Chapter 10

Tuesday dawned cold and crisp. When I took Dawn out for her morning trip to the backyard, we could both see our breath misting. I let her frisk a little and took her around the neighborhood on a short run before I decided that I’d had enough cold for now. I brought her back and saw to her breakfast, letting her settle down with me running my fingers through her fur for a few minutes.

“Don’t worry, girl,” I said softly. “I know it’s been busy, but things’ll even out and we’ll spend some extra time together.”

She raised her head from her bowl and licked her chops before she gave me a low coughing bark. She licked my face affectionately and wagged her tail before she went back to her food. I straightened up and Gina was standing there, watching me with a slight smile on her face.

“Some days, I swear she can understand you,” she said and looked at the two of us.

“Some days, I think she understands me better than I do,” I admitted. “She seems to know my moods, even when I’m confused.”

“She’s your dog. I know what Hanna said, but she’s wrong. Dawn’s yours.”

I smiled and agreed. She still wasn’t dressed, so we went downstairs and started the day. We let the girls sleep for now, moving around the room quietly to get what we needed.

We crossed the lawn to have breakfast next door and were just in time to be served in the first wave. Lilly was bustling around with Patty and I came to greet them. Lilly got a small hug and Patty got a kiss and a hug of her own. Dan looked at me wryly when I sat down.

“I thought we discussed Patty staying overnight,” he reminded me.

“We did,” I agreed. “But one of us forgot to discuss it with Patty ahead of time. She promised that she’d be more comfortable with it next time. I assume you two talked last night?”

“We did,” he said. “She was very surprised when she got home. The girls and I had decided to curl up in one bed like we used to when they were little. She came in to find the three of us watching a movie.”

I chuckled at that. “Getting a little last-minute bonding in before they move out?” I asked. “Patty told us that they’re already packed.”

He nodded. “It’s not like they’ll be going far. We wander back and forth enough that both places are home.”

I grinned, relieved beyond measure that we were back to this point. I’d wanted it for so long that it was like a balm to my soul to hear that we were all this comfortable again.

We had a pleasant breakfast and then it was time for us to go. I rode with Lana and Beck while Gina picked up Tricia. Jessie was waiting for us when we arrived and the six of us marched into school, practically in formation. They were taking the job of protecting me seriously and I wasn’t about to argue. We stopped at all our lockers and then split up with kisses that seemed to scandalize people less and less. After all, we weren’t exactly shy about it.

Beck and I got to homeroom and chatted before class. She was itching to ask about last night, but that was clearly a conversation we couldn’t have at school. Instead, she focused on wanting her test results back.

“You think they’ll come today?” she asked hopefully.

I thought about it and shook my head. “They COULD,” I admitted. “I think tomorrow is more likely though and Thursday is a possibility too.”

She looked anguished, but took a deep breath and calmed herself. “It’s killing me!” she whispered to me, her voice quaking.

I hugged her and told her I loved her. “Stay strong,” I told her. “We’ll have your clearance soon and then you’re free.”

She nodded and I had to let her go as class was called to order. She walked me to my next class, which amused me, and then I was on my own for the rest of the morning.

Early lunch was a little tense. The girls all knew that we were waiting for Lana and Beck’s final report from the lab and we were all dealing with the stress quietly.

We had a mostly mundane lunch, talking quietly and sharing our strength. Even the topic of Jessie and I was old news at this point. I had Beck in my lap, quietly holding her since she’d been upset earlier. She didn’t feel upset now, but she was quiet and pensive as we all counted down the seconds to the phone call we all needed before we’d relax. Lana was handling things a little better, but Beck had shattered when it all came out and she was having one of those days where she was delicate. Everyone understood. I looked around and even some of the people that weren’t attached to us were looking on with some sympathy.

When the bell rang, she kissed me, got up and I stood with her to hug her and the rest of the girls. “It’s good news,” I told them certainly. “I know it.”

She nodded and then they were off to their classes. I was a basket-case inside, the same as Beck, but she needed me to be strong and reassure her that everything would be okay. I could do that. Intellectually, I knew that there was almost no chance of Beck or Lana having HIV. Everyone else was clean. There was no one that they could have gotten it from. Except that they’d been high on weekends for the next month. Patrick and Vance might have shared them and that thought gnawed at me. I knew that the evidence said they were fine, but there was that one chance in a million that they’d done something that would infect one or both of them. Vance was clean and so was Marlene, but Patrick? I thought so because he’d probably have been tested when they did his knee surgery, but it was a risk. There was also the chance they’d passed the girls around that last weekend and hadn’t taken a taste themselves. Sometimes it sucks, having a brain that can think deep thoughts and chase down all the possibilities. Ignorance really IS bliss.

Second lunch started and I was wondering who was going to show up first, Roberta, Roger or the girls. Those were the usual suspects.

Roger charged into the lunch room and I rolled my eyes. I guess it was time to take a three-day suspension. I was cool with that. It meant that I’d be well-rested when the test results came in. He spotted me and I didn’t bother to get up. I quietly tucked my backpack under my seat so that my phone and sketchpad would be safe and eyed him with an eye toward which of his bones I was going to break first.

He stormed over and slammed his fists on the table. “I’ll get you for this!” he screamed. “I know it was you!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Roger,” I told him in a loud clear voice. “If someone beat you up again, I want to thank them profusely. I didn’t do it, but this is the second time you’ve threatened me in public. Threaten me again and I’ll take my shield off the wall. You don’t scare me and if you convince me that you’re serious, then I’ll treat you like a real threat. Now, fuck off. I’ve got more important things to deal with than whether you have a boo-boo.”

“You think I’m joking?!!?” he raged at me.

“I don’t know, Roger,” I said. “You’re such a joke that it’s hard to tell when you’re trying to be funny from when you’re just pathetic. Run along like a good little puppy. You don’t deserve to be at a table where real men sit.” Yeah, I was being a dick. I admit it. He deserved it and more though. I looked at him and shook my head, trying to warn him that this was his last chance.

He seemed to be considering it, but then Roberta showed up and dropped into the seat across from me.

‘Oh fuck!’ I thought to myself. ‘What is this? A reunion for my least favorite people?’

“Fuck off, Roger,” she said nastily. “You KNOW Matt didn’t do anything to you. You’re just not smart enough to think of anyone else that hates you.”

“You know who did it?!!?” he demanded, snarling at the back of her head.

“Not specifically, but I know that there’s plenty of people that want to. Matt’s right, Roger. You ARE an asshole to everyone. If you were smart, you could get away with it because you’d be right most of the time, but you’re not smart. You have bad ideas and they get other people into trouble. The worst part is that you don’t even care when you fuck things up for other people. I know that if someone asked me if I wanted to help, I’d do it.”

Roger seethed about that, but I eyed him with malice. “This isn’t over!” he promised.

“Fine,” I said. “Name a time and a place. I’m JUST out of my physical therapy. You threaten to do anything to hurt my recovery and I’ll do my very best to see to it that your head ends up next to Vance’s. You really are the dumbest fuck that ever dripped off the end of your father’s cock, you know that? Has it ever occurred to you that you might be getting beat up because people LIKE me and want to punish you for all the shitty things you did to me last term? Every time you run up to my table and run your mouth, something bad happens to you. News flash: my biggest supporters are girls. That means that there’s about a 90% chance that you’ve been getting beat up by girls looking to protect me from you. Yet, you keep coming back for more. I’m sure that your next beating won’t be quite so gentle. Folks!” I said loudly. “If one of you is the one that’s been beating Roger up, I’d like to see him get a kick in the balls. Nothing that’s gonna cost him a nut, but something to remind him to keep his head down from now on. Thanks.” I smiled at Roger and took a sip from the bottle of juice that I was nursing.

He didn’t like it, but he went away to the other side of the cafeteria and stared daggers at me.

That left me with Roberta to deal with. I looked around and Tricia, Lilo and Stitch were all working their way through the lunch line. Progress had slowed while Roger had provided the floor show, but things were starting to pick up now.

“And what brings you to my table today?” I asked Roberta, knowing that she had an agenda that she wanted to push.

She gave me a skittish look and bit her lip. “I ... I did what you suggested,” she said finally.

“You made a list of everything that’s happened?” I clarified, slightly curious about how that had turned out.

She nodded. “And the ... other ... one.”

I nodded. “How did you feel after you wrote them out?” I asked.

“Pretty shitty,” she admitted. “I realized that I haven’t really thought of you as a friend in a couple of years. Not since I started falling for Becky. Most of it is just petty crap, like not inviting you to my birthday last year.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t care about what had happened before really. I only brought it up because you kept insisting that we were friends and you didn’t show any interest in getting in touch when I got hurt. That’s really not how friends treat each other.”

She nodded and reached into her backpack. She pulled out a tightly folded note and slid it across to me. “That’s both lists,” she told me. “I went back as far as I could think that I did things to get back at you for being close to Becky.”

I looked at it and nodded. “You want me to read it?” I asked, giving her a chance to back out.

“It’s what you wanted, right?”

“I asked you to do it so that you’d have an idea of what had happened. When it accumulates a little at a time, it doesn’t seem like as much as it does when you look at it all at once. Whether I read it or not is less important than you looking at it and seeing whether it changes your outlook on what happened. Did it?” I still hadn’t taken the note off the table, so it sat between us.

She nodded and looked away. “Yeah. When I reread the list, I was ashamed. You’d never been anything but nice to me. I mean, you were nice to everyone, but you never picked on me for being a girl playing baseball or tried to tell me that I couldn’t play, even when most of the boys were like that. It made me feel bad. I punished you for being with Becky, even though I knew she was your best friend for years.”

I nodded. “Do you still want me to read it?” I asked. I already had her permission, but I wanted her to say the words.

She nodded. “Yeah. I ... don’t think you know everything on there, but most of it probably won’t shock you.”

I nodded and picked up the note, slipping it into my pocket for later. “How do you feel about the second list that you made up?” I asked curiously. I saw Tricia at the cash register, shooting dirty looks at the back of Roberta’s head. I hoped she wouldn’t do anything too rash.

“Scared,” she told me plainly. “Becky told me what was in hers. I didn’t go as far as some of what she told me, but it’s still a little frightening.”

I nodded. “I suggested to Beck that she keep a journal of things she’d done to try to put things right. I didn’t suggest it as homework or a punishment, but an exercise to help her compile anything she does to help balance the scales. I thought it might help with the guilt she felt after everything that happened.”

Tricia had paused to speak to Janice and was approaching with a determined look on her face. Instead of taking one of the seats, she came around to mine, sat in my lap carefully and set her lunch in front of us. She kissed me deeply and then started eating her lunch. She looked at Roberta and introduced herself. “Hello. I’m Tricia, Matt’s girlfriend.”

“Uh, hi,” she responded. “I’m Bobbi. I’ve known Matt for a long time.”

“I know,” she said simply. “I heard all about it. You keep coming back and upsetting him.”

Roberta grimaced at that. “I wasn’t trying to upset him,” she promised.

“I know that too,” she told her. She wasn’t being catty or mean, but Tricia was direct. “I know you tried to steal Beck from us last week and why. You might not have been trying to upset him, but you did. He loves Beck. We all do. Having you try to take her away was hurtful, but Matt’s too nice sometimes, so he let you have your shot because he wants her to be happy. If there was a chance that you’d make her happier, he wouldn’t stand in her way, even if it killed him inside.”

That made Roberta look even more ashamed of herself. I hadn’t gone into detail about how I’d felt about it, but Tricia was taking it upon herself to make sure that Roberta knew the situation and her part in making it worse.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll go.” She started gathering up her things.

“No one’s trying to chase you off,” Tricia said. “I’m telling you how it is, so you’ll understand that I don’t want you talking to him alone anymore. If Matt’s willing to talk to you, that’s fine, but you need to come and get me or one of his other girlfriends so we can be there. I don’t want to have to guess what was said, if he walks away upset.”

I sat and watched while Tricia calmly set out the ground-rules for Roberta to be in contact with me. I was fine with her restrictions. I didn’t want her around at all. I figured that she’d be too embarrassed to want to talk in front of any of the girls.

Janice slid into the seat beside me and leaned over to kiss me deeply, her tongue slipping into my mouth unexpectedly. She broke the kiss before any of the teachers could notice and object, but Lilo grinned at me shyly as she took her seat.

“Your bite marks are fading,” Janice noted. “Whose turn is it to update them?”

“I think Gina and Lana have the sign-up sheet,” I told her with a smirk. “Next week is my hazing, right?”

“That’s the rumor, unless you’re too tired. I heard Lana and her sister are gonna try to put you back in the hospital later in the week,” she said, her fingers reaching up to trace the bruises on my neck. “Jessie went a little crazy.”

“Yeah, and those are just the ones you can see,” I reminded her. They’d all seen the other bites when they’d invaded the locker room.

The three of them laughed at me, leaving Roberta to try and figure out who was who and how they all fit together. I’d told her that I was dating all the cheerleaders, but I wasn’t sure she bought that. She’d fallen silent and watched us flirt back and forth. Tricia had been included freely and I was sure that her last-minute conversation with them had something to do with it.

That’s how we spent the rest of lunch and I enjoyed myself. I wasn’t doing it to be mean to Roberta, but she was clearly uncertain how to act and didn’t add much to the conversation as she watched the four of us together. When it was time for us to separate, Tricia, Liz and Janice all gave me deep kisses and then Tricia hauled me to my feet and we started the trek to our afternoon classes.

“I’m going with you to Carl’s after school,” she told me. “Jessie’s driving. See you after class, Lover.”

I grinned and watched her walk away, her hips swaying much more than they usually did, but I’d noticed that she carried herself differently than she had at the start of the year. If there was anything that I felt proud of, it was the change in her. She’d done it herself, but I had helped give her the push she needed. I felt proud of that.

I went to my afternoon classes and then I was done for the day. I was met at my locker by the girls and I got a lot of hugs. “No word yet,” Beck told me dejectedly.

“Tomorrow,” I told her. “It’ll probably come while we’re at school. You okay? Wanna come with us to see Carl?”

She shook her head. “You go. I’m too wound up. I’m gonna go out in the garage and hit the heavy-bag for a while.”

“Okay. It’ll be fine, I promise.”

“What if it’s not?” she asked me, her anxiety starting to show through the cracks.

“Then I’ll find a cure,” I said simply. That was utter bullshit. I needed several PhD’s, a medical degree, years of research and ten years of trials to push it through the FDA, but they’d come to believe in my intelligence and if that could get Beck through until she got her clearance, then I was okay with her believing I could do it.

She smiled at that and hugged me tightly. I thanked God that I was just smart enough for her to believe it was possible that I could perform that miracle. The other girls gathered around and then, when we’d hugged it out, we separated. Gina went to work, Lana and Beck went home and then Jessie, Tricia and I got in her car and drove to Harvard.

When we got there, Julie seemed to be running the shop. Carl was sitting quietly and observing. I walked over and gave him a hug. “Running your kingdom from the throne today?” I asked lightly.

“It’s time,” he said, and the blood drained out of my face. “NO!” he said with a grimace, seeing the way I’d reacted. “I’m not ready for the dirt-nap. Julie’s ready to start running the show. I’m going to focus more on the data for now and be on-hand to offer technical support if things run into trouble.”

I laughed at that. “I remember how helpful you were the last time we had a glitch, Carl,” I reminded him.

“Touché,” he laughed with me. It hadn’t been a good day, but I wanted him to remember that I’d stepped in to help when it had been needed. “She’ll be fine. We all know that.” We watched her move around the lab, talking to people and getting things ready for me. He glanced at the table where Jessie and Tricia were working on homework. “Another new girl?” he asked, amused.

“Yup,” I said proudly. “Her name’s Jessie. I’ll introduce you when we’re done.”

He nodded. “I had an interesting conversation with Victoria about your powers of deduction,” he told me. “We didn’t have time to discuss it last week because of your situation. She says you’ve made a shrewd guess at what’s sitting in my Will.”

I nodded. “After what you gave me for Christmas, I didn’t think there would be any other gift you could give that would mean more to me. That was so personal and touching that I couldn’t imagine a gift that would make me object. The only thing I could come up with was a piece of property. I don’t know what it is, but that’s my guess. Either land or a condo or a home.”

“You’re too clever for your own good,” he said grumpily.

I laughed. “If I wasn’t, I would never have gotten to know you,” I pointed out.

“You don’t ALWAYS have to be right, you know.”

“Trust me, I’m not,” I said ruefully and nodded at Tricia. “Tricia calls me the dumbest genius she knows.”

“At least someone can keep you humble,” he grumped.

“I’ve made some pretty big mistakes,” I admitted. “It’s part of the reason that I set boundaries for myself. I don’t touch musical instruments or read music because my sister started to feel like I was stealing her dream of fame. She wants to be a singer, so I stay away from what she focuses on.”

He nodded. “It’s easy for you to overshadow other people,” he cautioned me. “Some of the grad students were intimidated after you ran the tests yourself that day. Three of them asked me if they were going to get cut from the project.”

I nodded. “I don’t intend to take anyone’s place on the project,” I told him ardently. “It’s bad enough that we’re losing you. I don’t want to say goodbye to any of the rest of them.”

He nodded. “I told them much the same thing,” he confided in me. “I think they’d appreciate hearing that from you too.”

I looked at him skeptically. “Really?”

He nodded. “You’re not just smart, you’re a leader. I saw what you did to calm everyone down at the end of that day. Your opinion is important to people, especially here. They put a lot of stock in what you say.”

I thought about it and shrugged. “I’ll walk around and talk to them at the end of the day,” I promised. “Back to the original topic though. Are you still worried that I’m going to object to your wishes?”

“Not as much as I was,” he confessed. “Victoria said she hadn’t told you what it was yet.”

“I think it’s more appropriate for me to hear about it from you,” I said. “I’ve been curious since we’ve been considering building a home to house all of us together. We’re sort of spread all over Boston right now, you know?”

He nodded. “How many of you are there now?”

“Just me and the girls, or extended family too?”

“How many would be moving in, do you think?” he asked.

I counted up the girls, their families and thought about it. “Twenty,” I said after a moment. “There’s others that might and visitors that would show up on occasion, like Emma’s family, Tricia’s grandparents and some others, but I think the household would top out at twenty.”

“And how many bedrooms would those twenty take up?” he asked without batting an eyelash.

That gave me pause. I thought for sure that he’d tell me that the property couldn’t house nearly that many. “Seven,” I told him. “One of those bedrooms would need to be ... huge. It’s for ten of us, after all.”

He nodded. “So you’d need seven, with room for guests. Holidays will be a big draw, so estimate for me. If everyone showed up, how many would you need just for guests?”

“Maybe eight,” I guessed, thinking that if Emma’s whole family showed, Gina’s brother, her aunt and a second bedroom, assuming that she had another cousin, Tricia’s grandparents and Jessie’s grandmother. All my grandparents were dead except for Dad’s mother, so I didn’t count her. Similarly, Dan and Patty’s parents had passed on and I couldn’t account for anyone else that might want to come.

“That’s a lot of people,” he commented.

I nodded. “I think if we start getting close to that full, we’re kind of screwed anyway. You’re not seriously trying to tell me that you have that much space, are you?”

He shrugged. “I’m the last of my family,” he said. “My great grandfather taught here during the depression. He had enough salary to do well and bought up land around him as other families fell on hard times and had to move on,” he explained. “In the post-war boom, he invested, building a home for himself and his children and grandchildren. He’d envisioned a large family. Of course, back in those days, there were some very different rules for society. He had a separate building on the property for servants.”