Annie on My Mind

Chapter sixteen

At this point my usually quiet mother jumped
to her feet and said, "Oh, for Lord's sake! My daughter has already told
her father and me that there was nothing untoward going on! Liza is an
honest girl, a painfully honest girl. She has never lied to us in her
life. Don't you know how teenaged girls are? They're always washing each
other's hair and trying on each other's clothes--things like that. There
could be a million reasons why they weren't quite dressed, a million
reasons ..."

"Teenaged girls," shouted Mrs. Poindexter, moving around to
our side of the table and walking toward my mother, "do not usually try
on lumber jackets. And I've never felt that your Liza had any particular
interest in her hair. As a matter of fact, I have often felt that your
daughter Eliza ..."

"Yes?" shouted my mother. She looked about ready to swing at Mrs.
Poindexter. Dad reached out and grabbed her arm, but she ignored him.

"Ladies, ladies!" said Mr. Turner, standing up.
"That will do! I realize how emotionally charged this is--I warned you,
Mrs. Poindexter, what might happen if we handled this matter in this
way. In any case, we absolutely cannot tolerate this kind of behavior
from anyone."

Everyone sat down again, fuming, Mrs. Poindexter
included, and I was still left with the question.

"Liza," said Mrs.
Poindexter a little sulkily, "answer the question. Why were you and that
other girl so incompletely dressed?"

I looked at Dad and then at Mr.
Turner. I don't know where it came from, but I said, "I guess this is
where I say that I don't want to answer without a lawyer."

"May I point out," said Mrs. Poindexter coldly, "that that statement in
itself can be interpreted as an admission of guilt?" Mr. Turner cleared
his throat angrily, but before he could say anything, the red-ha/red
woman threw her pencil down.

"I think this is all perfectly absurd," she
said. "Not to mention very, very cruel, and downright twisted! What this
young woman does on her own time with her own friends is her business
and her parents' business, not ours. I must say I might be concerned if
I were her parents, but as a trustee of this school, I have more serious
things to worry about." She looked at Mrs. Poindexter and her voice
dropped a little. "Frankly, Mrs. Poindexter, this--this near-vendetta
reminds me of another incident a few years back, the one involving the
boy and girl in the senior class. You will all recall it, I'm sure.
Perhaps there was some small point in the school's involvement in that,
since, because of the girl's condition, the students would naturally
become aware of the situation--but I see no chance of that here, or of
this incident's getting to the public as you seem to fear it might, and
damaging the fund-raising campaign. In fact, I see much more danger of
its being publicized as
a result of this ridiculously anachronistic hearing than because of the
incident itself. The overriding point," she said, looking around at the
board members and then at Ms. Baxter and Mrs. Poindexter, "fund-raising
campaign or no fund-raising campaign, is whether Liza's conduct affected
the other students adversely, or whether something wrong was done on
school time or on school grounds. Obviously, the latter doesn't apply,
and as to the former--it is certainly unfortunate that Sally Jarrell may
have been exposed to something that disturbed her, but she is no more a
child than Liza is, and it's clear to me that Liza did not willingly
make Sally a party to her behavior. Most people nowadays are fairly
enlightened about homosexuality and there certainly was no purposeful
wrong here, no attempt ...0

"There are the teachers," said Mrs. Poindexter softly. "There is the
question of influence--the decided influence that teachers have over
students ..."

"That is a separate issue," said the red-haired woman angrily, "and
obviously one of much greater relevance."

Mr. Turner said, "I think we should ascertain if Liza wishes to say
anything further to us, and then, bearing in mind that she has requested
counsel and that her presence here is voluntary, move to the matter of
the two teachers. We can call Liza at a future date, I am sure, if need
be, assuming she is willing to be questioned further." Mrs. Poindexter's
lips tightened, and she twisted her glasses chain angrily.

"I agree,"
said the red-haired woman, "and I apologize for my outburst, Mr. Turner,
but this has all seemed to me so--so terribly unnecessary that I couldn't
help speaking out. I simply don't see that what the two girls did or
didn't do is of any importance whatsoever. What matters is the influence
the teachers may or may not have had on them, and on other Foster
students." I think I must have been staring at her, because I remember
she gave me a sort of embarrassed and apologetic smile. It is important!
I wanted to shout; it was as if she'd suddenly betrayed me--the one
person on the board I'd really trusted and who I thought had understood.

I knew she was trying to be fair to everyone, not just to me, but, oh,
God, I wanted to stand up and shout: No one had any influence on us! Ms.
Stevenson and Ms. Widmer had nothing to do with it. What we did, we did
on our own; we love each other! Can't anyone understand that? Please
--can't someone? We love each other--just us--by ourselves--But although
most of those words were in my mind by the time Mr. Turner looked at me
again and said, "Liza, is there anything else you would like to say?" all I
could do was shake my head and whisper, "No, sir." And much, much later,
I thought of what Annie had said about mountains, and felt as if I still
had a whole range of them left to climb.

17

I remember very little about the next few days. I know I saw Annie
only twice, and both times we were stiff and silent with each other, as
if all the fears, all the barriers, were back between us. The long thin
white envelope came on Saturday when Chad and I were home watching a
Mets game. Chad went down for the mail during a commercial. I was
sitting there, idly wondering if they were ever going to rewrite the
stupid beer ad I was suffering through for the millionth time, when I
heard his key scraping in the lock and then his voice saying, "Liza, I
think it's come." He handed me the envelope--from Foster--and I swear he
was more scared than I was. He hadn't said much about what it had been
like at school for the past couple of weeks while I hadn't been there,
but I got the impression it hadn't been any picnic for him. Sally, he'd
mentioned casually, wouldn't speak to him. Even though she was a senior
and he was only a sophomore, they'd always been friendly enough to say
hi in the halls and things like that. Sweet wonderful Chad! One
afternoon he came home late with a bloody nose and blood in his sheepdog
hair. He ran straight to Dad; he wouldn't speak to me. Neither he nor
Dad ever told me what happened, but I'm pretty sure I know, and it
still makes me sick, thinking about it.

"Aren't you going to open it?
You want me to go away? I'll go back to the game," he said, and turned
toward the TV set. It's funny, but I didn't feel much of anything,
staring at that envelope before I opened it. Maybe it was because by
then I really didn't want to go back to Foster anyway, even if they said
I could and so in a way I was dreading not being expelled as much as
being expelled. The only thing I was conscious of worrying about was
MIT, and whether the trustees would notify them if they expelled me and
what reason they'd give. There was a roar from the TV set--the Mets had
just gotten a run. Chad didn't roar, though, and you can usually hear
his shouts halfway down the hall outside our apartment. I stuck my
finger under the flap of the envelope and it opened so easily I hoped it
hadn't come unglued on the way and that the letter hadn't fallen out in
front of everyone in the post office.

Dear Ms. Winthrop,

The Board of Trustees of Foster Academy is happy to inform you ...

"Chad," I said. "It's okay."

Chad threw his arms around me and shouted
"Hooray!" Then he stepped back, and I must have looked pale or something
because he sort of eased me down into Dad's chair and said, "Hey, Liza,
you want some water or an aspirin or something?"