A Twist of Hate (8 page)

              “You know I hate it when you smoke,” he fumed. “You only do it to piss me off.”

              She blew a jet of smoke at him. “You do realize you’re being kicked to the curb, don’t you?”

              “Your parents are gonna take that sweet little Porsche from you when they get a whiff of this room. You promised to quit smoking if they got you that car.”

              “I’ll tell them Emma was smoking on the patio. The smoke probably blew in through the French doors. When all else fails, blame the help. Isn’t that what always works for you?”

              “C’mon, Chris, baby please,” Michael pleaded. He dropped beside her on the sofa. “We’ve got history. You want to throw it away because of some black girl?”

              “This is about you being a wormy little liar and a filthy cheat. You make me sick. Ugh, I can’t believe I ever let you touch me! Just looking at you makes me want to heave.”

              He slowly stood, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t talk to me like that,” he warned through clenched teeth.

              “Do I need to hit the security alarm to get you to leave? One button, and the police will be here in fifty-four seconds,” she said cheerfully. “Or should I just call my brother in here to kick you out? It would be an early birthday present because he’s hated you from the moment he met you.”

              “Let him try,” Michael growled. “My dad will sue him for—”

              “Oh, shut up!” Chrissie spat. “Your father doesn’t scare anyone. He would still be chasing fender bender cases from a sleazy downtown storefront if your mom’s old man hadn’t bought the farm and left her the change. Your family is a joke, Michael! Everyone knows it. Why do you think the membership committee at Twin Lakes keeps turning you down?” She threw the lit cigarette at him. “Get the hell out of my house!”

              “No one talks to me like that!”

              “I just did.” She relaxed into the deep cushions of the sofa. “Leave.”

              Torn between walking out through the sliding patio doors or clubbing her in the face with the model clipper ship on the nearby bookshelf, Michael simply stood there seething, clenching and unclenching his fists.

              Chrissie picked up her cellphone and pressed one button. “Hi, Corin,” she said brightly when the other party answered. “We can talk now. I’m alone.”

              Michael stormed to the patio doors.

              “Oh, hey,” Chrissie called prettily after Michael, muting the phone against her shoulder, “be an angel and let Sheba in on your way out. Thanks.”

***

              Sheba lay on her side on the driveway behind Michael’s car. He squatted and softly clicked his tongue. The big orange and white tabby went to him. He scratched her ears and let her nuzzle the knobs of his knees until she began to purr. Having won the feline’s trust and affection, he fastened his hands around the animal’s neck and ran behind the garage with her. He emerged several long minutes later, thin, jagged scratches striping his forearms. He went to his car, detouring long enough to toss Sheba’s limp body onto the hood of Chrissie’s brand new Porsche.

***

              The backstage area crackled with excitement and hurried activity. Camden completed the finishing touches on the set. The understudies, who doubled as prop handlers, triple-checked the order of props that would have to be onstage for each scene.

              Siobhan went into Mr. Cleese’s office to get the script with the blocking notes for light and sound. Pursuant to their wager over the basketball game, Siobhan would be in the light and sound booth for the dress rehearsal and Camden would be backstage, their roles reversing on opening night.

              Camden entered the office and closed the door. His hair, still damp from a hasty shower after PE, had been combed off his forehead. His black sweatshirt and black jeans complemented his fair complexion, giving his clean-cut handsomeness an appealing rakishness. “I’ve had one thing on my mind all day,” he said, his voice low.

              Her ebony eyes glimmered. “Me, too.”

              “Sleep,” they said in unison, diving for the sofa.

              They dove for the sofa. Siobhan, the more agile of the two, reached it first. Undaunted, Camden squeezed onto the sofa with her, his larger, longer body overlapping hers. He set the alarm on his watch.

              “We have about thirty minutes,” he said. “It’s not much but it’s better than nothing.” He nuzzled her hair. “There’s been something else on my mind today.”

              She nestled more comfortably between his warm body and the back of the sofa.

              “Siobhan?”

              She didn’t answer.

              He gently turned her face to his. She was already asleep.

***

              Mr. Cleese opened the door to his office and spotted the sleeping beauties. Since they wore black from their necks to the soles of their feet it was hard to tell where Camden ended and Siobhan began. Mr. Cleese marveled at how they managed to fit themselves on the less than generous width of the old sofa.

              He marveled at how they managed to fit into Prescott.

              Prescott couples generally adhered to a strict social order. Those who drove expensive imports and summered in Martha’s Vineyard naturally gravitated toward one other to bond, merge, procreate, and in so doing, repopulate Prescott High. Barring the occurrence of a major kink in the threads of Fate, Mr. Cleese fully expected Courtney Miller and Brian Livingston to be the first couple in the current senior class to eventually fulfill that relentless tradition.

              Siobhan and Camden would surely forge a new path. Tall, handsome, popular—Camden could have been Prescott’s cock of the walk despite the presence of Logan Maddox. An excellent student, Camden had also proven himself as quarterback of Prescott’s varsity football team. His was an enviable life, yet he never used his advantages to manipulate or impress.

              Siobhan Curran brought a sizzling brand of allure to Prescott when she became one of only two students admitted to the senior class at the beginning of the fall term. Prescott was a microcosm of sophistication, intellect, and beauty modeled after true blue New England dinosaurs such as Choate and Phillips Exeter. Prescott’s Midwestern ruggedness, comparative youth, and pinch of bohemia attracted students worldwide.

              Siobhan epitomized Prescott’s best, yet her acceptance was incomplete.

              The most personal interaction many Prescott students had with people of color came via the employees who maintained their picture perfect houses and property, or the students trading an elite education for their athletic prowess. Many students, and even some teachers, didn’t quite know what to make of Siobhan. She could be a wonderful friend, but a love interest? Hardly. Mummy would faint. Father would disinherit. Mr. Cleese found it all quite disgusting that such antiquated standards still endured, particularly at a school like Prescott.

              Camden and Siobhan gave him hope. He had watched them meet, bond, and transcend. He left the office, quietly shutting the door behind him. They were entitled to a last few minutes of sleep. Fighting against the tide of stubborn social mores appeared to be exhausting work.

***

              Camden’s watch beeped.

              Siobhan opened her eyes, yawning. She snuggled deeper into his side. “I’m so comfortable. I don’t want to get up.”

              “Neither do I, but we have to,” said Camden, though he made no attempt to extract his limbs from hers.

              “I want to remember this nap forever. I want to remember this junky office and the way it smells of Earl Grey and cinnamon scones. I want to always remember the feeling of waking up next to you.”

              “Then I’ll marry you.”

              She tumbled over him and onto the floor as though he had suddenly burst into flame. He sat up, smiling at her. “Now you’ll never forget this moment.” He reached for his shoes.

              Once she regained her composure, she cleared her throat and said, “I can’t marry you.”

              “Why not?”

              She stretched, and it was one of the loveliest things he had ever seen.

              “You didn’t ask me nicely,” she teased, smiling to herself as she slipped on her shoes.

              “I wasn’t asking.”

              Her mouth fell open, then closed in an adorable pout.

              “That was a fact, not a request,” he grinned.

She stuck her tongue out at him, grabbed her script, and walked out of the office. “Have fun with Mr. Wechter!” he called after her with a laugh.

***

              Two pairs of double doors at the rear of the house opened into the lobby of Prescott’s McWhorter Auditorium. Centered between the middle doors, overhanging the last two rows of seats, was the Nirvana of the Audio/Visual Club—the light and sound booth. It was presided over by Winthrop Stuart “Winnie” Wechter, class of ’69.

              Siobhan knocked on the door for what seemed like ten minutes before Mr. Wechter finally opened it. This was the first time in Prescott’s history that a female assistant director would co-man the lighting booth.

              Mr. Wechter’s reign over the light and sound booth had begun in 1968, when he was a gangly, acne-scarred junior called “Winnie.” The following year, when the rest of his graduating class went on to attend schools such as Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford, Winnie chose to spend a gap year between high school and college working. For Winnie Wechter, that meant aiming a spotlight at teenagers in Prescott theater productions instead of joining his father’s mining firm. As his classmates graduated college, married, reproduced and sent their offspring to Prescott, Winnie remained perched high above McWhorter, his gap year spreading into gap decades.

              For nearly half a century he had climbed the steep and narrow stairs to the cluttered booth high atop McWhorter. He arrived before day and left after sunset, whether a show was in production or not.

              Contrary to its name, the light and sound booth was always dark and silent, and it was Mr. Wechter’s bailiwick. His hands were the only ones that knew how and where to move across the antiquated lighting boards in the dark to bring up a blue light or recess a red one.

              A computerized system would have been much more practical and user friendly. Mr. Wechter wouldn’t hear of it. What was good enough for Prescott in 1968 was certainly good enough for the youngsters today. Prescott could modernize the day he was unable to pull his old bulk up the stairs.

              “Hello, Mr. Wechter,” Siobhan brightly greeted as she handed the hunched old man her script.

              Mr. Wechter said nothing. With two gnarled fingers he pointed to a stool at the front of the booth where she could sit. Mr. Cleese had warned her about Mr. Wechter’s interpersonal skills, or lack thereof. Mr. Cleese had also told her that the elderly fellow made no secret of the fact that he had little regard for women and even less for people of color. The one time he came close to leaving Prescott was in 1971, when ten African-American, ten Asian, and ten Hispanic students were admitted to the freshman class.

              Mr. Cleese had told her the only reason Mr. Wechter was kept on staff was because the school hoped he would bequeath a sizeable chunk of his inherited mining fortune to Prescott once he went to the big light and sound booth in the sky. Until then, the Prescott light and sound booth was his domain, and the less she spoke to him, the better.  

              She put on the headset through which she would communicate with Camden throughout the rehearsal, and she watched Mr. Wechter move his large body about the tiny booth.

              He was as pale as an aspirin tablet. The bloodshot whites of his eyes gave his sky-blue eyes a lavender tint. He constantly flipped lank wisps of his long, chalky white hair out of his face. A sparse, silvery-white beard stubbled his cheeks and chin. He wore a tattered, powder blue wool crew neck sweater, which, it was rumored, he had worn every day since Reagan took the Oval Office.

              Anxious for the dress rehearsal to begin, Siobhan turned toward the front of the booth. Its wide window granted a view of the entire stage and the fringe of the backstage areas. Onstage, Mr. Cleese conducted a final inspection of the set.

              Camden’s voice came through the headset. “Are you enjoying your visit with Mr. Wechter?” he snickered.

              Her voice low, she curtly replied, “Boo Radley and I are getting along just fine, thank you.”

***

              Mr. Wechter dimmed the house lights. Camden flipped two switches on the wall-mounted electronic control board backstage, and the curtains opened. The set, dimly lit in blues and violets, was magnificent. Camden had designed a wonderfully realistic yet stylized view of an urban skyline for the backdrop, and the Wingfield tenement featured a two-story fire escape. Through lighting effects, the interior of the Wingfield apartment would appear as the exterior disappeared, and vice versa. The lighting could also be adjusted to make exterior and interior locales appear simultaneously.