THIRTY-TWO
AT ROCKY RIVER HIGH, THROUGH THE MONTH of March, everybody had an opinion of the new friends.
“Can you believe it! Those two.”
They were seen walking together in the corridors. They were seen in the cafeteria at noon. They were seen in the library after school, studying together. They were reported seen hiking together in the Rocky River Nature Preserve and at Croton State Park, on a steep trail that led down to the Hudson River. Hiking, they were accompanied by a golden retriever.
“It’s his. Matt’s. Pumpkin. He’s had her forever.”
They were seen at the Cinemax at the Rocky River Mall, and at Starbucks at the mall, and at Tower Records; they were seen shopping together at the Gap and Clothes Barn. They were seen at Santa Fe Express, at the Orchid Pavilion, at the Whole Earth Art Gallery and Café. The Gypsy Horse Art Gallery & Café. Barnes & Noble. Sakura House. Potters’ Village. Brooke Tyler, who’d gone into Manhattan with visiting relatives, claimed she’d seen them at the Metropolitan Museum of Art —“Sitting in the courtyard of the American wing. On a bench. Like an actual couple.” Denis Wheeler, whose uncle was an off-Broadway theatrical producer, claimed he’d seen them at a play performance—“A really weird comedy by some playwright named Nicky Silver. Just the kind of far-out humor Matt Donaghy would go for.”
Opinion was about equally divided on whether Ursula Riggs and Matt Donaghy were just friends or more than just friends. Even those who reported on them most avidly couldn’t claim that they’d seen them “holding hands, ever. Or even making out, a little.”
“They’re just friends, obviously. No normal guy would be attracted to Big Ursula.”
“Are you kidding? Ursula’s terrific. Matt’s the creep. Why’d she be attracted to him?”
“Well, they’re both misfits. Obviously.”
Stacey Flynn said, “Matt is in a state of shock. Since those detectives took him out of Mr. Weinberg’s study hall, he hasn’t been himself. Going out with Ursula Riggs is, like, a symptom of his nervous breakdown.” Stacey felt very sorry for Matt and for his parents, but it was too awkward for her to talk to him right now—she hoped he would understand.
The senior jocks who talked openly of how they’d like to “show Donaghy what happens to traitors” were disgusted by the very idea of Matt Donaghy and Ursula Riggs. “He’s a fag. She’s a bull dyke. Go figure.”
Mr. Weinberg, asked his opinion of Rocky River’s newest and most controversial couple, declined to give it—“None of your business, kids.”
Gordon Kim, now vice president of the junior class, shook his head and laughed over all the fuss. “Donaghy, Riggs—they’re both tall, that’s why. It’s logical.”
THIRTY-THREE
HE ASKED ME, SO I TOLD HIM.
If he didn’t want me to tell him, why’d he ask?
Sure, I might’ve guessed it was a mistake. But I was thinking he had such high regard for me. Ursula Riggs. 1 individual in 1 million. Like we already knew each other from some time long ago.
It was like climbing those steps to the high board and knowing you’re not going to climb back down. You’re going to dive.
“Matt, I think it’s a mistake.”
Not what Matt wanted to hear from his friend Ursula, I guess.
“You asked me, so that’s my opinion. I’m sorry.”
“OK, Ursula. Thanks. I appreciate your honesty.”
But that was all he said. He began walking faster. And we’d been walking pretty fast already. Up a fairly steep hill. Pumpkin was trotting beside us, breath steaming. It was getting hard for her, a thick-bodied dog her age, to keep up with us. She had to pretend she was interested in sniffing out something, pausing for a few seconds to catch her breath, maybe stopping for a quick inspired pee on a log, before trotting after us.
Matt was so distracted, he’d have forgotten poor Pumpkin completely. I was the one to encourage her—“Pum’kin! Good dog. C’mon.”
It was a fierce-bright-cold morning. We were hiking on a trail above the Hudson River, in Croton State Park; we’d been hiking here lately, driving in Matt’s car, so that nobody from Rocky River was likely to see us.
“Matt, hey? You asked me. So I told you.”
“OK, Ursula. I said.”
He was angry with me. Matt Donaghy was angry with me!
The first time ever. I was feeling so hurt.
“Matt, you’ve been asking me and I told you it’s none of my business, I don’t judge, and that’s true, I don’t judge you. But if you ask me what I think of the lawsuit, meaning your parents’ judgment . . .”
Matt just kept walking up the trail. His face was turned from me—I saw just his profile looking shut up, sullen. He’d jammed his wool cap down onto his forehead. His faded-red hair was looking a little snarled. Pumpkin and I trotted to keep up with his long strides.
Well, he’d asked. So I’d told him.
The lawsuit. The damned lawsuit that was all Matt’s parents talked about now. (“It’s like a fire roaring out of control inside a forest,” Matt told me, “except the fire is in our house. It’s the Donaghys’ life.”)
You’d never realize what a big deal a lawsuit is. If you’re involved personally. It just doesn’t go away. Everybody knew what the Donaghys were demanding: $50 million. They were suing Parrish, Hale, some Rocky River School District officials including the superintendent, and they were suing Reverend Brewer, on charges of “malicious slander,” “defamation of character,” “professional malpractice . . .” There was a lot more to it that I didn’t want to know. Now that the lawyers on both sides were into it, and so-called developments were leaked to the media, it was getting complicated like some disease that breaks down one organ, then another, then another.
“Matt, hey. I know you and your parents went through a lot, and you’re angry, but—”
“You don’t know, Ursula. Not really.”
These words Matt sort of tossed over his shoulder, not looking at me.
I felt my face getting warm, even on the trail above the river.
This was so unfair. He’d asked me my opinion, he must’ve known what I might say.
(Or, maybe: I’d been thinking Matt would naturally agree with me. He was disgusted, too, with the lawsuit—wasn’t he?)
Ugly Girl was nudging in here. Ugly Girl liked a good fight she was morally certain she should win.
“Matt, you’d asked me weeks ago what I thought about the lawsuit. You said please to tell you the truth! Don’t think I haven’t been feeling bad about it, too. I can see what it’s doing to you, and that’s why—”
“You don’t know what it’s doing to me, Ursula. And you don’t know what it’s doing to my parents.”
This was shocking, it was so unfair. It was inaccurate, too: In his e-mails and on the phone and in conversations Matt had told me how the lawsuit was “tearing me up”—“making people hate me all the more”—“driving my dad and mom totally crazy.” When Matt said these things, I listened sympathetically because I didn’t judge him, but I’d always had my own thoughts about the lawsuit. I’d only just kept quiet about them.
Maybe I should’ve kept quiet now. But Ugly Girl was feeling betrayed, tricked.
“The lawsuit just seems wrong to me. It just seems—well, like making things worse. It’s nothing I would want to do, maybe that’s all I’m saying. Matt? See? I’m a hothead too. But then I figure, these things backfire.”
Matt shrugged. I couldn’t believe this: He was furious with me for telling the truth. And he’d asked me to tell him this truth!
I said, “People get the wrong idea, a lawsuit like this is being done for just—well, money. And so much money.”
Now Matt did turn to me, and I saw that his eyes were brimming with tears, and his mouth was trembling.
I couldn’t believe the shocking thing Matt said to me, in a voice bitter and heavy with sarcasm—“My dad isn’t rich like yours, Ursula. Maybe the Donaghys need money.”
And he practically trotted up the trail, like he couldn’t bear to be anywhere close to me. I considered turning around and going back down, waiting for him at the car, better yet getting a ride back to Rocky River somehow else, leaving him, but there was Pumpkin panting and looking clearly unhappy, aware of tension between Matt and me, so Pumpkin and I kept a slower pace, behind Matt, and I wondered if Matt was crying, if a boy could cry, out of hurt but also out of anger, the way girls do, though not Ugly Girl. I wiped at my eyes, annoyed that they were wet, it must’ve been caused by the March wind off the river for Ugly Girl doesn’t cry.
THIRTY-FOUR
NO E-MAILS AWAITING ME IN THE MORNING, posted by Your friend Matt during the night. No telephone calls. If Mom was listening, she must’ve been pleased. At school we sat at the same table for lunch, the misfits’ table, talking and even laughing (pretty convincingly, I thought) with the others. It was like a really painful game in which, though you’re losing, you have to keep playing your best because people are watching and expect a certain standard of performance from you.
I didn’t cry. I would not cry.
I would not give in, either.
THIRTY-FIVE
MATT WASN’T GOING TO GIVE IN.
Feeling like a time bomb. A secret bomb, and nobody knows when it will explode because the clock’s hands have been broken off. Tick-tick-ticking inside. But you wouldn’t want to hold it against your ear, to hear that ticking.
He’d lost her now. Ursula. Matt’s only friend.
Still, he would not give in.
He missed her. He missed their e-mail correspondence. Now he had no one. He missed calling her at midnight as he’d been doing, their digital watches so synchronized that Ursula lifted the receiver of her phone in the first nanosecond of the first ring.
“Hi! It’s me.”
“Hi.”
They’d only been friends for a few weeks, but.
They’d never held hands or kissed or . . . but.
At school Matt wanted to shield his eyes from her. She was so tall, walked with such pride. He saw her blue eyes glance upon him with contempt. She was a person of integrity, he was a coward.
She had no right to criticize his parents! People get the wrong idea, a lawsuit like this is being done for just money.
He hated her.
THIRTY-SIX
“MATT, WHERE ARE YOU? IT’S TIME.”
It was Matt’s mother calling him. Trying to make her voice bright, bubbly, “optimistic.”
They were going to see Dr. Harpie. The “renowned” Dr. Harpie, whose office was at Park Avenue and 72nd Street, Manhattan. In Dr. Harpie’s best-selling Adolescents at Risk: Your Child and Depression it was stated: “Young depressives often take their cues from elder family depressants,” so it was important to shield an impressionable young person from adult depression, anxiety, and above all, “suicidal attitudes.”
Matt’s mother hadn’t liked the happy face he’d drawn in Dr. Harpie’s book. “Is this your idea of a joke, Matt?” she’d asked him with a hurt smile. “If so, it isn’t funny. Under the circumstances.”
An apology was expected. Matt laughed instead.
* * *
“Pumpkin. You can’t come with us, you’re too normal. No ‘suicidal attitudes.’”
Before leaving, Matt checked his computer. No mail.
It was humiliating. Matt’s mother insisted upon driving him into the city. “You don’t trust me to go alone, right?” Matt asked, and his mom said quickly, “Of course I trust you, Matt. But I’m expected to speak with Dr. Harpie too.”
But you don’t know me. Not the first thing.
No one except Ursula Riggs knew. That day in the preserve, by Rocky River Creek.
Matt had agreed to see Dr. Harpie only because both his parents had put pressure on him. They claimed to be “very concerned” about him, and probably this was so, yet at the same time Matt guessed that seeing a psychiatrist was part of their legal strategy. Mr. Leacock had advised them. In the Donaghys’ lawsuit it would be impressive that Matthew had suffered such psychological distress that he was seeing a psychiatrist. A renowned specialist in troubled adolescents who has agreed to speak to the court.
Matt was sullen and uncommunicative—“uncommunicative” was a term frequently used in Dr. Harpie’s book—on the drive into the city. He’d wanted to drive, of course, but his mom insisted she would drive, she “didn’t trust” his mood. Matt said sarcastically, “Meaning what, Mom? You think I might drive us into the Hudson River? Matricide-suicide?” Matt’s mother winced. She’d applied crimson lipstick to her mouth, but the skin around her mouth was white. “Jokes like that are not funny, Matt. You know better.”
Sure I do. I know a lot better. But Big Mouth doesn’t give a damn.
When they entered Dr. Harpie’s office, Matt suddenly balked and refused to stay. He told his astonished mother that he was leaving—“I’m out of here, Mom. This isn’t for me.” Matt’s mother seized his wrist with surprisingly strong fingers. “Matt, you are not leaving. You are not walking out of here, you have an appointment.”
“It’s your appointment, Mom. You see him.”
Matt took a deep breath. He had to say this, no matter how angry his father would be. “Dad, I’m sorry. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want you to sue.”
Matt’s father stared at him. “Certainly we’re going to sue, Matt. It’s too late to change your mind. You’ve been slandered—libeled. We have been. It’s pointless even to discuss this.”
“But we need to discuss it, Dad. Please.”
“Matt, the lawsuit is under way. Motions have been filed. A court date has been named: April twenty-seventh. That’s coming up soon. Leacock doesn’t come cheaply, you know.” Matt’s father laughed, but it was a grim laugh.
“I can’t go through with it. Giving more testimony, answering more questions . . . I want to forget it.”
“Forget it? Never. We aren’t going to forget it.”
“People are saying . . . the lawsuit only makes things worse. Some of them have the wrong idea we’re doing it for just—money.”
“So, what’s wrong with money?” Matt’s father laughed again, and his laughter turned into coughing. His face, which had once been a handsome, fair-skinned face, with wide-set gray-green eyes like Matt’s, was now florid and slack. Mr. Donaghy had been away for several days and appeared not to have shaved for part of that time. Matt no longer knew if his father had an actual job or was already in a “transitional” state, and he couldn’t ask his mother, who refused to answer such questions. Alex had asked Matt the other evening, “Does Dad have a job now? Where does he go?” Matt felt sorry for his kid brother, who was beginning to share some of the anxieties of the household. “Leacock expects us to win in court. Any reasonably intelligent judge, hearing how the school district treated you, will find for us. Or the district may offer us a generous settlement. Either way we’ll be publicly vindicated.”
“Dad, people around here are all hating us. At school—”
“Ignore them. They’re your enemies. We’ll transfer you to a first-rate private school, starting next fall.”
Matt knew that his parents were discussing a boarding school in Massachusetts. An expensive school especially geared for very bright adolescents with “problems of social adjustment.”
Matt’s father continued, in a rapid, vehement voice, “Look what those people tried to do to you, Matt. Mr. Parrish—who should have protected you—handed you over to the police like a common criminal. The detectives were pressing you to confess. They wanted you to name coconspirators. You said so yourself. What if you’d broken down, given in? It was like a witch hunt. Without a shred of evidence, only the false, lying testimony of right-wing religious fanatics with a history of causing trouble in this community, they’ve destroyed our reputation.” Matt’s father paused, breathing quickly. “And we want our revenge.”
Matt said, miserably, “But Dad, I don’t want revenge. I just want . . .”
What? Things to be the way they’d been, before the arrest?
But Matt wouldn’t have gotten to know Ursula Riggs in that case. He’d still have his old hypocrite friends.
Matt’s father began to shout at him. “It doesn’t matter what you want, Matt. We’re in this too far to back out. My name is at stake—my integrity. Just remember, you got us into this—with your idiotic, childish sense of humor.”