She nodded after her prediction.
"Don't worry about that, Ami. I won't feel guilty, and I certainly wouldn't permit a boy to make love to me out of some sense of guilt," I said firmly.
She studied my face a moment and then smiled. "Good. Good. Because I want you to be a happy girl, a wholesome happy girl," she said.
She sighed and looked around, but I could tell she wasn't looking at anything. She was locked in her own head, listening to her own thoughts. I saw her tears emerge like prisoners quietly escaping over a wall.
"Ami. . ."
"I suppose you think I'm weird and strange and horrible after learning that story."
"No, I don't. I really don't," I said, and she turned and looked at me.
She smiled at the sincerity in my face.
"Oh, Celeste, you are special," she said, and hugged me. "Thank you. Thank you."
She pulled back as if she thought I would read something salacious in her embrace.
I reached out and took her hand.
"Thanks for trusting me with your secrets," I told her, and she relaxed and then smiled.
"So," she said, standing after another silent moment, "why don't we wash away all this sadness and stupidity by going to the Nest for lunch? It's a popular restaurant on Sundays. I feel like a lobster salad and some wine and maybe a chocolate souffle. Go get dressed. It's too beautiful a day to waste on regrets," she declared firmly. Then she looked at me and asked, "Okay?"
I smiled.
"Okay, Ami. Sure," I said, and we both started for the house.
"I hate to be a complainer this morning," I added as we walked, "but Mrs. Cukor--"
"Now what?"
"She must have thrown a chunk of garlic into the washing machine when she did the sheet she put on my bed last night."
I couldn't help laughing after telling her.
"She didn't? Really?"
I nodded.
"Oh, brother," Ami said. "I'll have it changed while we're at lunch. Why doesn't that woman go off and join a circus?"
Maybe she thinks she has, I thought, but I kept it to myself.
Ami shook her head.
"You're right to laugh about it, too. We've got to look on the bright side of things. It's actually very funny," she declared.
She did have the amazing ability to forget unhappiness and become ebullient and jovial. I decided she was an emotional chameleon, able to blend into any atmosphere, wherever she was and whatever she was doing. Anyone looking at us when we entered the Nest, especially looking at her, would think the events at our house the night before were surely fiction. She knew many of the people who were having Sunday lunch there, but only one woman, Joy Stamford, a round-faced redhead, had the nerve to ask her outright if the story she had heard this morning was true.
"The Foley boy fell off your roof and broke his shoulder last night?"
Ami didn't even bat an eyelash, nor let her smile slip off her face.
"It was so stupid, Joy, it's not even worth discussing," she said. "I'm sure the Foleys are so embarrassed they'll go into hibernation."
"Well, what happened?" Joy insisted, playing now for the two other women at her table.
"We really don't know. There was a
commotion, and then Wade found him lying there and called an ambulance."
All the women looked at me.
Ami saw where their attention had gone.
"And poor Celeste is just as much in the dark as everyone else. Maybe he was just a Peeping Tom," she added. "Poetic justice. How's the lobster salad today? I just hate it when it's stringy."
"Oh, it's wonderful," one of the other women said, and we went to our own table, where Ami held court much the same way she did everywhere she went.
"You see," she said, smiling and nodding at anyone who looked our way, "you don't show how upset you are. That's what they're hoping to see. They so enjoy someone else's troubles. You take their mean comments and just deflect them a bit and laugh, and thus you frustrate them. I know how to handle them. They are my mother's people. I've been in their world and lived in their country and spoken their language.
"And so will you, Celeste. You'll be even better at all this than I am. I'm sure of it," she said, and ordered us our lobster salads.
Early that evening, before we were to go out to dinner as Wade had proposed, my phone rang. It wasn't Trevor, as I expected, however. It was Waverly.
"He's in some pain," he said, "and asked me to call you for him. They have him under some sedation, but he managed to get out his plea like a dying man's last request," Waverly said in overly dramatic tones. "You should see the cast they have him in," he added. "He won't be driving for some time, and he won't be climbing up to your room either."
"Tell him I hope he gets better quickly," I offered. "Sure. If you want, I'll take you over to see him tomorrow. He's home. We can go right after school."
"I can't. I have a driving lesson, and then I have a piano lesson," I added.
"What about the day after tomorrow?"
"I can't," I simply said.
"That's not being very nice. He risked his life to see you, and left my party to boot," he added. I envisioned his impish smile.
"From what I heard, he risked his life going to your party," I countered, and Waverly laughed.
"Hey, I just wanted you to know I'm available to serve you in any way you'd like. Any way you think I might be of some assistance," he added, with sexual overtones that could not be ignored.
"I'll keep fiat in mind if they start asking me to take out the garbage," I threw back at him. "Thanks for calling."
I hung up before he could respond, but I was sure his ears had turned red.
Despite all that and despite Ami's warnings, I did feel sorry for Trevor, and I had every intention of finding a way to visit him, if I could. I wasn't sure how his parents had reacted and whom they blamed. I didn't want to complicate the situation any more than it was, especially for Wade, but I couldn't help wondering what stories would be made up about me now.
As if she could hear my thoughts, Lynette Firestone called minutes afterward. I had just started my homework.
"Hi," she said, and before I could even say hello, added, "everyone's talking about what happened to Trevor at your house. Was he drunk? Did you let him in, or did he fall trying to get into your room? Did you invite him?" she asked, not pausing or taking a breath between questions.
"How did you get this phone number?" I asked first. I was sure Trevor wouldn't have given it to her, and now I wondered if Waverly was giving my number out to everyone as a joke.
"Your cousin gave it to my mother," she replied. "She thought we could be friends and that you needed a friend, especially now."
Why was it so important to Ami that I be friends with Lynette Firestone, one of the most unpopular girls at the school?
"So tell me. What really happened?" she pursued.
"I just heard this morning that something did. I was asleep the whole time. Thanks for calling," I said.
"What?" I heard her say as I hung up.
Soon after, Ami came by to remind me to dress for dinner. She was making Wade take us to what she said was one of the more expensive steak houses.
"I need meat tonight," she declared. "I have to build myself up."
She pretended to flex her biceps, laughed, and went to get dressed herself.
When we descended the stairs together, Wade came out of the living room, and we were both surprised to see his father beside him.
"Dad's decided to come along with us tonight," Wade said. The look on his face and the way he said it made it perfectly clear that it was Basil's idea entirely.
Ami stiffened and pursed her lips.
"We're not discussing what happened here last night, Basil. It's over and done with."
"I'm sure it is," he said, smiling at her. His eyes, however, went quickly to me, and the smile on his face told me exactly from where his thoughts were coming. For the first time since I arrived, I truly felt a sense of danger.
Basil insisted that he be thought of as my escort for the evening.
"Celeste is my date tonight," he said, and directed Ami to sit in front so he and I could sit in the rear. Before we reached the restaurant, he was holding my hand and talking like a teenage boy, bragging about his skiing ability, the trip he took to Europe last winter, and how he's always been a great athlete, which he said, kept him young.
Although Ami had insisted he not talk about the events of the evening before, he teased us both about them, claiming our castle walls had been scaled, and the fair damsel within was in great danger.
"I can see I might have to spend more time at the house as long as we have this fair beauty living behind our walls and gates," he said.
"That's like having the fox in the chicken coop,"
Wade commented, and to my surprise, Basil roared with laughter instead of being insulted.
When we arrived at the restaurant, he did try to be charming, opening doors for me, holding my arm when we entered, pulling out my chair for me, explaining and reviewing the best things on the menu, and recommending what he thought I'd like the most. He talked about other places he had been since his wife's death, describing his visits to Asia and Africa, where he went on a hunting safari, their foods and wines and scenery. At times it felt as if only he and I were at the table. Both Wade and Ami were left out of the conversation."There's nothing more enriching than traveling, Celeste," he told me. "And traveling in style."
"Yes, well, that takes money," Wade muttered, finally interrupting his father. Basil turned around slowly and replied in deliberate and strong tones.
"Which she's going to have. I can tell," he said, winking at me. "I know the winners from the losers, Wade, and this girl has winner written all over her." He leaned toward me and whispered, "All over."
I felt myself blush.
Our meals were served, and mine was as delicious as Basil had predicted it would be. I was served a glass of the wine from the bottle he had chosen, too. While we ate, Basil went on and on about the great restaurants he had been in, and continually taunted Wade about his failure to enjoy life. The only places Wade had been to that Basil had been to were the places he had been taken when he was a child and young boy.
"Someone has to mind the store," Wade offered in his own defense.
"Yeah, you do that, Wade. You mind the store while me and Celeste here enjoy ourselves, right, Celeste?"
I didn't respond, and he laughed. Occasionally I looked at Ami to see if she was getting annoyed or angry with Basil's flirtatious antics and total concentration on me, but she seemed withdrawn into her own thoughts. Eventually Wade asked her if she was all right, and she said she was just more tired than she had anticipated.
"We've got to make it an early evening anyway," Wade said. "There's school tomorrow, and I have a lot to do at the plant, Dad. You know that shipment from Burlington came in all wrong. There is so much incompetency these days. I've got to go through the invoices line by line, item by item."
"Right, right," Basil said, waving the air as though Wade's conversation was full of flies instead of words. "Don't you remember what your mother used to tell me?" he added, leaning over toward Wade. "Don't discuss business at dinner. It's not polite. The women will be bored. I can't imagine this young woman having any interest in your pipes," he added, his words falling like slaps on Wade's now reddened cheeks.
Basil winked at me again, as if he and I had conspired in this attack on Wade. I couldn't help feeling sorry for Wade, and I wanted to come to his defense, but I kept my sharp words under lock and key. I felt like we were all sitting on a powder keg, and all it would take was one contrary word to Basil to set it off. I certainly didn't want to be the one to light the fuse.
Suddenly, however, Ami laughed, a nervous, high-pitched laugh that seemed to come out of nowhere and caught everyone's attention.
"You know, Basil," she said, "you're just impossible. You'll never let anyone contradict you."
"I hope not," he told her. His eyes narrowed, and his impish and flirtatious smile suddenly flew off and left a dark, almost threatening expression there instead.
Ami looked as if her breath had caught. She brought her hand to the base of her throat and then looked away quickly. The tension I sensed between her and Basil confused me for a moment. The memories of old shadows unfolding like clenched fists flooded my brain. I could hear the voices whispering warnings, and I recalled the farmhouse walls pulsating like the walls of a quickened heart. Darkness seeped in under the doors. Asleep in her bedroom, Mama woke with a scream. Owls froze on branches and the moon slipped behind a cloud.
In my memory I was crying and calling for Noble, but he was already gone by then, and my sense of loneliness was second only to the sense of death lying down beside me, tickling and teasing me with its cold fingers. The unmarked small grave in the family cemetery unzipped in my nightmares. Someone was coming: someone terrible was coming.
"Are you all right?" Wade suddenly asked me. "You look a little pale, Celeste."
Now everyone's eyes were on me.
I nodded, weakly.
"I'm okay."
"Let the girl be, Wade," Basil said. "I don't know how or why you turned out to be such a nervous Nellie!'
"Yeah, it's a big mystery, Dad. Let's call it a night." He signaled for the waitress. "She's been through a traumatic experience. We should have just spent the night at home."
"Oh, nonsense," Basil said. "She's too young to call that a traumatic experience. She's fine. You're fine, Celeste. You don't have to worry about anything. If my son here doesn't protect you, you can be sure I'll be there. She just needs some good things happening in her life. Now, what's this hesitation about getting her a car?" he suddenly blurted, taking Wade by surprise and certainly me as well.
"Hesitation? She hasn't even gotten her license yet, Dad. She's just started taking lessons."
"Lessons," he muttered. "Nowadays, young people even take lessons in how to eat. For crying out loud. My father threw me into our old truck and said get going and don't hit anything or I'll wack you from here to kingdom come, and I haven't had an accident in forty years of driving. What's so complicated about it, especially today, where you don't have to shift? You point and shoot, for crissakes. Listen, Celeste, I'll be by tomorrow when you come home from school to give you a driving lesson that will qualify you in less than an hour."
"But we have the driving instructor coming then, Dad," Wade said, almost whining.
"Driving instructor be damned. Those people drag it on and on to make more money off you. Cancel it. I'll teach the kid, and then I'll take her to get her driving test. I know everyone over at the motor vehicle bureau anyway. I'll collect on some favors I'm owed."
I looked to Ami to put up an argument, but she simply smiled.
"Don't worry, Wade. She does know the basics already," she said. "And you know as well as I do that it's who you know in this world too often and not what you know."
Wade started to protest, but Basil reached across the table and plucked the bill that the waitress had just given him out of his hand. It took Wade by surprise, and he choked on his reply before he could get out the words.
"I might as well be the one signing for it," Basil said. "I'm paying for it anyway."
I had the feeling he was doing it for my benefit, acting like a bragging teenager. Wade's face was as flushed as if he had a terrible fever.
And laughed again, that same shrill nervous laugh.
Wade's eyes went to me. There was a desperately sad look in them. I pretended interest in something going on elsewhere just so he wouldn't be embarrassed.
On the way home, we heard another one of Basil's lectures about the school of hard knocks.
"You can spend your whole life in classrooms and not learn half of what you'll learn in the real world," he said, practically bellowing now. "Man to man, face to face with important decisions, knowing how to back someone down and when to maneuver, that's the ticket. When you negotiate for potentially prize real estate, for example, it don't matter if your grammar ain't perfect, Celeste. What you got to know is how desperate the other guy is to make the sale. That's the secret to everything: learn how desperate the other guy is, what he wants and needs first, and then take action. As long as you're in a position to do something for someone else, you'll get what you want in this life.
"Ain't that right, And?" he asked.
She looked like she had just been stung by a bee. She was flustered a moment, then quickly said, "Yes."
"Yes," Basil repeated, nodding.
Wade said nothing, but I could see from the way his neck tightened against the base of his head that he was furious. When we arrived at the house, we stopped next to Basil's car so he could get out before we went into the garage. I sensed it was Wade's way of making sure he left and didn't go into the house with us.
Basil took my hands firmly into his and repeated his offer to teach me how to drive the next day.
"I'll set up your driving test myself," he added. "See you after school."
He leaned over and kissed me on the lips so quickly, I had no time to turn my cheek to him instead. He laughed at my surprise.
Then he reached over and slapped Wade on the shoulder, rather sharply, I thought.
"Get some sleep, Wade. You've got a big day at the plant tomorrow going over item by item, and I expect profits to go up this year, the way I'm spending money. Ami, my dear, sweet dreams," he said, throwing her a kiss.
"Good night, Basil."
He got out, went to his car, and drove off as we continued to the garage in silence.
"I'm tired of apologizing for him," I heard Wade tell Ami as we headed down the hallway.
"Then don't," she said, and walked ahead of him.
"Good night, Celeste," Wade told me at the top of the stairway. He didn't look back. His shoulders slumped, and his head was down. I wished I could say something that might cheer him up, but all I said was, "Good night."
He went to their bedroom. Arai stood beside me, watching him go, and then turned to me.
"Don't be upset about Basil's offer, Celeste. He means what he says. He'll get you your own car. Let him teach you how to drive. You'll have your license in no time, and I know how important it is for you to feel independent. Just put up with him. He's really not that dangerous," she offered, "and he really likes feeling important. It never hurts to stroke the guy with the bank account. Never refuse a favor from Basil Emerson. That's my motto."
She embraced me and kissed my cheek.
"Everything will be better tomorrow. It always is," she said.
Before I could say another word or ask a question, she went to her room and closed her door softly.
I was happy to discover that my bed sheets had been changed, and the garlic odor was gone. Exhausted, I fell asleep almost the moment my head hit the pillow. As usual these days, it was Wade's phone call that woke me. I showered and dressed and hurried down to join him for breakfast. I was anxious to tell him I wouldn't let his father give me driving lessons if he didn't want him to, but that wasn't the way Wade presented it.
"I said last night that I wasn't going to apologize for my father anymore, but I am. I'm sorry he was so obnoxious last night. I can stop him from coming over here to give you driving lessons if you would rather he didn't," he offered.
If I would rather? He would use me as the reason to keep his father from coming.
"It's not important, Wade," I said. The last thing I wanted now was to be the cause of a rift between Wade and Basil, especially after what had happened with Trevor. I'd certainly feel like the one bringing the evil eye into their home, just as Mrs. Cukor predicted.
"You sure you don't mind?"
"I'm okay with it," I assured him.
"I'd offer to do it myself, but I could only do it on weekends. Dad has all this free time on his hands," he muttered. "The truth is, he never ran the company as well as I'm running it."
"It's all right," I said.
"I suppose I should be happy he's doing something productive with his time. It keeps him out of my hair," he added. Then he looked up at me quickly and smiled.
"He did teach me how to drive. He wasn't the most patient instructor, but we got through it. I'm sure he'll be nicer to you than he was to me. He was nicer to my sister."
It was the first time he had ever made a reference to her, I thought. There were all sorts of questions on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them back.
"If it's in the least bit unpleasant for you, don't hesitated to--"
"I'll be fine," I said, more confidently.
He nodded.
"I'm sure you will."
Ami didn't get up and come down before it was time for Wade and I to leave. As we drew closer to the school, I could see he was more nervous than I was about how the other students would treat me.
"You let me know if the Foleys made up any stories about you," he told me. "Chris Foley knows his son was drinking, and it was entirely his fault. You'll let me know," he said again when we pulled into the school lot.
"I'll be okay, Wade. Thanks," I told him.
When I entered my homeroom, I saw from the looks on their faces that the other students were chatting about me and Trevor. Lynette Firestone pouted, and Germaine Osterhout gloated.
"I guess you knocked Trevor off his feet," Waverly quipped. "By the time he left you, he was too dizzy to navigate."
The boys laughed licentiously, and the girls looked at me with glee lighting up their eyes.
"If you had confided in me, I could have helped you back there," Lynette told me after the bell had rung and we were off to our first class.
"Help me with what?" I asked her.
After what I had been through in my life, being the object of some juvenile humor was hardly worth a second thought. It was easy to ignore them, to look right though them and let their words bounce off my ears.
"They'll ruin your reputation," Lynette said, "and don't expect Trevor Foley to come to your aid later on. You'll see. They all stick together!'
Maybe they do, I thought, but what was so important about it anyway? Suddenly my time here, living with the Emersons, going to this rich school, didn't seem as desirable as I had hoped it would be. I used to sit in the orphanage and dream about turning eighteen and being on my own. I was like someone who was serving a prison sentence and counting the days to freedom. This life now was supposed to be the start of that freedom--look at all that had been lavished upon me already--but in ways I could never have imagined, I felt even more incarcerated than I had been at the orphanage.