Olivia (8 page)

"Thank you, Mother. I won't die an old maid. I promise," I said.
She smiled as if I had uttered the magic words and then she left.
I gazed at myself in the mirror.
How can you be so certain of that, Olivia Gordon? Who is out there, waiting for a woman like you?
Surely someone, I thought, someone who won't mind that I have brains, too.
I was about to get up and prepare for dinner when I heard Daddy's heavy footsteps on the stairs. I knew he was practically running and I went to the doorway.
"Olivia," he said, "you've got to come with me." "What is it, Daddy?"
His face was flushed.
"Embarrassment, utter embarrassment. I received a call from the finishing school's chief administrator, Rosemary Elliot, just a little while ago."
"What?"
"Your sister has been expelled for . . . immoral activities."

4
Always a Bridesmaid
.
Daddy and I left without telling Mother any

details. Daddy simply said we were going to bring Belinda home. Actually, he didn't know any details either.

"All Mrs. Elliot would say," he told me after we left, "is I must come to take her off the property. She wouldn't discuss the matter over the phone, but would wait for our arrival at her office. It sounds very bad, very bad. What could Belinda have done?" he wondered aloud.

"Knowing Belinda and what she has done recently, anything imaginable," I replied dryly.
Daddy said nothing. We rode in silence for a while.
"What will you do about her now, Daddy?" I asked. "There is still a great deal of summer left and you've got to make plans for the fall. She's not registered in any other school." He sighed and shook his head.
"I don't know, Olivia. What do you suggest?"
"How about the Foreign Legion?"
He almost smiled.
"I guess we'll have to find something for her to do at the office for the remainder of the summer at least," he said.
"Why don't we wait to see what horrible things she has done at the school, Daddy? If it's as bad as they seem to suggest, you might want to put her under house arrest. I'm serious," I said when he glanced at me. "Don't permit her to socialize or go on dates, to the movies, to the beach. She has to learn sometime. You're always telling me to find something
worthwhile from every situation, no matter how bad that situation is. Well, do the same here," I concluded.
He was silent again. Why couldn't he agree? Finally, why couldn't he do something about Belinda before she ruined our family?
My own memories of the finishing school returned as we approached the beautiful grounds and buildings. While I was there, I had made only one real friend, Katherine Hargrove from Boston. We studied together, revealed our thoughts about boys and the other girls at the school to each other and promised each other we would stay in touch, but shortly after we left the school, Katherine became engaged to the boy back home her parents had wanted her to marry. I received a few letters and wrote back. She invited me to her wedding, but I didn't attend. I made up some excuse about being too involved with my father's business, and I know she was offended. She wrote no other letters, not even a postcard, never called and never responded to the one letter I wrote months afterward.
How easily friends drift apart, I thought. It was almost as if we became different people once we were apart, and the people we were and whom we knew became strangers to us. I realized I should have been at her wedding, but it bothered me that she was engaged and getting married while I hadn't even struck up an acquaintance. Everyone else at the school had predicted I'd end up an old maid and I knew many of those girls would be there, smiling smugly, convinced their prophecies would prove true. I should have had the courage to face them down, I thought, for Katherine's sake as much as my own.
No, I wasn't perfect. I was capable of making mistakes, but nothing I did ever approached Belinda's errors and sins. She was so much of a problem, I was practically overlooked. Even in our younger days, I found myself neglected, found Daddy paying more attention to her because she was such a handful for our mother. How many intimate father-daughter talks had Belinda enjoyed? How many times had he done what he was doing now: running to her rescue? Yes, I told myself, I did resemble the good child in the Biblical parable of the prodigal son, wondering if being dutiful, productive and responsible wasn't the reason I was being ignored when I needed attention and affection as much Belinda.
We went directly to the administrative building and the head mistress's office. When the secretary saw us, she practically fainted, her blood draining from her face in anticipation of some ugly and unpleasant scene. What could Belinda have possibly done? I wondered, now struggling with my own imagination to think of something that would merit such a reaction.
"Mrs. Elliot will see you," she said a moment after going in and out of the office. She stepped away from the door as if touching us might contaminate her.
Mrs. Elliot, a woman of about sixty with bluishgray hair and gray eyes, rose from her wooden desk chair. She was only about five feet five, but her demeanor, the power in her eyes, the stiffness in her shoulders and her imposing bosom rising with each deep breath made her look much taller. She had an emphatic chin and strong, masculine, pale red lips, now pressed tightly together in an effort not to frown or scowl.
"Please have a seat, Mr. Gordon," she commanded, gesturing to a chair. She looked at me, deciding whether or not to invite me to stay.
"I'd like Olivia to be here," Daddy said quickly.
"Yes, that will be fine. Olivia was one of our better students. I can understand your reliance upon her. We had expected the same high quality behavior from your younger daughter," she added dryly. "Which makes all this that much more of a
disappointment," she continued with her eyes small and dark.
"What happened? Why are you expelling her?" Daddy asked, his body still tense, his hands gripping the arms of the chair so hard the veins were embossed around his knuckles.
"I'll get right to the point, Mr. Gordon, even though this is all quite unpleasant to imagine, much less to discuss. I don't want to pretend everything has always been perfect here at our school. We have had our share of problems. Our girls come from diverse backgrounds and from many places. We're bound to experience some difficulties. After all, we're educating young people, some of whom haven't had the best possible upbringing.
"Girls have had liquor in their rooms, broken curfew, violated no-smoking regulations, not kept their rooms in proper condition. Olivia knows that to be true while she was here herself," she said nodding at me. I nodded quickly. "We have, on occasion, had a male visitor remain too long, but never, never have we had a young girl bring liquor into her room, permit smoking and entertain two young men at the same time all evening," she added without pausing for a breath.
"What?" Daddy asked, as if he hadn't heard anything she'd said. "Entertain two . ."
"Entertain, you understand, Mr. Gordon, is rather a euphemistic term for what occurred." She looked at me and then back to him. "Both young men were disrobed and in the same bed with your daughter, who was also naked," she said and swallowed as though she had just taken a tablespoon of castor oil.
Daddy stared.
"Both?" he finally said.
"I'm afraid so, Mr. Gordon. Mrs. Landford, the housemother, came upon them herself when she smelled the smoke and heard the laughter. The two young men were quite inebriated and would have been arrested if it weren't for the need to protect the reputation of the school, and, as much as possible, your own good name. However, they were brought before the local magistrate discreetly and given a sentence of probation. They are not from any area school, I might add. They are . ." She looked at me. ". . boys from the nearby village. Garage mechanics," she concluded with some difficulty.
"Christ," Daddy said.
"You can understand now why we are all this upset, Mr. Gordon."
Daddy nodded.
"I'd like this all to simply go away and the best method for that is for you to take your daughter home immediately. I'm sorry. This isn't the place for her. We can't do what we did for your daughter Olivia, I'm afraid," she added nodding at me again.
"Where is Belinda now?" Daddy asked. His face was so red, I thought the top of his head might explode at any moment. I wanted to feel sorry for him, but I kept hearing a voice inside me repeat: As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
"She's been confined to quarters and told to pack her things. We would appreciate your taking her home with the least amount of commotion possible, Mr. Gordon. I'm afraid, as you know, there is no refund when a girl is expelled, and under the circumstances, a review board hearing would only exacerbate the situation for you, and for us. I hope you agree about that," she said, her eyebrows hoisted, poised.
"Yes, yes," Daddy said. "Olivia, could you fetch her?" he asked me. "I'll bring the car around to the dormitory."
"Yes, Daddy," I said. Mrs. Elliot smiled at me.
"How are things with you, Olivia? I thought you might attend Boston University," she said. "Are you enrolled there or some similar school?"
"I didn't go on to college, Mrs. Elliot. I decided to help Daddy with his business," I said.
She turned to Daddy. "I'm sure Olivia is a great asset to you, Mr. Gordon."
"Yes, she is," he said in a voice so broken and tired, I didn't recognize it.
"How unfortunate for us all, Mr. Gordon. You have your burden to bear, your own hard road to travel," she said. Daddy nodded and looked to me.
I rose and left the office. The secretary glanced up at me and tried to smile as I hurried past her and out the door of the administrative building. I crossed the campus as quickly as I could. The classrooms were all dark, except for the music suite where the school orchestra was holding a rehearsal. The music was carried by the breeze. It seemed to fit the occasion because it was a march.
About a dozen or so girls were reading, talking and watching television in the lounge at the dormitory. They all looked up when I entered. None knew who I was because I hadn't come here with Belinda, but Mrs. Landford knew me and came hurrying down the corridor the moment she had set eyes on me.
"Hello, Olivia," she said with a small, quick smile. "How are you?"
"Not as well as I could be," I replied. She nodded and then shook her head.
"I'm sorry for your family," she said.
"So am I. Where is she?"
"Right this way." She turned and I followed her down the corridor to the next to last room on the left. "She's all ready," she said and nodded at the side entrance. "You might just want to go out that way."
"Like thieves in the night," I remarked. She took on a pained expression in her dark brown eyes and then knocked on Belinda's door.
"Who is it?"
"It's Mrs. Landford. Your sister is here for you, Belinda," she explained. It took a moment before Belinda opened the door. Just like her to make me wait, I thought. She was in her high-school jacket, the one with all the varsity letters Arnold had given her, and a pair of slacks. Her hair was brushed back and tied and her suitcases were packed and beside the bed.
"Hi, Olivia," she sang as if nothing in the world had happened. "Where's Daddy?"
"In the car, waiting," I said angrily.
"You two take those suitcases and I'll get the two small bags," Mrs. Landford volunteered.
Belinda deliberately took her time, sauntering across the room. I saw the tiny smile on her lips, the look of satisfaction. She was getting what she had wanted all along. I had no doubt she deliberately got caught. I even suspected that she might have engineered the entire disgusting event just for this purpose. I seized the suitcase.
"Let's go," I ordered. "Now."
"Well then, fine," Belinda said taking the other suitcase in hand. "I certainly don't want to stay here a moment more than I have to," she quipped as if she were the one who had demanded to leave.
Mrs. Landford followed us out the side door. Daddy was sitting in the car, staring ahead. When he saw us coming, he jumped out quickly and opened the trunk. I handed him the first suitcase.
"Hi, Daddy," Belinda said handing him the other. He said nothing. He took it and then the bags Mrs. Landford was carrying.
"Get in the back, Belinda," he ordered and she did so, pausing before she closed the door and turning to Mrs. Landford.
"Good-.bye, Mrs. Landford. I'm sorry if I caused you any embarrassment."
"If?" I said. "If'?"
Belinda widened her smile and got into the car.
"Good luck, dear," Mrs. Landford told me, squeezed my hand and returned to the dormitory. I turned to Daddy, half expecting him to go into some sort of rage, but he just shook his head.
"Let's just go," he said and hurried around to get into the car.
He didn't say a word until we left the grounds and were heading for the highway.
"So, Belinda, are you satisfied?" he asked.
"I hated that place, Daddy. I told you I did. I don't care about being expelled."
"How could you . . ." He stopped himself and pressed his lips together as if he had to lock the words back into his throat.
"What were you thinking, Belinda?" I asked. "Didn't you care what this would do to our family's reputation? No matter what, this is going to get out. The other girls will tell their families and friends."
"They're no better. They're all a bunch of stuffy snobs, but they all do things, too. They just don't get caught," she said in her own defense.
"Right. I'm sure they're all exactly like you," I commented dryly.
"Well, they are!"
"Never mind," Daddy finally said. "I don't want your mother knowing about this. When we get home, you'll simply tell her . . you were unhappy there."
"That's not a lie," Belinda followed.
"Of course it's a lie," I charged. "It's not why you're being brought home."
"Well, you lie sometimes, Olivia. You're not a perfect angel," she wailed.
"The difference, Belinda, is you're comfortable with a lie." I turned and looked back at her. "I'm not. Your life is practically one big fat lie."
"I knew it. I knew you'd hate me now," she moaned. "Just stop the car and let me out on the road somewhere. I'll find a new home and a new family."
"To terrorize and destroy?" I asked.
"No. Just stop the car!"
"Let's not do this," Daddy said. "It only prolongs the agony and we've got to think about your mother, Olivia. Please."
"Sure," I said. "Let's sweep something else under the carpet and let her get away with another gross act. We're not doing her any good, Daddy," I insisted.
"I'll take care of it," he said. It was an empty promise.
I could almost hear the echo inside it. But I let him hold on to it, and I simply stared out the window most of the way home. Belinda fell asleep in the back, a tight smile of content and satisfaction on her face. Once again, she had gotten what she had wanted.
Whether Mother could see through the falsehoods or not, she went along with it. She even felt sorry for poor Belinda, who ate up the sympathy, milking the situation and taking advantage until I glared so angrily at her, she stopped and went to her room. The next day Daddy concluded that the only thing to do, at least for the time being, was to find her something to do at the office.
"At least we'll be able to keep an eye on her most of the time that way," he reasoned. I joined him in his den without Mother present.
"What can she do, Daddy?"
"Put her to work filing, Olivia."
"Filing?"
"Find work, make work, keep her occupied. Please," he pleaded. 'Sending her off to another school is just going to be a waste of time and money. She's not a student."
"What do you expect from her then?" I asked.
"I expect . . . hope to find her a suitable husband as soon as possible," he replied.
Before me? I wanted to ask. You want to get her off and married in her own home before me?