“How ’bout lettin’ us go early?” called one of the voices at the back.
“You know I can’t do that, Marcus. Anyway, the bell will ring any second.”
BANG!
“I think that’s it, man!” Marcus shouted.
More general laughter. I smiled, rolling with it. I knew I was finished, but I also knew that for a lesson on a cold, rainy Friday afternoon, things had gone reasonably well. I’d held the encroaching chaos at bay for one more period, one more day.
At last the bell sounded. Much talking and shuffling and moving toward the door. A couple of kids waved to me or wished me a nice weekend; I did the same, even as I felt my headache returning full force. The relative success of the lesson had gotten my mind off it for a while. Now, with the room emptying and quiet coming on, it was back, like putting on an old familiar hat that was always much too tight. With the headache came my first hunger pang of the afternoon for a cigarette.
Slipping on my coat and filling my briefcase with homework, I made my way downstairs, stopping in the main office to check my mailbox. The only thing in it was a powder-blue sheet on which was typed the agenda for Monday’s staff meeting. Halfway down the list I saw it—Item: Theft of Chalk from Supply Office. I chuckled and slipped the sheet back into the box, closing it and walking out.
The steps were slippery; what was falling from the sky was a kind of freezing drizzle. Kids were congregated around the doors and I had to push past them to get to the sidewalk. Making my way along N Street I considered stopping for something hot to drink but decided against it; better to keep moving through the cold slush. The sooner I was back at the apartment, the sooner I could…but I refused to allow myself to think of getting into bed and pulling the covers over me, as sorely pleasurable as that vision was. I had to stop it, I knew. It wasn’t healthy.
I thought of my cigarette again, still in the pocket of my coat where I’d dropped it yesterday. I realized suddenly that I never had smoked it. That gave me a slight sense of accomplishment, at least for a second or two.
I’d stopped at the curb at 22nd Street to let the traffic sizzle past when I realized that the girl from yesterday was standing next to me. She was dressed just as she’d been the day before; her face, which I saw in profile, was pensive. As the traffic cleared we both started across the street.
“Aren’t you cold?” I offered, finally.
“I’m okay.”
“That coat looks pretty thin. And you should wear a hat.”
“I don’t get cold that much.”
“I didn’t see you as I was leaving school.”
“I saw you.”
“Do you live over this way?”
“Do you?”
“Sure I do,” I said. “I’m going home now.”
“A house?”
“No, just an apartment. Top floor. Off Dupont Circle.”
“Oh.” She seemed to think about it. “Do you have any kids?”
“No—well, I have a stepson. Only he’s not really a child anymore. He’s an adult now.”
“Your wife’s son?”
“Yes, my—well, she’s my ex-wife. Or will be. We’re divorcing.”
“Why?”
I frowned and felt the headache behind my eyes. This girl was certainly direct. Yet, honestly, I couldn’t find it in myself to think that she was being offensive. The way she looked at me was utterly flat, without any affect whatsoever. Guileless. She desired information, that’s all. She saw nothing wrong in asking for it.
We were passing by the Blockbuster video store I frequented. I’d thought of stopping in to rent a couple of movies, but somehow I didn’t want to break up my conversation with this girl. I didn’t know why. Anyway, we passed the store.
“Um—that’s hard to say. Really. We were married for eight years—well, we’re still married—I told you that—and, well, people who are married for a while…it gets complicated. I don’t think I can say it better than that.”
“I think marriages should be simple.”
I smiled. “I couldn’t agree more. But it never seems to work out that way.”
“Were you married before?”
“Before…? Oh. No. No, I wasn’t married before. She was my first wife. There were a couple of serious relationships back there, but no marriages before this one.”
“Why didn’t you marry the other ones?”
Good grief, I thought. But I wanted to answer the question.
“Well, one left me,” I said. “And one—died.”
“How did she die?”
I was surprised that it came out very naturally, with no hesitation at all. “She committed suicide.”
“Why?”
That, finally, made me stop. I stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, people passing us by on either side, looking down at her. Her eyes were very big. “You ask an awful lot of questions,” I said, more harshly than I’d intended. To soften it I added, “I don’t know why. It was many years ago. And far away from here.”
“Where?”
“Santa Barbara. In California. That’s where I’m from originally.”
“Oh.” She seemed to consider it. “How did you end up here?”
“My dad moved here. And my sister. Many years ago, around the time I went off to college. He worked in aerospace and his job transferred him to Washington. Eventually I came to visit them and just—I don’t know, decided I liked the area, I guess.” I tried to smile. “Is that enough of an explanation?”
She cocked her head. “Are you mad at me now?”
I studied her a moment longer, then sighed and started walking again. “No,” I said, “I’m not mad. I’m just wondering why you’re so curious about me.”
“I’m a very curious person.”
“Mm. Yes, you are. Very curious,” putting a “curious-strange” spin on the word.
“Ha ha.” But she did smile, just a little.
“Do you live near here?”
“Me?” She seemed surprised by the question. “No. I don’t live near here.”
“Where are you going, then?”
She shrugged. “Just around.”
“Well, don’t stay out too late. This drizzle is going to get worse, the weatherman says. Freezing rain. You know, ice on the streets. Dangerous.”
“Why did you write that book?” she asked suddenly. “I read it.”
I glanced at her, but was thrown off-balance conversationally for only an instant. I was getting used to talking to this girl. “What book? You mean Leprechauns Can Be Murder?”
“Yeah. That one.”
“Well, I wrote it to make money,” I admitted, feeling the slight embarrassment I always did when I thought of my one and only published novel.
“Did you make any?”
“Some. Did you like it?”
We were entering the nicest part of my walk home now: a pleasant neighborhood of old brownstones built in the early part of the century. It was an affluent area: beautiful wrought-iron gates, cobblestone front paths, ornate oak doors.
“I thought it was silly,” she said.
“Well, you’re certainly honest,” I said, a little annoyed despite myself.
She shrugged. “A mystery story about an old Irish widow who runs a tea shop, owns a parrot that says nothing but bad words, and solves murders on the side?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be great literature.”
“What was it supposed to be?”
I sighed. “Fun.”
She glanced up at me. “I just think you can do better, that’s all. Did you ever write any more books about that lady?”
“No.” The publishers had wanted me to. The novel had done well, as paperback originals by first-time mystery novelists go. But even before I’d finished the manuscript I’d grown to loathe Abigail McGillicuddy (kind of a combination of Angela Lansbury and Lucille Ball, with an Irish brogue thrown in) and her goddamn parrot, Clyde. My idea had been to support my writing—my serious writing, my real w
riting—by creating a salable series of novels in a commercial genre. Or really two genres, as I planned to add a hint—only a hint, open to interpretation—of fantasy to each tale (hence the leprechaun of the title). I’d pounded out the wretched thing in a mood of utterly cynical rage, sailing from initial idea to the words “The End” in six days flat.
On the seventh day, naturally, I rested.
On the eighth day I made five Xerox copies of the manuscript and mailed them to five successful literary agents. On the twentieth day one of them agreed to represent the book. And on the thirty-first day a respectable second-rank paperback publisher made an offer on it which, small as it was, represented more money than I’d made from my writing in the entire previous decade. In precisely one month my status went from “obscure literary writer” to “successful new mystery novelist.” I was so overjoyed that I even abandoned my original plan to use a pen name for such commercial hackwork, a decision I’d regretted ever since. The novel was even nominated for an Agatha Award, quite prestigious in the mystery field; it didn’t win, but I had fun dressing up and attending the awards banquet in Bethesda, hobnobbing with the bestseller writers and pretending, for one night, to be a big shot.
My contract included an option for a sequel, an outline of which I actually somehow managed to complete and get accepted by the publisher. As a result, this next novel’s title was emblazoned on the back of Leprechauns Can Be Murder—“Don’t Miss the Next Exciting Abigail McGillicuddy Mystery, Hobgoblins Can Be Murder,” the text urged. “Coming Soon!”
It never came. I was able to finish only the first chapter before I decided to get thoroughly drunk on cooking sherry and proceeded to bash out a psychotically pornographic scene of erotic congress between Mrs. McGillicuddy and Clyde, on the completion of which I promptly threw the entire idiotic mess—sex scene, first chapter, outline—into the kitchen sink, pushing the pages down the drain, soaking them with water and shoving them into the destructive blades of the In-Sink-Erator. Thus ended the career of Benjamin Fall, successful new mystery novelist.
I glanced at my walking companion and decided to change the subject. “Do you know,” I ventured, “that you still haven’t told me your name?”
“Call me anything.” She scuffled the sidewalk with her shoes. “Call me whatever you want.”
“Well, what do your parents call you?”
“They don’t call me anything. I don’t live with them.”
“Who do you live with?”
“Nobody,” she said casually.
“Well, it’s always raining when I see you,” I said, feeling the icy drizzle on my neck. “I’m starting to think of you as the Rain Girl.”
“The Rain Girl.” She nodded, smiling slightly. “I like it.”
I could see my building now as we left the brownstone neighborhood for the more commercial outskirts of Dupont Circle. We stopped at a traffic light.
“Look, do you actually go to the school?” I asked, tilting my head vaguely back in the direction of my workplace.
“Not usually.”
“Well, you can’t live with ‘nobody.’ Unless you’re a runaway. Are you?”
“Not really.”
My headache pulsed. “You talk in riddles, Miss Rain Girl,” I said, suddenly irritable, as I generally became whenever I thought about my short-lived career in the mystery field. “It’s Friday, it’s cold, I’m tired, and I’m not really up for riddles—okay? Can you just stop? Please?”
Her eyes widened; her mouth formed a tiny O. Her breath came fast, her chest rising and falling. She literally looked as if I’d slapped her.
“I’m—oh, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice small.
“Look—” Suddenly I felt horribly guilty. This alienated kid had reached out for friendship from a supposedly responsible adult and I’d shoved her back to the curb. “I—look—”
She backed away from me fearfully. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m really sorry.”
“I didn’t mean—it’s okay—I just—”
But she turned and weaved her way between several people on the sidewalk and slipped away from me. I tried to follow her, but by the time the light turned green again and the sidewalk cleared, she was nowhere to be seen.
I felt myself sagging as I made my way across Connecticut Avenue toward my building. Whatever small pleasure I’d felt at keeping my last period class reasonably productive on a Friday afternoon evaporated in the face of having upset my unnamed young friend. I was overcome with feelings of stupidity, worthlessness. Again I just wanted to run home, bury myself in sheets and blankets and not appear in the world at all until Monday morning. If then.
But I made it through the lobby well enough, managing to smile and wave at the receptionist. I checked the mail. Nothing. The elevator ride to the top floor seemed to take about fifteen eternities; I sorely wanted to smoke my single precious Camel.
At last I arrived and made my way down the corridor, unlocked the door, and stepped into my humble home.
“Humble” is right, for there’s really nothing much to it. The apartment itself is fine—it’s a nice old building in a good neighborhood—and the view out the living room windows is wonderful, overlooking the entire Dupont Circle area of D.C. I’m high enough up that the dirt and grime can’t be seen; it looks for all the world like a picture-postcard view of a modern urban neighborhood. Now, with the icy rain, everything was beginning to glisten brightly. It was, I had to admit, beautiful.
As for my apartment, it’s simple to the point of absurdity. A sofa, a banged-up armchair, a TV, a few bookshelves loaded down with books. A portable stereo unit next to several stacks of CDs: Brahms, Sibelius, Stravinsky intermixed with Foreigner, Boston, Lynyrd Skynyrd. My “coffee table” is an inverted crate I’d used in moving here. There’s a tiny dining area off to one side. The only reason it had a little table and a couple of chairs was because the owner of the building had offered them to me for nothing when I moved in; otherwise I would simply have eaten at the sofa all the time. In the bedroom is a bed and a desk which holds an old computer—nothing more. The walls everywhere are plain white, with just a couple of Edward Hopper posters tacked up indifferently here and there. The carpets are that ubiquitous apartment-tan.
It was a silly way for a thirty-six-year-old to live, I knew; this could be the apartment of a college student. But every time I considered sprucing it up, spending a little money to make it truly livable, whatever energy I had just seemed to slide out of me. It didn’t help that I had no money to speak of, anyway.
The telephone message machine was blinking red. I took off my coat and hung it in the closet. I pushed the button and listened while I stepped into the kitchen for a soda.
Beep. “Ben, it’s Vincent. It’s three-thirty. I hope you’re ready to negotiate. We really need to have your response to the proposal before close of business today. Call me, please.”
Beep. Nothing. Silence. Probably Vincent trying again.
Beep. “Benny?” I immediately recognized Alice’s voice. “It’s about Dad. It’s not an emergency, but could you give me a call? And come on, call me this time, okay? Why don’t you get a cellular phone, anyway? I’ll buy one for you if you want me to. I hate leaving messages like this, especially when you don’t return them half the time. He’s your dad too, you know. Anyway, call me. Love you.”
Beep. Click. “End—of—messages,” the robotic voice announced.
I dropped myself onto the sofa and finished the soda in four long swallows, letting rip a satisfying belch at the end. That was one good thing about living alone, anyway—freedom of one’s bodily functions. Loud ’n’ proud.
But I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I glanced at my watch: nearly four. It would be dark soon. “Close of business” meant five o’clock. If the phone rang, I just wouldn’t pick it up; soon I’d be home free and wouldn’t have to deal with anything connected to Vincent or my divorce until Monday. If anybody got mad, well, I had to stay late at work on Fr
iday, that’s all. No one can criticize a teacher for being dedicated.
Alice was another matter. I knew I should get up and punch in the numbers to her house in Arlington, but I just couldn’t face the prospect. Dad lived with her, which was a sore point between us even though she’d volunteered the year before to take him. She had plenty of money thanks to her architect-husband. Plenty of room, too—they had at least three guest rooms that I could think of. What’s more, her kids got along with Dad just great. Still, he was increasingly feeble and more than a bit confused at times. I knew it was a burden to her. I’d offered to help out financially, but Alice knew I didn’t have any money. And I certainly didn’t have any place to keep Dad here. I appreciated what my sister was doing—I really did—but it was difficult to show that appreciation when her tone with me was always the same, the tone she’d taken since we were children: mildly disguised contempt. Alice is eight years older than me, so we were never close as kids; from the beginning she was forced into a quasi-parental role, especially when Mom’s health began to fail. Alice always resented me, I think, and shows it by dripping a kind of smiling disdain on everything I do. “Oh, what a nice—little—place you have here,” she’d said, lips pursed, when she first saw the apartment. “What a nice—little—job,” she’d remarked years back, when I first became a teacher in the D.C. Public Schools. And my novel? “What a nice—little—book.”
Alice didn’t mean to be rude, and I knew she genuinely cared about me, but at the same time I was little more than the village idiot to her. Her life was stylish, high-energy, high-power. I was low-energy, low-power. She didn’t get it. Never had.
No, I didn’t want to talk to Alice now. I wasn’t ready for her brand of sweet-faced disdain.
I changed my clothes, turned on the TV for a few minutes, then turned it off again. I remembered the cigarette in my coat pocket and fetched it, lay on my back on the sofa fondling it. If I were a really good teacher, I knew, I would grade all the assignments I’d brought home right then and clear my weekend—but I wasn’t that good a teacher. Anyway, my head throbbed. Finally I lit the cigarette and took a deep, satisfying drag. My entire body seemed to relax then. All tension just seeped away. Camel Filters, baby—distinctive flavor and world-class smoothness! My head felt better immediately. Ah, God, it tasted good, felt good. Was good.
Lullaby for the Rain Girl Page 3