Justin Kramon Page 8

  Chapter9

  Finny Tries to Make Amends

  “Come in,” Poplan said after Finny knocked on the door. Finny went inside and closed the door behind her. Poplan’s room had a pleasant smell, like something sweet was baking in it. Her bed was neatly made, the porcelain animals arranged and dusted on her shelves.

  “Hi,” Finny said.

  “Hello,” Poplan said. She was wearing a very simple kimono that evening, a jade color with no pattern on it. Her hair was wet from the shower. She was tidying up the room, smoothing out the duvet on her bed.

  “I came because I had some things I wanted to tell you.” Finny had an anxious feeling in her chest, like it was puffed up with helium. Her fingers were trembly and cold, and she was sweating a little under her arms.

  “What things?” Poplan said. She kept smoothing her hand over the duvet, even though it looked perfectly smooth to Finny. Finny could see she wasn’t going to make it easy for her. She wouldn’t even look Finny in the eyes.

  “About the note you got under your door last night. It was my fault. I mean, I did it. I put it under there. I’m sorry, Poplan.” The words just rushed out of her, like she was coughing some sour-tasting thing out of her mouth.

  “Why did you do it?” Poplan asked, still smoothing the cover, not looking at Finny.

  “I just—” Finny started. “I didn’t think—” She couldn’t seem to get the right angle to charge at it. “It was supposed to be funny,” she finally got out. “But it wasn’t.”

  “You actually scared me.”

  “It was a dumb thing to do. It was supposed to be a joke, but we didn’t stop to think what would happen.”

  “We?” Poplan looked at Finny. She’d stopped smoothing the cover, and her hands hung by her sides. “Was it your idea?” she asked.

  “It was just a joke,” Finny repeated. “I regret it. I’m sorry.”

  Poplan shook her head. “I’m surprised you did it, Finny. I thought we were friends.”

  Finny looked about her, as if for someone who might come to her defense. But all she saw were Poplan’s animals, watching her, waiting to see what she’d say.

  Then something happened to Finny, all at once, so fast it was like a wave washing over her. She began to cry. It was a bitter kind of crying, and she had to take long breaths to slow it. She stood there in the room, the tears falling off her face, saying, “I’m sorry, Poplan. I’m sorry.” She felt ridiculous for making a scene, but she couldn’t stop it.

  And then Poplan’s arms were around her. “Okay,” Poplan said. “Okay.” Her voice was steady and calming. Poplan held Finny and stroked her hair, and Finny wept. It was partly that Finny was sorry, but also that Poplan had loosed something in her. Finny knew she didn’t deserve this woman’s affection.

  “All right,” Poplan kept telling her. “It’s okay.”

  And finally, when she stopped crying, Poplan asked her again, “I just want to know if it was your idea, Finny. Did you come up with it?”

  Finny shook her head.

  “I had a feeling,” Poplan said. They were still standing close, and now Poplan pulled out her desk chair and gestured toward it with an open palm. Finny sat down. Poplan sat on the bed, facing Finny.

  “Now I’m going to say something,” Poplan began, without any of her usual brusqueness. She seemed softer, as if Finny’s tears had awakened some motherly instinct in her. “I know this might sound strange. Maybe it’ll even be uncomfortable. And I know you probably won’t believe me. But I think I’m saying it for your own good.”

  “What?” Finny managed to ask.

  “Judith is a bad influence,” Poplan said. “I know that everyone loves her, and that you and she hit it off. I know it seems like she’s your best friend in the world right now. And it’s not to say that she doesn’t like you or want to be. It’s just that she has a need to act out. I’ve seen it. And she doesn’t always think about the people around her when she does it.”

  “Why are you saying this?” Finny asked. She was shaking her head. She didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to see mud splattered on her beautiful canvas.

  “I know it’s not going to sound right to you. I know you’re probably going to hate me for it. But I like you, Finny, and I feel for you. I just don’t want to see you getting hurt.”

  “Are you mad at Judith for something?”

  “I’m not mad at her, and I’m not jealous,” Poplan said. “It probably seems that way, but I’m not.”

  “Then why? What did she do to you? Besides this stupid prank?”

  “She didn’t do anything to me.” Poplan looked at the ceiling and muttered something that sounded like “Oh, my life.” Then asked Finny, “Did Judith tell you anything about her last roommate?”

  Finny didn’t understand why Poplan would ask that, why it had anything to do with what was happening now. She knew she should stop the conversation here: she wasn’t ready for any shattering truths.

  And yet, her curiosity nudged her on, like when she’d stood in front of Judith’s dresser, wondering what was inside.

  “She said she had some family stuff,” Finny offered at last.

  “Her name is Jesse,” Poplan said. “Judith and Jesse. That was the team. I caught them on the roof with a bottle of hooch.”

  “Of what?”

  “Porch climber. Tiger milk.” Poplan’s forehead was creased, as if Finny were the one speaking a strange language.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Finny said.

  Poplan leaned toward Finny and whispered, “Alcohol.” Then, in a louder voice: “Which is why Judith doesn’t like me.” She paused, seeming to consider her next words. “They were daring each other to lean over the edge. It was dangerous. I had to turn them in, Finny.”

  “All right,” Finny said.

  “The next thing I know, Jesse’s expelled,” Poplan continued. “Judith was the victim. She’d been dragged out of sleep, hardly knew where she was going. Her parents had a long talk with the school. The administration was afraid to mention alcohol to the other students, so none of them ever found out what happened.” Poplan looked Finny over the way she sometimes scrutinized girls while they washed their hands at night, then added, “I’m telling you this in confidence, of course. I trust this conversation will remain off the record.”

  Finny nodded. Her thoughts were too stirred for her to speak. It wasn’t that she felt betrayed; she knew Judith’s parents held power at the school, and Judith had probably been told not to mention what happened to anyone. Finny was just surprised at herself, at how easily she’d been taken in.

  “Look,” Poplan said, and made a chopping motion with both hands, like a politician coming to a point, “it’s not that I’m telling you not to be friends with Judith or go on about your life here and have fun. I’m happy to see that you’re enjoying yourself and making friends. I’m only saying you need to be your own person. Judith seems like she knows everything, but she doesn’t. If you follow your own judgment, Finny, I think it’ll turn out all right.”

  Finny wanted to stop Poplan, to protest, but didn’t know how to do it. And it was true, there was a sense in which Finny had been less of herself since she’d come to Thorndon. Part of it was Judith, her overwhelming influence. But part of it was also Finny, a new desire in her to please and be rewarded, so different from her old life, her old way.

  And now that other question appeared in Finny’s mind. Who told? She was certain Judith wouldn’t have snitched, or even tipped someone off about what Finny was doing, but still, the idea was there. It was a mark of Judith’s power, Finny realized, that you could imagine her doing inexplicable things, for her own reasons. But also a sign of Finny’s own insecurities, that she could believe her closest friend had betrayed her.

  “Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say about that,” Poplan concluded, and stood up. She’d regained some of her military bearing. “Now, there is one thing you can do to make this up to me, and I hope you won’t
refuse.”

  “What is it?” Finny asked.

  “It’s an important task.”

  “What?”

  Poplan smiled.

  They set up the blocks on the floor.

  “Don’t think I’m going to let you win either,” Poplan said, “just because you had a bad night.”

  “I don’t,” Finny said.

  “And if I catch a cold from this, you know who I’m coming to.”

  “I do.”

  When Finny knocked down the tower, Poplan jumped up and performed a little boxing routine in the middle of the floor. “Yahoo!” she screamed, giving the air a final jab with her fist.

  Chapter10

  The Vacation Begins, a Bit Early

  They crept toward spring break, more slowly than Finny had hoped. Her punishment made the days drag. But Judith was a model friend, spending nights in the dorm with Finny while the other girls went out. Finny didn’t mention the story Poplan had told her about Jesse, since she’d promised Poplan she wouldn’t. Finny could see both sides of it—why Poplan was annoyed that Jesse had gotten the brunt of the punishment, but also why Judith was upset over her friend’s moving away. It made sense why Judith didn’t talk about it.

  One afternoon, a couple of weeks after the note incident, Finny returned to her dorm room and there was another letter on the door. Delphine Short, it said on the envelope, and inside was Miss Simpkin’s familiar handwriting: Mrs. Barksdale requests that you report immediately to her office. If we do not see you by the end of your lunch period, she will seek you in your next class.

  Her faithful secretary,

  Miss Filomena Simpkin

  · · ·

  Today Mrs. Barksdale’s office had an even stronger odor of spoiled milk. It was hot in the room, and when Finny walked in, the principal looked agitated, some sweaty curls of hair adhering to her temples. Mrs. Barksdale had a gnawed pencil in her mouth, and when Finny shut the door behind her, she heard the utensil snap in Mrs. Barksdale’s teeth.

  “Tuh,” the principal said, and spit the splintered pencil onto her desk, among the remains of other decimated utensils. “Please have a seat.”

  Finny sat down across from Mrs. Barksdale. She glanced at the photo of the principal’s husband. The tiny man’s frightened expression seemed to warn Finny of some impending danger.

  “His birthday,” Mrs. Barksdale said about the picture of her husband, noticing Finny was looking at it. “I got him good.”

  “I guess you did,” Finny said.

  “Surprise party. It took him a few days to recover.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Psh.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “He’s so excitable.”

  “Anyway, what is it?” Finny said, impatient to hear what she’d been dragged here for. Did they figure out she’d snuck a cigarette with Judith during gym class? Or that she’d been the one screaming “boner” in the hall after lights-out?

  “Did I do something?” Finny asked.

  Mrs. Barksdale shook her head vigorously at Finny’s suggestion, like a dog drying itself after a swim. “No,” the principal said. “No.”

  “Did you want to ask me something?” Finny tried.

  But Mrs. Barksdale shook her head again, this time more slowly, her lips pressed together.

  “I have some bad news, Finny,” Mrs. Barksdale said. “Tragic news, I would say.”

  “What is it?” Finny said. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Let me just say,” Mrs. Barksdale continued, as if Finny hadn’t spoken, “that your mother would have been the one to tell you this, but when she called during your lunch hour and we couldn’t find you—do you not eat in the cafeteria?—she asked us to relay the message to you, since this is going to be a very busy and unpleasant afternoon for her.”

  “Please,” Finny said. “Could you please just tell me what you want to say?”

  “Your father is dead,” Mrs. Barksdale blurted out. And then seemed to recover herself. She must have realized how abrupt this sounded, because she clapped a hand over her mouth. Finny noticed the tendons tensing in the principal’s neck.

  The phone buzzed. “Passed away,” Miss Simpkin’s voice said in the speaker. “Passed away would have been more sensitive.”

  “I thank you,” Mrs. Barksdale said, and hung up. She then went on to tell Finny, “The message remains the same. You are to pack a suitcase and return home on a flight at seven forty-five this evening. The funeral will be in a couple days. All of your teachers will be apprised of the unfortunate news, and they will arrange it so you can finish your courses in a comfortable amount of time, without having to repeat any next year.”

  Once Mrs. Barksdale had finished this speech, she let out a long breath, like she’d finished climbing a steep set of stairs, or had reached a bus she was running to catch. Her shoulders sagged, and she looked at Finny to see if she had anything to say.

  “Do you have any questions?” the principal asked, the way teachers do when they’ve finished a lecture.

  But all Finny could think to say was, “What happened?”

  Here Mrs. Barksdale seemed confused, and began glancing into corners of the room, as if the answer would appear there. She looked like a trapped mouse. When at last she relinquished the search, she turned her eyes back to Finny. For a moment Finny had the distinct impression that the principal would have liked to reach across the desk and touch her, offer some reassurance in the face of this terrifying news. It was as if Finny had been walking along on a fine, clear day, and all of a sudden came upon a huge dark hole, something mysterious and out of place, and which she’d never be able to cross. She felt more startled than sad.

  Mrs. Barksdale pressed her lips together, her eyebrows knitted like she was about to cry. Then she said, “I don’t know.”

  Poplan was waiting outside Finny’s door when Finny got back to her room. Finny had begun crying on her way back from the principal’s office, and the sight of Poplan in a bright orange jumpsuit did nothing to calm her. Poplan held out her arms, and Finny collapsed into them. The dorm was empty, since the girls were in class, so Finny just cried and cried, holding on to Poplan, pushing her face into the warm folds of Poplan’s jumpsuit. After a few minutes, Poplan suggested that Finny open the door so that maybe they could go inside and sit down. Like when Finny had come to her room to apologize about the note, Poplan was gentle and kind. She seemed to be able to shed her official manner as easily as her kimonos and wraps.

  In the room Finny lay down on the bed. “I don’t understand,” she said, turning on her back, her hands over her eyes, shaking her head like she just couldn’t believe what was happening. “He seemed completely fine when he visited.”

  “I’m sorry,” Poplan said. She sat down next to Finny and stroked her arm as Finny cried.

  In a little while Poplan suggested, “Maybe you should try calling your mother.”

  “That’s another thing I don’t get. Why wouldn’t she tell me herself?”

  “Maybe it was too hard right now. Maybe she tried to call you and couldn’t reach you and was just too tired and stressed out to keep trying.”

  “Maybe she was being a thoughtless bitch,” Finny offered.

  “You don’t know that,” Poplan said.

  “You don’t know my mother.”

  Poplan stayed in the room while Finny packed, sitting on Finny’s bed. Every once in a while Finny would say, “It’s okay, Poplan. You don’t have to sit here all day.”

  “I don’t mind,” Poplan said. “It’s good to have company.”

  Soon Finny could hear the girls coming back from their classes, chatting about their scores on quizzes, how much homework they had.

  “Karina farted in humanities,” Finny heard Nora say.

  “She’s a humanitarian,” Brooke answered. And then some laughing and snorting.

  On other days Simone or Jean or Nora might knock and come visit Finny for a little while, but today nobody knocked. The voi
ces seemed to get quieter as they approached Finny’s door, as if the girls were observing some sort of decree. Finny had the sense that word had gotten around about her dad, or at least that the others knew something was wrong with her, since she hadn’t been to any of her afternoon classes. She had an odd feeling of being isolated by her grief, the way Poplan quarantined girls who had caught a cold or the flu. Finny felt sick herself, like no one would want to touch her or be near her. Loss always did this to you, pushed you in a corner where no one wanted to go.

  Later Judith came in, after her lacrosse practice. She was sweating, and had a purple bandana tied around her hair. She looked lovely, and for the first time Finny resented her for it.

  “I heard,” Judith said. “My God, Finny, I’m so sorry.” Then she noticed Poplan on the bed. “Hi,” Judith said to her.

  “Hi, Judith,” Poplan said, and Finny heard the effort Poplan was making to be friendly. “You know, I think Finny might want some time to herself, to get ready now.”

  Judith looked at Finny. There was a moment of silent struggle between Poplan and Judith, over who would get to stay with Finny.

  Finally Finny said, “If you don’t mind, Judith, I’m just not up for talking now.”

  Judith took the hint. “Oh,” she said, and Finny could see she was surprised, and a little offended. Judith hated losing, no matter the circumstances. “Actually, I was planning to head to dinner early anyway. I just needed to grab some clothes.”

  Judith gathered an outfit from her closet. Before she left the room, she walked over to Finny, who was standing in front of her own closet.

  “I am so sorry,” Judith said, and gave Finny a long hug. “Look, I know you’re not up to discussing anything now, but give me a call when you feel up to it. I hope you can come back soon. I’ll miss you, Shorty Finn.”

  Finny felt her eyes fill up again. “I’ll miss you, too,” she said.

  Then Judith took her hand like she was going to shake it. But instead Finny felt a cold metal object placed in her palm. She looked at Judith, and Judith smiled sadly. Finny knew it was the black lipstick.