Three Women at the Water's Edge

by Nancy Thayer

  She wanted to marry him.

  She wanted to marry him so that she could live in the same house with him and be with him every day for the rest of her life. She wanted to travel with him. She wanted the security, the restful blessed security of marriage, of being really connected to him. But they had not even once discussed marriage. And she knew with the rational side of her being that marriage could be a farce: Look at her father and mother, look at her sister. She had never been so confused.

  So she sat in her classroom, grading the papers, sneezing and aching, with her confusions and her desires running through her constantly like a current, like an undertow. So she did not hear Mr. Jersey’s shouts at first; or she heard them, but they did not register on her consciousness immediately. When she did realize that it was shouting that she heard, and that it was Mr. Jersey shouting, she thought that the old man must have somehow electrocuted himself, or caught himself in some sort of machine, so frantic and brutal were his words. She hurried from her desk and out and down the hall toward the noise. She found Mr. Jersey’s cart and dustmop just outside the door to the faculty and staff lounge, and Mr. Jersey just inside the door, waving his arms and yelling.

  “Mr. Jersey?” she said. “Mr. Jersey? What’s wrong?”

  Then she entered the lounge and saw what was wrong. Mr. Jersey had caught two high school students making love on the nubby orange lounge sofa. Dale recognized them both: The boy, Jeff Benton, was a senior who had done well in Dale’s French class the year before and was doing well in her biology class this year. The girl, Sally Martin, was also a senior, and in Dale’s second-year French class. Both students were good kids—responsible, pleasant, intelligent, leaders in school activities. Both were well liked and attractive. Dale had actually never thought much about Sally, who had seemed just another nice pretty girl, but Jeff was good-looking enough to draw comments from some of the younger teachers. Now he stood red-faced and awkward in the presence of Mr. Jersey’s almost inarticulate wrath, his face clenched with embarrassment and fear. Yet Dale admired him; even as he stood there, he had placed himself in front of Sally, protectively, to ward Mr. Jersey’s words off of her, and to keep her from Mr. Jersey’s sight. Jeff had already managed to get his pants up, although his belt was undone and his fly was unzipped. But Sally, who still sat on the sofa behind him, was all disheveled, her jeans down around her knees and her blouse all undone; she was frantically attempting to button it, but she was shaking so hard that it was taking her a long time. She would not look up; her long hair hung down around her face, curtaining off her expression.

  It took Dale a few moments to realize that Mr. Jersey, for all his truly honest shock and horror, was relishing the drama of the situation. In fact, he was stretching it for all it was worth.

  “Now what do you think, Miss Wallace,” he said. “Just look at this. I came down the hall to clean up the lounge, and here it was locked, and I got my keys out and opened it, and look what I found! These two young people having sexual intercourse in the faculty lounge! Why, it’s outrageous! It’s indecent! They should be expelled. We’ve got to call their parents, we’ve got to call Mr. Hansen, we’ve got to do something about this! Why, it’s probably even illegal, we should probably call the police—”

  “Mr. Jersey,” Dale began, speaking in what she hoped was a clear sensible tone, even though she had begun to shake with fear for the students, “Mr. Jersey, calm down. It’s all right.”

  “What do you mean it’s all right?” Mr. Jersey yelled. “Students having sex in the faculty lounge in broad daylight is all right?”

  “Well,” Dale said, and she grinned in spite of herself, “it certainly wasn’t very smart. But on the other hand, it didn’t hurt anybody.”

  “Well, well, suppose someone walked in!” Mr. Jersey sputtered.

  “Someone did,” Dale said.

  “I mean suppose a young person walked in, an innocent young person—”

  “The door was locked, Mr. Jersey,” Dale said. “An innocent young person couldn’t have walked in. Only you and Mr. Hansen could have walked in. You are the only people who have the key to the lounge. And both you and Mr. Hansen have had some experience with sexual intercourse, I’m sure; I mean it won’t hurt your emotional growth. Mr. Jersey, come out in the hall for a moment and let Sally get her clothes on. This is embarrassing her.”

  “Well, she deserves to be embarrassed!” Mr. Jersey said.

  “Mr. Jersey, please come out in the hall,” Dale said, and very reluctantly, the old man left the room. “Now look, Mr. Jersey,” Dale said, “I don’t want you to be so upset about this. I realize that I’m younger than you are, and you are much wiser about many things than I am, but you’ve got to stop a minute and think about those kids. They weren’t really doing anything wrong; they weren’t damaging the property—”

  “They might have stained the sofa,” Mr. Jersey muttered.

  “Oh, come on, that sofa’s so old and grungy no one would notice if a horse slept there,” Dale said. “The point is, Jeff and Sally shouldn’t have been in the faculty lounge at all. That is the only really wrong thing they did. They are both good students. I have them both in my classes, and they are good smart kids. I don’t see what would be gained by calling in a bunch of other people. I’m sure this scare has been enough to keep them from ever trying anything like this again.”

  “Yes, but someone should tell their parents what they were doing,” Mr. Jersey said.

  “Mr. Jersey,” Dale said, “everyone does what they were doing. Times have changed since you and I were young”—she included herself in his age group, hoping to influence him by their union—“and people just don’t think that’s wrong anymore.”

  “Well, I think it’s wrong, and I am going to call Mr. Hansen and those kids’ parents and the police!”

  “Mr. Jersey, don’t. Let’s talk about this first, please. I know you are a kind man, and you love all the students here, and they all love you. Just remember how they all ask you to sit with them at the basketball games. Remember the cards they sent you last fall when you were in the hospital with your hernia. The students at this school really like you, and they trust you, and they think you like them. You can’t turn around and do something mean to Jeff and Sally; why, none of the students would ever trust you again.” Dale stopped speaking long enough to sneeze. “Mr. Jersey,” she went on, “I just couldn’t bear it if you reported those kids. All the students in this school would be heartbroken; they think you are their friend. Listen, why don’t you just let me handle this. Let me take the responsibility. I’ll talk to them and make sure that they never do anything like this again. Oh, I’m sure they won’t. I’m sure they’ve learned their lesson. That’s the important thing. Oh, they are so young, Mr. Jersey, and something like this could ruin their lives forever. Surely you made a mistake when you were young; surely someone was generous and charitable to you at one time.” Dale sneezed again, and coughed. “Oh, Mr. Jersey, I would be so grateful if you would call your wife and get that hot toddy recipe for me. I feel just awful.”

  “Well,” Mr. Jersey said, and wiggled the handle of his mop. He looked as though he was not too sure he was not being had.

  “Mr. Jersey, you’re like a father to these students—or at least an uncle,” Dale said. She coughed.

  “All right,” Mr. Jersey said. “All right. I’ll let you take care of it. You’re a teacher, I’m just the custodian; you’ve been to college and you have faculty regulation books and code books; you should know what’s right. Okay. But if I ever catch them again—”

  “You won’t, I promise,” Dale said.

  “All right,” Mr. Jersey said. He looked at the closed door of the staff room with resignation. “I guess the kids would hate me if I got any of them in trouble,” he said. “And I’m too old to work at a place where the kids hate me. So you do whatever you think is right, and it’s all on your head. If anyone finds out about this, though, all the blame goes to you.”

 
; “Thank you,” Dale said. “Thank you very much, Mr. Jersey. I think you are terribly kind, and I’ll tell Jeff and Sally that, too. And I really would like the hot toddy recipe.”

  Mr. Jersey left his cart and mops on one side of the hall and went rather reluctantly off to phone his wife from the office phone. Dale went into the staff room to confront Jeff and Sally. By now they were completely dressed and smoothed out, and sitting in chairs far apart from each other. They looked absolutely sick. Dale was afraid on entering the room that Sally was going to throw up. For one brief moment she felt a flash of memory of those horrible adolescent years when she had felt like an adult but been treated like a child; when she had had to abide by everyone else’s rules and judgments.

  “Relax,” she said, and smiled and sat down in a chair. “It’s okay. I’ve talked with Mr. Jersey, and he’s not going to call anyone; he’s not going to tell anyone. He’s left it all up to me, and I’m not going to tell anyone. You’re both going to get off easy this time. All you have to do is listen to a lecture from me. I’m not going to tell the police or Mr. Hansen or even your parents. You are both old enough to know what you’re doing. On the other hand, I’m not so sure of that. This was a stupid place to pick. I mean the faculty lounge of the school? What on earth got into you?”

  “But we don’t have anyplace else to go,” Sally said, tears springing into her eyes. “There’s always someone at my house and his house, and we aren’t allowed to go out on school nights, and Jeff’s car is so little—”

  “We didn’t mean to be disrespectful,” Jeff said. “We didn’t think anyone would be here. We thought—”

  He left his sentence half finished, but Dale felt she could sense what he meant. They had thought, surely, of the luxury of lying together, fully unfolded and pressed against each other, on the comfort of the wide lounge sofa. Perhaps they had never had such a luxury before; their lovemaking had probably been confined to the impossible interiors of small cars and to the uneasy darkness of porches. And now it was cold. They could not even lie on the ground, on the beach, at the park.

  “Still,” Dale said, “you should have realized it could have gotten you into trouble. It did get you in trouble. It was a dumb thing to do. And”—she interrupted herself and looked seriously at Jeff and Sally in turn—”what are you doing about contraception?”

  Sally looked down at her hands. “Well, nothing,” she mumbled. “I mean we don’t—do it—that much. We don’t get to be together very often.”

  “It only takes one time,” Dale said. “Look, you’re both good kids. You’re good students. You’re smart. I don’t want to ruin your lives, and neither does Mr. Jersey. But you’ve got to make some promises to me—you owe me something. Do you understand that? If I keep quiet, and I’m going to, you have to promise me three things. You have to promise me that you will go to a clinic—there’s a good one in Portland—and get some sort of birth control. If you end up getting pregnant at seventeen, Sally, I’ll hate myself for not telling your parents now. So you get some sort of birth control, both of you, and tell me about it next week, or I’ll call your parents and let them take charge. Number two: Never get caught here or anywhere again. I know it’s hard, but you’ll just have to work something else out. Not everyone is going to be as kind and understanding as Mr. Jersey was. And you’d better keep that in mind and be super nice to Mr. Jersey. And three: Don’t you dare tell any of your friends about this episode. I could get into as much trouble as you for keeping this secret. I could lose my job. So don’t go around like a pair of smart-asses telling all your friends this funny story. It’s not a funny story. If you tell anyone, believe me I’ll tell someone, and you’ll be sorrier than I will. Is that all clear? Do you understand?”

  Sally burst into tears. “Oh, Miss Wallace,” she said. “Thank you so much. My parents would just kill me if they knew about this. I know it was stupid—but we’re in love.” And she raised up her sweet, still childish face and looked at Dale with desperation. Her face was shining with tears.

  “Try to talk to your parents, Sally,” Dale said. “You’d be surprised at how understanding parents can be. Or go see your minister. That is the best thing to do. Go see a minister, or even see our school counselor, Mr. Robertson. That’s what he’s here for. You’ll find that most old people like us really are sympathetic. We really will try to help. We really do have some advice to give. But use common sense. Don’t let being in love ruin your lives.” Dale sneezed. “Let’s go,” she said. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Thank you, Miss Wallace,” Jeff said awkwardly, rising from his chair. He was so gangly and intense and grateful and such a nice boy that Dale nearly cried with the pity of it all. “We’re really grateful,” he said. “And we’ll keep your three conditions. We’ll never get caught again, and we won’t tell anyone, and we’ll get some birth control.”

  “You get some birth control,” Dale said, taking Sally by the shoulders and looking at her. “I know Jeff loves you, but it’s your body, and you are in charge of your life. You have to be responsible. You have to take care of yourself.”

  “Okay,” Sally said. “Okay. I promise. I’ll do something. Maybe I’ll even talk to my mother. Or—oh, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what I’ve done next week.”

  “All right, then,” Dale said. “You’d both better go home now. And good luck. And if you let your grades drop, remember you’ll be in big trouble with me.” She smiled at the two students and opened the door for them.

  Jeff walked out first, muttering as he did, “Thank you, Miss Wallace.” But to Dale’s amazement, Sally stopped at the door and threw herself on Dale and wrapped her arms around her and put her head on Dale’s shoulder.

  “You’re so kind,” she said, crying. “This is so nice of you. How can I ever thank you? I was so scared.”

  Dale hugged Sally hard and felt tears come to her eyes at the feeling of the young girl’s grateful, beseeching embrace. She realized in a flash that now she would always care about this girl and the boy she loved; she would want to know what happened to them; she was now involved in their lives. She cared about their happiness, their futures.

  “Don’t be scared,” Dale said. “It’s okay. Love is okay. Just keep yourself in control. And I’m glad I could help.” She pushed the girl back slightly, and wiped the tears from Sally’s young face, and smiled at her. “Take care,” she said.

  The two students walked off down the hall out into the dark evening, and Dale returned to her classroom to finish the grading. She sat at her desk in a trance of competence, almost speeding through the remaining tests. When she had finished grading and was totaling up the scores and noting them in the gradebook, she was suddenly struck with what seemed to her to be an almost overwhelming observation. Most of the students had done well on the tests: She had taught them some of the basic rudiments of the French language. They would be able to use the language when they traveled; they would be able to perform well in college. She was teaching young people French. She was a teacher.

  A chill passed through Dale which had nothing to do with her cold. She looked up from her desk out at her empty classroom and was filled with a great warmth that she recognized as a mixture of hope and love and pride. She was a teacher, and this was her classroom, and she would have an influence on the world. She could teach young people, she could open up the world to them a bit, she could bring the world to them; she could help them. And all this meant something, all this mattered. All this was worth something in the world. All this was worth something to her.

  Suddenly restless with the force of her emotions, she rose from her desk and began to walk around her room, running her hands along the desks and chairs and windowsills as if those objects could receive and return her love. She had never felt this before in her life: that she was a competent person who could influence the world, who could matter, who could care. Always before it had seemed to her that teaching was merely a kind of employment, a respectable way to pass the time and make
money. But now she knew that she had been seized by the importance of her profession, by the significance of her work. She was a teacher. She was a good teacher. And she would be a good teacher all of her life—even when she had a cold, even when her own private life was uncertain—and that would sustain her. That would always sustain her.

  Dale hugged herself and laughed out loud. “My God,” she spoke aloud into the empty classroom, “this is like some kind of religious conversion.” She felt slightly embarrassed, and even as she walked about the classroom she knew that this high would wear off, that there would be days and weeks and months when she would feel cynical and depressed or simply just tired, but that still something had come over her, or something had entered into her, and she was changed.

  She went back to her desk and sorted tests and books and papers into their appropriate piles, then put on her hat and mittens—she was already wearing her parka—and gathered up her purse. As she flicked off the classroom lights she felt amused at the drama of her thoughts, but she would always remember this day, the tests, the cold, the boy and girl she had helped, and this empty classroom where she had learned how to experience a new and very rich sort of joy.

  Mr. Jersey was waiting for her at the end of the hall with the hot toddy recipe written down on a yellow lined sheet of tablet paper. She thanked him, and stood talking to him for a while, complimenting him for his kindness toward Jeff and Sally. Then she drove home, full of thoughts, full of energetic new plans for French and biology lessons. She almost ran up the stairs, still reliving her revelation. And when the phone rang and it was Hank, she almost could not speak to him, she almost for a long moment could not speak, she was so filled with the wonder of the sudden knowledge that she had gone so long without needing him, without even having him in her thoughts. She stood by the phone, talking to him, loving him, smiling—and loving herself at the same time.