Most Precious Blood (3 page)

“You did the smart thing,” Val said.

“Yeah,” Kit said. “That's what I'm good at. The smart thing.”

“You're not going to get your paper done,” Val said. “The one for Sister Gina Marie. You won't get it done tonight, will you.”

Kit grinned. “It'll keep,” she said.

“I've never just done something,” Val said. “I've never just gone over to your house, or stayed late after school, or gone to the mall without telling anyone I was going. Bruno's always known, or Connie. You do things by yourself all the time, don't you. Take walks, visit me, shop. You don't have to report to …” She paused for a moment, trying to find the right word to label Bruno and Connie. Servants didn't sound right. They were family too, some distant cousins of her mother. Her mother and Connie had gone to school together. Saint Ursula Elementary and Our Lady of Lourdes High School in Queens. They called her father Ricky, the way her mother had. Servants didn't do that. Even Jamey Farrell, Kit's father, called her father Rick, and Jamey was Rick's best friend.

“My father doesn't worry about me the way Rick worries about you,” Kit replied. “He worries about my mother instead.”

“But that's my point,” Val said. Until that moment, she hadn't realized she had a point, so she got even more excited. “Worrying doesn't help. It doesn't stop anything.”

“It stops you from going to the mall,” Kit replied.

Val nodded, and when she did, she discovered that moving her head unleashed a terrible headache. “This has been the worst day of my life,” she declared. “Even worse than the day they told me how sick Mama was.”

Kit stopped walking. “Then you believed her?” she asked.

“No, of course not,” Val replied. “Michelle was lying. Why should I believe her?”

“I don't know,” Kit said. “It just seems to me if all you think it is is lies, this shouldn't be the worst day of your life.”

“I think I flunked that pop quiz,” Val said. “And I have a headache. And it makes me really angry that I can't just walk to my best friend's house without having to report in to my …”

“Bodyguard,” Kit said.

Val turned sharply to face her friend. Her head nearly exploded from the gesture. “He isn't my bodyguard,” she said. “I don't have a bodyguard. I don't need a bodyguard. What made you say something so stupid?”

Kit shrugged her shoulders. “This hasn't exactly been my best day either,” she declared. “Better than yesterday maybe, but not by much. I'm sorry if calling Bruno a bodyguard offends you.”

“Daddy's a businessman,” Val said. “Businessmen don't need bodyguards. At least not for their daughters.”

“I guess not,” Kit said.

Val's brain eased itself back into her skull. She could feel the wretched pain subside. “How bad was it?” she asked. “This weekend.”

“You don't want to hear about it,” Kit replied.

“I do,” Val said. “Really.”

Kit smiled. “Then I don't want to talk about it,” she said.

“Was she very drunk?” Val asked. It would be good for Kit to talk. She kept too much locked in. Jamey was like that also, but her father said that was good in a lawyer. It wasn't necessarily good in a sixteen-year-old though.

“Yes,” Kit said. “She was.” She paused for a moment, but Val kept on walking. She didn't think her head could take another sudden stop. Kit stared at her, then scurried to catch up. “I meant to write the paper,” she said. “I like Sister Gina Marie. I didn't want to put her on the spot like that.”

“What would you have done if she refused to let you hand in the paper late?” Val asked. Papers seemed like such a pleasant subject, compared to the alternatives.

“I wouldn't have promised to write the paper,” Kit said. “I would have taken the F instead.”

“You never got an F in anything,” Val declared. “You've always talked your way out of bad grades.”

“This one wasn't that important to me,” Kit replied.

“What would Jamey have said?” Val asked. “If you brought home an F.”

“It's hard to say,” Kit replied. “He might have gotten angry. Or maybe he would have understood. Pop isn't always predictable.”

“You're the only person I know who calls her father Pop,” Val said. “Pop. I like it. Maybe I should call Daddy Pop.”

“Don't,” Kit said. “It would be too confusing. Besides, Rick is hardly a Pop.”

“Neither's Jamey,” Val replied. She laughed. They were two blocks from Kit's house, and she was starting to block out everything that had happened in school that day. She loved October. It was her favorite month. She remembered suddenly a perfect October Sunday from years before, she must have been around nine, when out of nowhere her father suggested that he and Val's mother and Val all go to the Giants football game. Neither Val nor her mother had ever been to a game before, and they spent a wonderful hour just debating what to wear, finally settling on brand-new wool skirts, and cashmere sweaters of blue and green. Bruno had driven them, but Val didn't remember him at the game. She didn't have that many memories of just her parents and herself, with nobody else along. The afternoon was sunny and perfect, the seats were on the fifty-yard line, and Val was cocooned between her mother and her father, blanketed by her parents' love for each other and for her. During half time the three of them stood on line together to get food and souvenirs, and Val could still feel the warmth of their hands as each one held one of hers. Her father had promised her mother that if the Giants won, she could buy a new fur coat, and the Giants did, so on the drive home all her mother did was joke about how expensive the coat was going to be. She and Connie went shopping for it the very next day. Silver fox, still sitting in a closet. Val supposed it was hers now. Whenever her mother wore it, she called it her football souvenir, and Val's father always laughed and said that was the last game he was taking them to, it was too expensive a proposition.

Val was glad October was her favorite month. May used to be, but her mother died in May, and she couldn't shake off the associations. Of course the way her head felt just then, she couldn't shake anything off. She laughed again.

“I'm going to have to call Pop,” Kit said. “Tell him that you're here. He didn't want anybody over today. We were going to spend the evening just straightening things out.”

“What things?” Val asked.

“It was a bad weekend,” Kit said. “There's a lot of breakage. We got in too late last night to do anything about it.”

“What if all that business with Michelle hadn't happened?” Val asked. “Would you have invited me over anyway?”

Kit shook her head. “Not tonight,” she said. “I would have just cleaned up what I could and made omelets for Pop and me and written that paper for English.”

It bothered Val that she wouldn't have been welcome at the Farrell house that night. They knew her father was away, how lonely she could get with just Bruno and Connie around. Her head throbbed. She knew she could never forgive Michelle her lies. Was Kit turning on her too? “What if I'd insisted?” she asked. “What would you have done then?”

Kit thought for a moment. “I would have called Pop and told him not to come home from the office,” she replied. “Then I would have made you help me clean up. I may make you do that anyway. Do you think you can be trusted around broken glass?”

“Of course I can be,” Val said. “What are you so worried about? I know Michelle was lying. I'm not adopted. How could I possibly be adopted?”

Kit shifted her schoolbag so she could examine her bitten-off fingernails.

“I'm not adopted,” Val said.

“We'll discuss it inside,” Kit replied. She unlocked their front door. “The living room is okay. Most of the damage is in the kitchen, and their bedroom.”

Val loved Kit's home. Her own was Tudor, old fashioned and dark. Kit's house was bright and airy. Jamey collected contemporary art. Their walls were covered with boldly colored paintings.

“Oh, no,” Kit said, walking over to one of them. “Mother slashed this one. She must have done it with this.” She gingerly picked up a piece of broken glass and sighed. “It's one of Pop's favorites too. I'd better call Pop and tell him you're here.”

“I'm sorry,” Val said. “I shouldn't have come.” She hadn't realized it until she saw the way the canvas had been ripped. She didn't belong there any more than she belonged at home. At that moment, there was nowhere she belonged, but that was hardly Kit's responsibility.

“It's all right,” Kit said. “You're here, you might as well stay. I'll worry less if I know where you are. Sit down. I'll call Pop from the den.”

But Val wasn't ready to sit. She walked around the living room making an inventory of damaged goods. Then she walked to the kitchen. It was a nightmare of spilled and spoilt and broken. She found a box of garbage bags, pulled one out, and started filling it with things that could never be repaired.

“Thank you,” Kit said when she saw what Val was doing.

“She must have gone on a rampage,” Val said. “Couldn't Jamey stop her?”

“He wasn't here for most of it,” Kit said. “Neither was I, for that matter. I got here first, but you know, she's bigger than I am, and I couldn't talk her down. I got to the den and I called Pop, and he came right over, but by then the worst was over. He was at the office.” She began picking up shards of glass and dropping them into the opened garbage bag. “She destroyed some things in my room too,” she said. “Not much, but she's never done that before. I guess because I wasn't home. I didn't tell Pop. I don't know. Maybe I should.”

Val tried to remember her own mother, but all she could picture was how she looked in her coffin. “This has really been a lousy day,” she said. “I'm sorry. I'm not making things any better for you and Jamey.”

“You're wrong,” Kit said. “You're a distraction. Besides, you're helping clean up. The more we do, the less Pop'll have to.” She bent over and picked up a bowl. “Damn,” she said. “Mother likes this one. She'll be upset she broke it.”

“Maybe you can glue it back together,” Val said. “Do you have all the pieces?”

Kit shook her head. “It isn't worth it,” she replied. “Mother broke it once already. Maybe she doesn't like it after all. I always thought she did.”

Val opened up another garbage bag and started putting broken egg shells in it. “Do you love her?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Kit said. “More often than not. You loved your mother, after all, and she spent years being sick.”

“It wasn't her fault,” Val said. “She didn't ask to get cancer.”

“I know,” Kit said. “But you resented it anyway.”

Val sat down on a kitchen chair, making sure first that there was nothing broken on it. “Michelle was lying,” she said. “She had to have been.”

Kit continued picking up broken pieces of china. Her back was to Val. “Are you that sure?” she asked.

“All right,” Val said. “What do you know?”

Kit continued to look away. “I don't know anything. It's just I have a funny feeling about it.”

“Look at me,” Val said. “Please.”

Kit turned around and faced her.

“What do you mean by a funny feeling?” Val asked.

“It's hard to explain,” Kit said. “You know how sometimes you hear something and you didn't know it, but you feel like you know it already?”

“No,” Val said.

“Yes, you do,” Kit said. “It was like that for you when they finally told you your mother had cancer. You knew something was wrong, but they kept denying it, and you wouldn't admit it to yourself either, but you knew, only you didn't. And then they told you.”

“I knew she was sick,” Val said. “I just didn't know with what.”

“You knew something was the matter,” Kit said. “But you didn't know she was sick. Don't forget, I was around. I was the one you talked to. You thought your parents were thinking about a divorce. That was the only thing you could think of to make them whisper.”

“So I was wrong,” Val said. “But I had my suspicions. Are you going to tell me you've always suspected I was adopted?”

“I've wondered,” Kit said. She picked up an empty orange juice carton and threw it into the garbage bag, then got a sponge, and began wiping the dried-up juice off the counter.

“What was there to wonder about?” Val asked.

“Why you're an only child,” Kit said. “Why you don't have any brothers.”

“Mama was sick,” Val said.

“Not until you were ten,” Kit replied. “Almost eleven. And your parents were married for a long time before you were born. What was it, seven, eight years? That's eighteen years for your mother to give your father a son. You don't think Rick wants a son to carry on the family name?”

“Maybe Mama miscarried,” Val said. “Like Connie. You know how hard she and Bruno have tried having kids, and they've never managed.”

Kit nodded. “That's one of the things I've remembered,” she said. “Mother was talking to Pop about it once, years ago. About how Connie wanted to go to some shrine to pray for safe delivery for her babies, and your mother wanted to go with her. Mother thought that was barbaric, making a pilgrimage. She's never really gotten the hang of Catholicism.”

“But that doesn't mean I'm adopted,” Val said. “Suppose Mama did want to go with Connie. It could mean she wanted to have more babies, to give Daddy a son, and she was miscarrying or having trouble conceiving, and she thought going to the shrine could help. That's all.”

“It just seems like a funny thing for Michelle to lie about,” Kit said. “And you said it yourself. She doesn't lie. That's half her problem, the way she hangs onto the truth and uses it over and over again. If she just lied, everything could be forgotten.”