“And I’m just saying that we all gotta do our part, and make it bigger, more pervasive, so everyone will get it, you dig?” Hank said.
“No, man, I don’t,” Jerry said. “But if you want to look at it that way, I did my part. I didn’t have much choice about it. But now I do, and I’m out of here.” He pushed up to standing and stomped upstairs without another word.
“You of all people know this has gone on too long,” Elodie called up to Jerry, but Jerry was gone.
Sam argued with himself. If he said he was in, for real this time, he’d have access to Elodie. They’d drive to New York together, she’d need him, she’d admire his dedication to the cause, and maybe she’d finally fall for him. But Hank sounded too heated, as Jerry had said, and there was something sinister in that word, operation. He felt himself standing up, even as he was still deciding. “I need to get back,” he said, and the others turned to stare up at him.
“Now? You just got here.” Hank shook his head. “I knew we shouldn’t have let this guy—”
“You don’t need to worry about me.” Sam didn’t want to know any more, and he didn’t want the others to know what a fool he’d been.
“Have a little faith, Hank,” Elodie said.
“Hey, but we appreciate your work, you dig?” Hank said.
“Sure, man.” Sam put a hand up to wave goodbye, then turned to go. He heard Elodie following him out of the room.
“Hey. I miss seeing you,” Elodie said, in the mudroom. “Can we get together sometime?”
“I don’t understand,” Sam said. Anger and confusion welled up, and he tried to figure out how to express himself without yelling or starting to cry. “We had something, at least I thought we did,” he managed to say. “And then I see you kissing Jerry on the green, and now—”
“That was just a goodbye kiss. That was—” She stopped, crossed her arms over her chest, like any girl hearing what she didn’t want to hear. “You and I had something. But I’ve got to stay focused right now because things are happening. That’s what I came to tell you, Sam. I think you want to be part of it too.”
He wrestled with the flurry of conflicting feelings that leaped up, one after the other, into his throat, circling through his heart and gut. He wanted to be brave; he wanted to be normal. He remembered the farmer’s job request, and he took the paper out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. He went out the door, shutting it quietly behind him.
He crossed the driveway to the road, as quiet now as if it were the middle of the night. The silence and emptiness made this edge of Westfield feel vast and strange and far away. He started to walk, sticking to the edge of the road, listening for cars. The day’s summery weather had fled, leaving behind a cold, clear New Hampshire spring night, and from time to time he looked up at the pricks of stars all around him. Eventually he took in a blurry band of light that must be the Milky Way, a cloud of stars, a galaxy’s worth of endless stars. Westfield was good for stargazing, you had to give it that.
* * *
Midday, Virginia opened the front door to a policeman. No, not a policeman, but the stretchy gray uniform of campus security. A moment of fear flitted through her gut—something with Rebecca? But Rebecca was upstairs in the shower—Virginia had slept poorly last night after all that alcohol, and this morning had woken up as late as Rebecca. She shook her head to clear it.
The security officer gave his name, and she gave hers. Oliver would have known the man’s name, would have shaken the man’s hand and known some key detail about him, his love for fishing, maybe. The officer looked to be near retirement age, his belly pushing at the gray knit shirt. Did she mind if he came in for a minute, just a few routine questions, he said.
She offered him coffee as she showed him into the living room. He sat, his cap propped next to him on the couch.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Desmarais. Always enjoyed talking to Professor D.”
She thanked him, as she tried to imagine what had brought him here.
“And I’m sorry to barge in like this, but we’ve got to follow up. It’s a national thing, really. Nothing to take personally.”
“What should I not take personally?” She felt something go plunging inside her. The frat they’d danced in last night, that was why he was here. She’d held hands with that kid, she’d twirled and swooped, acted like a complete idiot.
“We have word that some women, er, faculty, were trying to start a protest in one of the frats. Just following up on that tip.”
Thank God Oliver wasn’t here. But if he were here, he’d be the one to talk, to defend her honor. Of course, if Oliver were here, she wouldn’t have gone to the frat last night, and it had been Oliver’s frat after all. And she wouldn’t be friends with Corinna or Lily or Helen. Or Louise.
“Oh, no, there’s been a misunderstanding,” she said. “We happened to walk by after dinner and went in for a minute to dance. That’s all. You see, they were playing...” she trailed off. She sounded like a silly, thoughtless girl, and he wouldn’t care about the music.
“Nothing to worry over. I got your name from Miss Beacon.” Corinna. He bent to write something in a steno notebook with a stubby pencil, but he didn’t seem particularly interested in her answers.
“Right, of course.” She decided to tell him that they were inside the frat for ten or fifteen minutes, maybe less, until one of the young men, who was quite inebriated—she heard herself sounding like Momma—got rather belligerent, and so they all left the fraternity right then.
“Okay then.” He folded the notebook closed. “We’re trying to help out the Westfield police. Everyone’s a little on edge these days. Things can get out of hand, like at that radical women’s meeting, and then that college performance where the protesters interrupted and we had to be called in. Trying to stay on top of every lead.”
Virginia felt herself blushing, as if he’d been talking about her in particular. She should smile and nod, say nothing more and steer him out of the house. But he was wrong, and she needed to tell him that. “The women at that meeting weren’t radical,” she said. “They were talking about women’s health care and women’s work. That sort of discussion is hardly unusual for a college campus.”
He smiled at her as if she really were that silly, thoughtless girl. “From what I heard, the common denominator for both those events was the protesters. They may not mean to stir things up, but they do.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice. “The thing is, there are groups out there that want to take advantage, wreak havoc. We have to keep an eye out, in case they’re active in Westfield. Trying our best to watch out, to prevent the violence before it happens.”
“What kind of groups?”
He shrugged. “All kinds. Commies, radicals, SDS, you name it.”
“In Westfield? At Clarendon?” Westfield was nothing like Chicago, or Kent State, but she’d said too much already.
“You never know. But I thank you for seeing things clearly.” He hoisted himself up to standing, and so did she.
“Thank you too.” She walked him to the door, playing the role of calm, concerned matron, her insides churning. With that frat visit, she’d screwed everything up for Louise. And maybe Corinna and Helen and Lily too.
“I miss seeing him around campus,” the officer said at the door. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Desmarais.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lately Rebecca felt like a part of her had cracked open, and if she tipped even a little, all the hideousness inside would come spilling out. She was tired of being lonely, tired of being someone who couldn’t make a new friend. She was tired of the way Molly acted nice one day, distant the next. Somehow she wasn’t cool enough for Molly yet also not correct enough. Molly had given her a bottle of Jean Naté for her fourteenth birthday, but had never asked what Rebecca was planning, even though Rebecca had her answer all worked out, Oh, you know, ju
st dinner with Mom, no party. You know, since Mom’s still kind of sad and all. Which was false. Busy with her new job, Mom still would have said “Yes, let’s do it,” if Rebecca had uttered the word “party.” But Molly had never asked, only left the gift in Rebecca’s locker.
At midmorning break she decided to talk to Josh, who happened to be standing alone by the soda and snack machines. Josh was finishing a pack of peanut butter Nabs. Not her favorite flavor, but none of those Nab crackers were very good.
“Hey, Josh,” she said.
“Hey, yourself.” Orangey peanut butter coated one of his top teeth. “Do you want to study for the world history test together?” he asked. “I have seventh period free, no practice today.”
“Yeah, okay,” she said, surprised at his invitation. “Uh, library?” She felt a blush coming on; when kids sat together in the library during seventh period, it meant they were going together. “Or how about Mrs. Dorfman’s classroom?” Mrs. Dorfman, Rebecca’s homeroom teacher, was the coolest eighth-grade teacher. Mrs. Dorfman taught English, and she had the usual Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson posters with poems on them, plus photos of Robert Frost’s farm in Derry and Emily Dickinson’s house that she’d taken herself. And a photo of some bearded guy reading a poem in a bookstore. City Lights, 1957, it said under the photo. Mrs. Dorfman’s room had a reading corner with beanbags and a rainbow-colored braided rug, as if they were all back in first grade. But Mrs. Dorfman wanted kids to feel free to come in and rap with her, do their homework, whatever.
“Okay,” he said. “See you then.”
* * *
She got to Mrs. Dorfman’s classroom before Josh. Maybe no other kids would show up, so she and Josh could just study and talk. She didn’t want anyone making kissing noises as if she and Josh were in love, or looking at her like she was a freak.
“Hello there, Rebecca,” Mrs. Dorfman called from her desk, and for a minute Rebecca wished it was just her and Mrs. Dorfman, sitting in the beanbag chairs. She loved the way Mrs. Dorfman enthused about stories and poetry without being fake. She loved Mrs. Dorfman’s boots and her short knit dresses and her long hair, which she didn’t bother to straighten. Some days Mrs. Dorfman’s curls looked a little crazy. Maybe Rebecca would have long curly hair like that when she was older.
“Hi, Mrs. Dorfman.” She felt her face warm up—she couldn’t say that she was about to meet Josh so no one in the library would see them. “Okay if I study in here? Josh asked for help with world history.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Dorfman smiled, but not a smirky I-know-what-you-kids-are-up-to smile.
Rebecca plopped herself down in a beanbag chair, and decided to get her diagramming homework out of the way. She didn’t hate diagramming sentences the way everyone else did. It was like a puzzle, and you got to make a little drawing, which was fun. She finished the last sentence; good, that was done. But no Josh. She looked up at the clock: seventh period was more than half over. Maybe he’d signed out and left school early, since he didn’t have practice today. Maybe he’d only been making fun of her. Or maybe—
“Sorry I’m late,” Josh said, in front of her now. “Mr. Beasley wanted some of us to help clean up the dugouts.” He was a little sweaty around the temples and he shook his head sharply to get his hair off his face, the way a wet dog would do.
“No problem.” Another blush crept from her chest to her neck and ears. She grabbed her notebook and history book from her stack of stuff on the rug, while he sank onto another beanbag and looked at her expectantly. His eyes were green, not brown, she noticed.
“Okay,” she said. “Start at the beginning of chapter fourteen?”
He nodded, tugged his textbook out of his backpack. His smile looked a little bit scared. “I didn’t do so great on the last test. I hate this class.”
“Yeah,” she said, not wanting to admit that she loved this class. She was such a dork. But maybe she could help him.
After fifteen or so minutes of quizzing each other, the bell clanged its shrill end-of-day sound. “You want to walk around Westfield on Saturday?” Josh said. “Maybe with Todd and Molly?”
She felt her face heat up again. “Uh, sure, I guess.” God, she sounded so wishy-washy. “Molly and I are—” But she wasn’t going to get into any of that. “Sure. I’ll talk to Molly.”
“I’ll talk to Todd. Thanks for the studying,” he said, even though they’d only studied for fifteen minutes and she couldn’t imagine it would be much help for the next test.
* * *
Turning onto Flintlock Street, she and Molly started the long downhill walk toward the campus. It felt almost like a summer Saturday, the sky pink and blue and gray, like it might rain later. “Holy Moses,” Molly sang, the way they used to do, one of them singing a line of a song. Everything felt cool as they walked and sang Elton John, as if she and Molly were back to the way they used to be. Except for the four cigarettes she had in her jacket pocket, which she’d taken out of Dad’s desk this morning. She stopped singing. “So is this a date?”
Molly shrugged. “I don’t know. Dates are for Kath and Lacey. You know, like a movie date or prom night.”
“Right.” She’d thought about Josh too much, imagining going to a movie, where they’d have to sit close together in the dark, and he might do that dumb thing that boys did, faking a casual yawn and stretch, then draping an arm around the unsuspecting girl. She wouldn’t mind that; Josh was a nice guy, and he was cute, with dimples. He’d acted polite and normal when they studied together.
They approached the Clarendon green, where Josh and Todd sat on a bench waiting. Molly picked up her pace, and Rebecca did too, flipping her hair from side to side as if she were a high school girl.
“Hey.” The boys hopped up to standing, and they all stood there looking at each other, no one saying anything.
“What do you guys want to do?” Molly finally asked.
“I don’t know,” Todd said. “Get a doughnut at Mo’s?”
They headed toward Main Street and Mo’s. But even from up the street they could see people waiting outside—Mo’s was always packed on Saturdays.
“Let’s just walk around the campus,” Rebecca said.
“Okay,” Josh said.
As they crossed the green two by two, Rebecca took in the gleaming windows of the little English library, where she’d sat studying one afternoon a year or two ago. Imagined her younger self looking out at this older, sadder self. A sigh escaped her.
Josh leaned closer. “Bored already? Westfield is pretty boring, isn’t it?”
She laughed. “Oh, no, I was just remembering something. It’s nothing.” She didn’t say she’d been thinking about a time when Dad was still alive, a time when she could never have predicted what was ahead. She spotted the gate for the old college cemetery. “We could go check out the cemetery,” she said to change the subject, but she could see from Josh’s scrunched-up expression that this wasn’t a great idea. “I mean, if you think that’s too weird, it’s just old and historical, my parents used to bring me here...” She trailed off.
“Okay, sure.” Josh opened the gate. “Let’s check it out.”
When Rebecca was little, she’d come here with Mom and Dad. Mom had given her paper and pencils to make rubbings of old headstones, the cherubs and twining vines carved along the tops of the stones, while Dad told stories about the old names. She followed Josh in between the worn slate headstones and the larger boxy granite and marble memorials, the dates so old that it didn’t seem like dead people were all around them. She climbed onto one of the big memorials, as if it were a big granite couch, and Molly joined her. They sat next to one another with their arms around their knees, and the boys plopped down in the grass.
Music floated over them, streaming out of a dorm near the college green. Beatles. “Get back, Loretta...” Paul McCartney said, his voice sounding like he had a cold. The music ch
anged abruptly, to something she didn’t recognize.
“Grateful Dead,” Molly said. “Kath has this album. She’s going to California to see them this summer. At least that’s what she says.”
“Cool,” Todd and Josh said at the same time. Todd elbowed Josh, Josh elbowed back, and Todd pushed Josh so he tipped over.
“Hey,” Molly said, “Rebecca has cigarettes.”
Josh sat up. “You smoke?” She could hear the surprise in his voice.
Rebecca shook her head, embarrassed.
“Rebecca is full of surprises.” Molly threw an arm around her as if nothing had changed. “You never know with her.” Molly held out her free hand for a cigarette and Rebecca retrieved them from her jacket.
“I, uh, I don’t have any matches,” Rebecca said. God, why hadn’t she thought of that?
“I’ll go ask around.” Josh pushed up to standing and ran in a loping way out of the cemetery.
When he returned with a mostly empty matchbook, he and Todd lit their cigarettes and then lit the other two for Rebecca and Molly. She could see that none of them knew what they were doing, which made her feel a little better. First came the familiar smell of cigarette smoke, but it stung her throat and tasted awful. She squeezed her eyes shut, coughing. “Blech,” she said, and the others laughed.
Molly’s eyes watered too, and she squinted and rubbed at them.
“When I go to Clarendon I’m going to blast rock music in my dorm room every day,” Todd said. “It’ll be so cool.”
The Wrong Kind of Woman Page 19