“Oh, God,” Annie said when she’d gone. “This is going to be awful.”
The black cat came into the room, tail waving gently, and tried to nudge his brother off Annie’s lap. I found a catnip mouse under the coffee table and was just getting it for him when Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer came back upstairs with tea things on a tray and a big plate of cookies that none of us ate.
“What,” asked Ms. Stevenson abruptly when we’d each taken a cup of tea, “have you said to your parents?”
“Nothing,” we both said at the same time.
“Do your parents know—er-about you?” We looked at each other. “Not really,” I said. “I mean, we haven”t told them or anything.”
“Once in a while we’ve gotten yelled at for coming home late or not calling,” said Annie, “and Liza’s father has said a couple of things about ‘friendships’ and things like that, but that’s about all.”
“They’re going to have to know,” Ms. Widmer said gently. “At least yours are, Liza. Mrs. Poindexter isn’t going to keep quiet about this.”
“It was wrong of you to use our house like that,” Ms. Stevenson said, putting her cup down.
“You know that, I think. But-well, I guess one of the things I remembered last night, with Kah’s help”she looked at Ms. Widmer“is just how hard it is to be seventeen and in love, especially when you’re gay. I was too angry last night to think very clearly, but-well, I think I should tell you that despite all the things I said about trust, Ms. Widmer and I might very well have done the same thing when we were seventeen.”
“Especially,” said Ms. Widmer, “if we’d had a house at our disposal, which we didn’t.”
Annie’s eyes met mine, and then she looked at Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer and said, “You—you mean—you’ve known each other that long?”
“Yes,” said Ms. Stevenson, “but that’s another story. I’m afraid that right now we have to deal with what’s going to happen next.” She patted her pockets as if looking for something. Ms. Widmer pointed to a pack of cigarettes lying on the coffee table; Ms. Stevenson reached for them and lit one. “As I see it,” she said, “we have two sets of problems. One is the accusation that’s going to be made against you two, which really just means you, Liza, since Annie’s not at Foster. That’s why you’d better decide pretty quickly what to say to your parents. And we also have the accusation that’s going to be made against us—against Kah and me.”
We went on for another hour or so, talking about it and trying to anticipate what was going to happen and trying also to figure out how best to handle it. I guess it helped; it made us feel a little better, anyway. But it didn’t do any actual good. After we left Cobble Hill, Annie and I went to the Promenade and walked until it was time for Annie to go home.
“I think you should tell your parents, Liza,” she said.
“I know,” I said uncomfortably. “But how? I mean, what am I going to say? Sally Jarrell and Ms. Baxter caught me and Annie making love at Ms. Widmer’s and Ms. Stevenson’s house when we were supposed to be taking care of the cats?”
“If you jam your hands any deeper into your pockets,” said Annie quietly, stepping in front of me and pulling them out, “you won’t have any pockets. Look,” she said, facing me, “I don’t have any right to say anything, because there’s no real reason so far for me to tell my parents, and I don’t think I’m going to, in spite of what I said before. But …”
“Why not?” I interrupted. “Just why not?”
“Because I think it would hurt them,” Annie said. “I’ve thought about it now and I think it would hurt them.”
“It’ll hurt them to know you love me,” I said bitterly, turning my own pain onto her.
“No,” Annie said, “it might hurt them to know I’m gay. They like you, Liza, you know that; Nana loves you. And they understand about loving friends. But they wouldn’t understand about being gay; it’s just not part of their world.”
“So you’re going to spend your whole life hiding after all, right? Even after saying all that back at the house when we found the books?” I knew I was being rotten, but I coulddn’t stop myself.
“I don’t know about my whole life,” said Annie angrily. “I just know about right now. Right now I’m not going to tell them. I don’t see why you can’t understand that, because you don’t seem to be going to tell your parents either.”
“But you want me to,” I said, trying to keep from shouting—there were other people on the Promenade as usual; an old man glanced at us curiously as he shuffled by. And then I said, the words surprising me and then almost as quickly not surprising me, “Look, maybe I don’t want to tell them till I’m really sure. That I’m gay, I mean.”
For a moment Annie stared at me. “Maybe that’s my reason too,” she said. “Maybe I’m not sure either.”
We stood there, not moving. “Liza,” said Annie, “the only reason I said I thought you should tell your parents is because all hell’s going to break loose at Foster, and someone’s going to tell them anyway, so it might as well be you. But it’s really none of my business. Especially,” she added, “since all of a sudden neither of us is sure.” She turned and walked away, fast, toward Clark Street, as if she were heading for the subway. All I could think of then was that Annie was walking away from me, angry, and that I couldn’t bear that. It hit me that I could probably bear anything in the world except her leaving, and I ran after her and put my hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Annie—please. I’m sorry. You’re my lover, for God’s sake; of course it’s your business. Everything about me is your business. Annie,
I—I
love you; it’s crazy, but that’s the one thing I am sure of. Maybe—well, maybe the other, being gay, having that—that label, just takes getting used to, but, Annie, I do love you.” Annie gave me a kind of watery smile and we hugged each other right there on the Promenade. “I’m not used to having a lover yet,” I whispered into her hair. “I’m not used to someone else being part of me like this.”
“I know,” said Annie. “Neither am I.” She smiled and pushed me away a little, touching my nose with the end of her finger. “That’s the second time in about two seconds you’ve called me your lover. And the third time in two days. I like it.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“That must prove something,” Annie said.
And then we walked some more, wanting to hold hands but not daring to, in spite of the fact that we’d just hugged each other in full view of what seemed like half of Brooklyn. We never did decide about my parents, and I realized when I got home that I couldn’t tell them with Chad around anyway, or didn’t want to, and he was around all evening. By the time we were all going to bed and I could have told them, I’d convinced myself that I might as well wait till the next day, to see what Mrs. Poindexter was actually going to do.
I didn’t have very long to wait. As soon as I walked in the front door, Ms. Baxter beckoned to me from her desk in the office. I tried to face her as if I had nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about—but I needn’t have bothered, for She didn’t even look at me.
“Mrs. Poindexter wants to see you,” she said grimly into the papers on her desk.
“Thank you,” I said.
She didn’t say “You’re welcome.” I certainly wasn’t surprised that Mrs. Poindexter wanted to see me, although I hadn’t expected she’d get around to it quite so quickly. I had also expected anger from her, not what I found when I walked into her ugly brown office. She was wearing black again, but this time without the lace. And she was slumped down in her chair—she usually carried herself so rigidly, sitting or standing, that Chad and I often joked about how she must have swallowed a yardstick as soon as she’d grown three feet tall. But that day her shoulders were hunched and her head was buried in her hands, and she didn’t look up when I came in.
I stood there for a minute, not knowing what to do. The only thing that moved in the whole room was the minute hand of the clock on the wall, and that moved so slowly it might just as well have been still. Finally I said, “Mrs. Poindexter? You wanted to see—”
Her shoulders gave a little quiver, as if she were sighing from someplace deep inside herself, and at last she looked up. I was so shocked I sat down without waiting for her to invite me to. Her eyes were red around the edges, as if she’d been crying or not sleeping, and every wrinkle in her wrinkled face was deeper than before, as if someone had gone over each one with a pencil.
“Eliza,” she said, very softly, “Eliza, how could you? Your parents—the school! Oh,” she moaned, “how could you?”
“Mrs. Poindexter,” I stammered stupidly, “
I—I
didn’t mean …”
She sighed again, audibly this time, shook her head, and reached for the Kleenex box on her desk so she could blow her nose. “I don’t know where to begin,” she said. “I simply do not know where to begin. This school has nurtured you since you were a tiny child—a tiny child-how you can have gone so wrong, how you can be so—so ungrateful—it’s beyond me, Eliza, simply beyond me!”
“Ungrateful?” I said, bewildered. “Mrs. Poindexter—I--I’m not ungrateful. Foster’s done a lot for me and I— I’ve always loved it. I’m not ungrateful. I don’t understand what that’s got to do with—with anything.” Mrs. Poindexter dropped her head into her hands again and her shoulders shook. “Mrs. Poindexter, are you all right?”
“No,” she said, her head snapping up, “no, of course I’m not all right! How could I be, when Foster is not all right? You—those teachers—just when …” She put her hands flat on her desk as if to steady herself, and brought her voice down to its normal register again.
“Eliza,” she said, “you are seventeen, aren’t you?” I nodded. “Quite old enough to know right from wrong—indeed, until now, you’ve shown a reasonable sense of morality, that stupid incident last fall notwithstanding. This may surprise you, but”—here she smiled ruefully—”I have even always felt a begrudging admiration for your stand on the reporting rule. Naturally,... in my position, I have not been able to support you in that—and of course I have never been able to agree with your stand, because experience has taught me that most young people are not to be trusted. I have admired your idealism, however. But now you—you …” Oh, God, I thought, why can’t she just yell at me?
“Eliza,” she said, looking out the window, “I met Henry Poindexter, my dear late husband, when I was seventeen. If it had not been for my strong religious upbringing and his, we would have—been weak enough to make a serious mistake within a few months of our meeting. Do you understand what I am talking about?”
I nodded again, surprised, trying not to smile nervously at the idea of there ever having been anything approaching passion in Mrs. Poindexter—even at the idea of her having been seventeen. Then I realized she couldn’t see me, so I said, “Yes.”
“So I understand the pull that—sex—can have on young and inexperienced persons. I do not understand the—the pull of”—she finally turned and looked full at me—”abnormal sex, but I am of course aware of adolescent crushes and of adolescent experimentation as a prelude to normalcy. In your case, had I only known about your unwise and intense out-of-school friendship in time …” I felt my whole body tightening.
“Mrs. Poindexter,” I said, “it’s not …”
She cut me off. “Eliza,” she said almost gently, “I am going to have to suspend you, pending an expulsion hearing, of course. You know I have the authority to act without student council under extraordinary circumstances, which when you are calmer you will agree these are. I think you will understand that if it weren’t for the fundraising campaign we might have been able to handle this more delicately—but if one whisper—one whisper—of this scandal goes outside these walls …” Her voice broke and she closed her eyes for a moment; then she pulled herself up and went on. “A public scandal,” she said, “would not only mean the end of Foster’s campaign, but the end of Foster as well.” She looked at me severely, but I didn’t know what to say. “And of course,” she went on, “you must be punished for using someone else’s home as a—for using someone else’s home in that way, no matter how much—encouragement you may have received from the owners …”
“But,” I said, horrified, “but Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer didn’t …”
She ignored me. She closed her eyes again and spoke quickly, as if she were reciting—as if she’d written ou the words and memorized them the night before. “You understand,” she said mechanically, without even anger showing any more, “that it is impossible for you to continue as president of student council, and that it would be unwise and unhealthy for both you and the other students for you to come back to school until this matter has been resolved. Sally and Walt have requested that you be removed from all participation in the student fund drive …” Words stuck in my throat; anger, tears. She held up her hand; her eyes were open now. “Therefore, I am asking you to go immediately to your locker and pack up your books and other belongings; you will give the text of your speech to Sally, who will revise it if necessary and deliver it Friday at the rally, which you will under no circumstances attend. There will be a trustees’ hearing about your expulsion and about what notations will appear on your record—for, in fairness to the students and teachers at
MIT
, your—proclivities, if firmly established, which I cannot believe they are in one so young, should be known. In fairness to yourself, too, I daresay, to ensure that you will be encouraged to get professional help.
You will be notified of the trustees’ hearing; you may attend and speak on your own behalf, and because this is so serious a matter, you may bring an attorney as well as, of course, your parents. The Board of Trustees will at that time make a decision specifically about notifying
MIT
. Eliza,” she said, “this is very much for your own good as well as for Foster’s. I do not expect you to see that now, or to see that it is difficult for me to act so firmly. But I have no choice, and someday you may even thank me. I sincerely hope so, not because I want thanks, but because I want to think that you will be—be healed, regain your moral sense, whatever is necessary to set you right again.” She reached for her telephone; oh, God, I thought, panicking, I should have told Mom and Dad last night! “I am now calling your parents, though it pains me to do so. I know it is my duty, and I pray that they can help you. And that you will see it is my intention to be absolutely fair.” She began dialing, and said, “You may go,” again not looking at me. Mrs. Baxter glanced up as I came out of Mrs. Poindexter’s office and passed by the central office. When she looked down again, I noticed through my numbness that her lips were moving, as if in prayer.