Blue (11 page)

“How're we going to get the stuff back uptown?” Blue asked worriedly.

She smiled. “They deliver,” she answered with a straight face, and he laughed. It had been hard going through her boxes, and he hated to see her cry, but she'd seemed happy to find a lot of her old stuff.

As soon as they got to the store, they got busy picking new things. Ginny found a bookcase she liked for the living room that looked like an antique, and she bought a new desk to replace the ugly one she had. Her dining table was fairly decent, but she bought four matching chairs, and a slightly battered leather one that would go with the recliner. The pièce de résistance was a couch covered in dark gray flannel that was part of a sample sale. She hadn't bought that much furniture at once since they'd decorated the house in Beverly Hills, and this was a far cry from what she'd had there, but it suited her life now. And then they looked at bedroom furniture for Blue. He stood, seeming paralyzed as he looked around.

“What do you like? Old-looking stuff? Modern? White? Wood finish?” It touched her heart to see him so overwhelmed, and he gravitated almost immediately to a masculine-looking set that was painted navy blue. It had a desk, a chest, and a headboard for the bed. Then his face lit up when he saw a red leather chair. Ginny picked out a couple of lamps for the room, and a small red area rug that matched the chair. All put together, it was almost grown-up, but not quite. It had the right feeling for a boy his age.

She had some prints and posters in the boxes, from her old kitchen, that she was going to hang on the walls. And the fur pillows Becky had salvaged for her were going to look great on the new couch. Her living room was going to be mostly beiges and grays now. She had decided to keep her own bedroom the way it was, since the furniture was in decent condition and all of it was white. And she had found a white Mongolian lamb rug in one of the boxes that she was going to use in her bedroom. Her whole apartment was about to get a major lift. She paid for all of it, and arranged for delivery the next day, and for an additional charge they were going to haul away whatever she no longer wanted, which was most of what she had. They had done a good day's work.

They stopped in Chinatown after their shopping expedition, ate a delicious meal at a restaurant she loved, and then headed back to the apartment. Blue wanted to watch a movie on TV when they got home, but Ginny reminded him that he had school the next day. He groaned when she said it, and then at a look from her, he held up both hands in surrender.

“Okay, okay, I know.”

And when he went to sleep on the couch that night, after she made it up as a bed for him, she told him to kiss it goodbye, since it would be gone the next day when he came home from school.

He dragged his feet when he left in the morning, but he went. And Ginny printed out an application to LaGuardia Arts high school, as they had told her to do, while she waited for the furniture to come. She read the application carefully, and saw again that Blue would need to audition. They were several months past all the deadlines, but if they did allow him to apply and audition, he had a chance. The principal, whom Ginny had spoken to, had said that the exception they might make for him involved timing, but they would make no allowances for poor testing or a bad audition. He had to be qualified, like everyone else, and Ginny thought that was fair. She left the form sitting on her desk, and sent Charlene an e-mail that he was staying with her again, just so she knew.

And as soon as the furniture arrived, Ginny was busy, telling them where to put it, watching them move the old things out. The overall effect was magical when the pieces were all in place. After the deliverymen left, she put the fur pillows on the gray couch, which was perfect, and the lamb rug in her bedroom. She had a few other velvet cushions that she put on the couch, too, and a soft beige mohair one in the leather chair. She took out more photographs of her parents, Becky, Mark, and Chris, and put them around, then hung some art photographs and posters. The trunk she was using as a coffee table still looked all right, with the old travel stickers on it, and she set some magazines down on it. The four new dining chairs were a vast improvement, and she filled the bookcase with her books.

Then she went to work on Blue's room. All the dark blue pieces looked beautiful, and the red rug and chair added just the right amount of color. She hung three bright posters in the room, plugged in the lamps she'd bought, and made the bed. The apartment looked like a different place by that afternoon.

When Blue came home from school, she let him in, and his eyes widened in amazement.

“Whoa! Whose house is this? It's like one of those decorating shows where the people leave home and a decorator comes in and makes it all look good, and then everyone cries when they see it again.”

“Thank you, Blue,” she said, touched by what he said. And then he went to check out his bedroom and there was silence in the room. She glanced in, and he was standing still in the middle of the room, staring at it all in disbelief. The posters she had hung looked great, the lamps were lit, and the bed was made with clean sheets, a blanket, and a bedspread, waiting for him. He turned to look at her then.

“Why did you do this for me?” he said, suddenly realizing how much she had done. It had all looked different in the furniture store. Now it felt like a home, and for now anyway, he lived there with her.

“You deserve it, Blue,” she said softly, patting his shoulder, as he had done to comfort her the day before. “You deserve an amazing life.” He had improved her life immeasurably, and now she had a home, too, not just an apartment full of mismatched ugly furniture where she stayed between trips. It had taken her three years to open the boxes full of familiar things. Blue had given her the strength to do it and inspired her. Some of it was still painful to see, but she had put just the right number of photographs out—without feeling overwhelmed. And she was ready to live with them again.

They made dinner together that night, and she put candlesticks on the table, and lit the candles. And then she showed Blue the application to LaGuardia Arts. He glanced at it nervously.

“I don't think I could get in,” he said, looking defeated as he flipped through it.

“Why don't you let them decide that?” she said calmly. She had checked back with them that afternoon and they were willing to let him apply and audition late. It was an extraordinary opportunity. She didn't push him about it, or want to overwhelm him. He had homework to do after dinner. She left him to it while she did the dishes, and thought about how drastically her life had changed since he had come into it. She looked into the living room from the kitchen while she dried her hands, and saw him working at the dining table, with his head bent over his books. The new furniture was perfect in the room. There was a homey feeling to it, and as she stood admiring it, he glanced up and smiled at her.

“What are you looking at?” he asked her, suddenly self-conscious.

“The place looks nice, doesn't it?” It was so great having someone to talk to and share things with, and do projects with. Their lives had collided at just the right time, for both of them. She hadn't once thought of throwing herself into the river since that awful night of the anniversary, the night before Christmas Eve, and now she had familiar objects around the apartment, and a boy who needed her and, more than anything, needed a chance in life and a lucky break. All she could do was hope that she was it. Just thinking about it made her life worthwhile.

She put the kitchen towel back on the rack and turned off the light. And Blue went back to doing his homework. That night he slept in his own bed and bedroom for the first time. She was just drifting off to sleep when he pounded on the wall, and she wondered if something was wrong as she leaped out of bed and heard him shout to her.

“Thank you, Ginny!”

She smiled and sat back down. “You're welcome. Sleep tight!” she called, and slipped into her bed with a smile.

It took some time to get his old transcripts together, and the recommendations he needed, but she and Blue finally filled out the application to LaGuardia Arts for the fall with an essay about how much it meant to him. And the next day, Ginny dropped it off to the admissions office herself. And he had an appointment for an audition the following week. He was nervous about it. She was doing all she could to reassure him so he wouldn't panic, and she had promised to go with him. She had called the vice principal at his current school, and made every possible excuse for him and explained his home situation. She told him about the application to LaGuardia Arts and practically begged him to do what he could to help Blue get in. He said it would be a stretch, given Blue's poor attendance record, but he admitted that his grades were good, and that he was capable, and he had written a strong recommendation for him. He told Ginny that if Blue kept his grades up in his final exams, and turned in the papers he hadn't finished yet, he'd graduate in June. Ginny impressed on Blue the importance of that if he wanted to go to LaGuardia, which would be a lot more fun and interesting than a regular school.

They were walking down the street talking about it, and she asked him which term papers he still had due. She had suddenly become the substitute mother of a teenager, with all that it entailed, although it was part-time duty for her, since she was away for three months out of four and had only known him for four and a half months, but it was still a learning process for them both.

They walked past a church then, and she stopped, as she often did. She liked lighting candles for Chris and Mark. Blue waited patiently outside for her. He wouldn't set foot in the church. And this time, when she came out, he looked bothered.

“Why do you do that? It just gives money to the priests, and they're a bunch of liars and crooks. They don't need the money.” He sounded harsh as he said it.

“It makes me feel good,” she said simply. “I'm not praying to the priests. It gives me comfort to light candles. I've been doing it since I was a kid.” He didn't comment as they walked along, and she decided to be brave and ask him about his contempt for priests and churches and all things religious. His anger toward all of it was obvious, and his evident hatred for the priests was almost rabid at times. She knew his mother had sung in a choir, so religion couldn't be completely foreign to him. “Why do you hate priests so much, Blue?”

“I just do. They're bad people. They make everyone think they're good, but they're not.”

“Like who?” She was curious now, he was so adamant about it. “Did you know a bad priest when you were a little kid?” She wondered if it was some kind of association with his mother's death.

“Yeah, Father Teddy,” he answered, with a look of fury on his face that surprised her. “He's the priest at my aunt's church. He used to play with me in the basement.” She nearly fell over when he said it, and tried not to seem panicked or overly impressed.

“What do you mean, ‘play with you'?” she asked, trying to sound casual about it, but suddenly a flashing red light went off in her head. And it was a measure of his trust in her that he brought it up.

“He kissed me,” Blue said, looking straight at her then, with his piercing blue eyes that went straight to her soul. “He made me kiss him, too. He said God would like that and wanted me to.”

“How old were you?”

“I don't know. It was after my mom died, maybe nine or ten. He let me play the piano they had in the basement for church socials, but he said he'd get in trouble if I told, so I had to keep it a secret. I couldn't tell anyone he let me go there. I played all afternoon sometimes—that's when he'd make me kiss him. I'd probably have done damn near anything to play that piano. Sometimes he'd sit on the bench with me, and once he kissed me on the neck, and then he…you know…he did stuff…I didn't want to do it, but he said I couldn't come back anymore if I didn't let him.” Ginny felt almost faint as she steeled herself. The vision of the scene he was describing was making her feel sick. She wanted to ask him a vital question, but she didn't know how to phrase it so it wouldn't make him feel ashamed.

“Did he…did you do it with him?” she asked, trying to look as bland and nonjudgmental as she could, while feeling rage at the priest who would do such a thing to him, and abuse a child.

Blue shook his head. “No, I didn't do it. I think he wanted to. But I stopped going before he could. He just touched me, a bunch of times…you know…there…and put his hand down my pants while I was playing. He said he didn't mean to do it, but my playing was so good that it tempted him. He said it was my fault, and I'd be in a lot of trouble if I told anyone, for tempting a priest like that. He said I might even go to jail like my daddy. He scared me.

“I didn't mean to tempt him, or get in trouble with God, or go to jail, so I stopped going to play the piano. He whispered to me after church and asked me to come back, but I never did. He used to visit my aunt on Sundays after church. She thought he was the best thing that ever happened, and said he was a saint.”

“Did you ever tell her what he did to you?”

“I tried to once…I told her that he kissed me, and she said I was a liar and I would go to hell for saying bad things about Father Teddy. Between hell and jail, I never told her the rest. She wouldn't have believed me anyway. I've never told anyone except you.” He sensed how much faith she had in him, and he had felt comfortable sharing the secret he had carried for four years.

“You know that what he did was wrong, don't you, Blue? That
he
was wrong, and none of that was your fault. You didn't ‘tempt' him. He's a very sick person, and he was trying to blame you for what he did.”

“Yeah, I know,” Blue said, looking like a child again, as his eyes bored into hers. “That's why I told you priests are liars and crooks. I think he just let me play the piano so he could do that.” He was dead on with that, Ginny knew. It had been a hideous plot to seduce an innocent child, and a total violation of his position of trust in the boy's life. It was horrifying. She was just grateful that he hadn't raped him. He could have easily in the church basement with no one else around. It occurred to her that other little boys in the parish might not have been as lucky. Thank God the lure of the piano hadn't been enough for Blue to allow the priest to abuse him further. And she hoped for Blue's sake that that was true.

“He's a terrible person, Blue. People go to prison for doing things like that.”

“Nah, they'd never send Father Teddy to jail. Everybody loves him, including Charlene. I always went out when he showed up on Sundays. I didn't want to be around him. And I told Charlene I was sick every time she went to church. After a while, she stopped asking and just let me stay home. I've never been to church again, and I never will. He's a disgusting old guy.” The memory of it made him shudder.

“I'm sorry, Blue.” And then she added, “It's not right that no one knows. What if he does it to others?”

“He probably did. Jimmy Ewald said he hated him, too. I never asked him why, but I can guess. He was twelve and an altar boy, and his mama loved Father Teddy. Everybody did. She used to bake him cakes. Charlene always gave him money, even though she needed it for her kids. He's really a bad guy.” After what he had just told her, it sounded like a major understatement to her.

Ginny was quiet on the way back to the apartment, thinking about what he'd said. She didn't want to upset him further by asking more, or make him feel embarrassed for telling her. But she was shaken to the core by the thought of him as a nine- or ten-year-old child, being molested by a priest. It was the kind of thing one read about in the newspapers, but it had never occurred to her that it could happen to someone she knew. Blue had been vulnerable, his mother dead, his father in prison, and his aunt completely snowed by the twisted priest. It was no wonder Blue refused to go to church. And she was deeply touched that he had confided in her. She wanted to do something about it, but had no idea where to start or if it was a good idea. And she just hoped that he was telling her the whole story, and that he hadn't been sodomized by the priest. The thought of that possibility made her sick for him. She truly hoped it wasn't the case. What he had told her was bad enough and could affect him psychologically forever. The poor child had been through so much. And his faith in her now seemed like an even bigger gift.

Ginny cooked dinner, and Blue worked on one of his remaining term papers afterward, about the impact of advertising on children watching TV, for his social science class, while Ginny pretended to read a book, but all she could think about was what he had shared with her about “Father Teddy” that afternoon. She was haunted by the thought of Blue in a church basement, playing the piano, with the priest's hand down his pants, and blaming him for “tempting” him, and threatening him with jail.

She could hardly sleep that night as thoughts of it came to her again and again. Blue hadn't mentioned it that evening, and she wondered if it haunted him, too, if he had nightmares about it sometimes. He had sounded angry but calm when he talked about it.

The next morning, after he left for school, Ginny stood at the window of her apartment, lost in thought. There was someone she wanted to call, just to talk to him about it. Kevin Callaghan was an old friend from her network news days—they'd known each other for years and been very close. But like everyone, she had severed her ties with him when Mark and Chris died and she moved to New York. She had wanted no link to her past, and they hadn't spoken in more than three years. But she was aching to call him now. He was the best investigative reporter in the business. If anyone would, he would know what to do, how others handled it, and what the procedures were. And he'd know about the possible fallout for Blue. She didn't want to do anything to harm him, but the sheer injustice of it, of exploiting a child that way, made her want to go after the priest on Blue's behalf. She didn't know if it would be the right thing to do. And until she knew more, she didn't want to say anything to Blue.

She waited until noon in New York, when she knew Kevin would be in the office in L.A. at nine a.m., if he wasn't out tracking down a story. Criminal matters were his specialty, and she had a feeling he'd be up to date on this issue, about priests who had molested kids. Talking to him would be emotional for her, since he and Mark had been good friends. And her hand was shaking when he answered his cell phone, and she heard his familiar voice.

“Kev? It's Ginny,” she said in a voice hoarse with emotion, and was met with a long pause.

“Ginny who?” He didn't recognize her voice, and the last thing he expected, after all this time, was to hear from her.

“Ginny Carter. Nice of you to forget,” she teased him, and he let out a shout once he knew who it was.

“Nice of you not to call me for three years, or return my calls or respond to my e-mails and texts!” He had tried to reach her for nearly a year, and finally gave up. He had contacted her sister, to find out how she was, and Becky had told him she was a zombie, spoke to no one, had cut her ties to everyone, and worked for the SOS/HR, in terrifying places all over the world, trying to get herself killed, which was how she saw it. He had been sorry to hear it, although he admired what she was doing. He had written her a number of e-mails, particularly on the first anniversary, and she hadn't responded to anything he sent, so he hadn't written to her again. He figured that if she ever wanted to speak to him, she'd call him. But he had stopped hoping years before. And now suddenly here she was.

“I'm sorry,” Ginny said, sounding apologetic. It touched her just hearing his voice again—it was a little bit like reaching out to Mark, because they'd been so close. That was why she'd never answered him—it just hurt too much. But in this case, it was different. She was doing it for Blue. “I've been trying to forget who I am for the last three years. It's been working well for me so far,” she said honestly. She was no longer a wife or mother, and in her own eyes she no longer had an identity without them. She was just a human rights worker being sent from one assignment to the next in the most godforsaken places in the world; she felt like a ghost of who she'd been. “I missed you, though,” she said quietly. “Sometimes I think of you from a mountaintop somewhere, and send you good vibes. I've been to some amazing places. I never thought I could do it, but it gives my life meaning.” Nothing else had anymore, until Blue. “You wouldn't recognize me, I haven't worn makeup or combed my hair in three years,” except for the Senate hearing, when she'd even worn heels. The rest of the time she looked like a hitchhiker and didn't care.

“That's a damn shame,” he said regretfully. “You were always so cute. I bet you still are.”

“It's not the same, Kev,” she said with strong emotion. “It's all different, but it is what it is.” She had made the best of it and was helping others. He was one of the few people she thought would understand it, unlike her sister, to whom she was a mystery, and maybe always had been. She was beginning to think so.

“Are you doing okay?” he asked her gently. “I'd ask you to Skype with me, but I'd probably cry. I've missed you, too. It's not like the old days with the three of us together.” He'd had some hot romances, and lived with a couple of women, but had never married. And she realized that by now he was forty-four years old.

“I'm doing okay,” she answered his question. “You're not married yet?”

“Nah, I think I missed the boat. I'm too comfortable the way I am. The girls seem to get younger and younger, though. The last one was twenty-two years old, a weather girl on another channel, fresh out of USC. It's a little embarrassing, but I'm having too much fun to give it up.” He was a very handsome man, and women had never been able to resist him. She and Mark used to tease him about it. “So what made you drop from the skies?” he finally asked her. “Just saying hi?” He knew her better than that, and suspected there was a reason for her call. Ginny had always been incredibly professional and focused, even when they were having fun.