Another You

by Ann Beattie

  EVELINE MARTINE DÉLIA LOCKARD

  APRIL 2, 1918

  MARCH 22, 1994

  14

  MARSHALL LEFT HIS CAR in the faculty parking lot, nosed in toward a snowbank, blocking easy passage out for someone’s dirty white Mustang convertible; only half the lot had been plowed, and there were too few parking places. It was the best he could do, and he wasn’t about to walk half a mile from the shopping center. In front of the humanities building stood a snowman with a carrot nose, scarf, and top hat, and standing next to him a Botero-ish snow woman wearing a red gauze skirt and a sequinned vest unbuttoned not over snow breasts, but … upon closer inspection, he was seeing pumpkins embedded in her chest with pumpkin stem nipples protruding, painted red. She had no nose, but blue marble eyes: oversized marbles, sure to drop out the minute the temperature rose and the snow began to melt. The sight turned him momentarily sentimental: the many times he and his brother had fashioned snowmen, though they’d never been allowed to put clothes on them, they’d had to sculpt clothing or leave off the clothes entirely. As a child, Marshall had been fascinated by things that reproduced the human form: paperdolls; snowmen; dolls. His father, vexed, had finally snatched away his last doll when he was three or four—Gordon wasn’t sure which, and Marshall certainly didn’t remember its having happened. Snowmen and snow forts, streets closed off for sledding—on those rare days when the world seemed to have been turned over to children, he had felt exhilarated, empowered. Today, however, he’d felt only dismay at the struggle involved in driving poorly plowed roads, concerned and slightly irritated because Sonja had communicated her anxiety that something bad might happen to him. What did she want? For him not to show up at his job? Since Evie’s funeral she had been withdrawn and out of sorts, alternately silent or filled with anxiety: the ceiling seemed to be bulging, it must be about to spring a leak (he squinted hard; the ceiling was smooth); a pane of glass was about to fall out of the bathroom window (nonsense: he’d used a bit of caulk and the slight rattling stopped). Sonja had said, after Evie died, that she intended to take a leave of absence from Hembley and Hembley and think about what else she might do, what might really be important, because she did not want to die feeling she had only marked time doing a job she’d fallen into and never rethought. What could he say? Of course Tony Hembley had also been quite upset by her decision, calling the house numerous times when she didn’t return to work, though Marshall had heard her calmly announcing her decision to him more than once, and if Tony thought he could change Sonja’s mind, he had another think coming. His own guess was that she would soon return to work, but he understood that she had been deeply upset by Evie’s death, and because he felt guilty that he was not terribly upset (he’d known for so long it had been coming), he hardly felt he could criticize her. She had been so involved with everything, so unendingly loyal to the woman who had really been his responsibility. In a way, though, that pleased him: he liked to see a person act out of pure affection, rather than a sense of duty. In a way, he supposed it was Evie’s payback for her kindness to him and to Gordon: two children she never expected would be left in her care, motherless, a huge responsibility befalling one so young. You would think that after marrying his father—the old days, the old-fashioned ways: making sure everything was done correctly—she might at least have started her own family. You would think she would have wanted her own child, though the way women talked now, it was almost an embarrassment to long for a biological child. He wondered if Sonja had ever talked about that with Evie, or about her own miscarriages, or whether such things remained private even between women. He supposed he wished Evie had had a child because that would have made it clearer that she wanted motherhood, instead of that she inherited it. As a young woman, she had left her own family in Canada to join their family: the idea was that she would teach Alice French, because Alice had such an interest in learning the language. No doubt, Evie had also wanted to have an adventure. But the language lessons never materialized, and gradually she was subsumed by responsibility for the children. She had become an au pair: an extra pair of hands. Some of his students had done that during their summer vacations—gone to places like Nantucket and the Vineyard to supervise children, going off to see their boyfriends on their days off. A pleasant enough way to get a free summer vacation, good training for the future. Then again, there were the recent cases of nannies who may have killed babies by burning down houses, or who had been caught abusing children when the parents secretly videotaped them, or those who had not been caught, but who were under suspicion because of bruises on a child’s face, suspicious marks only in retrospect, bruises said to have been caused by falling on a toy, but who would believe that after the same child later died of a fractured skull? He and Gordon had been lucky to have Evie, and so had their father, and so, even, had their mother, who had died with the knowledge that her children would be well cared for.

  Thinking about it now, that night when his mother had told them she was dying came into slightly clearer focus. By concentrating on what was happening outside—his father’s pacing; the wildly blowing trees—even at that moment he had seen something important in his peripheral vision: Evie, coming quietly to the doorway, checking on them, disappearing, anxious to see how this traumatic event was registering on the boys, as well as seeing if there was anything she could do for their mother. However clear it was that she loved the two of them, it was even clearer that she loved their mother. It was a little strange—he thought that, now—that he and Gordon had not been prepared for the news in any way. Gordon said later that he knew their mother was ill, but surely he hadn’t known she was terminally ill. Surely even Gordon must have been astonished, probably more than he, because he was older and could better comprehend what was being said. He could remember so clearly observing Gordon’s expressions that night, trying to take his cues from his older brother. He was still reluctant to focus on his mother, and on her words, so that sometimes when that scene came back to him it could as well have been a scene that omitted her: just scattered paperdolls, his father moving outside the house, Evie appearing and disappearing. He and Gordon had had a magnetic disk and two small Scottie dogs, one white and one black; the top Scottie moved forward on the disk when the other dog was upside down underneath, drawing it along by magnetic force. Evie had seemed like the visible Scottie, probably the black one because his mother, in her nightgown, had been so white … yes; he had thought that back then. He actually remembered his half-formed, subliminal thoughts, not a feeling.

  The building was overheated, with floor grates inside the vestibule that sent an eye-watering blast of hot air into his face as the doors swung closed behind him. Exiting the building at the same time he was entering was his student Dominic Ruiz, who came to a Wile-E-Coyote-at-edge-of-cliff stop to extend his hand and to say how sorry he was that Marshall’s mother had died. Well, Evie might as well have been his mother, though he was surprised the department secretary had been so specific when she’d cancelled his class. “Everyone in my family is deceased except for my mother,” Dominic said, as if this sad bit of information might offer Marshall some perverse consolation. Deceased, instead of dead. So: the family consisted only of Mrs. Ruiz and her not-very-bright son, Dominic. This nice young man who was gripping his hand sincerely. Dominic Ruiz had on leg warmers and cutoff jeans, his dirty knees visible in the space between striped wool and denim, a navy-blue parka zipped half-closed over a T-shirt revealing the soufflé of Bart Simpson’s bright yellow hair. “Oh, man, I really feel for you,” Dominic Ruiz said, straining to see past the teacher who was now his obstacle between hallway and door. “One thing I feel, at least you did the right thing to go to the funeral. I didn’t go to my uncle’s funeral and now I feel very bad about that. Oh, man, this stuff is difficult.”

  He nodded, clapped Dominic’s shoulder, and moved away. Kids and their ideas of profundities, he thought, yet he knew that at Dominic’s age he would have done no better. As Dominic ran out of the buildi
ng a gust of wind swept through strong enough to cause a landslide of stacked newspapers in the corridor. He went to straighten the pile—if Dominic Ruiz could exhibit good manners, so could he. As he repositioned the papers he found himself looking at a photograph of Livan Baker. “D.E.A. Agent Arrested,” read the headline. He stared from the photograph to the headline, then from the headline to the photograph. “Levann Baker,” was written below it. So there it was: Livan Baker was a narc.

  Instead of going into the department office, he went through the swinging doors, hoping no one else he’d be obliged to talk to would see him before he could get to his office and close the door and read this latest unfathomable piece of information. A stampede of six or seven students passed him, taking the stairs by twos and threes, screeching about a party they were on their way to, the girls in the lead, coats dragged, hats clasped in their hands, scarves trailing the ground. At what age did people start to actually wear their winter clothes? He looked down and saw a dropped glove, decided against giving chase to return it. The latest revelation about Livan Baker made him feel as if he’d taken a stomach blow; he also felt sure that he was going to feel even worse once he read the news story. He held the newspaper tightly rolled, feeling vaguely compromised by the presence of Livan Baker’s story, though why should that be? He put the key in the lock and turned it, closed the door quickly behind him. He did not turn on the light. He went to his desk in the fading light, unbuttoned his jacket, and sank into the chair, smoothing the newspaper on the desk in front of him.

  Livan Baker, twenty-five, of Chicago, Illinois, was an undercover narcotics agent. He read two descriptions of her: one by someone described as “a friend in the sophomore class,” another from her landlord, who called her “irresponsible.” The landlord commented that two other students shared Livan Baker’s apartment, and that they paid their rent separately. Livan Baker’s was either late or, more recently, never paid.

  It could not be confirmed by official sources that Livan Baker was a narc. However, a Benson student, a former student from the University of Rochester, identified Livan Baker as the person who had been at the police station the day his best friend was booked for dealing dope. Someone described as “a source close to President Llewellyn” who would not speak for attribution was quoted as saying, “Well, what do you think? That there are people working undercover on campus Dr. Llewellyn doesn’t know about?”

  Caught driving on the wrong side of the road, DWI Failed Breathalyzer. Search of car revealed cocaine in glove compartment, small quantity of marijuana in briefcase in trunk.

  McCallum, you really pick ’em. That, or you have the worst luck imaginable.

  Removed from jail by order of FBI. Paperwork about processing her release listed as “Confidential.” Court date set. Nothing about him, nothing about McCallum, no mention of Cheryl Lanier or Timothy, the other roommate. No accusations of rape, no mention of anorexia, no quote from the bag lady at Boston Common. The car she had been driving was a white 1987 Cadillac Seville, registered in Chicago to LeRoi Franklin Brown, who could not be reached for comment. “Brown was her boyfriend,” the same sophomore was quoted as saying. “It’s hard to believe she was a narc, because, I mean, that’s so straight, and you knew right away the two of them were wild.”

  Yes, the college president was quoted as saying; we have no choice but to accommodate the U.S. government if they suspect a drug problem on campus. It might be what he called “reasonable” to assume that from time to time there had been undercover work. “Of course they’re undercover—what else would they be?” A statement on Livan Baker: “You should not necessarily assume that I, or anyone else, would necessarily know an agent’s exact name.” (As opposed to what? An inexact name?) Any denial, concerning Livan Baker? “No comment.”

  He read it again, and understood that Livan Baker, twenty-five, an undercover cop, had for whatever reason made the big mistake of calling attention to herself when she was drunk, had been caught by the local cops, found to have a stash of drugs, and then that she was sprung from jail by the FBI (nice of them; but what would they do?). This left unanswered many things, but what it did answer was any question anyone might have about her character. It would also either provide consolation to McCallum, showing him he’d been in over his head, or it would embarrass him because he had been such a fool, or it might even make him angry to think he’d been had in such a way. In any case, he felt sure that presenting McCallum with the paper would be better than taking him a bouquet of roses. What a terrific update McCallum was going to get, and how lucky he would feel that he hadn’t been dragged in deeper. What if Livan Baker had been picked up with him, in Boston, what if she’d been busted in his presence? Either a very good actress or truly crazy. Older than she’d said, with a boyfriend who drove a Cadillac, probably had a fur coat back in Chicago, forget the bargain basement stuff. Just another out-of-control or deeply cynical person who’d tried to play both sides against the middle. A good enough actress that she’d sucked in quite a few people—more than necessary to validate her version of herself as tortured, pitiful. It was clear that Cheryl Lanier should see the article, also. It would wise her up, teach the lesson that everything shouldn’t be taken at face value, show her that other people’s suffering was sometimes less, rather than more, than it seemed to be.

  He was angry at Cheryl Lanier. He was surprised at how angry he was. Angry because she was gullible, but then, he was angry at himself because he had been, too. Still, her leaving school had been an overreaction, and putting the blame on him, implying that he was in any way responsible, was … oh, maybe it had just been the panicked reaction of someone who could hardly be expected to see through impostors, who probably didn’t have great experience in such complicated problems as Livan Baker had posed. She had flirted with him. Drinking his drink, talking the way she had. She had not been blameless and, hell, he hadn’t done anything. One kiss in a car, one moment of letting his guard down, okay, one moment of letting her let her guard down. How amazing that she would drop out of school, go back to Virginia, go back to what? What could her parents think? He would pick up another paper on the way out of the building, send it to her … send it without comment, but with his return address, c/o the department, of course. This would be the perfect excuse to get in touch; he had not responded to her letter, because he didn’t quite know how to respond to it. Thinking of Cheryl, he began to soften: whether or not Livan Baker had appropriated Cheryl Lanier’s story of the rape for her own benefit, Cheryl had still suffered through that, and because she had finally had the courage to tell him about it, she deserved some response. What a difficult position: to have to write someone to console them about something words probably couldn’t touch. She should talk to someone.… He realized he was thinking the way he had thought the night before the stabbing, urging McCallum to make sure that someone would be told what they knew.… Jenny Oughton. Jenny Oughton knew about Livan Baker, didn’t know she was a narc abusing drugs herself … or wait a minute: Did she? Maybe Livan Baker had gone in there and told the truth, and all along, Jenny Oughton had known more than he, more than McCallum. The woman was hardly forthcoming. She had a way of looking at him that made him think she knew more about him than he knew about himself. Quite disconcerting. He hoped her much touted professionalism would keep her from speaking to anyone in the press. He hoped against hope that the whole ugly situation would eventually—no, quickly—just go away.

  He saw that Sophia Androcelli had left several messages for him when he finally left the office and went to his mailbox in the department office. There was also a crayon drawing of a flower that looked vaguely like a flapping flag, and a lawn that looked like a deteriorating blue carpet. A Post-it note was attached: “My son and I are very sorry about your recent bereavement,” it read. It was signed “Luftquist.” He sorted through the pile of late papers, immediately discarded flyers advertising bargains on tire retreads. He assured the secretary that he and his wife were doing fine—a sad
time, the death of a loved one, but … He thanked the secretary for her kind words. In the hallway, he opened a pink envelope that had no return address. On a pink sheet of paper was a poem, titled “I saw in the Obituaries.”

  When others suffer grief

  It is so hard to say

  What we ourselves would likely do

  If pain spoiled our own day

  Conveniently we do assume

  That we would rise above

  From on high we’d take the long view

  And remember God is love

  But would we really do this

  Or would we weep and fret?

  We think we know what we’d do in another person’s shoes

  When we haven’t occupied them yet

  It may be best to simply say

  Good times will come again

  Till then, dear Marshall Lockard,

  Accept the condolences of your friend

  Mrs. Adam Barrows

  Instead of heading off to see McCallum with the good news/bad news he went back to his office and, still stunned by the poem, unable to imagine any response to it, called Sophia. Facing whatever was in store for him would be good practice toward writing the letter to Cheryl.

  Just when he was about to give up, the phone was answered. He asked for Sophia and was told to “hang on,” loud music playing in the background.

  “Finally,” she said, when she heard who it was.

  “I was at a funeral yesterday. I just got your messages.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll cut to the chase: a reporter from the newspaper is interested in talking to me about Livan Baker’s involvement with your buddy McCallum.”

  “Sophia,” he said, “McCallum isn’t my buddy. We teach in the same department, but actually, I hardly know him. I’m pretty sick of all of this, and if McCallum’s in trouble, I’m sorry, but McCallum’s in trouble. I’m not McCallum.” He waited for a response. There was only a slight sigh. “Why would they contact you?” he said.