Shooting Stars 03 Rose (10 page)

I wasn't comfortable being driven to school by a chauffeur. but Charlotte insisted and Mommy was like her cheering section, urging me to agree to each and every suggestion concerning me that Charlotte made. At breakfast, she even had the audacity to suggest I
cut my hair more like theirs. too.

"What of it?" Charlotte asked, her eyes blinking with innocence.
"One size doesn't fit all when it comes to things like that. I'm me. you're you, Mommy's..."
"Mommy," Charlotte said. She looked at her and Mommy turned away. There was a time, only hours ago, it seemed, when that would have brought pride to her eyes, not shame and embarrassment. "Can't you call her Monica?"
"What? She's my mother. Why do I have to call her Monica?" I asked.
"Calling her Mommy just makes her sound... older." she insisted. "At least do it in front of any guests we have," she requested.
Again. I looked at Mommy to see if she would disagree, but she was silent and threw me a small smile.
"Is that what you would like me to do. Mommy?"
"I don't see why it's such a world-shattering thing," Charlotte pursued.
"You don't have a daughter or a son," I said sharply. "You're not a mother."
"Rose," Mommy chastised, shifting her gaze at Charlotte.
"That's all right, Monica," Charlotte said in her sweet Southern voice. "Rose happens to be correct."
She turned back to me, her eyes narrowing.
"No. I'm not a mother, dear." She laughed a cold, mechanical laugh. "But after seeing what most mothers, and fathers.
I
should add, put up with these days.
I
can't say
I
feel deprived and disappointed. Modern children are so unappreciative. They think everything is coming to them just because they were brought into this world. They almost want to punish their parents for having the nerve to conceive them. You know what I'm talking about, don't you. Monica? We were discussing it yesterday in the car after we saw that poor woman being nagged to death by her spoiled daughter at Tiffany's."
"Yes," Mammy said quickly.
I
turned to her sharply.
"Fine,"
I
said. "From now on, I'll call you Monica, Monica.
I'd
better get on my way.
I
don't want to be late for my first day in my new, wonderful school, Am
I
dressed stylishly enough?"
"Oh. don't worry about that," Charlotte said with a small laugh that brought curiosity to my face.
"Go on. dear." Mammy said. "I'm sure you have a lot to do."
"Of course she does," Charlotte said.
I marched out of the dining room and almost fell over Evan who was sitting back in his wheelchair just outside the door. He smiled at me.
"Aunt Charlotte getting under your skin?" he asked.
"Like a tick," I said, and he laughed.
"I came out to wish you good luck today," he said. "I can't wait to hear all about it."
"Thanks," I said. I felt like fanning my face and imagined smoke pouring out of my ears. He wheeled along beside me as I walked to the door.
"Wait," he said when I opened the door and started to close it behind me. He wheeled out onto the portico. "I like watching you walk."
"What?" I started to smile.
"You have such perfect posture and you glide along as if you're always on some runway modeling clothes or something."
"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.