The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (20 page)

THE RETURN OF BUNNY RABBIT

Matthew had gone quiet about Thanksgiving break. When they’d discussed it in early November, he’d told Frankie he was going home to Boston to celebrate with his parents. She had invited him to come down and visit her on the Friday after the holiday. “Rescue me from Ruth,” Frankie told him, hoping the idea of being her savior would override his lack of interest in meeting her family. “Because I may come back mentally deranged if I’m left alone with her for four days. Zada is staying in California.”

Matthew had said yes. Of course he’d rescue her.

He’d drive down and take her out to see a show in New York City.

But he hadn’t mentioned it since.

And he kept not mentioning it as the holiday grew close.

“Are you coming to rescue me?” she finally asked him two days before the break. They were sitting in the library after dinner. Matthew had bought Frankie three rolls of strawberry Mentos, and they had opened them up and arranged the candies in a row between them while they studied. “Because my mother is going to be driving me crazy.”

“If I can get away, I definitely will,” Matthew said. “Alpha wants to go do this crazy Alpine slide thing in western Mass.”

“What is it?”

“He’s a madman. You slide down these mountains on carts, like a baby bobsled with no snow.”

A cold spot formed in Frankie’s chest. “Can I come?” she asked.

“Oh, um.” Matthew ran a hand through his hair. “That would be great. But how will we get you?”

“Can you pick me up?”

“Not on Thursday night; my family’s dinner never even starts till nine.”

“I could take the bus to Boston Friday morning.”

“Um. I think we’re leaving early.”

“Can’t you go later?”

“You have to get there early, Alpha says.”

“Matthew.”

“What?”

“You already made this plan, then.”

“Kind of.”

“But didn’t we talk about you coming to New Jersey on Friday?”

“Yeah.”

“So I thought you were driving down, probably.”

“I was, I—this came up, and I promised Alpha. You and I didn’t fix anything certain, did we?”

“No. It’s—I’ll miss you.” She felt like she never got him alone. Felt like she was always in his world and he was never in hers. And here was evidence: that no matter how hard she pushed herself into his world—heck, she was running whole sections of his life at this point, not that he knew—no matter how hard she pushed her way in, he could always close a door on her.

“I’ll miss you too,” Matthew said, taking a strawberry Mento and feeding it to her. “But we’ll see each other Sunday night. Call me as soon as you’re on campus.”

Frankie ate the candy. The touch of his fingers on her lips distracted her. He had brought her strawberry Mentos, after all.

Shouldn’t that be enough?

Matthew stood up to go to the bathroom down the hall, and while he was gone, Frankie looked in his backpack. It was wrong, she knew. But she felt like she was losing her grip on him. Two notebooks—calculus and history of Japan. Several pens, including highlighters. Three chocolate wrappers, and a roll of quarters. A letter from his mother, still unopened. A cough drop. A number of old flyers: a school calendar for October, a list of open electives, a memo about plagiarism. And a printout.

In Matthew’s backpack was a printout of the e-mails between Frankie and Porter, just going this far:

From:
Porter Welsch [[email protected]]

To:
Frances Landau-Banks [[email protected]]

Subject:
Hey

Frankie, what’s up? Hope your term is going well so far. I want to apologize for what happened with Bess last year. —Porter

From:
Frances Landau-Banks

[[email protected]]

To:
Porter Welsch [[email protected]]

Subject: Re: Hey

You mean, you
want
to apologize, or you
are
apologizing? Your grammar is indistinct.

That was it.

Frankie shoved the printout back into the bag and returned to studying. Matthew returned and fed her another Mento.

She couldn’t ask him about it.

If she did, he’d know she’d looked in his backpack.

Frankie sunk into her chair, a tangle of guilt and anger—but she didn’t say a word.

Frankie spent Thanksgiving break in New Jersey with Ruth, her uncles, and the vile male cousins. Zada called from California, and Senior from Boston, to wish them all a happy holiday.

“How’s our Bunny Rabbit liking school?” asked Uncle Ben, ruffling Frankie’s hair as she offered him a cup of hot apple cider. Ruth was in the kitchen making gravy.

“It’s good.”

“Great.”

Uncle Paul came over and squeezed Frankie’s shoulders. “You got so tall since the summer. Did you start high school at that fancy place your dad’s so proud of?”

“I’m a sophomore, Uncle Paul.”

Uncle Paul pretended disbelief. “You’re kidding me. There’s no way you’re a sophomore. Last year, I swear it on my grave, I was changing your diapers.”

“I agree,” said Ben. “Just yesterday, I tell you, she was dragging that dolly everywhere, you remember, the one with no arms?”

Ruth came out of the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Frankie. “She’s as adorable as always, though, don’t you think?”

“You got a boyfriend there at your fancy school?” Uncle Paul wanted to know. “Your mother says you have a boyfriend.”

“Mom!”

Ruth looked innocent. “I wasn’t supposed to tell?”

Paulie Junior had found a tray of desserts hidden in the den and was stuffing chocolate jellies into his mouth, but he stopped long enough to chant: “Frankie’s got a boyfriend, Frankie’s got a boyfriend.”

Frankie smirked at Ruth. “You don’t have to broadcast it.”

“It’s a secret from your own family you have a boyfriend?” Ruth waved her hands dismissively. “I’m glad you have a nice guy to take care of you up there.” Ruth looked at Ben. “Zada says he’s from a very good family. Newspaper people.”

“Yeah, it’s a good family,” muttered Frankie.

“He’s nicer than that one you had last year, right, Bunny?” asked Uncle Paul. “I seem to remember there was some hocus-pocus with that one.”

“You mean hanky-panky!” shouted Ruth. “There was hanky-panky.”

“There was
not
,” moaned Frankie.

“Anyway, this one’s better, right, Bunny?” said Ruth. “He treats her well, Zada told me. Takes care of you?”

“He’s not a babysitter, Mom.”

“A babysitter? Who’s talking about babysitters?”

“You act like I need a boyfriend to take care of me.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” said Ruth, busying herself mixing butter into a bowl of mashed potatoes. “I’m a feminist like anyone. I’m just saying—”

“What?”

“I didn’t worry about you at school when Zada was there. But now you’re there all alone, I like thinking you have this nice guy to watch out for you— that’s all.”

“You always underestimate me.”

Ruth shook her head. “I think the world of you. Now, can you carry the potatoes out to the table? The bowl is very heavy.”

THE FISH LIBERATION SOCIETY

A way from her boyfriend for four days

and feeling neglected, Frankie reasoned through the meaning of what she’d found in his backpack thus: if Matthew had looked at the Frankie–Porter e-mails on Frankie’s laptop, he wouldn’t have been able to print them out—unless he’d forwarded them to himself for later use. Frankie checked her sent-mail folder, and he hadn’t. Unless he’d thought to erase the sent-mail record.

More likely, she figured, Matthew had seen the e-mails on
Porter
’
s
laptop—but even then, he would also have had to forward them, and in any case, where they were forwarded for printing, the e-mails would read as forwards, whereas these printed out clean, no trace of Matthew’s e-mail address.

So. Porter had given him a printout.

Yes, that was the most likely conclusion. Porter had given Matthew a copy of those e-mails. But why?

Could Matthew have forced Porter to apologize to Frankie? And demanded that Porter deliver him a copy of the apology? However, Porter must have then committed the insubordination of asking Frankie to lunch in order to warn her against Matthew.

That would explain why Matthew had been so upset about Frankie going to lunch with Porter. According to the hierarchy of the Bassets, Matthew was supposed to control Porter—but Porter had proven himself unwilling to be completely controlled.

If Frankie had done what Matthew asked of her and stood Porter up, that would have been a win for Matthew. But as it was, she had gone to lunch against his wishes—and Porter had gained some power. Though Frankie never told Matthew that Porter had warned her against him, Porter’s defiant lunch invitation marked him as the least loyal of the Basset Hounds. As such, he was a potential liability.

Something to remember.

Though she was pleased with the conclusions she drew from her reasoning, Frankie wandered around her mother’s house in the days after Thanksgiving, staring out of windows for long periods of time. The knowledge that Matthew had forced Porter to make the apology hung over her like a damp washcloth.

She ate too many brownies and felt a little sick to her stomach. She opened books and didn’t read past the first page.

She wished Matthew would call. But he didn’t.

The Loyal Order’s next large-scale venture occurred in early December. It was the kidnapping of the Alabaster Guppy and its replacement with a large plastic lawn ornament in the shape of a sad-eyed basset hound. The basset came with a plastic sign at its feet that had previously contained the phrase, “Consciousness: That Annoying Time Between Naps!” It now featured a notice, carefully laminated in case of rain:

Sprung free of its bonds by members of the Fish Liberation Society, the Alabaster Guppy will journey to its natural home at the bottom of the pond, unless it can be convinced to return upon delivery of a ransom. More to follow.

A ransom note was then delivered to Headmaster Richmond, printed in block letters on an adorable card of a basset hound wearing a stethoscope, the inside of which had formerly read, “All those doctors can go to the dogs! Get well soon.” The note demanded the cessation of mandatory

Chapel on Monday mornings:

The Guppy feels that the implied Christianity of required Chapel attendance, even though the assemblies are technically nondenominational, is an affront to those Alabaster students who are Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, or whatever else. Mandatory Chapel is also highly irksome to those who, like the Guppy himself, prefer to consider themselves atheists.

The Guppy defends each student’s right to hear about sports schedules, charity initiatives, and school dances without the big pictures of Jesus on the cross dominating the proceedings. Even for Christian students, it is inappropriate to mix religious awe with announcements concerning the PSATs.

The Guppy respectfully requests that school assemblies be henceforth held in the auditorium of the new arts complex. It will be pleased to return when this change has been made.

Photocopies of this note were delivered to every mailbox.

Richmond responded by calling a meeting of the faculty, during which considerable discussion ensued. The question of assembly in the chapel had been brought up before, but Alabaster tradition had prevailed against the small number of non-Christian or atheist students who had asked for a switch, and those had been easily cowed by Richmond’s assertion that the stained glass crucifixions and Virgins were part of the Alabaster tradition students had enjoyed for nearly 120 years, and that since the content of the assembly was explicitly nonreligious, no one could possibly object.

The students had proposed noncompulsory attendance, and indeed that had been tried in 1998, but numbers at assembly had subsequently dropped so low that no one knew when events were scheduled, membership in school activities and charity drives diminished, and a quantity of students got into all kinds of trouble on Monday morning while most of the faculty members were attending morning assembly.

So mandatory Chapel had been reinstated, and no one had seriously questioned it in the twenty-first century.

The Guppy statue had been at Alabaster since its third year and was an object of wealthy alumni nostalgia. During its 1951 sojourn at the home of seminal Basset Hound Hardewick’s mother, the Old-Boy outrage at its loss was both vitriolic and impassioned.

Now, Headmaster Richmond convened a faculty meeting to discuss the contents of Frankie’s note. Some members argued that the bad behavior of stealing the Guppy should not be encouraged. The perpetrators should be located and suspended. Others argued that if the requests of the organization now calling itself the Fish Liberation Society were ignored, the Guppy might never be retrieved. Alumni disappointment would be considerable—and that could cause financial damage to the school, which was heavily dependent on contributions. Also, what if the perpetrator were the son or daughter of a major alum? It was safer and quieter to capitulate.

Still, other faculty members argued that assembly in the chapel had always bothered them as well, either because the chapel should be reserved for religious worship or because the chapel’s atmosphere of devout Christianity was oppressive to those with other religious affiliations, as these fish people—vegetable people, dog people, breast people, whatever they were— had pointed out.

In the end, Richmond posted a notice moving Monday morning assembly to the new arts complex auditorium, effective immediately, and demanding the return of the Guppy.

That afternoon, around five o’clock, Elizabeth Heywood received a typewritten note under her door, directing her and several of her girlfriends on a scavenger hunt for the Guppy. The first clue led them to Richmond’s office, where a second clue led them to the offices of the physical plant; and before long, a trail of administrators, janitors, gym teachers, and underclassmen were following the senior girls as they figured out a series of paper puzzles. Movie night went unattended, study groups disbanded, and the headmaster canceled a date with his wife.

Frankie, Matthew, and Alpha followed Elizabeth until she reached the final clue:

Under water I am not
But you’re finally getting hot
My tub with chlorine
Once was deep
Now it’s dry
And there I sleep.

The Guppy was in the empty swimming pool of the old gymnasium.

A janitor opened the chained door after a fifteen-minute wait, and half the school swarmed into the abandoned building. Frankie reached out and squeezed Matthew’s hand. “The swimming pool. Perfect,” she said.

He chuckled. “It’s not bad.”

“What do you think it means?” Frankie asked.

She really wanted to know. It had been more than a month now, her plotting these escapades and the members of the Loyal Order executing them. And though she took a deep satisfaction in her work and the reaction people had to it, she had begun to hunger for a chance to discuss the projects. She’d expended terrific effort to make these things happen, and she wanted to talk about them with Matthew, whose opinion she valued most.

“Hm?” He seemed distracted.

“Putting the Guppy in the old pool. Don’t you think it means something?”

“How so?”

She couldn’t believe he’d hauled this several- hundred-pound statue through sweltering underground tunnels in the middle of the night without ever considering the symbolism of the hiding place. “The Guppy is this icon of our school, right? All the alumni remember it fondly, it’s been here forever, etcetera.”

“Yeah.”

“So?”

“What?”

“Don’t you see?”

“Well, it’s a guppy in a pool, and that’s kind of like a fish tank,” Matthew said.

“Isn’t it a symbol of the old Alabaster being obsolete?”

“Maybe.” Matthew laughed and put his arm around Frankie. “But maybe you’re thinking too much.”

“No, seriously,” she persisted. “The Guppy represents the old-fashioned values of the school, and putting it in the dry pool is like saying those values are old and useless, the way the pool is.”

“What values?”

Why was he not understanding her? Was he playing dumb to keep the secret? “The whole Alabaster network, prep school Old Boy thing,” she told him.

“Seems to me like you’re reading a lot into nothing.” Matthew shrugged.

“Don’t you think that’s what’s getting shook up here?”

“You mean, shaken up?”

He was correcting her grammar.

She was explaining this whole prank to him, the prank he’d actually carried out, and instead of listening to her point, he was correcting her grammar. “You’re thinking too much,” he had said.

What? He didn’t want her to think?

What was the point of doing
any
of these pranks if people weren’t going to think about them?

“Yeah,” Frankie said. “Shaken up.”

Matthew stroked her hair. “You’re adorable. You know I think that, right?”

“Thanks,” said Frankie.

The sad thing was, she did know. But it wasn’t enough.

He leaned in and kissed her neck. “You smell good, too. You want to come shake me up for a few minutes before curfew? Let’s be alone.”

He was bringing up the grammar thing again.

He just wanted to make out—he wasn’t ever going to listen to what she wanted to say. He didn’t know they were in this together.

Matthew thought he and the Basset Hounds had made this happen on their own—and he wasn’t going to tell her about it no matter how interested Frankie showed him she was.

It wasn’t that he no longer had a secret from her. In fact, Matthew’s secret was getting bigger and bigger—and Frankie finally had to admit to herself that he wasn’t ever, ever going to tell her.

She turned to him. “I can’t believe you just said that, Matthew. Shake you up?”

“Aw, I didn’t mean it that way. We were joking around—shook up, shaken up?”

“Right.”

“Don’t be mad.”

“Fine.”

“Come on.”

“I’m not mad,” she lied. “I just remembered there’s something I gotta do.”