“Why didn’t you tell me at once?”
“Lou was a total basket case. I put her on Valium.”
Since when are you a doctor, I wanted to say. Something else to smuggle back on dorm, like the vodka. The absentee mother was in and out of rehab.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Dick.”
“Not as sorry as you’re going to be.”
Never show a vicious dog you’re afraid, my father always said.
“Dick, we’re not adversaries. We both have Louisa’s welfare at heart.”
“Glad to hear it. When you’ve got rid of him, she’ll be back at school.”
“I need to talk to Louisa, Dick.”
“No one’s upsetting my little girl any more than she’s already been upset.”
“Sidney could be there too.” Sidney’s a psychiatric nurse, in charge of the infirmary.
“I’m not having her interrogated.”
“Just me then. Ask her to come in.”
He shot a glance at me, like a kid caught hiding someone in his room.
“I’m not parading her around,” he said.
“Then let’s go out. Though my office is more private.” Giving him the illusion of choice.
He heaved himself out of the chair. “Don’t make her cry.”
Louisa sat scrunched down in the back seat, wearing sunglasses and a floppy beach hat. She’s a plump, pouty brunette. Probably she favors the mother we’ve never met.
Dick tapped on the window. She opened the door a crack.
“I told her, baby.”
I opened the door on the other side. The air was stuffy, and heavy with expensive perfume. Opium. She must have bathed in it. What sort of father would let a teenage daughter wear such a scent?
“May I come in?”
She didn’t move.
I slid in beside her on the back seat. Dick sat in the driver’s seat.
Louisa stared straight ahead, sunglasses and hat like a protective mask. There were tear tracks and smudges of black mascara on her cheeks. Her hands were knotted in her lap, hot-pink nail polish chipped and the cuticles ragged from picking.
Poor kid. I almost reached out to touch her shoulder, to console her.
“Louisa, can you tell me about it?”
“He told you.” She turned away. Now all I could see was the back brim of the hat.
“I’m sorry, but I need you to tell me.”
“Go ahead,” Dick ordered. “How he grabbed you. Kissed you. Stuck his hand down your pants, your shirt. How you had to fight him off.”
“Dick, maybe Louisa and I could chat privately.”
“No one’s leaving you alone with her, baby, don’t worry,” he said.
“Get out, Daddy.”
He swiveled around. “Don’t say anything if you don’t want to. Like Uncle Bobby told you. My lawyer,” he said to me, with a bully’s smile that didn’t reach his flat blue eyes.
“Just get out of the car already, Daddy. Let me get this crap over with, if you don’t mind.”
“Watch your mouth with me, young lady,” said Dick, glowering, but getting out of the car, slamming the door. He stared in the windshield at us.
“Fuck off, Dad,” she said, loudly.
He turned around and sat on the hood.
She shrugged. “What do you want to know? It’s like he said.”
“Louisa, to get to the bottom of this, I need you to tell me.”
“Get to the bottom of this? That’s great. That’s great. He grabbed my ass, that’s what. My tits. And stuck his tongue in my mouth.”
“That sounds scary,” I said.
“Disgusting is more like it, but you wouldn’t know,” she said. “His wife is pregnant, big as a whale. Guess he isn’t getting any at home.” Angelique Thibeault, a PhD candidate at Georgetown, was expecting their first child.
“Louisa, exactly when, and where?”
“He told you.” Did she not want to talk about it? Was she afraid she’d get it wrong?
“Please, Louisa. What you say really matters.”
“Oh, right.”
“I mean it.”
She took off the sun glasses. Her eyes were glassy, dull. Tranquilizers or pain?
“So I have French last period. He told me to stay after. Said he wanted to help me with the stuff I’d screwed up on the quiz. It’s so noisy on dorm I can’t study right.”
“And then what?”
“Everyone left. He was sitting on his desk. I went up. And he grabbed me. Like I told you. Stuck his tongue in my mouth. Grabbed my tits. How much gory detail do you want? Are you getting off on this?”
Her eyes welled up. I didn’t have a Kleenex.
“I’m sorry, Louisa. It’s hard to talk about. Has—has anything like this ever happened before?”
“Oh, he’s looked at me.”
“I mean—has anyone, anyone kind of in charge, touched you?”
“He’s my first pervert, if that’s what you mean.” She put her sunglasses back on. “So how do I get my stuff off dorm? I’m out of here.”
“We are going to sort this out. There’s still six weeks until graduation.”
“I’m in at Sweet Briar.” Her mother’s alma mater. We’d never sent a kid there.
“They’ll look at your final grades.”
“There’s a building named after my grandmother,” she said, abruptly getting out of the car and slamming the door. She sat on the hood with her father.
I walked to the front of the car.
“So, you get what you needed?” Dick asked.
“I appreciate Louisa’s effort.”
“How do I get my things? I don’t want to talk to anyone,” she said.
“You don’t need your stuff, baby. You’ll be back as soon as he’s gone. And if he’s not—I’ll be back. With my attorney. And we know people at the Post.”
“I don’t want it in the paper, Daddy!”
“Don’t worry, baby. We’re dealing with a reasonable person here, aren’t we Hazel?”
The bell rang.
“Let’s go, Daddy. They’re changing classes.” The girl jumped off the hood and into the car.
“So? What’s the plan?” he demanded.
Never show a vicious dog you’re afraid.
“There’s a procedure we must follow, for everyone’s best interest, especially your daughter’s.”
“I’m not interested in procedure. I’m more of an action guy.”
“No one wants to prolong this. In the meantime, I’ll make sure Louisa gets her assignments to work on at home.”
“She’s