Hadrian's Wall (48 page)

“That’s right, people. I’m
leaving. Clean up this mess.” He pointed his finger at them. “If
another group complains about us to Ms.
McPherson
again, we’ll most certainly
be penalized and I’m not about to pay another penalty...Sorry,
girls!” He glanced at Janice and Violet, making it clear that he
regretted nothing. “I know you like Ms.
McPherson
very much, but the woman
makes the hair of my neck bristle... and not in a good
way!”

“Shut up!” Violet replied,
laughing. “We’ll take care of everything.”

“I am so glad!” We could still hear his
voice in the corridor.

Violet looked at me, twisting the dish towel
in her hand.

“He hasn’t forgiven me for
having forgotten to wash the dishes one time. Technically, we take
the blame for the quarrel. It was my fault. I was on the phone
and... Well, I forgot to finish the
chore.
End of story.”

“Sure...A hot guy in drama
class makes a pass at our and when he finally calls, you forget
about everything else,” Janice mocked, then donned rubber gloves to
wash the pile of dirty dishes in front her. “Damn! Such
inefficiency here! Why don’t we have a dishwasher?”

At precisely that moment, Keyra McPherson
came into the kitchen. With wide eyes, Tyler threw his cigarette
into a cup, desperately waving the smoke with his frantic
hands.

“If you want that kind of
convenience, Miss Clark, it will interest you for all joint
efforts. As you’re doing to the party...” After a pause, she turned
to the counter. “Oh, Mr. Cassidy, this is the first and last time I
catch you smoking indoors. Do not forget, ever, that my sense of
smell is very sensitive. I will know, even if you’re at miles
away.”

He looked down and nodded. To my amusement,
he was suddenly very humble.

I noticed that Mrs.
McPherson
had changed her
dress from a blood color to a black synthetic leather jumpsuit,
which was shockingly fair. Her hair atop her head completed the
high-tech look. She looked like a character extracted from
Matrix Reloaded
.

Silence dominated the
kitchen. Her eyes twinkled behind shaded glasses, which contrasted
with the white stems. It could only be an effect of
light...
What’s up with the light of this
town, which causes an unsettling effect in people’s
eyes?

Suddenly, Mrs.
McPherson
looked directly
at me. “You have a visitor, Miss. Baker.” When I looked confused,
she added, “He claims to be your new instructor.”

“Instructor?” Delilah
asked, puzzled.

“Oh...It’s a long story.
I’ll tell you later.”

After creating a
convincing lie, I mean
...I got
up.

“He’s waiting for you in
the living room. You know how to get there, don’t you?” Mrs.
McPherson asked.

I nodded.

17

PIECE OF CAKE

I stared at the interiors
of the students’ rooms that appeared very quickly through the doors
that opened and closed when I passed. Something unusual was
happening inside—something very different from when I
arrived.

Before,
McPherson
House seemed
mortally dull. Now, I realized how wrong I was!

I confess that my first
impression of the place was not generous or fair. Although the
house is a magnificent building,
I felt
pressured to see all in gray colors by strong emotions that
accompanied me after leaving the hospital
—emotions that
reached
a climax with Adrian’s odd departure. I felt out
of place and alone...very lonely.

I welcomed all of the
exciting things going on around me because I wasn’t given the
opportunity to drown myself in a sea of self-pity. Being a curious
person by nature has become to me a positive element of distraction
as I observed the excitement of all those young people.
It was fun trying to analyze them because they
were so different from me. I felt like an old woman around them. In
a way I envied them, because I supposed to have been like
them.

It was the first time I
allowed myself to socialize with people of my own generation, to
let anyone get close to me. At the orphanage, I was always the
oldest, the most loony, the most obtuse, or least interesting, if
you prefer. Children
didn’t remain
i
n the orphanage
very long to allow friendships to deepen, at
least not in the extremely rare times that someone my age dared to
approach me.

Another door slammed. The muffled sound of
laughter filled the corridor.

“There’s an air flow
through here. Don’t let the door slam again!” I heard a girl say to
someone else who mumbled an unintelligible reply.

As I reached in the end of
the long corridor, a question came to mind” This place is usually
dead in the middle of the afternoon, so what’s causing the uproar
today? The Verano’s party?

Suddenly, two girls crossed
the corridor in front of me. It was obvious they were coming from
the ladies room, because they weren’t dressed. Both had only a
towel around their body. They disappeared into one of the bedrooms,
squealing excitedly.

“Hey! You two are
committing indecent exposure!” shouted a guy who was clutching his
books to his chest.
It’s been a long time
since I’ve seen a nerd up close
, I
recalled. “You can’t walk around half-naked here. It’s not the
Playboy mansion! Did you hear me? Damn it! Are you listening to
me?”

His fiery words had no
effect because they slammed the door in our faces. The guy
straightened his metal-rimmed glasses and brushed past me,
muttering something like “...take advantage of his
absence...”

Who’s absence?

For a moment, I thought
about two reasons for all
the
excitement. First, many of the residents who were
living away from home for the first time were preparing to spend
their weekend at home. Baggage and backpacks stacked near the doors
corroborated my theory. They’d be anxious to see their families and
tell them about their classes. I’ll bet this is the first
opportunity for a privileged few to go home, especially those who
were still getting used to the routine.

On the other hand, among
those who did not intend, or could not travel, were the “assiduous
frequenters” of parties
—the party
goers—
and I bet they were in the majority.
Before the doors slammed behind me, I caught some fragments of
conversations that revealed plans for a night out with friends in
Saint Paul; however, most of those who passed by me quickly spoke
about only one thing—Joe V’s party. According to Adrian, he’s guy
that I should avoid.

As I watched the students
moving around, sometimes talking loudly, sometimes whispering, a
strange feeling came over me. I had not even been accepted by
UWall, but somehow I already felt a part of the atmosphere of
dreams and expectations peculiar to the academic youth—a phase I
should not let pass. I had lost so much! My childhood and
adolescence were gone. I’d been on the outside, looking in, not
participating. All that I lived was through films, books and
comics. Now I was an adult woman. No one else could control my
life. I would remain on the outside only if I allowed
it.

But it was just so
difficult to fight the past, to try to put it behind me! Despite my
desire to be included with everyone and everything that I was
seeing now, I still harbored the fear of repeating my failures. The
past was my personal tsunami. I was constantly looking over my
shoulder, hoping to see the
tidal
wave
that would rise to destroy everything
that I conquered. I wanted to accomplish something useful, to
achieve something that I could feel proud of, that would help me be
accepted by the group, overcome difficulties with my studies, but I
was afraid to be living an illusion that was on the verge of
evaporating. Actually, I was afraid of being rejected and despised,
afraid that people might find out about my hallucinations and the
target of ridicule. I simply couldn’t bear that because it would be
confirmation of the harsh reality that I did not belong to the team
of winners.

An inner voice warned me to avoid depressing
thoughts since they could affect my own interpretation of the
situations in which I found myself and, therefore, the attitudes
that I would carry forward. Somewhere I read that defeatist
thoughts attract failure. They contribute to that person acting
like and then being treated like a failure.

Although the unresolved
thing with Adrian caused me anguish, just thinking about him now
gave me the strength not to dive back into depression. He believes
in my potential. He doesn’t consider me insignificant and most
definitely, he is a winner. If I was a loser, I never would have
attracted a winner.

Keep this in mind, girl!

Once I reached the living room, I realized
the place was very quiet compared to the hubbub of the corridor.
There was no one there except a tall guy. Was he my instructor?

He had his back turned,
reading the messages pinned to the bulletin board. He was thin, his
physique suggesting that he regularly participated in sports. I’d
venture to say swimming because his shoulders were
peaked
in the manner of
one who had been a swimmer since childhood.

He would be distinguishable in a
crowd—especially by the feline posture; however, I could not see
his face, so I was only able to analyze everything else. In
particular, his black gloves caught my attention. They covered his
strong, elegant hands. The rest of the clothing was very casual: a
jeans jacket, snowboard pants, and tennis shoes. His shiny hair was
cut very short. The color was so beautiful - similar to honey.

Suddenly he turned to face
me, even though I hadn’t made any noise—at least I thought I
hadn’t. Now I could see his face. He was a teenager! He couldn’t
have been more than sixteen years old. He was as pale as Adrian and
wore the same kind of photochromatic glasses. Having seen the
gloves, I was actually expecting something like that, so I was not
surprised.

The frames of his lime-green eyeglasses
contrasted sharply with the simple clothes and the reserved
attitude. He seemed almost shy. However, his shadowed lenses gave
me a glimpse of the shape of his eyes and the color of his irises
as he moved in the light.

His body language also told me a little
about him. His surprisingly strong looking, but skinny legs were
separated and the way he held his arms behind his back suggested
serenity. However, I noticed he was alert. A few seconds passed,
until the corners of his lips lifted a little.

“Good afternoon,” he said.

“So, you’re my mysterious
instructor?” I responded.

He frowned, but nodded. As he crossed his
arms to retrieve the laptop bag hanging from his should, I saw the
strong muscles of his chest flex. He had the constitution of a man,
despite his boyish face.

“I don’t know exactly the
implications of the adjective ‘mysterious,’” he joked. “I’m John
Walter Hume, laboratory assistant of Mr. Wade. You can call me
John, or Walter, if you prefer
.”
H
e extended his hand formally. “Nice to
meet you!”

Well, he looks more like a
Walter than a John
.

I noticed that in addition
to expressing himself with an indefinable accent, his speech was
very ceremonious for someone so young.
Wow! He must be younger than me. He speaks like my
grandfather would have if he were alive!
Walter Hume... well, according to Dad, it was definitely a
sign...but a sign of what? That I could trust someone whose
initials in reverse were the same as the town? I almost got
distracted trying to find the logic in that.

After a second’s
hesitation, I greeted him, though my distrust remained. Pale people
with flashing eyes, who disguise their attributes with gloves and
goggles...most certainly hide little secrets. How far it was wise
to trust them? When they weren’t causing electric shocks,
mysteriously appearing and disappearing, or giving a show of
walking on cobblestone pathways in stiletto heels... Oh, yeah!
These people hide big secrets, about which I didn’t wanna know, but
at the same time, I felt tempted to “peek through the
keyhole.”

I stared at Walter. He
calmly returned my look, knowing that I was
analyzing
him.
Demonstrating that he has good manners,
he removed his glasses and continued looking at me in a frank
and confident way.

Now I knew that his eyes
were light brown, speckled with gold dots.
As was the case with
all weird and
pale people, his exotic irises had a tremendous impact on me, but I
noticed something else. He sought to mitigate the impact with his
smile and his sweet look. His body language told me something about
his personality: John Walter Hume cared about what people thought
about him.

A sudden commotion alerted us to the
approach of others. Soon, the excitement of the corridor would
extend to the living room. Freshmen heading home were passing by
us, carrying their luggage. They talked about bus tickets, cars,
rides, roadmaps everything at the same time.