With that thought, the door opened. Alda reached out her arms and pulled me in, saying, “I’m so sorry, Pina. God, what are you going to do?”
“What the heck? What are you sorry about?”
What did she know, and how the hell did she know it?
“I, uh, I hid outside Craney’s office. I overheard,” Alda said.
“And how did you know I had a meeting with her?” I shot back.
“Man. You’re sounding paranoid!”
“Cool it. I’m not joking.”
“I can see that. I was over at Damper Hall, and I saw you outside Craney’s door. Will that answer do?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I grunted.
“What’s up? You’re giving me the third degree.”
“What’s up, Alda? What’s up? I’ll tell you. What the hell did you do with Dorotea?”
“What?”
Alda walked to her desk on the other side of the room. She turned her back to me and started to talk two different times. She only managed to chew on her lip and swallow hard. I actually saw a tear that she smudged away.
“Yeah,” I repeated. “Where’s Dorotea?”
“I have no idea. Besides, what do you mean, ‘What did I do with her?’”
“Bull, Alda. You’re full of bull. You bragged about how your father could take care of everything for everybody. So, you’re such a good friend, you wind up screwing things royally for me. Now I have to have sex with Craney or have her blow my cover to my folks and ruin my near and distant future! Tell me, which death should I pick? Go on!”
“Hold on. I don’t know what you’re accusing me of.”
“Your father?”
Alda contorted every feature of her face as she asked, “What about him?”
I pushed on. “You basically told me he could make Dorotea or Craney disappear.”
“Well, to tell the truth, he could.”
“Did you stop and think I didn’t want that?”
“Ha! You’re so worried now. What about when you said you wanted to kill Dorotea?”
“For crap’s sake, Alda, I didn’t mean that.”
“Oh, I can hear you saying, ‘Ah, Alda, if only your father could…’”
“So,” I braced myself for the plain truth, “you really had your father do something?”
Alda just shook her head. “Pin, you really are a jackass. You’d rather believe I’m just a mafiosa brat.”
“Well, you just confessed you granted my wish.”
Alda turned on me the worst sneer I’d ever seen. “I did nothing of the sort. You’re just going to believe whatever you want. How could you?”
I stopped on a dime. I sat without ceremony and listened, really listened to her tone. It sounded like she was truly hurt. I was going to be excommunicated and electrocuted, but she was hurt.
A softened note brought me out of my head. Alda was facing me, holding out her hands open-palmed. Her look was one of disbelief, but she was saying, “I guess, I guess…I could understand how you might believe it was true. I mean with all my bragging…but you know I do talk bull.”
Alda reached for my hand as she approached my bedside where I had dropped, exhausted.
“And now? Are you feeding me baloney now?” I asked.
“Why would I? I don’t want to lose your friendship,” she said.
“Alda, I’m done for. You’d have nothing to lose, nothing to gain. Sorry, I don’t believe you. And because I’m going to be screwed both figuratively and literally, I’m not inclined to care.”
“Pin, Pin, listen. I swear. I did nothing. But you’re right; my father could have done something. He didn’t. But…Craney…”
I screwed up my face and snarled, “What? Now your father will fix Craney?”
“We could work it out, Pina. I mean my father could pull his support and money.”
“Oh, and Craney would disappear?”
“Pina, what do you want me to do? You’re accusing me of getting you into this, and you won’t let me get you out of it.”
“Man, Alda. Listen to you. And did you arrange for the peephole? Dang! Let me see; is it still there? Son of a gun! Right, it’s been patched. Seriously, did you set things up so I’d be scared out of my gourd and willing to do anything to have you help?”
“Pina! You’re crazy. You think I’d do that?”
Alda went over to her desk and started slamming books on the floor. She cursed in Italian. I heard minchia and cazzo. She opened the top drawer of her desk, letting the smell of lavender escape from the scented stationery inside. She took out her address book with her father’s personal numbers.
She slammed the drawer, grabbed her stadium jacket, and said, “I need a break from this, from you. I’ve got to talk to my father.”
I had this strange feeling I’d gone too far. Lordy, lordy. Here I stood to be punished beyond belief, and I was afraid I’d said too much. What was I imagining now? Her father was going to do me in?
“Alda,” I mumbled. “I don’t want to believe this. I uh…”
“Don’t worry,” she said cold like the Arctic, cold like death. “I’ll come back, or maybe I’ll just run away.”
“No…I uh…” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I really did like Alda, but…
“Non ti preoccupare! Don’t worry, cara, dear.” She seemed to spit out the “dear.”
“We’ve got to talk,” I said.
“We just did.”
“But if you did, I mean, if you know…”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said.
“Alda, I don’t want your help, not like this, not the mob. I’d rather die,” I screamed.
“You’ve made that clear. And maybe you will and ha! Maybe the mob will snatch me away.” She turned and back over her shoulder, she threw me the Italian sign for ciao, and stepped out into the darkened hallway.
Chapter Forty-three
Katie’s Comfort
After Alda left our room, I stretched out on my bed and stared at the ceiling. When no answers appeared there, I rubbed my eyes until I saw twinkling stars against the white orange peel dome of the ceiling. Still, they were no help.
Alda was definitely a live wire. I didn’t know what spark or shock to expect. No answers, no control.
I had to face it. I was done for. I should pack. My mother would be there in three days. Just three days to live. This wasn’t living, though. Wouldn’t even be able to enjoy a last meal. How did folks about to be electrocuted do it?
I started to visualize an electric chair and a gas chamber. I couldn’t decide on a preference. Maybe if they put a mask over my mother’s face instead of mine. How could I face my mother?
I wasn’t seeing anything too clearly. Some hours passed, and it was close to dusk. I squinted in the direction of the door and made out a slow blur. Katie tiptoed in.
I had no sooner whispered, “I’m here,” when I felt her hand slip into mine. She sat on the edge of the bed and buried her face in my hair.
I heard her muffled, “What are we going to do?” but we continued to just rock back and forth in silence. Finally, she helped prop me up.
“Listen,” she said. “My dad called.”
“Oh?” My voice ached with desperation.
“Well, no, nothing great, but it’s calmed me down.” Katie’s voice trailed off.
“Your father will be able to fix it for you.” I sighed.
“No, Pin. I’ve decided if you go, I’ll leave Albert. I can’t stay.”
“Yeah. Thanks. But your father won’t have you lobotomized or excommunicated or worse.”
“Right. He did say he would come up and talk to Craney and your mom, but he can’t make it until Monday.”
Katie tried to make me look at her, brushing the hair away from my eyes.
I let myself look into her eyes. I managed a weak smile. “That’s great, Kat, but I’ll be dead by Sunday.”
“Don’t say that. I’ll tell your mother it was my fault. I’ll tell her Craney’s making
up stories. Yeah, that’s it. It’s just a rumor started by Dorotea.”
“And the peephole,” I said. “Who knows if there are pictures?” I turned away from Katie.
“We’ll do something. My father will figure something out. He will,” Katie pleaded.
“Sorry, optimism just hurts my stomach right now. Besides, I have to tell you about Alda.” I sighed. “Jeez. There’s really nothing to tell except we blew up at each other. She swore she didn’t do anything to Dorotea.”
“Where is she?”
“Said she needed to get away from me. Think she was going to phone her father.”
“What for?”
I gagged. “Probably to tell him to knock off Craney.”
“You kidding? C’mon, Pina, it’s too late for that.”
“Joking or knocking off Craney?”
“Stop! What did she say?”
“Doesn’t matter, really. Like I should believe that she didn’t have her father do something. Even now she says her father could fix it with Craney, pull money or something.”
“Hmph. But where is she now? It’s late.”
“Don’t know. I wouldn’t care if I never saw her again.”
A silence settled over us, broken only by the rumblings of my stomach. Maybe I was wrong about last suppers, but I really couldn’t imagine going to the cafeteria and facing a hundred collegiate girls yakking about dates and Salisbury steak.
I started to grumble. I grabbed Katie’s hand.
“What do I tell my mother? ‘Hey Mom, guess what? I’m a fag, a ho-mo-sex-ual, a lez be-en?’ God, she’ll walk out on me. She’ll smack me.” I wailed, “The worst will come later.”
Katie hugged me hard, so hard I had no more breath, no more energy. She brushed her lips across my forehead and gently lowered my face to the pillow.
She said with some authority that I needed to eat. She was going to scout around and bring back food. First, she made me promise I wouldn’t do anything crazy. I didn’t have the energy and besides, my mother and Craney would do a good enough job in a few days.
I must have fallen asleep. I hadn’t dreamed of gowns, ghouls, or Craney. In my dream, instead, there was a sumptuous meal that my mother and Katie were feeding me. I knew that was a dream since I had these ferocious hunger pangs and growls coming from my gut.
Almost on command, Katie entered, balancing a cafeteria tray in one hand, a Coke under one arm, a box of chocolate chip cookies and a bag of Wise potato chips in her other hand. She had managed to waltz out of the refectory with her untouched hamburger, as well as a second serving.
We ate in silence and rounded off the meal with an ice cream cup from the machine in the basement. A last meal it wasn’t, and certainly not sumptuous. It didn’t matter.
Katie had other news to feed me. She had caught a glimpse of the sign-out book. Alda had signed out early with the explanation “needed at home.” Her anticipated return remained blank.
“She’s scared,” Katie said.
“Of me? Ha!” I shot back.
“You think she’s trying to get her father to do something?” Katie said.
“You mean if he hasn’t already. Remember, Dorotea is missing,” I said.
“Hmm. Didn’t you say Alda finally told you Dorotea had seen something she shouldn’t have?”
“I don’t know. That’s not going to help now. But you said you had two pieces of news.”
“Right. My father…He called again. He told me that Joe has been working on a newspaper article about that former Albert instructor. You know, the one Craney hit on and then fired. And hey, you’ll love this, Joe’s father, Fifi, is helping too. Craney may have pulled a lot of similar stunts. It’s downright serious, he said, if Craney had her blackballed. That’s what they’re trying to find out—legally.”
“Legally?” I picked my ears up at that. “And Fifi, legally, really?”
“Yeah. Joe told my father some judge owes Fifi a favor.” Katie smiled, but it seemed pretty tentative. “It might take time,” she added. “More time than you have.”
“Face it, Katie. It’s over.”
Katie came and stood in front of me. “Look at me.” She lifted my chin and kissed my eyes. She held my head to her chest. “I love you. Whatever happens, I will find you. I promise.”
I managed to pull away enough to mumble, “In the hospital?”
“My father will help. I know he will.”
“Your father will convince my parents that I’m normal—like your father who wears pink shirts and darn near hugs Joe in public, like he’s normal?”
I pushed Katie away just far enough to pull her back immediately to apologize and tell her, “I love you so much. I do, but I can’t see a way out. I don’t think anybody, even your dad, could convince my parents that being a homo is okay.”
“But your parents like my dad.”
“Yeah, maybe. As long as they don’t have to hear the word ‘homo’.”
Katie slumped onto the bed at my side. I leaned over and hugged her. “Let’s just hold each other,” I said.
That was the last thing I remember. We awoke several hours later. We started to panic that Mademoiselle had come in for room check. But at that point, it felt like the situation couldn’t get any worse, and we closed our eyes to everything but the moment.
Chapter Forty-four
Katie’s Comfort Continued
Katie and I slept, arms and legs entwined. The few times my eyes opened during the night, I closed them instinctively as if to lock in all the warmth and safety I felt inside me at that moment. With Katie’s soft breath and the heat radiating from her flannel wrapped body, I imagined myself an infant coddled in a living cradle. I would stay here forever.
A thick milky grayness inched through the blinds. The morning of one of my last days had arrived unwelcome. As I attempted to focus, I sensed more than I saw Katie leaning over me. She seemed a night watchman holding back the dawn.
I put my finger to my lips. No words were needed. We stayed that way, eyes fixed in one unbroken flow. I poured my heart into Katie’s ocean of love.
We rose in silence and padded about the room, looking for remnants of food. I found a half-full tin of biscotti in Alda’s closet to go with the hot chocolate we made with her electric kettle.
Katie had opened the blinds before sitting at my desk to share our breakfast. The pines drooping in the morning sleet matched my mood.
Katie reached her hand across the desk and touched my wrist. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I closed my eyes and sighed. All I wanted was to savor the chocolate bits in the biscotti. “I guess.”
“We have all day,” Katie said.
“Right.” I snickered. “It’s Preparation Day for Mothers’ Weekend. How appropriate!” My frustration poured out in sarcasm.
“Oh, Pina.” Katie swallowed some chocolate. She hesitated and then asked, “Have you decided, really?”
“Katie!”
“I mean I wouldn’t hold it against you if you—”
“Stop! No way. I could never. That’s sick.” I could feel my cheeks burning. I clenched my fist. Katie grabbed it and pressed it to her lips.
Katie teared up, replacing my hand gently on the desk. She lifted her eyes to mine and said in a barely audible voice, “I don’t know what to do.”
“Me neither, but I know my answer to Craney.”
“What are you going to tell her?”
“Don’t know yet. Don’t know what I’ll say to my mother either.” I let my eyes drift over to the dreary scene out the window.
“You’ve got to tell your mom before Craney does, right?”
“God, yes. She’s coming tomorrow early afternoon.”
“Does she have reservations at the Inn?” asked Katie.
“I can’t worry about that. Besides, it’s too expensive,” I snapped.
“Okay. Listen. I’ll get my father to book her at the Inn. This way, you can keep her off campus until you have to.”
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“Right. Sorry I snapped.” I touched Katie’s hand. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”
“Stop. We’re going to fix this. Look, your mom likes me. I know she does. It’s like she fusses over me and treats me like a daughter. Do you want me to talk to her? I could. I really could.”
“No. I have to do this.” I bit my lip.
“But she loves me.”
“I know, and maybe I can tell her that way—like you’re so lovable, I fell in love just the way I did. Like not with a girl or a boy, just you. I did, you know that.”
A dry knock at the door interrupted our mutual avowals of love. I wiped my tears and told Katie to stay back. I opened the door to Mademoiselle, head lowered, hand to her chest.
“Pardon,” she said in French. “Puis-je-entrer?”
“Yes, of course, please come in.” In my surprise at seeing her, I had forgotten that Katie was there.
“Hello, Miss McGuilvry.” Mademoiselle broke into a warm smile as she reached for Katie’s hand.
I was thoroughly stumped. Mademoiselle was in my room at eight A.M. as was Katie, in her nightshirt, and Mademoiselle was not angry.
“Je suis desolée.” Mademoiselle spoke to me, head lowered once again. She turned to Katie to translate, “I am saddened.”
She continued in English. “I am to tell you, you must report to Miss Craney’s office today at noon. I am so sorry.”
She turned back to me and in rapid French explained that she was being called back inexplicably to her family in Montargis, France, that her father, Docteur Lesage, supposedly needed her. She added that she wished she could help me. She embraced me with the traditional double-cheeked kiss and pressed a calling card into my hand. “Si besoin est…if needs be.”
Mademoiselle exited as she had appeared: an unexpected messenger. Perhaps of bad and good news.
Katie and I just stared at each other. Both of us scrunched up our faces, speechless.
Finally, I muttered, “Well, someone knows something.”
I turned the address card over in my hand. I would keep it safe.
I reassured Katie that the upcoming meeting with Craney didn’t scare me too much. I now knew I could stall her.
Love and Lechery at Albert Academy Page 15
