Annie on My Mind

Chapter twelve

"Liza," Ms. Stevenson interrupted--thank God, because I think in my
confusion I was starting to say I hadn't known Ms. Stevenson and Ms.
Widmer were gay. "Liza, the less said, I think, the better." She didn't
say it in a particularly friendly way, and I felt worse than I had when
it was just Ms. Baxter and Sally who'd walked in on us. "All right,
Miranda," Ms. Stevenson was saying, her voice taut, like a lion on a
leash, "would you mind telling us, very quickly before you leave, just
what you were doing here in the first place?" So Ms. Baxter explained
about Sally, who was still staring at me and Annie as if we had at least
five heads apiece, like end-of-the-world monsters. "And this poor
child," Ms. Baxter whined, nearly choking Sally in her protective hug,
"this good, repentant child who has given so much of her time and of
herself to Foster's cause these last months--this child who may at times
in the past have been misguided and unwise but who is, thank the good
dear Lord, normal, with a normal young girl's love for her young
man--this child had to be dragged into this--this ugliness, this--this nest
of ..."

"But," I protested angrily, "but it's not ugly, there's nothing ..."

Ms. Baxter cut me off with her look. "Oh, my dear," she said to Sally,
"you can see now why Liza was unable to be a good enough friend to
report you for that unfortunate mistake of yours last fall. Immorality
in one way, I fear, leads to immorality in others. It's a lesson we all
can learn ..."

"Oh, for God's sake," snapped Ms. Stevenson, her temper lost at last.
"Miranda, I am not going to stand here and let you ..."

Ms. Widmer quickly opened the front door. "I think it's time for you to
go, Miranda," she said quietly. "You, too, Sally."

"Oh, absolutely, Sally goes!" said Ms. Baxter, herding her in front of
her. "And if you have a shred of decency left in you, you'll send those
two home, too.

Liza and her--her friend." She smiled thinly. "They are minors, I
believe." I wanted to hit her for the way she said "friend."

"Why don't you go look it up, Miranda?" Ms. Stevenson said through her
teeth.

"They are also," said Ms. Widmer, "people--who at the very least
have a right to tell their side of the story. To someone who will try to
listen." I glanced at Annie, who was in the corner by the stairs,
hugging her lumber jacket around her. It was wool and I remember
thinking irrelevantly that it must be scratchy against her skin. But
Annie didn't look as if she noticed. She also didn't look as if she felt
any more deserving of a friendly listener than I did. The saucepan
helmets, I kept thinking, and the bed; how are we going to tell them
about the bed?

"I trust you realize," said Ms. Baxter as Ms. Widmer held the door open
for her and Sally, "that it is my duty to report this entire incident to
Mrs. Poindexter."

"Indeed we do," said Ms. Stevenson coldly.

Then they were gone, and the door was shut, and Ms. Widmer, who had been
so collected, swayed a little and leaned against it. Ms. Stevenson put a
hand on her shoulder and said, "Steady, Kah, we've lived through worse."

Then she turned to me. I wanted to touch her, to at least reach out to
her--even, for one absurd moment, to throw myself at her feet and moan,
"Forgive us--forgive me!" I wanted her to blow up, to yell unreasonably
the way she had once in the studio when someone hid an unpopular kid's
drawing and then someone else spilled black paint on it by "accident."

But she didn't do that. She just looked grimly from me to Annie and back
again and said, "Let's start with an introduction, Liza, shall we?"

"Isabelle," said Ms. Widmer, "please. Let's not ..."

"Katherine," said Ms. Stevenson, "what we have here along with a great
many other things is a rather serious betrayal of trust. It doesn't
matter how compelling the reason," she said, looking hard at me, "and I
think you know now that Ms. Widmer and I can guess exactly how
compelling it was--that's still no excuse for the way you and your friend
have used this house. No excuse."

"No, Ms. Stevenson," I said miserably. "I know it's not. I--I'm very
sorry."

"And I am, too," Annie said, stepping away from the stair-corner. "I--we
both are. It was terrible of us, wrong
--it's awful, especially--especially since you're like us--I mean ..."

She was floundering; I was desperate to help her, but I couldn't think.

"You are not," said Ms. Stevenson, picking up a saucepan, "a bit like
us. Even in our worst times, I don't think we would ever, ever have
betrayed anyone's trust, not like this--not in a way that would give a--a
person like Miranda Baxter license to--to ..." I saw when she turned
away that her fists were clenched, and then, horrified, I realized she
was struggling against tears. Ms. Widmer touched her arm.

"Come on, Isabelle," she said with amazing lightness. "At seventeen?" She
turned to us. "Why don't you go back up and get dressed--I gather you were
upstairs?" I nodded painfully, and Ms. Stevenson turned the rest of the
way away. But Ms. Widmer went on, as gently as before, "Isabelle and I
will go down to the kitchen and make some cocoa. Give us--yourselves,
too--about fifteen minutes. Then maybe we can all talk about this like
rational human beings." For a second I thought Annie was going to throw
her arms around Ms. Widmer. But instead she just took her hand and
squeezed it, hard. Ms. Widmer pushed Annie and me toward the stairs.

"Fifteen minutes," she said. "Come along, Iza. Cocoa."

"Cocoa!" I heard Ms. Stevenson exclaim as they went down to the kitchen
and we went up to the third floor. "What I need is Scotch, dammit, not
cocoa!"

"Well, then, darling, you shall have Scotch," I heard Ms. Widmer say,
and then we couldn't hear any more.

15

We had the cocoa, and Ms.
Stevenson and Ms. Widmet had drinks, but even though for a minute or
two it looked as if we'd be able to talk, that didn't last long. Ms.
Widmer was the first to realize that we never had gotten around to the
introduction Ms. Stevenson had requested; when we went down to the