Looking for Alibrandi

  “Well, I’m sorry,” she said, sounding anything but.

  “No, you’re not. You’re just sorry that I heard you and that you’re forced to say you’re sorry.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t be listening to my conversations anyway. This is a free country. I have the right to say whatever I want.”

  “And so do I, you racist pig.”

  “How dare you, you wog,” she said, standing up.

  “But I thought you said I wasn’t one.”

  “And you’re more than a wog, if you know what I mean.”

  I had a very strong feeling that she meant my illegitimacy. God knows what possessed me, but having that science book in my hand propelled me to immediate action. So I hit her with it.

  Next thing I knew I was in Sister Louise’s office with Carly’s father bellowing at me. Between his shouting, Carly’s sniveling and Sister Louise’s nervous reassurances, mostly to herself, that everything was all right, I was becoming extremely tense. I wanted desperately to faint or something, just to get out of the hysterical environment in there. I focused my attention on the picture of St. Martha on the wall.

  “Are you happy you broke my daughter’s nose?” he bellowed.

  Carly’s father is a morning-talk-show host. Carly never lets anyone forget that. But he looks different in real life. His skin is paler and blotchier. His eyes aren’t as warm and humorous as they seem on television and there hadn’t been a hairdresser that morning to hide his receding hairline. Sister Louise continued to look pretty distressed and tried to calm him down, but he seemed to get more furious by the minute.

  “I advise you, young lady, to call your lawyer.”

  I almost snickered aloud. I would have liked to explain to him that some people on the other side of the bridge didn’t have solicitors and that solicitors weren’t called lawyers in this country. But I didn’t. I thought I had said and done enough.

  “Josephine, tell us what happened.”

  “She hit me with her science book,” Carly wailed.

  Ron Bishop grabbed the science book out of my hand and waved it under my nose.

  “We’ll need this as evidence in court.”

  “Mr. Bishop, I don’t think that’s really necessary,” Sister Louise said, sending me a sharp look that begged me to defend myself.

  But how could I tell these people that I’d hit someone in the nose because she’d called me a wog and made a slur about my illegitimacy? Sister would probably recite “sticks and stones” to me.

  “I might settle this out of court if the circumstances satisfy me,” he said, glaring at me. “If not . . .”

  “Josephine, explain what happened,” Sister Louise ordered, looking as though she was getting very fed up with both me and the Bishops.

  “She hit my daughter with her history book.”

  “Science,” I corrected.

  “Josephine, we require an explanation,” Sister Louise snapped sharply.

  “I want this young lady to call her lawyer.”

  “She doesn’t have one, Dad,” Carly sneered nastily.

  “Josephine does not have a solicitor,” Sister said, trying to keep calm. “I hope we can settle this without a solicitor.”

  “I don’t think that’s feasible, Sister. She’ll have to find herself one,” Ron Bishop stated finally.

  “She can hardly afford . . .”

  “My father is a barrister. I’ll call him,” I said calmly.

  Three heads swung around to face me in shock.

  “You don’t have a father!” Carly yelled.

  “Yeah, sure. My mother’s the Virgin Mary and I’m the Immaculate Conception.”

  “She’s lying, Dad.”

  Ron Bishop glared at Sister Louise.

  “Is this girl lying?”

  I don’t think Sister exactly wanted to call me a liar because she was giving me a pleading look.

  “Could you ring him, Josie?”

  “I’ll have to look up his number.”

  “Oh sure,” Carly scoffed. “She doesn’t know her father’s phone number.”

  “He’s just moved from Adelaide. I know his Adelaide one by heart. 5516922,” I lied, making one up.

  “Well, then, find the number and ring him.”

  I looked nervously at them and took the phone book from Sister Louise, thankful that Mama had mentioned the name of his firm to me.

  Michael Andretti was on the phone, so in the bravest tone I could use I told his secretary that Josephine needed him at school. Knowing he wouldn’t know which school and not wanting the room’s occupants to know that he didn’t know, I told the secretary to remind him it was St. Martha’s Darlinghurst and not St. Matilda’s at Darling Point.

  When I hung up I was shaking like a leaf. If I’d had a gun I would have shot myself. I knew that Michael Andretti would never come to my rescue, but I prayed all the same. Because I was about to be made into a liar, probably be expelled, and become the laughingstock of the school.

  I listened to Carly sobbing about her nose and complaining that she would never model again while her father comforted her.

  Sick people, I thought. How long could these people survive in the real world?

  St. Martha on the wall and I became very well acquainted during the next half hour. I wondered what types of problems teenagers had in her days. I figured that things must have been much easier. I mean, all she had to do was pray and her brother, Lazarus, rose from the dead. What kind of miracles do teenagers get these days?

  Nobody was more surprised than me when Michael Andretti walked in. He looked businesslike and cool, but he was also glaring at me so sharply that I felt no need for celebration.

  “Alibrandi,” Ron Bishop said, coming forward.

  “Andretti,” he corrected, extending a hand, which was ignored.

  “Your daughter has broken my daughter’s nose with her science book.”

  “My daughter . . .”

  He caught the pleading look in my eye and rolled his.

  “My daughter inherited my quick temper.”

  Sister Louise seemed to sigh with relief and showed Michael Andretti a seat.

  “We’re suing.”

  “How interesting. What’s the story, Josephine?”

  I mouthed “Josie” and stood up. “Can I see you in private, Dad?”

  He nodded and Sister Louise showed us into the secretary’s office, closing the door behind us.

  “What the hell is going on?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  “I can explain.”

  “Tell me what happened to your passionate speech the other day about keeping out of each other’s lives?” he asked, standing in front of me.

  “I was desperate,” I said. “They’re going to expel me. I can’t afford to be expelled. A suspension is fine. It’ll be a great holiday, but not expulsion.”

  “You hit someone. What did your mother bring you up to be? A boxer?”

  “Carly made me angry.”

  “I get angry every day in court, Josephine. I don’t hit people because of it.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not you,” I snapped. “Listen, if you get me out of this I’ll never approach you again. Cross my heart.”

  He looked stern and I felt about ten years old. His mouth was tight with anger, but I could see him weakening slightly.

  “What did she say to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh, great. I have to try to get you out of this mess after you hit a girl for nothing,” he whispered angrily. “Josephine, don’t waste my time. You don’t seem like a violent type. She had to have said something to rile you.”

  “I just don’t like her. She’s vain. She puts her hair all over my books when she sits in front of me in class.”

  “So you hit her?”

  “No . . . yes.”

  “A girl puts her hair all over your books, so you break her nose?”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s broken, personally.”

  “Dr. Ki
ldare, we are not here to give a medical opinion. I want to know what she said to you.”

  “God,” I yelled, exasperated. “She said something to upset me, okay?”

  “What? That you were ugly? That you smell? What?”

  I looked horrified.

  “I’m not ugly. I don’t smell.”

  He sighed and took off his glasses, sitting down in front of me and pulling my chair toward him.

  “I was just asking for a reason.”

  I had never seen him so close before. The dimples were back because he was grimacing again. I could see the outline where he had shaved that morning. I could smell him so vividly. I had never smelled my father before. I knew Mama’s smell. She likes musk perfume. Yet this was the first time my father had a scent.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  “That creep out there wants you to pay for his daughter’s nose job. Because of that nose job she will be a famous model one day and you’ll be working in a fast-food chain because you couldn’t finish your High School Certificate due to expulsion. Now tell me what she said.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a fast-food chain,” I said, thinking of my McDonald’s job.

  “I’m really getting pissed off now, Josephine. You called me out of work for this and you won’t tell me why.”

  “Just go,” I said as he stood up and paced the room. “I’ll defend myself in court.”

  He groaned and looked up to the ceiling, pulling his hair.

  “God save me from days like this,” he begged.

  “Go,” I yelled.

  “Okay. Let him win. He’s a creep. Creeps always win,” he said, walking to the door. “But don’t think you’re going to make it in a courtroom, young lady. If you can’t be honest, don’t expect to stand up in a courtroom and defend honesty.”

  “She called me a wog, among other things,” I said, finally. “I haven’t been called one for so long. It offended me. It made me feel pathetic.”

  “You are a wog, Josie. Does it offend you to be one?”

  “I’m an Italian. I’m of European descent. When an Italian or another person of European descent calls me a wog it’s done in good warm humor. When the word ‘wog’ comes out of the mouth of an Australian it’s not done in good humor unless they’re a good friend. It makes me feel pathetic and it makes me remember that I live in a small-minded world and that makes me so furious.”

  “Did you provoke her?”

  “Yes. I called her a racist pig due to some things she was saying.”

  “Is she one?”

  “God, yes. The biggest.”

  He sighed and stood up. “As long as it doesn’t offend you to be a wog,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  We walked out and stood facing the others.

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” he said to Mr. Bishop.

  “My father is Ron Bishop,” Carly said, horrified that someone didn’t recognize him.

  “My father doesn’t believe in commercial TV,” I informed her as both Michael and Ron Bishop walked into the secretary’s office. “He’s an intellectual. He watches public television.”

  After I sat down, I didn’t look at Sister Louise or Carly during our fathers’ absence. I didn’t want to read what was on their faces. I was scared that it would be victory or sympathy or something equally pathetic.

  But all the same my heart was beating fast at the thought of Michael Andretti coming to defend me. He hadn’t needed to. He had said once before that he owed me nothing. But whether he did or not, he had come through.

  When the door opened, Ron Bishop walked out first, looking red-faced and defensive.

  “Well, I think we’ve got that settled,” Michael Andretti said, putting his glasses back on.

  “Get your things, Carly,” her father ordered.

  “Are we suing, Dad?”

  “Get your things.”

  I looked at them both and then up to Michael.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “He has my Concepts of Science.”

  “My daughter’s book, thank you,” he said briskly.

  When the Bishops left, Sister Louise adjusted the chairs and gave us room.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Andretti.”

  “Likewise,” he said with a smile. For once his dimples served the right purpose. “By the way, Josie informed me she was looking forward to suspension so she could have a holiday. I hope you won’t give her that satisfaction.”

  I seethed with embarrassment and avoided looking at both of them.

  “Josephine, dear, come here.”

  I wonder why nuns always sound so sarcastic when they say “dear.”

  Sister Louise opened a drawer and I looked in.

  “What do you see?”

  “Applications.”

  “Yes, dear. Dating back to 1980. Every lunchtime till the job is complete you’ll come in and put them into alphabetical order. You’ll find it good for the soul, dear.”

  “Thank you, Sister.”

  “You are suspended for the rest of the day, though.”

  I nodded and walked out with Michael Andretti at the same time that the bell rang.

  Everyone walked past me taking great interest.

  “So how was court today?” I asked at the top of my voice.

  Michael Andretti looked around, seeming uncomfortable with the attention, and gave me a great spiel about his day in court. I heard the whispers of excitement, knowing how impressive he sounded.

  I walked past my classmates with Michael Andretti beside me and for a few minutes I knew how it felt walking alongside one’s father.

  It was a great feeling.

  Nine

  USUALLY ON FRIDAYS Sister Louise calls Poison Ivy and me into her office to keep us up-to-date with what’s going on. Sister Louise and I don’t get on very well, as you’ve probably worked out. Nothing verbal, though. That’s the trouble, I suppose. We just look at each other untrustingly and don’t say a thing. But I do respect her.

  She’s not like the nuns we had in primary school. I don’t think any nun is like that anymore. We call them the penguins because of them wearing wimples and all that Sound of Music gear. Except they really don’t look like that anymore. They’re liberated. I think that during the seventies when women were burning their bras, nuns were burning their habits.

  They no longer go around saying, “Bless you, my child,” or, “God will punish you for your sinful ways,” like the nuns of my kindergarten year did. I mean, how can a five-year-old have “sinful” ways?

  I remember when I was young I used to wonder if they had parents like us or if they’d hatched out of some church. I wondered all kinds of crazy things, like did they go to the bathroom or did they think bad thoughts.

  The first time I saw a nun without a habit, I prayed for her, thinking that she’d go to hell. But I think Sister Louise made me change my mind. I’ve never met a more liberated woman in my life and I realize now that these women do not live in cloistered worlds far away from reality. They know reality better than we do. I just wonder whether she was ever boy-crazy.

  After our usual boring discussion during which Poison Ivy crawled to Sister and Sister took it all in, Ivy was excused and I wasn’t. I sat there for five minutes trying to work out what I had done wrong since punching Carly the week before.

  “Josie, Josie, Josie.”

  I looked up at her and then it clicked.

  “Sister, I only got on that bike because I needed to get home. I also think that my private life is my own.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Certainly not a motorcycle.”

  “Oh.”

  “And for your information, young lady, I used to own a motorbike myself when I was your age.”

  I almost laughed aloud.

  “Then what was the ‘Josie, Josie, Josie’ about?”

  “I heard your fathe
r is defending a very prominent businessman.”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

  I don’t know what it is with that woman. She finds out every single thing about us. She knows who we go out with, what we did over the weekend, if we’re on diets. Probably even who sleeps with their boyfriends.

  “It’s not a rumor. It’s the truth.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “Does that mean I’m off my scholarship because my father holds such a high position?”

  “No, it only means that I’d like to know how you’re coping with the situation.”

  She made me feel ashamed that she cared after I was being so catty.

  “I’m coping pretty well.”

  “I hope there are no hostilities between your parents that affect you, Josephine. I know that you hadn’t been in contact with your father when he lived in Adelaide. Your mother told me.”

  I sighed, looking out the window.

  “I found it very necessary to lie last week, Sister. I gambled and I won.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “I don’t know him well, but he seems like a nice person.”

  “Good.” She nodded. “And this job at McDonald’s?”

  “Sister,” I said, exasperated. “Is there anything we do that you don’t know about?”

  “Of course there is, Josephine,” she said, annoyed. “I only know minor details about you girls.”

  “Well, the job is going fine and I’m going fine.”

  “Any sign of your marks going down and I’ll speak to your mother.”

  “Sister, I’m getting As.”

  “Well, after six years of promise it’s about time, isn’t it, young lady?”

  I looked sheepish and nodded.

  “You can go. I just wanted to check up on you, that’s all.”

  “Thank you for the concern,” I said, picking up my bag and walking to the door.

  “And I hope that if you decide to go out with the captain of Cook High, you’ll behave in a Christian way.”

  I gritted my teeth and walked out. Forget what I said earlier about nuns changing. They’re the same old tyrants who terrorized children in the sixties.

  Christian way?

  That means when the Romans feed us to the lions we sit around with passive looks on our faces and smile. Like hell I will.