White Rabbit Chapter 26

26. 

           

            Weeks later, Delores and Whitney were packed and ready to go home for Christmas break. They would return after the New Year for the new school term. Their bags sat in their room ready to leave, both, early Saturday morning. Whitney would take a taxi to Logan International and fly into the same airport where Claude Van Wert blew up Flight 1202 a couple months before. Delores would return home on a train, through the same filthy station where she met Alex De Wolfe, the disappearing werewolf. She had drawn pictures of him and thought plenty about him. She thought about how miserable she was when she came to Boston, at the prospect of a strange house and another boarding school, and previous to that with her grandmother’s death and her suicide attempt that fell short, only by a steadied chair. She thought more about the suicide. She couldn’t remember anymore how it went — the choreography of it. It was a blur. In truth, she tried to kick the teetering chair out twice but it failed to give so simply, she remained. How far removed she was from that day, she marveled. Her vulnerability frightened her, the wayfaring, the hot and cold, the overwhelming positive or negative currents, whichever the way the wind blows. But over the past few months she at last seemed rather stable.

It was Friday and the last day of school for the term. It had snowed twenty one of the past thirty days, some sort of record, though many of the days resulted in little additional accumulation. So as far as accumulation goes it was no record at all. Delores loved walking from the Beacon Hill home throughout Boston until her feet were sore begging her to take the “T” back. She favored the walk to Sam Adams’ grave more than anything else. She didn’t know why, only that he seemed to be one of the most ardent of his kind and she fancied herself the same — among teenage girls. She would walk after school when Whitney was at clarinet practice thinking and looking. Always something new or different. Occasionally, there was a handsome boy that would get her attention or an event of some sort, some scheduled chaos or impromptu calamity or some beautiful thing that she would admire. She was determined to try every flavor of ice cream in a little ice cream shop on Revere St. Bubblegum today. She sat waiting for Whitney to escape the clarinet and meet her at a Dunkin Donuts where they would drink coffee and salivate over donuts they would never eat which they did at least three times a week. She had a half hour to kill. She ate the ice cream slow and a boy that she didn’t notice sitting in a juxtaposed booth with his mother nearly had a cataclysmic orgasm.

No hands.

Whiney was right on time and Delores was late. They sat at their usual booth. A tall goofy young man smiled at them as he normally does when he was lucky enough to work when they came. His manager encouraged him to say something but the boy never would for fear of being slayed by rejection. Besides, the work uniform didn’t make him burst with confidence. The last thing he needed was to be trying to get approval from someone to compensate for their disapproval. He lived in a state of emptiness, like a crow in gray clouds. He would instead wait for girls he was sure would like him despite his goofiness and the uniform. Fat girls, maybe. Whores, probably. Old desperate women who’ve lost their glitz. Anyone but these girls. He didn’t even know their names and they never looked at him except to look at the menu board he happened to be standing under. What was he to say, “Hey, my name is Peter. Want to make out?” Peter was a desperate and lonely boy. Once, he got ballsy and didn’t charge Whitney the upgrade from her usual coffee to a toffee cappuccino but she didn’t notice. It set him back three years.

Delores was given 200 dollars a month allowance on a prepaid credit card that didn’t allow ATM withdrawals. Her mother didn’t want to fund another dildo, or web camera, or pot and/or other drugs which she was convinced her hedonist daughter took. The only drugs Delores took were the ones her mother gave her and phenobarbital to prevent her seizures but her mother refused to believe otherwise. She found a copy of Go Ask Alice in Delores’ room and was convinced Delores was the protagonist and posthaste she penned a very angry letter to the public library and demanded it be removed from circulation. She got a call back from the head librarian who stated, “It is out of circulation. You checked out the only copy.”

Book burnt. Fee: 22.70.  

Dunkin' Donuts was festive. Garland everywhere. Bells. Angels. Paper candle cut-outs with yellow paper flames in the window. Spray frost. Holly. Tinsel. Stars. Everything besides for Mary, Joseph and baby whatshisname. Perry Como sang White Christmas over the intercom as Delores pushed an expertly giftwrapped shoebox across the table. Green shiny wrapping paper. Red string tied in a perfect bow. Name tag, ‘To: Whitney From: Love, Delores.’ “I wrapped it myself.” Delores said proudly.

Whitney smiled and opened it. The Intergalactic Love Machine, her favorite novel. The Beatles: Beatles For Sale her favorite album, and a bottle of Chanel N°5, quarter ounce, her favorite perfume. Delores recited the advertisement dramatically from memory, “The now and forever fragrance. The ultimate in femininity. N°5 continues to inspire devotion and garner acclaim, recently winning Allure Magazine's Reader's Choice Award for Best Classic Fragrance. In parfum form — the most powerful, long-lasting concentration of fragrance — N°5 is elevated to the fullest expression of the perfumer's art. And the Classic Bottle is an attractive addition to any dressing table.”

Whitney shrieked happily. “Delores! This is too much.”

“Never enough.” Snow fell out the window. Twenty two days.

“I thought we weren’t going to spend more than twenty dollars?” Whitney facetiously complained. She squeezed a spray of Chanel on her neck and breathed deep. The box lay on the table like a show casket.

“Who said that I did?”

“Surely this had to cost —”

“A lady never tells...”

“Well, I know the price of Chanel.” Whitney reached down and picked her gift from the floor. “You certainly outdid me,” she said glumly, “but I will get you something from Crystal City and bring it back —”

She was interrupted by the ferocious shredding of red wrapping paper.

“Delores! Don’t go all honey badger.” Inside joke.

More shredding until the paper was unrecognizable red confetti. Peter sulked in the backdrop. Not only wasn’t he getting laid he would have to clean it up.  On top, a framed picture of them at a Red Sox game in Fenway. “It is a very nice frame.” Whitney mentioned.

            “Indeed. Yes.” Delores agreed. Next, a book of love letters and poems to and from 19^th century literary lovebirds Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Delores had told Whitney often that she was sure there was one person she was fated to be with as opposed to the theory that she ought to choose amongst many, mindful of compatibility, height, weight, age, et cetera, et cetera…giving in to who happened to be there at the moment.

            “You are such a romantic. Thought you might like.”

            “Sure. J’adore!” Delores smiled. Last but not least, a Ouija board from an occult shop they had been to on the South End. Real wood and a thick glass oracle in the cherry wood pointer. Hand painted letters. Spooky.

            “For when we get back in January!” Whitney whispered excitably. “Maybe we can raise the dead!” It was her way of being bad.

            “My mother would shit!” Delores cried. “I love it!”

            A few hours later they walked through the snow to Frog Pond to ice skate for a few hours before their curfew. They skated there a few times since the winter season set, though officially, it was still a few days before winter. It had been a very cold season already. They both loved skating and despite a few bumps and bruises from falling the opportunity for free fun and the chance to socialize with boys, being that St. Anne’s was a girl’s school, trips to Frog Pond were well worth it. Whitney seemed far less boy crazy than Delores and she teased Delores on the walk over about finding the boy of her dreams.

            “First you have limited a great population of people by saying boy. I assure you, Whitney, my love is no boy.”

            “He is a man? Oh, dear! How old?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Well, what’s your ceiling?”

            “I don’t know that either.”

            “Why not a boy your own age?”

            “Ehh. Too boring and immature. But maybe…”

            “The guy in Michigan?”

            “No.”

            “You should let me spray you with my Chanel! One whiff and no man would stand a chance!” Whitney smiled.

            “I needn’t the Chanel, darling.” Walking along Park Street. The lit pond in full view and there seemed to be a large crowd. Men preparing to propose and women planning to accept, Delores imagined. Happy children with parents. Horny boys with daggers for penises. Learning experiences. Why does everyone need the excuse of learning experiences? Can’t anyone get it right from the top? Should she expect her virginity to fall as some boy’s practice for eventually fucking someone else. She isn’t a fucking dress rehearsal! Thoughts like white rabbits.

            “You’re cocksure!”

            “Excellent choice of words.” Delores laughed. “I love the word cock. It makes me feel warm!” An Iranian man and his wife walked ahead of them hearing her unconscionable words. He looked back and scowled. Whitney blushed but Delores laughed.

            “Wait!” Whitney complained. “Are you saying then by buying me Chanel that I do need it?” Whitney smiled uneasily hanging on a limb.

            “No, darling.” Delores had been saying darling since they watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Lady Goodyear on the only TV in the house (outside of the servants’ rooms which the girls never saw). They were allowed to watch the Audrey Hepburn classic only after they both read the book without the Hollywood Prozac ending. “Christ, you know you are beautiful! I am only saying that the man of my dreams would hardly be persuaded by perfume. I believe it is a force rather than something that needs the compellation. When we meet,” Delores went on longingly, “I will know just as I know he is out there somewhere.” Boys played football in a nearby field.  One who should have been catching a long pass stopped his route when he saw the girls walking. The ball thudded in the snow beside him. The girls laughed and continued walking as the gawking boy stood there indifferent to being razzed and pelted by snowballs from his mates.

            “Well, tell me Delores, those boys you chatted with on the internet. Were any of them him, possibly?”

            “No.” Flatly.

            “Um, then why did you…well, you know.”

            “You mean Masturbate? Orgasm?” Delores responded directly. Both words not in Whitney’s vocabulary. Iranian eyes throwing stones. Boys fading out of view back to playing football. They could hear laughter on the frozen pond just ahead. Snow still falling. Most snow days in Boston history the past thirty days, but not the most accumulation.

            “Well, sure.” Whitney said quickly.    

            “For me. There is clarity in an orgasm.” She knew that was bullshit when she said it. “But no. They were not him.”

            “Sure? Even Michigan?”

            “Especially Michigan!”

            “How will you know?”

            “I don’t know.” They came to the ice and the subject sank like a stone. They sat on a bench and untied their skates’ laces that were tied to sling over their shoulders. Both girls wore scarves, hats, mittens, and warm coats. They tucked their bags under the bench and eagerly took to the ice like hockey players from a penalty box. Whitney was skilled and graceful. Delores was skilled but not graceful, rather, reckless. She fell often and she didn’t seem to worry about breaking bones or twisting ankles. The skate guards told her to slow down and not to jump. “The ice is too crowded to be so rambunctious,” one older gent warned with a thick Bostonian accent.

            “Rambunctious?” Delores mocked. “I don’t know what that means?”

            The guard sneered. “Reckless. Don’t make me tell you again.”

            “What? What rambunctious means?” Sarcastically.

            “No! Not to be so reckless.” The guard was getting agitated.

            Whitney interfered. “Delores, let’s skate.” She whispered. “Please don’t get us kicked out.”  The girls laughed and skated away. Their blades cut through the ice making that good sound. Someone with a deck broom skated around sweeping up the butchered ice. Kids pretended to be hockey players racing to empty nets. A whistle blew. They had a break just like at the pool. The guards came out and swept and checked the ice for debris. Delores and Whitney stood along the side with the crowd of others idling. Delores looked around. The ice gleamed under the lights and the outlying buildings were lit sparkling in the pitch black night. No moon. Trees were lit with string lights and there were a few vendors selling hot chocolate in little white wagons like pacemakers. Children took little steps getting to the edge. Grown men fell clumsily. What a strange scene this had to be to an outsider, she thought. A few boys smiled at Delores and Whitney but in her haze Delores didn’t notice. She got a strange feeling as the whistle blew and they skated again. The uncomfortable feeling of being watched. She looked behind her but there was no one who seemed to be looking or interested. Delores broke through a slow moving mass of people and began to pick up intense speed. No one was in front of her. A whistle scolded her. Another angry skate guard. She skated faster unaffected but then she slowed down gracefully, just for a minute, and jumped, twirling, higher than she had ever jumped, around, once, twice and almost a third time when she crashed to the ice. A modest sprinkling of applause and a commotion of sympathetic groans. Surely, another bruise. Flat on her back she twirled around on the ice like a wrecked car looking up happily into the darkness and the hypnotism of New England snow.