Katie’s eyes glazed over. Her voice trailed, long and low; it had become a long, wisp of a cloud.
I grabbed onto Katie and held on for dear life. Our tears mingled, warm and salty. I lifted her head and dove deep into her eyes, swimming in those deep blue wells.
“Katie, sweet Katie, we’ll find a way. No matter what, I am yours.” I was sniveling hard. I never wanted Katie to lose another thing, ever, and certainly not me.
We kissed a light brushing of the lips. In my heart, I promised to be hers forever, promised not to get lost or stray.
Chapter Twenty-one
To Sleep…To Dream
Katie and I walked our separate dimly lit ways back to the dorm. I tiptoed into my room and waved goodnight to Alda, mumbling that I was already half-asleep. She started to joke and protest, but I just disappeared under the covers, saying, “Yeah, Al, tomorrow…”
My mind was racing in sixth gear; it seemed it would roar. Maybe Alda would reveal something about what really happened at her house if I caught her off guard. If I got Alda talking about her family, I could ask her why Albert admitted her, an Italian. I mean Katie’s dad, the prestigious Doc McGuilvry had pull; that’s what got me in.
My mind was on overload. It shut off; my dreams turned on. I was dreaming about Fifi Gallo, Joe’s father, and cannoli and lasagna. Fifi, all decked out in a tux in a church, was giving rings to Doc, Katie’s dad, and his soon-to-be husband, Joe. Drinking bubbly Italian wine, he gave an equally bubbly speech about being a good guy, no more wise guy. I woke up with a sense of deja vu or maybe a premonition.
Murders, mafia, and Fifi’s good turns this past summer floated through my early morning stupor. The dream of the roasting Sicilian sun on the future trip he had promised us put me back to sleep. I awoke for real, calling “Fifi, Fifi.”
It was actually Alda’s soft touch shaking me awake. Her dark eyes questioned, “Fifi?”
I was out of the bed and dressed in a flash. I needed to talk to Alda before class.
Her movements in her swaying ruffled baby-doll pajamas were slow. She seemed open and unprotected. A bright, liquid sun poured in the windows whose Bates collegiate drapes she had already pulled open.
“Alda, come sit.” I patted the bed. “You know it wouldn’t take much for them to throw me out.”
Alda yawned and, with half-closed eyes, said, “No, cara, dear, they won’t. Don’t worry about Dorotea. Besides,” and she yawned again as she lay back on my bed. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
I protested. “Alda, she was just about having a panic attack.”
Alda rolled her eyes in response.
“C’mon. No one gets that scared of someone’s father yelling,” I said.
“Boring.” Alda yawned again and leaned over to tickle me.
“Dammit.” I pulled away and pushed on. “You’re the one who scared her. I saw you poking your finger in her chest. And I don’t need to have my eyes or my head examined!”
Alda sat up, groaning, eyes rolling. “I didn’t want to tell you this.”
This better be good, I thought.
“I was just telling Dorotea to be nice to you. Pina, she doesn’t know how tacky it is to be Italian and poor at Albert!” Alda sighed and continued, “How hard it is to be you.” She brushed imaginary lint from her chenille robe.
Bull, I thought. And how dare she! I was not poor. And, I was not dumb. This was all bullcrap.
At this point, I was shouting, “And you! What’s your family’s story?” I could feel the heat rise up my throat and my eye sockets tighten.
Alda sat up stiff, mouth open, hand raised to tell me to stop or…to push me away? The bedspread pooled in a mound around her. She had armor on now. Her momentary look of fear was sheathed.
“I, I uh…didn’t mean to insult you.” Alda winced.
I screwed my glare deep into her, drilling away. “Who are you?”
“Uh, uh…I told you, didn’t I, my father knows some bankers, big shots. That’s why they let this eye-talian girl in to mix up their Wasp blood.” Alda cracked a hint of a crooked smile.
Still seated on the bed, she started to strip off her socks, and the belt of her robe with grand gestures. When she went to reach under her robe for her pajama bottoms, I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and other parts. She was purposely trying to steer me away from the conversation. I quickly got up to gather my books from my desk across the room.
I wanted no part of this tease. Too late.
In a flash of ruffles from her low-cut pink and blue baby dolls, her robe was off, and the pajama top in quick succession. Alda jumped off my bed. I tried to stay focused on her head.
The contrast with her dark, Mediterranean skin almost startled me. What caught my eye was not the lushness of her smooth skin, nor the giddiness of the ruffles, nor the swelling of her breasts even with the nuance of her light pink nipple.
Why hadn’t I seen this part of her neck before? It stuck out, incongruent with the soft and exquisite perfection of her chest. It caught my eye immediately. My eyes froze on it. It struck terror in my chest, in me, studying her now in depth.
The scar, the jagged line of a scar, crossed from ear to ear midway down her neck, puffy pink on its outer edges, brownish-red up its center. It could have been a bad make-up job from some past Halloween or a tattoo. She wasn’t African; her culture, my Sicilian culture didn’t use scarification, even though girls could be symbolically marked as inferior or damaged goods.
No. I had never seen this scar, thanks to her constant cashmere turtlenecks and roll-necked robes modestly covering her otherwise flagrant form. The abruptness with which her hand flew to cover it told me she hadn’t meant for me to see it. But then, why the elaborate striptease?
I risked touching her hand as lightly as I could. My heart went out to her. No sex, no tease, just a deep gasp of sadness between us. I whispered, “You were hurt.” A tear oozed out despite her saying it had happened a long time ago.
“A bad accident.” She bit her lip while studying me as if to ask, “Will that explanation work?”
I didn’t want to pry, but I knew this was bad, and I had to find out more about whom I slept next to. “How?” I dared to stroke the scar. This was no normal accident.
Her hand clasped mine and lifted it away. “Bad.”
“Alda!” I didn’t know whether to yell at her or comfort her. A part of me wanted to get as far away from her as quickly as possible. I grasped her shoulder. Even the heat of her bare flesh didn’t distract me from staring directly at her and demanding, “Who are you?” I shocked myself, pushing with, “Who did this to you?”
“Bad. Bad people.” She pulled away, shaking her head. “No. No. No.” She gripped my hands and said, “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t talk about this. Trust me.”
Elvis singing “Blue suede shoes” on the radio jarred me back to our room and the constant echo in my head of the question, “Who was Alda?”
Chapter Twenty-two
Off to Class
My cheeks still ablaze, I bolted from my room at the same time as Katie left her room at the lower end of the hall. Dressed in her plaid pleated skirt and loafers, she sashayed in my direction, smiling and relaxed.
It was a relief to see her so calm, a real contrast with what I had just experienced. But, it wasn’t safe to express myself with intimate gestures here in the hallway this morning. Not that it ever was, but this time I couldn’t risk more danger. And I couldn’t find the right words to tell Alda’s story. Not yet. I needed to think.
Katie checked in all directions before telling me how friendly Dorotea had been. She was so friendly, Katie said, that she even talked about having a tea.
“Lovely!” I put on a pseudo British accent and pointed my pinky.
“No, listen. She made a big to-do about inviting both of us. Yes, don’t roll your eyes at me. You, too!”
“Moi?” I was on a roller coaster, and I didn’t trust the safety bar.
“And,
in fact, she even talked about how lustig, fun, it would be when you two roomed together in your French Quarter. But, you’re right. It is all too weird,” and in a quiet voice, she added, “and sad.”
“Fun, all right! I don’t know who to trust.” I swallowed hard. “Katie, I’ve got to tell you about Alda.” I was burrowing deep into my thoughts to figure out where to start when I heard a stilted, distant voice as we approached the loggia.
“May I help you? You seem a bit lost.”
Lord. All I needed. Craney stood in my path, grinning at me.
“Oh, uh, just trying to solve a trig problem in my head, Miss Craney.”
“And Miss McGuilvry sets up these equations for you?”
Katie smiled. “No, Miss Craney. I just try to steer her clear of obstacles.”
“Well, my dears, I’d hate to be an obstacle. Oh Pina, let’s go to chapel again.”
I could swear Craney’s fangs came out. I smiled.
She continued, “Especially once you are settled together with Dorotea in Albert Hall. Maybe we could invite her. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, ma chere? Oui, she, too, is a lover of all things Gallic.”
Katie knuckled me in the back. My silence had lasted a few seconds too long. I saw my life pass in front of my eyes: trapped. I gushed, “Oh, what an honor, bien sur, of course!”
Who was this machine? Craney’s tailored, navy blue gabardine suit bearing the semblance of a human being marched off. Her control settings were switched on, to gushing and ingratiating this time. I still hadn’t forgotten when the switch was in the ogre position the night she told me to tread lightly.
“Quick,” said Katie. “Say something, anything normal like not about her.”
“I can’t.” I was at least able to push out those words. After Craney was well out of sight, I told Katie I needed to talk in private. I really needed the comfort of her arms.
She had a break coming up, and I devised a plan to get out of French. I would be “indisposed.” Albert was still sufficiently Puritan not to question girls’ monthly “troubles.”
Since Mademoiselle, my French instructor, was also my dorm monitor, our hall was relatively safe right now, and Alda was in class.
I almost collapsed onto Katie, who was waiting for me in my room. She smoothed my hair back and dried my tears with the tails of her button-down shirt.
I explained Alda’s scar as scientifically as possible, trying not to spook myself again and playing to Katie’s strong suit, science. Katie held me across her lap while she continued to stroke my head. Both of us puzzled over whether it was a knife, saw, or razor cut around Alda’s throat.
“So you’re not thinking she tried to commit suicide,” I said.
“No. But who are ‘bad’ people? Like the worst people you know?”
“Maybe you’re right, Katie. Maybe Alda’s family is the old mob. Shoot! If no one’s supposed to know about Alda’s family, will they come after me? Try to silence me?”
Katie started that nervous thing she does with her hair, twirling and untwirling. “Nah. I think her folks would want to protect you too.”
“I can’t let her think I’d give away her secret.”
“We’ll just have to lay low. Like everything is A.O.K., just peachy-keen, and you really need her to be on your side if Dorotea goes crazy.”
“Right. Dorotea,” I frowned. “When is this bloody tea?” Katie began to hum “Tea for two” while she fluffed my matted hair.
“It’s tonight, sweetie. It’ll be okay. Go back to class. And make nice-nice with Alda.”
“Okay. I’ll see you and Alda in science.”
I felt like my wits were back together. The walk down the quiet hallway and through the rosemary-scented loggia finished off the soothing transition.
When I got to the lab later in the day, I had enough time to pull Alda aside. I smiled an apologetic smile. “Sorry I bolted when I saw your scar. I have a thing about blood.”
Her eyes twinkled. One of the “real” Aldas was back. “Can you keep the secret?”
“Sure can,” I answered, my stomach doing flips.
Which secret was I keeping, in fact? The scar? The people who put it there, whoever they were? Alda’s identity? Secrets. Dangit! I felt like I never wanted to hear another secret or “shush” or “I’ve never told this to anyone…”
Chapter Twenty-three
Tea for Three
After dinner, Dorotea opened the door to her room and rang a small bell. “Tea time!” She told us to wait outside until she welcomed us in, singing, grüss gott, greetings.
She had transformed the room into a German tearoom, complete with scented candles and a Bavarian embroidered cloth. A bowl of whipped cream sat on the side of a small, dark chocolate torte. Cups were glass in metal holders, from her Russian grandmother.
As she poured black tea for me, her fingers brushed my hand and rested there a second. “How gute to be your roommate soon!”
I smiled after Katie kicked me. “Pina’s been telling me about it,” Katie said.
I forced myself to ask if Dorotea would teach me some more German. We both chuckled. I didn’t trust this new Dorotea. No rage and threats against me?
Katie stiffened and threw me a look. I knew Katie; I knew she expected worms to shoot out of the proverbial can when she asked Dorotea if she and Alda were mad at each other.
Katie hedged, saying, “After all, Dor, you did come back early from Alda’s house?”
“Oh nay, nay,” said Dorotea, putting her hand to her heart. “I was just alone for Albert. I was sick, home—oh, yeah, homesick for campus and Albert girls.”
Katie kept it up, craftier than I had ever seen her. “You missed me, your roomie, really?”
“I swear, yes, I miss you too much. Oh, but stimmt, Alda and I, we are good, bosom pals. That’s how you say, no?”
“Right,” said Katie. Her look said “bull.”
Dorotea got a twinkle in her eye and gossiped, “Alda’s home, you know, big house, big shots, many guns…” She froze, saying, “Oops, bad word, not guns, gulls, birds, yes? Yes, gulls, moven in German.”
Katie and I exchanged a look. Dorotea switched immediately to light chatter, telling Katie she might like to borrow some of her American books that I could read to her.
At the mention of Katie’s books, Katie and I both swiveled around to check that her “Homosexualities” book was locked up. Katie certainly wouldn’t have left it out.
After many thanks in English, French, and German, I got up to leave. Dorotea cracked the door for me before turning to hug me, asking, “Friends, now?” I nodded and stiffened. I thought I heard the click of Craney’s Cuban heels and imagined a blur in the speck of light coming from under the door to my room. It was ajar.
Chapter Twenty-four
Tooth Fairy
I flew back across the hall and threw open the door. I half-expected Alda to be doing some exotic dance. But nothing. No one.
I sat reading at my desk for a few minutes. Alda opened and closed the door, obviously coming from the library, judging from the stack of books in her arms. I smiled as I looked up at her and asked if she had forgotten to latch the door when she left.
“Hmm,” she said. “Bad neighborhood?”
“No. Nothing.” I didn’t want to start some intrigue now at nine p.m.
We chatted, joking mostly about clothes in the latest Seventeen. We put on a fashion show to model our winter nightshirts. Late October brought a true New England chill.
She wore a blue and white neckerchief around her neck and a cowboy and Indian tan and red flannel nightshirt. Mine was striped, blue and white, with a Henley collar.
I welcomed this return to normal. Perhaps I would sleep better tonight.
My tan twill bedspread was tucked more tightly than usual, and I made a big show of turning it down with a wide-arched gesture. Before I could open my eyes, I heard Alda gasp. A black academic gown lay spread out in my bed. Trimmed in ermine, European univer
sity style, this could only belong to one person: Craney.
I went to rip it out from under my covers. This dead animal skin swallowed my hand. For an instant, it felt like my cat at home, but dead, here in my bed, in Craney’s gown. I vomited on the spot.
Alda was at my side, tearing it out of my hands. She helped clean me up, as I stayed slumped on the floor.
Where the hell did this come from? Craney! It had to be. Was she going to accuse me of stealing it? Of foraging through things in her room? Oh yuck.
Why? What was her thing with me? Sick! She did put this thing in my bed, between my sheets. She actually touched my sheets. Barf!
Boy, was I dumb? It was friggin’ sexual. It was as if she put herself in my bed. Jesus, how was I going to sleep there?
“Alda, please.” I choked back a sob. “Can you get me clean sheets? I’ll get off the floor in a minute.” I saw all the clean-up Alda had done. “Thank you, really…”
I began to sob as she soothed, “Shush. Tomorrow, we’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
I gurgled yes, made the bed with Alda’s help, and curled up, momentarily and platonically protected by Alda’s arm around my shoulder. I hardly felt her leave my side.
My grandmother took her place in a dream where she, too, just cooed “domani,” tomorrow in Italian. Grandma must have sprinkled Sicilian sleeping powder. How I was able to sleep, I don’t know.
Chapter Twenty-five
Domani/Tomorrow
Morning came soon enough as I started to surface through the gossamer layers of my sleep. A curtain drew back from my dream, from the comfort of my grandmother’s bosom onto the black academic gown, a rancid, moldy sickness on the floor.
I turned away from the gown, like a morning-after drunk faced with the gut-wrenching task of cleaning up her own vomit. This black drape repulsed me. With its ermine trim, it seemed the shroud of a young household pet. I needed a voodoo doll of Craney or a curse.
Love and Lechery at Albert Academy Page 7
