“She’s rough, how you say, rough around her edges. What, she is ein boy-tom, mannish. Ja, javohl, das ist it: she comes here, hair all wired crazy, eyes like torches; she barks orders to you and me, who only wants to make nice, keep clean, offer hospitality. But no, this Pina has no grace; she probably will clank her teacup and will call my strudel ‘shoe dull!’ Was ist loss with her? What’s her problem?
“She is so small, dark brown too, but she puffs up her teeny breasts as if she is Amazonian. I know. I will fix her. I am sorry, Katie. You say you like her, but she is evil. There is a name for girls like that, ‘lesbisch.’ Ja. That’s it. This is all wrong—must not be. You see. I will fix her.”
Hmm! Evil? She’d show me? And Katie? Why wasn’t she saying anything besides, “Yeah, yeah” and “Tomorrow, Dorothy, tomorrow?”
The last thing I heard was “Dorotea, Dorotea! I am not your Dorothy!”
Well, she wasn’t even that! She was our Mistake! But Katie was right. “Tomorrow.” We’d fix her tomorrow. For now, I desperately needed sleep.
Back in bed, I rubbed and rubbed my eyes until I saw the oranges and purples and magentas, and coils and stars. They drew me into a full spectrum spiral, deeper and deeper into my mind, where the waves of color pulsed me into sleep’s soft arms: dreamland.
****
Circus music, drumbeats, and barkers’ cries lured me into the dirty-white canvas tent. Fresh straw and manure warned me to look out for animals—or was I in the ring? I paced, tight and panicked. The dry crack of the whip spun my head around; my eyes narrowed, my upper lip pulled back, and my mouth made a hissing sound.
There on a stand, whip in hand, was my tamer squeezed into a tight blue-gray uniform, high, tight, shiny black boots, golden medals and epaulettes flashing. She wore a monocle and spat out the words “tief und hoh.” That could only mean up and down since that’s what my haunches were doing. My head snapped back, and my right paw flailed up as I screeched. The flick of the whip had landed on my prized tail. A bead of blood began to take solid form. “Gutes katzchen!” Good little kitty! The tamer—or was she something more sadistic—cooed as she descended from the stand and inserted a thin cigarette holder in her mouth. The rolls of flesh protruded from her high stiff collar, wattle-like, as she inhaled deeply and goose-stepped into the shadows.
A crackle, more like a shriek, announced a presence. An enormous presence filled my eyes: tall, pencil-thin, its black gown swishing across the floor, its hood falling forward, lower and lower on its head. The apparition held a book in one hand and a scythe in the other. Where the face should have been, an ashen oval glowed and shrieked, “Down! I will lay you down!”
I rolled over and played dead. I felt every strand of fur fall into a stiff place. Was I dead? Which of my nine lives did I just give up?
In another life, I opened my eyes. I was warm, and my body lolled on a soft, fleshy lap smelling of old lady. My belly vibrated in a loud purr. Grandmother’s short, plump fingers chucked me under the chin. I caught sight of a mouse, but the word pazienza, patience in Italian, gently teased my attention away.
I lifted and rolled my head in her caressing hands and allowed her to brush the mouse away. She nodded her head, ringed with gentle white curls, up and down and smiled at me. She placed a miniscule life preserver over my head and set a box of Wheaties and a jar of caviar in front of me, repeating “campione!”—champion—over and over and over.
****
I never got to sample that caviar in my dream. When I heard three loud knocks—customarily used to announce the beginning of the Shakespearean plays they took us to see at Stratford, Connecticut—I thought the next dream-reel had started to roll.
I yawned and opened one eye and then the second. I had no fur. Chenille was the closest thing, but I knew my grandmother had sent me a dream.
The door burst open. Katie threw herself at me. “Thank God!”
I was beginning to come to. “Yeah, thank God,” I answered.
“You won’t believe what Mistake said. Prussian Cow!”
In a rush of words, Katie allowed herself to explode about Mistake’s speech. I tried really hard to focus after my eventful night. I nodded as Katie went on and on.
“Katie, sweetie, I was there, right outside your door. I heard everything.”
“What are we going to do?” Katie asked as she started to creep into my bed. She looked over towards Alda’s bed and probably decided Alda was the least of her worries.
Alda yawned and answered right back, “Yeah!”
I had no idea what she was agreeing to. Before I could figure it out, Alda piled onto my bed too.
“Uh…” I felt like I was supposed to have answers. I mumbled, “Maybe I’m chickening out, but if Dorotea doesn’t insult me to my face…”
“Pina!” Katie gaped at me.
Since when was Katie so belligerent? I needed time to think; today was our first day. Katie was studying my face. Did I look like a coward?
“Hold on, you two.” Alda seemed to be reading our minds as well as our faces. She looked from Katie to me, and back again.
We were all business now, no hint of love and mushiness or sex.
“I mean, I have to play it cool and see if Dorotea is going to rat on me,” I said.
I leaned over to reach for Katie’s hand. She gave a half-hearted squeeze back.
“Katie, listen. You too, Pina. I’m going to investigate.” Alda seemed to rifle through files in her head. “I’ve got my ways.”
Alda snapped her fingers like it would be a breeze. “I’ll take care of Mistake.”
I smiled at Alda, carefully, so Katie wouldn’t worry about my intentions.
“I’ve got an idea too.” I hesitated to say more. “I had a dream last night.”
Katie, who knew all about my intuitive dreams from the previous summer, encouraged me, her eyes wide. “Sorry I snapped, Pin. Tell us about the dream.”
“I don’t know what to think about it, but I have a feeling it’s got some answers.”
Seeing Alda’s wrinkled forehead, Katie said, “It’s Pina’s dead Sicilian grandma, Francesca.”
Alda started rubbing her hands together. “Meno male! You’ve got an old one on your side! Does she really come to you in your dreams? Neat!”
I sighed. “Well, she kind of tells me things, but I don’t really see her. I mean—” I stopped short. I didn’t know how much I should say. Besides, it was time to get ready.
We had to go to some orientation thing in a little while and made plans to get together alone after lunch. We worked out some winks and gestures like an index finger to the temple to signal a getaway, with eyes cast left, right, up or down to indicate direction.
For now, we decided that I would get dressed right away and go back to Katie’s room with her so she could get ready. She couldn’t bear the thought of facing Mistake alone, not this morning.
While I was dressing, Katie and Alda stayed propped up on pillows in my bed. Katie toned down the melodrama as she told Alda more details about Mistake’s speech. I caught glimpses of Katie leaning her head back on her pillow to smile at Alda, who listened and “oohed and aahed” in all the right places.
By the time I was finished, they seemed to be old friends, laughing about the Mistake’s “flatulence” and Pina, the “dreamgirl.”
Chapter Seven
Dressed for Battle
Katie and I were on our way to face the Mistake together. As we crossed the hallway, Katie took my arm. “Pina, this is all screwed up. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“Hey! We’re in this together. Alda’s going to help, and the Mistake, well, she’s just a mistake.”
Katie slowed her steps in her big, padded Indian moccasins, checked for our faculty hall monitor, and rubbed my back.
“You know,” she said. “Maybe it’s just first day nerves. Huh? Just maybe.”
I wanted to believe that too. After all, my grandmother gave me a life preserver and Wheaties! I t
old that part of my dream to Katie but held onto the rest. I was busy pushing it back, way back into my head as we approached Katie’s door.
“Ready?” I asked.
“I guess.” Katie sighed and rolled her deep blue eyes. I was beginning to lose myself again. I didn’t dare glance at her full red lips.
We entered on tiptoes. The Mistake was nowhere to be seen. We remembered her previous closet act and nodded agreement not to speak.
I sat on the edge of Katie’s bed. Katie sort of hummed while she put on her clothes, turning to throw me a nervous smile now and then. I stood up to stretch my neck and yawn when the Mistake appeared less than four feet away from me.
Dorotea towered over me, large and fleshy with her massive cleavage in her European chiffon plunge-neck blouse. Beads of perspiration mottled her ecru complexion. She could have been Brunhilde in the Niebelungelied. (My aunt had taken me to see the Opera at the Met.) She was, without a doubt, the quintessential Nazi Fraulein, and she longed to conquer the room.
She spread her legs, planted steadfast at the foot of the bed, and thrust out her powerful arm. Her underarm flab shimmied in rhythm to her flexed hand grabbing for Katie. She seemed to say, “This too is mine!” She actually quoted in Latin, “veni, vidi, vici.” I came, I saw, I conquered.
I remained dumbfounded, stunned into silence. I felt like I had to be the Flag Bearer for the Allied Forces. This had to be the Normandy Invasion.
I snapped out of my fantasy. Katie threw me a look that I read as “Stay cool!” I started to say “guten morgen” and decided against it. I merely nodded. “Good morning to you, Dorotea!”
Nothing followed; no words, no fanfares, no dramatics.
Chapter Eight
First Day
After my encounter with Mistake, everything seemed easy. Katie, Alda, and I walked arm-in-arm down the hall of Smythe to the iron circular stairs to Albert Hall. Alda winked, saying this way no one would ever suspect. Easy too, our academic gowns seemed to float over our black dresses while the junior girls attached tassels to our caps before the solemn march into the auditorium. Even the recitation of the awful religious invocation and the singing of “Halls of Albert” flew by. The rest was blah-blah about how we were now Albert material and would always remain Albert material. The elitism wasn’t even subtle.
Once outside, the three of us joined hands a moment under the copious folds of our black gowns and wished each other luck for our morning classes. Katie and Alda were off to gym and I to French.
Upon entering Salle Simone de Beauvoir classroom, I started to drag my feet. I realized I was now on my own. An icy mask crept over my face when I heard the instructor say a whole bunch of musical sounds in French. Some of the girls must have understood since they giggled. I didn’t have a clue outside of the few words I knew in European languages from my sampling foreign languages lessons in grade school. Yet, as Mademoiselle Lesage continued to chirp away, I found myself laughing. The others had stopped, in surprise.
My hand shot up. In perfect French, I said, “Merci de votre gentillesse, Mademoiselle.” Thank you for being so kind, Miss. Well-coiffed heads turned in my direction; a pixie-ish head in a beret whispered, “O, toi aussi!” And I collapsed inside myself to marvel at the mystery of how I knew those words in French. My grandmother must have been at it again, giving me visions and words I didn’t really know.
I tried to make myself small when I sensed a whoosh. The whole class rose to announce the entrance of La Maitresse, the Head Mistress Craney, her black gown in a fantastical swirl around her meager body. Her aura was huge, her pale, bony nose the only thing protruding from her blackness.
We seated ourselves again. Miss Craney had her back to us. Her presence swallowed up Mademoiselle standing in the very front of the room. The waves of Craney’s gown’s sleeves seemed to be flagging down vehicles in a race, imaginary spirits whizzing through on both sides.
When she spat out the words attention à la petite, watch the little one, a bony finger shot out from her academic gown, revolved around, fell upon me, and whirled back all in one unbroken gesture. It had happened so quickly, I wondered if I had imagined it.
Everything I had previously believed as real changed as Craney streaked towards the door. Mademoiselle raised her once honeyed voice to say, “Oui, je sais déjà.” Yes, I already know.
Either I passed out or the classes were short, just minutes, that day. The door opened, and everyone filed out. It was then I noticed Dorotea, our Mistake. She looked down at the sweat forming on my brow and smirked. “Attention!”
My next two classes, Latin and math, were similar; I somehow already knew translations for the Punic Wars and trig equations. The grand entrance of the Head Mistress marked each class and each class sped by. Each time the finger sighted me. How long before I’d be executed?
I almost fell upon Katie and Alda in the refectory. If we had been wearing our academic gowns, this would have felt like a monastery. Small rectangular windows high up by the cornice just under the rounded arch were the only things that pierced the high white walls; the wooden beams seemed to bear down on us. Thank goodness we didn’t have to eat in silence. There was so much lively chatter, stilted, snobby accented drivel, that it covered my drastic ravings to Katie and Alda.
I explained briefly that the Head Mistress was dogging me. Alda told us to eat quickly, and we’d go outside to talk more freely. Better, she said she would cover for Katie and me a bit so Katie could hold me in the grove of birches. She said I looked like I needed it.
We did just that, with Alda standing guard right in front of the breech between the trees. Katie held me while I whined, “She’s got it out for me, the Head Mistress. I can feel it. That’s not all, Katie. I know things again. My grandmother’s back!”
Katie kissed my eyes quickly and wiped them with a gentle sweep of her thumb. “Just be cool for now. Only two more hours today, and then we’ll be together with Alda.”
We had no sooner come out of the camouflage of the yellowing, flickering birch leaves than Alda sailed up between Katie and myself, pulling us forward by our elbows. Dorotea, the Mistake, stood rigid under a nearby arch and craned her flabby neck in our direction, saying, “Pity, not even mistel in those trees.”
“I think it means mistletoe,” said Alda, whose aunt had married a German.
“Shoot!” said Katie. “Mistletoe? Like for kissing at Christmas?’
“Stop worrying.” said Alda. “No one could see you two kissing.”
I was about to turn around and stare down Mistake when a long, skinny leg protruding from a draped black cloth flashed by. Craney again. Neither Katie nor Alda noticed.
When she saw me blanch, Alda pulled me down onto a stone bench in the loggia connecting the refectory and the library. She threw an arm around my shoulders and cheerily spouted off about rituals, birthdays, and celebrations. She said she knew when my birthday was and that she was going to be my fairy godmother, to me and to Katie. She would grant us our fondest wish.
Her sheer exuberance, not to say her craziness, totally grabbed my attention. Color was back in my cheeks, which she was pinching while slapping me on the back. Katie shrugged her shoulders at first, but gave in and laughed at Alda’s antics.
Just as abruptly as this zaniness had come on, a seriousness took hold of Alda as she sucked her lower lip and sat up straight. “I told you I would investigate, and I will. I’m making a plan, but first, the library!”
We found our way to the library orientation, after which we had two more short classes. I was prepared for looney tunes, but my English and history classes went smoothly. The best was to discover Katie and Alda in the same history class.
Chapter Nine
Strategy
Dinner came and went without major incident. Actually, we were able to sit together, Alda, Katie, and I, since formal dinners with assigned ‘fortunate-less fortunate student’ seating only took place on Wednesdays and Sundays. Tonight, Monday, we were free to be
“birds of a feather” or “flit about,” according to our manual, which described in minute detail these Neanderthal practices in soon-to-be 1960.
Alda, Katie, and I met some other girls we liked and who liked us. That amazed me, that I seemed popular with some of these girls, girls like Jeanne from the South End of Boston. That, she said, meant she wasn’t Irish even though she had freckles and her name was Scottish. She wanted us to know she was and still is Negro and a scholarship case! She even sucked her teeth and said, “My friends.” We definitely liked her. She was the first Negro friend we would have.
Another girl introduced herself as “Mortified”, explaining that she was embarrassed to go to Albert because of the price tag stuck all over it. That’s what sold her father, she informed us, rolling her eyes at the other debutantes. I received my first lesson in “money talk.”
After dinner, Alda, Katie, and I decided to plan. Alda was big on strategizing. “Butter,” she announced, raising a finger to her mouth and nodding to me to open the door to our room since her hands were occupied with plotting. She pulled the red, green, and black striped Hudson Bay blanket to the floor and said, “Sit!” and repeated, “butter. The answer is butter.”
Katie sighed a big sigh, becoming familiar with Alda’s flamboyance. “Okay,” said Katie. “I’ll bite: butter, what or who is it?”
Alda apologized and said, “Mistake, of course. We’ll butter her up. She probably wants friends desperately; we’ll give her friends.”
“Oh Lord!” I said.
“No, Pina,” she answered. “I’ve got a plan. Watch! And I will personally take her off your hands so you two can have your birthday wish, your fondest wish. Your private sweet sixteen!”
“Wha? No? You could find a way?” I didn’t quite understand how she knew we needed that kind of privacy or how she could arrange it. Was she counting on kidnapping Mistake?
Love and Lechery at Albert Academy Page 3
