“Did you see Ms. Crispe’s dykey face, like, salivating over that pad?” exclaimed Dougie.
Audrey wasn’t sure that was what she had seen, but she smiled as if in agreement. She got up to leave before their approval was withdrawn, turned skilfully by Arabella’s sleight of hand into its inevitable contrary. Just as she was crossing the room, Dougie jumped off the bench and shrieked that her bladder was going to burst. As she sprang forward, she fell theatrically into Audrey, knocking her to the floor. Writhing in some combination of pain and hysteria, she howled that she had twisted her ankle. Audrey lay trapped beneath her as she squirmed, laughing uncontrollably. “Who’s the lesbo now?” Whitney said, poking Dougie’s stomach with her foot as she walked past.
“Oh my God, I’m going to wet my pants!” Dougie screamed.
“Not on me!” Audrey said, trying to wriggle free. She didn’t want to laugh. She wanted to hang on to her guard, but something was releasing, almost without her consent.
Whitney and Arabella piled onto Dougie, tickling her to see if she would wet her pants. Giddiness had infected them all by now. On the other side of the door, the school day was starting.
So this was how it felt, Audrey thought, to be on the inside of the noise. This was the sound of your own resurrected laughter.
RUTH WAS STILL MOVING through the smog of sleep-deprivation when she reached for the staff room door and Larissa McAllister nearly opened it into her face.
“Ruth!” she cried. “Good morning to you.”
“Hello!” Ruth returned with inexplicable conviviality.
Even when she’d fallen asleep the night before, Ruth had been merely dozing, and her dreams had been light and misleadingly realistic—negotiating shower times, finding the milk carton empty—so that only upon waking did she realize they were dreams. Being poorly rested had initially made her feel heady and buoyant, weirdly energized. But after teaching two classes, math and science, her least favourite, she had been able to think of little other than coffee, the smell of which wafted out from the staff room behind Larissa.
Sipping from her steaming mug, Larissa cast her eyes over Ruth’s outfit. “Ruth,” she said, “perhaps your educational agenda would be better served if you fastened one more button on your blouse.”
Ruth looked down in surprise. Only one button below the top was undone, and even from her prime view, only a small, flat patch of chest was visible. “Oh, I didn’t realize. Of course.” With her free hand, she fastened the pearly button above her collarbone, eliciting a nod of approval.
“To show too much skin strikes one as a touch bourgeois, no?” Larissa peered down at Ruth’s hand. “So, what is that weighty tome you’re brandishing?”
“Oh, it’s, um, Flannery O’Connor.” Ruth had taken the book from her briefcase with the intention of retreating to a corner of the staff room for a bit of reading while her class was in gym. “It’s part of an idea I’m working out for an English assignment for the kids. Not the book itself, but—” She stopped. It was implausible that she’d be using Flannery O’Connor with grade fours.
But Larissa nodded, seemingly intrigued, and Ruth felt a forgiving rush of warmth and gratitude that Larissa was, in fact, as forward thinking in her academic objectives as she purported to be. Lying could be easy under such circumstances.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” said Larissa, turning from Ruth to issue a sharp rebuke to a pair of grade sevens who were running in the hall. Ruth slipped into the staff room and made straight for the coffee machine, hoping that the right dose of caffeine would disarm the irritability that was building inside her. She had never thought of her mental state as something that required diligent maintenance, but for several days now, she had felt frustratingly volatile—one moment skittish with energy she didn’t know how to channel, the next moment lazy and discouraged. Her disconnection from Audrey was part of it. The more helpful Ruth tried to be—she had offered to sit with Audrey, in case she had any questions, while Audrey was doing her French homework—the more Audrey treated her presence as a bother. Ruth had done her best to keep her own moodiness in check. She continually reminded herself that Audrey was adjusting. But she was more than a little disheartened that Audrey’s acceptance to Eliot, the move that ought to have brought them closer, had begotten only estrangement.
Lorna Massie-Turnbull was standing by the counter, humming as she prepared a cup of herbal tea. As Ruth rooted around in the fridge for the cream, she set a loaf of bread on the counter, and Lorna tapped her back, saying, “Ahem, um. Sorry to be a pest, Ruth, but the bread…” She grimaced apologetically and gestured at the counter.
“Oops, sorry,” Ruth said contritely, removing the offending loaf.
Lorna had been diagnosed with celiac disease the year before and had since isolated one corner of the kitchenette—the stretch where Ruth had placed the loaf—for her food preparation. There sat a deluxe avocado-green KitchenAid toaster, as far away as it could get from the ancient dented toaster designated for communal use, several bread boards personalized in permanent marker with the initials L.M.-T., and a glass jar full of utensils. On this bit of counter also sat a white wicker basket loaded with homeopathic remedies. These also belonged to Lorna, but she was happy to share them with anyone in need. Once, when Ruth had been complaining about a headache and asking around for Advil, Lorna had intercepted Sheila’s tablets and insisted she take several drops of gingko biloba in a glass of water instead.
Ruth generally preferred to eat away from Lorna, whose lentil and quinoa salads made her feel obscurely guilty about her own food choices, especially after she observed Lorna regarding her peanut butter and jam sandwiches with a mixture of disapproval, pity, and fear. Although Ruth didn’t doubt the legitimacy of Lorna’s diagnosis, she couldn’t help viewing Lorna’s dietary restrictions as a feature of her general hypersensitivity. In response to a recent remark of Ruth’s that she was craving chocolate, Lorna had exclaimed, “Then my naturopath would say that it’s the last thing you should be eating! Have these soy nuts instead.”
Looking around for a snack, Ruth took some Bran Buds down from the cupboard and poured them into her raspberry yogurt. Sheila approached and surveyed the contents of their bowls. “Look at the two of you, showing off with your health food! Well, I’m just going to eat my blueberry muffin and enjoy every bite! No matter what you say!”
“I can assure you I won’t say anything,” Ruth replied icily.
“Ruth,” said Lorna, blowing on her tea. “Audrey is only mouthing the words in music class. Tell her to sing! I want to hear her beautiful voice.”
Sheila turned in curiosity. “Whyever would Audrey just pretend to sing?”
“Her voice is perfectly adequate,” Lorna said.
“I’m sorry,” Ruth replied. Whereas Chuck Marostica had been concerned about Audrey’s mathematical aptitude as a key intellectual skill, Lorna seemed personally wounded by Audrey’s apathy.
“Why would anybody not want to sing?” asked Sheila.
“Is she terribly self-conscious?” asked Lorna.
Backed into a corner of the small kitchenette, Ruth smiled in discomfort as Lorna and Sheila beamed their concern into her. “Aren’t all teenagers self-conscious?”
“Has the adjustment been very challenging for her?” Lorna asked.
Ruth was taken aback by the question. The fact that Audrey wasn’t particularly liking Eliot seemed like a dirty secret to her, one she barely wanted to admit to herself. “It’s early yet. I think…” But she didn’t know what response might appease them, whether she should defend Audrey’s emerging mediocrity or confess her worries.
The door swung open then and in walked Michael Curtis. She headed straight for the now-crowded kitchenette and transferred her lunch from a Lululemon bag into the fridge.
“Ooh, cute bag!” said Sheila. “I’m not sure I’ve got the bum for yoga pants anymore, but
I’ve just got to get one of those. Don’t you love it, Ruth?”
Ruth nodded vaguely. Although she liked Lululemon clothes, she found the aphorisms covering the bags irritating and moralistic, not to mention simplistic—New Age tripe about doing something every day that scares you and children being the orgasm of life. The only one of these prosaisms she could wholeheartedly agree with was that one should floss daily.
As the women discussed the relative merits of Lululemon and Roots, Ruth took the opportunity to escape to a wingback chair at the side of the circle. In addition to Lorna, Michael, and Sheila, the circle held Janet McLeod, the Latin teacher, who was marking on her lap, and Pat Bernstein, an English teacher with a bosomy warmth. Ruth cast a longing glance at the Flannery O’Connor in her lap but supposed the scene was manageable. Then she heard a rustling behind her and saw Henry Winter by the window, fiddling with the blinds. She sighed.
“What’s that book you have there, Ruth?” asked Sheila.
Ruth held it up.
“Mm. Only one I’ve read is A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Don’t I wish I didn’t know how true that is!”
Sheila was recently divorced from her husband of twenty-five years, and she claimed to have an active, if amusingly disastrous, dating life.
A shadow fell over the surface of Ruth’s book. “There we go,” said Henry, stationing the blind halfway down the window.
“Thank you for that, Henry,” Michael said as Henry stepped into the circle. “That glare was blinding.”
The room now seemed divided into two weather systems: on the far side a sunny day and on the sitting area side the gloom of rain. The last thing Ruth wanted was to read in the dark, but everyone else seemed to be in agreement that they were best off without the distraction of sun. Henry took a seat in the chair next to Ruth, his legs crossed effeminately as he sipped from a mug full of steaming water with lemon. Sheila leaned forward with her chin in her hand. “How about you, Henry? Did your lengthy studies bring you into much contact with Flannery O’Connor?”
He shook his head as though not much interested in the question. “I’m not excessively familiar with O’Connor’s work.”
“What should we be reading?”
“Ah, in reading, there are no shoulds, Sheila.”
“Well, who is your favourite author?” asked Sheila, unwilling to give up.
Ruth took a long sip of her coffee. Now he would name some obscure Brazilian writer no one had ever heard of, someone whose forbiddingly dense prose no normal person could enjoy, an unappreciated genius whose aesthetic of inscrutability would attest to the incomparability of his intellect. And his rapt audience would swoon over how well informed he was, how impressive was the mind that had conquered its lowdown and facile need for entertainment.
“I’m not generally given to favourites,” he said, “but in this category, my loyalty is unwavering. Jane Austen has no close competition in my mind.”
“Oh!” Sheila exclaimed. “Great minds think alike!”
“And who’s up and coming?” asked Michael, uncrossing and recrossing her legs grandly. “Who are the young geniuses bursting onto the scene, revolutionizing everything?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Henry said. “My tastes are decidedly antediluvian.”
“Mine too,” said Sheila cozily.
“I can think of nothing better than an evening in front of the fire with Pride and Prejudice and Angela Hewitt playing the Goldberg Variations,” said Michael. “After the kids get to bed, of course!”
Lorna released a noisy sigh of longing. “I have searched high and low for a student who can play Bach,” she said. She was sitting on the couch next to Pat Bernstein, with her legs tucked up under her. The effect was of a bird perched on a branch.
“Lorna,” said Sheila, “speaking of music, what a wonderful job you’ve done with Seeta Prasad. She’s brought the fun back to assembly. I find myself looking forward to chapel each morning. When she played ‘Fast Car’ the other day, boy, did I get chills.”
“She is an extraordinary talent,” nodded Michael austerely. “What a breath of fresh air.”
Pat Bernstein gathered her layers of skirts and shifted heavily, transferring her marking to the coffee table. Around her neck were tiers of bulky, beaded South American–flavour necklaces, which knocked and rustled like a percussionist symphony as she moved. In some ways Ruth envied Pat and wanted to be like her (although, of course, she didn’t want to be like her at all)—the throaty voice that clearly belonged to someone of ample body and spirit, her clipped white hair, her loose, monochromatic blouses and skirts, and the jewellery collected on her extensive travels. She seemed unconcerned about her appearance, not aggressively or defensively so, and not as though she had given up, but in a way that called into question whether stereotypical beauty was of any value at all.
“I’ve heard,” Pat said, “that Seeta is not having an easy time of it in her own class. Peers aren’t always the most receptive audience.”
“I heard the same,” said Lorna, nodding vigorously. “I asked Seeta about it, and she was wonderfully courageous. She looked me in the eye and said, ‘The voices of one or two dissenters won’t keep me from entertaining all the others.’ Did that ever give me the shivers. I felt I was in the presence of a great, great human being. What kind of kid has that perspective?”
“Have you heard anything, Ruth?” asked Pat. “Isn’t Audrey in Seeta’s class?”
Ruth had been staring at the cover of her book, wondering whether it would be rude to crack it open. Even just a couple of pages, like two sips of red wine, would do to restore her. “Audrey hasn’t mentioned anything,” she said. “She’s probably too busy getting used to things to notice.”
“Mm.” Pat nodded sympathetically. “And you know how secretive kids can be with their parents.”
“Well, no, Audrey’s not…” Ruth didn’t know the end of this sentence—Audrey wasn’t secretive? Was that claim still true?
“I was speaking to Claire Wright the other day,” said Michael. “As you may know, I’ve always been a bit of a mentor to her, and since her mother passed, she and I have become extremely close. Well, we were gabbing, and she told me all about it. A slew of highly unimaginative comments. ‘Anyone up for a round of “Kumbaya”?’ ‘Hey there, Garfunkel’—that sort of thing.”
“Claire’s always been such a lovely person,” said Sheila.
“True,” replied Michael. “I had to do a bit of work redirecting her to the high road, however. She thinks it’s all somewhat inane, but she also holds the typically unsympathetic teenage opinion that in so flamboyantly showcasing her considerable talent, Seeta is ‘asking for it.’”
Looking around the circle, Ruth felt something welling up in her. She didn’t think before speaking. “In addition to being lovely, Claire is astute.”
All heads whipped around as rapidly as if she had just upended the coffee table.
“Ruth, what on earth could you be suggesting?” asked Michael. Although usually quick to commit herself to indignation, Michael was frowning with concerned confusion, as though Ruth had just barged drunkenly into the staff room and she wanted to intervene for Ruth’s own safety but wasn’t sure how to do so diplomatically.
Sheila cocked her head and looked to Henry as though he could provide the clarification Ruth could not.
Ruth’s hands quivered slightly as she set down her coffee. “I just…yes, the music is excellent…but…I don’t know how anyone can deny that a student who plays an acoustic version of—what was it yesterday?—“Sympathy for the Devil” is asking for it, no matter how talented she is.”
“So you’re saying she should conform just to fit in? Pretend to be mediocre?” Henry asked. He paused with the aplomb of someone who knew everyone was willing to watch him and wait to hear what he would say next. “I thought going beyond the mediocre was what Eliot
stood for.”
Was there a sarcastic edge to his voice?
In a move that was simultaneously sprightly and angry, Lorna untucked her legs and landed on the edge of the cushion, leaning forward rigidly. She clutched her hands so tightly in her lap that her knuckles whitened, and when she spoke, her voice was quivering. “Seeta Prasad is the most talented student musician I’ve ever met. Without close competition. But then, clearly, not everyone can be musical.”
Lorna’s narrow chest moved quickly up and down as she squared herself challengingly. There was something personal, queerly taunting, in Lorna’s expression, as though her comment had been intended as a piercing coup, and Ruth was puzzled, unable to account for Lorna’s bright-eyed defiance. Was she referencing Audrey’s musical inhibition? Ruth took a deep breath. She was supposed to be enjoying her book. Its promise of escape had gotten her through the morning. Why had she opened her big mouth? Why was she speaking as if she cared about these things? She didn’t care about any of it, least of all Lorna’s ridiculously subtle jab at Audrey. As if she would have wanted her daughter making that spectacle of herself. As if she wouldn’t have sooner seen Audrey with two mob-style broken wrists than up in front of that audience belting out “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues.”
Ruth held up her hands. “Please, it’s not that I disagree with you. I’m not saying that Seeta deserves harassment. I know she’s talented. I know that. It’s just, I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying.”
“Does the problem lie in our understanding or in your expression?” said Michael, settling comfortably into her usual mode.
“What do you mean, Ruth?” asked Sheila slowly and gently, the way she spoke to children made incoherent by distress.
Ruth wasn’t sure what she meant. She had barely paid attention to Seeta’s playing in chapel, and she certainly didn’t feel strongly enough about it to be taking on a team united by the belief in one’s right to play amateur guitar in public. A part of her wished she were standing up so she could escape, taking backward appeasing steps, claiming she was late for a meeting somewhere. But another part of her, the part that was morally weaker but vocally stronger, found that the stridence of the opposition was making her form a strong opinion she hadn’t previously held.
The Eliot Girls Page 10