Rose Page 10

  "You're embarrassing me. You just haven't seen that many girls. Evan."

  "I've seen enough." he said, his eyes fixed firmly and full of conviction. "On television, over the computer, out there," he said, nodding at the road in front of the estate. "I've seen enough to know you're someone special. Rose. Don't let any rich, spoiled girl at school make you feel inferior. None of them can hold a candle to the fire you have," he added. He spun on his chair and wheeled himself back into the house with two swift motions, as if he had dared say something and wanted to flee from my reaction. The door closed.

  I smiled to myself and suddenly became very conscious of the way I walked down the steps to the waiting automobile.

  "Good morning, Miss," Ames said.

  "Good morning, Ames. It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" I asked, gazing at the sky and the magnificent grounds for the first time this morning.

  "Rather," he said and closed my door for me. Moments later. I was being driven to my new school and wondering what else lay ahead on this highway full of surprises.

  The school certainly turned out to be one of them. Charlotte had never said it was a parochial school called Heart of the Angel. Of course. I had never attended a parochial school either. When Ames pulled up in front of the building, I sat in the car and stared at the front steps and the statues of the angels on both sides of the main entrance, which was two wide, tall glass doors above which were the words HEART OF THE ANGEL embossed in granite.

  Dozens of students were heading up the stairs. The girls all wore white blouses and blue skirts and the boys were in dark slacks. white, shirts, and black ties. None of the boys had very long hair. Most looked like military-style haircuts.

  "Miss?" Ames asked after he had opened the door for me and waited a few long moments for me to step out.

  "I didn't know this was a religious school," I said as I emerged. Ames looked at the building as if he hadn't thought about that either.

  "One and one is two wherever it's taught," he muttered. "I'll be out here at three-thirty." he added and closed the door.

  I watched him drive off and then hesitantly started up the stairs. Because I wasn't in uniform. I attracted attention. The moment I entered the lobby of the building, however, a short, very slim girl with a tight mouth and small, dark eyes approached me with her right hand extended. All of her features were small, nearly childlike. My hand was not big, but hers looked lost within my closed fingers.

  "Hi," she said, "I'm Carol Way English, your big sister."

  "Big sister?"

  The idea that this diminutive girl was anyone's big sister seemed amusing.

  "It means I'm going to help you get oriented quickly. First," she said, attempting to be perfect in speech and manners, "we'll go to the office and get your class assignments, and then we'll go to Mrs. Watson's and she'll fit you with your uniform."

  She looked down.

  "You're supposed to wear black shoes. Weren't you told?"

  "I wasn't told anything," I said.

  "Pardon me?"

  "I didn't know I was going to a religious school," I said.

  She looked skeptical, her smile hinging the corners of her small mouth, stretching her lips and widening the nostrils of her too perfect nose. I suspected cosmetic surgery.

  She laughed as if I had said something very funny and shook her head.

  "Just follow me. Your name is Rose?"

  "Yes."

  "You don't exactly have rose-colored hair."

  "I wasn't named after my hair. My father liked the name. He thought it was cheerful. Roses usually bring people happiness, He liked to quote that line from Shakespeare about a rose by any other name smelling as sweet."

  "You're kidding?" she said, shaking her head, and then continued down the hallway to the bank of offices.

  I was rushed along, given my schedule, a building map, school rules, and a letter from the guidance counselor about how to behave in class so as to get the most out of your lessons and how to do your homework. Don't sit in front of the television set when doing your homework. Get a good night's sleep so you'll be alert every day. Does anyone really read this? I wondered.

  I was fitted for a uniform, but I didn't see why size even mattered. The blouse I was to wear looked two sizes too big on me and the ankle length skirt wrapped like a blanket around my hips. Again I was told to come in black shoes the next day. I think if Mrs. Watson could, she would have dyed the shoes I was wearing. She made me feel as if I had dressed obscenely.

  The classes were much smaller than any I had attended in my previous schools. The students seemed more afraid to be caught misbehaving. Teachers merely had to look any or disapproving, and whoever was causing even the slightest disturbance became an obedient, polite, and attentive student. Carol Way English had quickly explained to me that students here could be asked to leave and their parents would lose the tuition money.

  Before I was brought to my first class. I had to meet with Sister Howell, whose welcome to my new school consisted entirely of a review of the rules that she made sound like the Ten Commandments. When she smiled at the end of her lecture, it was like stamping a smile on the outside of an envelope. She flashed it and then quickly returned her face to that stem look.

  The speed with which I was entered, dressed, warned, and delivered to my first class made my head spin. My teachers were all very nice and concerned, however, and each took some class time to review where I was in my studies and what I needed to do in order to catch up.

  Carol Way English introduced me to all my teachers and to other students, never failing to explain. "Her father named her after a flower that brings happiness." Her eyes filled with laughter when she added. By any other name, she would smell as sweet." Some of the other students laughed, too, but most looked downright bored. At lunch and during the few minutes we had to move from one classroom to another. I was interrogated like some prisoner of war. Everyone wanted to know where I was from. where I now lived, and what my parents did. There was very little reaction or interest until I let it be known that my father had recently died in an accident.

  My best class of the day turned out to be my last class, physical education-- not that I was any sort of female jock. We were given uniforms for that. too. The teacher. Miss Anderson, had just begun a unit in dance. She was teaching everyone the swing, and it was great fun. The warm-up exercises were, she explained, the same used by professional dancers, ballerinas included. I had not had any sort of dance instruction, of course. Anything I knew. I had picked up on my own.

  Miss Anderson asked me to come to her office as soon as I was dressed. She was my youngest teacher, probably not more than in her mid- to late twenties, tall with long legs. She had a softness in her light-blue eyes that put me at ease immediately. I liked her smile. It was the kind that made you feel comfortable. welcome. So many of the teachers I had in my previous schools, and in this one, seemed in a defensive posture, just waiting for their students to misbehave or not pay attention or care about their subjects. There was always tension.

  Miss Anderson, who let it be known that her first name was Julie, even though I was not to call her that in school, looked like she really enjoyed her work from the start of the class to the end. She had patches of tiny light brown freckles on the crests of her cheeks and naturally bright orange lips. She kept her reddishbrown hair short, but it had been cut with some style and kept a bit wavy.

  "You have a lot of natural rhythm," she told me almost immediately. "Have you had some formal dance instruction?"

  "No," I said, almost laughing at the idea.

  "I did." she said. "For a long time, I thought I was actually going to be a professional dancer. I was even in some shows. but I didn't have the

  temperament for that sort of life. I guess. What do you want to be?" she asked. No one else had, not even the headmistress.

  "I don't know. I thought about modeling," I said. It was funny. I didn't know her at all, but just her way, her sincerity, put me at
ease enough to tell her what I hadn't told anyone else: my fantasy.

  "You could do that," she said without the least bit of discouragement.

  "I've always wanted to do a unit in interpretive dance. but I've been afraid to try. I've helped the drama teacher sometimes when he needed some dancing in his musicals and I do our spring variety show. I still keep my finger in the dream," she added. "If you want, stop by after school one day and we'll try some things," she said.

  I nodded even though I didn't know what she meant or what I would do.

  It was a good finish to my first day,however. All day long I vowed to burst into the house when Ames drove me back, and start screaming at Charlotte and even Mommy. How dare they put me in a parochial school without telling me? My meeting with Miss Anderson had a calming effect. I wasn't as furious when I entered the house.

  Mommy and Charlotte were on the patio drinking from what looked like martini glasses. I heard Mommy's laughter first.

  "Hi, Rose. How was your first day at the new school?" she asked immediately. I saw from the blush in her cheeks that she had already drunk more than one of whatever it was in that glass.

  "It's a parochial school," I replied, finding myself angrier about her drinking than the deception.

  "So? You'll get a better education," Charlotte said.

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  She shook her head.

  "I didn't see why that was important. You don't have to become a nun, just listen to what they say and your teachers tell you," she said. "Most of the substantial people I know around here want their children in Heart of the Angel, if they're not already in."

  "Did you know about this. Mommy?" I asked. "I mean. Monica?" I could see from the expression on her face that she had.

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I didn't want you to have any preconceived bad feelings," she recited.

  I glanced at Charlotte, sensing those were her words she had planted on Mommy's tongue.

  "We never kept secrets from each other before," I said.

  "It wasn't a secret. really," Charlotte said.

  "I was talking to Monica," I said. I looked at Mammy. Her eyes shifted away guiltily.

  Charlotte's slow smile lit up her dark eyes with a sinister glow.

  "If you don't want to go there, we'll enroll you in the public school, but you'll be in crowded classes and you'll get an inferior education. My goodness, you don't have all that much longer to go before you graduate, Rose." she continued. "Any other girl would be grateful,"

  "I'm not worried. I know I'll survive," I said, "but my mother and I don't keep things from each other, or hadn't before now."

  "I'm sorry. Rose," Mommy said.

  Charlotte started to speak. but I quickly snapped. "I'm sorry, too." Then I turned and walked back into the house.

  Moments later. I heard their laughter again and the clink of glasses.

  The way it resounded in my heart, it was as if they had clinked them against my bones.

  8 Barry

  "Did you know I was being sent to a parochial school?" I asked Evan when I went to see him after I had spoken to Mommy and Charlotte.

  "Sure," he said. "'Why, didn't you?"

  "No."

  I sat on his bed. He was at his computer, but

  had stopped whatever he was doing and wheeled toward me. "What was it like?" he asked. and I described the building, the teachers, and some of the students. I guess I really sounded happy about Miss Anderson and her excitement about dancing.

  "I told you there was something magical in the way you moved," he declared. "It doesn't surprise me that she saw it, too, after only an hour. Maybe you should really think about becoming a professional dancer."'

  "I don't know. Right now. I feel like I'm in some sort of limbo and can't imagine what I'll be doing next week, much less the rest of my life."

  "You look very upset," Evan said.

  I revealed how disappointed and any I was at Mommy for not confiding in me.

  "Your aunt is a bad influence," I complained.

  "My mother would never have done such a thing

  before we came here."

  He didn't laugh. He nodded, thoughtful, "She's tenacious, like a bulldog until she gets

  what she wants. I tried to help my mother. She was

  good at ignoring her when she could, but she was no

  match for Aunt Charlotte's persistence. My mother

  was too nice to argue or disagree and she always

  believed Aunt Charlotte had her best interests and

  mine at heart anyway.

  "I've gotten so her words just float over me. I

  know it drives her mad. Try to ignore her. Do what

  you want anyway," he advised.

  He asked about the schoolwork and I described

  some of what I had to do to catch up. It amazed me

  how much he knew about my senior class subjects and

  he had all sorts of suggestions and helpful places to

  research on the Internet.

  In the days and weeks that followed. I often did

  my homework with him. We would listen to music he

  downloaded over the computer and do my math and

  science problems. With his skills I had the world's

  best libraries practically at my fingertips-- or his. I

  should say.

  Barry came on Saturday to take me to dinner, as

  he had promised. We had spoken on the phone a

  number of times during the week. I could tell from the

  way he held back when I asked that I had been a topic

  of discussion at school for a while. What he didn't tell

  me until we met was how many arguments he had had

  and the trouble he had gotten himself into defending

  me.

  Mommy and Charlotte had left for Atlanta

  before Barry's arrival on Saturday. Evan was very

  nervous about meeting him. On Friday, he told me not

  to bother bringing him to his room for an introduction. "He's not here to see me." he said. "and I'll only

  present a problem for you. How do you explain in and

  all? Why bother coming up with anything? Just go out

  and have a good time." he said. but I wouldn't hear of

  it.

  "Barry's very nice, Evan. You'll see," I said, but

  he was so nervous about it that he kept his door closed

  on Saturday and pretended to be asleep when the hour

  of Barry's arrival drew closer.

  I was happier to see Barry than I realized I

  would be. It was as though he brought with him all the

  good memories I had from the one place we had been for the longest time, a place I could call home. When he drove up, I ran out to embrace him. He kissed me on the cheek. but I held onto him and he looked into my eyes, smiled, and then kissed me again softly on

  the lips.

  "Hi," he said, happy with my big greeting. "It's

  good to see you, Rose. You look great."

  He pulled back and drank in the house and the

  grounds.

  "Wow!" he said. "A lot different from where

  you were last. huh?"

  "A lot different in a lot of ways. C'mon," I said,

  grabbing his hand and leading him up the stairs and

  into the house. Of course, he was impressed with the

  size of the rooms and the elegant rich furnishings, the

  art and the statues. I quickly explained that my mother

  had gone to Atlanta with Charlotte.

  "But I want you to meet Charlotte's nephew," I

  said. "before we go out to dinner."

  I had told him about Evan's handicap. but I had

  emphasized how intelligent he was and how expert on

  the computer. When we went down to his room, the

  door was still shut tight. I knocked, waited, and c
alled

  to him.

  "Evan. Barry would like to meet you." He didn't respond.

  "Maybe you shouldn't push it," Barry suggested

  softly.

  I knocked again and waited.

  "He's still asleep, I guess." I said. Barry nodded.

  I glanced back at the shut door, disappointed. Barry had done his research of the area and

  knew where to go for dinner. Once we got to the

  restaurant and sat at our table. I never stopped talking.

  He listened attentively, nodding and smiling

  occasionally. When I realized I had barely begun to

  eat. I stopped talking and he laughed.

  "I'm sorry." I said. "I probably ruptured your

  eardrums."

  "No. I loved listening to you. I think the

  dancing you're doing sounds very exciting. By the

  way, I don't know if I'd told you I applied to NYU

  early admissions. but I did, and I've been accepted." "Oh Barry, that's wonderful. Congratulations.

  You're still thinking of becoming a lawyer?" "Yes, but I'm thinking I want to be involved in

  prosecution, maybe become a U.S. attorney

  someday."

  "You'll be whatever you want, I'm sure.' "So you," he countered. "I couldn't imagine

  anyone saving no to you, Rose,"

  I smiled. I was almost too excited to eat. The

  food was delicious, but my stomach felt as if I had

  just gotten off a roller coaster. In the last week I had

  hit so many peaks and valleys emotionally, I wasn't

  surprised.

  Barry talked about some of the other kids I had

  been somewhat friendly with, excluding Paula, of

  course. Every time I brought up her name, he tried to

  change the subject. Finally, he told me about some of

  the arguments he had had and the fight he had gotten

  into with Ed Wiley, which had resulted in his being in

  detention for a week.

  "Oh, no. You were such good friends. I hate to

  be the cause of anything like that."

  "You weren't. It was all Paula's fault, Let's just

  talk about good things from now on. Rose," he said

  quickly, letting me believe there were even more