Pearl in the Mist

  "As long as I've known her, yes. She has a way of appealing to a side of them that titillates. Who knows what sort of promises she's been making," I added angrily.

  The social committee fanned out and handed the girls their ballots for queen of the dance. Two girls followed afterward with boxes into which we were to throw our choices.

  "I bet Gisselle has everyone voting for her," I muttered.

  "I'm voting for you," Abby said.

  "And me, you."

  We laughed, then filled out our ballots and deposited them.

  After we had had some dessert, Abby and I went to the girls' room to freshen up. It was jammed with everyone gossiping and laughing, but the moment we walked in a great deal of the talk ended. It was as if we were pariahs, lepers who had the others terrified we might touch or infect them. We gazed thoughtfully at each other, wondering.

  The second half of the evening proved no different from the first, only the longer I stood beside Abby, the less and less I was approached too. By the time the next-to-last musical number was played, Abby and I were the only ones not dancing. Just before the last dance of the night, Mrs. Ironwood went to the microphone once again.

  "It is a tradition here at Greenwood, as most of you know, that at the end of a social event, especially at the end of a formal dance, the girls choose their queen of the dance. The social committee has tallied the votes and asked that I call up Gisselle Dumas to announce the results."

  Abby and I looked at each other with surprise. When did Gisselle arrange this? I wondered. She backed herself away from her male admirers and wheeled herself across the floor to the sound of applause. Then she turned and faced the partygoers, a happy smile across her face. One of the members of the social committee then brought the results to Gisselle. The microphone was lowered so she could speak into it.

  "Thank you for this honor," she said. "It's just peachy." She turned to the girl who had the results. "The envelope, please," she said, as if it were the Academy Awards. Everyone laughed. Even Mrs. Ironwood relaxed her lips into something of a smile, Gisselle tore open the folded paper and read it to herself. Then she cleared her throat.

  "We have a somewhat surprising choice," she declared. "A first for Greenwood, according to what the committee has written here." She gazed at Mrs. Ironwood, who now looked more intense, more interested. "I shall read the winner's name and exactly what the committee has written after it." She looked our way. "The girls of Greenwood have chosen Abby Tyler," she declared.

  Abby's eyes widened with surprise. I shook my head in wonder, but it was as if the first shoe had dropped. The room became silent. Abby started to stand up. My heart began to pound when I looked around at the faces of the other girls. They all seemed to be holding their breaths.

  Gisselle gazed at the card and then brought her mouth to the microphone-to add, "Who is the first quadroon ever to have been chosen."

  It was as if we had fallen into the eye of a storm. There wasn't a giggle or even a cough. Abby froze. She looked down at me, her eyes filled with shock. So this was why none of the boys would ask her to dance. They had been told she was a quadroon. And this was why Gisselle had been so sweet and offered the white silk ribbon for Abby's hair: so all the boys would know who she was the moment they set eyes on her.

  "Who told her?" Abby whispered.

  I shook my head in denial. "I would never . . ."

  "Come get your trophy," Gisselle screamed into the microphone.

  Abby stood in front of me, even straighter and taller than she usually did, looking for all the world like a beautiful princess. "Won't worry, Ruby," she said, "its okay. I had already decided to tell my parents that they must stop living a lie. I relish each and every part of my ancestry and never again will I hide any of it." She walked across the room and out the door.

  "I guess she didn't like our trophy," Gisselle quipped. There was a roar of laughter that continued even after I had run from the ballroom after her. I flew into the hallway and hurried to the side door that just closed behind my friend. By the time I was outside, she was halfway across the campus, her pretty head held high, walking into the darkness.

  "Abby! Wait!" I called, but she didn't stop. By now she was crossing down to the driveway that led to the road away from the school. I started in that direction too, when I heard my named called.

  "Ruby Dumas."

  I turned to see Mrs. Ironwood standing behind me in the pool of illumination from the lights above the doorway of the school.

  "Don't you dare set foot off the grounds of this school," she warned.

  "But Mrs. Ironwood, my friend . . . Abby . ."

  "Don't you dare."

  I turned and looked in Abby's direction, but all I could see was darkness now, darkness and deep shadows that reached back and extended deep enough to drape over my own broken heart.

  9 A Friend in Need

  .

  1'd advise you to get yourself back to your

  social," Mrs. Ironwood warned. She had stepped up and now hovered behind me like a hawk about to pounce. The sky had turned stormy and foreboding in the distance, heralding rain and wind. For a moment I continued to stare into the darkness of the road, hoping to see Abby reappear, but I saw nothing. I stood like an island with the sea eddying around me, so miserable and unhappy. "Did you hear what I said?" she snarled.

  With my head down, I turned back toward the building and walked past Mrs. Ironwood without so much as glancing at her

  "Never have I seen such behavior," she continued, following me and chanting. "Never. Never. Never have one of my girls so openly embarrassed the school."

  "How could having a bright, beautiful, and kind student like Abby ever be an embarrassment? I hope she will be proud of her heritage, just like I am of my Cajun past," I shot back. She hoisted her shoulders and glared down at me with her stone-cold eyes. Silhouetted against the increasingly foreboding sky, she had become as ominous and as dark as one of Nina's voodoo spirits.

  "When people go where they don't belong, they only make problems for themselves," she declared with her imposing, authoritative tone.

  "Abby belongs here more than anyone else," I cried. "She's the smartest, nicest . ."

  "This is not the time nor the place to discuss such matters, and anyway, it is no concern of yours," she spit out, using her words like tiny knives to cut away my complaints. "Your concern should be about yourself and your own behavior. I thought I made that quite clear the last time we had a talk."

  I stared at her a moment as a terrible anger washed over me. Grandmere Catherine had taught me to respect my elders, but surely she had never anticipated me having to show a woman like Mrs. Ironwood respect. Her age and her position shouldn't shield her from justifiable criticism, I thought, even if it came from someone as young as I was, but I bit down on my lower lip to keep my fiery words locked inside my mouth.

  The Iron Lady seemed to enjoy my struggle to keep control. She glared back at me, waiting, hoping to see me become insubordinate so she could justify a harsher punishment, perhaps even have me expelled and keep me from ever seeing Louis again, which, I suspected, had become her real motive.

  I swallowed back my tears and fury, spun away from her, and returned to the ballroom, where I found the last dance in progress. Most of the girls glanced my way with interest, most with smiles on their faces. Whatever they uttered to their male companions brought laughter. It sickened me to see such joviality after what had been done to Abby.

  Over by the tables, Gisselle held court, surrounded now by more followers and admirers, including Jonathan Peck. Her laughter was so shrill it could be heard over the music.

  "I bet that's the first time a girl's turned down the Greenwood dance trophy," she said as I

  approached, more for my benefit than anyone else's. There was more laughter.

  "Oh, here's my sister. Give us a report, Ruby. Where's the quadroon gone?"

  "Her name is Abby," I fired back. "And thanks to you she left."
r />   "What do you mean, thanks to me? All I did was read the results of the vote, and why would anyone run off after winning?" Gisselle asked with an expression of utter innocence. The others nodded and smiled, gleefully anticipating my response.

  "You know very well why, Gisselle. You did a very mean thing tonight."

  "Don't tell me you condone the presence of mixed bloods at Greenwood," Jonathan remarked. He pulled his shoulders back and pressed down the sides of his hair with his palms as if he were standing in front of a mirror instead of a dozen admiring females. I turned on him.

  "What I don't condone is the presence of cruel and vicious people at Greenwood, nor do I condone the presence of snobs and arrogant young men who think they're somehow God's gift when in truth they're more in love with themselves than they could ever be with anyone else," I retorted.

  Jonathan's face flushed red. "Well, I see where you stand when it comes to associating with people of a lower class. Perhaps you're in the wrong place too," he said, looking to the young men and women who had gathered around us for support. Almost all nodded in agreement.

  "Maybe I am," I said, hot tears burning under my eyelids. "I'd rather be in a swamp surrounded by alligators than here with people who look down on other people because of their family background."

  "Oh, stop being such a goody-goody," Gisselle complained. "She'll get over it."

  I drew closer to her, my eyes so filled with fury that the girls around her parted to make way. Hovering over her chair, I folded my arms under my breasts and spit my question down at her.

  "What did you do, Gisselle? Listen with your ear to our door?"

  "You think I'm so interested in your private talks? You think there's anything you've done that I haven't read about or seen?" she replied, reddening under my accusation. "I don't have to put my ear to the door to know what goes on between you and your quadroon friend. But," she said, smiling and sitting back, "if you would care to confess, to describe what it was like sleeping beside her . . ."

  "Shut up!" I screamed, unable to hold back my flood of emotion. "Shut your filthy mouth before I---"

  "Look how she's threatening her crippled sister," Gisselle cried, cringing dramatically. "You see how helpless I am, how helpless I've been. Now you all know what it's like to be a crippled twin and have to live day in and day out watching your sister have fun, go wherever she wants, do whatever she wants."

  Gisselle covered her face in her hands and began to sob. Everyone glared at me angrily.

  "Oh, what's the use?" I moaned, and turned away just as the music came to an end.

  Mrs. Ironwood was immediately at the microphone. "It looks like a storm's brewing," she advised. "The boys should move right to the waiting buses and the girls should head back to their dorms immediately."

  Everyone started toward the exits, but Miss Stevens hurried to my side.

  "Poor Abby. What they did to her was horrible. Where did she go?" she asked.

  "I don't know, Miss Stevens. She ran down the driveway and down the road. I'm worried about her, but Mrs. Ironwood wouldn't let me go after her."

  "I'll get into my jeep and see if I can find her," Miss Stevens promised. "You go back to the dorm and wait for me."

  "Thank you. There really is a bad storm coming, and she might get caught in it. Please, if you find her, tell her I had nothing to do with what Gisselle did tonight. Please, tell her."

  "I'm sure she doesn't think that anyway," Miss Stevens said, with a smile of kindness. We saw Mrs. Ironwood watching us from the side as we followed the crowd out of the ballroom.

  A streak of lightning cut a white gash in the dark and foreboding sky. Some of the girls squealed with excitement. Some of the Rosewood boys stole quick goodbye kisses before mounting their buses. Jonathan Peck had a crowd of at least half a dozen doting Greenwood girls around him, waiting and hoping for him to press his precious lips to theirs, or at least to their cheeks.

  Another crack of thunder caused more shouting and scurrying about. I saw Miss Stevens hurry away to get to her jeep and I looked hopefully down the driveway for a sign of Abby before I turned to walk quickly back to our dorm. Perhaps she had circled around and gone back herself, I anticipated; but when I arrived, I found our room empty. I went back to the main lobby to wait for Miss Stevens. All the other girls arrived, bubbling over with excitement about the dance and the boys they had met. I ignored them, and for the most part, they ignored me.

  The storm came over the campus rapidly, blowing in from the river. Soon the wind was turning and twisting the branches of the great oak trees. The world outside grew darker and darker and the rain began to fall in sheets, thumping on the windows and bouncing off the walkways. The railings around the galerie were dripping in a continuous stream, and the lightning continued to flash in the dark, illuminating the school and the grounds for a split second of white light and then leaving it in darkness again. What if Miss Stevens hadn't found Abby? I imagined her terrified under a tree somewhere on the road that led up to Greenwood. Perhaps she had made it to one of those nice houses that were on that road, and the people had been kind enough to take her in until the storm ended.

  Nearly an hour had gone by before I looked through the lobby windows and saw the headlights of a car. Miss Stevens's jeep pulled up in front of our dorm and Miss Stevens emerged, her raincoat pulled up and over her head as she ran toward the dorm. I greeted her at the front door.

  "Has she returned?" she asked me, and my heart sank.

  "No."

  "No?" She shook the water from her hair. "I drove up and down the road. I went miles more than she could have gone even if she had run the whole way, but I didn't see any sign of her. I was hoping she had turned back on her own."

  "What could have happened to her?"

  "Maybe someone stopped for her."

  "But where would she go, Miss Stevens? She doesn't know anyone in Baton Rouge."

  She shook her head, her face revealing worry as both of us thought of the same sort of terrible possibilities that might befall a beautiful young girl, wandering alone at night in a storm on a quiet highway.

  "Maybe she just found shelter somewhere and is waiting for the storm to end," she offered.

  Mrs. Penny came up beside us, her hands twisting, her face full of concern.

  "I just had a call from Mrs. Ironwood, who wanted to know if Abby had returned. Where did she go, Ruby?"

  "I don't know, Mrs. Penny."

  "She left the grounds, and at night! . . . In a storm!"

  "It wasn't something she wanted to do, Mrs. Penny."

  "Oh dear," she moaned. "Oh dear. We've never had these sorts of problems at Greenwood before. It has always been such a delightful job for me, such a delightful experience."

  "I'm sure everything will be all right," Miss Stevens told her. "Just leave the front door unlocked for her."

  "But I always lock the door after curfew. I have all these others girls to think about too. What am I to do?"

  "Don't worry about the door, Mrs. Penny. I'm going to sit right here and wait for Abby to return," I said, planting myself on the sofa in the lobby.

  "Oh dear," she said. "And social evenings were always such a wonderful time."

  "If you need me, call me," Miss Stevens said in a low voice. "Call me if she returns anyway. I'd like to know she's all right."

  "Thank you, Miss Stevens," I said after she gave me her phone number. I followed her to the door to see her off. She squeezed my hands between hers.

  "Everything will work out. You'll see," she promised, to boost my morale. I struggled to form a smile and watched her put her coat over her head again as she prepared to run the gamut between the dorm and her jeep. The rain was still coming down that strong. I waited at the door until she drove away. A few moments later, Mrs. Penny came up behind me and locked the doors.

  "I've got to call Mrs. Ironwood," she told me. "She's going to be very angry. Let me know if she returns soon, will you, dear?"

  I nodded, t
hen returned to the sofa and sat staring at the door and listening to pounding raindrops that seem to fall just as hard on my heart as they did on the walls and roof of the dorm. I fell asleep on and off, waking abruptly a few times when I thought I heard someone at the door, but it proved to be only the wind. Exhausted from worry and fatigue, I finally got up and went to our room. I didn't even get out of my clothing. I collapsed on my bed, sobbing for Abby for a while, and then fell into a deep sleep, not waking up again until I-heard the girls moving through the lounge preparing to go to breakfast. I turned quickly to look at Abby's bed, and my heart sank at the sight of it, untouched.

  Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I sat up and thought a moment. Then I went to the bathroom and dabbed ice-cold water on my face. I heard Gisselle's ripple of laughter and pulled open the door to confront her as she was being wheeled by.

  "Good morning, Sister, dear," she said, looking up at me and smiling. She appeared fresh and happy and full of gloating satisfaction. "You look like you stayed up too late. Is your. . . friend back?"

  "No, Gisselle. She never came back."

  "Oh no! What will we do with the trophy?" she wondered aloud, and looked at Jackie, Katie, and Samantha, who flashed smiles back at her, but then those smiles evaporated quickly when they gazed at me. At least they showed some remorse, Samantha looking the saddest.

  "It's not funny anymore, Gisselle. Something terrible might have happened to her last night. Where would she go? What would she do?"

  "Maybe she found refuge in a sharecropper's shack. Who knows?" she said, smiling. "It might even be one of her long-lost relatives." She laughed hysterically. "Let's go," she commanded Samantha. "I'm ravishingly hungry thismorning."

  Embarrassed and disgusted over the fact that this was my sister, I lowered my head and returned to my room. I had little appetite and wasn't looking forward to sitting down at breakfast with the girls, who would only be waiting to hear and see what I would do and say. Nevertheless, I changed my clothes. Just as I was about to go to the dining room Mrs. Penny arrived. One look at her face told me she knew about Abby. The fingers of her hands were locked around each other as if she were holding onto herself for dear life.