Most Precious Blood (6 page)

“What happened?” Kit asked. “Did your father say something?”

“My mother,” Val whispered. “She left me a letter. It's all true.”

The first bell rang. “I'm sorry,” Kit said. “I was hoping it wasn't.”

“You and me both,” Val said. “Come on. I'll talk to you later.”

Kit nodded. She and Val walked into the school building together. Val was aware of all the eyes on them, and that made her just angry enough to stand tall and walk at an appropriate pace. She spotted Michelle in the school yard as they approached the door, but neither one said anything. Michelle didn't look so great herself. Val hoped she was being plagued with questions about Larry DeVito, a boy who Michelle had had a crush on for going on two years.

The morning wasn't so bad. There was a trick Val had learned when her mother was dying of forgetting about everything except schoolwork, and concentrating completely on that. So she focused her mind on French irregular verbs and the molecular structure of water. If the teachers knew what was going on, if they knew more about Val's life than Val did, they gave no indication. She was called on the appropriate number of times, ignored the rest. Which was fine with her.

She had dreaded study hall, but that turned out fairly well too. Val and Michelle had study hall at the same time, and the one person she knew she couldn't deal with just then was her cousin. Her legal cousin. So she went to the library instead. Michelle never went to the library, and it was bound to be safe. Sister Rosemary, who ran the library, was strict about undue noise levels, so none of the other girls came over to her. She used the time to catch up with her math homework, which had gone undone the night before. Val smiled. She'd become undone herself the night before. The homework was merely symbolic.

Val was glad she had worked on it though when she went to math class the next period and faced her second surprise test of the week. She knew the reasons for the first one, and wondered if this test also had ulterior motives behind it, but Miss Gloski, their math teacher, had a history of not knowing what was going on outside her math room, so the odds were it was just a coincidence. Val didn't care. She liked having the math test, when the material was so fresh in her mind. The other girls groaned, but Val merely concentrated her thoughts on what she'd worked on a few minutes earlier and, to her own amusement, aced the quiz.

The bell rang for lunch, and all the self-assurance that Val had achieved in the morning vanished with the sound. I can do this, she told herself, and went to her locker to exchange her morning texts for the afternoon ones. Michelle was at her locker as well. The girls stared at each other for a moment.

“Are you okay?” Michelle asked.

“I'm fine,” Val said. “Any reason why I shouldn't be?”

“I … it's just … well, I didn't think anybody else overheard us,” Michelle said. “Yesterday I mean.”

Val laughed. “You practically shouted it over the P.A. system,” she said. “Did you honestly think no one would overhear?”

“I didn't think,” Michelle said. “I'm sorry, Val. I'm really sorry.”

“It's too late now,” Val said. She slammed her locker shut, spun the combination lock around, then walked away to the school lunchroom. While there were no assigned seats, the girls always knew who sat with who. Val traditionally had lunch with Kit and Michelle. But that day, Michelle chose to sit with Theresa Martini, leaving the seat next to Val's empty.

“How did you do on the quiz?” Kit asked Val, as they began eating their turkey lunches.

“Fine,” Val said. “I did my math homework in study hall right before.”

“I wish I had study halls,” Kit said. “Instead of two languages.”

Val nodded. Kit was smarter than she was, and Jamey pushed her harder. Val didn't think her father really cared what kind of grades she got, as long as they were passing, and she didn't cause any trouble at school. Jamey expected six academic subjects and A's in all of them from Kit. On the other hand, Val suspected, he wouldn't care if any of the teachers complained that Kit showed a lack of respect.

The seat next to Val's didn't stay empty. Val could see a few of the girls talking, and one of them seemed to push Caroline O'Mara toward her. Whatever Caroline's motivation, she sat down next to Val.

“Hi,” Caroline said. “Uh, how did you do on the quiz?”

“Fine,” Val said. She would have preferred anyone, even Michelle, to Caroline at that moment. She waited for Kit to rescue her, but Kit seemed nonplussed.

“I hate surprise quizzes,” Caroline said. “I hate turkey too. At least the way they make it here. It's always so dry.”

“Is it?” Kit asked, taking an extra-large bite. “I think it's delicious.”

Val didn't know what to think, since her taste buds had deserted her along with her sanity.

“Uh, some of the girls thought I ought to talk with you,” Caroline said. “I don't want to bother you or anything, but, well, if you want to talk, I'd be happy to.”

“Talk about what?” Val asked, and knew immediately that that was a mistake.

“About the math quiz maybe?” Kit asked. “That second problem was a killer.”

“They were all killers,” Caroline said. “At least to me. I never do well on surprise tests. I flunked the one in English yesterday too, I'm sure. I don't like anything to do with surprises. My mother says if she ever gave me a surprise birthday party, I'd run away from home. That's kind of a joke in our family. I wouldn't really run away. Just that I hate surprises so much.”

Val took a bite of turkey and looked casually at Caroline. She had never been to any of Caroline's birthday parties, surprise or otherwise. There was no school rule saying all girls must be invited to all parties, and from kindergarten on, Val had realized some girls simply never invited her to their houses. Caroline was one of them, which was why this sudden burst of solicitude was even more appalling.

It had bothered Kit far more, Val realized, not to be invited into all those homes, but then Kit didn't have Val's large, close-knit family as a substitute. Neither did Val, not anymore. She nearly choked on some mashed potato.

“I don't know if you know it,” Caroline said. “But I'm adopted.”

Val nodded. She was having a hard enough time swallowing without having to comment on Caroline's private history.

Kit pushed her empty plate away. She was the fastest eater Val knew, except maybe for Jamey. “I have a cousin who's adopted,” she said. “Maybe the two of you know each other.”

Caroline ignored her. “Everybody's talking,” she said, and Val could see that Caroline really wasn't being bitchy, that she really was concerned. “About what Michelle said yesterday. I know I'm butting in, but I thought I should talk with you. In case it's true, what Michelle said.”

“Michelle said a lot of things,” Kit declared. “Most of them about my mother.”

Val knew what it cost Kit to bring her mother up, but it was a gift she didn't want. “It's all right,” she said to her friend. “Let Caroline talk.”

“Is it true?” Caroline asked. “I'm not asking to be nosy. It's just I don't want to give you a speech, to tell you personal stuff about me, if I don't have to.” She smiled at Val, and for the first time Val regretted never having been welcome at the O'Mara house.

“I don't know for sure,” Val said. “My father's in Washington, so I haven't spoken to him. But it might be. I mean, I won't really know until I talk to my father, but … Kit thinks it's true, don't you, Kit?”

Kit looked annoyed. “This isn't about me,” she said.

Caroline glanced over at Kit. “You've finished your lunch already?” she said. “I get an upset stomach if I eat too fast.”

“I do everything fast,” Kit said.

Caroline nodded. “Since you've finished eating, do you think maybe you could leave Val and me alone?” she asked. “What we're going to talk about is private.”

“Val?” Kit asked.

Val nodded.

“All right,” Kit said. “I'll be in the library if you need me.” She got her school books and left.

Caroline laughed. “Kit's such a strange person,” she said. “I think you're the only real friend she has.”

“Kit has friends,” Val said.

Caroline shook her head. “Not really,” she replied. “A lot of the girls like her, because she's smart and funny and she isn't mean. But no one's really close to her except you.”

“Do you like her?” Val asked. It seemed a safe question, and she took a final bite of turkey after asking it.

“I don't know,” Caroline said. “I don't know her very well. My father doesn't approve.… Well, you know how it is.”

Val knew only too well. “There are people who don't think we're as good as they are,” her father had told her, when she hadn't been invited to Sheila Kennedy's sixth birthday party. “They're stupid people, bigots, but we're stuck on the same planet with them. And I'm paying lots of money to send you to a school with them so you can know all different kinds of girls, from good families, even if those good families don't let you into their houses.”

Val had a vague memory that she was crying. She could still picture her father picking her up and hugging her. “We're as good as anybody,” he had said. “Don't you ever forget that. I'm a respectable businessman, same as all those other fathers. I went to college too, same as them. You go to school, obey the sisters, and they'll see you're a nice girl, and they'll start forgetting who your daddy is, and start asking you to be their friend.”

Only it hadn't worked that way. Val merely stopped caring that she wasn't invited to half her classmates' parties. It bothered Kit far longer. Val remembered laughing at Kit when she was upset as late as sixth grade over an unextended invitation. To Caroline O'Mara's, if she remembered correctly.

“I'm sorry,” Caroline said. “I know I'm not handling this well. I wish we were closer. It would be easier then.”

“It's all right,” Val said. “It's not your fault your parents are …” she almost said “bigots” but managed to stop herself in time.

“Conservative,” Caroline said with a smile.

Val nodded. “Conservative,” she said.

“I really love them,” Caroline declared. “I always have. I was adopted as a newborn. I don't remember any other family.”

“Do you wonder about them?” Val asked.

“Now and then,” Caroline said. “A lot when I was about twelve. You know how it is. You'd get so mad at your mother when she wouldn't let you have something you wanted, or she'd embarrass you in public.”

Val nodded, but she had only the haziest idea of what Caroline was talking about. Her mother was ill when Val was twelve, and she couldn't remember ever allowing herself to be angry or embarrassed.

“I'd think about my mother a lot then,” Caroline said. “My natural mother, I mean. How perfect she must be. How much she must miss me. Once I even told my mother she wasn't my real mother, just to make her cry.”

“Did you?” Val asked. “Make her cry, I mean.”

Caroline shook her head. “She just shouted back,” she said. “Told me I was mean and ungrateful. Which I was. So I ran to my room and slammed my door, which I did all the time back then, and I thought about what my life would have been like if they hadn't adopted me. At first it seemed all wonderful, like my natural parents would have loved me so much more and let me have whatever I wanted. But then I had to figure out why they'd given me up in the first place if they loved me that much.”

Val inhaled sharply. She'd forgotten in all this that she had other parents, at least another mother, maybe another father as well, and they too had given her away. It was too much to deal with. She tried to concentrate on Caroline instead.

Caroline stared down at her plate. “I've always known I was adopted,” she said. “My parents never lied to me about it. I had all the books too, all the picture books and story books and nonfiction books about being adopted. And my parents really love me. So do my grandparents. They never treated me any differently from their other grandchildren. Believe me, when I was twelve, I was looking for slights, and there just weren't any.”

“What are you saying?” Val asked. “That it's okay to be adopted?”

“I'm not sure what I'm saying,” Caroline replied. “I guess I feel bad for you because of how you learned it. I'm glad I've always known. My parents brought me up to feel special just because I am adopted. I'm glad my mother screamed at me that day, instead of crying. I knew then she really was my mother, because mothers get mad at their kids, and they scream, and they don't always let them have what they want. I don't know how I'd feel if someone just told me out of the blue that I was adopted. I think it would terrify me.”

“I'm not terrified,” Val said. “I don't even know for sure that it is true.”

“I think it must be,” Caroline said. “From the way Michelle's behaving. You can tell she knows she did something terrible, but she's so defensive about it. She won't say it's a lie though. I think if it was, she'd be admitting it to everybody.”

“True or not, she shouldn't have said it,” Val declared. “At least not here, not in public. It's a family matter, and it should be kept private.”

“I guess that's why she feels so bad,” Caroline said. “Not just telling you, but telling you in public.”

Caroline's father was a banker. Her mother played golf. Val had driven past their house often enough to know they had beautiful flowerbeds in front. They had less land than the Castaladis, but their yard seemed larger, because they had no gate around it.

“How were you adopted?” Val asked. “Do you know?”