The Chocolate Money (24 page)

T
HE DAY AFTER
the dance is Sunday. We have a half day of classes on Saturdays, so Sundays are the only days when we have nothing scheduled. We can sleep in, hang in the quad throwing Frisbees, and don’t even have to go to meals. Sunday is also the day to catch up on homework and, for most students, to make the weekly phone call home. After my exchange with Babs, I am not inclined to talk to her again until she comes for the trial, as I am now calling it.

Even though nothing has happened yet, I can’t help but feel uncomfortable.

I haven’t been kicked out, but every time I walk outside, I have the feeling that I am trespassing. I also cannot believe Cape and I have not rehashed the events of the evening. Some small part of me believed that he would seek me out, but, as usual, I’m the one who has to chase after what I want. Not that I’m in a hurry to see him. When I do, I’ll have to tell him about Mack so Babs won’t blindside him with this information.

I go to the dining hall for brunch and spot Cape and Lowell. I sit at a table nearby, alone. Drink my coffee and eat two slices of buttered white toast.

Then I dump the contents of my tray. Walk to Cape’s table.

“Hey, Bettina,” Cape says, friendly but cautious. As if he is afraid I am about to propose we have sex in the dining hall, or at least make out.

“Umm,” I respond, as both boys stare at me, “I was wondering if we could go for a walk.”

He pauses. “I would love to, but I just don’t want faculty to see us and think we do what we did on a regular basis. That we show no remorse.”

“We could meet at the boathouse.”

“Deal,” he says. “You leave first and I’ll see you there in twenty minutes.”

It’s early in the school year, and Cape and I are the first students to go up for action. Not that no one else engages in this behavior. They have just been more careful. When I walk, the students give me a wide berth, as if they are afraid they could catch what happened to Cape and me. I feel sad. Each one who now avoids me is a friend I might’ve had. I was just so focused on winning over Meredith.

I get to the bench and wait.

Cape arrives after about twenty minutes. Takes his place next to me on the bench.

“So, I suppose you want to discuss strategy.”

Surprised by his confidence that this is my agenda, I say, “Yes.”

“Just so you know, kicking students out is more an art than a science. They take all sorts of things into consideration, things that have nothing to do with the offense. One student may be allowed to stay and another one asked to leave even when they have both done the same thing.”

“How does this work?” I ask, surprised by this information.

“Well, first they consider if you are a legacy or not. My father went to Cardiss. You?”

“My grandfather. Does that count?”

“Not as good as a father, but it helps. Next is the money factor. They are reluctant to kick out a kid who comes from a lot of it. My family is well off, but not rich. My mom has been pretty much living off my father’s life insurance, and she has some family money of her own. What’s your situation?”

“My mother is a chocolate heiress.” I wince at having said this, but the conversation seemed to require it.

“As in Ballentyne Chocolate?”

“Yes.”

“Is your mother philanthropic?”

“She just gave a million dollars to Miss Porter’s and they used it to build a new dining hall.” I don’t tell Cape how ironic this is, given how much Babs hates food.

“Good, good. The head of development is on top of what goes on at other schools and will surely alert the faculty. Now, is there anything you’re particularly good at, something the faculty would be loath to lose?”

“I’m good at French and English, but that’s about it.”

“That won’t really help. It has to be something like sports or music. For instance, I don’t mean to brag, but the lacrosse coach will fight to keep me.”

“Oh, I see.” Wishing I had extracurricular activities besides smoking and chasing the smash.

“So we both have certain things that will make it hard for them to kick us out. Your money, and my being a legacy and the lacrosse.”

“Won’t they want to make an example of us?”

“Of all the infractions, sex is not so bad. Cheating and hazing are the worst, followed by drugs and drinking. The thing about sex is that the girl might get pregnant, and the school would be held responsible.”

I thought about the fact that we had not used a condom. But what would Cape have done with it after we got caught? Would he have had to turn it in as evidence?

“Does that make sense? I think we are in fairly good shape.”

“Yes,” I say distractedly. Knowing somehow that we aren’t.

“Cape,” I begin, “there is something I have to tell you.” I put out one cigarette and light another.

“What?” he says, a bit surprised that there is more to discuss after he has explained what he perceives to be a fairly good game plan.

I pause, knowing the rest of what I have to say might be bad strategy on my part, but I just can’t let Babs tell Cape about Mack.

“I wasn’t completely honest with you. My mother knew your father outside of her parties. He visited my mother quite often.”

After a significant pause, he asks, “What does
visited
mean?”

Shit. Here goes.

“They had an affair. It lasted about six months. I’m sorry.”

“How do you know this?” he asks, searching for sources, definitive documentation, as if I have written a paper with a flimsy thesis and questionable footnotes.

I decide to spare Cape the details of my camping out on the stairs and listening while Babs and Mack had sex. How Babs told me later about whatever I couldn’t see or hear.

“I saw his shoes in the front hallway late at night.”

Cape says nothing for a good minute and then cracks his knuckles. He does not have a cigarette to dilute his feelings about the situation.

“Oh, that explains the fucking pennies. Which I need back, by the way. Why the hell didn’t you tell me before? I
never
would have slept with you. Does my mom know about these visits?”

“Yes. It was pretty common knowledge.”

“Jesus Christ, Bettina. Think how my mother must feel that out of all the girls at Cardiss, I got caught with you. She was crying when I talked to her the other day, and she never cries. In fact, I have seen her cry only once: when we drove back from my father’s funeral. Why are you bringing this up now? Do you want me to hate you?”

“It wasn’t my fault, Cape.” I’m not sure how to explain to him that unlike his mother, Babs does whatever the fuck she wants.

“Maybe not, but you were still there all those nights my mother must have waited up for him. And it seems you sought me out, perversely, as if the whole thing titillated you.”

“Cape, I was around eleven years old when this happened. And I loved your dad. He was nice to me.”

“Oh, how cozy. Well, I’m glad he showed some affection somewhere. Because he basically ignored me. He was always gone or distracted.”

I hear the hatred in his voice and start to cry.

“Bettina, I’m not going to pity you, if that’s what you want.”

I can’t help it. My tears get more intense, slide out like tributaries over my face.

“Cape, do you really have to hate me? I didn’t want to have to bring all this up. I just thought you would want to know, given the circumstances.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“I don’t know. Tell me you know it wasn’t my fault? Forgive me for not having brought it up earlier?” I venture.

“Well, that’s not going to happen,” he says. He’s trying to sound mean, but I know he wants to cry too. He starts to walk away, then turns back, having regained his composure. “Look on the bright side: you can always write a story about it.”

T
HE TRIAL’S THREE
days away. I’ve achieved the status of a quasi-celebrity on campus. Everyone’s excited to know the consequences of our infraction. Will we be kicked out or allowed to stay? The crime’s particularly interesting because it involves sex. Most of the students in the school are too focused on academics to have lost their virginity.

Meredith’s still furious, and the other girls at Bright follow her lead. They no longer make cruel remarks; they just ignore me. This is hard for Holly, since she’s a genuinely nice person. Cannot bear to tell her parents the fate of her roommate, who had seemed to share their values. I imagine her on the phone saying,
Yes, everything is great. Bettina and I are getting along very well.

This semi-goodwill is completely shattered when word gets back to her that I’m not some poor scholarship student but the daughter of Babs Ballentyne, chocolate heiress. I am related to food, as they originally thought.

Holly hears this from some of the older students from Chicago who called home with news of me going up for action. Their parents know all about Babs and her money. Now Holly has reasons of her own not to talk to me. I have lied to her and her family. The fact that I didn’t mean to doesn’t really matter.

I am unclear when Babs is coming to campus. Am afraid to call her and ask. She could come Tuesday night and take me to dinner in town. She could wait until Wednesday, right before the trial. Or maybe, just maybe, she won’t come at all. I’ll have to wait and see.

After dinner Monday night, there’s no one in my room, but on the wall by my bed someone has scrawled the word
liar
in big brown letters. I walk closer and discover that the epithet has been written in chocolate. On the wall behind my pillow is the word
slut,
also written in chocolate. I’m ashamed, but also furious. This gives me the courage to face Meredith, Jess, and Holly.

I storm into their room. Am stunned to see Holly smoking. She doesn’t really have the hang of it yet and coughs after every puff, but I am sure she will master it by the end of the semester, in December.

“What is it?” Meredith asks in an impatient voice.

“I want to know what’s up with your fucking art project on my walls. I must say the use of chocolate was original.”

Meredith doesn’t address my question but instead turns to Holly, who looks me dead in the eye and speaks.

“I found out the truth about your family. How dare you let my parents believe you had no money? You even took ten dollars from my dad! What were you doing, laughing at us?”

Under any other circumstances, I would have tried to explain, even apologize. But I’m so mad about Holly’s defection, her defacing my walls, I can only glare at her.

“You know this counts as hazing,” I say. “That’s more serious than what I’m going up for now.”

Holly turns pale, looks to Meredith.

Meredith just says, “Holly should have added
snitch
and
bitch
to her list of your glowing descriptors.”

I would never report them, but I take satisfaction in their reaction to my bluff.

“Fuck you, Meredith,” I say and go to the bathroom to get a washcloth. I wet it and start cleaning my walls. At least Holly did not use indelible ink.

Once the walls are clean, I sit down and tackle my homework. Why? Can think of nothing else to do. Then I notice: all of Holly’s things are gone. She must have moved down the hall to the empty double next to Meredith and Jess’s. So what, I tell myself. I see she left the foot warmer her mom made me. The fucking Combs family and their stupid, hopeful gift. It was their fault after all that I lied about the money. I don’t know if I should mail the foot warmer back with a fifty and a note saying
Donna, maybe you can go to WeightWatchers or buy yourself some attractive shoes
or just throw it away. It would look stupid in the aparthouse anyway.

I
CAN’T FACE JAKE OR CAPE
so I’m in my room skipping breakfast when the phone rings. Deeds is nowhere to be found so I run down and pick it up.

“Hello?”

“Bettina, darling, it’s Babs.”
Darling?
Under the circumstances, it rings false, but who cares.

“Hi, Babs,” I reply, not certain where this conversation is going.

“Listen, I shouldn’t have gotten mad the other day. I think it’s fabulous you had sex. Fuck the school that considers it a crime.”

I hesitate before contradicting her. “But I really like Cardiss.”

“You like Cardiss or Cape?”

“Both,” I reply.

“Well, if you are kicked out,” she continues, “think of all the fun we’ll have. We can travel. Stay up all night watching movies. Shop. You can apply to another school for next term. Miss Porter’s has to accept you after all the goddamn dough I’ve given them.”

Babs wants to have fun with me? Maybe she has no one to fuck and is bored with single women her own age, just finds them depressing. Maybe I would be just a placeholder until she can set up a suitable new cast for the Babs show, but who cares. I would choose Babs over Cape any day.

“I’m coming to Boston this afternoon. Want you to come to the Ritz and spend the night. We’ll go out to a
fab
new restaurant, Touché, and close the bar down at the hotel. I’ve got a suite.”

As great as this sounds, I know I can’t go. How to explain this to Babs?

“I don’t think I can, Babs. I’m on probation until I go up for action and have to be checked in by seven. I don’t think they will let me leave Cardiss, even with a parent.”

“That’s bullshit,” she says. “I’m your mother and I pay the bills at that crummy school. Let me talk to Ms. McSoSo.”

I put the receiver down and run upstairs to get Deeds. She is hunched over her desk marking up papers on
Le petit prince
with a red pen. She looks up at me. Annoyed.

“Yes?” she says curtly.

“Um, sorry to bother you. My mother wants to talk to you.”

“Okay,” Deeds says, straightening up to assume the posture of a dorm head. She follows me down the stairs. She is barefoot, toenails trimmed but not polished. She picks up the phone.

“Yes,” Deeds says, trying to project some level of authority. Even though I can’t hear Babs’s monologue on the other end of the line, I can tell Deeds is not buying it.