Claire and Present Danger

by Gillian Roberts

  And yet it was stuck in my mind, like a yellowing reminder on a corkboard.

  I entered Philly Prep with one unworthy goal: to leave it as quickly as possible. Perhaps I could manage a brief nap at home before I faced the dual-family nightmare evening.

  “Oh, you!” Sunshine called out. I’d gathered my meaningless notices and flyers, relieved to see there seemed no follow-up or second chapter to Mrs. Lawrence’s flap about Lord of the Flies. “You popular thing, you!”

  I looked around to see who she could mean, and she giggled. No other teachers were in the office at the moment. “You, silly! The word on the street is that there’s a blogger or five saying good things about you!”

  “Blogger?” Was this the verbal equivalent of her appalling shorthand?

  She waved an oh, go on with you gesture, as if I’d committed a witticism. “You know. They think you’re sharp, so you must know about Weblogs.”

  “Who thinks . . . no. I’m confused.”

  She giggled again. I was an endless source of amusement to Sunshine, and I wondered why it annoyed me so much to be the generator of such joy. “Can’t say who,” she said. “I promised. So let’s just say—”

  I knew she was going to invoke a small avian creature. She didn’t care how shopworn her clichés were. Blogger might be new, or at least new to me, but it would soon be old and she’d still be cherishing it. And now—

  “A little bird told me. They think you’re cute, too.” And she giggled again. “You could be Miss Blogg of the year! If there only were one!”

  “When you say ‘they,’ who do you mean? I don’t want names, but are we talking about students?”

  She nodded emphatically. “Lots of them have these Internet sites, you see, kinds of journals where they write their opinions of things and people—like you. Back to school and all, that’s what they wrote about, and they like you.”

  “So far,” I said. “We’re four days into this semester.”

  “First impressions count!” she trilled.

  “What else do they put on these sites?”

  She shrugged. “Anything they want to. Just like any other diary.”

  “A diary everybody can read.”

  “And doesn’t that make it fun?”

  I thought that made it not a diary, but never mind.

  “They talk about themselves, what they like . . . I had one for a while about my kitties because they’re so dear. And each day I’d say cute things they did. And about my unicorn collection and when I found new ones and all, and I’d list links with other really good unicorn sites or blogs I really enjoyed. Things like that.” She looked lovingly at the line of tiny creatures on the divider. “I put photos of them up and all . . . but then I got this job and, well, you know, I wouldn’t say it to them, but I . . . kind of outgrew it, I guess.”

  “Blogging,” I murmured. “Live and learn.”

  “Absolutely!” she said as if that was the newest, smartest phrase she’d ever heard.

  I was popular! Finally! Blogs and bloggers liked me. I guessed that was nice news and I used it to keep me skating over the surface of the day. I had no intention of getting involved with my classes, as I was saving my emotions for the evening ahead.

  The entire morning I accomplished this unworthy goal, ending with the juniors, who were about to embark on a research paper. I’ve done the “do not plagiarize” spiel so often, I went onto automatic pilot.

  “News alert,” I said. This part was indeed new, and I had to pay attention to what I was saying. “There’s a spiffy program I can and will use that checks the entire Internet to see whether any sentence of your paper that makes me suspicious was copied. New technology for an old problem.”

  They looked stunned and disheartened. I wondered if my fans were in this class, and how soon I’d be voted out as a favorite of the gods. Favorite of the blogs, I should say.

  “High tech or low, the penalty’s the same. If you don’t acknowledge the original source, you fail. So let’s go over how to take notes and to give credit where credit is due.” I heard a collective sigh, but I didn’t feel a moment’s qualms about making it hard and even painful to steal someone else’s ideas. “If people don’t footnote and attribute quotes and ideas, there’s no way to check whether what you’re being told is true or not. And this applies to the miracle of the Internet as well. Check their references before you accept whatever is written there as gospel truth. It’s too often rumors or one person’s opinion. Check the source.”

  And after a familiar demonstration of note taking and record keeping, it was lunchtime.

  I decided to spend the hour out of doors, in the park across the way. I’d find a sandwich or the pretzel vendor. The day was sunny and crisp, with the sweet tang of impending autumn. A day to cherish and press into a keepsake book, and I wanted to be part of it. My need to leave had nothing whatsoever to do with the Square’s proximity to Claire Fairchild’s condo.

  I was obviously not the only person heading for the great out of doors, and it took a while to merge with the lunchtime exodus. The stop-and-start human traffic and, perhaps, the clusters of whispering and giggling girls gave me time to remember that it was imperative that I speak with my sister.

  Once outside, I stood near the school building at a polite distance from the students pouring out, and I made my call. As annoying as they are, I was once again grateful for the invention of the cell phone, which kept me from making my personal calls in front of the office staff. Even though Sunshine would never scowl, tap her foot, and check her watch the way our former secretary, or warden, had, I did not want her privy to my web of lies.

  Even before I spoke a single word, I felt winded, as if I’d already jumped hurdles. Beth was sweet and serene. She’d pick our parents up at the airport in two more hours and, in the interim, she’d whipped up delicacies that would earn her toque at Le Cordon Bleu. “They’ll love, love, love it all,” I said. “Just the way they adored their hoagies last night.”

  “Where? Who? You said they were arriving today. Why were they here last night?”

  “It had to do with Noah’s daughter’s sleepover, so don’t ask.” I told her the entire sordid tale, starting with my surprise introduction and rushing as quickly as I could toward and over my amazing, damning gaffe.

  Beth squealed, and I knew she’d be applauding if she weren’t holding the phone. Actually, I realized, those peeps, squeals, chuckles, and whoops were, indeed, the sound of one hand clapping.

  “Would you tell Mom and Dad, then?” I asked. “I mean, before we all get there? So it looks as if you’re breaking a brand-new secret?”

  She agreed. “But Christmastime? Why then? Places are booked solidly and—”

  “Beth, I don’t care if it’s in that mansion. Maybe it can even be postponed, or forgotten. And if not, it can be in our loft, which is not booked for the holidays. Or City Hall. I don’t want to go to Louisiana and be half of Lutie Mackenzie’s fourth wedding into a, quote, rowdy, unquote, family.”

  “Have you told Sasha yet?”

  My friend Sasha was still partying her way through Great Britain. “You’re the only person, aside from his parents who—”

  “Better tell her soon. It’s hard to get decent flights during the holidays.”

  “I cannot believe you’re already working on the guest list,” I said.

  “Okay, okay. Just trying to make things easier on you.”

  “I realize that.” I didn’t mean my sigh to be as loud as it was.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Beth said. “Let me see what I can do. I’ll work on it this very afternoon.”

  I had no doubt she would. They would. I imagined my mother hurling her bag onto Beth’s guest room bed, rolling up her sleeves, and digging in to Beth’s library of sites for overblown events while my father asked, dolefully, “How much does that one charge?”

  “They have an enormous family,” I reminded her. “Eight kids, six—no, there’s Lutie’s intended—sev
en spouses, thirty-seven grandkids, uncles, aunts, cousins . . .”

  “You might want to reconsider their offer. I wouldn’t mind a trip to New Orleans.”

  “Then go. You don’t need a family wedding as an excuse. And Bethie? Tonight? Expect a Technicolor explosion. Gabby Mackenzie has never heard the word neutral, not in colors or opinions or temperament.”

  “Sounds like I’ll like her.”

  She would. I did. That didn’t ease my growing discomfort.

  I headed across the street to the Square, thinking about anything and everything except the idea of being married four months from now. And thinking about weddings, how could I not wonder about Emmie Cade and Leo Fairchild’s? Was it still scheduled? Were they being sidetracked by being suspects?

  I walked through the crowds of students and citizens soaking up the September sunshine, and headed toward the farthest corner from the school. I told myself it would be the least populated. It was mere coincidence that my goal was only thirty-five steps away from the Fairchild building—I could, in fact, see its balconies from where I stood. The objective was a quiet, only partially occupied bench. Olivia didn’t seem to take up even the space a small person might.

  “Mind if I share?” I asked through the pops and bursts of sound and laughter filling the rest of the park.

  Olivia didn’t look up. She shrugged. Not precisely a warm welcome. One of her hands held her lunch, still in its plastic Baggie. She looked like inert matter, as privately desolate as she’d appeared at the end of school yesterday. I settled for the shrug, and sat at the far end of the bench.

  She took out her copy of Lord of the Flies, put it on her knees and, using only one hand, carefully found a page. Then she held it open with that hand while the other continued to cradle the untouched sandwich bag.

  I felt pulled into her bubble of silence. It was more than a stillness. The withholding of sound and the effort to keep something bottled up thinned and charged the air surrounding us.

  She stared at her book. I was positive the show of needing to finish her assignment was a pretense. Olivia’s entire being announced that she was the kind of girl who’d always have taken care of her homework. And in fact, when I really looked at the open book, I realized she was almost at the end of the novel, well ahead of where assignments would have put her. But her message was clear: Company was not welcome. I thought about finding the pretzel man, but talking with Beth about the evening ahead and wedding ceremonies had quelled my hunger. In fact, I felt as if food might make me ill.

  That meant I had nowhere to go except, perhaps, to that building steps away. I tried to remember whether I’d actually promised not to, then laughed at my attempt to be legalistic. I didn’t have to have promised. Claire Fairchild’s death was now officially a homicide and out of our hands.

  But during the course of the long night before, I’d wondered what Batya was going to do, or had done, and how she’d now support herself and her children. More than that, I wondered whether Leo Fairchild was privy or partner to his mother’s supposed bequest and/or to the I.N.S. threat she’d held over the housekeeper’s head.

  “Thanks for the rest,” I said. “I just needed to sit a moment.” I saw a splat on the book, and Olivia slammed it shut, then reached up to fiercely brush her index finger across her right eye.

  She was wearing a delicate yellow T-shirt and flower-sprigged short skirt, and all the same, she felt dark, something with the power to absorb even the brightness of this day. Her ache was almost palpable over here, on the other side of the bench.

  I felt an impotent rage, knowing I couldn’t fix whatever made Olivia’s life feel so frightening and hard to bear. I was only her teacher. I crossed her life’s path five of the hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week. Something much more significant than I weighed her slight body down. However, maybe knowing somebody wished they could work miracles would help. “Olivia?” I whispered.

  She looked at me for a slice of a second, then back down at her closed book, speaking so softly, I had to work to make out her hesitant words. “I . . . don’t . . . understand . . . why people are so . . . mean.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She looked at me again, her eyes wider, and shook her head. “No. No. I meant—I mean—the book.” She looked away again.

  As an English teacher, I should have been thrilled that assigned reading was having such a powerful effect. It was a magnificent, rich book, and its message heartbreaking, especially in this dangerous new world. For one frightening moment, I thought perhaps Sonia Lawrence had been right and this book was too much for these students in these times.

  Then logic returned, and I could in no way buy the idea that William Golding had driven Olivia to stay in my classroom after school, and to sit alone during lunch, crying.

  That, however, was what she wanted me to believe, so I sat weighing respect for her privacy and need to mourn whatever it was in her own way against my concept of responsible adulthood. “The book,” I finally said, “is thought-provoking. Yes, people can be cruel. We all have the potential to be that way. To be uncivilized. But we also have the potential to be kind. To think things through. To not act out of blind fear. It would be heartbreaking if we didn’t have the ability to keep an eye on what’s right and wrong, to choose not to go along with the crowd, not to bend under mob rule.” I leaned forward, to try to really see her.

  She didn’t move, except for her eyes, which glanced at me, as if to make sure I was real. “I sound like a jerk,” I said. “Sorry.”

  She didn’t say anything, didn’t deny my jerkdom. At a time like this I almost missed Sunshine—or my future mother-in-law—both of whom, with profound insincerity, would have pooh-poohed, told me I was anything but a jerk, and insisted that, in fact, my platitudes had been enormously helpful. “Can I help you in any way?” I asked. “I would really like to.”

  She shook her head rapidly, her eyes wide with fear that I might do something, anything.

  “Okay, then. But take that as a permanent offer. At any time, if you change your mind and think of something I could do—or if you want to talk . . .” She sat impassively, a plaster statue depicting resignation, loss, capitulation. “Okay?”

  She finally nodded with great insincerity.

  I had no choice but to move on through my day, although I no longer envisioned myself as skating on the surface of anything. I felt like someone who’d stumbled badly and had one leg through the ice.

  The lunch hour was barely underway, I was not welcome on my park bench, I was practically face-to-face with Claire Fairchild’s building and I didn’t think I’d actually taken a vow to have my curiosity surgically amputated. I worried about Batya, too, about her impending delivery date, about her illegal status, and about whether Leo would honor his mother’s financial promises. I couldn’t see what would be hurt if I simply stopped by. A friendly, innocuous courtesy call.

  There. I’d successfully argued my case with me and I’d won. Guilt-free, I made my way to the lovely old building, where I was greeted with yellow crime-scene tape across Claire Fairchild’s once elegantly austere front door. If Batya was in there, she was now truly imprisoned, but of course, she couldn’t be, and wouldn’t have been, ever since the tape went up yesterday, when the dead woman’s blood showed traces of barbiturate.

  C. K. was supposed to have been told of any new information, and this seemed new enough. I pulled out my cell phone and called the man.

  “Mackenzie here,” he said softly.

  “The door’s taped up.”

  “Manda? We’re at Carpenter’s Hall, listenin’ to a talk about the First Continental Congress. I mean, they are, my parents. I’m outside to take this call. But this is where it started. This is where they talked about splitting with Britain. Can’t this wait?”

  “I don’t think so. Claire Fairchild’s apartment is a crime scene now.”

  “It was always a crime scene,” he said. “Ever since a crime was committed the
re.”

  Sometimes his wit eludes me. “But, Batya—she was staying here.”

  “Tom called,” he said. “Cell phones are a mixed blessin’. Gets harder to escape work—and that isn’t even my work anymore.”

  “Tom called and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to talk to that ditz secretary, an’ I know she doesn’t interrupt your teachin’, so I thought it could wait while I played tour director.”

  I understood that his attention and interests were elsewhere. I didn’t care. “What did he say?”

  “Tom?”

  “Who else would I mean?”

  “We’ve been hearing about and from Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who had a lot to say.”

  “Tom.”

  “There’s an A.P.B. out for Batya. She’s disappeared.”

  It took me a moment to process that. “Batya?”

  “Right. Once again, the butler, more or less, did it.”

  “But disappearing doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with what happened to—for all we know, she’s in labor somewhere.”

  “Her aunt says she doesn’t know where she went. Took the little boy, too.”

  “But her aunt would never tell—she’s illegal. She’d be deported.”

  “And turns out you were right. Her little boy has seizures and takes phenobarb.”

  “That still doesn’t mean she’d—”

  “You’re suddenly her defender? Yesterday, you were giving me reasons why it had to be her. So you were right. Why change positions now?”

  I couldn’t have rationally said why, except that Batya was no longer an academic puzzle, something to be figured out. She was a woman whose motives were based on grave problems, and life in prison would only increase the weight of problems on the next generation. “Still and all,” I said, knowing how weak I sounded, “she in no way seemed—she was so concerned about keeping the bedroom untouched—”