The Story of Beautiful Girl (34 page)

That isn’t to say that visitors
couldn’t
come by—this place wasn’t under lock and key, like the School. And unlike the School, here there was a general level of respect given to the residents. At first Kate made these kinds of comparisons all the time, though eventually she stopped. The School didn’t exist anymore, and she hadn’t even been to Pennsylvania in nine years. If she didn’t exchange holiday cards with Lynnie, she’d never think of the School at all.

“You go ahead,” Mr. Todd said, nudging her with his hand.

“Show us the dime first,” Mr. Eskridge said.

She looked back at her hands and lifted the left one up. “Heads.”

“That’s me,” Mr. Eskridge said, “and I’m picking black.”

“Like it’ll make any difference,” Mr. Todd said.

Kate rose, saying, “I shouldn’t be long.”

“Take all the time you need,” Mr. Eskridge said, setting his men on their squares. “Everything’s under control.” He smiled. “The perks of prerogative.”

Tawana said, “He’s in the front lobby.”

Kate hurried off, and as she left the solarium, she heard Mr. Todd say, “I might not have won the toss, but that doesn’t mean I’m losing the game.”

Kate didn’t see the visitor when she first entered the lobby. Only after she moved past the seating area did she spot a tall man near the front door, his back to Geraldine’s desk. He appeared to be looking at the three-tier fountain outside. The sky was blue and the light bright, so Kate could see little besides a skinny silhouette with a bald head, arms before him, hands clasped.

Kate glanced to Geraldine and Irwin. Geraldine shrugged.

Kate continued to the front door, came up beside him, and entered his line of vision.

A bearded face looked down. She had just enough time to sense a familiarity behind his glasses before the formality fell from his expression.

“Kate?” he asked. His voice was gruff and quiet.

She studied his lips, his cheeks, searching for a clue that would explain who he was. She looked at his hands, now at his sides. The fingers were slender, and there was a wedding ring. His suit was inexpensive but well kept, his shoes simple and freshly polished.

“It’s Kate Catanese now, right?” he asked.

“Who are you?”

He bit his upper lip. Then he said, “You used to know me as Clarence.”

She felt anger crawl up her throat, and she focused again. If she removed some of his beard, returned his glasses, and scrubbed
away the years, she could see the goateed attendant who’d brought Lynnie back that night. “Why are you here?” she asked.

“I know it must seem very strange, having me show up halfway across the country—”

“The School’s closed, Clarence. I don’t know what you want from me, but I have nothing to do with that place anymore.”

She noticed Geraldine and Irwin watching and realized she was raising her voice.

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“Then why are you here? You were never my friend. We had no relationship. I don’t want one now, either.”

“I know this seems—”

“Bizarre. And suspicious.”

“And probably many other things. But I do have a reason to be here.”

“Where’s your sidekick?”

“Smokes? The last address I have for him is near Harrisburg.”

“He knows you’re here?”

“I live in Baltimore. I have a whole new life now. We haven’t spoken for years.”

“You and I haven’t either. Yet you just show up out of the blue—”

“I knew if I contacted you in advance, you’d refuse to meet me.”

“So you chose to ambush me at work?”

He glanced to the desk. Irwin was now standing. “Can we speak more privately?”

“Why would I do that?”

He looked at his shoes and said, “Because you know the importance of confession.”

She stared at him. Then she looked over to the front desk. “We’ll be right outside.”

*    *    *

“Okay,” Kate said, sitting on the ledge around the fountain. “Cut to the chase.”

He lowered himself beside her. She easily saw his identity now, but if she had passed him on the street, she wouldn’t have looked twice. For a second Kate remembered learning that some of the elders she worked with had pasts that seemed unworthy of them—a man who’d kept a mistress, a woman who’d pushed her daughter to marry a prosperous but patronizing man. Mr. Eskridge had once taken revenge on a brilliant young colleague by being the decisive vote denying him tenure. Kate had forgiven their trespasses; their current hardships eclipsed her view of their histories, and besides, who was she to throw stones? She’d wished ill upon her ex-husband for years.

And Clarence had driven hundreds of miles to say what he came to say. She didn’t have to embrace him, but she should hear him out.

He stared into the fountain. Even though it was a warm October day, Kate couldn’t feel the sun.

“I’ve been trying to figure out where to begin,” he said, rubbing his palms against his pants, leaving trails of wetness on the fabric. Then he turned to her. “Let me start by saying I’ll understand if you leave while I tell you this. You have every right to. I did things back then that I can’t believe anymore.”

He took a deep breath, and the words came raggedly yet quickly. He’d started life as a punk. He’d hated school, finally quitting in ninth grade to hang out with friends. He’d picked up cash here and there by putting up aluminum siding or cutting lawns, but forget a career; his only priority had been drinking with his friends at night. Time went on, and one by one the other guys got girls pregnant and had to get jobs, or they joined the military. Finally it was down to him and Smokes. He’d never paid much attention
to Smokes. The guy lived out at the School, so he wasn’t a regular. He also didn’t talk much and had a sour way about him. Still, he worked hard at washing down his mood with whiskey, and that was all right with Clarence. Then, when Clarence reached nineteen, his parents said they’d had it with him. What was he going to do, with no talent or interests, just a need to put a roof over his head while still having a good time? It came down to becoming a factory worker or a long-haul driver, and he almost went to the interview in the truck yard. Then, the night before, Smokes, sitting at the bar out near the School, told him to come work there. Clarence could get room and board, the pay beat other jobs, they’d have a good time. Clarence wasn’t keen on working around, as Smokes put it, “a bunch of eeg-its,” though Smokes said it was a cakewalk, as long as you let them know who was boss, which was easy: They couldn’t think or feel, Smokes said, and were obedient, and you could get a few laughs out of them. Plus, with his brother being the director, “no one’s ever gonna say boo.”

It was great for a long time. Clarence and Smokes had no one looking over their shoulders. They could come and go as they pleased, say and do what they wanted, make up new rules every day if they were so inclined. They could drink to their hearts’ content, and they did. Clarence didn’t actually like drinking all that much or chewing tobacco, but he liked being with Smokes, who polished off whatever Clarence didn’t finish. Smokes also had a swagger Clarence envied and a way of glaring at staff that unnerved them. Sometimes he did it because they’d crossed him, sometimes just because he could.

“Doing things so others would fear you,” Clarence said to Kate, still looking at his shoes, “it felt good. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s true.”

“You never did anything to me,” Kate said.

“You steered clear of us.”

She wanted to tell him she’d worked hard at avoiding them and that many times, after she’d seen them demean a staff person or suspected them of walloping a resident, she’d wanted to confront them. Yet she’d held her tongue, and she often went home in despair over how little she could do if she wanted to keep her job. “Your friend’s dogs frightened me,” she said.

“And not just you.” He took another breath. “Smokes didn’t spare me, either. He used to call me a… he’d say I acted like a girl. He’d call me names and then get his dogs to lunge at me, holding their chains just at the point where they’d get choked back inches before they sank in their teeth. If I flinched, he’d say he’d had his proof and was going to tell the world. It wasn’t like I had some girlfriend and could point to her and say, ‘See? You’re wrong.’ So I learned to stand there with the teeth coming at me.”

A dread had taken root inside Kate. He wasn’t going to say—

“I still don’t understand why you’re telling this to me.”

“Because…” He rubbed his eyes, then looked back. “Because you cared about her.”

“Who?”

“The one we called No-No.”

“Lynnie.”

“I’d forgotten her name.”

“You came here to find out her name?” Kate stood up. “Then I am walking out of here, because you’re right. I cared about her, and I still do.” She spun around and stepped away.

“Wait.”

She stopped but didn’t turn.

“I haven’t come to find her. I don’t want to make her life any worse than I already did.”

Kate stayed right where she was. She could see Irwin watching her through the glass.

“That’s why I’m here,” Clarence went on hastily. “She couldn’t
talk, so you never knew. I’ve been carrying it around all this time, and I need to say it.”

Kate hesitated. Lynnie had never said what happened, even when she’d regained the ability to speak. She’d given Kate the impression that it was the result of a rampage during a night of chaos. A night no one had ever understood.

Kate turned back but remained standing.

One day, he said, Uncle Luke called him and Smokes into his office and told them he expected to run for governor in a few years, or maybe senator. He said it in a way that only drove home how different he and Smokes were—the one brother who’d gone to medical school, the other who’d made nothing of his life. Smokes could tag along if his plans worked out, Uncle Luke said; they could probably find room for him. “It will pain me, of course,” Uncle Luke told him, smoking his cigarette. “Though you’d be in the gutter if it weren’t for me.”

Smokes was incensed by the time they left the office. They went back to the staff cottages and drank for hours, coming up with one thing after another that would ruin Luke’s plans. By the time they were ready for the night shift, Smokes was completely in a lather.

The first thing they did was round up the most aggressive boys in their cottage by banging on their iron beds, hauling them out, shouting they were playing a game. They armed the boys with clubs and sticks and told them to see how much they could break, and if they didn’t do their part, well, who knew how the dogs would react. The boys went at it, smashing their own windows, beating on one another. Smokes threw open their cottage door and egged them on, and they went streaming outside, shouting, clubbing every tree and lamppost they passed, until Smokes suddenly decided, when they reached A-3, to let them in. The staff watched as Smokes and Clarence and the dogs and a gang of boys poured inside. They’d had their cars keyed before, they weren’t going to
interfere. But the noise must have alerted the residents, because as the mob entered the dayroom, many of the residents tried to hide under beds or in the bathroom. The boys mostly got caught up in the dayroom, throwing furniture around, having a grand time, and in the pandemonium Smokes saw Lynnie run into a storage closet. He knew Clarence had a gripe with her—she was a biter, she’d left a scar on Clarence’s hand, and she was by far the best-looking resident. So when Smokes smirked and said, “Hold the dogs,” and reached for the closet door, Clarence didn’t object. He’d looked the other way when Smokes had “copped a feel” with other female residents or told some of the low grade boys to do lewd things to the others. After all, Clarence had to prove his manliness—and what were any of them to him? So he just watched when Smokes hauled the door open and Clarence caught a glimpse of her, backing into the darkened room. Then the door closed. And although he heard her cry out, it was only, “No no no no!” until her voice was muffled.
That’ll teach her not to bite,
Clarence thought over the din of the barking, the girls screaming, the boys cracking chairs. The mayhem was so complete, a rat sprinted out of the bathroom. That was when Smokes emerged from the closet, zipping his pants. He took a look at the animal, seized it, and threw it at the dogs, who tore it to pieces. Then he turned back to the closet and said, “And that’ll be you if you tell.”

Kate stood above Clarence, her fist in front of her mouth. She lowered her hand. “How could you live with yourself after that?”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing I can say that would make any sense.”

“Try me.”

“I told myself she deserved it.”

Kate felt herself become nauseated. “You’re really disgusting.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I could blame my drinking, or how com
mon it was for the residents to get taken advantage of. I could blame my need to be liked by my… friend—”

“Friend.”

“I don’t want to make excuses. It’s indefensible.”

“Why didn’t you come forward right then?”

“How could I? Everything I knew was right there. To say anything would mean losing my whole life.”