The Wrong Kind of Woman

by Sarah McCraw Crow

  Virginia could see that Rebecca had her eye on the football-tossing college boys across the lodge, and Rebecca’s schoolmate Sydney leaned over and whispered something that made Rebecca blush and laugh.

  “Ready, Mom?” Rebecca said a minute later, in front of Virginia now, booted, hatted and smiling, as if she hadn’t just accused her mother of contributing to her father’s death.

  * * *

  As she and Rebecca went up the new chairlift, Virginia scanned the trails. The snow cover on Martin’s Ledge looked thin, despite the two snowstorms last week. She could see icy patches near the top of the trail, and the lift made a scary squeaking sound as they went upward. “Let’s just take it easy at first, okay?” Virginia said. “I’m a little out of practice.”

  “Sure, okay.” Rebecca kept her eyes on the skiers below them, probably looking for kids she knew.

  Virginia followed Rebecca’s lead, sliding off the lift as the summit rose up to them. Virginia stopped to adjust her goggles and Rebecca took off, heading straight down the expert trail that ran under the lift. Virginia let out a sigh and followed, trying to keep up with Rebecca, hugging the slope’s left side to avoid that big ice patch in the middle.

  Rebecca zipped around a curve and disappeared. Virginia sped up, tried to find a rhythm. Keep your skis together, Ginny, now put your weight on the outside ski, she could hear Oliver instructing her. Okay. This wasn’t so bad, and at least it wasn’t windy today. And the sun had come out. So what if she and Rebecca weren’t skiing together, so what if Rebecca was angry at her. That was all normal. Even kids who had two healthy parents got angry and pouty during adolescence. And at least they were out, attempting a little of a regular winter. They could do this every weekend until March. Yes. Everything would be okay.

  Something hit her head, knocking her ski hat loose. It didn’t hurt; it was just a bouncy hard something that had glanced off the side of her head. As she turned to see what had hit her, her ski caught an edge, and she lost her balance. She worked to get her balance back, but her other ski shot out in front and she went down hard, tumbling and tumbling, her shoulder banging hard into the snow, then her hip. She was going to die in a minute, and Rebecca would be an orphan.

  At last she slid into a heap, one ski off, poles gone. She’d stopped moving, at least, and she was still on the trail; she wasn’t dead and she hadn’t gone over the edge. She listened to her breath for a minute, then rolled over and pushed up to sitting. Was she hurt? She tried to assess. Hip, knee, ankle: they all throbbed and pinged with pain. Suddenly she was surrounded by college boys, those same boys from the lodge. One boy had gathered up her lost poles and ski, another was yelling for the ski patrol, and two others knelt next to her, peering into her eyes. “Are you—are you—”

  “I’m fine,” she said, annoyed now.

  “Jesus, Squirrel, you jackass,” one of them said.

  “Hey, I’m sorry, I never in a million years would have—”

  She tried to understand what they were saying. Two more had skied close; they wore red ski-patrol jackets, one towing a sled behind him.

  “We sometimes play football on the way down,” another boy apologized. “You know, to make it more of a challenge. The skiing’s not—”

  “Move it, Squirrel,” one of the ski-patrol boys said. “You’re going to get kicked out of the Ski Bowl for the rest of the season if you don’t rein it in. Shut up about it.”

  If her foot didn’t hurt so much, if she didn’t feel so humiliated and out of place, she would have laughed at the strangeness of being surrounded by frightened boys in their old-fashioned wool trousers, two of them hatless despite the cold. The two ski-patrol boys asked her name and age, and was she having trouble breathing, and what hurt? Her foot, or maybe her ankle, she said. And her knee and hip. She thought she’d answered normally, but she heard one of them saying something about shock into his walkie-talkie, and the other one said they’d take her down in the sled, to be on the safe side.

  She thought of Rebecca. Dear God, what if Rebecca saw her coming down the hill in the sled? She’d think the worst had happened.

  “My daughter,” she said, her voice a squeak. She swallowed back a sob. “She can’t see me in the—in this thing—she lost her dad last month, my—”

  “Ohhh,” one of the boys said. “Are you Professor Desmarais’s wife?”

  She nodded.

  One of them said they’d all ski in a tight group around the ski-patrol sled so no one could see who was in it. And down they went, Virginia strapped into the sled and covered with a scratchy wool blanket, headfirst and upside-down, bumping along, tears streaming from the cold. It was even more uncomfortable and scary than she’d imagined, and she tried to focus on the blue of the sky, the clear morning, on the trees whizzing by above her.

  * * *

  Rebecca was flying at last. She loved the first drop of Martin’s Ledge, a quick sharp plunge down that steep section that always had ice underneath, where you had to let yourself just go or you’d completely lose it. Plus you’d lose it right under the lift, which would be so embarrassing. For the first time in so long, she felt like herself. First day of skiing was always a mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar: in the lodge, the friendly sounds of people banging their boots on the floor to get their heels settled into them, and the smells of wet wool and hot chocolate. And that sense of being too bundled up, and then once you got outside and skate-skied over to the lift line, waiting your turn, the cold on your face and that nervous-but-good feeling before the first run.

  On the lift, Mom had asked question after question about the trails and the conditions, worrying about every little thing. Rebecca wanted to say, don’t worry, just ski and it will all be fine, but she didn’t; Mom was so touchy about everything, the most random little things made Mom cry. Well, Rebecca knew how that felt. The gray blankness of missing Dad lurked beneath the weirdness of being here with Mom today, and not Dad. She couldn’t remember why she’d been so mad at Mom a little while ago; maybe she should wait for Mom, tell her she was sorry.

  But she wanted to catch up to Sydney and Josh, who’d gotten on the lift when Rebecca was still waiting for Mom to catch up and get in line. Molly wasn’t here today, but skiing with Sydney and Josh would be okay. If she just skied a little faster down the rest of Martin’s, she could catch up and ski the rest of the morning with them. She’d yell down to Mom from the lift, and say she’d see her for lunch.

  In the lift line—it had taken her two runs of skiing fast down Martin’s to catch up with Sydney and Josh—she was about to get on the lift when she heard someone calling her name. She turned to see some Clarendon guy in a red ski-patrol jacket. He’d just come out of the lodge and he wasn’t on his skis.

  “Oooo, Rebecca’s got a boyfriend,” Sydney said, singsong, making a stupid joke. Then Rebecca knew, she just knew, that Mom had had an accident, that the injured person she’d seen from the lift a few minutes ago, strapped into the ski-patrol sled and getting towed downhill by the ski-patrol guys, was her own mother.

  Rebecca ducked under the rope, sliding toward the ski-patrol guy, tears stinging her eyes. Sydney was calling something to her, but she couldn’t answer.

  What if—what if—

  “Rebecca?” the ski-patrol guy said. “Come with me, your mom asked me—”

  “Is she—is she—”

  But he’d already turned and stomped away, expecting her to follow. She skied to the ski rack, struggled to unlatch her bindings, her fingers shaking, not working right, and then she ran after him, skidding down the slippery hill and into the first aid room.

  * * *

  “Virginia, right?” It was one of the moms from Rebecca’s school on volunteer duty in the first aid room. Barbie, yes, that was her name. Virginia’s head hurt, and it was too hot in here.

  “You look awful,” Barbie said, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m s
orry, I didn’t mean—it’s just that you’re a little green—” She stopped. “Let’s just get your boots off and see.”

  As Barbie tugged at Virginia’s left ski boot, the pain in her foot sparked and shot up her leg, making her growl as the boot came off.

  “Something’s sprained,” Barbie said, lifting the swollen ankle. “Maybe broken. You’ll have to go in and get it looked over.”

  Rebecca was in the door a minute later, her hat off, hair every which way, with two more college ski-patrol boys. Rebecca’s eyes were too big and she started to cry, clomping forward in her ski boots. Virginia smoothed Rebecca’s staticky lank hair, Rebecca leaning into her and snuffling into her jacket.

  “I thought you were—” Rebecca said. “I thought—”

  “Shh, I’m fine,” Virginia said. “It’s probably just a sprain. Nothing big. I got hit in the head with a football and I lost my balance. Crazy, huh? Those crazy boys.”

  “Those Phi Rhos, they think they’re Kennedys or something with that football,” one of the ski-patrol boys said.

  It was Sam Waxman, from her fall class, Italian Baroque art. She couldn’t avoid her failure as a teacher; wherever she went, it followed her. “I didn’t know you were on the ski patrol,” she said, to stop her stream of thoughts. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Just once every two weeks now. I don’t have as much time this year as I used to.”

  “Could you do us a favor?” Virginia asked. “Could you find someone to drive us to the hospital?”

  “Sure. My shift’s about done, and I can drive your car if you want. Be right back.” Sam turned and clomped out of the first aid room.

  “Mom,” Rebecca hissed, “I don’t want to ride with a college guy! Why can’t we get a mom to drive us?”

  “It’s fine, Bec.” She kept doing the wrong thing.

  Chapter Five

  Clarendon Hall was a plain and drafty building—the offices on the north side needed space heaters in winter. Two hundred years ago, Clarendon Hall had housed the entire school. Now it was home to history, sociology, anthropology and government, the four departments shoehorned into cramped offices on the upper floors.

  As usual, Louise was five minutes early for the department meeting, and as usual the others were late. Garland had put off their December meeting, what with Oliver’s death and everyone having to scramble, and then the holidays. The others dribbled into the seminar room, taking their usual spots, and leaving Oliver’s chair empty.

  Garland passed around the carbon copies of the agenda and called the meeting to order. “A moment of silence for our departed colleague, Oliver Desmarais,” he said.

  Louise bowed her head, her eyes coming to rest on the x’s and v’s that some Clarendon boy had scratched into the wood of the Harkness table. A renovation from decades ago had tried to give the seminar room an Oxbridgian look, with dark paneling and leaded glass, all wrong for this clapboard and brick building. In the silence, she gazed around: Garland was wiping his nose with his hankie; Fred leaned on an elbow, hand lifted to cover his eyes; Randolph had bowed his head, eyes closed, seeming to pray. It was as if the others had only just noticed that Oliver was gone.

  Garland cleared his throat with a rumble, cleared it again. “Sore throat. Say, Louise, would you mind?” He tapped the agenda, and she took over, asking if everyone had read the minutes. Any changes?

  * * *

  Louise asked Randolph to discuss old business, her mind drifting. She regretted the way things had gone with Oliver. They should have been friends—they’d been hired around the same time, and they shared the same politics, more or less. They’d had a kind of sparring relationship, Oliver sputtering and reddening whenever she called him on an inconsistency. A year or two ago, Oliver had asked her if she’d mind reading some pages for him, flattering her. He needed an incisive, fresh eye on his work, he’d said, not a muttonhead like Randolph. Oliver’s work felt outdated, since he was still working over a book he’d started too many years ago. But he was a clear writer, and she’d been tempted to say that his subject—da Vinci’s last days, spent in the company of the young French king, overseeing a fantasy of a hunting lodge—could make a terrific novel. Instead she’d only tinkered around the edges, found a few things to compliment, made some suggestions. She’d felt obligated to return the request, to ask him to read her own pages, but she hadn’t wanted to. In the end, she’d chosen a short article about breaking the color bar in the trade unions, and his comments, though sometimes fussy and focused on tiny things like serial commas, were helpful enough.

  The meeting moved on to the business of hiring Oliver’s replacement. Search committee, Garland’s agenda noted. As usual, no one volunteered. “No one?” Louise asked. They all looked at her, eyebrows raised and expectant, as if she were their mother. This was how you got ahead if you were a woman: you volunteered for every stupid assignment, every single subcommittee and you did it all well. Flawlessly. Then soon enough you found that your colleagues expected that you’d do it, whatever it was. Naturally, she volunteered, and when Garland stared at Fred, since he was the newest one in the department, Fred slowly raised a hand. “Er, and perhaps Mrs. Marshall?” Garland asked. “To help with the mailings and such.” Fine, Mrs. Marshall, who was an overeducated secretary. Two women and a man. An opening, Louise realized. Maybe they’d hire a woman this time, maybe at last she’d have a friend, a true equal, in the department.

  Boxes, volunteers, Garland’s next item on the agenda. A few more boxes needed to go to Oliver’s widow. Louise debated whether to assign this task to Randolph. Randolph had hired Oliver, and he was the most senior of their little department. She wondered if Randolph had any idea how much she detested him, how she counted the days until his retirement, how she wished he would drop dead. She wondered if he retained any memory of that night, ten years ago now. “Randolph?” she said, aiming for a sweet tone, or something approximating it. But Randolph didn’t answer her, just stared at Fred, much as Garland had done a few minutes before. “Bruce and I will do it,” Fred said.

  “Sure,” Bruce said. “No sweat.”

  The slow pace of the meeting was excruciating. They managed to get the minimum done, pushing other business back to next month. If Louise were in charge, she’d run everything differently. Before she took over, though, she’d find a way to tell them a few things. She’d tell them that she could feel them working hard to be cordial to her, and that it wore on her, the way they didn’t bother to hide their continuing surprise at her presence. She could feel them judging her clothing choices, her hair, even her shoes. Wanting to comment on her looks, or lack thereof, and her lack of fashion, while inwardly congratulating themselves for refraining from comment. She could see all that, and it wore on her.

  * * *

  On Wednesday, Corinna Beacon phoned. Virginia hadn’t spoken to Corinna beyond a hello-how-was-your-summer at the October faculty parties. She found it easier to talk to the faculty wives instead of the Gang of Four. “I heard about your injury,” Corinna said, and Virginia answered that she was fine and they had plenty of meals, but thanks for calling.

  “Very good, but we were thinking you could use a night out,” Corinna said. “With us—Helen, Lily, Louise, me. Take your mind off things.”

  “Ah,” Virginia said. Dinner with the Gang of Four. “Thanks, it’s just that my ankle is still a little—and I hate to leave Rebecca—”

  “We were thinking a week from Friday,” Corinna said, ignoring Virginia’s half-hearted excuses.

  Virginia had no real reason to refuse, since Rebecca had started babysitting on Friday nights for the Paretskys’ girls. She couldn’t say, Louise has a swelled head and I’d rather not have dinner with her.

  “I’d love to,” she said. “Thanks, Corinna.”

  “Great, I’ll pick you up. Six thirty.”

  Louise had been promoted too soon, Oliver used to say, and
her areas were a hodgepodge—Southern rural history, plus urban history and now, apparently, women’s history, which, it went without saying, made no sense for a school like Clarendon. Being the only woman at Clarendon with tenure had gone to her head, Oliver said.

  But Oliver wasn’t in competition with Louise, Virginia had reminded him—they couldn’t even teach the same survey classes. Louise was just prolific, that was probably what got Oliver’s goat. She’d published more than the others in the department. She’d gotten grants to spend the summer in historical societies in Mississippi and Alabama. Last year, she’d won the teaching award; Oliver said it was because the American survey course was a reliably big class, and one of the required distributive classes. Virginia imagined Louise taking charge of Clarendon Hall, the sixty boisterous young men silenced by the sheer force of her personality.

  “And frankly, she’s a show-off,” Oliver had said, about the award. “It’s because of Michigan and Berkeley. If she’d gone to Harvard she wouldn’t be grandstanding in front of students like that. She’d have more finesse.”

  Virginia had forgotten all about Louise then, had only been annoyed at his narrow-mindedness. “Your snobbery is showing.” She’d turned to head upstairs.

  “That’s not—you’re misunderstanding—” The phone rang while he was still talking, and Virginia sat in the upstairs phone nook and pretended to listen to Momma chattering on about the delightful new young rector at St. Luke’s. Virginia glared down the stairs in case Oliver happened to wander by.

  Well. Oliver hadn’t apologized for his snooty statement, hadn’t said, I know that women can’t be Harvard men, I realize that a Radcliffe degree isn’t the same. She’d let it go, though she’d played out the argument in her head a few more times, rehearsing how she’d answer if he brought it up again.