Annie On My Mind (5 page)

Mrs. Poindexter nodded to Angela when we came in, after looking at Ms. Stevenson as if trying to tell her that she was letting Angela run the meeting after all. Ms. Stevenson, if she noticed, didn’t react. “Um,” said Angela, looking down at her paper again. “Um—Sally—Liza—the council has decided to suspend you both for one week.”

“That’s only three days,” Mary Lou put in, “because of Thanksgiving.”

“I did not,” said Mrs. Poindexter, “see you raise your hand, Mary Lou. Continue, Angela.”

“Um—the suspensions will be removed from your records at the end of the year if—if you don’t do anything else. So colleges won’t know about it unless you break another rule.”

“And?” prompted Mrs. Poindexter severely. “Oh,” said Angela. “Do I—do I say that, too, with Sally here and everything?”

“Sally,” said Mrs. Poindexter, “is still a member of the student body.”

“Well,” said Angela, looking at me in a way that made my heart speed up as if I were at the dentist’s. “Liza, Mrs. Poindexter said that because you’re council president and—and …”

“And because no council president in the history of this school has ever broken the honor code—go on, Angela,” Mrs. Poindexter said.

“There’s—going to be a vote of confidence on the Monday after Thanksgiving to see if the kids still want you to—to be council president. But,” she added hastily, “the fact that there was a vote of confidence won’t go on your record unless you don’t get reelected.”

“Meeting adjourned,” said Mrs. Poindexter, picking up her papers and leading the others out. Sally gave me a weak smile as she passed my chair. Conn hung back for a minute. “The key,” he said to me in a low voice, bending down to where I was still sitting, “was when Angie said, ‘Mrs. Poindexter said’—note ‘said’—about the vote of confidence. I hope you caught that, Liza, because it was her idea and she’s the only one for it. Ms. Stevenson got her to say the part about things not going on records. We all thought you should stay in office, and I bet the rest of the kids will, too. Heck, none of us would’ve turned Sally in either, not for that. A couple of kids said they might have tried harder to stop her, that was all, but I bet they wouldn’t even have done that. Liza, Poindexter’s so worried about the stupid fundraising campaign, she can’t even think straight.” Conn reached down and squeezed my shoulder. “Liza—I’m sure you’ll win.”

“Thanks, Conn,” I managed to say. My voice was too shaky for me to say anything else. But all I could think was, what if I don’t win and it does go on my record? For the first time in my life I began wondering if I really was going to get into
MIT
after all. And what it would do to my father, who’s an engineer and had taught there, if I didn’t. And what it would do to me.

I told my parents about the suspension Friday night while they were in the living room having a drink before dinner, which is always a good time to tell them difficult things. My father was furious. “You’re an intelligent person,” he thundered. “You should have shown better judgment.” My mother was sympathetic, which was worse.

“She’s also an adolescent,” she told my father angrily. “She can’t be expected to be perfect. And the school’s coming down a lot harder on her than on Sally. That’s not fair.” My mother’s a quiet person, except when she thinks something’s unjust, or when she’s defending me or Chad. Or Dad, for that matter. Dad’s terrific, and I love him a lot, but he does expect people to be perfect, especially us, and especially me, his fellow “intelligent person.”

“It’s fair, all right,” Dad said into his martini. “Liza was in a position of responsibility, just as Mrs. Poindexter said. She should have known better. I wouldn’t expect that little twit Sally Jarrell to know how to think, let alone how to behave, but Liza …” That’s when I got up and left the room. Chad thought the whole thing was funny. He came out to the kitchen, where I’d gone, on the pretext of getting a Coke, and found me leaning against the refrigerator, fuming. “Pretty cool, Lize,” he said, flapping one of his earlobes and wearing his isn’t-life-ridiculous look. “Oh, shove it.”

“Think she’d do my ears? One gold hoop; like a pirate?”

“She’ll do your nose if you don’t shut up,” I snapped.

“Hey, come off it.” He pushed me aside and reached into the refrigerator for his Coke. “I’d give anything to be suspended.” He popped the ring into the can and took a long swallow. “What are you going to do next week, anyway? Three free days and then Thanksgiving vacation—wow!” He shook his head and then brushed the hair out of his eyes. “They going to make you study?” I hadn’t thought of that and realized I’d better call school on Monday to find out. “I’ll probably run away to sea,” I told Chad. Then, thinking of the Cloisters and Annie, I added, “Or at least go to a lot of museums.” School seemed very far away the next day at the Cloisters with Annie, even though at first we were the way we’d been on the phone— not exactly tongue-tied, but not knowing what to say, either. The Cloisters, which is a museum of medieval art and architecture, is in Fort Tryon Park, so far uptown it’s almost out of the city. It overlooks the Hudson River like a medieval fortress, even though it’s supposed to look like a monastery and does, once you get inside. I was early so I decided to walk from the subway instead of taking the bus that goes partway into the park, but even so, Annie was there before me. As I walked up, I saw her near the entrance, leaning against the building’s reddish-brown granite and looking off in the opposite direction. She had on a long cotton skirt and a heavy red sweater; I remember thinking the sweater made the skirt look out of place, as did the small backpack strapped to her shoulders. Her hair tumbled freely down over the pack. I stopped for a few seconds and just stood there watching her, but she didn’t notice me. So I went up to her and said, “Hi.” She gave a little jump, as if she’d been miles or years away in her thoughts. Then a wonderful slow smile spread across her face and into her eyes, and I knew she was back again. “Hi,” she said. “You came.”

“Of course I came,” I said indignantly. “Why wouldn’t I have?”

Annie shrugged. “I don’t know. I wondered if I would. We’re probably not going to be able to think of a thing to say to each other.” A bus pulled up and hordes of students with sketchbooks, plus mothers and fathers with reluctant children, had to go around us to get to the door. “All week,” Annie said, watching them, “I kept, um, remembering that guard and the two little boys, didn’t you?” I had to say that I hadn’t, so I told her about the ear-piercing incident to explain why. “Because of ear piercing?” she said incredulously when I’d finished telling her the story. “All that fuss?” I nodded, moving aside to let some more people through. “I guess maybe it is a little harsh,” I said, trying to explain about the fundraising campaign, “but …”

“A little harsh!” Annie almost shouted. “A little!” She shook her head and I guess she realized we were both getting loud, because she looked around and laughed, so I laughed, too, and then we both had to step back to let a huge family pass. The last kid was a stuck-up-looking boy of about nine with a fancy camera that had hundreds of dials and numbers. He looked more like a small robot than a kid, even when he whirled around and pointed his camera at Annie. Annie held out her big skirt like a medieval damsel and dipped into a graceful curtsy; the kid snapped her picture without even smiling. Then, when Annie straightened up into a religious-looking pose that I’ve seen in a hundred medieval paintings, he became a real kid for a second—he stuck his tongue out at her and ran inside. “You’re welcome,” Annie called after him, sticking out her tongue, too. “The public,” she sighed dramatically, “is so ungrateful. I do wish Father wouldn’t insist that I pose for their silly portraits.” She stamped her foot delicately, the way the medieval damsel she was obviously playing might have. “Oh, I’m so angry I could—I could spear a Saracen!” Once again I found myself catching her mood, but more quickly this time. I bowed as sweepingly as I could and said, “Madame, I shall spear you a hundred Saracens if you bid me, and if you give me leave to wear your favor.” Annie smiled, out of character for a second, as if thanking me for responding. Then she went back into her role and said, “Shall we walk in the garden, sir knight, among the herbs and away from these rude throngs, till my duties force me to return?” I bowed again. It was funny, I wasn’t nearly so self-conscious this time, even though there were crowds of people around. Still being the knight, I offered Annie my arm and we strolled inside, which is the only way to get to the museum’s lower level and leads to the herb garden. We paid our “donation” and went downstairs and outside again, where we sat on a stone bench in the garden and looked out over the Hudson River. “It just seems ridiculous, Liza,” Annie said after a few minutes, “to make such a fuss about anything so silly.” I knew immediately she meant the ear-piercing business again. “In my school,” she went on, sliding her backpack off and turning to me, “kids get busted all the time for assault and possession and things like that.

There are so many security people around, you have to remind yourself it’s school you’re in, not jail. But at your school they get upset about a couple of infected ears! I can’t decide if it’s wonderful that they don’t have anything more serious to worry about—or terrible.” Annie grinned and flipped back some of her hair, showing me a tiny pearl earring in each ear. “I did mine myself,” she said. “Two years ago. No infection.”

“Maybe you were lucky,” I said, a little annoyed. “I wouldn’t let Sally pierce mine.”

“That’s just you, though. I can’t imagine you with pierced ears, anyway.” She buried her face in a lavender bush that was growing in a big stone pot next to the bench. “If you ever want it done,” she said into the bush, “I’ll do it for you. Free.”

I had an absurd desire to say, “Sure, any time,” but that was ridiculous. I knew I didn’t have the slightest wish to have my ears pierced. In fact, I’d always thought the whole custom barbaric.

Annie broke off a sprig of lavender and I could see from the way she pushed her small shoulders back and sat up straighter that she was the medieval damsel again. “My favor, sir knight,” she said gravely, handing me the lavender. “And will you wear it into battle?”

“Madame,” I said, getting up quickly so I could bow again. “I will wear it even unto death.” Then my self-consciousness returned and I felt my face getting red, so I held the lavender up to my nose and sniffed it. “Good sir,” said Annie, “surely so gallant and skilled a knight as you would never fall in battle.” I’m not this clever, I wanted to say, panicking; I can’t keep up with you—please stop. But Annie was looking at me expectantly, so I went on—quickly, because the huge family with the obnoxious shutterbug was about to come through the door that led out to the garden. “Madame,” I said, trying to remember my King Arthur but sounding more like Shakespeare than like Malory, “when I carry your favor, I carry your memory. Your memory brings your image to my mind, and your image will ever come between me and my opponent, allowing him to unhorse me with one thrust.” Annie extended her hand, palm up, for the lavender. “Hold it!” ordered the robot kid, peering at us through his viewfinder. “Then return my favor quickly, sir knight,” said Annie, not moving, “for I would not have you fall.” I handed the lavender back to her, and the kid’s professional-sounding shutter clicked and whirred. It was as if the sound of the camera snapped us back into the real world, because even though the kid and his family were obviously not going to stay in the garden long, Annie picked up her pack and said matter-of-factly, “Are you hungry for lunch? Or should we go in and look around? The sad virgin,” she said, looking dolefully down at the ground, imitating one of my favorite statues; “the angry lion?” She made a twirling motion above her mouth and I knew right away she was impersonating the wonderful lion fresco in the Romanesque Hall; he has a human-looking mustache. “Or”—she stood up and glanced nervously around the garden, one wrist bent into a graceful, cautious hoof—”or the unicorns?”

“Unicorns,” I said, amazed at the speed with which she could go from one character to another and still capture the essence of each.

“Good,” she said, dropping her hand. “I like them best.” She smiled. I got up, saying, “Me, too,” and we stood there facing each other for a moment, not saying anything more. Then Annie, as if she’d read my thoughts, said softly, “I don’t know if I believe any of this is happening or not.” But before I could answer she gave me a little push and said, in a totally different voice, “Come on! To the unicorns!” The unicorn tapestries are in a quiet room by themselves. There are seven, all intact except one, which is only a fragment. All of them, even though they’re centuries old, are so bright it’s hard to believe that the colors must have faded over the years. Together they tell the story, of a unicorn hunt, complete with lords, ladies, dogs, long spears, and lots of foliage and flowers. Unfortunately, the hunters wound the unicorn badly—in one tapestry he looks dead —but the last one shows him alive, wearing a collar and enclosed in a circular pen with flowers all around. Most people seem to notice the flowers more than anything else, but the unicorn looks so disillusioned, so lonely and caged, that I hardly see the flowers at all—but the unicorn’s expression always makes me shiver. I could tell from Annie’s face as she stood silently in front of the last tapestry, that she felt exactly the same way, even though neither of us spoke. Then a woman’s voice shrilled, “Caroline, how often do I have to tell you not to touch?”—and in came a big crowd of people along with a flat-voiced tour guide: “Most of the unicorn tapestries were made as a wedding present for Anne of Britanny.” Annie and I left quickly. We went outside and walked in silence away from the Cloisters and went into Fort Tryon Park, which is so huge and wild it can almost make you forget you’re in the city. There’d been more rain during the week and it had washed the last of the leaves off the trees. Now the leaves were lying soggily underfoot, but some of them were still bright in the chilly fall sunshine. Annie found a large flat rock, nearly dry, and we sat on it.

Her pack got stuck when she hunched her shoulders to take it off, and when I helped her get it free, I could feel how thin her shoulders were, even under the heavy sweater. “Egg salad,” she said in an ordinary voice, unwrapping foil packages. “Cheese and ketchup. Bananas, spice cake.” She smiled. “I can’t vouch for the cake because it’s the first one I’ve ever made, and my grandmother had to keep giving me directions.