The English Teacher

by Lily King

  “Could you do me a favor and walk Walt?”

  “All right.” He was relieved to have an excuse to get out.

  “Maybe you could get one of the kids to go with you.” She was wearing a tattered apron around her waist. Mrs. Belou’s apron.

  He stood but she didn’t move out of his way. She was looking over his shoulder.

  “I can’t believe you still have that old train book.”

  Did she know what he’d hidden within its pages?

  “It was my favorite book.”

  “I remember.”

  Still she didn’t move. He wanted to push her. Why was he so mad at her? She’d married Tom. She hadn’t messed that up. She’d never been mean; she’d never hit him or called him names like he’d seen Jason’s mother do. She seemed mad at him, too, wanting something from him.

  “I put the leash around the knob on the front door,” she said, giving up, and left his room.

  Walt was waiting for him, thwacking his tail against the door. Fran and Caleb were stacking plates. He waited until Caleb went to get more before he said, “Anyone want to go for a walk?”

  She shook her head without looking up, then began counting the number of guests on her fingers. She had the ability to make him feel even smaller and less significant than he normally did. It had been nearly a month. When was she going to start treating him like a brother?

  He clipped the leash onto Walt’s bucking collar.

  “Can I come?” Caleb shouted.

  “Sure you can.”

  “Not too long,” Fran said. “We’ve got a lot more to do around here.”

  It was typical Thanksgiving weather: overcast, colorless, and colder than it looked. Walt tugged hard to the left.

  “He always knows just where he wants to go, doesn’t he?” Caleb said. “Can I hold him?”

  Peter gave him the loop at the end of the leash. Walt pulled Caleb hard and they both had to walk faster to keep up. After a couple of blocks Walt reached the long row of maples he was most interested in and slowed down.

  “Isn’t it amazing how he’s only lived here twenty-three days and he has his whole routine?” Caleb said. “He loves that little patch of moss right here and next he’ll go to the little sap hole there on that one. I love the way that branch up there has actually fused with that one. Have you noticed that before? See? They’re two different trees that grew one branch. Isn’t that cool?” Walt jerked Caleb over to the next tree, to the sap hole. And then to a cluster of tiny mushrooms. “I think he’s like a mastodon, just the way his shoulders rise so high when he bends down like that.”

  They walked on, Walt tugging then stopping, Caleb chattering, observing everything. He was a scrawny kid, the very smallest in the third grade as far as Peter could tell from the class picture he brought home, with dark blond hair that grew in thick tufts in different directions all over his head. Peter wondered what the other kids made of him and all his thoughts. Since he’d been there, Caleb had never had a friend over. None of them had, except for Stuart and the girls he kept outside.

  “I love it when the sun’s like this, when you can look straight at it behind a cloud but still see its shape perfectly, like it’s naked.”

  Peter was tempted to ask him about his mother, about how he could be so enthusiastic about the world and everything in it when his mother was dead. When Peter was Caleb’s age just imagining his mother’s death could leave him weak and shaky. He could remember the terror he would work himself into waiting for his mother to come home from a party, the slow circles of the red hand on his clock as it got later and later, the conviction that the phone would ring, the babysitter would come in, and Peter’s life as he knew it would be over. He had nowhere to go. He didn’t even know his father’s name. It wasn’t Avery like his, because his aunt Gena’s last name was Avery, too. He realized that that fear was gone now that his mother had married Tom. The Belous would probably have to keep him if she died.

  They headed back to the house. Walt was tired. His arthritic back legs bounced lightly behind him, unable to carry the full weight.

  “He’s an old man, isn’t he?”

  “A hundred and twelve,” Peter said.

  Caleb stopped and bent down to look Walt in the face. It was completely white.

  “You are a sweet sweet dog. Yes you are.” He hugged him tight around the neck. Walt, realizing this would last a while, let his head drop onto Caleb’s back. Caleb’s eyes were pressed closed as if he were praying for the dog. The hug lasted a long time. Peter waited, and felt ashamed he did not love Walt more. He didn’t really care that he was so old. Walt had always been Vida’s dog. She was the one who did what Caleb was doing now, stroked him, whispered to him. He remembered watching her years ago through a window once. She was out on the field with Walt, running and laughing, wrestling with him on the ground, then lying there with her head beside his for the longest time. Peter had been so angry he’d poured Spic ’N Span in Walt’s water bowl, but nothing happened.

  The guests began arriving soon after they got back. His mother had put on one of her school fund-raiser dresses and held a glass of wine, talking to Tom’s sister. Dr. Gibb came with a date. Fran sat at the kitchen table with her cousins, Jonie and Meg, who were in college. Tom took his brother out to his wood shop in the garage. Mrs. May called. The traffic was terrible and she’d be late.

  Peter and Stuart lay on their beds as if it were nighttime. Their room was eerily tidy now that his boxes were gone. He thought of the picture in the train book. He wanted to show Stuart but didn’t know how to bring it up.

  “Last Thanksgiving I was high until New Year’s, totally wasted, day and night,” Stuart said. “It was great.”

  “Why don’t you do it anymore?”

  “It shrivels your chi to the size of a fig seed.”

  Peter snorted, thinking of Brian, Kristina’s boyfriend, the pothead.

  “Not your dick. Your chi is your energy, your life force. It needs to flow easily. ‘The true man breathes from his feet up.’”

  Neither of them said anything for a while, just listened to the sealike undulations of the party down the hall. This was a good time to show him, Peter decided. His heart began pounding.

  “Want to see a picture of my father?”

  “Your father?” Stuart had never asked about his father. No one had.

  “Yeah. I found it when I was unpacking today.” He hoisted himself up and pulled out a small piece of construction paper from the book on the shelf.

  Stuart started laughing. “This is all you have of your dad? She’s never even given you a photo?”

  “She doesn’t have any. I think they split up before I was born.”

  Stuart looked at the creased, smudged drawing and shook his head. “Jesus. That’s really pathetic.”

  Peter wished he’d just hand it back. He didn’t know why he’d showed it to him anyway. He felt hollow in his chest as he waited.

  A car pulled up at the curb and cut its lights. Stuart tossed the paper back to him and swung off his bed. “That’s my grandmother!” he called, flinging himself out of the room spastically, like a little boy. Peter put the paper back where he’d always kept it, ever since the day she drew it, and followed him out.

  Mrs. May was not old-looking but she moved slowly, as if all her muscles were sore. She gave Peter a nod when introduced but not a hand. To his mother she didn’t even give a nod. When it was time to eat, she sat stiffly on the couch in a boiled wool suit while her grandchildren fetched her a glass of milk and another slice of turkey from the buffet. Peter watched the Belou kids hover near, vying for her scrutiny. He thought his mother should make more of an effort with her, but Vida sat on the other side of the room, nibbling and sipping. He hoped she got drunk. He liked her when she was drunk. When he was younger she’d peek in his room when she came back from parties. If he spoke to her, she’d come sit on his bed and tell him all about where she’d gone and which of his teachers were there. She always seemed
so happy after a few drinks: she’d smooth his hair and say how lucky she was to have him. And he’d be so relieved she hadn’t died that he’d hug her tight and she wouldn’t pull away.

  She was telling school stories now, the raunchy one about the prank on the school nurse. Her eyes were shiny and overfocused, as if she were on stage.

  Tom talked quietly to Mrs. May. They spoke of Skaneateles, and of Connecticut, where she’d just eaten a noontime meal with her sister and her brood of children, grandchildren, and even two great-grandchildren.

  Quietly, to Tom, she said, “I never envied my sister her six children. Now—” She threw up her hands, then quickly collected them in her lap again.

  Tom’s head bobbed in understanding.

  Vida imitated the nurse’s long shrill shriek when she found the sausage in her purse. A boom of laughter followed.

  Peter saw no resemblance in the dull face of Mrs. May to the picture of her daughter in the bathroom.

  “Vida’s a hoot, isn’t she?” Peter heard Tom’s brother say to him at the door.

  “She is,” Tom said, confused, like he’d bought an appliance with too many features.

  The hugs with Mrs. May were long and tight. Peter and Vida stayed clear, then joined the others at the door to wave as she moved slowly to her car.

  “Funny old fish,” Vida whispered loudly.

  Then Thanksgiving was behind them, a long weekend ahead. That Friday, a cold rain fell. They played Parcheesi, Yahtzee, Stratego. Peter and Fran made frappes. They drank them in front of an afternoon movie about dolphins. Stuart groaned at all the Christmas ads. At one point they were all—Stuart, Fran, Peter, and Caleb—under the big afghan on the couch. Who knew where Vida and Tom were? Who cared? All his life Peter had always known exactly where his mother was; knowledge of her whereabouts was crucial, like knowing you had clothes on. But now he was free of that.

  When the movie was over, Fran studied his profile. “You have that funny kind of earlobe. The kind that sticks to the skin on your face, like webbed feet.”

  Peter didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “Look.” She batted her mobile lobe. “We all have the dangly kind.”

  Later, he looked at his ears in the mirror. He looked at his mother’s at dinner. It was true. Neither of them had the dangly Belou earlobes.

  Before dinner, Tom took him aside and scolded him: the wood box had been empty for several days now. Keeping the box full was one of Peter’s chores, but he didn’t like it because it meant going down to the basement alone. Mrs. Belou’s things were down there, in boxes and garment bags, crouching in the corner.

  He couldn’t explain that to Tom, so he apologized and picked up the canvas carrier. Halfway down the stairs he saw Caleb in the yellow and blue dress, zipping Fran into the red and white one. Their backs were to him. Fran’s bra strap was beige. He didn’t want to see them in their mother’s dresses. Before he even registered what he was doing he was back in the living room empty-handed. Tom shook his head and took the carrier from him.

  Within seconds Tom returned.

  “I apologize, Peter,” he said formally, as if they had just met. “I didn’t know they were playing with”—he paused—“costumes.” He sat down on a hard chair in the corner that no one ever used, and looked at his feet.

  It was the pale-eyed girl who came late that night. After Stuart had gone to her, Peter got up and eavesdropped through the front door. They were on the steps as usual, arguing about Christ. Peter was disappointed; he wanted Stuart to be talking about him.

  “But why isn’t there any documentation of the thirty-two previous years if on the night of his birth the North Star led everyone to his cradle and they celebrated the arrival of the king of kings? If all this Christmas crap actually happened, why do we know so little about his life? Why was he a poor carpenter instead of a beleaguered messiah?”

  Peter could only hear a whiny murmur.

  “They’re feeding you lies, Diane. You’re like some peasant in the Soviet Union who believes Lenin is still alive. You’re like …” and his monologue went on until Peter was certain she was crying.

  But she was back again the next night, and Peter heard Stuart telling her about that trip to California. “We rented this convertible in San Francisco. Mom refused to let me drive up all those hills because it was a standard, but she was hopeless. It was like she’d forgotten how to drive. We kept rolling down backwards and stalling and going down one-way streets, the whole town honking at us. One time there was this poor guy on a bike and our car rolled down straight toward him and he had to lift his bike up onto someone’s porch to avoid being killed. She kept forgetting where our hotel was. God, we bickered the whole time, more like brother and sister than mother and son. It was really funny.”

  “My father and I went on a trip like that once—”

  “But what was really funny is that we had this one day when we didn’t speak. Not a syllable. She was mad, I was mad, and we were both too stubborn to give in. And I had my interview at Berkeley that day. She came with me and after the interview the admissions lady gave us this tour of the place and we all ate together at this fancy dining hall but Mom and I never looked or spoke to each other the whole time. That lady must have thought we were a really screwed-up family. Maybe that’s why I got in. Mom was stubborn as a goddamn mule sometimes.”

  Peter moved quietly away from the door. He wasn’t sleepy, but he didn’t want to hear any more. He was starting to know more about Mrs. Belou than he knew about his own mother.

  Mom wore lipstick called Desert Rose. Mom told me cotton candy was made of ghosts. Mom broke her ankle when when she was eight months pregnant with me. Mom knew French. Mom helped raise four thousand dollars for the public library. Mom hated Spiro Agnew almost as much as Nixon. Mom gave dad a black eye once when they were having sex. With her elbow. She didn’t mean to. That’s not true! Yes it is, Fran. Remember how she used to say “Holy mackerel?” “Holy mackerel, you look lovely.” “Holy mackerel, he’s a pig.” Mom loved birch trees best of all.

  Your mother, they always said in a completely different tone of voice. They never said Vida. Your mother needs a new pair of shoes. Your mother’s so bony. Your mother said she’s going to replace the rug in here.

  Your mother, they always said, as if they were trying to give her back.

  On the way to school the following Monday, his mother gave him a lecture in the car. His grades, she said, were abysmal. He had to start trying or he’d flunk out.

  “I do try, Ma. I try hard.”

  “You need to work something out with Stuart. You can’t talk to him and do your homework at the same time.”

  “I like talking to him.”

  “Fine. But after you’ve done your work. Should I have a word with him?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t start thinking about throwing your future away, too.”

  “He hasn’t thrown anything away.”

  “He’s a dropout.”

  “He didn’t drop out. He finished and he got into a really good college.”

  “But he didn’t go. I call that dropping out.”

  “He’s going next year.”

  “Right.”

  “He is, Ma. He told me. He wants to learn Chinese.”

  “Chinese,” his mother said, threading her cigarette stub through the crack in the window. “And what’s this ‘Ma’ business?”

  When he got home that night, Stuart was waiting for him.

  “Hello, Mole.”

  Peter dumped his books out on the bed. Huge French test tomorrow. He’d have to tell him he needed to study.

  “How was your day, Mole?” Stuart was lying on his back with his legs straight up and his fingers laced through his toes.

  “All right. How was yours?”

  “Do you know what ‘mole’ means, Mole?” He was using a tone he usually used on Fran.

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t think you do. Otherwise you’d
already be apologizing profusely for having told my father my plans for next year.”

  “I never told him,” Peter said, indignant, the truth on his side.

  “But you told your mother.”

  Had he? He had. “I—” was defending you, he wanted to say.

  “I wanted to tell him—at the right time. I never thought you’d go scurrying to your mommy with it. He came in here tonight like I was the Second Coming. It was disgusting.”

  Stuart sat up and stretched his elbows unnaturally, nearly behind his head. Peter didn’t know what to say. His heart was racing.

  “If I had told my mother something like that, she never would have told my father. She would have known it was mine to tell.”

  Peter left the room and found his mother dumping frozen peas into a pot.

  “Why the hell did you blab to Tom about Stuart?” He’d never sworn at his mother before.

  “You mean about going to college? He’s overjoyed.”

  “I told you not to say anything.”

  “You did?” She had her fake understanding-teacher voice, like he was telling her the dog ate it.

  “I did.”

  He waited for her to expose him, to give him a speech about the truth and the power of words, but all she did was pitch the pea box in the trash and take a sip of her drink. Then she said, “Let’s not get mixed up in other people’s battles.”

  “Let’s not blab everything you hear.” He turned to leave but she caught him tight by the arm. He could feel her thumb pressing through his muscle to the bone. It burned.

  “I’m not your whipping boy, Peter,” she whispered. “And you’re not theirs.”

  He let go a few frustrated tears in the bathroom. Mrs. Belou’s smile was unsympathetic today. She wanted them out. He took the picture off the wall and put it facedown on top of the toilet so he could feel sorry for himself in peace. He stayed in there until he heard Stuart leave their room. Then he grabbed his French books and bolted down the hall to Caleb’s room. Caleb was reading a five-hundred-and-twenty-page book about horse farming.

  “Have you heard the one about the horse who walks into the bar?” Peter said.