Bird's-Eye View

by J. F. Freedman

  “You can live in the past,” I tell him, “or you can look to the future. It’s time for me to start thinking about where I’m going, not where I’ve been.”

  The call comes from out of the blue. “Fritz?”

  “Yes?” I say tentatively. I’m jumpy about all unsolicited calls these days. “It’s Ted Kelston. How are you? It took me a while to track you down.”

  I relax. “This is my mother’s line.” I don’t go into the details. “I’m hanging in, Ted. How long has it been?”

  “Five years, at least. I don’t think we’ve seen each other since the tenth-year class reunion, have we?”

  “No, I don’t think so. What’s happening with you?”

  “I’m the vice-provost of the University of Massachusetts.”

  I break out in a big smile. “No kidding! That’s great. Since when?”

  “A year ago last June.”

  “Congratulations,” I tell him sincerely. “Well done.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ted Kelston and I were classmates at Yale. He’s one of the nicest men I’ve ever known, and certainly one of the most courageous. He was born with severe birth defects—he’s a hunchback, a dwarf, his eyesight is 20/400 (at best). He could have gone through life with an angry chip on his shoulder, but he didn’t—he’s more positive and optimistic than anyone has a right to be, regardless of his afflictions. A sports fanatic, he couldn’t play regular sports like the rest of us so he found his own particular, wonderful niche—he became the coxswain for the crew. He won three letters, and went on to a Rhodes scholarship. After he came back from Oxford he got his doctorate in university administration, married a terrific woman, and has had a great all-around life. Whenever I used to feel sorry for myself I’d look at Ted and I’d pull out of my funk—how can you indulge your self-pity when this guy, who had every reason to, never did?

  “So what’s happening with you?” he asks. “Job-wise?”

  Ahh. “I’m unemployed at the moment, Ted.”

  “I heard about your situation,” he says with diplomatic understatement.

  “It was my own damn fault, so I can’t complain.”

  “Well, we all make mistakes. I’ve made my share, and then some.”

  I doubt that, but it’s nice of him to say it.

  “Something’s come up,” he says, getting to the point. “Which might work out really well for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There’s an unexpected opening in our History Department. One of our professors died suddenly last week.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “It was. He was a decent guy, and a good teacher. But it’s left us in a quandary. We have to fill his spot, and we have to do it right away.”

  “That’s why you called?” I ask. This is a shock.

  “We need a professor in the American history section for the fall semester. That’s less than a month away. I immediately thought of you.”

  I start tingling. “Jesus.” I have to ask the obvious question. “What about my problems at UT?”

  “We discussed it internally. You learned your lesson, I assume.”

  “Oh, yeah. Absolutely.”

  “Fine,” he says, dismissing the issue. “What’s in the past is back then. I have to worry about the present. The people down in Austin gave you raves, by the way.”

  “That’s decent of them.” If I had another job they could stop paying me off, an incentive to be charitable.

  “Are you interested?” he asks. “And available?”

  “Of course I’m interested. And definitely available.”

  “Good,” he says briskly. “It’s going to be a fast process. We’re only going to interview a few candidates. With your record you’ve got a good shot, particularly since I’m going to be pushing for you.”

  “That’s great, Ted. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Can the false modesty, you jerk. If you get it, you’ll do a great job. That’ll be more than enough thanks. UT’s loss would be our gain. Can you come up tonight, so you can meet with the selection committee tomorrow morning?”

  “Sure.”

  “Make your own travel arrangements, and we’ll reimburse you,” he directs me. “This is a good school, Fritz. We’re moving up the academic ladder, we need all the talented faculty we can find. You could be a good fit. You’ll like the people here, and I’m sure they’ll love you. It could be a great opportunity for you, and for us as well.”

  We briefly discuss logistics, then we ring off.

  I book an afternoon flight to Boston from Washington. It’s too bad Ted didn’t call earlier—Maureen and I could have flown up together. I’m on cloud nine. A chance to start my career up again, with one of my best friends in my corner? It’s almost too good to be true. And Amherst, the town in which the university’s located, is less than a two-hour drive from Harvard.

  A resurrection in my life’s work, and a future with Maureen. For the first time in a long time, I begin to believe that I’m going to turn it all around.

  • • •

  My interview at UMass goes well. I’m charming, informed, they’re impressed with my résumé. Ted and I have lunch afterward at the faculty club—he’s so giddy he almost breaks out into a jig.

  “I’m only one voice, Fritz,” he cautions me, “but that was a knockout.” He holds up his hand—his fingers are crossed.

  “When will I know?”

  “We have two more candidates to see tomorrow and the next day. It could be as soon as the end of the week. Beginning of next week, for sure.” He pumps my hand. “I have a good feeling about this, Fritz.”

  “I’ll light a candle,” I tell him.

  “You’re Catholic now?”

  “I want to cover all the bases.”

  He’ll call me as soon as he knows anything. He doesn’t want to build my hopes up too high, but it wouldn’t hurt to start making preparations to move.

  I’m euphoric—I’m going to be in the academic life again, it’s practically signed, sealed, and delivered—Ted wouldn’t be so confident if there was much doubt. Until I got there, walked the campus, talked to the faculty interview team, saw the summer school students walking to class, throwing Frisbees, eating their lunches on the grounds, I’d forgotten how much I love teaching, and how much I’ve missed it.

  My flight back to Washington isn’t until seven tonight—I have plenty of time to get back to Boston. Earlier, I’d thought about calling Maureen, but I didn’t want to raise false expectations, in case this falls through.

  As I approach Boston on I-90 east, I make a snap decision. Screw playing games, Maureen deserves to know about this. God knows she’s been through the wars with me—she should share in my good fortune. It will be hers, too. Instead of driving straight through to Logan Airport and sitting in the terminal for a couple of hours with nothing to do, I detour off the freeway, and head toward Cambridge.

  It’s a beautiful late-summer New England day. Scullers are out on the Charles River, both men’s and women’s crews. When I was rowing for Yale we came up here every year to compete against Harvard. We never won.

  I cross over the Larz Anderson Bridge and drive up John F. Kennedy Street to Harvard Square. Luckily, I find a parking spot on Church Street, not far from the entrance to the yard. If I’m here for more than two hours I’ll eat the ticket.

  A thought occurs to me—what if she isn’t in? I activate my cell phone and get the Harvard Biology Department telephone number from the operator, punch it in.

  “Dr. O’Hara’s office, please,” I say when the phone’s answered.

  “One moment.”

  A ten-second hold—then the same Boston-accented woman’s voice that I spoke to the last time I called comes on the line.

  “Dr. O’Hara’s office.”

  “Is Dr. O’Hara in?”

  “She’s in a meeting,” the woman informs me curtly. “She can’t be disturbed.”

  “How late is she going to b
e in her office today?” I ask.

  “Until five. Perhaps later. Who is this, please?”

  I hang up. I want this to be a surprise.

  The Biology Department is at the far end of the campus from the main gate. Summer school is still in session. Students of all ages, including adults, up to octogenarians, take courses here. They spend two or three weeks attending classes in urban development and Renaissance art, so that for the rest of their lives they can say they went to Harvard.

  I approach Maureen’s building, go inside, and look up her office location on the hallway directory: the third floor. Taking the polished marble steps two at a time, I walk down a long hallway and open the door that has her name stenciled on it.

  The woman whose desk placard identifies her as Mildred Rabwin, Maureen’s assistant, is a middle-aged, skinny, lank-haired woman, dressed in an old-fashioned shirtwaist dress. She has no chest or hips, but there’s a discernible fuzz on her upper lip. She looks up as I enter.

  I glance toward the door behind her, Maureen’s personal office. The door is closed. “Good afternoon,” I greet Ms. Rabwin with a friendly smile. “Is Dr. O’Hara in?”

  She looks me up and down. I’m dressed properly—sports coat, slacks, white button-down shirt, rep tie. The picture of respectability.

  “Who are you?”

  I smile. “The love of her life.”

  She gives me a very strange look. “Just a moment.” She gets up from her desk and goes into Maureen’s office, closing the door behind her before I can get a peek in.

  Maureen’s going to fall on her ass when she sees me. And when she hears about my interview, she’ll be beside herself.

  Rabwin comes out. “You may go in,” she instructs me.

  I take a beat to gather myself. Then I walk through the door.

  The woman I’m looking at is stocky, in her late middle age, with straight gunmetal gray hair cut almost crew-cut short. She stands up from behind her desk as I enter. She’s wearing a baggy man’s golf shirt and jeans. No makeup, no personal adornments of any kind.

  I’ve seen pictures of Gertrude Stein. This woman could be Gertrude Stein’s sister; or daughter, if Gertrude Stein had ever had children. Which she didn’t, of course.

  I take a moment to compose myself—I’m in a state of shock. “You’re Dr. O’Hara? Dr. Maureen O’Hara?”

  She gives me a quizzical, penetrating look. “Who else would I be? The better question is, who are you, where are you from, and what do you want?”

  “My name is Fritz Tullis.”

  I pause. There’s no reaction.

  “I’m residing in southern Maryland presently, but I’ve been living in Austin, Texas, for the past few years. I’m a professor at the University of Texas, presently on sabbatical.”

  A faint smile crosses her lips. “Are you?” she asks. If I wanted to, I could think she was mocking me. I choose not to think that.

  “If you want to verify my credentials, I’ll give you some numbers to call.”

  She shakes her head. “That won’t be necessary. What you do doesn’t matter to me, one way or the other. What does matter to me is what you’re pulling here. What do you want from me, Mr. Tullis. Or is it Dr.?”

  “Dr. is for students, not colleagues, as far as I’m concerned,” I say, forcing a smile—I need this woman’s help. “But yes, I’m a card-carrying Ph.D. I’m also an avid bird-watcher, which is what I want to talk to you about.”

  Her eyebrows go up. “Yes?”

  “The stretch of Maryland where I’m staying is a great birding area. I’ve been doing some fieldwork.”

  Now I have her interest. “In what, specifically?”

  “Sandhill cranes.”

  She frowns. “In the wild?”

  I nod.

  “I didn’t know there were any sandhill cranes in that region,” she says with authority, “aside from the breeding flock at the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge.”

  “Mine are a lost flock,” I explain. “My assumption is that whoever was leading them was accidentally killed near this site and they settled in, before I found them.” I pause. “It’s a very remote area. No one except me knows of their existence.”

  “I see,” she says slowly. “Are you working with anyone? Professionally?” She motions me to take a seat, which I do. She sits back down at her desk.

  “Not exactly,” I hedge. “It’s family property, where these cranes are. My family. And I don’t let anyone near the place.”

  I have her attention now. “You want to keep the birds to yourself,” she says with a knowing smile.

  “That’s right, Dr. O’Hara.” I pause. “With one exception.”

  “Who is that?” she asks.

  I give her a good, long look. “Until I walked in here, I thought it was you.”

  She frowns. “I don’t understand.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  I reach into my inside jacket pocket for my wallet and take out a picture of Maureen, one that I took when we were out watching the birds and I snapped some off without her being aware I was doing it. I hand it across the desk.

  “Do you recognize this woman?”

  She looks at the picture for a moment, shakes her head. “No, I don’t. Should I?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re talking in circles, Dr. Tullis. What’s going on?”

  “This woman has been impersonating you.”

  “Impersonating me?” she says in alarm.

  “Yes. She’s been bird-watching with me for over a month now. She told me she was you.” I pause—a tremendous sadness washes over me. “Until now, I believed her.”

  She gives me a savvy look. “That’s why you’re here. To find out who the real Maureen O’Hara is. Aside from the movie actress, that is. A cross I’ve had to bear my entire life,” she says with bitterness.

  “You don’t get mistaken for her?” I ask, in a feeble attempt to lighten my mood, which is as dark as the far side of the moon.

  “Look at me, Dr. Tullis,” she scolds me. “Do I look like a sex symbol?”

  I don’t reply.

  She stares at the picture again. “I don’t recognize this woman at all.” She hands it back to me. “What’s her game?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Access?” she surmises. “To your private birding area?”

  “That’s what I thought. But I don’t know if that’s the real reason.” I pause. “I don’t think it is,” I say more definitively.

  She gives me a funny, almost compassionate look. “Are you and she involved?”

  I shake my head. “Not anymore.”

  • • •

  Dr. O’Hara walks me out of the building. “It’s a lucky coincidence you caught me here today in my office,” she says. “This is my first day back in the country in over two months. I’ve been on a field trip all summer and I wasn’t due back for another couple of weeks. A remote area, in the Andes,” she goes on. “One of my team took sick and we had to leave early. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have found out. As soon as you did,” she adds.

  Somehow, I don’t feel lucky.

  “Good luck at finding out who my impersonator is.”

  “I don’t know if I want to find out,” I tell her honestly.

  “If you ever allow a real ornithologist to have a gander at those birds, I’d appreciate being considered.” She hands me her card. I pocket it.

  “I’m going to do that. I have some details to take care of first, but I’ll give you a call. You’ll be surprised at what’s down there.”

  I haven’t brought Ollie up. She’ll go batshit when she sees him. Any real ornithologist would.

  “Thanks for your time,” I say. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

  “It wasn’t a bother,” she assures me.

  We shake hands, say good-bye. “Good luck,” she says, as she turns away from me and goes back into the building.

  I walk across the campus. I have no faith in anything anymore. Mauree
n was the one person I thought I could count on. She was going to be my future. And now I’ve found that she, and what we had, was an illusion, a dream.

  No, not a dream: a nightmare.

  • • •

  I drive straight to Maureen’s motel from the airport. The curtains to her room are drawn shut. There’s no response when I knock on the door. I’m not surprised—I knew she wouldn’t be there.

  I didn’t expect her to be, but I’m still disappointed. I’m also hurt, and most strongly, I’m angry, angry as hell. What in the world was all this about? Who is she, and what’s her game?

  Once again, a woman I loved has played me for a sucker. I thought I’d learned my lesson. Obviously, I haven’t.

  • • •

  I hope this isn’t too late.”

  Johanna Mortimer shakes her head. She’s wearing a thin nightgown with an old-fashioned chenille robe over it, which I assume is her mother’s. Without any makeup on she looks very young, sweetly vulnerable. “I stay up late. It’s the only time I have to myself when I’m down here. My mother clings to me like a baby possum. She hardly sees me anymore, since we live so far from each other, and she’s getting on, I don’t know how long . . .”

  There’s a delicate unease between us, as her words, and their import, hang in the air above our heads.

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up that way,” she apologizes.

  “It’s all right.”

  I’d called her from my car, asked if I could come by on my way home. She had no problem with that. It didn’t matter when I arrived.

  “I’m sorry to have intruded on your private time. I could have seen you tomorrow.”

  She puts a hand on mine. “I’m glad you did.”

  This is a hell of a nice woman. You always underappreciate the nice ones. We’re sitting in her mother’s front parlor. It’s an antebellum house, three stories of brick and weather-bleached wood on the outskirts of downtown Jamestown, an old district of fine old houses. Presidents Jackson, Polk, and Grant slept in some of the houses in this neighborhood. So did the legendary Robert E. Lee, when he was still a Union officer.

  Mrs. Mortimer has been asleep for hours. An atomic explosion directly overhead might awaken her; nothing short of that would do the trick, Johanna informs me. It’s her not-so-subtle way of saying we can get cozy, if we want to.