being a quadroon. I didn't want to come here, but they want so much for me to escape prejudice and they feel so guilty for having me that I did it for them more than I did it for myself. Understand?"
"Yes," I said. "And thank you."
"For what?" she asked, smiling.
"For trusting me."
"You trusted me," she replied. We started to hug each other, when suddenly, a man called out from behind us.
"Hey," he cried. A door to the boathouse snapped shut behind him. We spun around to see a tall, dark-haired man no more than twenty-four or five approaching. He was shirtless, and his muscular upper body gleamed in the moonlight. He wore a pair of tight jeans but was barefoot. His hair was long, down over his ears and most of his neck.
"What are you doing down here?" he demanded. He came close enough for us to see his dark eyes and high Indian cheekbones. The lines in his face were sharp but strong, cutting a firm jaw and a tight mouth. He had a rag in his hands, and he wiped them continuously with it while he looked us over:
"We just went for a walk," I began, "and ."
"Don't you know this is off-limits after dark? Want to get me in trouble? There's always one or two of you venturing down here to get me up a tree just to amuse yourselves," he said harshly. "Now you make like two jackrabbits mighty quick or have Mrs. Ironwood on your tails, get it?"
"I'm sorry," I said.
"We didn't come down here to get anyone in trouble," Abby added, stepping forward out of the shadows. When he looked at her, he immediately softened.
"You two are new, huh?"
"Yes," she said.
"Didn't you two read that handbook?"
"Not completely, no," she replied.
"Look," he said, "I don't want any problems. Mrs. Ironwood laid out the rules for me. I'm not even supposed to talk to any of you on the grounds without one of the teachers or staff members present after dark, see? And especially not down here!" he added, looking around to be sure no one was listening.
"Who
are you?" I asked.
He hesitated a moment before replying.
"Name's Buck Dardar, but it will be Mud if you two don't hightail it outta here pronto," he said.
"Okay, Mr. Mud," Abby said.
"Git," he ordered, pointing at the hill.
We grabbed hands and ran off, our laughter trailing behind us and echoing over the lake. At the top of the hill, we paused to catch our breaths and looked back toward the boathouse. He was gone, but he still titillated our imaginations just like someone and something forbidden would.
Still excited, our hearts pounding, we hurried back to the dorm, new friends drawn closer by our hidden pasts and our hidden hopes for ourselves as well as for each other.
4
My Sister's Keeper
On the first day school life at Greenwood seemed not much different from school anywhere else, except, of course, there were no boys in the corridors and classrooms with us. However, I was impressed with how clean and new everything looked. The marble floors in the corridors gleamed. Our desk tops had barely a scrape on them, and unlike most any other school, none of the chairs or other furniture had any scratches spelling out some cryptic graffiti or revealing some rage and disappointment.
Our teachers made the reason for that perfectly clear the moment we were all seated in their rooms. Each began with a short lecture about how important it was to keep our school looking tidy and new. Their voices boomed as if they wanted to be certain Mrs. Ironwood heard their performances. Almost every teacher wanted it made clear that it was his or her responsibility to keep his or her room looking good, and he or she meant to carry out that responsibility.
"If they don't," Jacki whispered to me, "the Iron Lady will have them whipped."
The lectures bored Gisselle, but even she was impressed with how obedient the student body was when it came to keeping the building immaculate. Whenever a student saw a piece of paper on the corridor floor, she would pause to pick it up. We found the same attention to cleanliness in the cafeteria. Although it was really too early to judge, it seemed like there was a decorum and an orderliness to school life at Greenwood that made our school life in New Orleans look like it had been on the verge of bedlam, despite the fact that we had attended one of the better city schools.
It was just the way my schedule worked out that after the first two periods of classes I had a study period. Gisselle, who had failed algebra last year, had to repeat it at Greenwood. When we first arrived at the main building, I had wheeled her about from homeroom to classes, but at the end of the second period, Samantha arrived on the scene almost by design and offered to take over.
"After this period, we have the next three classes together," Samantha said. Gisselle was obviously pleased with the suggestion.
"All right," I said. "But don't let my sister make you late for your classes."
"If I'm late because it takes me longer to do what I have to do, then they will just have to be understanding," Gisselle insisted. I saw she was already planning to loiter in the bathrooms, perhaps have a cigarette.
"She's going to get you into trouble, Samantha," I warned, but I might as well have been directing my words into the wall. Somehow my sister had quickly turned this naive girl into her trusted servant. I felt sorry for Samantha; she had little idea what she was in for before Gisselle was tired of her.
I left them and hurried off to my study hall. But just as I sat down to look over my new work, the study-hall teacher informed me that Mrs. Ironwood had asked to see me.
"Her office is right down the corridor to your right and then up a short set of stairs," he told me. "Don't look so worried," he added with a smile. "She often visits with first-time Greenwood students."
Nevertheless, I couldn't help being nervous about it. My heart was thumping as I hurried down the quiet hallway and found the stairs. A short, plump woman with gray-framed bifocals turned from a file cabinet when I entered the outer office. The nameplate on her desk read MRS. RANDLE. She peered at me for a moment and then went to her desk to look at a slip of paper.
"You're Ruby Dumas?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am."
She nodded, maintaining a stiffly serious expression, and then went to the door of the inner office. After a gentle knock, she opened it and announced my arrival.
"Show her in," I heard Mrs. Ironwood command. "Right this way, Ruby." She stepped aside and I entered Mrs. Ironwood's office.
It was a good-sized room, but very austere, with dark gray curtains, a light gray rug, a large, dark brown desk, two hard-looking wooden chairs, and a small, stiff-looking charcoal-black settee against the wall on the right. Above it was the only painting in the room, another portrait of Edith Dilliard Clairborne, and as in all the others, she was in a formal gown, either seated in a garden or in a high-backed chair in a study. The other walls had plaques and awards spaced out, awards won by the students of Greenwood for things ranging from debates to oratory contests.
Although there was a large vase of red and pink roses on her desk, the room smelled like a doctor's office, with a heavy scent of disinfectant. The office did look like it had been painstakingly cleaned to the point where the windows were so clear they looked wide open.
Mrs. Ironwood sat erect behind her desk. She lowered her glasses and gazed at me for a long moment, drinking me in as if she wanted to memorize every detail of my face and figure. If there was any approval, she didn't show it. Her eyes remained coldly analytical, her lips firm.
"Sit down, please," she said, nodding at one of the hard wooden chairs. I moved to it quickly and held my books on my lap.
"I called you here," she began, "so that we could establish an understanding as soon as possible."
"Understanding?"
The right corner of her mouth dipped. She tapped a fat folder on her desk with a pencil.
"This is your file," she continued. "Beneath it is your sister's. I have reviewed them both carefully. Besides your school records, the file contains some important personal information.
"I should tell you," she said, pausing to sit back, "that I had a long, informative talk about you with your stepmother."
"Oh," I said, dropping my voice a couple of octaves. She knitted her dark, thick brows together. Since she had referred to Daphne as my stepmother instead of my mother, it was clear that Daphne had told her about my life as a Cajun.
"She told me of your . . . unfortunate circumstances and expressed her frustration over her failure to bring about the sort of changes required for your adjustment from a rather backward life to a more civilized one."
"My life was never backward, and there is much about my life now that is uncivilized," I said firmly.
Her eyes became small, her lips a bit pale as she tightened them. "Well I can assure you that there is nothing about life at Greenwood that is uncivilized. We have a proud tradition of serving the best families in our society, and I intend to see that continue," she said quickly and sharply. "Most of our girls come from the proper sort of background and are already schooled in how to behave and carry themselves in polite society.
"Now then," she proceeded, putting her glasses on and opening my folder, "I see from your schoolwork that you are an excellent student. That bodes well for you. You have the raw material to develop. I also note that you are blessed with some talent. I look forward to your developing it here.
"However," she said, "none of this will be of any good if your social skills, your personal habits, are lacking."
"They're not," I said quickly. "No matter what you might think about the world in which I grew up and no matter what my stepmother might have told you."
She shook her head and then fired her words like bullets.
"What your stepmother told me," Mrs. Ironwood said, "remains locked within these walls. That is what I have brought you here to understand. It is up to you to keep them locked. Despite the circumstances of your birth and childhood, you now come from a distinguished family, and you have an obligation to that family
name. Whatever habits, practices, and behavior you engaged in prior to your life in New Orleans must not rear their ugly heads here at Greenwood.
"I have promised your stepmother to watch over you more closely than I watch over my other wards. I wanted you to be aware of that."
"That's not fair. I haven't done anything to deserve being treated differently," I complained.
"And I'm determined to keep it that way. When I promise something to a parent of one of my students, I make sure to keep that promise.
"Which brings me to your sister," she said, moving my folder off Gisselle's so she could open it. "Her schoolwork is disappointing, to say the least, as is some of her past behavior. I realize she has a serious handicap now, and I have made a few accommodations to make her life here comfortable and successful, but I wanted you to know that I hold you responsible for her success and her behavior."
“Why?”
She flicked her stony eyes over me.
"Because you have the full use of your limbs and because your father believes in you so strongly," she replied. "And because you are close to your sister and the most influential person when it comes to advising her."
"Gisselle doesn't take my advice or listen to me most of the time. She's her own person, and as far as her handicap goes, she takes advantage of it more often than not," I said. "She doesn't need accommodations, she needs discipline."
"I think I'll be the one to decide those things," Mrs. Ironwood said. She paused and stared at me a moment, her head bobbing slightly. "I see what it is your stepmother means: You have a strain of independence, that Cajun stubbornness, a wildness that must be kept in tow.
"Well, this is the place where it will be kept in tow," she threatened, sitting forward.
"I want you to maintain your good school achievements; I want your sister to improve her schoolwork; I want you both to behave and to obey our rules to the letter. By the end of this year, I would like your mother to be impressed with the changes in your character." She paused, waiting for my response, but I kept my lips sealed for fear of what might burst out of them if I began.
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