No people, no buildings. No churches, no schools. No meetings, no books. No theories. If he stayed here long enough, refrained from thinking, casted off his memories, fasting, he would become part of this, he told Siddy in his mind, feeling a little crazy and longing for the presence of his son. Maybe Mendoza had been wrong, his offered potion wasn’t Francis’s last chance after all, maybe this potential hermitage is yet another.
“Jeez, Dad, get a life!” said Siddy, red-faced with embarrassment, and then melted, and now Francis wondered if he could find his car, remembering stories about people dying in the desert. He waited, recalling what Peggy would say about being open to the grace that comes, for isn’t that what happens in the desert, the spirit’s livening as the body struggles not to die? But grace didn’t come and all he felt was agitation. He couldn’t sit still. He gave up, rose, trudged, found the side bank immediately, discovered the disappointment of the lost fear, the car looming above him in the dark. As he neared it he heard the ticking of the cooling metal.
In an hour, Francis was in Winnemucca: red neon, smell of frying meat, yellow glow that tried to dim the stars, straight streets that ended. He was falling asleep, couldn’t drive anymore. So he gave up.
The motel room was pink. The double bed was reflected in a mirror that covered one wall, there was a condom machine in the bathroom, it took him forever to peel the plastic wrap from the plastic glass so he could have a drink, the taste of chlorine mixed with the smell of the disinfectant they’d cleaned the room with, the air conditioner hummed full blast, and it was freezing in the room. It wasn’t in him to understand that he could adjust the temperature on the air conditioner, so he got on the bed with all his clothes on, pulled the polyester blankets up to his chin, noticing the tiny sparks they gave off when they rubbed against his hands, and fell asleep.
And dreamed: his ancestor, semi-famous Divine, the founder of a town, the beginning of a line—a man whose portrait Francis’s father had loved, and stood below to lecture him—had come weirdly down out of his frame above the mantelpiece from where his eyes followed wherever you went and stood now glowering over the bed in this pink motel room in Nevada. His pudgy, sanctimonious hands lay there, one on a Bible, the other lying open on his rounded stomach. He wanted to know what Francis was doing acting like a naked redskin savage in a sweat house miles from home and wife and work.
Francis opened one eye and winked. “If you have to ask, you’ll never know,” he said, quoting Louis Armstrong, and woke up laughing.
Bolt upright on the bed, he was amazed at his answer—and stunned by the lightness he felt. He’d made the right decision: He was rushing home to heal his marriage, protect his reputation, and save the school. He didn’t have to defend himself to anyone! In the very early morning he started driving again.
THREE NIGHTS LATER, past midnight, Peggy opened the door to Francis’s knock. He was standing in the doorway, a suitcase in each hand. Levi was standing on his hind legs, trying to lick his face.
Peggy grabbed Levi’s collar and tugged him back into the house. “Hi,” she said. “Come in.” Like welcoming a neighbor who’d come across the lawn to borrow a cup of sugar.
He was in the house now, the two suitcases side by side where he’d left them on the welcome mat. “Peg,” he said and reached out. But his arms were tentative and she stayed back.
“Have you eaten?” she asked.
“Not hungry.”
“Sure you are,” she said. “It’s the middle of the night. You have to be.” If she could be busy making a sandwich and he busy eating it, it would make this easier. She went into the kitchen and he followed, almost tripping over Levi, who was banging against his legs.
Peggy opened the refrigerator door, bent down, looked in. “I’m really not hungry,” he insisted. She stood up, holding a plate of cold cuts in one hand and faced him. He stepped across the little space between them, touched her face and hugged her. She put one arm around his shoulder but kept her other stiff, still holding the plate.
“Half a hug is all I get?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t put the plate down either. For now, she thought. It wasn’t just that she was angry; it wasn’t just that she was sad. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, she wanted to say. I don’t know how to act when I feel like this.
She was relieved when Levi didn’t follow them into the bedroom. She didn’t want Francis to know where their dog had been sleeping. They turned their backs to each other when they undressed. Then Francis lay down stiffly next to her on the bed. She turned the light out. He didn’t move, and neither did she. “Peg,” he said into the dark. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t answer. He hadn’t turned to her; he’d said the words straight up at the ceiling.
“I’m home, Peg. It’s all right now. And tomorrow, I’ll go see Fred Kindler. I’ll work it out with him.”
She heard him draw a breath, was sure he was going to explain. “Good,” she said. “I’m glad of that. And I’m glad you’re home, I really am. But don’t ever try to tell me why you went away. What you were looking for. I’d rather have my head in the sand.” Then she waited in the silence, hoping he’d insist on explaining anyway.
“I wasn’t going to try,” he said at last.
She knew he didn’t want to turn his back to her, and neither did she to him. So they both lay on their backs, not touching, and after a while she drifted off to sleep.
SEVEN
The first thing Francis did early the next morning was call Fred Kindler’s office and ask for a meeting. He was surprised when Kindler answered instead of Margaret Rice. He didn’t know yet that now the headmaster got in before the secretary.
“Wait a sec,” Kindler said, “you don’t mean today. You’re in California!”
“No, I’m not. I’m home.”
“Really! You’re home? What happened? You all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right.”
Silence from Kindler
“Really, I’m fine.”
“And you want to talk?”
“Yes.”
“Good!”
“I mean it,” Francis persevered, assuming that Kindler was being sarcastic. “I want to talk.”
“So do I.” Kindler responded. Francis was taken aback. He was wrong: There was no sarcasm in Kindler’s tone.
“Mr. Plummer?” Fred said softly. He’d had time since San Francisco to think about what had happened there. He’d explained to himself that Francis Plummer was just a better speaker than he was, that’s all. And he hadn’t arrived late because he wanted to show the new headmaster up; he was late because he’d been at Miss Oliver’s all his life, where everybody was always late, and then he stayed in the back of the room because he was embarrassed. Fred’s resentment still boiled when he heard inside his head Mr. Bradford’s loud question: Why didn’t they make him the head, for Christ’s sake? But Fred was a grown-up; he understood these things. He’d tamped his resentment down so he could receive the message: If people think Francis Plummer should be the headmaster, then make Francis Plummer his partner. “Mr. Plummer, you there?” he asked again.
“I’ll be right over,” Francis told him.
With Fred Kindler’s surprisingly friendly tone ringing in his head, Francis was full of hope as he crossed the campus toward Kindler’s office. Francis Plummer, aka Clark Kent, was home again where he belonged, and where he’d always known exactly what to do.
But the first thing he saw as he entered the headmaster’s office was a huge Mickey Mouse wristwatch on the wall behind Fred Kindler’s desk. Its fake straps extended all the way from the ceiling to the big, round figure of Mickey in the middle and then down to the floor. And next to this dipsy timepiece was a floor-to-ceiling computer printout of an exclamation point.
For all his good intentions, Francis was appalled. He couldn’t remember a time before he had started to hate this cornball little rodent and all his cutesy friends, romance stealers of his youth. In his boyhood
he’d been a Phantom freak, a Batman worshiper. Who could want a mouse? He knew it was silly to be so put off by a mere office decoration, but there was a certain style at Miss Oliver’s, a certain way of being that said what the school was in ways that words could never say. And this just wasn’t it!
Fred Kindler stood up quickly, came around his desk toward Francis, stuck his hand out. “Welcome back, Mr. Plummer. It’s good to see you.”
They shook. Kindler’s hand was very firm. “I really appreciate your wanting to talk,” he said, and they sat down, facing each other in the two chairs in front of Kindler’s desk. Francis squelched the urge to make the space between himself and Kindler bigger.
“I’d like to get something off my chest right away,” Kindler said.
Francis was sure that Kindler was going to tell him it was wrong of him to go to California when he was needed at school. I’ll agree, Francis thought. I won’t defend myself.
“That was a great speech you made,” Fred Kindler said. Francis was too surprised to answer. “Thanks to that speech, we got the three girls who attended.”
“We did?” Francis said, pretending surprise.
“Yes, we did. We didn’t get any in Chicago, and we didn’t get any in St. Louis. Philadelphia netted exactly one, and Boston two, and I’m sure Peggy’s told you what happened in Cleveland.”
Francis kept his face blank. Kindler was the last person in the world he wanted to know how little he and Peg were talking. He didn’t have the foggiest idea what had happened in Cleveland.
“She did tell you what happened?”
“Not yet. I just got home.”
Fred nodded to cover his surprise, then realized he was not surprised. But he was embarrassed: He hadn’t meant to look as if he were prying. As briefly as he could, he told Plummer what had happened in the Maynards’ house in Shaker Heights. He skipped the part about how Peggy got up and told everyone that Marjorie Boyd left of her own free will. That would just make Plummer angry. But he did want to warm Plummer up by telling him how much he admired his wife. So he made it very clear how thoroughly Peggy had blown the lady in the red dress right out of the water when she asked if he were going to let boys in. “She saved the day,” Fred said. “She was wonderful.”
What Francis heard was miles away from Fred Kindler’s intent. He thought Kindler was rubbing it in how much more admirably Peggy had been acting than he had. Francis was ready to admit he should have stayed home. But he wasn’t ready to hear Kindler go on and on about it. Now the humiliation of Peggy’s having to beg Kindler to let him participate in San Francisco rankled more than ever. Just thinking about it made him angry all over again.
“I wish we had some more recruiting events to do,” Kindler went on. “If I’d known you were coming home so early, I would have scheduled at least two of them for later.”
“Now that you know I’m not a traitor?” Francis blurted.
Fred was surprised. Where did that come from? “No. Now that I know how good a recruiter you are.”
Francis waited for Kindler to say more. He wanted to hear Kindler apologize for making Peggy beg.
“I never thought you were a traitor,” Fred said.
Francis still waited.
But Fred, who didn’t have even an inkling that Francis assumed Peggy had to beg for him, wasn’t about to let Francis know that the person he should be angry with was Nan White, not him, first for advising him not to invite Francis, then for standing by the decision, then for changing her mind. Fred Kindler was the head. He didn’t pass the buck. “Traitor’s not the word,” he said. “I could get a little irritated for your suggesting that I thought it was.”
All right, Francis thought. He’s not going to do it; he just doesn’t have the guts to clear the air.
“As a matter of fact, I could get more than a little irritated,” Fred Kindler said, because clearing the air was exactly what he was trying to do. “It was perfectly reasonable for me to assume that having been here for thirty-three years, intensely loyal to Mrs. Boyd and as her right-hand person, you might well have been a little too uncomfortable with the change.”
“To be a good recruiter,” Francis finished bitterly.
“That’s right,” Fred Kindler agreed. His tone was mild and matter-of-fact. “That’s what I thought. I’m glad I changed my mind.”
Francis heard the generosity of that remark and forced himself to accept it. “Well, I’m home now. I’m here.” He needed this meeting to succeed as much as Kindler did.
“I’m glad you are,” Fred said, and then added, “I hope everything’s all right.”
“It is and it isn’t. I’m glad to be home. But the dig failed,” Francis said, sharing his news to nurture this friendly tone—though he didn’t share that he was beginning to feel relieved that they didn’t find the village, especially the burial ground. What would they have done with the bones? “We ran out of time,” he said.
“So soon!”
So Francis told the story of what had happened. He said nothing about his spiritual quest that he’d abandoned for his marriage’s sake; and he downplayed Mendoza’s incompetence as much as he could. He felt a surprising loyalty to Mendoza, wanted to protect him.
Fred saw right through Francis’s defense of Mendoza—and liked him for it. “Poor Mendoza,” he said. “Such an interesting man. All he needed was a little administrative help.”
Once again, Francis had been slapped in the face. He assumed that Kindler was telling him that not only did he fail as the head’s right-hand man but as Mendoza’s too.
Fred had no idea that he’d insulted Francis. It never even crossed his mind to think of Francis as an administrator. “Well, anyway, I hope you had an interesting time,” he said.
“It was a good experience,” Francis lied.
“That’s one of the things I miss from when I was a teacher,” Kindler said, “the long summer.” Francis nodded again.
“But by the time the summer was half over, I was always itchy to get back.”
“Yes, that happens,” Francis murmured.
“I had a nice talk with your wife about that just that a week or so ago,” Fred said, still trying hard. God, this guy was hard to talk to!
Francis nodded again. “That’s nice” was all he could think of to say. He tried hard to focus, but he soon lost track of what Kindler was saying because he was still burning about Kindler’s administrator remark. And besides, he was still waiting for the chance to say what he came here to say: that he knew it was a mistake to go away; that he really was back on track, ready to go, he could be counted on. If he could get that off his chest, he’d be fine again. He saw Kindler’s lips move under the red mustache, heard his voice, but the shape of the words was indistinct and distant. Like the far-off quacking of ducks.
“Of course, we weren’t really talking about her because she was quite busy here all summer,” Fred said, and immediately regretted it. Plummer would take it as a dig. Maybe it is a dig, he thought. Maybe I can’t help it.
“Who?” asked Francis. When he saw the surprise on Kindler’s face, he caught on. He knew now, but it was too late.
“Why, your wife,” Kindler said. “Peggy. That’s who we were talking about.”
“Oh! Of course,” Francis mumbled. Whom, he wanted to say. Whom we were talking about. “Yes, she was very busy,” he said out loud.
“May I get you a cup of coffee?” Fred asked, drifting now from irritation to worry. Maybe Plummer was cracking up. Plummer shook his head. “Tea? Water? Anything?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
There was a silence, and then Fred resumed. “Well, you certainly weren’t bored either. Can’t wait to hear you talk to the students about it. You and Lila Smythe.”
“She did better than I,” Francis confessed. “She threw herself into it.”
“Oh?” Fred Kindler leaned forward in his chair. Now their knees were almost touching. “It must have been tough not to find the village. Especially for
Lila.” Fred was genuinely interested. He’d finally gotten this conversation rolling!
“For her it was,” Francis said. “She never doubted until the end. While I just felt silly a lot of the time.”
Fred leaned even further forward, frowning slightly, intently interested. “I think I understand,” he said. He sensed the hunger in Francis, how unassuaged it was, and discovered a deepening respect. It was a good surprise.
On the verge of intimacy, Francis hesitated. He wanted to spill his feelings, get them outside himself, find their validation—the way he could with Father Woodward, and could with Lila, who, before he lost her, understood him instantly. But he was not ready to share with Kindler what he couldn’t even explain to Peggy. He shrugged his shoulders and looked away.
Fred leaned back in his chair, disappointed. “Some other time, maybe,” he murmured. “I’d really be very interested.” He looked at his watch. “Right now let’s talk.”
“All right. Let’s,” Francis agreed. The moment for sharing was gone. He already regretted that.
“Now that Mrs. Boyd is gone, you are the embodiment of this school,” Fred began. “You symbolize it for everybody, the alumnae, the students. More than anybody. Surely more than me—the newcomer.”
Francis looked past Kindler to the monstrous watch on the wall. More than I, he thought. Not me. I.
“I need your help. We need to work together, it’s as plain as that.”
“Listen,” Francis interrupted. “That’s what I came in here to say. I want to work with you—and you didn’t have to ask. That’s why I came home so fast—that and to be with my wife. I will do anything you want except—” Francis wanted to say it: except help you bring in boys, but he hesitated, and Kindler cut him off.
“Let’s not get to the exceptions,” he said. “Not now. Because if we do this right, there won’t be any.”
“All right,” Francis said.
“Good,” Fred said. Then, softening his voice: “I think I understand how difficult this change must be for you. I really do.”
Saving Miss Oliver's Page 14