Soul Catcher (20 page)

The room was silent. I may not have been forgiven, but I was understood. All the girls learned my lesson. No one had ever tried to leave a meeting before and now we all knew the truth: that what we’d thought was
shouldn’t
and
won’t,
was
can’t.
Even Ted and Jimmy realized for the first time that the truth was
can’t.

Dana paced a small space of empty floor. ‘The first thing we need to do,’ she said, ‘is decide whether or not the money was stolen, not lost or misplaced, but really stolen. So let’s think back, Nicky. Where did you say you last saw the two dollars? Think.’

‘In my top dresser drawer under my panties.’

‘When did you last see it?’

‘Yesterday afternoon before activities, when I came up to change.’

‘Could the money have gotten mixed up with your underwear?’

‘I already looked in the whole drawer. I checked everything.’

‘Check again,’ Pam ordered.

Nicole rose obediantly. She was a big girl, tall and muscular, with dark brown skin. A red plastic pic stuck out of her back pocket. Returning to the lobby, she reaffirmed what she had been saying all along: that the money was gone, missing.

‘All right,’ Dana resumed. ‘If the money
was
stolen, then we know it had to have been some time yesterday between about three o’clock and this morning before breakfast, when Nicole noticed it was gone. Right? Did anyone have any visitors in here yesterday afternoon or night? Were any of the boys up here at all?’

‘Maybe one of them snuck in when we were at dinner?’ Alison said.

‘And went straight for Nicole’s underwear drawer?’ Janice burst out. Janice, with her skinny legs, lanky brown hair parted in the middle, and the black leather jacket she never took off except to sleep. ‘Nicole only wishes it was a boy in her underwear drawer looking for smells and not money!’

‘Bitch!’ Rawlene spat.

‘I’m only kidding!’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘Well, everyone knows you were a whore before you came here, Nicole —’

‘White honky bitch!’

‘Rawlene!’ Ted said. ‘Sit down!’

‘I wasn’t,’ Nicole whispered, ‘Never.’

‘We’re trying to find out what happened to the two dollars,’ Dana said. ‘That’s all.’

‘Maybe you spent it without thinking.’ Lee Lee tried.

‘I didn’t spend it.’

A few of the girls fidgeted nervously. I sat completely still, staring through the window, watching tiny white stars shimmer against a black sky, feeling the night open like a pit of sleeplessness.

‘What if we believed in ghosts?’ Marissa said. Her pale skin was taut and shiny. ‘What would we do then?’

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ Janice said.

‘What I mean is, what if nobody took it, and it’s just gone?’

‘That isn’t rational,’ Pam said. ‘It might be misplaced or forgotten or stolen, but it can’t be just gone.’ She pressed her lips together: two wrinkly slabs of flesh. Frustration. Tightening. The inevitable was coming: the call for a vote: a stealing consensus. That was the worst possible thing. A concensus was a lock, sometimes a rusted lock that wouldn’t open with any key.

Dana watched Pam, and shook her head. Nicole stared guiltily into her hands. My heart dropped.

One by one, each girl gave the word, agreeing to continue the meeting. No one liked it, but according to Grove logic, it was inevitable. It was too late to turn back. The missing money was acknowledged, there were rules.

Stealing. Stealing. Stealing.

‘Maybe I don’t have to know,’ Nicole said. ‘Maybe the two dollars don’t mean that much.’ Her round face was tense, bunched like a prune. Something was worrying her more than the meeting.

Jimmy shook his head. ‘It’s too late to stop the meeting now.’

Within minutes, furniture was removed from the lobby. All that was left was the baby grand piano, and a room full of anxious girls in quest of a thief or the truth, whichever came first.

‘Hey!’ Amy shouted into the silence. Faces lifted. She stood up and opened her arms like one big mother of everyone. She sang: ‘Silent night, holy night, all is calm... Hey, hey, heyeyey!’ She swung her hips. In a rush of excitement, girls reached for cigarettes and blew every size smoke ring into the middle of the room. Rawlene jumped up and did three Ford Highways in a row. Everyone laughed and clapped. A
cloud of smoke gathered in the center of the room.

Dana whistled loudly, curling her top lip. ‘Okay, does anyone want to confess?’

Our giddy laughter stopped short. We had been cooped up for hours, sitting on the hard floor, waiting for an answer, hoping for a little sleep before morning. A few faces looked like they might produce tears, though none did. Others seemed to contain shouts. Others, accusation.

‘Maybe we should do the x’s?’ Lee Lee said.

Doing the x’s was always a last resort. When trust broke down, when there was no longer any real hope for a candid confession, everyone was given a chance to confess anonymously by dropping a slip of paper with an x on it into a box, or bucket, or tub. The x’s made it easy to tell the truth, and easy to lie. Sometimes, someone innocent would leave her x behind just to end the meeting.

Pam shook her head. ‘It’s too soon for that. Let’s give the person a chance to confront us in person.’

I thought about Marissa’s ghost, the one Janice was so sure didn’t exist. What if it did exist? What if ghosts were something other than what we assumed them to be? Maybe secrets were ghosts waiting to be revealed, like the thief. Maybe a ghost was watching us at that very moment — you could never tell. I squinted my eyes and saw it, our own personal ghost, in the cloud of smoke that was flattening into a smooth layer and rising toward the ceiling. I watched the smoke-ghost move above all of us, trying to escape us and our eager promise of absolute trust. When finally the layer of smoke reached the ceiling, it melted into the corners and fled in scalloped grey puffs down the walls.

I said, ‘If it were me, I wouldn’t feel comfortable confessing to any of you right now.’

‘Was it you?’ Pam asked. The revulsion in her eyes was so frightening that Loretta, the quietest girl in the dorm, recoiled into a cat-like ball beneath the piano. Her face was completely hidden; all that could be seen was her fluffy black hair encircled in her arms.

‘Was Patrick here yesterday?’ Pam asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen him in a long time.’

‘How long?’

‘Almost three months.’

‘Why don’t you try three weeks?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Wasn’t Patrick here a few weeks ago?’

‘No!’

‘You knew he wasn’t supposed to be here,’ Pam said.

‘He
wasn’t
here
.’

Pam shook her head. ‘He was seen,’ she said, ‘coming out of this dorm.’

My heart pounded. Patrick, here? ‘Well, if he
was
here, I didn’t see him.’ I looked around at the faces of my dormmates, and asked, ‘Who saw him?’

‘I did,’ Jimmy said. ‘At about four in the morning on a Tuesday night.’

Did he sneak in and watch me while I slept? While I. dreamed of him — and
her!
Had he actually been there? If only I had opened my eyes...

Nicole moved tensely. ‘I only want to find out who took the money,’ she said — as if she knew I wasn’t the one.

‘I don’t think Kate’s relationship with Patrick is really the issue,’ Laura said.

‘But we can’t trust Kate, can we?’ Pam said. ‘Kate isn’t here with us. Kate’s somewhere else.’

‘So what?’ I said.

‘Did you go to the woods with Patrick that night?’ she demanded.

‘I did not even see him!’

‘Oh, come on, Kate!’

Suzie Zuckerman bolted up from a slouched position and laughed nervously. ‘I don’t know but it sort of sounds like you want Kate to say she got high or had sex or something you know what I mean? I mean I don’t know maybe I’m wrong but it sort of sounds that way to me. I don’t know,’ she said, waving a bloated hand in the air. She readjusted
her stiff black wig, and her back melted into its habitual curve.

‘Why don’t you just accuse me of taking the money?’ I asked Pam.

‘I thought you said you didn’t take it.’

‘Kate didn’t take the money,’ Gwen said. ‘I was with her all day yesterday outside of classes.’

Janet raised her hand. Her thick blond hair was tied back in a pony tail and her brown eyes looked big and round and soft. ‘Can I say something?’ There was a chorus of ‘Sure,’ ‘Go ahead,’ ‘Who’s stopping you?’ and her hand fell limply to her lap. ‘I have an idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we go around the room and everyone can say where they were between three o’clock yesterday and this morning?’

‘Good idea,’ Dana said. ‘Let’s go in a circle, starting with Nicole.’

‘You all know what I did,’ Nicole said. ‘And Amy and Rawlene, they were with me the whole time.’

‘Uh huh,’ Rawlene said.

‘It’s the truth,’ Amy confirmed.

Now came my turn. ‘I was at the dome after classes, then dinner, then study hall, then I read on my bed until lights out.’

Gwen exhaled a rush of smoke, and said, ‘Same.’

Alison smiled nervously. ‘I got my period yesterday,’ she said in a small voice. A rowdy cheer filled the room: we all knew how long she’d been waiting to join the ranks of puberty. Despite her enormous breasts, and even though she wasn’t a virgin — thanks to Eddie — she had been just a little girl until now. ‘Dana showed me what to do and Silvera was here and he thought I was sick and I didn’t want to tell him why. He said me and Dana could stay up in the dorm for activities. Dana made me some tea and we went to dinner together but I wasn’t hungry. After study hall I went to bed. I didn’t feel too good.’

Suzie’s back straightened. Her head perked up like her neck was a spring. ‘Pam roomed me!’

‘That’s right,’ Pam said officiously. ‘Suzie was in her room after classes until dinner, and after study hall until bedtime.’

‘Let’s see,’ Marissa started dreamily. ‘Nathan walked me up, and he waited for me while I changed into my leotards. After dance, Nathan walked me up and waited while I changed for dinner, then he walked me down. After study hall, he walked me up and we sat on the fence. Then he walked me back and I went to bed.’

Dana delivered hers perfunctorily: ‘I was with Alison until dinner. I came up to the dorm after dinner to monitor honors dorm study. Ted and I were in the lobby, talking, until lights out.’

‘I was pretty depressed yesterday all day long,’ Laura said. ‘After classes, I went up to Silvera’s office and we talked for a while. I really needed to get off campus, so he said I could take a walk to the mall if I promised to bring him back some ice cream —’

‘He’s supposed to be on a diet!’ Amy shouted. ‘He told me he’d throw me out on my ass if he caught me breakin’ my diet! Hippo-crit! You’re all my witnesses! If he gives me any hash over a chip or a bar, you’re all my witnesses and we’ll just tell him we know about his ice cream! Man might as well just paste it on his belly.’

‘You’re on!’ said Janice. ‘Baby, you is on!’

‘Okay,’ Pam said impatiently. ‘Laura?’

‘I got back just in time for dinner. I have honors dorm study now, so I came up here.’ She sighed. ‘Then I went to bed.’

Loretta raised her head from within her folded arms, and smiled. She seemed scared but that wasn’t unusual. Loretta’s great misfortune in life was that she had a lively imagination but no courage; there seemed to be a whole world in her head which she watched in helpless awe. ‘I ate a muffin in my closet,’ she said, and nestled her head back in her arms. Then, after a minute, ‘I put on my soccer shorts. I went to the soccer field. I wore a dress to dinner. I put on
jeans for study hall. I put on my nightgown because I wanted to go straight to bed. I was tired.’

‘Me and Janice came up and changed,’ Jane said. Like Janice, Jane talked tough and wore leather. ‘Played soccer. Changed again. Ate dinner. Changed again. Went to study hall. Changed again. Made out with Larry on the fence for forty-five minutes exactly.’ She winked and elbowed Janice, who smiled. ‘Bed and sleep. The routine.’

‘Same routine,’ Janice echoed. ‘Except for Larry.’

Pam prompted detail.

Janice sighed. ‘Came up with Jane. Changed for soccer. Played a mean game. Showered and dressed for dinner. Didn’t change for study hall last night. After dinner me and Ford Highway hung out at the canteen and talked about —’

‘Cars!’ came a chorus from the girls.

‘I’m in love with Ford Highway!’ Janice shouted. ‘We went out to the woods and
did it!
’

Groans of disgust and amazement charged her onward.

Lowering her voice and arching her eyebrows, she said, ‘He couldn’t get it up, so I said —’

‘Buick Skylark!’ Amy shouted.

‘Okay, next!’ Pam yelled.

Janet sighed. ‘After running, I came up, and Sandra had hurt herself, so I had to find some bandaids, and went over to the boys’ dorm. Walter gave me a few bandaids, and I came back and gave them to Sandra. We were late getting dressed, and — you all heard Silvera.’

Janice said in a loud Silvera voice: ‘Who the hell do you two prima donnas think you are? Dinner’s at six!’

‘After dinner, Sandra and I came back up and we did our homework together. Then we went over and picked up Gary, and the three of us went down to the canteen, and played pool until bedtime.’

Sandra was dressed all in black. Even her hair was black. She wore a black star tattooed on her wrist. When it came
her turn, Jane noticed that her wrist was bandaged and asked her why.

Sandra very slowly raised her eyes to Jane’s face. They were the darkest, slowest, saddest eyes in the world. ‘I didn’t want the tattoo anymore,’ she explained. ‘I tried to scrape it off with a razor. I don’t know, I thought you could scrape it off. I didn’t know it was so permanent.’ She covered her bandaged wrist with her other hand. ‘I had no homework study hall until activities were over. Then I came back up here and was just thinking, you know... I was thinking about how I didn’t like my star anymore, and I thought I could cut if off. Then Janet came in and told me to stop. She was right, I guess. I mean, it wasn’t really working. So I needed a bandaid. It’s not so bad, it doesn’t hurt much. I hope it’s not infected.’