Desdemona, Tag Cavello [classic literature list TXT] 📗

seamstress and married a carpenter. And all throughout she was happy. No one saw her cry or get sick ever again.

“So!” Donati said, his expression satisfied. “Did the girl merely grow up, or is she even to this day swimming with fishy friends? Eh?”

Dante laughed a little. “I think she probably just decided to grow up.”

“Perhaps,” the other replied. “And one day this Sunny Desdemona may grow up. In fact it’s quite likely indeed. But there is also a chance,” he went on, tilting his head, “that she will choose the sea. To swim with her dreams. Where would that leave you, my dear boy?”

Dante thought for a moment before saying: “I would follow her.”

“Down to darkest depths?”

Now he nodded. “I think so.”

Donati began to gather dishes from the table. They clanked and rattled gently in the window’s dawn light. “May the need never come to make such a choice,” he said with a soft tone. “May the need never come.”

CHAPTER SEVEN: Maris

October arrived on a Thursday. The weather remained warm, tempting town thrushes for further stay.

 

Walking to and from school Dante noticed many of these birds. He did not think they were fooled. Their wings were restless, their eyes adrift. They could live in the cold but would choose not to remain.

Dante could only wonder what would happen before their return. Since the spider incident at locker sixteen, news of his and Sunny’s relationship had become the chief topic of student gossip. Nor did the drama of that scene provide the only fuel for its combustion. Sunny ranked among the most popular girls of the school; she was also, undisputedly, the most feared. A new boyfriend for her was news. Dante arrived at school the Monday after Donati’s mermaid story to find he had become a celebrity. It started at the bike rack, where a number of boys stared as he walked past to find Sunny waiting for him near the front door. Hey handsome, she’d greeted, to the myriad giggles of her entourage. Girls, this is the boy who gets to carry my books from now on. His name’s Dante. Be nice to him. And nice to him they were, though they always kept a respectful distance, especially when their queen was present. The seventh grade boys were even more respectful. There were no shy, knowing smiles from them in the halls. They did not laugh, or whisper behind their hands. They only stared, with eyes like toddlers through the gates of a forbidden palace. He had become an enigma to them. Someone to admire without movement of the feet in eagerness to approach.

Also on that Monday, Sunny had asked him, with perfect innocence in her green eyes, whether it would be okay for him to eat lunch at her table, rather than the other way around. “That’s fine,” Dante had replied (knowing the weight of her obeisance upon his conceit), “no problem.”

Her eyebrow had shot up. “Sure?”

“Yes.”

“It would just be kind of hectic to have all the girls who eat with me move to a different table.”

“Understood,” Dante said, deepening his voice, and taking care not to drop his eyes.

“Thank you, baby,” she’d smiled. Then, after a quick check to make sure no one was looking, she’d stood on tip-toe to give him a kiss. “Seeya at lunch!”

He’d been eating at her table ever since. The first time had been awkward. A hundred blushing smiles from the entourage. Evaluating eyes. But by the second day he was more comfortable. Willing to adapt to their scrutiny. Sunny helped by eating with her hip lightly pressed against his own, or leaning on his shoulder when one of the other girls talked. Her touch was her requisition. Talk, it allowed, but talk carefully.

The morning of October first began in the new normal way. Sunny waited for him by the front door, peering through the darkening foliage of a tulip tree. Her red hair resembled the truant autumn, her black clothing the sober regard of that fourth season which often begins with a gentle push of its arrow before unleashing the deluge of an honest freeze. She asked Dante to carry her bags. Again, fresh routine. Then she began to chatter about her previous afternoon, scarcely pausing for breath, as they walked the crowded halls. Several girls waved to Sunny.

“Thirty problems of long division,” she said, after nodding towards one of their blurred faces. “What a drag! I couldn’t focus on anything! Did Krieger give that one to your class, too?”

“Of course,” Dante said. “I must have wasted five sheets of paper on it.”

“Five sheets of paper and now I’ve got tendinitis in my wrist!”

“Sunny!” a dark-haired girl called. “Hello!”

“Hello, Stacey. See you in science.”

They came to her locker. She opened it on the first try. A mirror with a pink frame hung on the door. A bottle of Adagio perfume stood on the shelf. Lady Speed-Stick. Maybelline cosmetics. Sunny took the bags from Dante, placed them next to a pair of gym shoes. She unzipped the zipper. Here Dante assumed she would reach for some necessary tool for class—a pencil, an eraser. But no. Her hand popped out of the bag with a small red and white box. Quickly, the hand went to Dante’s coat pocket. He felt it being shoved down deep. When it re-emerged, the box was gone.

“What was that?” he asked Sunny’s pair of devious, unblinking green eyes.

“Later,” she said. “Don’t touch it now. Just follow me.”

And without hesitation she struck off. Dante followed her up a ramp to the eighth grade wing. Three classrooms—Health, English, Science—stood amidst a flurry of students preparing for their day. Most of the students, though older, were shorter than Dante. Sunny cut through them with ease, bringing them to a foyer decorated for Halloween. From one corner a scarecrow gazed with burlap bag eyes. In another was a cutout of a green-skinned witch. Growing more curious by the moment, Dante followed Sunny into the cafeteria, and then outside, where grassy smells from the football field tantalized many boys into contact play. Sunny marched towards it without once looking back to check if Dante were there. A few other girls saw her and waved. She did not wave back. She rounded the corner of the building, and for one crazy moment Dante really did think the football field was her destination.

She wants me to try out for the team, oh great.

The football field was not her destination. Instead, she stopped rather abruptly midway down the wall, her boots stamping the grass. Dante joined her.

“Sunny, we only have about ten minutes to get the homeroom—“

“Look,” she commanded.

Her eyes were on the tennis courts. Following them, Dante could find nothing of merit. There were kids hanging out at the gate. A few of them carried racket bags. Dante reached into his pocket, touched the little box Sunny had given him. It felt like cardboard wrapped in cellophane.

“What is this?” he asked her again, not quite daring to bring it out.

“See that girl with the blonde hair? Gold blouse, white skirt. The one who looks perfect.”

“Um…”

Sunny’s tone became impatient. “Dante she’s standing like twenty yards off.”

“I see her.”

He did indeed see her. The blonde tumble of her hair was hard to miss. She stood near a single white lily. Two other girls stood with her. They were talking and laughing. This went on for about a minute before one of the girls pointed to the building. The other two nodded. Then they all walked off together.

Dante looked at Sunny. She was watching the trio with eyes narrow as that goddess of warfare who burst from her father’s head. He looked at the trio again, until they reached the building’s corner and disappeared.

“I believe her name’s Maris,” he spoke.

The narrow eyes seized him. “Do you? And where did you come by that information?”

“She’s in my gym class,” Dante said innocently. “Old man Hogan always ogles the poor girl. He’s a weirdo.”

“Poor girl, huh? Straight A student and every teacher’s pet. She’s more popular than me. She’s prettier than me. I hate her.”

Sunny’s face had become nearly red as her hair. Her teeth gnashed. Dante reached to take her hand, only to find both closed into tiny, wrathful fists.

“Stop that,” he said. “I don’t know about the pet and popularity stuff, but to say she’s prettier is nonsense.” His fingers closed over one of the fists. “Sunny? Are you hearing me?”

She wasn’t. Her gaze found the corner where Maris had disappeared, as if to see a mocking ghost of that girl still there. “Take the package out of your coat,” she said tonelessly. “Not all the way. The teachers will see it.”

More than a little displeased with what that implied, Dante once again reached into his coat, found the box Sunny had given him, and took a peek. It was cigarettes. A packet of Marlboro Reds, freshly sealed.

“Got it?” Sunny asked, still transfixed by the corner.

“I’ve got it,” Dante said weakly. “But what the hell, Sunny? These will get us both kicked out of school.”

At last she deigned to look at him. An evil smile stretched the sides of her mouth. “No, Dante. They’re going to get Maris kicked out of school.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Do you follow? Understand? Get the picture?”

“Not quite.”

“Then listen further. I want you to slip that little present into her bag—“

“Sunny—“

“I don’t care how. Figure it out. Then figure out how to draw a teacher’s attention to that bag. Not Hogan’s. You’re right, I think he has a weird crush on her.”

“Sunny.”

“Or if you don’t want to use her bag, try something else. Maybe her coat. So long as she gets busted, I don’t care.”

“Sunny, you have absolutely no reason to hate Maris Dubois. She’s—“

Sunny made a snarl, silencing his talk. A look of pure rage fumed at him like volcanic fire. “Maris who? Who?”

“Mr. Hogan does a roll call every day. The students hear each others’ names.”

“Super,” she hissed. “So tell me, Dante, the names of all the other kids in that class.”

“That’s thirty kids, Sunny.”

“Do it!”

Dante swallowed. He was in deep water here. Perhaps too deep. “Well,” he began, “there’s Robert Roach—“

“Not that dork! Everybody knows him!”

“Casey Lyons. Sam Bean.” A smeary blur of faces stained his thought. Furiously, Dante tried to sort them out, to get them straight. He tried even harder to make sure none of them were girls. “Jackson Gray. Theodore Zucker. Uh…”

Sunny rolled her eyes. “Okay, shut up. Just shut up. Her last name is Dubois. I knew that, but then I hear gossip from girls all day long. You knew it because I guess you”—she pulled a disgusted face—“remembered. Nice.”

Chancing to take a step nearer, Dante said in the most compassionate tone he had: “I promise to forget it from this day forth.”

“Don’t bother,” she pouted, refusing to look at him. “Just make sure those cigarettes do their dirty work for us.”

“Okay,” he said. “I will.”

“Good.”

∞

Dante spent the rest of that day in a kind of fever, plotting his girlfriend’s devious attack. The possibility for success was not strong. He could see only two chances to do her bidding—the gym class basement locker room, after everyone changed and went upstairs, or lunchtime, when Maris often hung her coat on a row off hooks just off the girls’ bathroom. He decided on the former, reasoning that with the locker room empty he would stand less chance of getting burned.

Friday morning he sat in homeroom with the cigarettes in the pocket of his leather jacket. Sunny had remained pouty all day yesterday, but now seemed returned to her usual self. She kept close to Dante in the hall, leaning her head on his shoulder while Stacey complimented her ear-rings. She then asked Dante if they could go to the girls’ room for one final touch-up before classes. He told them yes. But as homeroom came to a close his confidence slipped. Gym was third period—just ninety minutes away. In ninety