Page 78

"Removing me from the school!"

"Of course." She gave me that tight, firm hateful look again, her eyes beady. "Did you think I would continue to sponsor you in this condition? Did you think I would tolerate you walking through the halls and attending classes with your stomach protruding? You're here as a Cutler. Everything you do, whether you care about it or not, reflects on the Cutler name. I have good friends on the board of trustees of this school. I have a reputation to protect."

She fixed her spiteful eyes on me, that detestable old woman, as if sensing all that I felt. I glared back defiantly, hoping that she could see how I abhorred the idea of even being thought related to her. Perhaps my eyes were only glass to reveal all the spinning wheels of revenge I harbored and vowed to let loose one day. If so, she ignored it. Nothing frightened her.

"Who is the child's father?" she demanded. I looked away. She tapped her cane sharply on the floor. "Who is he?" she repeated.

"What difference does it make now?" I asked her, my tears burning behind my eyelids, for I was trying with all my might to keep them from bursting forth. I didn't want her to have the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

She relaxed her shoulders and nodded.

"You're right. What difference does it make? You probably don't even know which one is the real father," she added.

"That's not true," I cried. "I'm not that kind of girl."

"No," she said, lifting her upper lip so that her pale white teeth were fully revealed in a scowl, "you're not that kind of girl. You're lying here in this hospital bed pregnant because you're a good girl, an asset to your family."

I covered my face again with my palms. She was quiet for a long moment. I was hoping she might just turn away and leave me alone, but she had come to take control of my life again. I was positive it gave her great pleasure to determine my future the same way she determined everyone else's in the family, even though she despised me and didn't want to consider me a member of the family.

"You can't return to the school," she began, "and you can't return to Agnes Morris's residence. I certainly don't want you back at the hotel. Can you imagine the embarrassment you would bring to us, parading about the building and grounds with your stomach out a mile?"

"What do you want?" I finally asked, lowering my hands in defeat.

"What I want I can't get, so I will settle for what must be. The story will be given out that you've been injured far worse than you actually were. You're being taken to a rehabilitation center. That's dramatic enough to satisfy the curious at your school.

"In reality, you will leave here tomorrow and be taken to live with my sisters, Emily and Charlotte Booth, until you give birth. After that we'll see," she said.

"Where do your sisters live?" I asked.

"Not that it should matter to you, they live in Virginia, about twenty miles east of Lynchburg in what was my father's home, an old plantation called The Meadows. My sisters have been told of your arrival and your condition. I have arranged for a car to take you to the airport. When you arrive in Lynchburg, there will be a driver waiting to take you to The Meadows."

"But what about my things back at Agnes's house?" I cried.

"She'll get your things together and see that they're shipped out. You can't imagine how anxious she is to get rid of any trace of you."

"No wonder, the way you poisoned her against me with your letter of lies," I spat out vehemently.

"Apparently, that letter of lies, as you put it, was quite prophetic," she replied proudly. "Anyway, your fling here has ended."

"But there are people I want to say goodbye to . . . Mrs. Liddy . . ."

"We're trying to salvage some dignity from this situation," she snapped. "I don't want you seen gallivanting about when you're supposed to be injured and off to a rehabilitation center."

"People will know it's not true!" I moaned.

"Decent people will not challenge the story I give out," sh

e replied with icy assurance. "The school authorities have already been informed," she added, demonstrating how quickly and efficiently she could take control of my life.

But what was I to do? Where could I go? I was pregnant and essentially penniless. I certainly couldn't run to Daddy Longchamp, not now that he had a new wife and was expecting a new child.

"Your mother," she said, pronouncing "Mother" as if it were a profanity, "has been told about your accomplishments. Naturally, it has put her into one of her states of hysteria." She laughed. "She's even had her doctor, the tenth or eleventh, I can't keep track anymore, put one of those things into her arms," she said, pointing to the I.V. stand in the corner of my room. "She claims she can't eat, can't swallow. She has a nurse around the clock.

"And all because of you. So, I wouldn't bother trying to call her to ask her to help you. She can't help herself. But," Grandmother Cutler added, "there's really nothing new about that."

I saw the smile of satisfaction around her gray eyes.

"Why do you hate her so?" I asked. Somehow I thought it was more than only her love affair with an itinerant singer. Anyway, that was long over and my mother was still married to Grandmother Cutler's son and had given birth to two of her grandchildren.