“Thanks.” Nadine purred. “We’ll think about it.”
Bernadette found her voice. “Hey, Vince?”
“Yo.”
“How’d you know who we were?”
“Anthony said. He just came on drive-thru.” Vince motioned toward the counter. Sure enough, there was Anthony’s curly head with an earphone stuck in one ear. He looked up from the soda machine and waved.
Vince eyed Nadine. “You girls mind if I sit with you a minute?”
“Actually, we’re in the middle of—”
“Sit here.” Nadine patted the bench beside her.
Vince gave her a smile that probably sold a lot of meal combos and went to fetch Bernadette a new coffee.
“What are you doing?” Bernadette kept her voice low with an effort. “He’s a Cirillo.”
“He’s cute,” Nadine said, and then it was too late. Vince came back with two coffees, one for himself. He dropped a pile of creamers on the table. Bernadette dumped all of them into her cup, with four sugars.
“You know what? We just hired a Chinese kid. I bet you could talk to him better than me,” Vince said.
Bernadette stirred busily so Nadine would not see the grin spreading across her face. He might as well have offered them chopsticks.
Nadine’s smile vanished. “I am not Chinese,” she said icily. “I was born in Korea.” She did not call him a cretin, but it was in her voice.
He heard it. “Korea, huh? That’s cool. I’m terrible at telling what people are just by looking at them, unless they’re black, and then they could be Jamaican or Puerto Rican or . . .” He trailed off. Or Cuban or Kenyan or really tanned—Bernadette almost felt sorry for him. “I guess Korean’s a lot different from Chinese, am I right?”
“Right,” Nadine said shortly. She paused. A smidgen less coldly, she said, “Well, I think it is. I don’t happen to speak either one.”
Vince’s nose twitched like a beagle’s at her defensive tone. He leaned toward her. “I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He tapped his chest with one finger. “Me neither.”
Nadine choked on her drink, and even Bernadette’s lips twisted. Vince was kind of funny.
Nadine thought so. Bernadette slunk down in her seat as her fellow National Honor Society officer tittered like a bad actress in a Tennessee Williams play, tossed her ruler-straight hair, and took off her glasses every few minutes to gaze into Vince’s eyes.
Vince lapped it up.
Bernadette finished her chicken sandwich. And the remaining fries. And the scraped-off fish-coating on Nadine’s tray. She was seriously considering the beige sludge in her cup when Vince finally said something of interest.
He wanted to know what kinds of questions they’d get in the Classics Bowl.
“Oh, stuff like who wrote Tristram Shandy. What was the setting for Thoreau’s most famous book, how many syllables in an iamb. That kind of thing.” Nadine started to flick back her hair, caught Bernadette watching her, and dropped her hand into her lap. “Like Jeopardy! Only all the categories will be literature. You know—books.”
Vince nodded. “I love that show.” He spoke with heartfelt sincerity. “You get guys on there who don’t know sh— much, and they’ll bet the farm on Final Jeopardy and get lucky.” He shook his head over gut-clenching finales of the past. “No offense, but it’s always your men players who take the biggest risks.” He tore his eyes away from Nadine. “So, Bernadette. My little brother says if you get run over by a truck, the Wizards are dead meat. I guess you know your Shakespeare, huh?”
Bernadette was flattered in spite of herself. Anthony might toss margarine pats up on the cafeteria ceiling so they’d melt and fall down on people’s heads, but he knew smart. She shrugged. “I know some.”
Vince waited. Nadine nodded encouragement.
Honestly. “ ‘ . . . foul deeds will rise, / Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.’ ”
“Cool,” Vince said. “What is it?”
“Hamlet.”
“Bet’s got a photographic memory,” Nadine boasted.
“Yeah, that’s what Anthony said. But can she remember enough to beat Pinehurst’s butt one more time?”
From Vince you expected “butt.” That wasn’t what made Bernadette quiver as though an invisible spitball had glanced off her neck. As though his words had triggered them, other voices set up a clamor in her head.
“She’ll look fine at the Classics Bowl, giving ’em hell.”
“Glenn Kim. Uriah Heep. What I wouldn’t give to humiliate him.”
“I’ve never won anything for brains.”
“This team can have The Power, Bernadette.”
“The superintendent called twice. A private school—ha!”
A plastic knife jabbed her arm. Nadine was glaring at her.
“Sorry. What’d you say?”
“Vince wants to know if you think we have a chance—”
“Of a snowball in hell,” Vince put in.
“Of winning. I said we were just talking about that.” Nadine put her glasses back on and stared meaningfully through them. “Weren’t we?”
Bernadette hiccupped. She had no proof the scores had been fixed. And no intention, now, of looking for any.
The Power surged through her veins. “Vince?” she said. “Do you own any cropland? Wheat futures, soybeans? ’Cause we can help you triple your investment.”
Nadine gurgled. She turned to Vince, and her black eyes glistened. “My partner is saying you should bet the farm—on the Wizards.”
Nadine drove the long way home without being reminded.
The day was cool but sunny. Mr. Malory was out in the parking lot of his apartment complex, waxing the Porsche.
They drove by, and Bernadette hid her face in the shoulder harness. They’d passed Kmart before her insides returned to normal. “Did he see us?” she demanded.
“I don’t think so.”
He’d had on an old T-shirt. It was surprising what you could notice in two seconds. His bare arms had rubbed the gleaming hood over and over, his muscles visible (to the keen eye) from the highway.
Oh, that she might be a fender on that car.
CHAPTER NINE
Our interest’s on the dangerous edge of things.
—Robert Browning
Mr. Malory scheduled their first strategy session for Thursday night.
Not so fast, was the reaction he got. Sure, they wanted to win, but Thursday was a bad night. Lori had dance class, Anthony had to work, Nadine had some commitment she didn’t identify, Bernadette had to meet some freshmen debaters at the Creighton library. David had nothing to do but joined in the protest companionably.
Mr. Malory watched them with lifted eyebrows. One by one the objections petered out. By Wednesday everyone had rearranged their schedules. The Classics Bowl was an American institution their teacher took very seriously.
Bernadette turned the key in the ignition. Nothing
“Oh, no.” This was the Suburban’s revenge on her for all the mean things she had said about it. “You’re a good little truck,” she crooned. “You’re not old and smelly at all. I’m proud to be seen in you.”
She turned the key again. From deep in the bowels of the engine came a tiny protesting whine, followed by a silence of pure malice.
“Be that way, you sorry piece of junk.”
She stared at the dashboard clock. Her parents were at a church meeting. She’d have to call someone on the team.
In the kitchen she grabbed the phone and cursed Mr. Malory for holding this first meeting in Ann Arbor. It was forty-five minutes away, for Pete’s sake. But he’d reserved a private conference room at the university library, with multiple copies of the books they’d need, plus temporary borrowing privileges. Courtesy of the Classics Contest research committee, whose chairwoman taught at U. of M. The perfect setup, he called it.
Would Pinehurst be there, Nadine wanted to know. Her new Korean-English dictionary had taught her how
to say “your fly is open,” and she wanted to spring it on Glenn Kim.
Mr. Malory seemed glad someone had asked. No, Pinehurst had declined. Their coach had been offended at the suggestion that a university library might be superior to the Pinehurst collection. The ironic look that accompanied this sent a unifying ripple of disdain through the Wizards.
But now, frantically dialing Nadine, Bernadette didn’t think Pinehurst so dumb. If the meeting had been at her own school she could have jogged there.
Nadine had left an hour ago, Mrs. Walczak said, sounding surprised. “She said she had to stop at McDonald’s. I thought she was meeting you there, Bernadette.”
“Nope, not tonight.” Bernadette felt a flicker of annoyance. Nadine might at least have mentioned it.
She leafed through the school directory.
David, too, had already left. To pick up Anthony.
At the Besh’s she got Lori’s voice on the answering machine.
Her blood pressure rose. She would rather take an extra semester of gym than miss this meeting.
She dialed a number she knew by heart, though she’d never called it. It answered on the second ring. “You’re there!” she said in a squeak.
“I live here, Bernadette.”
He knew her voice! “I meant, I thought you’d have left by now. The thing is, my car won’t start. I can’t make it.”
“I’m just out the door,” Mr. Malory said crisply. “Where do you live?”
Bernadette gulped and told him. She grinned fiendishly at the refrigerator. Wait till Nadine heard.
The carpeting in the little car had been freshly shampooed. Brown leather seats gleamed with recent buffing. Bernadette sniffed appreciatively. Mr. Malory’s car smelled as good as he did.
She could have stretched out her left arm and touched the driver’s side window. The thought of what else she might touch made her dizzy.
“What kind of car is this?” She practically had to yell over the engine roar. She saw Mr. Malory’s disbelieving glance. In Michigan, kindergartners knew Chryslers from Fords.
“I know it’s a Porsche,” she said quickly. “I meant what kind of Porsche.”
“Oh,” he said. “A ’75 911 Carerra. My first major purchase in America, I’ll have you know.” He patted the leather-wrapped steering wheel affectionately. “What do you think of her?”
“She’s fast.”
He laughed, but they didn’t slow down.
He wore jeans tonight, and a plain black shirt that turned his skin paler and made his eyes greener. No seat belt. Probably considered them sissy. But they were going at least eighty-five in a sixty-five zone and that was zippy even for Detroit. Exciting, yes. Nonetheless, Bernadette tightened her shoulder strap and offered a quick prayer to St. Christopher.
Mr. Malory took a roll of peppermint Life Savers out of his shirt pocket. “Mint?”
“Thanks.” Her fingers brushed his. “My dad had a Corvette once,” she said, to make conversation.
He made a “pah” noise with his mouth, like a seat cushion being jumped on. “Vettes,” he said with scorn, and popped a Life saver into his mouth. He cracked his window, rolled the excess foil between his fingers, and let the airstream suck it away.
She opened her mouth, then shut it. Her foot knocked against a case on the floor. “You sure have a lot of CDs.”
“Here, let me get those out of your way.” He kept one hand on the wheel and reached down for the CD case. The back of his hand grazed her leg. A sensation of such intense desire shot through her that she whimpered. She made herself cough. “Went down the wrong pipe,” she gasped, and pounded her chest.
“False Idols.” Mr. Malory fed a CD into the slot in the dashboard and gave no sign of noticing her distress. “You like them?”
“They’re great,” she croaked. She would have approved Gregorian chant. The driving pulse of electric guitars revved up her own heartbeat. Her leg tingled where he’d brushed it, as though his touch had scorched the denim.
He hummed to the music. “So, Bernadette. What do your parents think of our chances in the Classics Bowl?” She was “Ms. Terrell” in class, but “Bernadette” in his car. He flicked on the headlights, and two bright circles stabbed the dusk in front of them.
“My mother wants us to crush Pinehurst in front of the world. Although if one of the boys on their team asked me out afterward, that would be okay with her, too.”
He laughed delightedly. “Beat ’em then join ’em, eh? I like your mother’s attitude. What about your father?”
“Oh, whatever we do will be just fine with him. He’s the one I’d like to win for, really.”
Mr. Malory drummed his fingers on the wheel in time to the music. “Don’t worry. At the risk of pleasing your mother, I’ll bet you all a team dinner we win.”
Bernadette was not short on confidence, but she could not feel as certain of victory as her teacher did.
Idly her fingers explored the compartment in the passenger door beside her. Nothing there except . . . matches? Yes, a book of matches. His matches. She slipped them into her jacket pocket. “Mr. Malory?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you think Mrs. Standish is . . . all there?”
“All where?”
“I mean, normal.” One of her mother’s phrases came to her. “Firmly anchored in reality.”
His mouth quirked in amusement. “As much as any of us, I’d say. Why do you ask?”
Bernadette told him about the interview in the principal’s office. “So I told her what you’d told me about the percentaging.”
“Did you, now?” Something in his voice made her glance at him. “And did that reassure her?”
“Oh, yeah. When I left she was practically dancing.”
“Well, there you are, then. Nothing to worry about. I gather Peg is quite exited about the community support she’s receiving. You Wizards have put Wickham on the map, metaphorically speaking. Naturally she’d want to investigate any rumors about her team’s validity. But it sounds as though you set her mind at rest nicely.” He seemed relieved himself, and his manner became more expansive. “To tell you the truth, Bernadette, even if there’d been a foul-up somewhere—which there wasn’t, luckily—there’s no doubt in my mind that this team could still outshine Pinehurst, given the chance. It’s a question of motivation.”
“Really?” That hard work could catch up with years of every cultural advantage was something she liked to say herself, all the time. But in her heart she was less sure. Hearing Frank Malory say it—and he should know, as educated as he was—worked on Bernadette like a drug. “Hey, did you know Lori invented a cheer for us? ‘Break their pencils, stomp the finks, bust their buzzers, Pinehurst stinks!’ ”
She loved that she had made him laugh.
“Our Lori scored 720 on the verbal SAT. You didn’t know? She’ll do very well in the Bowl. And I never underestimate the power of red hair on elderly contest judges.”
He gave her a subtle wink. It so clearly signaled their shared understanding about Lori’s useful—but secondary—physical assets that Bernadette smiled, and didn’t wonder until much later how sex appeal could possibly matter in a contest where you either knew the right answer or you didn’t. Did he say 720?
He downshifted for the exit to Ann Arbor.
There were no empty meters near the library. Mr. Malory swung into a parking garage and stopped on a tiny space crisscrossed with diagonal blue lines.
“Uh—this is handicapped,” Bernadette said.
The engine roar died away among the concrete pillars. “Not officially.”
She had to climb over the gearshift to get out. They were in a loading zone against the wall meant for wide-opening doors or wheelchair lifts. Another vehicle—a Yugo, maybe, or a Schwinn—could still squeeze in beside them. And the remaining handicapped spots were empty.
Mr. Malory hoisted a fat briefcase out of the trunk. The boot, he called it. “All set?” he asked. “We’re late.” She had to
run to keep up with him.
They climbed the broad stone stairs of the library past a gauntlet of feminine appraisal that didn’t seem to faze Bernadette’s companion one whit. She sneaked a glance at their reflections in the entrance door. She looked older than sixteen, she decided. People might think they were a couple.
CHAPTER TEN
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
—Alfred Lord Tennyson,
“The Charge of the Light Brigade”
The Wizards were watching cartoons.
Anthony had powered up a TV-VCR on its portable cart and when Bernadette and Mr. Malory arrived in the library conference room, he and David were reclining in their chairs with their feet propped up on the long table. More wheeled carts sagged under books that, even from the doorway, had a “required” smell about them. Lori was twisting Nadine’s slippery hair into a French braid.
Both girls looked up at them with curiosity.
“My car wouldn’t start,” Bernadette said. She sat down, and Lori whispered, “Ooh. How’d you think of that?”
Bernadette had to laugh. She could see where, under certain circumstances, for short periods of time, Lori Besh might be fun.
Mr. Malory was all business tonight. He unpacked his briefcase and fed a tape into the machine. On the TV, Roadrunner was replaced by fuzz. He produced a giant bag of chocolate chip cookies, asked if anyone needed to use the loo, then doused the lights.
Swelling orchestra music. NATIONAL COMPUTER SYSTEMS PRESENTS CLASSICS BOWL IX, announced big yellow letters.
“Hey, like the Super Bowl,” David said.
“Shhh. I want to hear this.” Bernadette blinked her lenses into focus and rested her elbows on the table.
Mrs. Phoebe Hamilton acted as moderator. They would hear three rounds of questions plus a Champion Round, she informed the studio audience in a plummy voice reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth. Thirty questions per round selected from twenty-five possible categories.
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