Sisters

There were guides in the hallway to help the new students find the main door, and to assist them with transportation outside. Annie explained to one of them that she needed a cab, and he told her to wait, and he'd come to get her when he had the cab. She was standing in the main lobby, feeling lost again, when someone spoke to her. He had a calm, pleasant voice.

“Miss Adams?”

“Yes.” She looked hesitant, and suddenly shy.

“I'm Brad Parker. I just wanted to say hello and welcome you to the school. How did your first day go?” She wasn't sure if she should tell him the truth. He sounded very grown up, unlike Baxter, who sounded like a kid, even younger than he was.

“It went fine,” she said meekly.

“I hear you had a little mishap on the way in. We have to get the city to do something about that curb. It happens all the time.” She felt less stupid about having fallen when he said it, which seemed kind, whether it was true or not. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine. Thank you very much.”

“Did you find your classes all right?”

“Yes.” She smiled. She didn't tell him that she had stumbled into the lesson about condoms. She didn't know him well enough.

“I understand you're fluent in Italian and lived in Florence.” He seemed to know all about her, and she looked surprised.

“How did you know that?”

“It's on your form, and I read them all. I was interested in that, because I spent a lot of time in Rome. My grandfather was the American ambassador there when I was a child. We used to visit him in the summer.”

She suddenly wondered and decided to ask, since he knew so much about her, even that she had fallen down. “Are you blind?”

“No, I'm not. But both my parents were. I built the school in their memory, with a bequest they left for this purpose. They died in a plane crash when I was in college.”

“That's pretty amazing.” Annie was impressed, and he sounded like a nice man. She was touched that he had bothered to talk to her, had read her application prior to that, and even knew about her fall. He was well informed, particularly in a school that size.

“We've grown considerably since we started. We've only been here for sixteen years. I hope you enjoy it, and if there's anything I can do for you while you're with us, let me know.”

“Thank you,” she said demurely. She wouldn't have dared to call him Brad. She had no idea how old he was. But as the founder of the school, she had to assume he wasn't very young, and he sounded like he was a man, not a boy like Baxter, so she couldn't kid around, and didn't want to seem rude.

As they spoke, the guide came back inside to get her. He had a cab waiting outside. He greeted Brad informally, she said goodbye, and the guide took her outside and helped her into the cab. She thanked him and gave the driver her address. And as she promised she would, she called Sabrina at her office to tell her she was on the way home.

“How was it?” Sabrina asked, sounding anxious. She had worried about her all day.

“It was okay,” Annie said noncommittally, and then smiled in the back of the cab. “Okay … it was pretty good.”

“Well, that's nice to hear.” Sabrina smiled in relief. “I felt like I'd sent my only kid to camp. I was a nervous wreck all day. I was afraid you'd hate it, or that someone would be mean to you. What did you learn?”

“Condoms 101.” She laughed as she said it.

“Excuse me?”

“Actually, I wandered into the wrong class, after I fell on the curb outside. We studied braille.”

“You'd better tell me about all this when I get home. I'll be home in about an hour.” Annie had left the school just after five. They went to school from eight to five every day, five days a week, for six months. It was an intensive course.

When Annie got home, Candy was still packing for Milan, and there were suitcases all over her room. She was leaving for three weeks, but after Sabrina's lecture that morning, she had kept all of it in her room, so Annie didn't trip and fall when she walked in. And then she saw the knees of her jeans. They were torn and soaked with blood.

“What happened to you?” Candy looked instantly sympathetic.

“What do you mean?”

“Your knees.”

“Oh, I fell.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.”

“How was school?”

“Not too bad,” Annie conceded, and then smiled at her, looking more than ever like a little kid. “Actually, it was almost cool.”

“Almost cool?” Candy laughed. “Did you meet any guys?”

“Yeah. A guy in my class who's a graphic designer. He went to Yale, and he's gay. And the head of the school, who's about a hundred years old. I'm not going there to meet guys.”

“That doesn't mean you can't meet them if you're there.”

“That's true.”

Candy could tell that she had been favorably impressed, and other than the skinned knees, no harm had come to her. It seemed like an acceptable first day, to all of them. Tammy called to check in the following morning, and she was relieved to hear about it too. Sabrina asked her if things were running more smoothly than before she left for the holiday.