A Twist of Hate (6 page)

              “She says you’re a smart person who’s really dumb.” A smile played beneath Mr. Curran’s moustache. “Siobhan has never had many friends. That’s my fault. My work has taken me all over the world, and we’ve never spent more than a few years in one place. She was born in Los Angeles, where I started my career. She went to kindergarten in Atlanta. We were in Spain and France during her elementary school years. She started junior high in Washington, D.C, and finished it in Tokyo. She began ninth grade in Rio de Janeiro, tenth grade in Berlin, and junior year in London.

              “My wife wanted us to settle in St. Louis in time for Siobhan’s senior year. She wanted Siobhan to attend Prescott for two reasons. One, it’s a fine school. And two, because when my wife was a teenager growing up in St. Louis, her parents couldn’t afford to send her there. My wife’s parents were Irish immigrants who worked themselves to death to make life better for her than it was for them.”

              “What was your wife’s name? Siobhan never told me.”

              “Rhiannon.” Mr. Curran spoke his wife’s name as if it had been an eternity since last tasting it on his lips. He spoke it as though starved for it.

              “How did the two of you meet?”

              “We literally bumped into each other in the bookstore during our junior year at Georgetown. We fell in love. The day after we graduated, we flew to Vegas and got married. It was that simple and that ridiculous. Siobhan is named after Rhiannon’s mother, who died a week before Siobhan was born. Rhiannon’s parents never said anything to me outright, but I don’t think I was what they envisioned when Rhiannon told them that she had married the most wonderful man in the world,” he chuckled sadly.

             
It’s hard enough for me to get through a day without seeing Siobhan
, Camden thought.
How does Mr. Curran get through each day without Rhiannon?
                 

              “Your interest in Siobhan isn’t entirely platonic.” Mr. Curran slipped on the mantle of father just as quickly and easily as he had shed it.

              “No, sir.”

              “Would you call it an infatuation?”

              “No, sir.”

              “What exactly is your interest in my daughter?”

              Camden rubbed his temple. The words to describe his feelings for Siobhan danced past his grasp. Transfixed by a star of light glinting on the base of his water goblet, he began to speak. “I look forward to rehearsals just to be near her, even though we can’t talk without arguing. She’s brilliant. When she speaks in class, I’m totally in awe of her. She always notices things no one else does. Sometimes I catch her looking at me, and the shock of her beauty hits me in the chest harder than any linebacker I’ve ever faced. She’s so strong, in so many ways, yet sometimes I just want to hold her and shield her from the world. I know she has feelings for me. It’s what she doesn’t say that tells me she likes me.”

              The ice cubes in his water goblet clinked as he took a quick drink. “I didn’t know Siobhan at all before we started working on the play. Now, I go to sleep thinking about her and she’s the first thing on my mind when I wake up. She’s mature and ambitious and sensible and intelligent and beautiful and talented and…and…everything seems more real and bright when she’s around. I’m crazy about her. It’s as simple and ridiculous as that.”

              The waiter noiselessly slid in and presented their entrees—grilled salmon and asparagus on a bed of wild rice. Mr. Curran thanked him, and the waiter disappeared as quietly as he had appeared.

              “I’ve said too much, haven’t I?” Camden fretted.

              “Not at all. I appreciate your candor. I hope you’ll respect mine.”

              “Of course, Mr. Curran.” Camden swallowed hard.

              “I have reservations about you and my daughter entering a relationship.”

              “We don’t have a relationship,” Camden sighed. “She has no idea how I feel about her.”

              “Do you plan to tell her?”

              “I don’t think I can hide it much longer.”

              “Siobhan has always made her own decisions. For better or worse, her mother and I always let her learn from her mistakes.”

              Camden sat up straighter. “I wouldn’t be a mistake, sir.”

              “That’s not what I meant.” Mr. Curran squeezed a lemon wedge over his salmon. “And enough with the ‘Sir.’  I’m not your drill sergeant. I’m only a concerned father. I’ll respect whatever decision Siobhan makes about the direction she wants her friendship with you to take. But don’t believe for a second that I won’t step in the moment I feel she’s being hurt.”

              “I could never hurt her.”

              “You’re not the one who concerns me. No relationship is easy, even if the people involved have everything in common. We live in a world where you and Siobhan have differences that others might not respect. You never know who might object to the relationship, or how they’ll choose to show it.”

              “It’s the 21
st
century,” Camden stated. “Most people aren’t as narrow-minded about things as they were when you were my age.”

              Mr. Curran leaned farther over the table. Lowering his voice, he said, “Perhaps so, but those people do still exist. From what I’ve come to understand, one of them is closer to you than you might realize.”

              Instinctively, Camden glanced around the dining room. No table was vacant. Patrons waiting for tables sat or stood at the glass-topped bar in the lobby, sipping beverages. At this time of day, The Rise catered to very well-dressed, higher echelon businesspeople. Mr. Curran and a woman dining with a group at a table near the kitchen were the only people of color in the restaurant.

              Camden studied his fellow diners. They looked like his father and the parents of his schoolmates. Thoughts of his schoolmates gave him a fresh understanding of Mr. Curran’s warning.

              Meeting Mr. Curran’s gaze directly, Camden asked, “Would you rather I not pursue Siobhan?”

              Mr. Curran rested his fork against the edge of his plate and sat back in his chair. “What I want is for you and my daughter to be careful. In every way.”

***

              “I take it your power lunch was stellar?” Brian asked during a physics experiment on Ampere’s Law he was running with Camden.

              “It was cool. Mr. Curran doesn’t talk down to you like you’re some idiot kid. I wish I’d met him sooner. I wish I’d become friends with Siobhan before now.”

              “So you
were
being nice to her to get to her father.” Brian grinned, raising an eyebrow.

              “Of course not. Is that what she thinks?”

              “I have no idea what Siobhan really thinks. She might just have said that to protect herself.”

              “From what?”

              “She likes you,” Brian said.

              Camden almost dropped the solenoid he was connecting to a battery. “Is this Courtney’s speculation, or has Siobhan actually said those words?”

              “Does she have to?” Brian smiled knowingly. “The two of you could have met a long time ago but Siobhan always backed out of our plans if she knew you would be with us.”

              “Why? I’ve never done anything to her. I never even spoke to her before the play.”

              “She was avoiding your ginger shadow,” Brian said. “Can you blame her?” He scrawled a note in his lab journal.

              “Michael was in a pissy mood when I got back to school. He’s still bent about Siobhan cremating him on the court yesterday.”

              “I wish I could have seen it. Courtney told me Michael was so mad, his face turned redder than his hair,” Brian snickered.

              “It was pretty bad. Even for Mike.” He shook his head. “He always gets so upset over the stupidest things.”

              “One man’s stupid is another man’s assault against his self-esteem.”

              “Been reading your folks’ psychology papers again?”

              “You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to see that Michael is tragically insecure,” Brian said. “Only someone who hates himself the way Mike does can harbor so much hate for other people. He’s really gonna be pissed when he finds out the Currans are being invited to join Twin Lakes.”

              “How do you know—?”

              “Chrissie Abernathy told Courtney the Membership Committee voted the Currans into Twin Lakes in last night. They’re the first African-Americans ever invited.”

              Camden calculated some values in his lab book. “I don’t think Mr. Curran will accept the invitation.”

              “Good man. Remember when your mom and dad invited my folks out to Twin Lakes when we were in fourth or fifth grade? My folks said the only people of color they saw there worked in the kitchen and on the landscaping crew. They said as long as their friends, and their children’s friends, were not welcome to join, Twin Lakes would have to do without the Livingstons.”

              “I always wondered why your parents never accepted the club’s invitation to join,” Camden said. “My family has belonged to the club since my great-grandfather joined it. I never thought about its membership. I guess I figured blacks and Asians didn’t join because they didn’t want to.”

              “Ever think about why they might not have wanted to, Cam?”

              “It’s expensive,” Camden offered hesitantly. “Maybe they have their own clubs and don’t want to belong to Twin Lakes.”

              Brian rolled his eyes heavenward. “You are the smartest dumb person I know.”

              “Explain it to me,” Camden insisted. “I don’t understand why Twin Lakes wouldn’t want black or Asian or Hispanic members.”

              Brian searched his eyes. “You really don’t, do you?” He patted Camden’s shoulder. “I’m not gonna be the one to tear off your blinders, kid. They’ve kept you safe for this long.”

              “You’re not making any sense. What blinders?”

              “It’s gonna be ugly when Michael finds out the Currans turned down the one thing he’s wanted for so long,” Brian said. “Prepare yourself.”

              “What’s one more tantrum?” Camden turned to the experiment set up on the lab table. “After all these years, I’m used to them.”

Chapter Four

“Prescott was supposed to be immune from this sort of thing. Yet in retrospect, as an educated adult, I should have seen it coming. We should have expected it, prepared for it. We should have protected the students. Blinded by our suburban, elitist conceit, we quite wrongly assumed we were safe.”

—Trevor Cleese,
St. Louis News-Chronicle

              “Rehearsals went so well on Monday and Tuesday, I’m rather looking forward to the dress run tomorrow.” Mr. Cleese swiveled in his office chair to face Camden in the wing chair and Siobhan on the sofa. “Everything has fallen into place, with one very annoying exception.”

              Mr. Cleese rested his forearms on his desk. “Dress rehearsal is tomorrow. Anyone—cast or crew—who isn’t here by 5:30 will answer to me, and I promise, once I’m in the throes of wrath, the results won’t be pleasant. We’ve worked too hard on a very tight schedule to allow carelessness to ruin us. Mr. Dougherty, I suggest you leash our ‘Tom.’  He
will
be on time. I won’t hesitate to replace anyone who tests the seeming infinite bounds of my patience.”

              He opened his top desk drawer and withdrew two small, white envelopes. “Now. On to more pleasant things. I couldn’t have asked for finer assistants than the two of you. I’ve scarcely had to lift a finger to get this production off and running. It’s a dark, brooding play, and the two of you have made it a pleasure. My only regret as opening night approaches is that we’ve only worked as a team for this, your last play.”

              Camden and Siobhan looked at each other. Mr. Cleese had voiced their very thoughts.

              “I shall miss you next year, Miss Curran,” said Mr. Cleese. “If this production has a heart, surely, it’s you. And what will I do next semester, Mr. Dougherty, without you, my veritable second self?”

              “Maybe you should leave teaching and pursue acting,” Siobhan smiled. “You certainly have a flair for melodrama.”

              “Those who can’t do blah, blah, and so on.” He gave each of them an envelope. “This is a token of appreciation for your hard work in theatre this year.”

              “Thanks!” Camden gushed after he pulled out the red and black theater ticket. “I’ve wanted to see
Forever Plaid
for ages.”

              “The tickets are for tonight’s show,” said Mr. Cleese. “I’m sorry it’s such short notice.”

              Siobhan softly cleared her throat. “I can’t make it. I have plans.”

              “Do tell,” Mr. Cleese asked in the ensuing quiet.

              “Evan Hamilton is taking me to the Jason Carver opening at the Okiwe Gallery.”

              “Perhaps you’d best go home and dress for tonight, Camden,” Mr. Cleese said, dismissing him. “Siobhan, might I have a moment?”

              Camden gathered his belongings, said goodbye, and left. Mr. Cleese circled to the front of his desk to take Camden’s seat. “I was married once. My ex-wife and I were a talented, gorgeous, intelligent couple so utterly devoted to one another, we were envied by everyone who knew us. Single people aspired to find their other half, other couples longed to experience the magic shrouding us as we seamlessly wove our lives together.”

              “Forgive me, Mr. Cleese,” Siobhan said, “but if you were so perfect for each other, why is she your ex-wife?”

              “Toothpaste.”

              “Toothpaste?”

              “Toothpaste.”

              “What,” Siobhan said, befuddled, “she didn’t brush her teeth? I suppose that could get a little gross after awhile.”

              “I squeezed from the middle. She rolled from the bottom.”

              “You got a divorce over something that unimportant?”

              “We let something completely meaningless infect every aspect of our lives,” he explained. “Every argument, whether over what to have for dinner or how to invest our savings, always came down to toothpaste. I truly believe that had we invested in pump toothpaste dispensers, I wouldn’t be chasing flight attendants today.”

              “The differences between me and Camden are more profound than toothpaste,” Siobhan said. “I like him. I do. A lot. Maybe even too much.”

              “Aren’t you entitled to the same happiness as anyone else?”

              “I’ve never had these feelings before.” Her voice rose in frustration. “I’ve had crushes, but this thing with Camden doesn’t feel like a crush.”

              “Nor does it look like one, from where I sit.”

              Her smile unfolded as delicately as the petals of a rosebud in bloom. “It’s not one single thing. When I walk into assembly in the morning, and he sees me, he smiles as if the quality of his day is determined by the sight of me. When I get on his nerves, he rubs his right temple as if I’m some little creature in his brain that he can’t erase. There are times when my breath snags in my chest and my heart speeds up, and I’ll turn to see him near me, and I look at him and I want that moment, that breathlessness, to last forever.”

              “I’ve never seen you quite like this. It’s rather becoming.”

              “I annoy him.”

              “Is that a confession?”

              “It’s just a fact, Mr. Cleese. Camden thinks I’m a pain.”

              “If that were so, he wouldn’t like you as well as he does. Life is too short to throw happiness away when it’s right there for the taking.”

              She took her buckskin book satchel from the floor. She handed the ticket to Mr. Cleese. “As much as I’d like to, I can’t accept this.”

              He folded her fingers around the creamy white envelope. “Keep it. Just in case. You ladies are always and forever changing your minds.”

***

              Camden sat in the center section, tenth row, seat 22, reading the
Playbill
. His eyes darted from the printed pages to the empty seat beside him, to the doors at the rear of the theater, to the curtained stage and back to the
Playbill
.

              “Who cares who she’s with?” he muttered.

              The elderly couple on his right gave him a distinctly troubled look. Turning slightly toward the, he wondered aloud, “What’s she wearing? God, I hope it’s not the black skirt with the feathers. I love that skirt on her.”

              The couple in front of him turned around, staring curiously. “She looks amazing in that skirt,” Camden told them.

              The couple smiled and nodded uncertainly, then turned back around and sank a bit lower in their seats.

              The question of Siobhan’s apparel was answered a minute later with fall of the house lights and the rise of the stage lights. Siobhan, in a skirt with a feather detail at the hem, a silky halter top, sheer hose, and T-strap heels—all in black—slipped into the empty seat beside Camden. She crossed her legs, folded her hands over the
Playbill
on her knee, and watched the curtains open. The performers were well into their second song before Camden could swing his gaze from Siobhan to the stage.

***

              “A show like that kind of makes our play seem really amateurish,” Camden said as he and Siobhan walked to the parking lot at the end of the block.

              “Our play is going to be fantastic,” Siobhan extolled confidently. “Courtney really reached deep to find the heart of ‘Laura,’ and Ann’s ‘Amanda’ is perfect.”

              “Brian’s really good, too.” Camden sidestepped behind Siobhan, placing himself between her and the curb. “We’ve got a great cast.”
For the most part
.

              Siobhan briskly rubbed her bare arms. “Spring nights in Missouri are chilly. It was fairly warm when I got dressed for the gallery, and now it’s practically freezing.”

              Camden took off his bomber jacket and held it open for her. She moved into it and he zipped it up around her. The jacket, several sizes too big for her, covered her to mid thigh. The sleeves came down well over her hands. “Thank you,” she said. “I left my jacket in Evan’s car.”

              They turned into the corner parking lot.

              “You look very handsome,” she remarked.

              He had traded his usual uniform of jeans, polo shirts and athletic shoes for khakis, a starched oxford shirt, a printed foulard tie, and polished leather uppers.

              “So do you,” he said. A blush climbed from his collar to his face as he opened the passenger side door of a slate grey BMW. He stood face to face with Siobhan in the juncture of the opened car door. “I meant, you look pretty. Not handsome.” Her eyes sparkled like polished onyx. “You’re really beautiful.”

              His gaze tenderly roamed her face, warming it like sunlight.

              His arm around her, he drew her close. She rested her hands on his shoulders, her forearms braced on his chest.

              “Ahem,” said the driver of the Lexus parked next to Camden’s car.

              Camden and Siobhan jolted apart to grant the other driver access to his car door. Their magical moment and its tender promise lost, Camden ushered Siobhan into the car. She unlocked the driver’s door for him.

              “Nice wheels.” She settled into the buttery soft leather seat. “Your dad must trust you.
A lot
.”

              “He bought this car for my sixteenth birthday. It’s a little showy for school.” He started the engine, turned on the seat heaters, and pulled the BMW into the line of cars waiting to exit the lot. “I usually catch a ride with Brian or Mi—uh, someone else.”

              “Michael?” His name was foil on a mental filling.

              “Not this week. He’s still aching from your tennis match. He hasn’t spoken to me since Sunday.”

              “Is this a date?” she blurted.

              “Sure.”

              “Even though you didn’t actually ask me out?”

              “I was working up to it. Mr. Cleese forced the issue.”

              “You really would have asked me out?” She turned in her seat to read his expression.

              “Definitely.”

              Her heart beat a little faster. “I could have asked you out too.”

              “Why didn’t you?”

              “Because I’m weak,” she stated defiantly.

              “You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”

              “I didn’t have the strength to hear you reject me.”

              He chuckled. “Why would I have done that?”

              “Let me think.” She began ticking reasons off on her fingers as Camden pulled into traffic. “The buzz at school is that you don’t date, you’ve probably never dated anyone like me before, it would probably scar your rep to be seen going out with me, and as you’ve told me many times before, I drive you nuts. You want more?” she asked playfully. “Because I can give you more.”

              He wrinkled his nose. “I haven’t dated because I haven’t met anyone I really like. You know how you meet someone and you just click? That hasn’t happened to me yet. I never dated anyone like you before because there
isn’t
anyone like you. I don’t have a rep to scar, and I don’t care what other people think about me or what I do. You definitely drive me crazy, but in a way I look forward to.”

              “Oh.”

              He expected more from her than one syllable. He might have commented on it further if not for the distraction of the prettiness of her mouth shaping that word. “Have you ever dated anybody like me before?”

              “You mean a white person?”

              “I mean a really white person.”

              “I’ve never dated anyone.”

              “What about Evan? He’s always asking you out.”

              “The gallery opening was the first thing I said yes to, mostly because of Emy. I was hoping to see her at the gallery tonight. Courtney heard that she’s left town but nobody knows for sure. I wish the newshounds would leave her and Logan in peace. Why don’t they try making their own lives something worth writing about instead of chasing two people who just want to be left alone?”

              “How did Evan take being dumped at the last minute?”

              “Evan only likes me because of my complexion. It makes him feel enlightened, or something, to be with me. Tonight he told me that I’ve lost my identity because he thinks I straighten my hair, and I don’t dress ‘to reflect my heritage.’ If he can find a dashiki with shamrocks and a matching Choctaw headdress, and I’ll be happy to wear them to advertise my ethnic heritage.”