"Oh yes, but always secretly," I emphasized. "I told him we shouldn't even meet at the school anymore. If Agnes should-somehow find out, she would be sure to phone Grandmother Cutler, and she might use it as an excuse to ship me off someplace else. You can't imagine how spiteful she can be."
"What did you do at his apartment?"
"We drank a little wine, listened to music and talked."
"What did you talk about so long?" Trisha asked, looking skeptical.
"First, he talked about himself and his wonderful marriage, how much he had loved his wife and how much she had loved him. It was very sad. I cried. And then I told him my story and he cried for me. He had lost his parents at a young age and knew what it was to feel like an orphan.
"But do you know what he's going to do? He's going to see if he can help me find my real father. He has friends in important places, just like Grandmother Cutler, and he's going to make some inquiries and have some people do some research. He said he might even hire a private detective to track him down."
"He did? But that could be very expensive," Trisha said.
"He said that money doesn't matter to him when it comes to me. He wanted to give me some of his wife's jewelry and expensive perfume, but I told him I would have trouble explaining where I got them. He's very understanding and doesn't want to do anything that might cause trouble for me."
Trisha's eyes grew smaller, more perceptive.
"You must have done more than just talk with a man in his thirties," she insisted. I looked away quickly and began hanging up my things. "You did, didn't you?"
"We kissed," I admitted, "and I wanted to do more, but Alvin said we must not rush headlong into things."
"Alvin? I thought you said his name was Allan."
"It is. Did I say Alvin?" She nodded. "I can't imagine why. Oh," I said. "He has a younger brother named Alvin. I'm just so tired and confused and full of happiness." Trisha looked skeptical a moment, but then accepted my explanation.
"When will you see him again?"
"Soon," I said, "but for obvious reasons, we have to be very discreet about it. He won't call me unless it's very, very important."
"You're having a secret romance," she said unhappily. She sat back against her pillow and folded her arms under her bosom, her face in a pout. I sat at the foot of her bed.
"What's wrong, Trisha?"
"Nothing," she said. Then she looked up at me. "You're having all this romance and adventure, and I can't get anyone good-looking to say more than two words to me." Then, just as quickly as she had gone into a pout, she snapped out of it and smiled. "I think I'll start flirting with Erik Richards, since you're not interested in him," she said. "He did sit near me at lunch yesterday, and he didn't ask me a single question about you."
"Erik Richards? Of course," I said excitedly. "I think you and he would be perfect together."
"Maybe he'll ask me to the Halloween dance," she concluded. She turned to me. "What if someone from the school asks you?"
"Oh, I couldn't go. I couldn't be with anyone else now. I'd only be thinking of . . . Allan," I said, "and it wouldn't be fair to the boy who had asked me."
"But you'll miss all the good school fun. Are you sure you want to have a boyfriend so much older than you are?" she asked.
"As I told you," I sang and stood up, "it's some-thing Fate brought about."
I ran to the bathroom to wash and brush my teeth. I hated lying to Trisha. She had been such a good friend to me, right from the beginning. Looking in the mirror I saw the face of a liar. I'd felt so happy earlier with Michael, but could love turn me into a loathsome thing? How ironic and sad if I finally found love and happiness and safety and in doing so did things every bit as evil and dishonest as the things Grandmother Cutler did. I eased my conscience by telling myself that someday, perhaps someday soon, Michael would let me tell her the truth. I looked again into the mirror studying the girl's face caught in there. My face was flushed from everything that had transpired tonight. My eyes glittered in a way I'd never seen before—I saw power within them. The truth was, I'd never again be able to go to some dance with some silly school boy, not for the reasons I'd told Trisha, but because I now knew the joy of love with a masterful older man.
Michael was true to his word when he said he wouldn't treat me any differently from the way he treated his other students at Bernhardt. In fact, I thought he was even colder and more formal with me since our evening together in his apartment. He stopped calling me Dawn in front of other students and called me Miss Cutler, instead. Whenever we passed by in the corridors, he smiled quickly, but just as quickly shifted his gaze back to whomever he was with as if he were afraid whoever accompanied him would immediately feel the electricity that crackled between us.
For the next few weeks, he had Richard Taylor present at every one of our private sessions and when he worked with me, he acted as though he were ages and ages older than I was. He didn't put his hands on me, nor did he speak about anything other than our music, and he always excused me before he excused Richard so we couldn't be alone together even for a moment afterward.
I worked and waited for him to ask to see me again. I hardly ever left the house at all, for fear I might miss a phone call. I knew if I weren't there, he wouldn't leave his name. Trisha became very suspicious as to why I hadn't gone on any other dates with my secret boyfriend.
"You haven't mentioned Allan for days and days," she said, "nor have you gone out secretly at night to meet him. Did he run off with another woman?"
"Oh, no. He had to go away on business," I told her, "but he will see me the moment he returns."
Finally, one afternoon after my private vocal lesson, Michael asked me to remain. We waited for Richard Taylor to leave and then Michael closed the door.