The St. Ambrose School for Girls(88)

Francesca is standing in the open doorway of the stall. She’s put her hair up in a scrunchie and she has her toothbrush and toothpaste in her hand—and that’s when I realize that she’s been doing successfully what I just failed to execute: You can always tell when the pretty girls purge after they eat because they have to get their long, beautiful hair out of the way. It’s the only time those locks are not down around their narrow shoulders.

“Well?” she prompts.

Even though she’s inquiring about my welfare, it’s not exactly with charity. From her superior, far more comely elevation, she’s regarding me like a stray dog in the street that she may or may not have to call animal control about. Given her pursed lips, it’s clear that she’d really rather write me off and keep going. She’s not like Greta, though. If she leaves the stray with a broken leg in the middle of the road, it will bother her later. It will not sit right.

Just like putting my essay in all those mailboxes and showing up in tennis whites ultimately affected her.

“When Greta punched you in the eye on Mountain Day,” I hear myself say, “was it because you knew what she was doing with Nick Hollis?”

The color drains out of the girl’s face, transforming her subtle makeup job into Bozo the Clown’s version of Maybelline.

“What are you talking about,” she whispers.

I don’t even try to get up off the bathroom floor. My legs won’t handle my weight for so many reasons, and besides, I’ve been beneath her and her kind since the day I drove onto campus in a ten-year-old Mercury. Going eye to eye isn’t going to change anything.

“It’s not right,” I say. “The whole thing. He’s fucking married.”

There are moments when the rigid hierarchy of teenage social status melts away, and this is one of them. The significance of what I’ve broached is so great that it sandblasts our distinctions of pretty girl and insane outcast away. We are merely human. And we are both appalled.

“How did you find out?” she says softly.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Francesca looks around the empty bathroom. I look at her. I realize that she, like Stacia, has been a blur to me, the unfocused background behind the object my camera’s lens has been so sharply focused on. Her face is not as pretty as I’ve always thought it was, her nose a little too long in her lean face, her profile therefore birdlike as her chin is no match for its projection. I’m guessing she will fix this imbalance before she goes to college, and likely, too, the size of her breasts. Her skin is perfect, however, so smooth and unblemished that it is alabaster with a blood source. And of course, courtesy of her after-dinner toilet stall habits, no one can fault her body fat percentage.

Assuming a vertical yardstick is the standard you’re applying to her figure.

“I caught them back in early September,” she says in a hushed rush, like she’s been holding on to the secret for a while. “I was in the newsletter offices alone way late.”

Copying my essay? I wonder. No, given the timing, that was closer to the fake geometry memo. But I am no longer angry about the pranks or violations of my privacy. At least, I’m not angry with her.

“His office is on the same floor as the newsroom,” she says. “It’s way down at the end of the hall. I was leaving and they walked out of his door together. His hair was a mess. So was hers. He was tucking his shirt back into his pants.” Francesca shakes her head. “Like I don’t know what they were doing in there? Come on.”

“They didn’t see you?”

“No. They were too busy flirting with each other. And then on Mountain Day, she was being way obvious. Talking to him. Touching his arm or his shoulder. When we got to the park, I told her she better chill if she didn’t want the whole school to—” There’s the bang of a door out in the hallway and her head whips around. But she doesn’t stop. She talks faster, like we might be running out of time. “I said she was making a fool out of herself and she needed to quit it. She went outer limits on me.”

“But you kept on being friends with her.”

Francesca’s eyes come back to me. “What am I supposed to do? Sit at a table alone?” She looks down quickly. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“So how do you know?”

“I found her panties in his laundry. It’s a long story, but there’s no doubt whose jeans pocket they were in.”

Francesca’s eyes bug out. “When was this?”

“Over Columbus Day weekend.”

“Are you going to go to the administration?”

In this, I can be absolutely truthful. “No. They wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

“Yeah, totally.” She doesn’t bother to apologize for that gibe, but again, I am not offended. “Someone needs to tell on them. And it’s not because I want him or something. It’s just wrong. We’re children, for godsakes. And he’s married.”

I nod, even though I’m not exactly sure I believe her. Given how she was looking at Nick Hollis on that bus? I think boundaries could have been crossed with her, too, if he were so inclined. Something tells me Greta’s the only one he’s been with here at Ambrose, though—not because he has any particular virtue, but because she wouldn’t stand for any competition.