my hand, squeezed his lobbyist’s expense account girth into the chair.
“Dick,” I said, “We’ve been concerned about Louisa.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Again. The girl had generated trouble from her first week as a transfer last year when she accused her roommate of stealing her ring. Louisa went home for the weekend and returned wearing the ring—without apologizing to her roommate.
“I hope it’s nothing serious. She’s missed almost a week of classes, Dick. It’s Thursday.”
“I know what day it is,” he said. His pale eyes were chilly and smug. He was enjoying this. He’s like this with her, I thought.
“What is it? We want to be of help.”
“Then get rid of the teacher who attacked her.”
“What do you mean?” My stomach clenched.
“That black French teacher. Toto. Tutu. He groped her. Kissed her. Good thing my girl’s feisty.”
Jacques Thibeault, from the Ivory Coast via Columbia University, was one of my best.
“When does she say it happened?”
“It happened Friday. After school.”
“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.
