Bittersweet Dreams (32 page)

“We've arranged for Dr. Baer to see her.”

“What? Why?”

“Julie wants her checked out to see . . . you know, if she's been sexually violated.”

“That's disgusting. That will make her even more upset. That could cause serious emotional damage, Daddy.”

“It's got to be done. This is a criminal situation now.”

“But she never said things went that far.”

“Who knows what she'll tell and won't tell, Mayfair, even to you. She's a very frightened little girl.”

I sat back. This shook me up a little, because I hadn't anticipated it, and I should have. I really did feel sorry for Allison. I would hate to have had something like this done to me after being with Alan Taylor.

At the doctor's office, we waited in the lobby while Allison and Julie were in the examining room. When they came out, Julie looked at my father and shook her head. For a moment, I wasn't sure what that meant. It occurred to me that Allison might have somehow lost her virginity without telling me about it. Girls could have their hymens broken in other ways, too. I was a prime example.

We stood up, and Julie stepped closer.

“She's still a virgin,” she told my father but also for my benefit.

I looked at Allison. She seemed to be walking in a trance. My heart twisted with regret. I didn't want to see her in so much emotional pain, but my anger was directed fully at Alan Taylor for both our sakes now.

“Let's go home,” my father said.

The fact that she was still a virgin didn't contradict what I had read in her diary. She had never described penetration, so I didn't let that fact detract from the validity of the rest of it. What I had read and how she had reacted to my questioning were convincing enough for me, especially when I added what my own experience had been with Alan Taylor.

The story began to spread that night. Julie's friends were on the phone with her for hours, each taking a turn. Allison was too upset to come to dinner. Something was brought to her room. At dinner, my father and Julie said they had decided that Allison should stay home from school the next day.

“I don't think that's wise,” I told them. “It will only make things more difficult for her when she returns. They'll be talking about her all day tomorrow. Besides, it will give her more strength if she follows a normal routine.”

“I won't have her behave as if nothing unusual is going on. It's too much to expect of her. She's not you!” Julie practically screamed at me. “She has real feelings.”

“Well, she can't be taking after you, either, then.”

“Mayfair,” my father said softly.

I thought about what she had said. I had no trouble returning to school on the days following my tryst with Alan and trying to confront him. His attitude and avoidance were just as traumatic, but I didn't stray from my normal routine. Was Julie right? Did that mean I didn't have real feelings?

“I'm only trying to help. I've studied these sorts of traumatic events, Daddy. I know what has been found to be helpful and what has not. It's not a matter of feelings, Julie,” I said, trying desperately to sound as if I did care about her and what she was going through, having her daughter involved in such a thing. “It's a matter of what's more effective. I'm only thinking of Allison.”

“She's not going there tomorrow, and that's that,” she said firmly.

I looked at my father and then finished eating without saying another word.

Julie mumbled through the remainder of dinner. “I'm not burying my head in the sand, letting the school take any convenient way out of this. I'm going to make sure that justice is done. Those administrators know it.”

I couldn't resist. “I hope it's better justice than what occurred after those bitches from
Macbeth
soiled
my
reputation,” I said.

Julie bit down on her lower lip. My father shook his head.

“Maybe that was a terrible injustice,” Julie confessed. “I was only trying to do what was best for you.”

“She knows that now,” my father said, looking at me pointedly.

I didn't have to say anything. Stage four had begun. Julie was going to charge ahead like a wild bull again, and Dr. Richards, unlike me, couldn't lock his door against her.

There was nothing left for me to do but wait.

In the morning, I saw that a substitute was replacing Alan Taylor. It would remain that way until the matter was resolved, but it became very clear that no matter how it was resolved, his future at the school was in jeopardy. Julie and her friends were simply too powerful for anyone, even if he were innocent, to overcome them. This was, after all, a private school that was dependent on tuition and donations from wealthy parents and friends of the school.

Of course, in my mind, no matter what he did or didn't exactly do with Allison, he was not innocent. Perhaps I was more of a victim. It didn't matter now. It was better this way. Julie was taken down more than a peg or two. I was getting two birds with one stone.

I did have moments of self-doubt and even moments when I thought I had gone too far for justice and revenge, but I always overcame those feelings with cold logic, convincing myself that I was surely not the first or the last high-school girl he had victimized, and Allison wasn't the first young teenager.

Before the week was over, Alan Taylor and his counsel appeared at the school for a meeting in the principal's office. The moment he was spotted, the news flowed like an electric current through the halls, classrooms, and offices. How he found out I was alone in the laboratory, I didn't know, but when I looked up from some slides I was studying under the microscope, he was in the doorway. For a long moment, we just looked at each other.

“You put her up to it, didn't you?” he asked.

“Did I? Or did you?”

“You can't believe that.”

“I believe in what I can prove and what I know from my own experiences. Nothing else.”

He nodded. “You don't have to admit to it. I know. I didn't treat you well. I'm sorry.” Then he surprised me by smiling. “What was it William Congreve wrote?”

“ ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,' ” I answered.

“Exactly. I guess I should have remembered that. Well, have a good and interesting life,” he added, and walked away.

I returned to my slides, but I wasn't focusing on anything. My vision was too cloudy. I had my victories, but I was disappointed in my reaction.

I had trouble seeing through the tears.

The famous moments of the calm before a storm followed. It was especially dark and silent in our house. Dinners were like funerals. The clanking of silverware and dishes had never sounded as loud. Even the maids seemed to be tiptoeing wherever they went and speaking in whispers. Allison was forbidden to use her phone. She had been told to speak to no one about any of this now that an actual criminal trial was looming. Julie didn't even want her to mention it in the house. In fact, thinking about all this, Julie was so disturbed one day that she charged up the stairway and disconnected Allison's phone so it wouldn't ring, practically ripping the wire out of the wall. She was constantly laying down threats. I thought she was close to having a nervous breakdown.

Whether he had to or was just looking for some relief from the heavy atmosphere in our home, my father worked longer hours and took three overnight trips during the week. Julie went to dinner with friends all three nights, soaking up waves of sympathy, I was sure. In my mind, despite the act she put on in the house for us, she probably enjoyed the extra attention she was receiving from her friends.

And then, just as there was an opportunity to take a deep breath, another crisis exploded.

The district attorney informed Julie that he had to have Allison's diary. Just as I had advised her to do, Allison had revealed to Mr. Martin that she had written everything that had gone on between her and Alan Taylor in it, along with the dates. He had informed the district attorney. When the assistant district attorney arrived at our home a day later to get the diary, my father wasn't home, but I was downstairs. Julie had been at her wit's end about it because Allison wouldn't let her read it first. She had hidden it in a better place, which amused me at first and then, when I gave it more thought, worried me.

Was she simply embarrassed or afraid of her mother's reaction to the things she had written? Even though I had never written anything I didn't want anyone else to read, I realized that especially for a girl like Allison, someone else, even a mother, reading her intimate thoughts was truly like exposing herself, parading naked and revealing every blemish. Everyone needed some sort of privacy. If you couldn't even protect the sanctity of your thoughts, what did you have left? On top of everything else that had been done to her, especially the vaginal exam, Allison could easily have a nervous breakdown herself, and who knew what the result of that would be?

“Once we have it, we'll have to turn it over to Mr. Taylor's attorney,” the assistant district attorney told Julie.

She looked absolutely shocked. “What? How many people will read this? I won't permit it.”

“We can't withhold evidence from the defense attorney,” he explained calmly. “And that diary has now become evidence, Mrs. Cummings.”

Of course, Allison didn't want to hand over the diary. She cried, and Julie made the assistant district attorney promise her that only the people who absolutely had to read it would be permitted to read it. Allison wanted to rip out the pages that had nothing to do with Alan Taylor, but the assistant DA said that would not go over too well.

“I haven't even read it,” Julie said, and she looked angrily at Allison. “She's hidden it from everyone.”

I was sure Julie was wondering what Allison had written about
her
.

“I'm sorry,” the assistant DA said. “We'll ask the judge to restrict access to the document. That's the best we can do.”

That didn't make Julie any happier, but there was nothing she could do about it. I was surprised when she looked to me for help.

I shook my head. “If the district attorney believes it will help make the case stronger, Julie, you shouldn't resist turning it over,” I told her. “We want Allison to have all the support she can get.”

She glared at Allison. “She never kept so many secrets from me. I never knew she had been writing in such a diary.”

“Didn't you?” I asked.

I thought she had hit all the stops on her way to female adulthood. How many times did she describe the dances she had gone to, the boyfriends lining up, the proms, the clothes, the hairdos, all of it spun not only to rub it in my face, I thought, but also to convince Allison that her mother was some sort of a star?

“Didn't you have a diary when you were Allison's age?”

“It wasn't something I expected would end up in a courtroom,” she snapped back. Her eyes quickly cooled because of the assistant DA, who now looked uncomfortable. Then she added, “But none of us expected any of this, I suppose. Go get the damn thing,” she told Allison. “Now!”

Allison brought it down, fear and trepidation vivid in her eyes.

“I promise you'll get it back when it's no longer needed,” the assistant DA told her when he took it from her reluctant fingers.

“We won't want it back. We'll want it burned,” Julie told him.

Two days later, I waited in the living room for my father and Julie, because I knew the district attorney had called them to his offices to discuss the case. From the looks on both their faces, I could tell something wasn't right. Allison was up in her room doing her homework. I had just helped her understand some of her new math and explained some grammar problems. I was truly feeling sorry for her, but I also wanted her to be strong for what was to come, strong for both of us.

“I need a drink,” Julie said almost the moment she stepped into the house.

My father glanced at me, shook his head, and went to the bar. Julie sat on a stool and lowered her head to her hands. Neither spoke. Watching them, I felt the tension building in me, too.

“What's happening?” I asked. “Why are you both so upset?”

Julie turned to look at me. I had been reading a book on child psychology and was still holding it. A crazed smile broke across her face, twisting her lips. One thing I had to say for her, she rarely looked ugly. Even when she was in a rage, she had the sort of beauty that was even more striking. Right now, she looked like someone suffering from Bell's palsy, a form of facial nerve weakness, with half her face distorted.

“That might be the right book for all of us to read now,” she muttered. “I guess I'll have to borrow it when you're finished.”

“What? What's going on?” I asked my father as he served her a Cosmopolitan, the vodka drink she favored.