The temperatures fell even lower, and the elections came and went. Douglas Butterfield kept his seat in the Senate. Ms. Latham persisted in wearing her Mondale/Ferraro button, its proud perch in contrast to her dejected shoulders. She looked so blue, so personally wounded. Pouring her morning coffee in the dining hall, her eyes looked red-rimmed and hopeless. It was impossible not to pat her back whenever she stood close enough.
“We should stop by her apartment,” Skye suggested. “Buy some pottery to cheer her up.”
A few minutes later, we knocked on Ms. Latham’s door. “I’ve got hand-knit scarves, too,” she said, leading us inside. “Great Christmas presents.”
A sad stack of pans—tinny and meager, like camping equipment—sat in the sink. We followed her into the living room, its only furniture a futon couch with a rumpled tapestry as its cover, two metal folding chairs, and a piece of plywood propped up on cinder blocks. Pottery lined the walls—chunky, heavily glazed pieces that wouldn’t interest anybody in my family.
“Can I see the scarves?” I said.
Skye picked up a dark burgundy bowl and held it up to the light. “My father would love this,” she said. I had a hard time picturing the bowl amid the Butterfield’s collection of antique silver and porcelain. But Ms. Latham seemed pleased. She told us to make tea while she went upstairs for the scarves.
“Isn’t this depressing?” Skye whispered to me, as I filled up the kettle. I didn’t know if she meant the spare disorder of the apartment or the election fliers scattered across the makeshift coffee table. If it were me, I would have gotten rid of everything the Wednesday after Reagan’s landslide victory. Keeping it all—wearing the button, carrying the loss like a personal injury—seemed like a terrible exercise in hopelessness.
Ms. Latham returned with a pile of silk and wool. “My father’s coming to visit next weekend,” Skye told her. “He’s taking Catherine and me out to dinner in Great Barrington on Saturday. Maybe you’d like to come?”
I raised questioning eyebrows at Skye. I had given her the rest of John Paul’s pot, which she’d taken to smoking when she had her room to herself. I couldn’t think of any other motivation for this sudden magnanimity. But if Skye’s state was altered, Ms. Latham didn’t notice. She beamed, and an invisible string seemed to lift her—spine, facial features, spirit—a full inch.
“Dinner with Senator Butterfield?” she said, the tea kettle whistling behind her like musical accompaniment. “God, Skye, I would love that. Thank you.”
After so successful an offering, Skye felt absolved from buying anything. Not to be outdone, I bought a scarf for each of my sisters, and the burgundy bowl—which Skye had abandoned—for my brother. I imagined it in his room at law school, filled with loose change and chewed-up pencils.
We deposited my purchases amid the debris on my bed, then walked down to the stand of maple trees to get high. I sat on a gnarled stump while Skye pulled the joint out of her pocket, lighting it with her new expertise. She took a hit that sucked in the hollows of her cheeks like an aging movie star and handed the joint to me without exhaling. Before I had a chance to take it, Mr. November burst out from the path between the trees, his T-shirt plastered to his chest, his breath labored from finishing up a run. Several days earlier he had returned empty-handed from his search for his wife, disappointing us all by bearing no signs of heartbreak—only a faint and perturbed squint, more angry than sorrowful.
Now, coming upon us in the woods, he looked surprised but un-involved. His face bloomed with exertion, and from the bracing chill. The three of us froze there, a stunned and comic tableau, the gamey scent of marijuana settling around us in an incriminating envelope. Skye’s arm was stretched toward me, the smoke spiraling from her fingertips. Sap shimmered, bulbous and sticky, on the bark of surrounding trees. The only noise was Mr. November’s rhythmic pants, until finally Skye’s lungs expelled the hit in a fit of frantic coughing. She bent over from the waist, the back of her hand curved to her lips. I could see Mr. November’s hand lift instinctively to thump Skye on the back, then return to his side. When Skye managed to right herself, she startled me by breaking into a grin as seductive as it was challenging—leveled directly at Mr. November.
She pulled the joint away from me and held it out toward him, her smile fluid and steady. He took one unsure step backward, then placed his hands on his hips and cocked his head. I could see a return smile tugging at his lips, involuntary and unavoidable.
“Hello, Mr. November,” Skye said, a singsong imitation of a flirty student passing him in the hall. He lifted one hand in a halting gesture, but his body looked completely relaxed.
“Good-bye, Skye,” he said, and allowed his hand to move itself into a wave. Then he strode off into the opposite stand of trees, still biting back a smile, his more wholesome exhalation trailing into the cold air.
We sat for a minute, watching him go. Skye handed the joint to me. I dropped it to the ground and snuffed it out with the toe of my sneaker.
“Do you think he’ll say anything?” I said.
Skye snorted. “Are you kidding?” she said. “He would never turn me in.”
With a sad surge of indignation for his escaped wife, I realized that Mr. November’s partiality to Skye had nothing to do with her writing skills. It sickened me, the idea of a teacher lusting after one of us, even a girl so plainly irresistible as Skye. And despite my disapproval, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him—the impossibility of this desire ever coming to fruition.
“Let’s go,” Skye said, her eyes glassy. She picked the joint up off the ground and put it in her pocket, and I followed her over the path of Mr. November’s retreat.
THE FOLLOWING WEEKEND, we waited for Skye’s parents in her dorm room. She lived in JR, where all the upstairs rooms were built like lofts. Stairways—little more than ladders—climbed up to trapdoors in the hardwood floors. Eleanor and Skye usually kept theirs open. The day of the Butterfields’ visit, Skye and I sat on her bed while Eleanor got dressed for dinner.
I watched from the corner of my eye as Eleanor carefully concealed every attribute, draping her lovely violin of a body with an oversized sweater and ankle-length skirt. Skinning her thick dark hair into a messy ponytail and hiding large dark eyes with glasses.
“We’re only having dinner,” Skye said to her. “Why don’t you forget the glasses?”
In perfectly fitting oxford shirt and wool slacks, her hair pulled back from her forehead but spilling over her shoulders, Skye looked like a refugee from Town and Country.
Eleanor didn’t say anything, just jammed gold hoops into pierced ears that seemed to have grown over—she struggled with the earrings, forcing them through resistant lobes. I winced as I heard the faintest pop of skin.
“She doesn’t even need those glasses,” Skye said. “Her eyes are barely worse than mine. She just likes the camouflage.”
“That’s not true,” Eleanor mumbled.
Skye swore that alone with her, Eleanor could be quite talkative—with a sharp, dry sense of humor. But in my presence, she rarely offered more than glances of puppy-dog dejection, to remind me what I had stolen from her.
On the stairs, we heard the rare sound of high heels and firm male footsteps. In a moment Mrs. Butterfield’s head appeared above the floor, followed by the senator. She hugged Eleanor, then turned to me.
“Catherine, dear,” she said, clasping both hands around mine. “We’ve heard so much about you.”
“Thank you,” I said. She was a beautiful woman, in the perfectly turned-out mien of politician’s wife. Fair and redheaded like Skye.
I’d been desperately curious about Skye’s mother. Would she seem angry? Bitter? Or like a Stepford Wife—robotically devoted? But I found myself unable to focus on her at all, not with Senator Butterfield in the room.
Skye did not greet her father with the guarded disapproval I’d expected. Instead, she leapt into his arms like a five-year-old, long legs wrapped around his overcoated waist.
He hugged Skye back, then gently untangled her limbs and returned her solidly to the floor.
“Hullo, Catherine,” he said, reaching out his hand. His other arm draped over Skye’s shoulders as she clung to his camel-hair lapel. I noticed a small, dark spattering on his collar, like coffee spilled from a take-out cup.
I willed my hand to stay firm in his grip. He looked me directly in the eye—his own lit with humor. He had the sort of sustained, direct gaze I never accepted from adults. And yet there I was, looking back at him, blossoming under his brief but complete attention. It wasn’t just the broad winter sun, slanting through the skylight. Douglas Butterfield’s glow seemed literal: light emanated from his handsome, just-craggy-enough skin. Moments before the dorm room had seemed spare and oversized. Now every inch of space had been inexplicably filled.
And the most amazing thing: he looked at me as if I were the point of interest.
I had never registered before, the way Skye relished attention, her own reflection in admiring eyes. Because her father did not accept attention; he bestowed it. He studied my face and seemed to see fascinating things, grasping my fingers like he’d waited eons to meet me and couldn’t be happier that the acquaintance had finally occurred.
In the past few weeks, whenever I thought of Senator Butterfield, I had pictured his wife: standing on a dais, smiling at his side. The two of them, waving at a crowd of well-wishers, confetti flying all around. A festive bubble, floating up into the air and then bursting. My thoughts of Senator Butterfield brimmed with smashed idealism and broken promises. In addition to the wrongs he’d perpetrated on his wife and daughter, he had already announced clear-cutting in three old-growth forests—including the one right near my home in Old Lenox. At Senator Butterfield’s hands, the world turned one shade of gray after another.
Still. Faced with the man, I remembered what I’d known of him before I ever met Skye. He was one of the few politicians whose platforms I could have recited. Despite everything I knew, standing in that emanating light, I couldn’t help but believe in him. I couldn’t help but bask in the glamour he somehow allowed me to shine back at his smiling face. And I thought, If only he had run for president. Forget domestic disappointments and ancient trees. The larger world rearranged itself into proper order. Needy children fed and dangerous weapons laid to rest.
We put on our coats and walked downstairs. Outside a cloud floated overhead, darkening the lawn—late enough in the day that the light would not return once it had passed. The coffee stain seemed less visible. Senator Butterfield’s face glowed brave and electric in the coming twilight.
“We have to go get Ms. Latham,” Skye said.
She slipped her arm through the crook of her father’s elbow, the two of them striding ahead in their long wool coats. Leaving the rest of us to follow their brisk and buoyant steps across the lawn to White Cottage.
AT THE RESTAURANT, heads turned toward us as if pulled by magnetic force. The maître d’ flurried and fussed. The busboys and waitresses moved at a frantic and blushing pace, clearing the table where we’d be most visible and ushering us to it. As soon as we sat down, the waiter delivered a drink for the senator, indicating a couple at a corner table. Senator Butterfield—divested of the stained coat—turned and toasted them appreciatively, splashing amber liquid onto his tie. I longed to dab a napkin at the puckered silk, the most wifely impulse I’d ever had. He placed the drink back on the table, where it remained untouched for the rest of the meal.
He ordered wine for the table but didn’t pour any for Skye, Eleanor, or me. Skye sat to her father’s right, and Ms. Latham—in a pleated granny dress, the Mondale pin and kerchief for once missing—sat to his left.
“So Catherine,” Senator Butterfield said. “How do you like Esther Percy?”
“It’s fine,” I said, accustomed to allowing adults only two or three syllables at a time.
“Skye tells us you’re quite an equestrian,” said Mrs. Butterfield.
“Thank you,” I said. I thought about asking Senator Butterfield if he rode, but Skye interrupted.
“Catherine used to go to Waverly,” she said. “She got kicked out because of a boy. Parietal rules.” She broke a dinner roll in half and reached for the butter, not meeting my eye. The stare I gave her was more incredulous than angry. Blindsided.
Eleanor bit back the barest bit of a smile. What was wrong with these two girls? From what planet could they hail, not knowing to obey the most basic codes of behavior? I was floored. It was one thing to watch Skye, learning to flout school rules. Quite another to see her flout our own, unspoken ones.
“I didn’t get kicked out,” I said, retaliating. “My father withdrew me. He thought I’d be able to concentrate better at an all-girls’ school.”
Skye put down her roll and looked back at me, frankly wounded. I thought of everything I could disclose, about her own behavior. I wondered how she’d feel about the disapproval she so ardently courted when it shifted from theory to fact. In the past thirty minutes, Skye had shown her father more physical affection than I’d shown mine in the last three years.
I saw Senator Butterfield register and forgive our conflict. I saw—with great relief—that his estimation of me did not seem to lessen.
“In my day,” he said, “there were no coed schools. I went to Devon, of course. Best time of my life. Uniforms, school ties, chapel every morning before classes. Lights out by ten. They didn’t let us make a single unscheduled move. Which is its own kind of freedom. Limits force you to be creative—teach you how to be yourself while playing by the rules. But now everything’s changed.”
Skye had turned back to her meal. Her mother patted her shoulder protectively. “I’m surprised you can still feel so warmly toward that school,” she said, and I wondered if she didn’t know about his broken promise.
“You can’t erase memories,” Senator Butterfield said. “I’ll always love Devon. I hope Skye will send her children there.”
Skye laughed—a hard, sharp rasp. I thought for a moment she would expose him as nonchalantly as she’d exposed me.
Her father lifted his wineglass and took a distracted sip. “Funny,” he said, “how the mores change. When I was in school, we were allowed to smoke cigarettes. We even had a butt room. But they suspended a boy for wearing the school tie as a belt. Another boy was expelled for sending a love letter to a master’s wife. I guess that wouldn’t have happened if there’d been girls in attendance.”
Skye and I broke our fury with each other to laugh. Eleanor stayed quiet. Senator Butterfield smiled and put his arm around the back of Skye’s chair. “It took a little more imagination in those days to go wrong,” he said.
“Maybe I should write a love letter to Eugene Riley,” Eleanor said, not looking up from her salmon linguine. Eugene Riley was the algebra teacher’s ancient husband; he had famously prodigious nose hair.
Even Ms. Latham laughed—a shrill, nervous tittering unlike anything I’d ever heard from her. When Skye had first introduced her, outside of my dorm, she had pronounced the senator a national hero. Perhaps recognizing this as overly effusive, she’d said very little since that moment.
“What do you think, Ms. Latham,” Senator Butterfield said now. “Are they too easy on our children these days?”
“Oh,” Ms. Latham said. “I think they focus on the wrong things. The kids should get more chances. That’s what being young is, isn’t it? Making mistakes? I think they should look at the individual student and whether or not she’s contributing and getting good grades. That sort of thing should be taken into account.”
“Yes,” Senator Butterfield agreed, with a fervor that made us all sit up a little straighter. “Absolutely right. Absolutely right! Look at Skye. Why suspend her for helping someone less fortunate than herself? Why expel her for standing up for what she believes? What kind of lesson is that?”
My anger toward Skye softened. It was one thing to have to listen to this hypocrisy in sound bites. But did she have t
o endure it at every family meal?
“I think what they were trying to say with the suspension,” Skye said, her gaze fixed on her food, “is that I wasn’t actually helping him. The whole teach-a-man-to-fish thing.”
“Fine,” her father said. “So you know that now. You realize it.”
“It does seem ridiculous,” Ms. Latham said, “to ruin her life when she was just trying to do the right thing.”
“My life’s not ruined,” Skye said, casting a dark, sideways glance at her father.
“Of course it’s not,” her mother soothed. “Esther Percy is a wonderful school. Eleanor’s always been happy there, haven’t you, Eleanor?”
Eleanor nodded, still not looking up from her food.
Ms. Latham persevered. “I’m a big believer in natural consequences,” she said. “They expelled the student whose work she did, which must have made her feel badly. So why not let her learn that way? It seems more just and effective than imposing hurtful penalties.”
Skye pushed a few pieces of chicken around on her plate. “I see what you’re saying,” she said. “Natural consequences. It’s like, if a politician cheats on his wife, his wife should divorce him. But he shouldn’t lose his seat.”
It took every shred of composure I possessed not to look at Mrs. Butterfield. I concentrated on mirroring Eleanor’s fascination with the dinner.
But Skye’s father recovered quickly. Within ten seconds he broke the awkward silence, giving us all permission to look up from our plates.
“The point is,” he said, with quiet reverence, “the whole world is about compromise. That’s what they force you to realize as an adult. And yet, with these kids, there’s no sense of compromise at all. They’re dealt with in absolutes. One false move and bam: cut loose.”
Gossip of the Starlings Page 9