Corliss

  In my mother’s mind, my super intelligence made me almost angelic. It was God who had touched me with this brilliance, wasn’t it? Okay, what some accused me of doing wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility, even if it wasn’t probable, but what also made her my mother was her faith in me to tell the truth, especially to her.

  “Your daddy had an important meeting this morning,” my mother said. “He got Randall and Andrea off to school.”

  “And you’ve got to go to work,” I said, now feeling more terrible for her than for myself. She was going to have to explain why she was late. She and my father were going to have to justify this to lots of people, people who would not believe that I was a victim of anyone but myself. Skepticism was almost the lifeblood of our community. It was difficult not to be cynical. Teenagers were mostly trouble. Why would my high grades be enough to grant me special treatment?

  “It’ll be all right,” she said, standing. “You’ve got to stay here for a day or so to be sure you’re all right. I’ll get back as soon as I’m able. Your daddy will see to Andrea and Randall after school, but then he’s got to go to work.”

  “Is he very mad?”

  She leaned over to kiss me on the forehead and brush back my hair. She smiled. “You know your daddy, with that military police training. He never met a rule he didn’t like.”

  We always used to joke about it and tease him, but right now, it didn’t seem very funny to me.

  “Someone did this to me, Mom. He’s got to believe that.”

  “He will. He’s just embarrassed right now. Don’t worry. Do what they tell you so you can get home quickly.” She patted my hand and started out, looking like the night had aged her years.

  I began to cry but kept my tears from building and pressed my lips together. My chest ached with the tension, and then one of the nursing aides brought in some light breakfast for me. I ate what I could and fell asleep. Afterward, one of the doctors on duty, Dr. Broman, stopped in to see me. He looked like he was still in high school, but he spoke with confidence, assuring me that I would be fine.

  “It was enough to give you a good hangover,” he said simply. He didn’t seem to care whether I had done it to myself.

  “Was it methylenedioxymethamphetamine?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Exactly. Are you heading for a career in medicine? You’re a high school junior, right?”

  “I’m a naive fool,” I said. “Maybe I’ll graduate to idiot.”

  He laughed. “Okay. We’ll get you home tomorrow. Keep drinking liquids.”

  “As long as it isn’t spiked.”

  He smiled. He was giving me the benefit of the doubt and then told me why. “Something like this happened to me in med school. A few of my buddies decided to initiate me. Their weak excuse was that if I didn’t experience it, I wouldn’t appreciate what my patients were suffering. I tried to burn each of them with a cigarette lighter using the same rationale. A week later, we all joked about it over some beers. Don’t let this ruin your life. Chalk it up to an experience you won’t experience again.”

  He winked and left me feeling a little less sorry for myself, though no less angry.

  After lunch, Jackson appeared. I was sitting up but still feeling weak. I saw immediately that he was blaming himself.

  “Hey, how ya doing?” he asked, and pulled the chair my mother had sat in all night close to the bed. He looked as depressed and tired as I felt.

  “Angry at myself more than sick,” I said. “I saw those two talking to you. I should have expected it.”

  “No, I should have. I had my back to Brenda, and Marsha was distracting me. I was the one who handed you the punch, an unwitting accomplice. I was such a fool.”

  “It’s not your fault, Jackson. If you think that way, you make them less guilty. It’s almost like giving them an excuse.”

  He nodded and then smiled. “I never thought of it like that. Even in this condition, you strike gold.”

  “Hardly gold.”

  We looked at each other just a little more intensely than ever. Was it because of what had happened and only that? Would this sudden new feeling pass?

  “I should have paid more attention to you, Corliss. I should have looked after you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to,” he said, and surprised me by reaching for my hand. “If I had, you probably wouldn’t be in here.”

  I looked at his hand holding mine. Funny, I thought, but all this time, all the times we had been together for one thing or another, we had rarely touched. He wasn’t all that easy to read, even for me. Was he sorry because of what happened to me, or was he sorry because he had taken so long to tell me he had deeper feelings for me than mere friendship?

  “Is that all right?” he asked, probably because I had yet to respond even close to the way he was hoping.

  “Yes,” I said. He smiled. “Did the police question you?”

  “Yes, and Dean Becker, too. I assured them that you didn’t take any drugs yourself. I told them about Brenda and Marsha, but I didn’t see it actually happen, so . . .”

  “That’s all right. I’m sorry you were drawn into it.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Are your parents upset?”

  “No,” he said quickly, maybe too quickly. “They believe me.”

  I could tell from the way he said it that they weren’t one hundred percent sure. Maybe they had even warned him to stay clear of me for a while, if not forever.

  He stood up and walked to the foot of the bed, put his hands on the railing, and leaned toward me. I sensed the anger in him.

  “Don’t blame your parents. They’re simply worried for you, Jackson. You’re going to be the school valedictorian.”

  “They believed me,” he insisted.

  “Okay.”

  “When you get out of here and you’re able to, of course, I’d like to take you to dinner, and not just pizza,” he said firmly. “My parents took me to a great little Italian restaurant two weeks ago, and I thought we could go there. If you like Italian food,” he quickly added.

  “I do.”

  “Great.” He looked at his watch. “I have to run off to do an errand for my mother. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Yes, Jackson. You don’t have to ask permission. This isn’t the Victorian age.”

  He smiled widely. “I can see you’re getting better quickly.” He turned and started out, then stopped and rushed back to the side of my bed.

  I looked up at him, smiling with amusement.

  Before I could speak, he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Then he fled.

  Was it possible? Could something good come out of this after all?

  3

  Days later, when I was well enough to return to school, I sensed what would surely be considered an ironic benefit resulting from what the girls had done to me. I knew they had done it, of course, and it wasn’t my fault, but Hamlet’s mother’s famous line in the play worked its way to the top of my thoughts the day I returned to school: The lady doth protest too much, methinks. I decided I would not spend any time denying accusations or defending myself. The more I did, the less I’d be believed. Actually, I enjoyed the way most of my teachers were looking at me now. Miss Perfect Absolute Genius was real after all. Despite her braininess, she was a normal teenager. She could make mistakes.

  Anyway, Lily, Marsha, Aggie, and the others had enjoyed a solid day without me there trying to defend myself and blame them.

  Jackson had warned me about them when he called on the first day of school after the party. “They’re swearing you took X, didn’t think it was that strong, and took two in the girls’ room. Marsha Bloom claims you told her one of my cousins got you the drugs to sell because your mother had to return to work and your family needed money.”

  “I’m surpr
ised she concocted a fairly logical story about it,” I said. “If I wasn’t Corliss Simon, I might believe her.”

  Jackson laughed. “Yeah. If they put half the energy into their schoolwork that they put into lying, they’d all be A students. It’s what they’re good at: lying.”

  “It’s all right. Let them.”

  “No, it’s not. I bawled them out in the cafeteria today, but they just laughed. Some of my so-called friends did, too. I have another warning for you. Don’t bother using me as a witness. They’re telling everyone we’re seeing each other and that I would say anything to defend you.”

  “Would you? Say anything, I mean?”

  He was silent so long that I thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he gave me a good Jackson Marshall answer. “If you were accused of something untrue, yes. If you did something wrong, I would persuade you to confess and take away the power girls like that would think they have over you.”

  “Safe answer,” I said. I didn’t say it with any appreciation.

  He heard some disappointment and began to dig himself out. “But you wouldn’t be guilty anyway, Corliss. I know your heart.”

  “Okay.” I felt like giving him a pass for now. He had arranged for our dinner date the following weekend, and the moment I returned to school the next day, he was there at my side whenever he could be.

  By now, I had become quite infamous. I learned that a number of other students had been called into the dean’s office and questioned about the incident. Many, afraid of Lily and Marsha, supported the other girls’ claims. Doubt about my innocence couldn’t be completely crushed, but the testimony of the other girls wasn’t sufficient to convict me, either. As Jackson would say, and as Dean Becker obviously thought, Consider the source.

  Nevertheless, for a while that week, I really did enjoy the notoriety. I was something more than the school’s academic oddity, and my refusing to discuss it only kept it alive. It even made me seem a little dangerous.

  At home, however, I didn’t enjoy that feeling. My father had seen enough in his life to challenge any claim of innocence, even mine.

  “I hope you’re telling us the truth, Corliss,” he said the first chance he got. My mother bawled him out for having even the slightest doubt, but that glimmer of skepticism lingered in his eyes. The ironic joy I had felt in attracting suspicion in school died a quick death under my father’s look. Instead, the anger I had put aside came raging back one night. I realized that I shouldn’t be concerned only about my reputation. My father put a lot of value in the family name and his status. After all, what he did for a living required that he be respected and trusted. If he couldn’t control his own daughter, how could he be expected to watch over the welfare of others?

  During the next few days, Jackson did all he could to help me forget what these girls had done to my reputation, but I couldn’t escape the heat of the satisfied smiles they directed at me. If I’m so much smarter than they are, I thought, I’ll work on my revenge. This driving passion grew stronger every day, despite Jackson’s efforts to get me to think of other things.

  The truth was that his perception of me as this pure and perfect girl was beginning to annoy me. Many times that week, he repeated, “I don’t know how anyone could believe them and not you. Anyone just looking at you would see what was true and what was not.”

  Tired of his praise, I reached above my head and felt the air.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Looking for the halo.”

  He laughed. “Okay, okay. Let’s both stop talking about it.”

  I wanted to, but my thoughts of revenge did not dwindle as time passed all week. The looks, the comments deliberately said loudly enough for me to hear, and the way even some of my teachers gazed at me and whispered among themselves drove me to think more and more about what had been done not only to me but to my whole family. Even my brother and sister were hearing things and being asked questions. My mother told them to ignore it. Time, the great healer of everything, would settle things down.

  But it wouldn’t do that for me. It was truly as if the drug had done more than cause a traumatic physical reaction. It had opened my eyes to a part of myself that had longed for an opportunity to be active—an aggressive part. Logic would always tell me not to permit myself to be baited, to become like them. Yes, I knew the famous saying that once you became like your enemy, your enemy had won.

  But I was tired of logic. I welcomed rage.

  I kept it well hidden. As far as my parents were concerned, I was moving on, still doing exceptional work in school, and now expanding into a social life. For the time being, it did subdue my wrath. I was about to go on my first real date. No one knew, not even I, what doors of exploration it would open for the girl locked inside me. It was as if I were blossoming into a totally new person, a new identity.

  My father was home when Jackson came over to pick me up. The restaurant was only a few blocks away. Jackson wasn’t wearing a jacket, but he had on a dark blue shirt and a light blue tie and a pair of blue slacks, not the typical dress clothes other boys in my school wore. Anticipating the way he would dress, I had put on one of my nicer pink blouses and a black skirt. All fathers were normally suspicious of the boys taking out their daughters, but my father’s training and his work made him more so. Anyone but Jackson Marshall would have been nervous when my father scrutinized him with that intense gaze of his that was like an X-ray, but Jackson was so sure of his own good intentions that he couldn’t imagine being accused of anything.

  “Let me ask you something, Jackson.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Were you aware that those girls were doing drugs?”

  Jackson glanced at me and then nodded. “I think most everyone in the school is aware of that, Mr. Simon.”

  “But you didn’t think to warn Corliss about them?”

  “Stop it, Daddy,” I snapped. “It wasn’t Jackson’s fault. It was mine. I should have realized the possibility. I told you. They distracted him.”

  “Um,” my father said. “Well, you be more aware of what’s happening around you, Mr. Marshall, when you’re with my daughter. We live in a dangerous world.”

  “Yes, sir. I will.”

  “Have a good time,” my mother said.

  My father just nodded, with a face still full of warning.

  I felt ashamed and apologized for my father’s behavior as soon as we stepped out, but Jackson insisted that my father had a right to be suspicious and critical.

  “He’s right. I shouldn’t have been so oblivious. Anyway, he’s got a right to say it, Corliss. No one is supposed to protect you more than your father.”

  As we walked to the restaurant, he continued explaining and justifying the way parents, teachers, and even other students could be skeptical about what had happened at the dance. But I wasn’t in the mood to hear good logic and be understanding. His reasonableness was annoying me. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I began to toy with him.

  “Doesn’t that mean that you have suspicions, too? Maybe there was nothing in the punch. Maybe I did take a pill in the girls’ room and accused them, just to get away with it.”

  “No. I just can’t imagine you doing that.”

  “Why not? I get bored, too, you know. Those girls always seem to be having a better time than I do, no matter what it is.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  “You don’t know what I believe. No one really knows what’s in someone else’s mind. You know what? My father’s right about that. Be suspicious, and you’ll be safer.”

  He looked at me oddly. I smiled to myself, happy that I was having some fun being a little mischievous.

  At dinner in the restaurant, I pursued it. “Don’t you feel like taking a pill or drinking a little too much sometimes? Don’t you want to see what it’s all about?”

&nbsp
; “No. I don’t need to do it to know what it is,” Jackson insisted. He tried to change the topic by talking about the food, the college he was going to attend, and a novel he thought I might like to read. But I wouldn’t change the subject.

  If he wants to go out with an angel, he should stay in church, I thought.

  “I can understand why Lily and Marsha used your cousins in their story. I bet they did drugs in college,” I said.

  “If they did, they didn’t tell me,” he said, a little petulant now.

  “I’ve done some research since the party. Upward of eighty percent of college students abuse alcohol. Use of tranquilizers has gone up more than five hundred percent since the nineties. Last year, more than one hundred thousand college-age kids were arrested for drug- or alcohol-related crimes.”

  “Stupid. They deserve to suffer.”

  “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” I threw back at him.

  He laughed. “Okay, okay. Let’s just make sure we’re not in the statistics,” he replied. “Can’t we talk about something more pleasant?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like how beautiful you are.” He paled after saying it. “That’s really why those girls are jealous of you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling guilty that I had done anything to annoy him.

  After dinner, we started for home. He mentioned that his parents were out with friends. He made it sound like a simple fact, but I suspected he was suggesting something.

  “I’ve never seen your house, you know,” I said. “I’d like to see your room.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s not much. I mean, I have bookshelves and stuff, but . . .”

  “We’re passing your house. It’s early. Do you want to invite me?”

  “Sure,” he said, though he did sound very nervous about it.

  “I mean, you don’t have to. We can just walk or something.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ve got that novel, too. I’ll give it to you.”