Annie on My Mind

Chapter eight

There was a pause and then Nana said, "Lize, you have a
fight with Annie, no?"

"Yes," I admitted. I could almost hear her head nodding

"I guess that when I see her come in. She look all fussed. Maybe you
call tomorrow, eh? It's none of my business, but sometimes people just
need a little time."

I knew she was right, but I couldn't let it go. I
didn't want to go to sleep thinking Annie was mad at me, or that I'd
hurt her in some unforgivable way. "Could you--could you just tell her
I'm sorry?" I said.

"Sure." Nana sounded relieved. "I tell her. But you
hang up now. Call tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," I said, hanging up. Mom's hand was on my shoulder the moment I
put down the receiver.

"Liza," she began, "Liza, shouldn't we talk about
this? You seem so upset, honey, what ..." But I wrenched away and ran
back to my room, where I read until dawn, mostly Shakespeare's sonnets,
and cried over the ones I had once copied out and sent to Annie. The
next afternoon I ran most of the way home from school, so I'd get there
before Chad; I knew Mom had a

meeting, and I wanted to be sure I was alone when I called Annie. But
Annie was waiting outside my building, sitting on the steps in a heavy
red-and-black lumber jacket I'd never seen before. I was so surprised to
see her I just stopped and stood there, but she got up right away and
came toward me, her arms woodenly at her sides. The lumber jacket was so
big it looked as though it belonged to someone else.

"Want to go for a
walk?" she asked. She looked haggard, as if she hadn't slept any more
than I had. I nodded and we walked silently toward the Promenade. I kept
twisting Annie's ring with the thumb and little finger of the hand it
was on, wondering if she was going to want it back. Annie leaned
against the railing, and seemed to be trying to follow the progress of
the Staten Island ferry through the fog.

"Annie," I began finally, "Annie, I ..."

She turned, leaning her back against the railing. "Nana
told me you'd called and that you were sorry," she said. "Accepted.
But ..."

"But?" I said, my heart racing. She hadn't smiled yet, and I knew I
hadn't either. "But--" said Annie, turning back to face the harbor, soft
hair blowing around her face. "Liza, we're like the temple and the choir
screen, as I thought the day I met you, only then I was just guessing.
You--you really are like the temple--light--you go happily on without
really noticing, and I'm dark, like the choir screen, like the room it's
in. I feel too much and want too much, I guess, I-- and ..."
She turned to face me again; her eyes were desolate. "I want to be
in the real world with you, Liza, for you, but--but we're still running
away. Or you are, or--Liza, I don't want to be afraid of this, of--of the
physical part of loving you. But you're making me afraid, and guilty,
because you seem to think it's wrong, or dirty, or something--maybe you
did all along, I don't know ..."

"No!" I interrupted loudly, unable to keep still any longer. "No--not
dirty, Annie, not ... I don't want to make you afraid," I finished
lamely. For a minute Annie seemed to be waiting for me to say something
else, but I couldn't just then.

"I really was praying there in the
museum," she said softly, "when you got so mad. I was praying that I
could ignore it if you wanted me to--not the love, but the physical
part of it. But having to do that--I think that makes me more afraid than
facing it would."

It came crashing through my foggy mind that in spite
of everything Annie had just said I wanted desperately to touch her, to
hold her, and then I was able to speak again. "It's not true," I said
carefully, "that I want to ignore it. And I'm not going on happily not
noticing." I stopped, feeling Annie take my hand, and realized my fists
were clenched. "It scares me, too, Annie," I managed to say, "but not
because I think it's wrong or anything--at least I don't think it's that.
It's--it's mostly because it's so strong, the love and the friendship and
every part of it." I think that was when I finally realized that--as I
said it.

"But you always move away," she said.

"You do, too."

"I--I know."

Then we both looked out at the harbor again, as if we'd just
met and were shy with each other again. But at least after that we were
able to begin talking about it. "It's timing, partly, it's as if we
never want the same thing at the same time," I said. We were sitting on
the sofa in my parents' living room. My parents and Chad were out, but
we didn't know for how long.

"I don't think so," said Annie. "It's the
one thing we don't know about each other, the one thing we aren't
letting each other know--as if we're blocking the channels,
because--because we're so scared of it, Liza. The real question still is
why." She reached for my hand. "I wish we could just sort of--let what
happens-- happen," she said. "Without thinking so much about it." Her
thumb was moving gently on my hand; her eyes had a special soft look in
them I've never seen in anyone's but Annie's, and only in Annie's when
she looked at me. "I'll promise to try not to move away next time," she
said.

"I--I'll promise, too," I said, my mouth so dry the words scraped.
"Right now I don't think I could stop anything from happening that
started." But a few minutes later my father's key turned in the lock and
we both jumped guiltily away from each other. And that was when there
began to be that problem, too--that there was really no place where we
could be alone. Of course there were times when no one was home at
Annie's apartment or mine, but we were always afraid that someone would
walk in. And it wasn't long before we began using that fear to mask our
deeper one; we were still restrained and hesitant with each other. But
maybe--and I think this is true--maybe we also just needed more time.

10

Finally the dreary cold winter warmed up and leaves started bursting
out on the trees. Daffodils and tulips and those blue flowers that grow
in clusters on stiff stems began to pop up all over the Heights, and
Annie and I spent much more time outdoors, which helped a little. Annie
discovered more dooryard gardens--even on my own street--than I ever
thought existed. We managed to go for a lot of walks that spring, even
though Annie was very busy with rehearsals for a new recital and I was
trying to finish my senior project and was helping Sally and Walt with
the fund drive--things really did look pretty bad for Foster.

Late one afternoon a week and a half before spring vacation, Mrs. Poindexter
called me into her office. "Eliza," she said, settling back into her
brown chair and actually almost smiling. "Eliza, I have been most
pleased with your conduct these last months. You have shown none of the
immaturity that steered you so wrongly last fall; your grades have, as
usual, been excellent, and Ms. Baxter reports to me that you have at
last begun to show an interest in the fund drive. Needless to say, your
record is now clear."

"Mrs. Poindexter," I asked after I recovered from the relief I felt, "is
it true that Foster might have to close?"

Mrs. Poindexter gave me a
long look. Then she sighed and said--gently--"I'm afraid it is, dear." Mrs.
Poindexter had never called anyone "dear" as far as I knew. Certainly
never me. "Eliza, you have been going to Foster since kindergarten.
That's nearly thirteen years--almost your entire lifetime. Some of our
teachers have been here much longer--I myself have been headmistress for
twenty-five years."

"It would be awful," I said, suddenly feeling sorry for her, "if Foster
had to close."

Mrs. Poindexter sniffed and fingered her glasses chain.
"We have tried to make it the best possible school. We have never had
the money to compete with schools like Brearley, but ..." She smiled
and reached out, patting my hand. "But this needn't concern you,
although I appreciate your sympathy. What I need from you--what Foster
needs from you," she said, squaring her shoulders, "is a heightened
participation in the fund drive. You as student council president have
enormous influence--a certain public influence as well, I may say. If you
could have, if you would use your position advantageously." I licked my
lips: if she was going to ask me to make speeches, I was going to have
to use every bit of self-control I had not to say no. Making just the
required campaign speeches after I was nominated for council president
had been one of the hardest things I'd ever done. Even when I had to get
up in front of English class and give an oal report, I always felt as if
I were going to my execution. "The fund drive," said Mrs. Poindexter,
picking up her desk calendar, "must be speeded up--we have so little
time now before the end of school. Mr. Piccolo and the fund
raiser tell me we are still far short of our goal, and the recruitment
campaign has not, so far, been a success. Mr. Piccolo says it is his
feeling that interest will pick up in the spring, so there is hope." She
smiled. "Eliza, I'm sure you will agree that this is the time for
student council to take an active part, to lead the other students, to
give Sally and Walt, who are working so very hard, a real boost, so to
speak."

"Well," I said, "we could talk about it at the next meeting. But there
isn't another, is there, till after vacation?"

"There is now," Mrs. Poindexter said triumphantly, pointing at the
calendar with her glasses. "I have scheduled one--assuming of course
that you and the others can go--but you will find that out for me, won't
you, like my good right hand? I've scheduled a special council meeting
for this Friday afternoon--and because Mr. Piccolo and his publicity
committee will be using the Parlor for an emergency fund-drive meeting
of their own, and because my apartment is too small and the school
dining room seems inappropriate, I have asked Ms. Stevenson as student
council adviser to volunteer her home, and she and Ms. Widmer have very
kindly agreed." She leaned back, still smiling. "Isn't that kind of
them?"

I just looked at her for a minute, not knowing which made me
madder--her calling a council meeting without saying anything to me
first, or her making Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer "volunteer" to have it
where they lived. "You are free Friday afternoon, aren't you?" For a
second I was tempted to invent an unbreakable dentist appointment,
but--well, if Foster's really in trouble,
I thought, I can't very well go around throwing obstacles in its
way. Besides, I felt pretty sure Mrs. Poindexter would go ahead with the
meeting even if I weren't there. "Yes," I said, trying not to say it too
obviously through my teeth. "Sure, I'm free."

Mrs. Poindexter's smile
broadened. "Good girl," she said. "And you will notify the others--or ask
Mary Lou to do so? You shouldn't have to, actually, being the president
..."

I think it was that last remark--her making a big deal of my being
president after scheduling a meeting without even notifying me till
afterwards--that made me storm over to the art studio. Ms. Stevenson was
washing brushes.

"I've been working on the railroad," she sang softly
above the sound of running water, "all the livelong day--hello, Liza. You
been working on the railroad too?"

"If," I said, yanking out a chair and throwing myself down at one of the
tables, "that's a subtle way of making a comment about being railroaded
into a certain council meeting, yes, I sure have been. I just came from
Mrs. Poindexter's officer. Only the spikes got pounded into me instead of
into the railroad ties. Or something. I don't know."

"Well," said Ms. Stevenson, carefully stroking a brush back and forth
against her palm to see if the color was out of it yet, "I suppose I
should point out that it's all for a good cause. We need Foster; now
Foster needs us. Mrs. Poin-dexter means well, after all."

"I know," I said, sighing, more discouraged than before, "darn it--it's
the principle of the thing. She might have asked me first--or even just told me--and she might
have asked to use your place instead of making you 'volunteer' it. Volunteer,