CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Sunny and Maris
“I may never do you right, but will always do you proud. My heart knows no sun, and your own it shall enshroud.”
Sunny had whispered this promise in bed, sometime after midnight, as she and Dante were drifting off to sleep. He’d thought it strange, not because it rhymed, but because he knew full well that her heart had already done the deed it spoke of. The knowledge pleased him. Nor was it an exaggeration on her part. The temple of Sunset Desdemona was dark, its chambers countless, its corridors labyrinthine. And as the years passed it would grow even larger, confounding its resident—Dante—with even more doors that opened on doors, windows in the floor, and spiral staircases that stopped at the ceiling.
But on the Friday following his less than pleasant visit to Donati’s home—a day that would end with Maris stealing Sunny’s bloodstone ring—she seemed innocent enough. Almost harmless.
“Hey Dante!” she sang as he opened the door of her dad’s car.
Holding her hand, he escorted her from the back seat. Her red hair caught the sun and for a moment seemed to flash.
“Mr. Torn,” Brenton purred. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Sir.”
“Is my daughter being a good girl at school?”
This was a question he’d been asking at random intervals throughout the year. Today Dante had a response ready and waiting.
“Only when the teachers are looking, Sir.”
“Ha! Now that’s how it’s done!” Brenton’s shrewd eyes went to Sunny. “See you after school, young lady.”
“Bye, Daddy!”
Dante closed the door. He took Sunny’s bag. Then he walked her to the school entrance with her on the inside, away from the sidewalk edge. Several of Sunny’s girlfriends waved hello. Sunny waved back. She was dressed in her typical short black skirt with buckled boots. Beneath her trademark leather jacket Dante could see flares of a yellow blouse.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said, as he pulled open the door for her.
Dante raised his brow.
“I know, I know,” she went on, “you hate surprises.”
“Well, usually,” he had to admit.
“But this one I couldn’t resist.”
She got no further before Stacey appeared, swooping in from the crowd of students like a small, black bird. “Sunny!” she sang. “What are you doing this weekend?”
Sunny put her head on Dante’s shoulder. “Spending it with my Mister here,” she said. “What about you?”
“I don’t know yet, but”—Stacey raised her thumb and pinky—“call me tonight? Saturday night too?”
“Sure,” Sunny grinned. She looked up at Dante. “That is if we’re not busy.”
“Wow! See you guys at lunch!” And Stacey disappeared even quicker than she’d shown up.
“Heck,” Dante said, staring into the crowd, “call her even if we are busy. That’ll really flip her wheels.”
“Not a chance.”
“Sunny? Baby? Beautiful? Sweetheart?”
“Yes, darling?”
“How many of your friends know about what we did last Saturday?”
She looked appalled. “Are you kidding? That was the best night of my life. I told them all!”
“Well…thank you. Thank you.”
Doubt flickered on her face. “You didn’t tell your friends, right?”
“No.”
“Whew!” she gushed. “Thank you. Girls are allowed to talk, Dante, but boys”—she shook her head—“no. No way.”
He laughed. “Understood.”
“Look at you blush! It’s so cute!”
They walked to her locker, navigating the traffic with practiced ease. Dante wondered if Sunny knew he didn’t have any friends to tell. Associates maybe, but no real friends.
She dialed the combination with her breath held. It was a carrot she occasionally dangled ever since Dante’s own locker had jammed last year, forcing her lungs past their limit. Smiling, she now pulled the latch, opened the door, and let the breath out.
“Good girl!” he said. Then: “Weren’t you going to tell me something about a surprise?”
“Oh yeah! I almost forgot! My home economics class is having a baking contest this morning.” Her expression turned bitter. “Me and Maris are going head to head. And you,” she went on, poking a finger at his chest, “are going to be one of the judges.”
Dante’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Yeah,” Sunny said, “that’s good. You’re going to be eating, so your mouth needs to be open.”
“Sunny, I’m not sure I’m qualified to judge a baking contest,” he managed to say. This was a lie. In fact, Dante knew he wasn’t qualified. He’d never judged a contest in his life. Judging one with his own girlfriend as a contestant was no way to break into the field. He was suddenly terrified. What if he chose wrong? What if he picked Maris’ dish?
Hope flooded his chest.
“Wait,” he said. “Will the dishes be tagged with your names?”
“Nope. It’s a blind test.”
Ack! cried Dante’s hope, as it died horribly.
“And what are the dishes?” he asked.
Sunny raised her hands in mock revelation. “Chocolate. Chip. Cookiiieeees,” she intoned. “My mom’s recipe, which I know by heart, shall put Shaya’s little girl scout to shame.”
“Shall, Shaya, shame,” Dante said, trying his best to keep cool.
“Yesshh, my dear. Come to the home ec room after second period. Tell Mr. Hogan to kiss your butt if he gives you any trouble.”
“I can’t. He might take me up on the offer.”
“Good point.” She put a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth. “He’ll give you a pass, don’t worry. The teachers have it all arranged.”
“Sunny, are you sure you want me to do this?”
“Children?” Mr. Wolfe called from his classroom door. “Plan on loitering in the halls all day?”
“No, sir,” Dante and Sunny said together.
“Then get in here, both of you.” His eyes narrowed. Dante noticed he hadn’t been shaving well of late. His beard looked gray and scraggly, as if a skunk had decided to take up residence on his chin. “You two are a couple, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Dante told him.
“Aww,” he let out sarcastically. “How sweet. At least for about five years. Then she’ll leave you, probably on Christmas day. You’ll get drunk under the tree, staring at the presents she never opened.”
Sunny laughed.
“Oh sure,” Wolfe said, “you think it’s funny now. Floating on your little pink cloud way up in the sky. But that cloud is going to dissolve, children. And when it does”—he whistled, curving his hand to look like a plummeting jet—“prepare for impact!”
Holding hands, Dante and Sunny walked past him. Both concealed their smiles by keeping their eyes fixed on the floor.
“Merry Christmas, Wolfe!” Dante heard the teacher say. “I’m leaving you for a garbage man! A garbage man! She always insisted on taking out the trash and I could never understand it. That’s a man’s job, I told her. ‘Oh no, no, honey, I got it.’ She got it all right.”
“Don’t get mad, Mr. Wolfe,” Dante said under his breath, “get Glad.”
“Torn!” Wolfe bellowed, while Sunny burst out laughing.
“Yes, sir?”
“Detention! This afternoon!”
∞
Sunny’s home economics room was in the old wing of the school. Dante knew it well, as he also took Shop here. Not that this fact held anything to do with its special place in his heart. No, no. It was the dark, disused bathroom at the end of the wing he would always remember with fondness. Last year he’d gone into that room with a stain on his shirt. Minutes later Sunny had followed. That made her the first ever pretty girl to be curious about what he was doing.
Her presence had given him a surprise that day. Today her absence did the same. Dante opened the home ec door to find about ten girls—none of them Sunny or Maris—seated at long black tables on either side of the room. In between the tables were two empty desks facing the kitchen area. But the stoves were vacant, as were the sinks.
“Hello,” Dante said to the girls. He noticed that one of them was Rajani. “Am I in the right place?”
“You are!” came a voice from his left.
A tall, bespectacled woman had swept in from a side door. She was thin, with brown hair wrapped tightly in a pony tail. Dante thought she looked like a trailer park refugee from 1978.
“I’m Miss Cross, the Home Economics teacher,” she said. “Are you Dante?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Right this way.” She led him to yet another side door, this one closer to the front of the room. “In here,” she said. “Put on a mask and a white robe. Try to cover as much of yourself as you can. That way none of the girls will know who you are.”
“Why all the secrecy?” Dante asked. Miss Cross’s excitement amused him. She was fairly bustling him into the room, the way a mistress might do in effort to hide one of her suitors from the family.
“Bias, Dante!” she explained. “Bias! None of the girls can know you any more than you can know them! Now shoo! Shoo!”
Dante had more questions but couldn’t ask them before he was pushed into a long, narrow closet. He turned, opened his mouth to speak, and Miss Cross slammed the door in his face.
“Hello,” a friendly, cultured voice chimed from the softly lit recesses of cookware and cook’s whites.
Dante spun around. A boy his own age stood in the room with him. He wore a straight smile, crooked glasses, and a messy mop of brown hair. It was, of course, Shaya Blum.
“So you’re judging, too,” Dante said. A coil of beautiful contempt, iridescent, like that of a poison asp, stirred in his belly.
“I am indeed,” the other boy answered. From here he proceeded with a most loathsome act: He held out his hand.
Dante had no choice but to shake it, which he did, but with prickly coolness.
“May the best lady win,” Shaya said.
“Right.”
A rack of white coats stood nearby. Dante chose the longest one on it. It was by no means long enough. The lower half of his denim pants was fully exposed.
“Shoes,” Shaya said, nodding toward Dante’s boots. “You must take them off. Please,” he added, when Dante scowled. “That way Sunny won’t recognize you. See?” He pointed to his own feet, which were clad only in socks.
So Dante took off his shoes and laid them aside. “Ask me to take off my pants and I’ll punch you.”
“Understood.”
Now both boys turned their attention toward the masks. Five identical faces of powder white plastic hung on the wall. Five pairs of bulbous lips, hurriedly smeared with red paint, grinned without sustenance for their joy, as if over a great many years spent in this dim closet they had quietly gone insane.
Dante chose one and held it by a cheap rubber band stapled to its sides. Seconds later a light knock hit the door. It was Miss Cross. She asked them to please make sure their masks and robes were in place.
“Here we go,” Shaya said, taking off his glasses.
Both boys put on their masks.
“Ready?” Miss Cross said from outside.
“Ready,” Shaya and Dante said together.
The door swung open. Miss Cross looked at them both for a moment only, then beckoned for Shaya to come forward. She told Dante to wait.
“Wait?” Dante asked.
Miss Cross shushed him violently. “No speaking! Yes, please wait here.”
And once again she closed the door, this time to leave him by himself.
Dante lifted the mask. Its lunatic expression could in no way be compared to his befuddlement. How exactly was this contest being judged? Putting his ear to the door’s keyhole, he listened for clues. The room beyond was hushed, or nearly so. Softly spoken words, too delicate for interpretation, flitted to and fro. One of the girls giggled. Another sighed.
Several more minutes passed, by which time Dante had given up wondering and was seated on a box in back of the closet when Miss Cross knocked again. He leaped to his feet.
“Are you wearing your mask?” the teacher called.
Dante put it on and whispered it was okay to open the door. She did so. Still wearing his own mask, Shaya stepped inside. His robe billowed. He looked to Dante like a priest on his way to a sermon.
“Come this way,” Miss Cross said. “And remember: No speaking.”
The audience of young girls regarded him. Some frowned, others smiled. Two other girls—Maris and Sunny—stood in front of the room, at opposite ends of the kitchen. Sunny looked stern. Expressionless as a Greek statue from early classical days. On Maris’ face hovered the tiniest hint of a smile.
Miss Cross motioned for him to take a seat at the desk on the right. Dante looked intently at his girlfriend, conveying with his eyes—or hoping to—that this was him, Dante. Only she refused to return his stare. She had glanced at him only once when he’d stepped from the closet. Now her eyes were fixed on Miss Cross.
“You will be given two plates,” the teacher said, “each with a large cookie on it, cut into four pieces. You will also be given a glass of water. You will eat one piece from one cookie, drink from the glass, then eat a piece from the other. Please nod—and only nod—if you understand.”
Dante nodded.
“Each girl,” Miss Cross continued, “begins the contest with forty points. The first piece you eat from each cookie is free, but after that, each piece you eat costs the girl who baked that cookie ten points. Therefore, the sooner you choose the winner, the more points that girl’s cookie will have. Please nod if you understand.”
Dante nodded.
“The cookie you choose as the winner will receive ten extra points. Our other judge has already made his decision, and the score has been tallied. I will act as a tie-breaker should the need arise. Please nod if you understand.”
For the third time, Dante nodded. Never once did his eyes leave Sunny.
“Very well,” Miss Cross said.
She left the room and returned with two plates, each with a chocolate chip cookie on it, cut into four equal pieces. They were indeed big. Each quarter looked to be slightly larger than Dante’s palm. Miss Cross put a glass of water in between the two plates.
“You may begin,” she said.
Dante looked at the cookie on the right, reached for it, then chose the left one. It felt warm and moist. His fingers sank delicately into the crust. Lifting his mask, he put the piece into his mouth. Its taste worried him. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it. The chocolate chips, lightly melted, were bathed in warm, sweet dough. The whole mouthful practically dissolved on his tongue. What if the other cookie tasted just as good? How would he decide?
“Water,” Miss Cross told him.
Dante drank, rinsing the last residue of perfection away. He reached for a piece on his right. Its texture did not respond quite as willingly as the first. Moving his thumb and index finger, Dante could feel small, tantalizing flecks of crust trace the grooves of his skin. He raised the piece to his lips, hesitated, and ate.
It was crunchy, but only just so. The flecks broke willingly between his teeth like minute pieces of candy, while the chocolate chips melted just as perfectly as the first. Dante nodded at Miss Cross, then drank some water. Now each girl’s plate had three quarters left.
“Do you wish to taste?” Miss Cross asked.
Dante nodded.
“From which plate?”
Here the first real dilemma of the game presented itself. The cookie Dante chose would cost the girl who baked it ten points. Of course he could always eat again from the other plate, costing that girl ten points…
Which would only delay the inevitable.
Helplessly cornered, Dante chose left. He chewed, swallowed. Everything melted like hot butter. The cookie was delicious. Perhaps, he thought, I should eat all from both plates. But later on Sunny would doubtless chide him for being inept. For escaping danger through an easy passage.
“Do you wish to taste?” Miss Cross asked yet again.
Dante set the water glass down and nodded.
“From which plate?”
This time he went directly to the right. The crunchy little flecks tempted him all over again, melting into the chocolate with soft little sighs of sweet surrender. The cookie was delicious.
Almost reluctantly, Dante followed it with a drink of water.
And of course, from Miss Cross: “Do you wish to taste?”
Dante looked at both plates. He had made up his mind. Yet one final decision remained: Should he eat one more bite from the losing cookie?
“Do you wish to taste?” Miss Cross repeated.
Grinning beneath his mask, Dante nodded, chose the losing plate, and tasted. When Miss Cross asked her question again, he shook his head.
“Very well,” the home ec teacher said. “Please point to the winning cookie.”
Dante did. He felt almost certain he had chosen Sunny’s.
“Very well.”
A look of disappointment fell over Miss Cross’ face. Frowning, she led Dante back to the closet, where he waited with Shaya until the end of the period. He—Shaya—asked Dante about the cookies. Were they hard to judge? Didn’t he find both perfect? Dante refused to answer. He stood as close to the door as he could, waiting for the school bell to ring.
They were allowed to leave only when all the other girls had gone. But Sunny was waiting in the hall. She gave Dante a hug, kissed him on the cheek. Later that day he found out two things:
That the winner of the contest would not be announced until Monday.
That Shaya had taken only one bite from each cookie.