Before she could confuse me even more, I blurted out, “I’m afraid I don’t get you at all, Principal Childress. What exactly are you implying? My aunts didn’t tell me the normal bedtime stories, yes, but they didn’t mean any harm when they told me those stories. They were good stories about couples finding true love---”
“It is not a good story when it inspires a woman to look for a rich benefactor!” Principal Childress shot to her feet, a look of affronted disbelief on her face. “It is not a good story when adults use it as a way of encouraging a child to whore herself---”
I shot to my feet too, and this time I knew exactly what was causing me to shake once more. “It wasn’t like that!”
“Then what was that first entry you wrote about? You started it with a tip on how to target Greek billionaires---”
“There’s nothing wrong about those stories, about my aunts, and there’s nothing wrong about wanting to marry a Greek billionaire!”
Both of us froze.
“You are appalling,” she spat.
I couldn’t answer. Oh dear God, I had shouted! I was still appalled myself, unable to believe how I had become totally violent in a few hours. First, I got into a freaking fist fight and now I was involved in a shouting match with my Principal Childress.
This was wrong, but…I couldn’t help it. She made me so mad! Trying to get a grip on my emotions, I said unevenly, “I was orphaned when I was eight. My aunts were career women and suddenly they had an eight year old to take care of. I was insatiable for bedtime stories because it was my way of clinging to my parents’ memories, and they knew that. When they ran out of stories, they just switched to simplifying Harlequin romances. Surely you can understand that? Surely you don’t see anything wrong?” I looked at her pleadingly. “You know those books---”
“No. I’m sorry. I do not know those books because I don’t read anything that’s sold in Walmart.”
I gaped at her answer. “But---”
She shut me up with a glare, pointing at me like she was branding me a witch in the Salem Trials. “You have more or less admitted that your aunts had raised you to believe it is fine to use the holy sacrament of matrimony as a stepping stone for improving your financial and social status in life.”
Was she basically saying I was a gold-digger?
“Holy Angels is a well-respected Catholic school, Ms. Tanner. If you wish to remain enrolled here, then tomorrow you must admit that the entries you have written in your blog---”
“But it isn’t my blog!”
Principal Childress ignored that. “---are based on false and malicious beliefs.”
My head started to hurt, enough to have me close my eyes. If I understood her perfectly, she was basically asking me to call my aunts liars and turn my back on my happy childhood.
“Well?” Principal Childress demanded.
I opened my eyes and gave her the answer she asked for.
Fuck you.
“You’re only eating salad?” Aunt Norah asked that night as she hung her lab coat on the back of the chair before taking the seat at the head of the table. She had on her trademark pearl necklace, and matched with her silk sheath dress, Aunt Norah looked more like a socialite than a doctor on call.
I adjusted the dark glasses on my nose. “I’m on a diet.”
Aunt Vilma took the seat across from me. She was also dressed in her typical power suit, pink, form-fitting, and covering her from head to toe. She had once told me that “looking sexy while kicking ass” was her way of discouraging the big boys in courtrooms from messing with her.
When Aunt Norah asked me about what new movie we could watch over the weekend, I began to relax. My appetite gradually came back and I happily moved on to the next course, a creamy mushroom soup that was my aunt’s only masterpiece in the kitchen.
As Aunt Vilma took another helping of Caesar salad, she asked in a disarmingly casual voice, “And what about school, Mairi? Do you think we’ve given you ample time to have the guts to tell us what really happened?”
Pweh! That was the sound of my last spoonful of soup spitting out of my mouth, but even after that horrifying display I still kept on choking.
I heard Aunt Norah snapping, “Couldn’t you have been more subtle than that?”
“I gave her more than five minutes,” Aunt Vilma retorted in the same tone. “In my experience, when a person doesn’t talk in five minutes, it means she never will.”
Aunt Norah started pounding me on the back. “She’s not one of your defendants! She’s your niece!”
“I know,” Aunt Vilma said as she also started pounding me on the back. “That’s why I gave her seven minutes!”
“Oh for God’s sake!”
“What?”
“STOP!” I didn’t mean to scream, but if I let them continue arguing I’d likely end up black and blue. With a little wince, I inched away from their hands. “I’m, umm, okay now.” Not. I suddenly felt like I had let an elephant massage my back with its hooves.
Aunt Norah’s gaze widened when she saw me wince again. “Oh, dear. I’m sorry. We didn’t realize---”
“Are you okay?” Aunt Vilma cut her off, concern lining her voice.
She tried reaching for me but I quickly pushed my chair a few inches back again. “I’m okay now,” I said hastily. Seeing them still gazing at me worriedly, knowing what I had to tell them, I decided to play it safe and moved my chair farther away until its back hit the wall.
To my aunts’ credit, they didn’t lose their tempers or even thought I was to blame.
“Does your expulsion have to do something with your shiner?” Aunt Vilma asked.
I was stunned. “You know?”
Aunt Vilma sighed. “Honey, it’s only in the movies that people can get away hiding the fact they’ve gotten punched with sunglasses.”
Before I could answer that, dishonestly but defensively and purely out of pride, Aunt Norah said gently, “Your principal stated in her fax that you’re no longer eligible for admission in their school. I called to know the exact reason but she says it’s classified.”
So Principal Childress had kept her side of the agreement, I thought with cold satisfaction. After flipping the bird at the old witch the way she deserved to, I had told Principal Childress she could expel me and I wouldn’t contest it – but only if she didn’t breathe a single word of her stupid accusations to my aunts or anyone else. If she did, then I was going to have Aunt Vilma sue her for discrimination and slander – and we both knew who would win that case.