The Red Blazer Girls

by D. Michael Beil

  “He's going to meet me at seven-thirty. I've told him that your skit is first, so if he's late, he'll miss you, but he insists he'll be on time. Tell me again why you have to be at school at seven o'clock this morning?”

  “We just have another, um, project that we need to finish up. It's due today, and we have a few little details to work on.”

  “Well, all right, but be careful; it's still dark out there.”

  “We're walking together, Mom. We'll be fine. See you tonight.” I kiss her on the way out the door, and we are off.

  The sky over the East River is glowing red and orange, and the air is crisp and cool. We have plenty of time to get to the church for my appointment with Winterbottom, so we decide to walk the whole way. At the door to Perkatory I send Margaret, Leigh Ann, and Rebecca inside with my assurance that I will be back before they have finished their coffees.

  Margaret's arms are crossed. “Are you sure you don't want us to come with you?”

  I shake my head. “Don't worry. I'll be fine. He's going to be ticked off, sure, but what's he going to do? The only thing I need is that little tool you used last night to lift the tile.”

  Margaret finds it in her bag and hands it to me. “Good luck. And remember, go slowly—don't break the tiles.”

  “Got it. Nice and easy.”

  “And, Soph? Don't drop it.”

  Gordon Winterbottom is waiting for me in the foyer of the church, pacing with a pained look on his icky face. I glance around the barely lit church interior. No one else around. No security guard, no construction workers, no little old ladies waiting for Mass. Just me and Gross Greedy.

  “Ready?” Apparently we aren't bothering with any pleasantries.

  Time for my close-up. Quiet on the set, please.

  “Y-yeah, I'm ready. Look, m-mister, please, let's get this over with so I can get my bag and get out of here. I don't want to get into any trouble. I don't even care about the stupid ring anymore.”

  “But you do know exactly where it is, right?”

  “I—I know where it's supposed to be, according to my friend's calculations. But maybe she's not as smart as she thinks. And I mean, it has been twenty years. A lot of things can happen in that amount of time.” We walk down the center aisle of the church; out of the corner of my eye I spy a piece of the flashlight I had dropped, which makes me chuckle to myself. I am also pretty sure I see the shadow of someone standing behind the familiar door with the stained glass chalice, which appears to be propped open. Friend or foe? I take out a piece of notebook paper with some scribbled notes, which I pretend to study with tremendous earnestness and then make a big show of counting out the tiles and finally arriving at the tile. “Okay, if the calculations are correct, it should be under this tile. Do you want me to lift it? I brought a little tool. Or do you want to do it?”

  Winterbottom makes a series of faces and then grunts. “You do it. Go ahead. Come on, quickly.”

  I stick the edge of the tool into the crevice between the tiles, just as Margaret had done, gently wiggling it back and forth until it is far enough in to start lifting. As I inch my fingernails under it, he gets down on his hands and knees, pushing me aside roughly so he can finish the job himself. I stand up and move a few feet away so I can see the look on his face when he opens that box.

  His eyes flash with anticipation as he reaches into the opening and lifts out the jewel box that holds his treasure. Still kneeling, he snaps the lid open. I watch his jaw drop, just barely at first, and then, as the terrible realization of the situation hits him, more and more. Trembling and twitching, he holds up not the hoped-for Ring of Rocamadour but my four-buck, 1970s-vintage mood ring. The stone is a deathly gray in his hand. He glares at it for a second before dashing it to the floor. Then, my favorite part: he slowly unfolds my note—written across four paper dolls, joined at the hands, and each sporting a crimson St. Veronica's blazer. His face turns a shade of red I've never seen before (although tuna sashimi comes close). He looks up at me, and I am a teensy bit afraid. Is he going to kill me right here on the spot? Or just have a stroke?

  But this is my moment. I give him my most diabolical smile and snap his picture with my phone, which, like me, is fully charged.

  “Thank you,” I say. “That look on your face is just priceless—really the stuff dreams are made of. Why, whatever is the matter, Mr. Winterbottom? You seem upset. Is it not what you expected to find?”

  All he can manage is a grunt in my direction.

  “I don't know about you, but I've found that lots of things in life are like that. You build things up in your mind, and then, when you finally find what it is you've been searching for, you're disappointed. I wonder why that is? It seems—”

  “You think you're very clever, don't you?” He rises to his feet and tries to intimidate me.

  Fat chance. “Actually, I know I'm pretty clever. Clever enough to outsmart you, you disgusting wannabe crook.” I pick up my mood ring, which immediately begins to glow a very healthy and contented purple in my hand.

  “This isn't over. Don't forget, I still have that precious bag of yours.”

  “Would this be the bag you're talking about?” says Malcolm, stepping up onto the altar, joined by Father Julian, who is holding up my book bag.

  Mr. Winterbottom suddenly looks like a cornered rat. “I might have known you would be involved in this, Chance! You've always had it in for me. It was because of you that Everett Harriman didn't leave me anything in his will—after twenty years of loyal service. That ring belongs to me. I deserve it. I earned it!”

  “Just like you deserve these?” Malcolm takes the candlesticks from my bag and places them on the altar table. “How many other church treasures have you stolen over the years, Gordon? All those missing items that we just chalked up to random thefts—how many of those were your handiwork?”

  “How dare you. I have devoted my life to St. Veronica's. Do you honestly believe that Father Danahey is going to take your word over mine after all I've done?”

  “That will be up to Father Danahey. But with Miss St. Pierre and Father Julian—”

  “This, this juvenile delinquent!” Winterbottom scoffs. “You think Father Danahey is going to believe anything she says, after she was caught red-handed in the church, after closing time—with those in her bag? And we all know it's not even the first time.”

  “Even a third-class detective could tell you that the problem with that story is lack of motive. Why would she steal two very ordinary-looking candlesticks when they were this close to finding the ring? Look at them. She would have had no way of knowing they had any value; they look like they might have come from a ninety-nine-cent store. It just doesn't cut it.”

  Winterbottom's only response is to scowl at Malcolm, Father Julian, and me. He spins on his heel and stalks off toward the main entrance, shouting over his shoulder, “This isn't over!”

  Of course, his exit would have been a little more dramatic if he didn't stop at the top of the steps to light a cigarette. While he's standing there, Winnie bolts out of the chalice door and bustles down the aisle after him, her shoes squeaking on the polished floor. When she catches up with him, she pounds her fists against his chest like a child having a tantrum. A pretty pathetic spectacle. I almost feel sorry for him.

  Father Julian watches the two of them leave, shaking his head sadly. He asks how I am.

  “Oh, I'm fine now. I was a little freaked out right before you two came in. He looked kind of scary.”

  He reaches down and picks up the jewelry box and the paper doll note and hands them to me. “Keepsakes of your little adventure.”

  “What does your note say, anyway?” asks Malcolm.

  I show it to him.

  “Beautiful. The Red Blazer Girls, eh? I like that.” Father Julian nods his approval. “Me too. It has a nice ‘ring’ to it, if you'll excuse the pun.”

  I will. Just this once.

  When my book bag and I oh-so-casually stroll into Perkatory
a few minutes later, my three best friends greet me like a conquering hero and demand the details.

  “It was Malcolm's idea, really. He's been convinced for a long time that Winterbottom was stealing stuff from the church, but he couldn't prove it. This was our chance to really stick it to him. The mood ring was his idea, but this was mine.” I stretched out the paper doll note on the table.

  “That is so perfect,” says Leigh Ann.

  Margaret hugs me. “It's so perfect that I'm jealous I didn't think of it.”

  “Boy, he must be steamed,” Rebecca says. “Getting his butt kicked by a bunch of kids.”

  “Yeah, I would give anything to have seen the look on his face when he read this,” Margaret says. “I should be mad at you for not letting us go with you. You could at least have taken a picture.”

  I slap my palm to my forehead. “Oh, man! I shoulda taken his picture! Can you imagine how awesome that woulda been? Like right at the moment he's reading the note?”

  Everyone agrees: it's a shame. A pity, really. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

  I hold up my phone with a waggle of my eyebrows. Cut!

  Not really long enough to be a chapter, but

  after everything that happened in the last

  couple, I need a little break

  I really hope my teachers don't say anything truly life-changing, because my classes are flying past like the blur of taxis speeding through a yellow light. I am running on adrenaline, caffeine, and about four hours less sleep than normal. I am so looking forward to a weekend-long crash. Only one obstacle remains—the Dickens banquet—and then I can sleep. Wonderful, glorious, sumptuous sleep.

  We run through the skit one last time right after school, and Leigh Ann pronounces us officially ready. Rebecca and Margaret both promised to go home before the banquet, so Leigh Ann and I have some time to just hang out together, wandering through Bloomingdale's, sharing her iPod, and talking about you-know-who.

  “Have you decided what to do about the boy?” she asks as we ride the escalator up to the shoe department. “Because I feel a little responsible for, well, whatever is going on with you guys. I'm really sorry, Soph. I should have said something when he called me that day. If I had known—”

  “No, I jumped to all kinds of conclusions.”

  “So now what?”

  I make a face. “I dunno. I've been completely avoiding him for the past three days. He's been calling and texting, but I haven't returned any of them. He probably hates me by now.”

  “Somehow I doubt that. When he stops calling—that's when you should start to worry. Why don't you call him right now? What do you have to lose?”

  “My mind? I mean, I'm kinda nervous about the skit, and I'm really tired. My brain's going to melt if I even try to think right now. If he shows up tonight—which I seriously doubt—I'll talk to him. For now, let's just have a look at some shoes. That doesn't require thinking.”

  That is, unless you're trying to calculate the cost of a cute pair of sandals that are 25 percent off their original price of $34.99, less another 15 percent, plus tax. I set them on the counter with $25 and cross my fingers.

  So now what? I'm sure you're all wondering what will happen next. Will a bunch of seventh graders win the Dickens skit competition for the first time ever? Will Elizabeth and Malcolm—and their daughter, Caroline—show up? Will they make up?And what about Raf ? Will he surprise me by turning up after all? And what will I say to him? Should I save all this for a sequel? Put on something red and turn the page for just one more chapter. Pretty please.

  This is the one you've been waiting for

  The curtain goes up, or over, or whatever it does, at seven-thirty sharp, and Mr. Eliot, wearing a rumpled, moth-eaten black coat with tails, a dusty top hat, and a fairly realistic beard, takes the stage at St. Veronica's twelfth annual Dickens of a Banquet. The guests are seated at round tables with white tablecloths and rented china and candlesticks while we wait in the stuffy, filthy space behind the stage. With the noise from the twenty-some girls with us, the whirring of the fans, and the constant clinking of silverware on plates, we miss most of Mr. Eliot's opening monologue, a mixture of Dickens's and his own “humor.” C'est la vie.

  An hour earlier, while Rebecca, Leigh Ann, and I waited for Margaret in the hallway outside the auditorium, we ran into Mr. Eliot and gave him the big news. He was really excited and wanted to see the ring, but it was with Margaret, who was uncharacteristically late. When she finally showed up, something was different about her. She hardly said anything, answering our questions with one-or two-word answers and managing only a forced, grim smile when Rebecca did her dead-on imitation of Mr. Eliot. She looked like she had been crying but insisted that she was fine. Margaret isn't like me. My emotions are right out there for everybody to see, but she holds most of hers in. When the time came to go backstage, she sat off by herself, staring at the toes of her shoes. Once every few minutes she took a small flowered card out of an envelope and read it in the dim light, slowly shaking her head.

  Finally, I just can't take it anymore. “I'm gonna give it another try.”

  “You want us to come?” Rebecca asks.

  “Give me a minute alone with her.” I wander over and sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her.

  After about a minute of silence, she says quietly, “I'm Pip.”

  “I know. And I'm Herbert. And Leigh Ann is Joe.”

  “I don't mean the skit.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “I am Pip.” She finally makes eye contact with me. “I am not a good person.”

  “Margaret, what are you talking about? Is this some kind of Method acting thing? Are you just getting psyched up for our skit?”

  “No, I really mean it. You should not be friends with me, Sophie. I am a poor excuse for a human being.”

  “That's ridiculous. You're an amazing human being and the best friend I've ever had. What are you talking about?”

  “Read this.” She hands me the envelope.

  I remove the card and open it, but I can't read a word. “Is this Polish?”

  She takes the card from my hand. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It's an early Christmas present from my grandmother. She's going back to Poland next week. Remember that violin camp in the Berkshires I told you about—the one I'm dying to go to next summer? Well, Mom told her about it, and she has been saving every penny for months. Yesterday she signed me up and paid for everything. And the worst part is, Mom told me that she even sold some of her jewelry, because she didn't have enough money. My parents offered to reimburse her for part of it, but she wanted it to be a special gift from her to her special granddaughter.” Tears pour down Margaret's face, and she is shaking as she looks at the card again. She sobs as she reads, “‘Even when you're a famous violinist, you'll always be my little petunia.’ That's what she called me when I was still in Poland. Her little petunia.”

  By now, Rebecca is next to me and Leigh Ann has her arms around the inconsolable Margaret.

  “And look how I treated her. Just like Pip did with Joe.”

  “Margaret, this is crazy. You are not a bad person.”

  “And you know,” Rebecca begins, “Pip turns out all right in the end. Hey, don't everybody look at me like that. I finished the book.”

  “That's right. I'm still not saying you're like him, but Pip knows he has made some mistakes, and he makes up for them by becoming the real Pip again, not the phony version he was in London. Look, you said your grandmother will be in town for another week, and then you guys will probably go to Poland at Easter, so you have lots of time. You can totally make it up to her.”

  Margaret's sad, wet eyes look up at me. “You really think so?”

  “I do.”

  A snooty eighth-grade wannabe producer, carrying a clipboard and wearing one of those Britney-style headsets, interrupts us. “Aren't you guys the seventh graders? You're on in five. Oh, and g
ood luck.” She smirks.

  She is exactly what we need to break our mood. We stand in a circle and put our hands in the center, with Margaret's left hand and the Ring of Rocamadour on top.

  “For Margaret,” I say.

  “For us,” Leigh Ann adds.

  “For Frodo!” Rebecca cries, raising her fist.

  * * *

  We wait behind the curtain, listening to Mr. Eliot's introduction.

  “This group of particularly brave girls are the only seventh graders in tonight's program. They have adapted the scene from Great Expectations in which Pip, who has moved to London to become a gentleman, is visited by Joe, his brother-in-law and closest friend from his humble childhood. In a rather short time, Pip has become a bit of a snob, and he is embarrassed by the country bumpkin Joe. Ladies and gentlemen, Rebecca Chen, Leigh Ann Jaimes, Sophie St. Pierre, and Margaret Wrobel in … Great Expectations!”

  Rebecca has the easy part. As Biddy, all she has to do is read as she pretends to write her letter to Pip, informing him of Joe's impending arrival. And then she goes offstage to watch the rest of us sweat.

  The first part of the scene is really funny. Poor old Joe is not used to wearing nice clothes or being around “gentlemen,” and he is really awkward, which makes Pip totally uncomfortable. And Joe never does figure out what to do with his hat; no matter where he sets it, it falls to the floor. He tells the story of a church clerk who has left the church—“had a drop,” as he puts it—and joined a group of traveling actors. Pip's roommate, Herbert (played by moi), enters and offers him a choice of coffee or tea, and even that decision is unbearably difficult for him. It is only my second-best acting performance of the day, but I manage to maintain my British accent throughout and exit stage right, where I watch the second half with Rebecca.

  After Herbert's exit, the scene turns more serious as the negative changes to Pip's nature become more and more apparent. Joe insists on calling Pip “sir,” and soon after he explains his reason for the visit—to give Pip a message from Miss Havisham that Estella wishes to see him. Then Joe gets up to leave.