Melody (34 page)

“They don't ever stop. They'd eat each other to the bone if they could. But Cary and Laura,” Theresa said, “they gave them something to chew on.” She shook her head again. “It was as if they didn't care, as if they thought no one could touch them with nasty words and looks. I couldn't understand it.”

“Your father works with my uncle and with Cary, what does he think?”

She pulled back a moment and gazed at me indignantly. Then she calmed and sat forward again. “He doesn't talk about the Logans except to say they are hardworking people,” she remarked with an and-that's-that tone.

“I don't know which one of them first suggested it,” I said, nodding at Janet, Lorraine, and Betty, “but they implied that Cary had something to do with Laura and Robert's accident. They made it sound as if he deliberately put them in harm's way.”

“Some people think that,” Theresa said.

“Do you?”

She ate for a while and then she sighed. “Look, I didn't exactly hang out with Laura Logan or Robert Royce. Laura was always polite and nice to me and I liked her,
but she sat on one side of the world and I sat on another one. Cary . . . he sat somewhere in outer space. I'm not swearing for anyone, but I'm not spreading any gossip, so stop asking all these questions.”

She paused and turned completely to me so her back was to her friends. Then, in a low voice, she added, “Just like the rest of the bravas here, I mind my own business. What happens in the homes of the rich and famous isn't my concern. My daddy taught me that was the best way to stay out of trouble. Now don't you go telling anyone I said anything else, either,” she warned with cold ebony eyes.

“I wouldn't do that.”

“Good.” Theresa turned back to her food.

I had barely touched mine. Was no one on our side? I gazed at Cary again. He looked so lost and lonely. In my put-away heart, I thought it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair what they were saying about him and me and what had happened to him.

I nibbled my sandwich, my stomach feeling like a tight drum. Theresa talked to her friends for a while and then gazed at me. The hard shell she had formed over herself cracked a bit.

“Look, it doesn't make sense that Cary would do something that would hurt Laura just to get at Robert Royce, does it?” she asked me.

“No.”

“So? Don't let them drive you nuts about it. The trouble with them,” she said, nodding at Janet, Lorraine, and Betty and their friends, “is they have nothing real in their lives so they make up soap operas. Maybe I'm not as rich as they are and I don't live in as nice a house, but I'm not anxious to trade places.”

I smiled. “I don't blame you,” I said.

Her smile widened. “Just ignore them and maybe they'll get bored or start on someone else,” she suggested.

But it wasn't going to be that way for a while, and they
were just getting started building their fire of pain. While Theresa and I spoke, neither of us had noticed that notes were being passed from table to table in the cafeteria. At each table they reached, everyone quickly stopped talking and leaned in to read the slander. Soon, the girls at Theresa's table grew curious and one of them got hold of one of the notes. She read it and passed it down to Theresa.

Printed on the slip of paper was: Incest is best. Just ask Cary and Melody.

I felt as if my lower body had evaporated. I had no legs. I would never be able to get up from the table. The cafeteria was buzzing with loud chatter and laughter. My heart was pounding so hard, I thought I could hear it drumming over the noise.

“Bitches,” Theresa muttered. Her friends nodded. Again, everyone's eyes were on me. I shifted my gaze slowly toward Cary. Someone had tossed one of the notes over to his table. After he read it, he crumbled it in his fist and turned to me. I shook my head to say, “Don't pay it any mind. Ignore it,” but I could see he was fuming.

“Cary!” I called when he stood up. His gaze was fixed on Adam Jackson across the cafeteria. “Oh no,” I muttered.

“Don't get in his way,” Theresa warned me. “I've seen him pull up a net full of ten-pounders as if it were a net full of nothing more than balloons.”

“This is just what they want,” I wailed. Cary's determined strut across the room silenced the cafeteria. The lines in his face were taut and his shoulders were raised. One of the teacher monitors, Mr. Pepper, looked up from his newspaper curiously as Cary marched past him.

I got up as Cary rounded the table beside Adam Jackson's. Adam sat there, smirking, his arms folded over his chest.

“Careful,” Theresa said touching my arm as I started after him.

“You spread a bunch of filthy lies about us today, didn't you?” Cary accused, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Hey, if you're embarrassed by the truth, don't blame me,” Adam said.

“What's going on there?” Mr. Pepper called. If he moved any slower, I thought, he'd make a turtle look like a cheetah.

Cary didn't waste words. His whole body had turned into a fist—it was that tight. He reached across the table and grabbed Adam at his collar and literally lifted him from his seat and pulled him over the table, knocking trays of food everywhere.

Adam struggled to break free of Cary's grip, but it was as firm and rigid as lockjaw. Adam looked like a fish out of water, twisting and turning, flailing about, kicking up his feet and swinging his arms wildly.

Cary turned him over and pinned his arms to the table. Everyone drew back. Mr. Pepper finally put on some steam and reached the table, shouting. “Stop that this instant! Cary Logan . . . Stop!”

Cary ignored him. He gazed down into Adam's terrified face.

“Tell them the truth! Tell them!” he screamed. “Was there anything between me and Melody? Was there?”

“Cary Logan, let him go,” Mr. Pepper cried, but he didn't touch Cary. It was as if Cary were on fire and Mr. Pepper knew he would burn his hands. “Go get the principal,” he shouted at one of the nearby students, who reluctantly turned, disappointed he would miss the action.

“The truth!” Cary screamed down at Adam and raised his fist over his face. To Adam, it must have looked as if a sledgehammer were about to fall on his precious handsome visage.

“All right. Nothing happened. Nothing happened! I made it all up. Satisfied?” Cary relaxed and Adam sat up quickly, now indignant
and embarrassed. He started to say something, but when Cary turned back to him, he shrank quickly.

“Mr. Logan, you march yourself right down to the principal's office this instant, you hear?” Mr. Pepper said.

Cary didn't acknowledge him. He looked at me. “You all right?” he asked.

I wasn't sure I had any breath in my lungs. I nodded, reserving my words.

“If anyone else bothers you, tell me later,” he said loudly. Then, moving like a prisoner condemned to the gallows, he marched ahead of Mr. Pepper toward the door.

The moment he left, the cafeteria burst into a storm of chatter.

“Satisfied with yourselves now?” I asked Janet, Lorraine, and Betty as I reached their table on the way back to Theresa's. They were too frightened to reply. “Adam Jackson invited me to meet him on the beach last night. I made the mistake of doing so and he tried to rape me,” I told them. Their eyes bulged. “He talked me into drinking vodka and cranberry juice and got me drunk.”

I saw from Janet's expression that she believed me. Maybe she had had a similar experience.

“Cary arrived just in time and drove Adam away. He literally tore him off me,” I told them. “This is his revenge and you and your mean gossip helped him. Now Cary's in bad trouble. Thanks a lot.” I turned on my heel and went back to Theresa.

“That Adam Jackson better watch his step or Cary's going to make him fish bait,” she said.

“He'll only get himself into more trouble and it's all my fault,” I wailed. I plopped into my seat just as the bell rang. The sea of chatter flowed out of the cafeteria with the students. The teachers in the afternoon classes would have a hard time keeping their attention today, I thought. I waited until most everyone was out before getting up to follow. Theresa lingered behind with me.

“What will they do to him?”

“Probably suspend him again,” she said.

I felt just dreadful. I sat half dead in my seat in all my classes, barely listening, never answering a question. I couldn't wait for the day to end, and when it did, I found Cary waiting for me outside, his hands in his pockets, his head down, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. The moment he saw me, he perked up.

“You all right?” he asked quickly.

“Yes, but what happened?”

“I got two days vacation,” he said.

“Oh Cary, near the end of the year when you need the review for your tests? This is horrible.”

“It doesn't matter,” he said.

“Yes it does. I'm not going to let the principal do this to you. It's not fair. He should see the nasty notes that were passed around.”

“He saw them. It didn't make any difference. He told me I didn't have a right to lose my temper and take things into my own hands.”

“He's right,” I said.

“I told him it hadn't happened to his family so he could say that.”

“What did he say?” I asked, shocked at his courage.

“He stuttered a bit and then said that wasn't the point. But don't worry. I'll walk you to school anyway and be here for you afterward and if Adam Jackson or anyone bothers you—”

“I won't tell you,” I said. “You'd . . . you'd turn them into fish bait,” I declared, using Theresa's language. He nodded, pleased with the description.

“Exactly, and they know it.”

We started away.

“I appreciate your protecting me, Cary, but I hate to see you get into trouble.”

I saw a smile take form on his lips.

“How can you be happy?” I asked him.

“This is the way it used to be between me and Laura,”
he said softly. Then he lost his smile. “Until Robert stepped into her life.”

I said nothing. We walked on, each chased by troubled thoughts.

Cary didn't have to tell Aunt Sara and Uncle Jacob what had happened at school. The principal had called and told Aunt Sara before we returned home. Uncle Jacob was still down at the dock and didn't know yet, however, and Aunt Sara was visibly shaken just with the thought of what would happen once he found out. She wrung her hands and shook her head in despair.

“Don't worry, Ma. I'll tell him myself. I'll go down to the dock now,” Cary said.

“How did this happen, Cary? You haven't been in any trouble for a long time, and it's so close to graduation.”

I was about to take the blame, but Cary spoke first. “This boy was saying ugly, disgusting things about us and our family around the school, Ma. I did what I had to do.”

“Why was he doing that?”

“Because he's a shark who needs to be harpooned, and that's all there is to say.” Cary glared at me with eyes of warning.

“Oh Melody, was it dreadful for you, too?”

“Yes, Aunt Sara. I'm sorry Cary's in trouble, but the other boy was at fault.”

She sighed.

“What are we going to do? All this happens on the day we're going to your grandparents for dinner. Don't mention anything about this to them,” she told us fearfully.

“I won't if you won't,” Cary promised. He winked at me and went up to change his clothes.

May, who had learned only bits and pieces about everything, was desperate to know what had caused all the commotion. Neither Cary nor I had told her much on the way home since neither of us was in the mood to
talk. I explained it to her as best I could, leaving out the nasty details of the rumors.

She signed back that she was sorry Cary was in trouble again. It had always made Laura sad and it made her sadder still, she said. In her large, shadowed brown eyes lingered more dark secrets and sufferings than a child her age should know, I thought. And with her handicap, most of them remained trapped in her heart.

“Go up and try on your dress for tonight,” Aunt Sara told me in a tired, defeated voice. “We have to do our best under the circumstances.”

“Yes, Aunt Sara.”

She followed me upstairs. The dress hung with a slip on the closet door. On the floor beneath them was a brand new pair of shoes she had bought to match the dress, since Laura's shoes wouldn't fit me.

“Aunt Sara, you shouldn't have done that. I could have worn something that would match my own shoes.”

“No, this was the last dress I made for Laura,” she explained. “She never got a chance to wear it.”

“Oh.”

I looked at the dress with different eyes. It took on a strangely spiritual feel, like the dress of a ghost. It was an ankle-length, straight beige silk dress with a Victorian collar that had a lace neck.

“Besides,” Aunt Sara said, “we're all going to dress with extra care tonight. Olivia and Samuel are having Judge Childs as their guest. She called especially to tell me so we would all look our best. He was a state supreme court judge, you know. He's retired now, but maybe you've heard of his son, the artist Kenneth Childs.”

“No.” I shook my head and stared at the dress. I could almost see Laura in it.

“I just thought you might have, because you've been here a while and he's one of our most prominent sculptors. His work is in the Provincetown Artists museum and it's in all the good galleries.”

I shook my head.

“The Childs have always been good friends with
Olivia and Samuel. Kenneth practically grew up with Chester and Jacob, he was at their house so much. Judge Childs's wife died two years ago. His other sons and daughter all live in Boston. Kenneth's brothers and sister don't have much to do with him, but Kenneth was the judge's favorite even though he didn't do anything with his law degree. The judge and his wife gave him enough money to do his art. They supported him for a quite a while and there are some hard feelings in the family because of it. Jealousy, I imagine.”