"I'm just teasing them for my own amusement. You think I enjoy being trapped in this chair while everyone else gets to dance and move about the ballroom? Poor Abby . . . poor, poor Abby," she said, turning down the corners of her mouth. "You've made her into your sister because she's a whole person with no handicap."

"That's unfair. You know that's not true. You're the one who wanted to change roommates and—"

The music stopped and Mrs. Ironwood announced the serving of refreshments. A great cheer went up and everyone began moving toward the tables.

"I'm hungry and I've promised those boys I'd sit with them and let them feed me," she said slyly. "You can go and sit with poor Abby." She whirled away and into the awaiting clump of Rosewood boys she had somehow turned into flypaper. They argued over which one of them would assume Samantha's assignment and wheel Gisselle across the floor. She turned back to flash a look of deep pleasure at me and then laughed shrilly and reached up to take another boy's hand while his companions hovered around her.

"My sister is being her infuriating self," I told Abby. Many of the boys were being perfect gentlemen and getting food for a Greenwood girl before they got any for themselves, but no one offered to get anything for Abby and me. Boys cleared a space for me at the food tables but they didn't for Abby. After we had gotten what we wanted, we found a table off to the side. No one joined us, not even the other girls from our dorm. We were left alone.

Mrs. Ironwood walked around the tables with Miss Weller, greeting some of the Rosewood boys, talking to some of the girls. When they came around toward our table, Mrs. Ironwood paused, glared our way, and then turned down another aisle.

"I don't have the measles broken out over my face or anything, do I?" Abby asked.

"No. You look . . . beautiful."

She smiled weakly. Neither of us had a great appetite, but we ate just to fill the empty time. Way off to our right, Gisselle sat at a table with only boys. Whatever she was telling them had them in stitches. They couldn't do enough for her. She merely had to glance at something, and two or three of them would nearly fall over each other to get it.

"Was your sister always this popular with boys?" Abby asked enviously.

"As long as I've known her, yes. She has a way of appealing to a side of them that titillates. Who knows what sort of promises she's been making," I added angrily.

The social committee fanned out and handed the girls their ballots for queen of the dance. Two girls followed afterward with boxes into which we were to throw our choices.

"I bet Gisselle has everyone voting for her," I muttered.

"I'm voting for you," Abby said.

"And me, you."

We laughed, then filled out our ballots and deposited them.

After we had had some dessert, Abby and I went to the girls' room to freshen up. It was jammed with everyone gossiping and laughing, but the moment we walked in a great deal of the talk ended. It was as if we were pariahs, lepers who had the others terrified we might touch or infect them. We gazed thoughtfully at each other, wondering.

The second half of the evening proved no different from the first, only the longer I stood beside Abby, the less and less I was approached too. By the time the next-to-last musical number was played, Abby and I were the only ones not dancing. Just before the last dance of the night, Mrs. Ironwood went to the microphone once again.

"It is a tradition here at Greenwood, as most of you know, that at the end of a social event, especially at the end of a formal dance, the girls choose their queen of the dance. The social committee has tallied the votes and asked that I call up Gisselle Dumas to announce the results."

Abby and I looked at each other with surprise. When did Gisselle arrange this? I wondered. She backed herself away from her male admirers and wheeled herself across the floor to the sound of applause. Then she turned and faced the partygoers, a happy smile across her face. One of the members of the social committee then brought the results to Gisselle. The microphone was lowered so she could speak into it.

“Thank you for this honor," she said. "It's just peachy." She turned to the girl who had the results. "The envelope, please," she said, as if it were the Academy Awards. Everyone laughed. Even Mrs. Ironwood relaxed her lips into something of a smile, Gisselle tore open the folded paper and read it to herself. Then she cleared her throat.

"We have a somewhat surprising choice," she declared. "A first for Greenwood, according to what the committee has written here." She gazed at Mrs. Ironwood, who now looked more intense, more interested. "I shall read the winner's name and exactly what the committee has written after it." She looked our way. "The girls of Greenwood have chosen Abby Tyler," she declared.

Abby's eyes widened with surprise. I shook my head in wonder, but it was as if the first shoe had dropped. The room became silent. Abby started to stand up. My heart began to pound when I looked around at the faces of the other girls. They all seemed to be holding their breaths.

Gisselle gazed at the card and then brought her mouth to the microphone to add, "Who is the first quadroon ever to have been chosen."

It was as if we had fallen into the eye of a storm. There wasn't a giggle or even a cough. Abby froze. She looked down at me, her eyes filled with shock. So this was why none of the boys would ask her to dance. They had been told she was a quadroon. And this was why Gisselle had been so sweet and offered the white silk ribbon for Abby's hair: so all the boys would know who she was the moment they set eyes on her.

"Who told her?" Abby whispered.

I shook my head in denial. "I would never . . ."

"Come get your trophy," Gisselle screamed into the microphone.

Abby stood in front of me, even straighter and taller than she usually did, looking for all the world like a beautiful princess. "Won't worry, Ruby," she said, "its okay. I had already decided to tell my parents that they must stop living a lie. I relish each and every part of my ancestry and never again will I hide any of it." She walked across the room and out the door.

"I guess she didn't like our trophy," Gisselle quipped. There was a roar of laughter that continued even after I had run from the ballroom after her. I flew into the hallway and hurried to the side door that just closed behind my friend. By the time I was outside, she was halfway across the campus, her pretty head held high, walking into the darkness.

"Abby! Wait!" I called, but she didn't stop. By now she was crossing down to the driveway that led to the road away from the school. I started in that direction too, when I heard my named called.

"Ruby Dumas."

I turned to see Mrs. Ironwood standing behind me in the pool of illumination from the lights above the doorway of the school.

"Don't you dare set foot off the grounds of this school," she warned.

"But Mrs. Ironwood, my friend . . . Abby . . . ″

"Don't you dare."

I turned and looked in Abby's direction, but all I could see was darkness now, darkness and deep shadows that reached back and extended deep enough to drape over my own broken heart.


9

  A Friend in Need

1'd advise you to get yourself back to your social," Mrs. Ironwood warned. She had stepped up and now hovered behind me like a hawk about to pounce. The sky had turned stormy and foreboding in the distance, heralding rain and wind. For a moment I continued to stare into the darkness of the road, hoping to see Abby reappear, but I saw nothing. I stood like an island with the sea eddying around me, so miserable and unhappy. "Did you hear what I said?" she snarled.

With my head down, I turned back toward the building and walked past Mrs. Ironwood without so much as glancing at her

"Never have I seen such behavior," she continued, following me and chanting. "Never. Never. Never have one of my girls so openly embarrassed the school."

"How could having a bright, beautiful, and kind student like Abby ever be an embarrassment? I hope she will be proud of her heritage, just like I am of my Cajun past," I shot back. She hoisted her shoulders and glared down at me with her stone-cold eyes. Silhouetted against the increasingly foreboding sky, she had become as ominous and as dark as one of Nina's voodoo spirits.

"When people go where they don't belong, they only make problems for themselves," she declared with her imposing, authoritative tone.

"Abby belongs here more than anyone else," I cried. "She's the smartest, nicest . . . ″

"This is not the time nor the place to discuss such matters, and anyway, it is no concern of yours," she spit out, using her words like tiny knives to cut away my complaints. "Your concern should be about yourself and your own behavior. I thought I made that quite clear the last time we had a talk."

I stared at her a moment as a terrible anger washed over me. Grandmère Catherine had taught me to respect my elders, but surely she had never anticipated me having to show a woman like Mrs. Ironwood respect. Her age and her position shouldn't shield her from justifiable criticism, I thought, even if it came from someone as young as I was, but I bit down on my lower lip to keep my fiery words locked inside my mouth.

The Iron Lady seemed to enjoy my struggle to keep control. She glared back at me, waiting, hoping to see me become insubordinate so she could justify a harsher punishment, perhaps even have me expelled and keep me from ever seeing Louis again, which, I suspected, had become her real motive.