Katie sailed over toward Dorotea, pumped her hand enthusiastically, patted the plush, chenille-covered beds, and admired Dorotea’s scenic posters of Heidelberg’s castle. Tilting her head and smiling a broad, open smile, she added more soberly, “How exciting to be your roommate, but there may be some mistake. My father arranged for my, uh…my old friend Pina Mazzini to room with me.”
Dorotea now attempted to kiss both my cheeks, mistaking me for a native-born Italian. Of course, she spoke Italian too and almost crooned, “Auguri, greetings, benvenuta! Welcome!”
I squared my five-foot frame, and pushed her away with my extended robot-like hand. I almost clicked my heels and with my best Queens, New York accent said, “Yeah. I’m Pina Mazzini. Howsitgoin?”
“I beg pardon. What do you say?” Dorotea said.
That put her in her place. But shoot! What was her place? Here with Katie?
Katie politely answered for me. “Oh, Pina was just giving you a taste of another American accent.” Hand behind my back, Katie twisted a piece of my sweater along with my flesh, nodding at me, “Right, Pina?”
I smiled my best cheerleader smile, pulling out of Katie’s pinch.
“Yes, Dorotea, but now, Katie has to help me find my room, don’t you, Katie?” I returned Katie’s pinch, pushing her at the same time in the direction of the open door.
“Jeez!” I burst out once we were in the hall. Katie slipped her hand around my waist after checking the long hallway for others’ eyes.
“Shush,” said Katie. “Come closer. I just wanted to hold you and hold you. And now…”
“We can’t. Not here,” I said. Yet just as soon, I looked around and held her face, pressed her lips to mine, and jerked back as if I had just pulled a fire alarm, which I think I did, judging from Katie’s sigh, collapsed shoulders, and flush. My kiss had set off a spark.
“Let’s find your room.” Her almost-swooning body said why.
“Swithins-Jones, Ogilvie-Brown…” I read the nameplates as we passed by successive doorways and then stopped short. I wheeled around to the room on the left.
“Wolf’s kiss,” I snarled.
“What?” said Katie.
“Wolf’s kiss—Baciadalupo—wolf’s kiss in English.”
“What are you talking about?” Katie was still staring in the direction of the very long high-ceilinged corridor.
“Crud!” I pointed to the door, to the nameplate, Alda Baciadalupo, and now the gorgeous face appearing at the opened door.
Gorgeous: rich, dark skin, dark eyes, long lashes, longish, wavy, silk-black hair falling onto broad shoulders and breasts, gorgeous, big breasts in a lime green angora, clingy sweater.
“Santo cielo!” English escaped me at such an exotic moment.
“Benvenuta. Avanti, avanti!” sang the beautiful creature.
“Oh, I don’t really speak Ital—” I puffed each word out with what little bit of breath I had.
“Huh?” said Katie, pulling on my sleeves.
“Oh! This is Katie, your roommate. No. I mean, I am, your roommate, that is. And Katie, Katie McGuilvry, she’s…she’s my best friend. Pina Mazzini.” I extended my hand to Alda. Alda. Gorgeous!
I was aware of only two things, besides Gorgeous: Katie’s somewhat quiet “hmph!” and a wink as Alda said, “Best friend, Katie, huh?”
She gave Katie the once-over and pulled us both into her room, displaying with a dramatic flourish a tray of cannolis and a tiny bottle of Vin Santo, which she tilted back and forth in a gesture of “Now you see it; now you don’t.”
Maybe this could be next to heaven; I was almost dreaming. Katie relaxed and pulled me down next to her, sitting on one of the beds. I breathed in Katie’s cologne Canoe, once, twice, three times to break the spell and smell of Alda.
We started to laugh about Alda’s last name Baciadalupo, wolf’s kiss. She said she was really an Italo-American sheep underneath this disguise. We sampled the silky, ricotta cream filling and the just right, sweet, crispy cannoli shells. Alda said her father’s friend, Frank, sent them from Maine and that, devil that he was, he also included the sweet liqueur.
Alda came from Queens too, but she was definitely not a charity case like me. She said she was glad not to be the only Italo-American here at Albert, breaking the waspy mold. Katie’s leg started to twitch next to mine. Her cough interrupted our reminiscing of Queens, New York, and her hand on my shoulder screamed, “Mine!”
“There’s been a mistake,” she said. “We’re supposed to be rooming together.”
Alda raised her eyebrows, tilted her head, and pseudo-pouted. “Oh, we should all three be together. We could have a lot of fun.” She laughed a make-believe diabolical laugh. We all had had a teeny-tiny sip of the Vin Santo.
Katie and I also laughed as we exited, excusing ourselves to go call Katie’s dad to fix the mix-up.
Chapter Three
The Phone Call
Alda’s door had just closed. And with it, Katie’s laughter died. An immediate glare covered Katie’s face, accompanied by Katie’s unexpected shove to my back. We were very much alone in the darkened hallway.
“Hey, Katie, you’re hurting me. What’s the hurry?”
Releasing her grip on my elbow, Katie pushed me towards the shaft of late afternoon light peeking in from the corner window. She held me at arm’s length and stared, just stared. She snarled, “Thank God my father will save us from that!”
“Wha?” I was totally confused and still under Katie’s intense scrutiny. She seemed to be looking for familiar features on my face. Her gaze narrowed, squinting as if to recognize me.
During this inspection, it struck me how different Katie was, different from the girl who had just entertained us, for Alda did entertain, what with the pastries and wine and humor. The translucence of Katie’s white Irish skin, even in this dimming light, made her almost glow in the dark, and her blue eyes riveting through me were vampire-like. She was devouring me with her eyes.
“So you liked what you saw?” Katie broke her silence and her stare.
“Ah man! Jealous, you?”
“You couldn’t keep your eyes off her.”
“You have to admit she was larger than life.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Katie spat the words back at me.
“Katie, stop. She liked us, both of us. She winked because she saw who we were.”
“Hmph. I notice you said, ‘were.’”
“Je-sus! It’s correct English.”
“Yeah. And your ‘howsitgoin’ to Dorotea? Good English?”
“Oh, Katie. Stop! Your roommate, I mean Dorotea, the Mistake, she’s something else.”
“And Miss Alda isn’t?”
“Sweetie, don’t be a doufus. I love you. We’ll get this all worked out, and then we can make mad, passionate love all the time. Let’s go call your dad.”
“You mean it? You’d rather be with me?”
“Dangit, Katie, while we’re still not officially registered at Albert…”
“Right, we can go anywhere and call whoever we want until then.”
“Hmph! Did you know Albert was so strict?” I said.
“No. I guess we’ll have a few surprises.”
“Yeah. Like we haven’t already had some.”
We found the public telephone booth on School Street just outside campus. While Katie dialed her dad and inserted the correct number of nickels, I admired the maples beginning to color against the whites and greys of the sturdy eighteenth century buildings on Andover Hill. I was beginning to feel calmed by the foliage and the orderliness of the village green after the heated conversation with Katie. Then her usually calm demeanor flared up again.
“What? No. I refuse. Absolutely.” Katie said to her father.
I couldn’t imagine what she would refuse her father, but I knew I was about to get an earful. For now, the door to the booth remained closed, and Katie was sobbing and shouting, “No, no, no!” Finally, she screamed, “Well, find
out!” and slammed the receiver down.
“I’m not going back,” said Katie.
I tried my best to spin her around to face me, but when I succeeded, she pounded both fists on my shoulders and shrieked at me, “You can have your new Gina Lollobrigida.”
“Hold on,” I said. “What did he say?”
“They did it on purpose, and he didn’t think to tell us.” Katie continued to cry, and slumped to the edge of the sidewalk. We sat down, cloaked by the dusk. I pulled Katie close to me and slid my hand up and down her arm, soothing her and myself with the silkiness of her arm’s dark, downy hairs.
“Katie, explain,” I whispered, brushing my lips against her ear.
“My father knew about the rooms. Before we left, he got a call from the residence dean who said the administration always finds it best to ‘expose those of more modest means to those more fortunate.’”
“What!” I almost screamed, “And you’re not fortunate enough for me?”
“No. It has to be someone ‘unfamiliar’. So Alda is your ‘unfamiliar’ more fortunate roommate. I guess in more than one way!”
“She-it!” Oops. “What are we going to do? We can’t just sit here. Can your father do anything?”
“He said no. I just want to go home.”
“We can’t do that either,” I said.
“I know.”
“Pain in the bottom! We’ve got to register. They’re expecting us tonight. Then should we trust Alda?” I held my breath as I spoke her name, expecting another eruption of Katie’s jealousy.
“Pin, we can’t tell anybody anything yet, but maybe we could hang out together with Alda until ten, that’s ‘lights out,’ right? And then I’ll go sleep with Dorotea, the Mistake!”
“Mistake? Hey. We can call her that. Whoa. What do you mean ‘sleep with her?’ Gross.”
“Yuck! I’ll wear a coat to bed.” Katie bundled her sweater around her.
“Sweetie, we’ll figure this out in the morning. Let’s go before we get in trouble even though we’re not official Albert girls yet.”
“Barf!” Katie said as she grabbed my arm. We walked off to find Marmot Memorial Gate. Creepy.
Chapter Four
Registration
We knew the Registrar’s office was located in Damper Hall, the place that had filled our eyes with awe upon our arrival. Now in this New England early evening gloom, Damper seemed to give off an ominous heaviness, starting with the dungeon-like turret on the left, to the dark, receding arches across the front of the building.
Posted on the frosted glass door, the sign read, “1959 Albert Boarders.” Katie signed a fancy signature with flourishes not typical of Catholic school penmanship, and handed me the pen, smirking. “We’re ‘Albert girls’ now.” She twirled her index finger into her cheek by the side of her mouth and pasted on a great big cheerleader smile. I used my newfound block signature, which I thought made me seem ‘artsy.’
Slapping each other on the back and rubbing noses, we skipped down the hall towards the exit. “We’re going to be fine.” I spun Katie around and leaned in to kiss her on the nose, there in the dark lit by the reproduction nineteenth-century electric candle lantern, our footsteps padded by the narrow Afghan runner escorting us to the massive exit door.
“Ahem!”
A dry cough, echoed and reverberated through the alcoves off this main corridor. We immediately jumped apart. Where it came from, we didn’t have a clue.
“Ahem!” And then a voice so thin and brittle, a high note could shatter it. “Girls! Albert girls!”
We stopped as frozen as the Carrara marble we walked on, squeaking and almost sliding directly into the glacial gaze of a tall, bony person, a woman, we thought, but hard to tell. Cold like the marble, cold like the blood running through our veins. Who was this creature?
As if reading the look on our faces as confusion, she said, “Head Mistress Craney—ahem!—I am your Head Mistress, Katie.” She spoke directly to Katie as she forced a frigid smile back from clenched teeth. She extended a pointed finger in Katie’s direction, not to shake her hand, but to indicate she was acknowledging her and not me.
“Giuseppina Mazzini.” She pulled her head back in a bird-like movement and peered over her half-glasses, down her long, bony nose. Her nostrils flared.
“Ah yes. Miss Mazzini.” Her lips seemed to curl. “Do tread lightly!”
I thought I died. There was no mistaking her warning for a kindly request to be careful exiting in the dark. I had already seen the apparition of my first real enemy. Well, then again, there was Dorotea, but I had a feeling I could handle her.
We were about to respectfully say “good night,” but the velvet tapestries covering an alcove swayed in a lazy wave, and then stillness, utter stillness covered the chilly hall. The Head Mistress slipped away as she had slithered in.
“Oh, Jesus,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Pin. Hey! Calm down. I heard she was weird.”
“Weird? God, she stabbed me through and through. One look and she got me.”
Chapter Five
Back to Alda
We hurried back through the grove of trees, constantly turning around to check out each cricket chirp and frog croak. Katie looked as sick as I felt. I could still feel the Head Mistress’s glare.
I only vaguely heard Katie mumble, “Remember, no flirting.”
It took me a few seconds to realize Katie was more worried about Alda seducing me than the Head Mistress penetrating me with her x-ray vision. I had to convince Katie I did not intend to fool around with Alda; I had to convince myself too.
“Hey, stop it!” I said. I pulled Katie as close as I dared, almost a foot away. “Listen, I’ll set her straight.”
“I doubt it.” Katie sighed.
We had arrived at my room. Alda opened as soon as I knocked. Not only was she gorgeous, still, but she was smart. She read our faces immediately. Her eyes filled with concern. Her tone softened. As she pulled both of us into the room, she thrust her head out in the hall. She let it swivel mechanically in both directions. I sensed she had some experience doing this.
Katie sat close to me on the chenille-covered bed that Alda hadn’t claimed. Alda placed herself on the bed opposite us. She leaned forward, almost wedging herself between Katie and me. Katie and I explained the horror of the phone call. I added the details according to Dr. McGuilvry: Alda came from fortunate means, but she was not familiar like Katie; the ugly words used by Katie’s dad almost gagged me as I said them.
Alda waved her finger at my rising anger and laughed. ”Honeys,” she said. “I hope to become familiar!”
Katie bristled. Alda noticed, saying, “I don’t mean to shock you.” She almost hummed. “I just hate all that stuck-up stuff.” Alda gently rubbed Katie’s arm.
I could see Katie soften. We all laughed in agreement.
Alda sat up straight, studying our faces. “There’s something else going on.”
Katie looked away, blushing. I knew what was on her mind. I still felt the tightness carved into my face from my bone-chilling encounter with the Head Mistress. I said one word: “Craney.”
“O Madonna! Sorry, I learned my curses in Italian. Be careful!” Alda stiffened.
I explained briefly. “It felt like she saw through me. She flicked her eyes back and forth between Katie and me, and it’s like…well, maybe I imagined…” I didn’t know how much I could say about Katie and me.
“Imagined, nothing,” said Alda. “They say she seduced a youngish lady instructor and then had her fired. Accused the instructor of molesting children! You’ve got to watch yourself. She’s evil!”
I groaned. More battles and one I had no power to win. Maybe with my grandmother’s help, with the dreams. I felt Katie’s fingers tiptoe into the crook of my arm. They were ice cold; her face was ashen.
“Aw crap!” I mumbled, “Enough for one day.”
Alda patted Katie on the shoulder. “Want to stay here tonight?
”
Katie’s grip tightened. Her eyes welled up. “I don’t dare do anything wrong.”
I hugged her at arm’s length, telling her to come back if anything was too weird with Dorotea. Alda said, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her.”
I didn’t know whether Alda meant Dorotea or me. Katie blushed and left, hardly closing the door.
I hated to see Katie leave, but I sensed this longing for Katie also masked a floating fear and curiosity about what might happen with Alda. No sooner had this thought crossed my mind, than I threw myself under the covers, chenille up to my nose and beyond.
As if a switch had been thrown, Alda stirred, ambled, and sashayed over to my side. “Here, give me a goodnight hug.”
Lord! What to do? My mind told me one thing; my body was yelling over my mind, screaming something entirely different. As Alda leaned over me, my mind managed to find the direct circuit to my hand, shooting it up almost at Alda’s throat. “No,” I whispered. “No. I can’t.”
Just as quickly as she had come to my side, she pulled back, almost mechanically, and winked. “I know.” She smiled. “I like you. And you’re real.”
She blew me a virginal kiss and laughed a hearty laugh. “We’re going to be fast friends. You watch.”
Alda snapped out the light and ever so gently began to snore.
I thought the rhythm of Alda’s snore would carry me away to dreamland—and oh how I needed a good Grandma Francesca dream, the kind that helped me see where to go with my life, but I couldn’t stop worrying about Katie. What if she had been there when Alda wanted to hug me?
Well, I really only wanted Katie, didn’t I? Alda was…yeah, she was something, but I was in love with Katie. She got me, really got me like no one else, in a real, deep down place. I’d just have to keep reminding myself.
I decided to go say goodnight to Katie, Dorotea or no. The Mistake, I mean.
Chapter Six
Dorotea and The Dream Machine
I was on the point of sneaking into Katie’s room on tiptoes when I heard voices. Although I remembered to knock out of respect for Fraulein Mistake, my fist froze mid-air when I heard Mistake’s voice, raised louder and louder as if her words swam on spittle through her clenched teeth. I, Pina, was the subject of her rant.
Love and Lechery at Albert Academy Page 2
