Wakefield College 01 - Where It May Lead

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “As you know,” he said, “the plan is for me to remove items one by one. I’ll call out the name, and the individual in question—or his or her representative—will then come up and accept whatever item was deposited in this capsule on that long-ago day.” His hand delved into the long metal container. Eagerness silenced the buzz.

  “Rob Dayton.”

  A tall, lanky man, almost entirely bald, stepped forward and accepted the 8 ½ by 10 inch envelope. It had appeared to Madison, when she peeked, that most inclusions had been sealed into similar envelopes.

  To the sound of good-natured jibes, Dayton retreated to his wife’s side.

  No one was there to claim the next couple items, which Berglund set aside. Several more alums came forward and accepted theirs.

  Madison noted that one of the envelopes was rather lumpy and obviously held something more than the writing samples most of these English majors had probably chosen to save for posterity. This one was accepted by an attractive woman around her own age. Madison had barely had a chance to chat with Amy Nilsson, who had explained that her mother was in Australia for two years.

  “I thought it would be fun to pick up whatever she put in the capsule,” Amy had said that morning. Now, carrying that fat manila envelope, she retreated back to the side of the man who had accompanied her. Madison would have presumed he was her husband, except that Amy hadn’t introduced him as such and they didn’t seem to touch casually the way people comfortable with each other physically did. Friends, maybe.

  “Jeanne Wellborn.”

  “Mary Jo Warren.”

  “Ellen Kenney.”

  Curious stares followed the noted author as she accepted a rather thick envelope.

  “An entire book manuscript?” Troy said softly. “Do you suppose it’s a masterpiece that the world would have been deprived of for another fifteen years if you hadn’t decided to do this early?”

  Madison laughed. “More likely, the painful drivel of a too-earnest adolescent.”

  “Tut, tut. Doesn’t Wakefield promise to ignite genius?”

  “Nobody said ignited genius doesn’t also require a maturing process.”

  “Aging, you mean? In oak casks?” he asked politely.

  She laughed. “That sounds easy and more peaceful than what we all go through, doesn’t it?”

  He gave her a sharp look, as if she’d betrayed something she hadn’t meant to. Madison didn’t even know why the comment brought a pang of sadness along with it.

  “Guy Laclaire.”

  Troy nudged her. “That’s you.”

  Startled, she stepped forward. She’d almost forgotten she was to collect something of her father’s.

  President Berglund grinned at her. “Hope he didn’t leave something that will shock you.”

  She smiled at him. “I almost hope he did.”

  A couple of nearby people overheard and laughed. She went back to Troy’s side.

  Berglund next drew out something that wasn’t contained in an envelope. “Well, well,” he said. “Now tell me, who plans to claim these?” He held up a handful of packets that Madison realized, after a puzzled moment, held condoms. The president grinned contagiously. “If you do claim them, I recommend caution. I suspect they’re past their use-by date.”

  Ribald comments and slightly crude accusations flung among the gathering and laughter loosened the atmosphere. It was almost a surprise to hear the next name.

  “Joseph Troyer.”

  With their upper arms brushing, Madison felt Troy’s new tension. His expression, she saw, had closed down entirely. The occasion and the simple act of accepting something his father had most likely written and perhaps never intended any other eyes to see was far more complicated for Troy than it had been for her. He must feel his father’s absence with painful clarity as, after only the briefest hesitation, he walked forward.

  His envelope looked like all the others, but was one of the thinnest, as if it held only a few pages. Maybe Joseph Troyer had written poetry, Madison speculated. She’d have to ask Troy later.

  The calling of names continued. The pile of unclaimed envelopes grew. Some people had opened their contributions and were sharing what appeared mostly to be writings with their companions. There was a lot of laughter. Madison told herself she was saving her dad’s for later because she was in charge of the event and couldn’t afford to get distracted. Troy, she couldn’t help noticing, made no move to slide his finger under the flap of the envelope he held either. In fact, although he’d returned to her side he now stood a couple of feet away. His posture was nowhere near as relaxed. His face remained impassive. No more humorous murmurs in her ear.

  Madison became edgy when she realized that expressionless gaze was repeatedly sweeping the crowd. Had he seen something to awaken the cop in him? she wondered in alarm.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked in an urgent undertone.

  Dark gray eyes met hers. “Wrong?”

  “You look...” She hesitated.

  “No,” he said flatly. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Gordon Haywood,” President Berglund said, and the senator wasted no time in claiming his contribution.

  The list of names went on. At last Berglund upended the capsule and smiled when one small object fell onto the table. “A petrified Tootsie Roll,” he informed the crowd, who laughed.

  “If you’d like to linger, visit with old friends, maybe hold public readings—” more chuckles “—catering staff have brought out beverages and cookies to hold you until dinner.” One last brilliant smile. “I look forward to seeing you all this evening.”

  “Well,” Madison said, feeling awkward with Troy for the first time. “I’m afraid I have to stay.”

  Troy nodded. “I’d better, too, although it looks like most people aren’t going to hang around.”

  Senator Haywood and his wife were already making tracks, Madison couldn’t help but notice. His wife was all but scuttling to keep up with him and seemed to be protesting, although they kept their voices low. He was among the relatively few who hadn’t opened his envelope. Madison had a sudden, intriguing thought: What if the young Gordon Haywood had written something that would now be scandalous, or at least embarrassing? He wouldn’t have dared not come to claim it, in case somebody peeked. Maybe, she thought in amusement, he’d brought a portable shredder in his suitcase.

  And maybe I just don’t like him.

  Almost everyone else visited the refreshment table, by common consensus bypassing the coffee urn for the generous cups of lemonade that staff served from big punch bowls. It was so blasted hot out, though, that people were departing immediately thereafter with lemonade and cookies in hand. She didn’t blame them. Her small house with its trusty window air conditioner sounded really good. And a cool shower, she thought longingly. But no—she was obliged to stay until the bitter end.

  She consoled herself with the thought that she’d have a chance to shower when she went home to change for the formal dinner.

  “I’m going to go lock this in the trunk of my car,” Troy said, not really looking at her. “I’ll be right back.”

  She watched as he walked toward Mem with no apparent haste but a ground-eating stride that took him past departing alumni. He spoke to no one.

  He hadn’t actually done much mixing this weekend, she realized. She had introduced him to a few people at the reception and the luncheon, he’d gone to hear Ellen Kenney speak, and at his request he’d been assigned to a foursome for the golf tournament, but he seemed mostly to maintain that watchful, aloof stance.

  Because he’s working, Madison reminded herself. Her job was to be friendly, his to be observant. She had moments of forgetting that he wasn’t here as her date. She thought he would have lingered at some of the events because he liked her—he’d certainly kissed her last night after walking her to her car as if he liked her a whole lot—but she doubted he would be returning now if he wasn’t working. From the moment his hand closed on that envelope, h
e had retreated into himself.

  While he was at the car, would he read what his father had written?

  No, Madison decided. He’d be wary of any emotional punch.

  Apparently we have something in common, she thought wryly. She’d already decided not to look at her father’s contribution until tonight, after the formal dinner. It wasn’t as if she expected any big revelations—her father had sounded too indifferent about the whole thing to give her any reason to believe otherwise. Even so, she had complicated enough feelings about him—she didn’t want to be left confused or troubled or even just distracted when she still had to be “on” until the end of the evening.

  Then she had another thought. Maybe Troy had no intention of opening the envelope at all. He might consider that right to be his mother’s, not his. Madison hadn’t been able to tell how he felt about her refusal to be here today, but very likely they’d open the envelope together and shed more tears about their mutual loss.

  The idea of Troy holding his mother, gently drying her tears, gave Madison a peculiar pang of... No, not envy, of course not.

  Loneliness.

  And she didn’t even know why.

  * * *

  TROY SAT DOWN in his recliner at home with the damn skinny envelope in his hand. Joseph Troyer was scrawled on the front. Dad’s handwriting had changed, but Troy still recognized it.

  He’d been asking himself the same question since this afternoon: give this to Mom unopened, or rip it open now and find out what words his father had thought most significant thirty-five years ago?

  Troy wouldn’t have even asked himself if his mother had seemed the slightest bit interested. But he had no doubt if he stopped by in the morning with the envelope in hand she’d gaze at it in vague puzzlement and then say, “Oh, you mentioned something about a time capsule, didn’t you?”

  To hell with it, he thought. He must have made the decision earlier, because he had brought a letter opener with him when he settled into the recliner. A beer, too. He paused and took a long swallow then lifted the bottle in a salute. “To you, Dad.”

  He slit the top of the envelope, set down the opener and reached inside. Something in him tightened when he realized there was only one page there, typed single-spaced with narrow margins. Perturbed, he peered in. Nope, that was it.

  What the hell...?

  No To Whom It May Concern or Dear Older Self. Dad had jumped right into it.

  I’ve kept a secret that I probably shouldn’t have. By writing this down, I think I’m trying to absolve myself of responsibility. After all, if I put this in the time capsule, then it will all be exposed someday, won’t it? I keep thinking I should go to the police now—it’s only been a few months, which isn’t too late, and they often keep witnesses’ names confidential, don’t they? But I suppose having my name come out isn’t really what’s bothering me. I don’t want to make trouble for a friend. And I keep telling myself what I’m thinking is all in my head. Guy of all people wouldn’t do something like this—

  Stunned, Troy reread that first paragraph. His father, the most upright man on earth, had withheld information from the police? About what?

  But Troy knew. He knew.

  Here’s what happened. It was first semester finals week. Guy Laclaire is one of my best friends. I live in a senior apartment, Guy in a house off campus. The two of us arranged to meet at two a.m. for a game of racquetball. Not like either of us would be sleeping, given that we both had two big exams on Thursday and Friday. I was coming from the library where I’d been studying when I saw somebody rush out of McKenna and tear by me. Guy. I caught one good glimpse of his face. He had something in his hand like...I don’t know. Not a book or a towel or a gym bag like I had. Something solid. It didn’t fit and I kind of thought what’s that? I called out his name, but he didn’t hear me. So I figured he’d forgotten something and would be back. I sat down on the rim of the fountain and waited for at least fifteen minutes. He never came back. I froze my ass off and was pissed and went back to my apartment and to bed.

  By morning, the campus was buzzing. Mitch King had been found dead, bludgeoned to death, in the sauna in McKenna Center. The police think the crime happened between 1:30 and 2:15 a.m., when Steve Kaplan found him. A few other students had shot baskets in the gym or used the pool during that time, but Steve was the first to go into the sauna. Nobody admitted seeing an outsider or a fellow student who seemed agitated or was covered with blood or anything. It sounds like there was a lot of blood. Police were asking for help.

  And I’m thinking, oh man, I did see someone who was agitated. Someone running away from the gym, carrying a length of wood or a bat or—I don’t know, but something that could have been used to beat a person’s skull in. And I know that someone really (underlined twice) didn’t like Mitch King.

  But I don’t want to get Guy in deep shit he doesn’t deserve either. I don’t think he had blood on him, although I didn’t get that good a look at him either. Mostly his face under the light. So I ran him down and complained because he didn’t show last night. He said he was sorry, he guessed he’d fallen asleep. He hoped I hadn’t waited long for him.

  He lied.

  But Guy wouldn’t do something like that. I really believe that. So I’m keeping my mouth shut, but part of me is howling “No-o, that’s wrong!”

  I figure this is something, right?

  Okay, it’s going into the envelope.

  But I’m thinking, now that I read it all here in black-and-white, that I will talk to whoever is investigating.

  Troy read the page several times. The close-packed words kept blurring. He wished his father had double-spaced. He wished Dad had been more matter-of-fact, hadn’t put so much of his personality and panic into this.

  He wished his father hadn’t kept a secret of this magnitude.

  “Goddamn it,” he said aloud, to his silent house.

  Most of all, he wished the fellow student Dad had fingered wasn’t Madison Laclaire’s father.

  Eventually he slipped the shocking revelation back in its envelope and put it in the small locked safe where he kept his service weapon. He went to bed and really tried to sleep, even though he knew before his head touched the pillow that it would be a no-go.

  * * *

  WELL.

  Madison slipped the pages of the short story back in the envelope. She’d mail it to her father. He might find it amusing. More likely, he’d barely glance at it then toss it in the recycling bin.

  It wasn’t a bad story. In fact, Dad had written exceptionally well. No surprise there. All the same...when Guy Laclaire decided to go for his MBA instead of trying for the Great American Novel, the literary world had not lost a great talent. Presumably this was the writing he considered his best at the time. He’d been striving for dark, moody and world-weary, and ended up sounding pretentious and derivative.

  His professors must have known that, but he’d never received anything lower than an A in a class within his major. Most, of course, required analysis of great literature, not original creative writing.

  Smiling, Madison wondered if Dad had ever had visions of himself as the next Norman Mailer: eccentric, brilliant and admired. Probably not, or if he had he’d given up those aspirations before he placed this story in the capsule. After all, by then he’d have already applied to Harvard and maybe even have been accepted into the MBA program.

  No deep revelations about her father here, she thought, setting the envelope aside and reveling in the cool flow from the air conditioner on her body. Although she did sort of like knowing Dad wasn’t brilliant at everything he tried. After reading his smugly self-satisfied writing, she could laugh knowing how full of himself he’d been at that age.

  Go figure. It turned out Guy Laclaire had been normal after all. Madison found she rather liked that idea. The father she knew was arrogant, all right, but with reason. She’d never caught him in a mistake, never seen him fail. He was morally unbending, impatient of other people’s follie
s, indecision and screwups. He was still a handsome man with a full head of hair barely touched with gray. A daily run or game of racquetball or tennis kept him in excellent physical condition. He never seemed to need more than about six hours of sleep a night, and had no understanding for why other people—including his daughter—did.

  Madison had the funny thought that maybe Dad never failed because he wasn’t willing to try anything he might fail at. She’d never seen him in the water, for example. Was that because he didn’t swim very well? He certainly didn’t sing, not even to join in “Happy Birthday” or “Auld Lang Syne.” He’d perfected the art of appearing faintly contemptuous while other people indulged in anything he deemed a waste of time. Maybe, she thought, bemused, Dad couldn’t carry a tune. She’d presumably inherited her own tin ear from one of her parents, after all.

  The knowledge flooded her. Dad wouldn’t like knowing she’d read his short story, because if he troubled to read it he’d see that it wasn’t very good. Most of the alumni on the field this afternoon had been having a really good time laughing at their youthful selves.

  Dad wouldn’t have been able to do that. So of course he hadn’t attended.

  She felt...odd. And, strangely, a little bit mad. The weight of her father’s disapproval was with her even when he wasn’t. Because she had always worried about whether she should stick to doing the things she wasn’t great at. She’d felt the pressure when she was a kid and wanted to play soccer, for example, or join the swim team or stick with band even though, okay, the sounds that came out of her trombone were more like the cry of a wounded walrus than music. But mostly, once it became apparent she would never excel at whatever it was, she would quietly give it up and concentrate on her schoolwork, where she did excel.