The Son of Someone Famous (19 page)

“Brenda Belle,” he said, “I don't have time to talk. This is an emergency. I'm at the hospital with a friend of my father's. She tried to commit suicide.”

“Who tried to commit suicide?”

“I can't go into it now,” he said. “Brenda Belle, you said a few days ago that you'd do anything you could for me.”

“That's true,” I said.

“I'm asking you to do something for me now. Something very, very important, Brenda Belle.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Do you promise to do it?”

“I said
okay
!”

“Promise,” he said.

“I
promise,
Adam!”

Never, never, never promise before you know what you are promising.

You may find yourself one fine evening dressed as a man, carrying the head of Sir Walter Raleigh, en route to a Valentine dance with Queen (hatred is immortal!) Elizabeth.

“Don't forget to spread your cloak at my feet so I can walk across it when we get inside,” Christine Cutler said as we approached the gym.

“$%¢&*@#!” I answered.

“Brenda Belle, I can't hear a thing you're saying with that sweater over your face, so don't try to talk.”

Her father had dropped us off in the parking lot.

“I want her home by one o'clock, Marlon,” he'd said to me. “Not one thirty, not one fifteen, not one ten. One o'clock on the dot!”

I'd nodded my head up and down in assent and plowed through the snow a little ahead of Christine. She'd reached out and yanked me back. She was still hanging on to me.

“You're being a real good sport about this, Brenda Belle,” she said. “I hope Adam's all right. I hope that friend of his father's doesn't die and spoil things so he can't get here. He said he'd get here, though, so she must be coming out of it. She's probably having her stomach pumped. I remember when old Mrs. Yarrow gave her basset hound a lot of tranquilizers to quiet him down, and my father had to pump out his stomach—
that
wa
s
a night to beat all nights! . . . Brenda Belle, don't tread on my train, please.”

“STOP THE CHATTER! THE CHATTER MAKES ME NERVOUS!” I shouted.

“Don't shout,” she said. “You can be heard.”

“IT'S ABOUT TIME!” I said.

“Shhhh, Brenda Belle, people will know you're a girl.”

We went inside and Queen Elizabeth hied herself off to the Girls', while I stood there carrying my head and praying to God my bladder would hold out through the evening. Adam had promised that he'd arrive with a woman's coat and a blonde wig for me to change into, and that by the time he got there, Marlon Fredenberg would have shown up to be my date. Adam would then take over as Sir Walter Raleigh, and we'd all double.

While I waited for Christine, I tore at one of the air holes in the sweater, making it wider so I could breathe and talk.

“For God's sake, don't bite your nails,” Christine said as she approached from behind. “Sir Walter Raleigh didn't bite his nails.”

“How am I supposed to be introduced?” I said. “It's one thing for your father to think I'm Marlon Fredenberg, but all the kids know Marlon's in Stowe with the basketball team.”

“You're the Mystery Man,” she said. “If you have to speak, speak in a very low voice.”

“I already have a very low voice,” I said, “or haven't you noticed?”

The band was playing a slow number as we entered the gym. The lights were very low, and everyone was dancing except the boys who came stag and the girls on Wallflower Row whose dates were ignoring them.

Christine kept punching my side with her elbow, signaling for me to spread my cloak at her feet. When I finally did it, she said, “Thank you, Sir Walter,” in this loud
voice, and walked across it with this snotty expression on her face.

Then she said, “Well? Pick it up.”

“You pick it up,” I said.

“Queen Elizabeth didn't pick it up,” she said. “Use your head.”

“I don't have a head,” I said, beginning to enjoy myself.

“Pick up the cloak!” she commanded.

“Don't make a scene,” I said.

“I thought you were a good sport.”

“I have my limits,” I said.

She bent down and picked up the cloak with two fingers. “Yiiiik! It's dirty.”

“That's why
I
didn't pick it up,” I said.

“What'll I do with it?”

“Give it to me,” I said.

She handed it to me, and I hung it across her shoulders. “So you won't feel the draft,” I said.

“#%&¢$*#@, Brenda Belle!” She slapped the cloak back at me.

“You can be heard,” I reminded her. “Lower your voice or everyone will know you date girls.”

“You got my gown filthy!” she muttered under her breath.

“Let's dance,” I said, shaking out the cloak and fastening it across my shoulders.

She began to sneeze from the dust.

I grabbed hold of her and began pushing her around the floor. “Isn't this fun?” I said. “You're a good sport, Christine.”

“Get off my toes,” she said.

I said. “You dance divinely.”

“You don't,” she said.

“Beggars can't be choosers.”

“Keep that head away from my bare back,” she said.

“We really need some ketchup for that head,” I said. “Heads bleed when they're cut off.”

“Don't talk,” she said. “Do you
have
to talk?”

“What kind of a date would I be if I didn't talk?”

“Then don't talk about blood, please.”

“That head should not only have blood dripping off it, there should be icky pieces of flesh and torn purple tendons extending from it.”

“Will you shut up?”

“And pus probably, too; it'd be infected by this time,” I said; “or it'd have maggots starting to collect on it.”

“
Why
are you doing this?” she said.

“I wouldn't do it to everyone,” I told her. “Only a select few, like the select few you had over on Christmas Eve.”

“So that's it! Can't you forgive and forget?”

“I've forgiven,” I said, “but I haven't forgotten. . . . Excuse me, was that your big toe?”

Ty Hardin was making his way across the dance floor, heading in our direction. He was dressed like a prince, and in case no one got the point, he had a name tag across his chest with ROMEO printed on it in large letters.

Christine said, “Don't let him cut in. I'm not speaking to him.”

“I thought he was going with Diane Wattley.”

“He is. He brought her here. I saw her in the girls' room.”

“He's not with her now,” I said.

“Well, he's not going to be with me, not for one second.”

Ty tapped me on the shoulder a minute later.

“This is my dance,” he said to me.

“Thanks,” I said making my voice as low as possible. “I was bored stiff!” Then I walked away, leaving Christine with him.

I saw Marilyn Pepper standing over in Wallflower Row, dressed as a flapper from the twenties. Her parents always forced her brother to bring her to dances, and her brother always spent a lot of time out in the parking lot smoking.

I bowed very low as I stood in front of her. She had done a fairly good job of hiding her pimples with pancake makeup.

“Who are you?” she said.

I gave a shrug and bowed low again.

As we danced, she said, “Do I know you?”

Another shrug, but I pulled her closer. “I am your secret friend.”

“Did you send me that card?”

I nodded.

“Milton Merrensky, is that you?”

I shrugged. Milton Merrensky was the shyest boy in Storm. I had never even seen him at a dance. He was rumored to have an IQ of 160, and you could find him any Saturday morning down in Hogg's Swamp, doing birdcalls, with binoculars around his neck.

Marilyn Pepper was smiling. “How did you make that
head, Milton?” She had a nice smile. I didn't say anything, and we just danced and she smiled, and when the band played a fast number she said, “I can't dance fast ones.” I led her back to Wallflower Row. Before I walked away, I said, “Don't forget me,” in the same low voice.

I looked out at the dancers and saw Christine with Ty. They were not dancing. She was pointing her finger at him and there was this mean expression on her face, and he was backing away. Then she was standing in the center of the dance floor alone, looking all around. I knew she was looking for me. I walked in the opposite direction, past the chaperones.

Ella Late Who Has No Fate was standing at the end of the line. She was wearing the same new blue-and-yellow dress she'd been wearing nonstop for about two and a half weeks now. I stopped in front of her and bowed low.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I don't dance. . . . Is it you, Adam?”

I shrugged.

She said, “Really, I don't dance. Thank you, anyway.
Is
it you, Adam?”

I whispered, “Did you get my notes?”

Her face became bright red, but she was pleased, as well as slightly embarrassed—I could tell that from her expression. She said, “Pay attention to your lessons, not me.”

“You're my inspiration,” I whispered.

“Then study!” she whispered back.

“I will!” I blew her a kiss and hurried on.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Christine heading for Wallflower Row.

I had a fine time. I danced with Sue Ellen Chayka, whose nose resembles a baboon's (she was there with Danton Trice, who weighed in at 214 and sat out most fast numbers), and after Christine got off Wallflower Row (it didn't take the boys in the stag line long to spot her there), I danced with Marilyn Pepper again, and got her a glass of punch before sailing off mysteriously.

After about an hour, I went out to the parking lot where some boys were smoking. I needed some fresh air after being cooped up inside that sweater. Marilyn's brother, Peter Pepper, was standing there drinking some Strawberry Ripple Wine he had secreted in a brown paper bag.

“Thanks for being nice to my sister, Milton,” he said.

I shrugged.

He said, “Did you hear about Adam Blessing?”

I shook my head.

“Wait till you hear this,” he said.

I listened. I even took one of the cigarettes he offered me and suffered through a small coughing fit, trying to inhale nonchalantly while he gave me all the details. His father worked for the Storm Taxi Company and he had told Peter that last night he had driven this young girl to the Blessing place. He'd known Charlie wasn't there, because he'd taken Charlie to the Burlington Airport earlier in the week. He'd said the young girl was the flashy type with dyed hair and the smell of whiskey. She'd had a suitcase with her.

“That isn't all, either,” Peter said. “This afternoon they took her out of there in an ambulance. She'd taken sleeping pills, and she was in this fire-red negligee with fur on it, and
Adam was with her!”

“Wow!” I whistled.

“Yeah. Everybody's talking about it. I bet she's some whore. Do you think she's some whore?”

I shrugged and stepped on the cigarette. I went back into the gym and searched for Christine. She was dancing with Larry Brenner, who came up to her shoulder. I went up and cut in.

“Where have you
been
?” she said.

“Never mind that,” I said. “I just heard something wild about Adam!”

“I heard it, too. Ty told me. When Marlon gets here I'm Marlon's date!”

“I'm Marlon's date!” I said.

“Keep your voice down,” she said. “Don't dance with me and shout out that you're Marlon's date!”

“You're Adam's date,” I said.

“He's spent the night with some chorus girl!” she said.

I said, “I heard it was a whiskey-drinking whore.”

“A friend of his
father's
,” she said sarcastically. “He said it was a
friend
of his
father's
!”

“It's a free country,” I said.

“My father was right about him. We don't know anything about him!”

“You said yourself he was different.”

“Keep that head away from my shoulder and back!” she said.

“It isn't easy to dance carrying your head,” I said. “You should try it sometime.”

“You're going to pay for the way you've acted tonight,” she said.