The Devil of DiRisio (12 page)

“Anna Marie, you don’t even know this guy’s last name.  You have no idea where he comes from or what he’s like.”

“I know.  Isn’t it romantic?” She gushed.  “Please, I’m begging you. Just give us a couple of hours.”

“What do you want me to do? Sleep in the hall?”

“Go to Will’s house.  I’ll even give you cab fare,” she said fumbling through her purse.  “Hurry, before he comes back and falls for you instead,” she said shoving a wad of cash into my hands.

“Fine.”
I was annoyed, but then again, she had willingly left the room several times for my sake.

It was 1:45 in the morning when Sasha and I arrived at Will’s house.  I set Sasha up in the guest bedroom then went to awaken him for the second time in one day.  But this time I wasn’t hitting him with a newspaper.

“Will, baby, I need a favor,” I said sweetly. 
Too sweetly.
  Will’s defenses went up.

“What?” he said as he sat up rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Sasha’s here.”

“What?  What do you mean she’s here? 
In my house?”

“Yeah, she needs a place to stay.”

“Well, she sure as hell can’t stay here.  I can’t believe you would even ask me.”

“She has nowhere to go.”

“Did you forget what she did to you?  I don’t want her in my house.”

“We talked and I forgive her.  She’s changed. She’s like the old Sasha now.”  This didn’t help.  Will never liked Sasha.  Even when she had everyone fooled, including me, she never fooled Will.  He always knew something wasn’t right with her.

“I don’t want her in my house, Sonya.”

“Please, Will.”  Will sighed and thought for a moment.

“Fine, she can stay on two conditions.”  Uh-oh, I thought.  “First, if she stays, you stay. 
Tonight and every night after.”

“Are you blackmailing me into marrying you?”

“No, I wouldn’t do that.  But if she’s living here, you have to as well.  You have to move in with me.”

“Fine, I can do that. What else?”

“You have to let me take you to a doctor.”

“Will!” Good, God. When would he get it through his head that I was not anorexic?

“Hey, I have no problem throwing her out on the street.  I don’t care if she’s your sister.”

“Fine, I’ll go to a doctor.  But you have to go to one as well. And if they say I’m fine you have to leave me alone about this.”

“Deal.”

***

Sometime during the night I realized that I had left my best friend alone with some random guy that I had never seen before and that didn’t speak a word of English. It wasn’t that not speaking English was a bad thing or anything. I just wondered how in the world they were communicating. What if he was some lunatic or serial killer or something?  He seemed friendly enough, but I wasn’t the best judge of character.  I always had a hard time seeing people for what they really were. 

That was why the Bitch Brigade so easily duped me.  I was too trusting.  I was blinded by what I wanted to see in people.  I always thought my sister was the sweetest, most brilliant, caring person in the world. She had proved me wrong.  But then again she was back and trying to redeem herself in my eyes.  Maybe she would prove to be all the good things I thought she was when we were growing up.

In any case, I was still nervous for Anna Marie.  It was five o’clock in the morning when I decided I couldn’t wait around any longer.  They’d had enough alone time.  I wanted to go check on her and make sure she was all right.  I had to go to class anyway, so if everything was fine, I could just use the excuse that I was getting my dance bag.

I got up and went to the closet.  Amazingly, I had so many clothes already at Will’s house it was like we were already living together.  I picked out a jogging outfit and tried to get dressed quietly so as not to wake him.  It didn’t work.

“Where are you going?” he asked squinting away the light that shined through the closet door onto his face.

“I’m
gonna
go jog to the dorm room to check on Anna Marie.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said hopping out of bed with a smile.  “It’s been so long since we’ve jogged together.” 

Will was always much faster than me, but I never remembered having such a hard time keeping up with him before.  Several times he had to stop and ask me if I was all right.

When we got to the dorm room, the door was slightly open.  I stepped in and screamed.  The room was in complete disarray.  That was not like Anna Marie.  She always kept her side of the room immaculate compared to mine.  There was a chair set up in the middle of the room with towels around it soaked with … blood!

  There was a pool of blood all around the chair in the center of the room.  It was as if someone was tortured or decapitated.  Will pushed past me and dashed into the room.

“Anna Marie!” he yelled in his booming voice.  I thought I would faint from the sight of all that blood and from the fact that my roommate was possibly dead.  How could I have left her alone with a stranger?  “Anna Marie!”  Will called again as he sat me down on the bed, careful not to step in the blood.  He was awakening everyone on the floor with his bellowing voice.  I heard Cynthia open her door and ask what was going on.

Will took out his cell phone and started dialing as he followed the trail of blood out the door to the hallway.  I was so glad he had come along.  I wouldn’t have known what to do.  I would have stood there frozen, immobile, and zombie like, exactly as I was doing now.

Then I heard the bathroom door open and then Will yelled, “Oh my God!”  I got up, ran into the hallway and saw
Will
standing outside the bathroom door covering his eyes.  “They’re in there,” he said with his head down pointing to the bathroom.

“Oh my God!”
I yelled once I opened the door and looked in. 
Raffaele
was stark naked and leaning over Anna Marie as he washed her hair in the sink. 
As he washed her red hair.
  He was dyeing her hair.  I closed the door and shut my eyes tight, trying to block out the image of
Raffaele’s
skinny pale white butt.  I looked at Will laughing hysterically.  Cynthia cursed in French and slammed her door in annoyance.  Seconds later, Anna Marie and
Raffaele
emerged covering themselves in red stained towels.

“I’m a redhead now!” Anna Marie exclaimed.  I stared at her dumbfounded.  “Do you like it?” she asked innocently.  I didn’t respond.  She took my silence to mean that I was upset with her. She probably thought I was pissed about the mess she left in our room.  “Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up. I dropped a bottle of the dye because I didn’t understand that he wanted me to hold it for him.” Will was still laughing uncontrollably as I continued to stare at her. 
Raffaele
then felt he needed to explain.

He told me that he had five older sisters and that they taught him everything he knows about fashion and beauty.  When he saw Maria’s beautiful complexion he knew that brown hair didn’t suit her.  She needed to be a redhead to reflect her vibrant personality.  So they went to the store and bought some hair dye.  It took him two hours to try to explain to her what he wanted to do because she didn’t speak Italian. 

But he was sure his Maria would be pleased with the results.  If not, he could fix it.  But she had to at least give it a chance.  Now he wanted to dry it and style it for her and possibly add some highlights.  He loved doing things like this even though his father detested his aptitude for style.  His father was a judge and had been so happy when he finally had a son so that someone could follow in his footsteps. He’d tried to live up to what his father wanted him to be, he had even enrolled in law school, but it was so boring to him he couldn’t finish. 

Finally, he quit and became a bartender as he supported himself through fashion school.  Bartending was great. He got to meet so many fascinating people.  In fact, it was how he met Maria.  Finally, I had to interrupt his rambling.

“Who is Maria?”  I asked Anna Marie.

“Oh, I think that’s me,” Anna Marie said pointing to herself. “Maria? Maria?” 
Raffaele
smiled and kissed her passionately, losing his grip on his towel.  Will, who had stopped laughing during
Raffaele’s
speech in order to concentrate and try to understand a word here or there, quickly covered his eyes again trying to avoid
Raffaele’s
nakedness.

I sighed and shook my head. “He doesn’t even know your name.”

“Maria is close enough.”  Then
Raffaele
started repeating her name and leading her to the bedroom while muttering in Italian. “What is he saying?” 
she
asked.

“He says he’s not done with you.  He wants to cut and style your hair and make you even more beautiful than you already are.”  Anna Marie squealed and started jumping up and down splashing me with her wet hair.  Then she grabbed her naked boyfriend and flew into our room closing the door swiftly behind her.

“Anna Marie, I need my clothes for class,” I yelled as I pounded on the door.  She opened the door just wide enough to push my dance bag through then shut it again. 

Will, who at some point fell to the ground with laughter, stood up, put his arm around me, and said, “Let’s go get some breakfast.”

***

“Shouldn’t you be off to study for Chemistry now?” Anna Marie asked as she packed up her dance bag. We were both in the
corp
for the second act of the next performance so we took a few minutes after dinner to rehearse together.

I rolled my eyes and kept doing my
balancés
across the floor.
“Probably.”

“Probably?
I think definitely. Prof. Calabria is doing you a huge favor by letting you make up for your three previous failing grades with this test tomorrow.”

I knew she was right. Failing this test would all but guarantee that I would fail the class. I’d known that all week, but that knowledge still hadn’t motivated me to sit down and go over my notes, or the study sheet Prof. Calabria made for me, or to call my tutor and beg for one more review session.

“You really shouldn’t take this second, well, fourth chance lightly. It may be your last,” Anna Marie added.

“God, Anna Marie, do you have to constantly remind me of what a failure I am?” I yelled with tears burning behind my eyes. I went to the bar and faced away from her so that she wouldn’t see how much I wanted to cry. “I’m stupid. I know this. It’s been proven time and time again.”

“I didn’t mean –”

“No, I know what you mean, okay? I know you’re just trying to help, but there is no help. No matter what I do, I’m
gonna
fail tomorrow. So, I’d rather just spend the evening doing what I love, doing what I came to Italy to do. I’d rather just dance.”

Anna Marie sighed then left the room without trying to convince me further. I wondered if she, too, felt that it would be my last week at the Academy. Considering the situation I was in, even a passing grade in Chemistry wouldn’t help.

Let’s say by some miracle I passed the stupid test. I would still look like a fool on stage dancing with Pierre in our next performance and still get asked to leave the Academy. What was worse was that Antonia Lyn, principal dancer with the
DiRisio
Company, was ending her contract and looking to move on. So, talent scouts and company directors from all over Europe would be at this performance seeking her out to offer her a new contract. Not only would I look ridiculous in front of the standard Italian crowd, Pierre would probably drop me and ruin my image, career, and reputation in front of the most influential dancers in the world. I shivered with anger just thinking about it. I could live with getting kicked out of the academy for poor grades, but I refused to go out looking like a second-rate artist.

I went through the choreography and improvised through the lifts as if the routine didn’t call for a partner. It actually didn’t look too horrible. Maybe Pierre would get hit by a bus and I would have to perform alone. I know that was an evil thought and I wouldn’t want him to die or anything; maybe he could just get incapacitated enough to never dance again.

I could even picture the bus accident. Pierre would be crossing the street twirling a lock of his dark curly hair around his finger. Then he would see his reflection in the window of an oncoming bus and be so mesmerized by his own beauty he wouldn’t think to move. A slow evil grin crept across my face, but I quickly shook it off and went back to rehearsing.

I got home to Will’s place well after two in the morning to find Sasha sitting in the living room.

“What are you doing up?” I asked.

“I was waiting for you.”

“Why?”

“Because I was going through your school books and what I found was quite disturbing.” I instantly recognized Sasha’s ‘you’re a moron so I’m going to talk to you like a child’ tone and headed for my bedroom. She followed me. “You can walk away from me, but you can’t walk away from this,” she said holding up the letter from Alejandro.