Blue Angel

by Francine Prose

  “Not bad,” says Swenson. “We did Makeesha’s story. It could have been a bloodbath, but somehow we all dodged a bullet.”

  Sherrie says, “Again. Well, that’s a relief.”

  “Is this how low we’ve sunk?” says Swenson. “No disasters in class and a sandwich from Arlene is enough to make a day ‘kind of great’?”

  Sherrie laughs. “Well, also…Chris Dolan’s echocardiogram report came in. The heart thing turns out to be nothing.”

  “Heart thing? Chris Dolan?” Swenson knows he’s supposed to know.

  “Don’t you listen to anything? He’s that adorable freshman. His family doctor heard some abnormal sounds during his last physical and told him to deal with it when he got here. Dumped the thing in our laps. And the kid’s really lovely, really sweet. We were all terribly worried. I know I told you about him—”

  Wouldn’t he remember if she’d told him about some adorable kid, some really lovely, really sweet kid? His ears would have perked right up. Does Sherrie have a crush on this guy? Swenson will give him a heart thing. But who’s he to cast the first stone? A guy who spent last month with the hots for some punk girl writer. But all that’s over now. Finished. So what does Sherrie think she’s doing?

  Sherrie says, “He told me about a pizza place where he worked last summer for this crazy Syrian boss who thinks that America’s just waiting for him to invent a more American pizza, a hot dog and mustard pizza, a peanut butter and jelly pizza, and how the guy made his employees recycle the leftover cheese from the half-eaten slices—”

  Swenson waits till Sherrie stops laughing. “I guess you had to have been there.”

  “Oh, come on, Ted,” says Sherrie. “Don’t be like that. He’s a kid. He could have been in real trouble. He’s not. How could I not be relieved?”

  Swenson takes another mouthful. The chicken’s salty coating rips, spurting oil onto his palate, releasing its layer of breading under the garlicky crispness. He feels expansive, large enough to see that his crush (or whatever) on Angela is not so different from Sherrie’s fondness for this kid. It’s all so understandable, touching, and tender, really, the two of them sinking into middle age, their own child not only grown and gone but hardly speaking to them, wrenching herself away from their grasp, beyond the reach of their love.

  No wonder he and Sherrie might find themselves drawn to students. It’s not as if they’re perverts out of Dangerous Liaisons, two old vampires conspiring to suck the youth from the young. Their hearts are heat-seeking missiles drawn to whatever’s still burning. They’re like those old men in the Kawabata novel frequenting the brothel where they pay to curl up and sleep beside the warm bodies of young beautiful women. Christ! It’s all so depressing Swenson thinks he might weep. Age and death—the unfairness of it, the daily humiliation of watching your power vanish just when you figure out how to use it.

  “Is something wrong?” asks Sherrie.

  “Nothing,” he answers glumly. Of course he can’t tell the truth for fear of insulting Sherrie by including her among the aging and decrepit when, for all he knows, she may not be feeling that way at the moment. In theory, he and Sherrie are close. But now he sees that’s a lie. Somehow it seems more honest to be around someone with whom there’s no pretence of the intimacy that a shared history is supposed to confer. Sooner or later—sooner—he has to call Angela and tell her he’s read her chapter. He can put it off as long as he wants, but it’s his professional duty.

  He smiles at Sherrie. “If I were forced to choose one meal to eat every night for the rest of my life, it would be chicken with lemon, and scalloped potatoes with prosciutto.”

  “Why would you have to make a choice like that?” Sherrie asks.

  “Why would I?” Swenson says.

  In the middle of the night Swenson feels Sherrie rubbing against him. Lightly, experimentally, he kisses the back of her neck. They make love urgently, silently, hardly moving, the way they used to when Ruby slept in the next room.

  Afterward, Swenson sleeps soundly and in the morning wakes up in such a rare good mood that, fortified with coffee, he decides to go to his study and take a peek at his novel.

  The opening chapter isn’t half bad. He hasn’t touched the manuscript in so long that it seems like someone else’s work, someone’s ironic, ersatz-nineteenth-century description of the downtown neighborhood—Soho—where Julius Sorley arrives with dreams of fortune and reputation. But as soon as Julius starts reflecting on his past and present situation, everything pales, falters, stumbles, drops dead on the page. It’s worse than Courtney Alcott’s “First Kiss—Inner City Blues.” Swenson wills himself to stay calm. He’ll get more coffee, shower. Then he’ll decide if he can read the rest, assess the damage and the likelihood that he can fix it.

  Showered and shaved, neatly dressed, he feels more in control. He returns to his desk, picks up his manuscript, puts it down, ransacks the house for his briefcase, finds it under his coat, gets Angela’s manuscript, and goes back to his study. He needs to call her, she’s waiting. It’s cruel not to call.

  A man—a young man—answers. “Hello?” Why does the groggy voice sound familiar?

  Swenson hangs up. He takes some deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale. He counts to five.

  The phone rings.

  “I’m sorry for calling you at home,” Angela says.

  Does Angela have caller ID? Can you get that in a college dorm? It horrifies Swenson to think of Angela and her boyfriend waching his number come up on a screen.

  “I know I’m wrecking your morning,” she says. “But I couldn’t stand it another minute. I know you read the chapter and hated it, that’s why you didn’t call—”

  “Relax. I liked it fine. I’ve been busy, is all.”

  “Can we talk about this?” Angela says. “I need to talk. I think I’m going insane.”

  “Don’t go insane,” says Swenson. “Meet me in my office in twenty minutes.”

  Swenson’s just wrestled off his scarf and coat when Angela falls through his office door. She’s wearing her usual uniform: black leather jacket, pouchy black sweater, black boots. But today she’s added a pair of striped men’s boxer shorts rolled on top of her jeans and angled around her hips, like a bandolier. She drops into the chair and slumps forward, her elbows on her spread knees, her chin cupped in her hands.

  “I was sure you hated the new chapter,” she said. “I was sure you read it and hated it, and that’s why you didn’t call.”

  “I didn’t hate it at all,” Swenson says. “I…admired it very much.”

  “Know what?” she says. “You’re a guy, after all. Not calling’s a guy thing to do.”

  Wait a minute! A guy after all? When wasn’t he a guy? And isn’t his guy-ness beside the point? He’s a teacher. She’s a student.

  “Angela, I know you kids all secretly think your professors leave the classroom and go to their coffins like Dracula and don’t wake up until it’s time to teach the next class. I hate to tell you, we have lives. I read your manuscript, and, as I said, I admired it. But I had a few things to take care of before I could get to the phone. I was going to call you….”

  “I’m sorry. What did you think of the chapter? Did you believe that part about her trying to hatch the eggs and all the eggs dying and—”

  “I believed it. I was totally convinced.”

  “Then what? What about the other part?”

  Swenson leafs through the pages. “Let’s face it. It’s very…um…erotic. If that’s what you intended.” What an idiotic comment! What else could she have meant? Angela’s not a child. She worked at a telephone-sex line.

  Angela writhes briefly in her chair. Finally she says, “All right, I’ll tell you this one thing. Then we can act like I never said it. And you have to promise not to hate me, no matter what.”

  “I promise,” Swenson says.

  “For the past two days,” says Angela, “all I’ve thought about every second of every minute of every hour was you having thos
e new pages, wondering if you were…I mean, I’ve been thinking about you going through your normal day, eating breakfast, driving to work, and I keep wondering if you’re reading—” She stops and stares at him, wide-eyed with horror at what she’s just said.

  Swenson says, “I hardly ever eat breakfast.”

  “Excuse me?” Angela says.

  “You said you’d been thinking about me eating breakfast. And I said, ‘I don’t eat breakfast.’”

  Is there some way to take that back? Swenson doesn’t think so. Angela stares at him, then jumps up and leaves, slamming the door behind her. Swenson shakes his head as if to keep the memory from implanting itself in his brain. All he knows is that he’s ruined everything by being so tight-assed and nasty. Ruined what? What else should he have said? Hey, here’s a bizarre coincidence. I’ve been thinking about you, too.

  A moment later, the door swings open. Angela pops back in, smiling.

  She says, “I forgot to give you this.”

  She slides a thin orange envelope onto his desk, then takes off again.

  Swenson counts: a page and a half. What did she mean when she told him she’d been thinking about him all week? He wishes she would come back. This time he’d have the nerve to ask, instead of making some dopey remark about breakfast. Well, at least he’s got more pages to read, pages that may tell him more than their garbled exchanges.

  It wasn’t long after the eggs died that I got my new clarinet. We’d already started practicing for the Christmas concert. Handel’s greatest hits scored for a wimpy high school band. It was my job to lead the woodwinds into the Hallelujah chorus. One afternoon I picked up my clarinet and counted the measures and blew, and the hideous fart like squawk stopped the entire rehearsal. The other kids started giggling. They thought I’d made a mistake. They resented my being first clarinet—the music teacher’s favorite.

  Mr. Reynaud knew, right away. The kids stopped giggling as he looked at me just the way I’d imagined him looking at me in the toolshed. I ran my hand down the clarinet. The bell came off in my hand.

  He told me to stay after class. He said, “The clarinet could be fixed. But you’re far too good to be playing this cheap piece of shit. I’ll put in the order today. I’ll borrow something from the grade school you can work on until then.”

  That was Thursday. On Monday he told me to stay after class again, and handed me a long narrow box.

  “Unwrap it,” he said. He took out his pocketknife and cut the box open. “Go ahead.”

  The gleaming gold and ebony pipe of the clarinet lay like Baby Jesus in His creche, snuggled in a soft nest of curly wood shavings.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said. “I know it’s the school’s clarinet, but thank you for—”

  “Try it out,” he said.

  I put the clarinet to my lips. I looked over it, at Mr. Reynaud. He handed me a reed, and watched me put it in my mouth to wet it. I sucked in my cheeks, took it out of my mouth. My mouth was totally dry.

  Wood shavings had clung to the clarinet and gotten into my hair. He reached out and brushed them off. He said, “Why so sad?”

  I told him I’d ruined my science project. None of the eggs had hatched. For a moment he seemed puzzled. Then he said, “Why don’t I come over and take a look at the incubation system? Figure out what’s wrong. I grew up on a farm. I know about these things.”

  I said, “Oh, please don’t. You don’t have to.” But that was

  And that’s where the manuscript ends. Swenson flips the page over to see if anything’s on the other side. He feels—suddenly, unaccountably—like gnashing his teeth and weeping. Well, better not gnash his teeth, at least. Probing his ragged, fragile molar is a distraction and a pleasure. There’s no need to blow this situation entirely out of proportion. It’s simple enough to call her and find out what’s up.

  But she won’t be home yet. Well, good, he can go home, too.

  He drives home. He goes to his study. The machine is blinking. He knew it would be. Angela’s called. Swenson hits the play button.

  “Dad? Are you there? It’s Ruby. Call me at school. Everything’s okay. I just need to ask you something.”

  This is what Swenson’s prayed for. Now this, this is important, this is his real life. And this is what a monster he is: He’s disappointed that it’s not Angela. There is no angry God, it seems, waiting to hurl Swenson into the circle of hell reserved for fathers who care about crazy students more than their own daughters. He can’t pretend that he’s not the scum of the earth, the lowest excuse for a human being.

  All this goes through his mind in the few seconds it takes the machine to beep and to speak again, this time in the unmistakable voice of Angela Argo.

  “This is Angela? There’s, like, a problem with my manuscript? You’ve probably figured that out. Um. I wanted to tell you. So call me. See you. Bye.”

  Horrified by how pleased he is, he replays her imploring, slightly whiny message. He thinks he’ll keep the tape for a while before he erases it. He likes the fact that he can hear her voice anytime he wants. It’s as if he’s trapped something wild and brought it indoors, a firefly in a bottle. And this is how depraved he is: With Ruby’s message still on the machine—with, for all he knows, his daughter awaiting his call, primed for reconciliation, needing his advice and help, or just wanting to hear the sound of his voice—he dials Angela’s number.

  “Oh, hi,” she says. “I hoped it was you. Probably you haven’t had a chance to look at what I gave you, but I wanted to warn you. I’ve got the chapter finished. But my computer ate the last couple pages, and my hard drive crashed.”

  “Jesus,” says Swenson. “How much did you lose?”

  “At first I almost threw up,” she says. “Then I realized I’d backed it up. I back up my files every day. I have it on a floppy disk. I just can’t print it, is all.”

  “That’s amazing. No one backs their files up every day. I mean, we all know we’re supposed to, but—”

  “I do. Anyway, I wanted you to know I didn’t just, like, space out. And I couldn’t wait for you to read the new pages I had. But then I got home and started thinking how strange it was that I wrote about her clarinet breaking—and my computer broke.”

  “Stuff like that happens,” he says. “You write it, and then you live it. Or you make up something that turns out to be someone else’s real life.”

  “Right,” says Angela, blankly.

  The silence lasts so long he thinks the line’s gone dead. “Angela?”

  She says, “Meanwhile I can’t write.”

  “Can they fix the computer?”

  “In this dump? I don’t think so. Anyhow they never fix them. They’re like doctors, right? They just charge you a fortune and tell you nothing can be done.”

  “You need a new computer,” says Swenson.

  “Tell me about it,” she says. Another lengthy pause. “Listen. I need to ask you a favor, and the thing is, you can absolutely say no. I expect you to say no. It’s absolutely fine. I need a ride to Burlington so I can get a new computer. I got my stepdad to say I could put it on his credit card. And thanks, that’s sort of your doing, too. Whatever lies you told them worked. I can pay for the computer, but I need to pick one out. Try out the keyboard and stuff. Really. You can say no. I just thought I’d ask….”

  Swenson says, “Well, it’s not impossible. But I’m trying to write, and I’m a little overwhelmed by how much I’ve got to do.”

  “I’m sure. That’s why I knew you’d say no.”

  “I’m not saying no,” says Swenson. “But…don’t you have friends who could drive you?”

  “Nobody has a car. Some of them used to have cars, but they’ve been, like, grounded by their parents. I seem to know a lot of people who’ve been grounded by their parents.”

  Swenson rubs the webbing between his forefinger and thumb—an acupressure point Sherrie told him about, but he can’t remember if the effect was supposed to be energizing or calming. “What about
your boyfriend? Doesn’t he have a car?”

  “He’s one of the ones who got grounded.”

  Swenson resists the urge to ask why. “It’d be a real shame to quit now when your writing’s going so well. Okay. All right. I’ll take you. When do you want to go?”

  “Tomorrow,” Angela says.

  “Morning?” says Swenson. “How about ten?”

  “That would be great. Oh, thank you thank you thank you. I live in Newfane. Third floor. Should I meet you outside my dorm?”

  “See you then,” Swenson says.

  He sets down the phone for a moment, then dials Ruby’s number. After two rings, an answering machine picks up. He doesn’t even want to consider the possibility that he might have reached Ruby if he’d called her before Angela. A few oily bars of Kenny G. ooze out of the receiver, followed by a female voice, not Ruby’s, saying, “You have reached the humble abode of Alison and Ruby.” How unhappy he and Sherrie were to learn that after a year at school Ruby hadn’t found anyone she wanted to room with and so had to pick her sophomore roommate through the housing lottery. Obviously, some loser Kenny G. fan.

  Swenson says, “Ruby, it’s Dad. Your father. Returning your call. Call me when you get in.” He puts down the phone and waits meekly to be overcome with frustration and grief. But in fact he’s quite cheerful. Everything will work out. Ruby’s called. She’s talking to them. She’ll grow out of this phase. It’s just a matter of patience, of time. Time will take care of them all.

  Swenson hardly sleeps all night. Shouldn’t he wake Sherrie and discuss his plans for the day? Couldn’t he have brought it up earlier, at any point during the evening? Why didn’t he feel like mentioning it? What does that imply? Is it wrong to drive a student to Computer City without telling your spouse? Or to spend all night twisting in your bed because you’re getting to spend a morning with some sophomore in Beginning Fiction? Swenson moans with shame. What if he wakes Sherrie and has to explain that moan? He’ll say he just remembered some department business. He never lies to Sherrie. Here’s where the betrayal begins.