Hadrian's Wall (56 page)

I had completely forgotten
about the food in front of me. I unwrapped the silverware and took
a small bite of mashed potatoes. Contrary to what
she said
, it was
delicious.

“Nothing like food from home,” she sighed
wistfully.

As I had no home, I had no idea what I was
missing.

Suddenly, Derek Spencer set his tray down
beside mine and sat down. He gave me a shy smile. I was surprised
to see him there because someone had told me that he rarely left
the music room.

“Hi! Is it okay if I have dinner with
you?”

“Sure!” I said, forgetting
Delilah’s rules about spaces. When I remembered, it was too
late.

Moreover, I always
considered the “delimitation of territories” to be bullshit! Maybe
because I was one of the excluded people or perhaps because the
young cliques from school lived only for themselves in a
make-believe world that was too mediocre for my standards. The fact
is that I’ve always hated this kind of discrimination. What was the
harm if I wanted to sit down with “the boring” or “the analytical
thinkers" or
“the let’s cracking”?
It’s definitely much better than having to go
through life having as a point of departure and arrival only one
way of seeing things.

Delilah was appalled by
the “invasion” of her “territory”; however, she didn’t send Derek
to sit with the Bohemians.
Moreover, we
hardly could fit Derek in that category.
If one were to classify him, I’d say he was more a mixture of
“intellectual” and “boring.” Poor guy!

He ran his fingers through his disheveled
hair and smiled awkwardly. “So, what did you think of your first
day here?” he asked, glancing at me.

Wow! He was really trying to be...sociable.
Delilah was so amazed she was speechless. If Derek Spencer was not
considered an example of sympathy, at least at the present time, he
was showing the opposite side.

I started to talk about my
impressions and the conversation flowed. Delilah seemed to relax,
even overlooking the “division” of spaces, but then Sally Benson
joined us and Delilah was again on guard.

To me it didn’t seem
natural for Sally to seek Delilah’s company. She must be feeling
very vulnerable. Most of
her
colleagues were at the Verano party and after
everything we’d gone through earlier, it was likely that she didn’t
want to spend the rest of the night alone. That meant a truce
between them...at least for today.

When Sally announced that
she had seen pictures of the party which already were circulating
on the Internet, Delilah tugged her T-shirt sleeve and made her sit
between us. Sally picked up her cell phone so that we could see the
images that had come via the
web
blog.

Thus inclined and concentrated, we formed a
curious picture. I only realized this when I heard Derek Spencer
laugh.

“Girls, girls! Why did you
leave the party if you’re so interested in knowing what’s happening
there?”

“Long story,” I replied without looking away
from the small screen.

After a few seconds, he pushed his plate
aside, got up, and came to stand behind us.

“I surrender myself to female curiosity,” he
cleverly justified as he leaned over our heads to be able to see
better.

Judging by the images, the party was a hit!
Guys and girls were laughing, dancing, swimming, talking. I saw a
photo of Dwayne and Abby. They were holding each other, eye to eye,
near the fire.

“Wow!
Look at the couple of the year!”
Sally exclaimed.

In another photo, Dwayne
and Abby made a “V” with their fingers, laughing for the Nikos
Tripopoulos as he took their picture with his phone’s camera. How
had he managed to keep his phone dry when he leaped into the
Bluewater?” I asked, puzzled. Oh, sure, when the fraternity staff
brought the cars around and parked them on the other side, he must
have gone to his to get his phone.

“Why didn’t Abby tell me
what was going on?” Delilah muttered, more to herself.

Sally did not miss her
remark. “It just so happens that you’ve had other priorities
lately.”

Delilah cleared her throat, looking at the
empty plate.

Sally’s comment and
Delilah’s discomfort provoked my curiosity; however, Derek pointed
at a friend of his in the images, which distracted me.

He quickly lost interest.
For someone so involved with his music, he should see this
situation as superficial, even dull, so I wasn’t surprised when he
returned to his seat and started talking to me about his musical
routine at the university.

Sally and Delilah were so
excited about the pictures that they paid no attention to us. I’d
seen enough, so I focused on what he told me. I soon learned that
Derek was adding some classes for his B.A. degree and therefore was
carrying a heavier load than most freshmen, except for “the lab
coats.”

At a certain point, he
asked me about what classes I wanted to take. That question caught
me off guard. I explained that I’d receive my proposed class
schedule on Monday. If he thought that was odd, he didn’t react. He
knew how to be more discreet than most of the freshmen that I’d met
so far.

Derek explained how the
system works with regard to the common courses that are in much
demand and if I understood him correctly, we could get some classes
together, that is, if I
passed the entrance
exam and
was admitted to
the university and if
he
could meet the goals for which he had committed.

Next semester, I would be
the freshman of the freshmen.
It’s going
to be great!

Delilah was right when she described Derek
as a musical prodigy. Indeed, it was a trace of geniality in all of
my new colleagues, each one stood out in a particular area of
expertise that made me feel the weight of my inferiority.

I was not good at anything. How could I
compare myself to those guys? Even Delilah...behind her superficial
mannerisms was a girl who knew about combinations and cuts of
tissues. If she wanted to be a fashion designer, she certainly had
all the requirements for it.

Delilah and Sally hung up
their respectively phones almost at the same time, having passed
the images they’d received on to their respective social network
pals. Among the laughter and jokes, the conversation became light,
but then, the family “theme” came up.

This kind of subject is
always an embarrassment to me, yet I was accustomed to pass. I
mean, I always felt like crap before the happiness of others. So,
again, I was exercising the art of avoiding critical conversations,
remaining apart from others as much as possible. No one noticed
because they were too busy talking about their successful relatives
or about the expectations weighing on their shoulders... Suddenly,
they began to give outlandish examples about their parents’
protectiveness.
I heard,
between distraction and fun...until suddenly, Derek turned to me
and asked, “What about you, Melissa? Have your parents been nagging
you, too?”

Like a flash, I remembered my father dying
in a hospital bed. I remembered the loving manner in which he
stroked my hair...and how my mother looked at me with anger when
she saw us sitting together.

“Well, I guess all parents
are protectors, one way or another.” I shrugged.
Scored top marks for diplomacy, girl!

“Oh, my daddy is quiet, but
my mother is unbeatable in terms of being overly protective,”
Delilah replied. “Believe me, Mrs. Alexander Key calls me three
times a day. It’s no picnic! Even today, before bedtime, the phone
will ring one last time and if I don’t answer, she’ll back her
Mercedes out of the garage and drive all night to get here, just to
see with her own eyes that I’m okay.”

Derek laughed incredulously.

“After the accident, I
don’t doubt it,” Sally commented.

What accident?
Before I could ask, Delilah turned to
me.

“How is your mother, Mel?”

Oh, damn! I was back in
the limelight
.

“I lost both my parents when I was very
young.” Could a half truth appease their curiosity?

The silence enveloped us.

“I’m sorry.” Derek was the
first to manifest.

“Don’t mourn,” I replied
with a grin. “It’s been a long time!”

The rest of the meal, thank God, was milder.
The conversation revolved around trivial things: television,
movies, games...but when we embarked into the field of music, Derek
strongly was opposed to our favorite bands in order to make the
most of the opportunity to defend classical music.

“Ah, but I already got you listening to
Queen,” Delilah said in a playful and accusatory tone.

Derek raised an eyebrow. “Queen is
different. Queen is Queen. Do you know that Freddie Mercury was a
great fan of opera?”

“And did you know that the
theater and the opera had been popular in earlier times?” I asked,
ready to finish the brawl between classical and popular. However,
that remark put me on the firing line. “Once, I read on the
Internet that meanings assigned to certain cultural activities
determinate over the centuries if they belonged to the elite or to
the plebe. There were occasions when both, erudite and popular
‘products’ became accessible to all castes because they did not
have the same meaning they have today.

For example, the opera was
as much for the Renaissance’s beginning as hip-hop is for
today.”

Sally exchanged a look of
awe with Delilah, who mimed the word “Wow!”

“To distract the people...” I went on,
excited about the idea of not wasting my chance to score points
among “the wonder minds” of UWall “...the musical pieces were
staged and shown in theaters, where the nobles hardly dare to
enter, but in those cases, there were special presentations to the
noblesse, too,” I added, just in time. “Is it not always like that?
Today, some practice receives value and reaches a part of the
population; tomorrow the market changes, expanding or shrinking,
depending on the interests that are beyond our imagination, eager
for fun. From time to time, music becomes erudite or classical.
Assign values to them because of the traditions is commonplace in
history.

“When the opera arrived,
this same discussion took place between traditional composers and
bolder ones. You and Preston, for example, reproduce a typical
pattern of resistance to various ideas as demonstrated by the
opinion from Artusi and Monteverdi talking about fresh opera; or
Frank Sinatra and Elvis commenting about fresh rock ‘n’ roll. In
this particular case, 1950s people were accustomed to hearing the
‘crooning.’
No rock ‘n’ roll. That was
associated with vandalism
, drugs, and all
kinds of subversion from young people. Now, people say the same
about other musical genres.

“Sometimes people mistake
‘popular’ with lack of quality and they believe that the ancient
cultural productions are always something erudite. Not all old
things can be classified as better quality things just because
they’re old things, just as popular productions could become
classic things. The economic interests and our prejudice over time
are responsible for these classifications.”A heavy silence fell
over the table. Had I exaggerated in my explanation?

Suddenly Delilah laughed. “Our Melissa is a
little box of surprises. No one would say, looking at you...”

My goodness, I hope that’s
a compliment!

“You would not be comparing
the opera with the ancient Roman circus, would you?” Derek was
still “digesting” my previous comment, but I was not
intimidated.

“Politically? Until I can be doing it...in a
strict sense. The entertainment in general has always been used,
directly or indirectly, as a means of control. Who was it who said
to keep the people supplied with food and distracted by fun?” I
took a short break to gather my thoughts. “Oh, I remember! It was
the emperor Octavian who developed the policy of bread and
circuses.”

Derek nodded warily. He stared at me with
apparent respect.

“Hmmm...I’ll think about it
and we’ll take up this subject again,” he concluded.

Delilah came up to me and whispered in my
ear that if Dwayne were here, the controversy about pop and classic
would have become a tremendous discussion in favor of pop
music.

Preston wanted to compose soundtracks for
the movies and Spencer was radically against what he called
“distortion” of orchestral music. Their discussions should be very
interesting ...as well as have been noteworthy the manifests of
Artusi and Monteverdi, but Delilah assured me that the two guys
never reach an agreement.

Typical.

“Do you want to know what’s
going on, right now?” Sally interrupted us, her eyes
sparkling.

She was holding her phone.
I assumed that she was receiving fresh images or news from Verano’s
party, so she began to chatter.

20

PAST AND
FUTURE

I was holding the leather
notebook which Keyra
McPherson
had just handed me when I passed by
the office.
Attached to
it by a red band was a thick envelope addressed to me. According to
Mrs.
McPherson
,
both were sent by the patriarch of the Cahill clan.