Misbehavior

“I’d like to believe you, but your story doesn’t make sense.” 

She looked at me expectantly, as if the sheer force of her disapproval could get me to crumble.  Of course it didn’t make any sense.  She’d have to be a bigger idiot than she was to buy what I was selling.  That wasn’t the point.  I could work with silence as well as anyone.  We stood there trying to out-wit the other, a grownup version of a staring contest. 

She blinked; the round went to me. 

“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” 

“I didn’t hear anything, Ms. Costigan.  I have no idea how they got in.”

“Young lady, you had better start re-thinking your story.  There are serious consequences for lying.”  She turned a co-conspirators smile on me.  “If you are worried about what the other girls will think, rest assured, your role in this will not be publicly known.  We’ve interviewed everyone on the floor, after all.” 

“I didn’t hear anything, Ms. Costigan.  I have no idea how they got in,” I said again, letting my eyes catch hers.  “I was asleep.”

“I will bring you up before the disciplinary committee, don’t think I won’t Amalia DeSandre.  You tell me, right now, how those boys got into Centennial or so help me, I will do everything in my power to get you expelled.  You think I can’t?  Everyone knows about last year.”

I stood in silence and let her rant.  “We know they got in through your window.  Your roommate confessed as much.  And don’t think she isn’t being dealt with.  Now I ask you, one last time, what did you know about this plot?  And how did you participate?”

“Ms. Costigan, why don’t you tell me?”  I heard her hiss and fought the impulse to smile.

My feet were the requisite shoulder length apart, my hands were clasped behind my back, and my head was bent in the proper submissive posture.  But beneath the veil of my bangs I kept my eyes squarely on her face.  It was the only hint of disobedience. 

“You seem to know so much more than I do.  Why don’t you tell me what happened last night?”  The last bit was an unnecessary goad but I couldn’t help myself.  Her jowls were flying every which way.  Man, I wish I had been there.  Her expression when they burst into her room, hooded and masked, I bet it was priceless.  There was video, or so Tony promised.  It was worth it anyhow, even if I never got to see it first-hand.

“Get out of my office.”  She vibrated with rage.  I nearly slipped into a smile and gave the game away.  But that’s why I’m the straight man.  No one else could pull this off.  “I am going to call your parents right now young lady.  You see if I don’t.”  With that, I was dismissed, free to go to third period English. 

--

At lunch Mariah came over to talk.  I had argued from the beginning for keeping her out.  With her big mouth and small brains, my roommate was the weakest link in this whole plot.  But they needed our window.  Stupid though she was, even Mariah was bound to notice.

“What did you tell them you stupid cow?” 

“Nothing, Amalia, honest.  I was in Ms. Williams’ room, like you told me to be, and that’s what I said.  She asked me what I knew and I told her I didn’t know anything and that if you were involved you wouldn’t tell me anything anyways, on account of us not getting along.  I didn’t narc, I swear.”  By the end of her speech Mariah was sweating with nerves.  Reason 917 I found her intolerable.  I mean, yes, I understand she has a perspiration problem but they have meds for that.  And her deodorant did little to counteract her rank body odor. 

I believed her though.  Not because she’s trustworthy but because it was a classic divide-and-conquer strategy.  If she had squealed, I’d be sitting in front of the disciplinary committee right now.  The fact that I wasn’t meant the line had held.

“Fine.  Keep it that way,” I said, managing to throw a little understated menace into my voice.  Hard to do when you sound like a fairy sprite but I’ve had years of practice.  Mariah nodded frantically, her head bobbing up and down like a bobble-head.  What did I do to deserve such a fate?  And we were only in November.  I had five more months of this monstrosity. 

“I will, I promise.  That was the hardest thing I ever had to do, keeping quiet.”  She leaned in closer to me and I barely had time to tamp down my gag reflex.  “But she knows, Ms. Costigan does.  She knows it was us that let –”

I cut her off with a pinch to her meaty forearm.  “Why don’t you shut the fuck up now and go away?  We can’t be seen talking to each other in public.”  Bobble up, bobble down and she finally left.  An unintended but quite pleasant consequence is that I finally had a good reason to avoid speaking to Mariah, at least until after Christmas break.

--

The rest of the day was abominably long.  Finally – finally – the bell rang and I ran out of Spanish class to the Centennial quad.  I had forty-five minutes before volleyball practice and no one would notice if I was a few minutes late.  I sat on the grass on the library side, grabbed a random book from my shoulder bag, and waited. 

“Hey beautiful,” he said.  I was ridiculously excited to see him.  “Happy to see me?”  Getting up and throwing myself into his arms in one smooth motion, I covered his face in wet, sloppy kisses.  Our typical greeting.  “I love my women enthusiastic.”  We kissed for real, the usual sparks augmented by the audacity of what we’d accomplished. 

“Not on the lawn, children.”  The admonishment came from one of the librarians.  More than three years I’ve been here, and I still never learned any of their names.  I pulled away from Tony long enough to give her a saucy wink.  She blushed and ducked back into the library.

Hand in hand we walked up the hill past the quad, ostensibly on our way to the gym.  “So tell me everything, you naughty boy.  Did it work?”

“Oh, I can do better than that.  I brought my camera.”  Squealing with delight, I dragged Tony off the road and onto the soccer field.  After a quick visual sweep indicated the coast was clear, I pounced.

“Show me, show me,” I said, practically ripping the camera from his lacrosse bag.  He smiled at me indulgently.  Reason number 458 we were so good together: Tony’s smiles were fantastic.  I realized he did it to distract me halt the time and still couldn’t resist the pull of it.  I leaned in his direction, angling for a kiss.  Using my distraction, he took the camera back and swiftly put it away.  When I looked down again, it was gone. 

He had managed to snatch it out of my hands before Mr. Ortega, the history teacher cum volleyball coach, saw it.  He waved and pointed at his watch.  I nodded to let him know I understood and pantomimed five minutes.  Smiling, Mr. Ortega walked away. 

“That’s why you’ve got to slow down sweetheart.  People might wonder what has you so fired up,” Tony whispered.  It was a gentle but necessary reminder.  I should wait until after dinner, when we had time to wander down to the student union or the diner and the lowerclassmen were in study hall.  But I've never been good at delayed gratification.  “I’ve got to get going.  Coach Larson hates it when we’re late.  Six-thirty in the common room?” 

Pouting, I agreed.  “That’s my good girl.  Run along now before you’re late,” he said, patting my butt.  I laughed because really, how could I stay mad?  He turned in the direction of the lacrosse field and walked away.

--

“This place looks like a cyclone went through it,” I squealed.  “And you were only in there five minutes before she caught you?  How on earth did you trash her shit so fast?” 

“They’re men Amalia.  Fucking shit up is what they do,” Faith said with a laugh.  We were rivals more often than friends, but you couldn’t count on a better bitch to have your back.  Especially when you were up to mischief.  She casually tossed her golden hair away from her face, exposing a good deal of shoulder and cleavage in the process.  All of the guys looked longingly in her direction.  Except mine.  Since Tony’s eyes were firmly on my little black strapless number, I let her preening roll off my back.  I got my man; I didn’t need to worry about her.

“Rewind it, I want to see the part where old Costigan comes in again,” Asher said, laughing so hard tears streamed down his face. 

“Nah, guys.  We only got five minutes to get to the dining hall,” Scott pointed out.  “We can’t skip today.”  He was right. 

--

Mr. Fletcher was talking to my cleavage again.  My bad luck, to be assigned his table for the second year in a row – that, or he had something to do with the seating charts.  All the girls, even the lowerclassmen, knew about old Lech Fletch so naturally the only seat open when I got into the dining room was by him.  But I was in such a good mood it didn’t even faze me.

I shoveled the tasteless food, sneaking glances at the clock.  Twenty minutes left.  Looking around the dining hall, I noticed Ms. Costigan was not sitting at her table.  That was strange enough – clearly the woman never met a meal she didn’t like – but more ominous was the absence of Dr. Arthur and Mr. Campbell.  Only thing that could mean spelled trouble. 

“So we can look forward to seeing you at Vigil this night Ms. DeSandre?” 

What?  What the fuck was he talking about?  In my distraction, I must have let the conversation wander past my ability to keep up.

“No, interesting as that sounds, I can’t tonight.  I am positively swamped with AP work.  The course load was much harder than I anticipated,” I cooed.  His eyes firmly on my lips, which I nibbled on for good measure, old Lech Fletch promptly forgot what he was talking about.  The bell rang.  I shot out of the chair like a bullet and ran to their common room.

--

“Did you-”

“Where they-”

“Holy shit do they -”

“But how could they…?”

“Who talked?”

“No way they could’ve known-”

We were all talking at once and making little sense.  Luckily, no one else was about.

“Guys, shut the fuck up for a second.”  That got their attention.  “We’re jumping to conclusions.”

“Jumping to conclusions?  Amalia, are you stupid?  Come on, we all know what a disciplinary committee looks like.  And they always do it right after dinner and into study hall,” Faith snarled, her face splotchy with worry.  Not preening now, are you, I couldn’t help but think. 

But I didn’t have time to indulge in more pettiness.  My gut told me they had nothing on us, not yet, but they were counting on somebody cracking.  What better way than to ante up the pressure?  I was sure of it.  Now I had to convince everybody else.  Not easy to do when even the boys were starting to panic. 

Tony came to my rescue, that gorgeous boy.  “I think, and tell me if I’m wrong, what Amalia means is that they are setting up the committee, yah, but they have to do that regardless.  They don’t know who did it yet.  They suspect, obviously, because we’ve got rep for troublemaking.  Remember last year, with the car?” 

Oh my, that was glorious!  And us juniors too.  The real senior prank was unbearably lame by comparison.  How could you top parking the headmaster’s car – whose keys I borrowed when I babysat his brats two nights before – inside the main entrance hall in front of his office?  We were nearly expelled for that one.  Not me, of course.  I’m not sure they ever figured out how we got the main doors off the hinges and back on again in one night. 

He continued.  “If they knew, we’d already be sitting in front of the committee.  So relax.  Head down, mouths shut and don’t make waves.”  There was a collective exhale and by unspoken accord, we moved on to other conversation.  We were, after all, in the common room.  Anybody could walk by.

“Why don’t we meet at the Student Center in,” I look at my watch, a diamond encrusted Cartier courtesy of my estranged father, “forty minutes?  We have to plan for the formal anyways.” 

Faith and the three boys left.  Thank God.  I grabbed Tony by the hand and dragged him to the couch.  He let me curl into his side and stroked my hair.  “Thank you,” I said, “for getting them back.  I thought Josh was going to crack for sure.”

“And I thought you were going to break him in half.  We needed cooler heads than that.”

“You are a genius.  I owe you big time.”  Turning face up, I kissed my fingers and pressed them to his lips.  “I’m not sure how we could have pulled this off without you.”

“Anytime, babe, anytime.  This time next year we’ll be causing mayhem in New York.  Fucking nuts.”

“You excited about France this summer?”  He was traipsing the French countryside with me, instead of going to lacrosse camp, all so I could take pictures and bolster my portfolio. 

He shifted, cradling my head before placing it back on his thigh.  “Duh.  Beautiful girl, wonderful food, better booze, great weather and beaches?  What’s not to like?”  Oh lord.  As ridiculous as it sounds, I think I’m going to marry this boy someday.  Maybe after divorce number 2.

I felt fuzzy and soft-focus inside.  Just like that the moment was over.  Tony leered down at me.  “We’ve got half an hour before we need to be anywhere and Lattimer is on duty.  Why don’t we sign you in?” he asked, overly nonchalant.  I nuzzled into his thigh and felt that he was raring to go.  The butterflies in my stomach migrated lower. 

“That, my man, is an excellent idea.”

--

“You always get me into trouble.”  Faith slammed the pool cue onto the table with a theatrical flourish.  Sigh.  She was always a poor loser. 

“What have I done this time?”

“They know.  Of course they do.  I’m not going down for you Amalia, not if we get caught.  Scott and Asher were stupid assholes last year.  I would have ratted you out.” 

And don’t I know it!  “Keep your voice down sweetie.  There are other people around,” I hissed at her.  More loudly I said, “No Faith, that is much too dramatic.  Not realistic at all.  What next, hair pulling?”  I barely contained my smile when her eyes narrowed into flensing knives.  Score one for me. 

“Thanks for the advice darling.  I’ll tone it down.  For now.  But my character holds the most trump cards.”  She walked away.

That was my warning.  I knew that she had Scott, Josh and Asher riled up.  They would jump on her say-so.  Tony was firmly on my side.  Cojones of steel, that one had.  Mariah I had scared into silence.  The odds were not in my favor if shit went down tonight.  Time for damage-control, part deux.

“Scott, come play with me.  Faith lost and she’s being a bitch about it.”  She heard because she tossed her hair and laughed unnecessarily hard at something Asher said.  Good.  Stupid bitch.  Didn't she know I could play her game and win?

Scott got off of the couch warily.  He was the smartest of the three.  Definitely the cutest.  But he knew exactly how shit stood between me and Faith.  No sane person wants to be in the middle of two alpha females.  But he also knew that If it weren’t for Tony, he’d be on my radar for sure.  I decided to remind him of that.  After all, in teenage boys hope springs eternal.

Tony looked on with an endearing head shake.  He gave me a tiny thumbs up.  Not only did he know what I was up to, he also knew not to interfere.  I love that boy, I really do.

We played best out of three for clothing IOUs.  I won, of course.  My stepdaddy is a professional hustler.  But I flirted and shed enough clothes that he was in love with me all over again by the end of it.  Faith fumed by the television.  She could count as well as I could.  It was four against three.  I could have wooed Asher and Josh but I didn’t.  I'm not a slut, after all, only a tease.  And my point was made.  It was in her interest to keep her damn mouth shut.

--

“Ms. DeSandre, please sit.”  My nerves were shot.  Cool demeanor, cool demeanor.  I just kept repeating that to myself.  I was glad I hadn’t changed out of sit-down dinner-wear.  I would need all the help I could get.

“As I’m sure you know, last night some students broke into Ms. Costigan’s apartment.  This a serious breach and we are trying to get to the bottom of the situation.  It would behoove the guilty parties to come forward on their own.  It would factor into our ultimate decision and perhaps grant a certain leniency.  Do you understand?”  I understood they thought I was an idiot.  But I nodded anyways.

“Good.  Then why don’t you tell us what you know about last night and we will go from there.” 

Like I said, George is a hustler.  I learned from a professional the value of keeping your story consistent.  No matter how many ways they phrased their questions, they got a similar answer from me each time.  Eventually, after about half an hour – I didn’t look at my watch, mustn’t display impatience – they left me go, with the caveat that they might call me back for more questions. 

I walked out of the art room, converted into their disciplinary court by the careful use of canvas coverings, and into the hallway. 

“How’d it go?” Scott asked nervously.

“Easy as pie.  They want to see you next.”  He took a deep breath, visibly shaken.  “Hey,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder for comfort, “whatever you decide to do, thanks for helping.  You’re an awesome friend.”

With a shaky smile and shakier hands, I pulled him into a hug.  “You’ll be fine, I know it.  I’ll see you back at the Rock, yeah?”  He nodded and walked into the room.  I could see the praise had its intended effect.  How could he let me down now? 

--

We were celebrating with a handle of Bacardi and a fifth of Maker’s Mark. 

“So guys, what are we doing for the senior prank?  I know it’s a couple of months away, but dude.  It needs to be fucking epic,” Faith slurred.  She was not a pretty drunk.  It didn’t matter.  For the moment we were friends.  And she had a point.  Our senior prank did, in fact, have to be fucking epic.

“Actually, I have an idea…”