Trying to Save Piggy Sneed (35 page)

“That bastard,” Molly Cabot said, coolly, analytically — and, from the faces of the other girls, expectedly.

“Maybe he's just taken her for a ride around the block,” someone said, not too convincingly, not even too hopefully.

“Sure,” Molly said, and she turned from the window and walked directly out of the room.

All the girls went back to the window. They sat for another 20 minutes, just looking into the night, and finally Minna said, “It's surely time for the movie. Will anyone stay and see it with me?” It was suddenly a night when something extraordinary was called for, Minna thought, and so she considered the extravagance of asking all of them to stay for the movie. If Mrs. Elwood came, as she might, she would not be pleased about it; she would speak to Minna about it — after the girls were gone.

“Why not?” someone said.

The movie, as if things weren't cruel enough, was an old musical. The girls commented harshly on each scene and song. During the commercials the girls went and sat by the window, and whenever there was a likely roar in the street they ran over, regardless of what new horror in song the movie then explored. When the movie was over, the girls were unwilling to leave (some of them had rooms that didn't face the driveway), and they appeared bitterly resolved to a nightlong vigil. Minna asked politely, shyly, if she might go to bed, and the girls straggled into the corridor, aimlessly bitching. They didn't seem angry at Celeste, or angry because they felt badly for Molly; on the contrary, it struck Minna that they were almost glad about it, and certainly excited. Their anger came from a feeling that they had been deeply cheated out of witnessing the climax to the show. They'll be up all night, Minna thought. How awful.

But Minna waited up herself. She occasionally dozed at the window, waking every time with a start — ashamed at the thought that someone might see her there, watching. It was after 3:00 when she went to bed, and she didn't sleep well. She was too tired to get up at every sound, but listened intently to them all. Finally she woke to a sound which was unmistakably the motorcycle, or at least
some
motorcycle. It was stopped at the beginning of the driveway, she could tell, still out on the street, the engine still running. It growled warily out there, making funny, laboring sounds. Then she heard it pull away, heard it pass through three gears again, and lost it as all of them had lost it before, many blocks or even miles away. She listened for the driveway itself now, for the little crunching sounds it made while supporting feet. She heard the little pops and snaps of the stones, the grating sound of feet and stones on the cement steps. She heard the screen door open, the main door open (she had thought, horribly, intriguingly, that it might have been locked), and then she heard, sometime later, the door at the end of the corridor. It was light in her room and she saw that it was nearly five o'clock. Angelo and Flynn would be in the kitchen soon, perhaps they were already there. Then she heard other doors open along the corridor, and the hurried bare feet of the girls padding from room to room. She heard whispering and then she fell asleep.

Saturday morning it rained. A fine, inadequate kind of summer rain that did nothing but fog the windows and leave tiny beads of sweat on everyone's upper lip. It might just as well have been sunny and dazzling for all the difference it made on the temperature, and on Flynn's disposition. Flynn remarked, shortly before lunch, that there hadn't been so few people to breakfast since the flu epidemic in December. It always irritated him to prepare a lot of food and have no one there to eat it. Also, he was bothered by the luncheon menu, angry that they were still serving soup when it was so damn hot (and no one did anything but spill it anyway). Despite the weather, there were a lot of boys and parents in the dining hall. Minna always thought this odd, that everyone spent a year talking about the final exams, and that the weekend before the exams was invariably most festive.

Minna watched Celeste rather carefully that morning, wishing she could say something, although she couldn't think of what on earth she even wanted to say. It hadn't, of course, been wrong of Celeste, but Minna had to confess that Celeste just hadn't
looked
very nice. It was only sad because everyone had to
see
it, had to be hurt or angry because of it. And there wasn't much you could say about that. A peculiar uneasiness passed over Minna — some warm remembrance of a pervasive scent, fecund and coffee-rich, which quickly evanesced.

There was lunch to get ready. Most of the girls had filled the dining hall before the soup was served on every table. Angelo looked sadly at the drooping flowers on the many windowsills, and received angry commands from Flynn that he finish serving the soup. Celeste worked steadily, carrying trays of potato salad, tureens of soup; every time she returned to the kitchen from the dining hall she took one luxurious pull on her cigarette, left dangling over the counter during her exits. Minna neatly arranged the lettuce in pretty patterns around the rim of the salad trays, being careful to hide the wilted and brown parts under the potatoes.

Celeste was taking what had to be the last drag on her cigarette when Molly Cabot swung open the aluminum door to the kitchen; she stepped inside, biting her lips, and allowed the door to swing closed behind her. Angelo, with a handful of flowers, turned to see who'd come in. Flynn stared indifferently. And Minna felt a tremendous weight on her diaphragm, pushing in or pushing out — it was hard to tell where the force was coming from. Molly Cabot, unsteady and small, stepped a little forward and away from the door. She squinted painfully at Celeste, in what might have been an attempt to intimidate the long, calm woman.

“You bitch, you whore!” Molly shouted. A voice as shrill and delicate as a coffee spoon striking a saucer. “You
really
dirty whore!”

And Celeste just looked, smiling gently — an inquiring, still puzzled face, which invited Molly to please continue.

Molly gained a certain composure, a practiced restraint of the kind suggested in Beginning Speech Class, and said, “I will not stoop so low as to compete on
your
level!” It was not haughty, it was still the spoon on the saucer.

Minna said, “Molly, dear. Don't.” And Molly, without taking her eyes from Celeste, stepped gingerly backward, feeling for the door with her hand, and when her weight rested against the door she leaned back and swung with it — revolved out of the kitchen. The door swung back, bringing no new horrors in its path, swung twice before it squeaked and closed. Minna looked apologetically at Celeste. “Celeste, dear,” she began, but Celeste turned to her with the same penetrating calm, the same inquiring face she had turned to Molly.

“It's all right, Minna,” she said, soothingly, as if she spoke to a child.

Minna shook her head and looked away; it seemed she would cry at any second. Flynn banged some pans against the aluminum shelves. “Christ!” he hollered. “What's going on?”

There was a long moment when no one spoke, and then there was Angelo; with a curiously studied fury that never could have been his own, but something mimicked from countless bad movies and college plays, he stepped awkwardly to the middle of the kitchen, throwing himself off balance as he flung his wilted flowers to the floor. “Who does she think she is?” he demanded. “Who does she think she's talking to? Who
is
she?”

“She's just a girl who thinks I stole her boy,” Celeste said. “We went out for a ride last night, after he brought her back here.”

“But she can't say that!” Angelo cried, and Minna saw that his consistently pale face was deeply flushed.

“I got a daughter her age,” Flynn said. “I'd wash her damn mouth out with soap if she ever pulled any of that stuff.”

“Oh, that's really good, Flynn,” Celeste snapped, “that's really good, coming from you! Why don't you just shut up?”

But Angelo, they should have known, had at last encountered the dark, illogical fate which any one of them might have envisioned for him. He made some quick, secretive movement with his hands and walked to the aluminum door — like one who'd seen a specter of his potential self beckon and bid him follow. He was gone before anyone could say anything, even before anyone could move, leaving the kitchen in ghoulish silence.

Then Flynn said, “He took the lye soap out of the sink. He took it with him!” Celeste moved more quickly than Flynn and Minna; she moved in front of them, out through the swinging door.

The dining hall was very crowded, but very quiet. The occasional tinkle of ice cubes in the tea, the nervous creakings of chairs. Mrs. Elwood sat at the head table, surrounded by well-dressed parents and children with napkins tucked into their collars. Minna looked helplessly at Mrs. Elwood, whose chin was twitching in random little spasms. Angelo stood in the aisle between two rows of tables at the far end of the dining hall, the yellow-green bar of lye soap in his right hand — held as if it were extremely heavy or dangerous, held like a shot put or a grenade.

Molly Cabot peered into her soup, prodigiously counting the noodles or rice. Angelo leaned across the table until his nose was almost in her hair.

“You got to apologize to Miss Celeste. Girl,” he said softly, “you got to get up and do it right now.”

Molly didn't look up from her soup. She said, “No, Angelo.” And then, very quietly, she added, “You go back to the kitchen. Right now.”

Angelo put his hand on the edge of Molly's soup dish, palm up, and he let the bar of lye soap slide into her soup.

“Right now,” Angelo softly commanded. “You apologize or I'll wash your mouth out good.”

Molly pushed her chair back from the table and began to stand up, but Angelo caught her by the shoulders, pulled her across the table to him, and began to force her head down, down to the soup dish. The girl sitting next to Molly screamed — one shrill and aimless scream — and Angelo got his hand on the back of Molly's neck and shoved her face into the soup. He dunked her swiftly, just once, and then he caught her by one shoulder and pulled her to him, his right hand groping for the soap. There was a boy sitting across the aisle from Molly's table. He jumped up and shouted, “Hey!” But Celeste was the first to get to Angelo; she seized him around the waist and picked him off the floor, loosened his grip on Molly, and then tried to shift him over her hip, tried to carry him down the aisle to the kitchen. But Angelo wriggled free of her; he wriggled into hairy Flynn. Flynn grabbed Angelo in a bear hug and everyone heard Angelo grunt. Flynn just turned and walked Angelo toward the kitchen, bending the thin body to a sharp curve at the spine; Celeste ran in front of them, got to the door first and held it open.

Angelo kicked and clawed, snapping his head around to try and see where Molly had gone. “You whore!” Angelo screamed, his breath pinched out of him in thin soprano. And then they passed through the great door — Angelo peering madly over the shoulders of Flynn, Celeste hurrying after them, the door swinging heavily closed.

Minna caught one glimpse of Molly Cabot, leaving the dining hall with a napkin over her face, her blouse spattered with soup and clinging to her birdlike chest. Her scalded, offended, demure breasts seemed to point the way of her determined exit. Then Mrs. Elwood took Minna by the arm and whispered, confidingly, “I must know what this is about. Whatever possessed him? He must leave at once. At once!”

In the kitchen Angelo sat in grand disorder on the floor, leaning against an aluminum cabinet. Flynn roughly dabbed at Angelo's mouth with a wet towel; Angelo was bleeding from his mouth, and he slumped, bespattered with soup, bleeding slowly down his chin. He moaned a high, complaining moan — the whine of an abandoned dog — and his eyes were closed.

“What did you do to him?” Celeste asked Flynn.

“He must have bit his tongue,” Flynn mumbled.

“I did, I did,” Angelo said, his voice muted by the towel which Flynn squeezed against his mouth.

“Christ, what a stupid wop,” Flynn grumbled.

Celeste took the towel from Flynn and shoved him away from Angelo. “Let me do that,” she said. “You'll rub his whole face off.”

“I should have hit her,” Angelo blurted. “I should have just hit her a good one.”

“Christ, listen to him!” Flynn shouted.

“Shut up, Flynn,” Celeste said.

And Minna, silent all this time, moused in a corner of the kitchen. She said, “He'll have to leave. Mrs. Elwood said he'll have to leave at once.”

“Christ, what'll he do?” Flynn asked. “Where in hell can he go?”

“Don't worry about me,” Angelo said. He blinked his eyes and smiled at Celeste. She knelt in front of him, made him open his mouth so that she could see his tongue; she had a clean handkerchief in the pocket of her dress and she gently touched his tongue with it, gently closed his mouth, took his hand and made him hold the wet towel to his lips. Angelo shut his eyes again, leaned forward, his head falling on Celeste's shoulder. Celeste settled back on her ankles, wrapped one great arm around Angelo, and slowly rocked him, forward and backward, until he made himself into a little ball on her breast — his curious moan began again, only now it was more like someone making up a song.

“I'll lock the door,” Flynn said, “so's no one can come in.”

Minna watched, a dull ache in her throat, the prelude to great weeping and sorrow; and arising with the ache was a coldness in her hands and feet. This was hate — oddly enough, she thought — hate for Angelo's possessor, for Celeste, his captor, who now held him as if he were a wild, trapped rabbit. She calmed him, she would tame him; Angelo, dutifully, was her pet and her child, her charge — possessed by this vast, sensuous body, which now and forever would be his magnificent, unachievable goal. And he wouldn't even be aware of what it was that held him to her.