Driver's Ed

by Caroline B. Cooney

  He and Remy kept giving the explanations their parents wanted to hear, but the explanations were not, after all, what they wanted to hear.

  “Nickie picked the sign,” said Remy. “We had the THICKLY SETTLED that Lark needed, and MORGAN ROAD for me, and we didn’t need anything more, but Nickie stopped again and … well …”

  “And you needed that,” said Remy’s mother. “Tell me, Remy, in what way you and Morgan needed a stop sign.”

  Morgan’s mother said nothing. Nothing at all. Here was Mrs. Marland exploding with words. Words flung out like daggers, like archery, every word sharp tipped and poison dipped. But Morgan’s mother, the lawyer who made a living talking, said nothing.

  Dad reached for the big fat gold wall phone, which still had a dial—Morgan hadn’t known people had dial phones anymore—and he telephoned Mr. and Mrs. Budie. Morgan’s heart and soul hit each other, like the two-person piano piece “Heart and Soul.” His guilt-thick fingers slammed against the keys of his fear, playing the same melody over and over.

  No! screamed Morgan. You can’t talk to Nickie. Don’t let them be home. Please, God, no, don’t let Nickie talk to Dad.

  Morgan was hoping for an accident, that’s the kind of person your son is, he enjoyed himself when Denise Thompson bought it, stayed to watch the fun.

  He tried looking at Mrs. Marland, but this was a mistake. If Imogene Marland had a microwave big enough, she’d nuke him on high.

  He tried looking at Mr. Marland, but Remy’s father was rocking the baby, who was almost asleep, but never quite, eyes lifting like a drugged person, more afraid of sleep than life. The sadness on Mr. Marland’s face seemed to be for the baby, as if something had happened to Henry and Mr. Marland could not protect him.

  As for Remy, he could not quite recognize her. This girl he had known most of his life did not look familiar. He could not remember kissing that mouth, touching that hair, hearing that voice.

  Mr. and Mrs. Budie were home.

  His father mostly listened. After a while he disconnected. “Mr. and Mrs. Budie,” said Dad in a measured voice, “have explained that their son would never participate in any sort of crime. Would never dream of vandalism. In any event, Nicholas was home that night. They can prove it. They don’t know what kind of little liar my son is, but their son, Nicholas, is a fine, upstanding young man.”

  Nickie’s threat was gone. Maybe there was a God. Nickie would hide behind the curtain of his parents and never speak at all.

  Morgan didn’t even care that the blame was on two now, and not three. That he was the only one now who had chosen the stop sign and cut it off. He would never have to look in his mother’s eyes and see that she believed a son of hers could get his kicks that way.

  The worst had not happened.

  “The question,” said Remy’s father, “is whether to bring in the police.”

  Remy had no gods on whom to call. The room was filled with hostile aliens. People who used to be her parents. People who used to be the parents of a friend. They were gritted teeth now, glittering eyes, grating voices.

  Her very own father would bring in the police.

  “I,” said her mother, “am feeling very biblical. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

  You mean Mr. Thompson ought to be able to kill us back?

  Remy, flanked by Morgan’s lawyer parents, had the weird thought that she would like to have her own lawyer here right now. She could not speak. She could not argue. Police. Jail. Toilets out in the open and horrible stinking street people and bare mattresses and roaches.

  Remy began to sob, and her mother screamed, “How dare you cry? Denise Thompson doesn’t get to cry again. She doesn’t get to bring up her own baby, and you’re the one crying? Stop crying!”

  Remy stopped crying on the outside, but on the inside she was now screaming. It was just a sign! Why can’t we all admit that it was just a sign! Everybody does it.

  Mr. Fielding arrived just as Mr. Campbell said he was hoping to handle it privately.

  The Campbells’ BMW shone as if coated with clear nail polish, while Mr. Fielding’s old Pontiac had no finish left, and not much color. It was just there, and it had wheels.

  Morgan felt his parents’ distaste for Mr. Fielding. The man was dressed badly even when dressed well. Every jelly doughnut and coffee with cream lay in rolls around his belly.

  Morgan’s father commented smoothly on the disturbing fact that Mr. Fielding could not tell Kierstin from Cristin from Lark from Remy. That Mr. Fielding had known all along his class chose sign-stealing for its activity. That as the adult responsible for Driver’s Education, Mr. Fielding had neglected both responsibility and education.

  Mr. Fielding flinched. “You’re right. I was no teacher.” He fidgeted with the keys hanging off his belt. “But I didn’t cut the sign down. They did. And I think Remy and Morgan should pay for it somehow. No matter what my problems are and no matter what the legal situation is, the woman is dead.”

  I respect him, thought Morgan. Dad is basically threatening Mr. Fielding’s job, and he’s a guy who won’t find much else. And still he’s hanging in there.

  “I haven’t called Mr. Thompson yet,” said Mr. Fielding, “because when I thought it was Kierstin, Remy had the decency to admit the truth. At least she wasn’t going to let somebody be wrongly accused. I give her that much credit. She asked me to wait until she had a chance to talk to her parents. So I did, and now I want to know where we go from here. Because we have to go somewhere.”

  Mac Marland felt like a video camera. His focus was everywhere, capturing the elusive moments on his mental film.

  The two fathers were less angry than the two mothers. The mothers had been personally betrayed; the fathers, momentarily shell-shocked, moved right along.

  He knew why, because he was the same.

  The fathers were less angry because vandalism, that violent form of showing off, was something they might have done.

  Or had done.

  It was a boy kind of thing. Wherever Morgan Campbell had been, not thinking, not stopping, Morgan’s father and Mac’s father had been there too.

  “Where we go from here?” repeated Mr. Campbell, sounding much too tired to be heading anywhere. “Defacing or removing an official traffic control device is vandalism, a fine of not more than one hundred dollars. Criminal mischief, which is a possible charge, is slightly worse. This covers things like throwing stones at cars or defacing tombstones. A misdemeanor. Fine of no more than two hundred fifty dollars. More serious is malicious mischief. That’s a charge usually involving fire alarms, hydrants, railroad crossings, where there’s intent to hurt the public. The kids had no intent to hurt. If committed through ‘sport’ it isn’t malicious mischief. All they actually did was steal a sign. Taking signs is almost a suburban hobby. Legally it might even be considered sport.”

  “So if we go to the police,” said Mr. Fielding, “the maximum punishment would be a fine that’s only a fraction of your car payment on that BMW.”

  Mac read a flicker in Mr. Campbell’s eyes and knew right away that the Campbells didn’t have car payments. They were way out of that league.

  “How about negligent homicide?” said Mr. Fielding.

  Mr. Campbell shook his head. “The state couldn’t really bring a charge, because the kids are removed from the actual cause of death, which was another driver in a truck. Manslaughter has to include a gross deviation from reasonable conduct and an extreme indifference to human life.” Mr. Campbell was looking at his son. “Thoughtlessness, which is what happened here, is not manslaughter.”

  “You mean, nothing will happen to your kids. A woman is dead and nothing will happen.”

  Mr. Campbell did a strange thing. He rested one hand on Morgan’s head and the other on Remy’s, like a minister giving a benediction. In the morning, said Morgan’s father, he would go see Mr. Thompson. He would find out what it was that Mr. Thompson wanted done.

  Mac sucked in his breath. A
guy that paid for television time: Tell me who murdered my wife. This did not seem like the kind of guy who was going to let it pass.

  If I were a parent, thought Mac, I’d do what Nickie Budie’s parents did. Slam the door. I’d never do what Mr. Campbell is doing—put my own kid’s fingers in the door and then slam it!

  For the first time in his life Mac Marland was glad to be a kid. No way would he be the parent knocking on the door of dead Denise Thompson’s husband.

  “Turn onto Warren,” said his mother to Dad, who was driving them home. Morgan felt like he was coming down with the flu.

  “Nance, I don’t want to go to the site of the accident,” said Dad.

  “Turn onto Warren, Rafe.”

  Was she going to shove her son out of the car and rub his nose at the base of the stop sign, like a bad puppy who’d messed the floor?

  His father turned down Warren. Morgan had a sense that Dad was actually afraid of her; afraid of what she would do; afraid of those words not being said. If Dad was afraid …

  “And left on Macey,” said Mom.

  “Nance, please,” said Dad.

  “Please?” repeated his mother. “Is pleasing me part of this equation? My son, does he care about pleasing me? Or pleasing anybody? He killed somebody. Where does please enter into it?”

  Morgan’s head brought up the other stuff: how it was only a sign, how he had not actually taken a knife and stabbed Denise Thompson, a collision had killed her, he and Remy were just a contributing factor. But his tongue didn’t use the excuses.

  “Pull in,” said Nance.

  It was a car dealership. What was she going to do, run him over? It was night, and the lots were bright with theft-prevention lights, but there were no salesmen at this hour. The place was an eerie combination of open and closed.

  “Get out,” said his mother.

  He got out. Dad got out. They were both scared of her.

  Rows of shiny parked cars divided into little alleys for his mother to fling herself down, for Morgan to follow, for Dad to bring up the rear. He had the thought that Mom was going to kill him, and he wondered if he should just let it happen. One of the spotlights was failing, and its bulb sang like hornets’ nests overhead.

  His mother stopped in front of a beautiful cranberry-red Miata convertible. “I bought it for you,” she said conversationally. “To celebrate your adulthood. Your new driver’s license. You.”

  It was perfect. Color, accessories, Wow-factor. It was a teenage toy—the best.

  “Do you know what I would like to do with it now?” his mother said to him.

  He swallowed.

  “I would like to take a tire iron and destroy it!” she shouted. “I would like to beat it to death! I could take it out on this car. I could hit it and hit it and hit it until it’s dented and ruined and dead! Dead, Morgan! Are you listening to me? Dead! Do you know how long dead lasts?”

  Dad tried to put his arms around Mom but she was in too deep for arms. “How dare you?” she spat at Morgan. “How dare you take our family, our lovely family, and do this to us? How dare you take Christmas and do this to Christmas?” Her sobs broke, as rough and scraping as the hacksaw on the signpost.

  “Oh, Rafe,” she said, trying to touch her husband, but stepping back at the same time, “I’m a terrible person. I’m more concerned with being a bad parent in public than with Denise Thompson. She’s dead forever, she’ll always be dead, and I’m busy being mad about my family.”

  Rafe Campbell needed to hold each of them, but they were both too far away, and if he stepped toward one, he would step away from the other.

  School.

  It never faded. Just when you wanted whiteout, there it was, in full color, full time.

  Mr. Fielding said, “I canceled the driver’s tests for today.”

  Howls of pain rose from the two kids involved: Lark and Chase. “That isn’t fair!” said Chase. “Mr. Fielding, this is life and death! I have plans and—”

  “You spoiled brat!” shouted Mr. Fielding. He slammed his fist down on the library table so hard that even outside the glass walls, Mrs. Bee heard and jumped.

  Lark said sweetly, “Is this a bad hair day, Mr. Fielding?”

  Mr. Fielding stared at her, individually, for the first time in the eight-week session. What he saw so turned his stomach that even Lark dropped her eyes.

  “I haven’t taught a class yet,” said Mr. Fielding. “But I’m going to teach this one. So listen up. You’re all brats, one way or another. I don’t exempt a single one of you. But I’m worse, because I didn’t care. I couldn’t have cared less what happened with any of you. I still don’t. But there is one thing I care about.”

  Nobody looked at Mr. Fielding, and nobody looked at anybody else. He was rabid, like a raccoon the sheriff would shoot. The thing was to lie low till it was over.

  “She’s dead,” said Mr. Fielding. “Denise Thompson. She’s dead.”

  That’s what this was about? That old wrecked car on the lawn? Several people breathed inner sighs of relief. Several did not.

  “You kids are always mentioning life and death,” said Mr. Fielding. “Getting into college is life and death. Getting your driver’s license is life and death. Having a date is life and death.”

  He waited so long, they were forced to look up, see what he was doing, see where he was going. When he had them all back, he said, “No. None of the above. Only driving is life and death. Holding a steering wheel is life and death. Choosing to control a car is life and death.”

  The class relaxed. Yet another safety lecture. Maybe he had just found out that Denise Thompson was really his cousin, or his first wife, or something. It was nothing to do with them.

  “I let this class be a joke,” said Mr. Fielding. “I let myself be a joke, I let driving be a joke. That’s the joke, guys. Because this is the only class you’ll ever take where you can go out and kill somebody if you’re careless. You fail chemistry or you ace English, it’s not life and death. This is the only life-and-death course you have, and I let it be a joke.”

  People wanted to check the clock or their watches, but they didn’t want to move and attract attention.

  “And those kids? The ones who took the stop sign? Nothing will happen to them,” said Mr. Fielding very softly, as if he were speaking to Denise, to her grave, her ghost. “There is no legal remedy. The law can’t get at this one.”

  “I’m a member of SADD,” said Christine suddenly. “I think Students Against Drunk Drivers could get involved.”

  “Only,” said Mr. Fielding, “if there were a drunk driver. In this case there’s just a couple of stupid teenagers.”

  “Still,” said Christine, “they might have to pay a fine or something.”

  “So what?” shouted Mr. Fielding. “So what? The woman is still dead, do you understand that? Forget fines. Forget SADD. Forget legal anything. She. Is. Still. Dead.”

  The mall was even Christmasier. At each of the distant four corners of the vast shopping center, school choirs sang carols, and from each door came the canned carols of separate stores. You could not tell one melody from another; it was like a dozen radio stations and a score of wound-up music boxes.

  Morgan didn’t mind. It kept his head full. He didn’t need any space in there in which to think.

  “I hate myself,” said Remy. “It was a Driver’s Ed test, and we both failed. We should have said right there in class that we did it. I mean, Morgan, if we’re looking for a punishment to wrap this thing up, we could let the class do it.”

  They both knew the class would just separate itself, stay silent, and think on other things.

  Wrap this thing up, he thought. How on earth do you wrap up death? Morgan wanted to shrug but found he could not make his shoulders do it. It would be shrugging over Mr. Fielding’s last hideously separated words. She. Is. Still. Dead.

  He finally taught a class, thought Morgan. I hope he knows that. That he was a teacher again. That he mattered. It mattered.r />
  “What are we doing at the mall, anyway?” said Remy.

  “We’re buying Christmas presents,” said Morgan. His laugh sounded shrill to him. “What shall I get for my mother, Rem? She’d really like a tire iron and permission to split my skull open.”

  “Is she talking to you yet?”

  “She’s avoiding me. She hasn’t been in the same room with me once.”

  “What do you do about dinner?”

  “She doesn’t come home. Dad is cooking.”

  They stared into the window of a seasonal Christmas shop: it had opened in November and would close December 24th. You had to say for Christmas that it was pretty; everything about it was lovely and decorative and sparkly and bright.

  “Mom isn’t having Christmas,” said Morgan. He had not thought he could get those words out. His mother had taken the tree down. Packed up the collection of stars, thrown away the holly. She’d found restaurants in which to hold the rest of the season’s parties.

  He did not think anything had shocked him as much as the sight of his mother putting away Christmas before Christmas had come.

  “How can you not have Christmas?” said Remy. “It comes anyway.”

  Morgan had found his sister lying on her bed, weeping into her pillow. There won’t be any stockings, Morgan! There won’t be any presents! We won’t sing any carols and we won’t have Christmas dinner. Mom won’t even go to the Christmas Eve pageant, because you’re doing it, and she says she can’t think about how you killed somebody and you get to be in charge of Christmas anyway.

  Starr hated him. His mother hated him. His father was hanging on to everybody’s love like double-sided tape.

  “Mom says,” said Morgan, thinking how friendly and ordinary the word Mom was, and how it used to be he couldn’t be in the room with her, for no reason, and now she couldn’t be in the room with him, for valid reason, “Mom says she can’t celebrate hope and joy now.”

  Remy was looking at crèches. Tiny carved olive-wood camel strings from Israel. A hand-blown crystal manger and baby, as if Jesus were an icicle. A baroque gold and pale blue china Mary from Italy. “I can’t decide, Morgan,” said Remy, “whether I hate you or I love you.”