“You have to eat something, Fern. I’m making you scrambled eggs.”
I didn’t say anything. I had never heard her talk that way when she described Wyndemere. It was as if she had been talking in her sleep. I was actually afraid to break the moment. She had some eggs with me and told me that, yes, she still had a lot of her money, our money.
“It was Dr. Davenport who got his business manager to help me with my investments. We have a living trust now. I have your college education set aside.” She leaned in toward me to speak low, as if there were other people in the room. “From time to time, I received a bonus. I still do, although high and mighty Bea Davenport doesn’t know. I doubt she knows anything about the finances of this place. Anyway, when you think of it, we don’t have any living expenses. That includes medical care. No, love, a woman like me doesn’t just get on her high horse and leave all this in a huff.”
“But you really don’t have any fun, Mummy.”
“Oh, I do now and then. When you were all very little, Dr. Davenport would take us in his motorboat on the lake. And there were grand picnics for all of us. Do you remember any of that?”
“Vaguely. Yes, but he hasn’t since Bea came into his life, and I’m not talking about only picnics and rides in a boat. You have little or no social life.”
“I have what I need.”
“Dr. Davenport must have changed a lot since you started.”
“After Samantha’s death, he became a workaholic and is even more so now. Maybe,” she said, smiling and doing that lean-in-to-whisper thing again, “to get away from you-know-who. I’d work longer hours in a coal mine to stay away from a wife like that. My father used to look at some women in the town and say that. Regardless of how we parted, he left me with some choice words. And don’t you go repeating them,” she warned, with a feigned look of reprimand before smiling.
I laughed. How easily and wonderfully my mother could ease me out of a bad mood or a sad thought. I looked at the clock. “Gotta go,” I said, and gathered my books.
“You hold your head high, Fern. I know you’ll be fine,” she told me.
As I walked around to the front of the house to where the school bus stopped for me, I felt uplifted by her words and by the beauty of the spring morning. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The grass had been mowed the day before, and the aroma was sweet and sharp. I paused to look back at the enormous property of Wyndemere and the lakefront. Today the lake looked as still and as shiny as ice. A flock of sparrows turned toward the front of the house and flew over the sprawling maple and hickory trees. I could understand why my mother thought Wyndemere was a living thing.
I made the turn to the front and started toward the bus stop, but I paused instantly. Ryder was standing there with his book bag strapped onto his back. I hurried across the lawn to him. To my right in front of the mansion was the limousine with Parker, as always.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Going to school. What are you doing?”
“No, really, why are you standing here?”
“I told Bea this morning that if you’re not permitted to be taken to school in the limousine, I’m not going in it, either.”
“Why?”
“If we’re being punished together, we’re together. Simple as that,” he said.
I turned because I heard Sam crying. Bea was taking her out, actually dragging her toward the limousine. She was moaning to go to school on the school bus, too. Bea stopped when she saw us and came marching toward us. She was in one of her more expensive-looking cream-pink silk robes. Her hair was wrapped in a scarf. Without her usual makeup, she looked pale, her eyes deeper and her lips the color of sour grapes.
“I have a call in to your father!” she screamed at Ryder as she drew closer. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get into that limousine.”
“I do know what’s good for me. That’s why I’m getting on the bus with Fern. Unless you’ve decided to permit her to be driven to school every morning and brought home every afternoon, too.”
“Insolent.” She looked at me with fury in her eyes. “You won’t drag this family into the gutter,” she said. “I can assure you of that.”
“What did I do?” I asked.
“You were born,” Ryder said. He meant it to be sarcastic and demonstrate how arrogant and disgusting Bea was, but she smiled.
“Exactly,” she said. She spun in her slippers and marched back to Sam, who was standing there with her head down, her shoulders lifting and falling with her sobs. After practically shoving her into the limousine, Bea slammed the door closed and glared at us.
Parker drove off, and she started back to the front door.
“I didn’t mean that the way she made it sound,” Ryder said.
“I know. I hate to see you get into trouble because of me.”
“It’s not because of you. It’s because of her.”
We heard the school bus coming.
“I feel sorry for Sam,” I said.
“She’ll survive. The limousine isn’t that uncomfortable.”
“Yes, but will we?”
He laughed and let me get on the bus first. The looks of surprise on the faces of the other students were precious. Ryder stopped at an empty seat and let me get in first. Then he took off his book bag and put it on his lap.
“You can put it above, too,” I said.
“Oh. Right.” He stood up and did so. “So this is how the poor people live,” he added when the bus started away.
“Alison called me last night. She’s worried about everything, everyone,” I said, and left out that she was really more worried about herself.
“I know. We’ll be fine. But prepare yourself for a lot of questions from those who were at the after-party and at the prom. Oh, Paul’s mother is bringing our crowns and pictures to school today when she and her husband meet with the dean and Coach Allen about Paul. He’s still in the hospital. My father wanted him kept there another day for observation.”
“He’s lucky they called your father.”
“Yeah, but not lucky for us. Look,” he said, turning to me. “You will surely be questioned about who passed around the Ecstasy. Did anyone see Barry offer it to you?”
“I don’t know, Ryder. Maybe. He wasn’t exactly hiding it.”
“Well . . . too bad for him, then,” he said. “My father is right about keeping information from the police. Don’t worry about who hates you for it. Barry put himself in trouble. You didn’t do it, and besides, someone else might reveal it, too. Maybe Barry will even confess to get some sort of probation deal or something.”
“People won’t believe I didn’t take it, too.”
“There are some people who still believe the world is flat,” he said.
The bus made more pickups. Some of the kids who attended the prom and the party got on, and everyone was talking about Paul and Joey, some shouting questions at Ryder.
“My attorney has advised me not to say anything,” he replied. Most believed him. “See?” he said to me. “Say anything with a straight face, and most will believe it. Although . . .”
“What?”
“Maybe we will need an attorney.”
“Are you serious?”
“A little, but don’t worry. My father pisses me off right now, but there’s no question he’ll look out for us. You can be sure of that.”
I smiled and sat back. Ryder pressed his hand over mine for a few moments, and suddenly the fear I felt flew off like a frightened sparrow. The bus turned into the school drive and came to a stop.
“And so it begins,” Ryder said. He ran his forefinger across his throat and laughed.
“Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead,” I replied, stealing another line from my mother’s repertoire.
He let me out first and followed, holding my hand and walking right beside me into the building.
10
ALISON WAS WAITING for Ryder in the school lobby. She looked very annoyed, lean
ing on her right foot, her books pressed hard against her breasts and her lips turned inward.
“Hi,” Ryder said as we approached. “What’s up?”
“I was worried about you when the limousine pulled up earlier and I saw only Sam got out,” she said. “You came on the school bus?” She made it sound like we had come on a garbage truck or something.
She looked at me curiously. I didn’t think Ryder realized it, but he was still holding my hand.
“My stepmother has thrown us into the wicked corner together, so I decided if Fern can’t ride in the limousine to school and back, neither can I.”
“Are you terrified or something?” she asked me, her eyes on our hands.
I let go of Ryder’s quickly. “Yes, I am,” I said. “But I’ll be okay. Ryder and I had a good talk about it on the way to school.”
“Oh? Well, maybe you can have a nice talk about it with me, too, Ryder,” she said. “My parents were bonkers last night as friends called with more details. I hadn’t told them about Joey’s accident and arrest for a DUI. They wanted to know every detail about the party and how close we came to being in the car with Paul. And guess how it ended,” she said. “Just like your father, they now want me to take a break on dates and definitely no parties for the next few weeks. Before I can go to anyone else’s house, they’ll be in there with mine sweepers. Thank you, Joey and Paul, especially idiot Paul. It was really stupid to double-date with him. What were you thinking?” She rattled it all off without pausing for a breath.
“It’ll blow over. Don’t worry,” Ryder told her. He looked at me. “Look for me between classes if you need anything,” he told me. “Stay cool.” He reached for Alison’s hand. She just turned instead, and they started for their homeroom with Ryder continually reassuring her.
I sucked in, gulping air as if I was going under water and, as Mr. Stark might say, girded my loins as my classmates began to converge on me excitedly from all directions, practically drooling with questions. Most didn’t know, of course, that Ryder had sent for Parker to rescue us from Shane Cisco’s party and that I had left without Paul. They fired their questions with AK-47 speed.
Was I at the hospital, too? Did I take any Ecstasy? How was Paul? How much drinking went on? What did my mother have to say? Was I in trouble? Was there a lot of wild sex?
I didn’t answer anything. I just walked to homeroom, shaking my head. They followed like bees hovering over a hive. There was such a mixture of chatter that my head did seem to be spinning even before the bell rang for homeroom and everyone had to take his or her seat.
When the bell rang to go to our first class, they were all over me again. Along with the questions about Paul and Joey Dunsten were questions about how it felt to be prom queen. For a while, I felt like I was two different people, the one who attended the prom and enjoyed herself and the one who had been part of an alcohol and drug orgy. Regardless, I had suddenly been thrust into the spot reserved for the class’s most popular girl. Everyone, even girls who wouldn’t ordinarily give me the time of day, was hanging close, hoping to hear something they could spread. I was a notorious new celebrity, but did I want to be? I wanted to run out of the building.
When I had made it through my first-period class, I thought perhaps the concern about a real police investigation and what could follow was exaggerated, but I wasn’t seated in my second class for five minutes before the class was interrupted by a student messenger from Mr. McDermott, the dean of students, requesting that I come to his office. Everyone watched me rise, gather my things, and leave the room. My heart didn’t feel like it was pounding or thumping this time. It felt like it was buzzing, resembling a warning signal on a fire alarm that had gotten stuck.
The dean’s secretary looked up from her paperwork quickly when I entered the administrators’ offices. From the look on her face, it was easy to see that everyone in my school was lit up with the news about the weekend’s events. The sleepy community of Hillsborough had been awakened and shocked into the realization that we weren’t special, we weren’t immune to the insidious problems plaguing many communities. Every terrible thing that was happening elsewhere with young people could happen here and did. Heads were being pulled out of the sand.
“Go right in. Dean McDermott is waiting for you,” she said, the condemnation darkening her eyes and tightening her lips.
I moved with the tiny steps of a geisha and entered his office. My eyes went immediately to the man sitting on the right in front of his desk. He wore a dark-gray suit and a black tie and had a face chiseled from granite, looking like a man who was incapable of smiling without shattering his cheeks and jaw. His dark eyes focused so sharply on me that I had to turn away quickly, even though that made me look very guilty of something.
“Fern,” the dean said. “Have a seat.” He nodded at the chair directly in front of his desk.
Dean McDermott was the school’s varsity basketball coach as well as the school’s disciplinarian. The boys on his team were consequently the best behaved in the school, and despite the nasty job he had, he was very popular. He was just under six feet tall, with dark-brown, slightly graying hair and kelly-green eyes like Alison’s. No matter how bad the student had been, he always approached him or her with a soft, understanding smile, putting whomever it was at some ease, sometimes warmly enough to elicit a confession at the start. He was smiling like that at me now.
“So you were chosen prom queen,” he said, which put me off-balance immediately. It was the last thing I expected him to mention.
“Yes. It was a big surprise.”
“But I’m sure well deserved. My wife was chosen queen of her high school prom,” he said. “I didn’t know her then, but I was jealous of her prom date anyway.”
He looked at the man seated to his left, but the man, as I anticipated, didn’t smile. He straightened up and pulled his firm-looking shoulders back. He had no time or patience for small talk.
“This is Detective Beck from the Hillsborough Police Department,” Dean McDermott said. He folded his hands and leaned forward. “Paul Gabriel’s serious health episode has everyone quite alarmed. My phone’s been ringing all morning with parents who are very concerned. Of course, everyone wants to know how widespread this is and what we’re doing about it. Now, I . . .”
He paused when we heard a knock on his office door.
His secretary opened it slightly and peered in. “Miss Corey is here,” she said. I instantly felt like I had swallowed a small icicle.
My mother, wearing one of her nicer light-blue dresses and lipstick, which she rarely did, stepped in.
The dean stood. “Miss Corey. Thanks for coming.”
“Of course I would come. I should have been called as soon as the police told you they would conduct interviews in the school today and they would involve my daughter.”
“Absolutely,” the dean said. “You were on our list. You just beat us to it.”
He went around his desk to pull another chair out from the corner of his office and place it right beside mine. My mother looked at me with a comforting smile. When she sat, he introduced her to Detective Beck, who this time smiled slightly and nodded, proving he wasn’t a sculptured block of stone after all.
“Dr. Davenport assured me you weren’t going to begin questioning my daughter until I had arrived,” my mother said.
Dr. Davenport? He had alerted my mother? He had called the school on my behalf?
“Oh. We’ve just introduced everyone here,” the dean said when he returned to his seat. “I was, in fact, congratulating Fern on being chosen prom queen. No specific questions about the issues were asked.”
My mother didn’t change expression. She wasn’t someone easily sold on anything less than the complete truth.
The dean tried a smile but then nodded at Detective Beck when my mother replied with one of her piercing glares. “Why don’t I turn this over to Detective Beck now?” the dean said. “He works narcotics especially.”
My
mother barely nodded. Detective Beck leaned toward us. I saw his badge was pinned to his belt, and a little farther back on his hip was his holstered pistol. Even with my mother at my side, I was frightened. This had become very serious, way beyond any ordinary school violation. Detentions and reprimands were left outside the door. Our school had a no-tolerance policy when it came to drug use. Students involved didn’t simply get suspended for a few days; they went to jail, or they could be expelled.
“We’ve been tracking the flow of what kids call ‘party drugs’ into our community, Miss Corey,” Detective Beck said. “People don’t know it in general, but we’ve had a few incidents in the grade school.”
“Grade school?” She looked at me. We were both surprised at that.
“Apparently, some older kids have either made it possible for their younger brothers and sisters to get to the crap or actually gave them some. That’s another investigation, but right now, we want to center in on this prom party and what went on. Your daughter, from what we understand, was the date for the boy who nearly died. Is that correct?” he asked, turning to me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Were these drugs circulated at the actual prom in the school, or did he bring his own?”
“I didn’t see him bring anything or anyone distributing any at the actual prom, so I couldn’t say for sure. We had teacher chaperones, too,” I added, thinking Why not ask them?
“Later, however, they were at the Ciscos’ home, correct? And widely used?”
“I can’t say widely. I don’t know how many took the drug,” I said.
From the way his eyes grew even more steely and the corners of his mouth collapsed, it was clear he didn’t like the way I used exact language, probably sounding more like an attorney. “Did you see Paul Gabriel, your date, take the drugs?”
“No.”
He started to smirk more with disbelief. “Are you going to tell us that you were oblivious to all this going on around you? You didn’t even know there were drugs present?”
“No. It was offered to me,” I said.
House of Secrets Page 16
