Quick Study

by Maggie Barbieri

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t know why I had been summoned to my boss’s office to get this news but I was happy Louise hadn’t been murdered or that she hadn’t jumped in front of a train. Mary had a flair for the dramatic, so I wasn’t surprised that it was something as mundane as having had her car stolen. In the Bronx. Where cars often get stolen. As a matter of fact, my own car had been stolen just the year before. I wondered if Louise’s car was recovered if a dead body would be in the trunk.

  Bet not. Only I have that kind of luck.

  “I know that you are involved with Detective Crawford. It would be beneficial to have personal attention on this matter.”

  Now I got it. We needed a Crawford intervention. The squad at the Five-Oh apparently hadn’t sent out a team of investigators to look for Louise’s nearly twenty-year-old car and now Mary wanted me to pull out the big guns. Crawford would be overjoyed to hear this.

  I tried to phrase my response carefully so as not to incur her ire. “Crawford is extremely busy, Sister.”

  She stared back at me. “The car is yellow.”

  Of course it was. “But I’ll see what I can do,” I said, defeated. I got up. “Is that all?”

  “Yes, that’s all. But Alison, I can’t impress upon you how critical this situation is. Louise is devastated,” she said again. “It was a complete violation.” She looked down at her desk, our conversation over. “Tempus fugit, dear.”

  I got it. She was devastated. What would she do without her Chevrolet? Instead of relaying my thoughts to Mary, I nodded subserviently and backed out of the office, shaking my head as I walked down the hallway to the stairs. I ran into Kevin outside the chapel. The smell of the chapel, so familiar to me after all these years on campus, wafted out, a combination of lemon oil, incense, and flowers.

  “Did you hear about Sister Louise’s stolen Chevrolet?” I asked sarcastically, trying to bring the proper drama to the retelling of the story. It’s not that I wasn’t upset that Sister Louise had had this misfortune befall her, it’s just that I was sure the police had done all that they wanted to do on a case that I was also sure they would consider of little importance.

  Kevin rolled his eyes. After looking around to make sure nobody was in earshot, he said, “That’s all the nuns have been talking about. That car is nearly twenty years old. She’ll do better on insurance if they don’t find it.”

  “Yeah, well now Sister Mary wants the entire Fiftieth Precinct on patrol looking for it and wants me to get Crawford to make that happen.” I continued toward the stairs, Kevin following me.

  “Louise is a good egg,” Kevin said, reminding me of his good nature. He had dropped the sarcasm and was thinking about this poor, middle-aged nun and her current transportation problems. “Do you think Crawford will help?”

  I stopped just short of the landing. “Not sure. He was taught by nuns so he has a healthy regard for—and fear of—them. But he’s got a lot on his plate right now. The Tomasso case is still open.” I stepped aside as a trio of students raced by me to get to the stairs and, probably, their next class. “Gotta go, Kevin. I have office hours in five minutes.”

  When I returned to the office floor, Dottie handed me a thick packet of information on the Vietnamese holiday of Tet, with a summarizing cover sheet, written in her hand. Thumbing through the sheaf of papers, and feigning interest, it occurred to me that perhaps I had misjudged Dottie. Instead of being chronically lazy, perhaps she was just bored and needed a purpose. I looked at her. “This is great, Dottie. I can’t believe you got all this information yourself in such a short amount of time.”

  “Glad I could help,” she said, turning back to her Sudoku puzzle. “Sometimes you just have to do things yourself, you know? Just to stay sharp?” She etched a number into one of the little boxes on the page. “That’s what I always tell Charlie.”

  I cocked my head to the side. Coming from Dottie, that was profoundly accurate. I gave my Sister Louise situation a little thought.

  Dottie’s boyfriend was a fireplug of a man named Charlie Moriarty. Dottie and Charlie had set out on a rather passionate love affair after meeting the previous spring. Charlie, as luck would have it, was a beat cop in Crawford’s precinct and an all-around decent guy. I looked at Dottie, and thought about her advice. Sometimes you just have to do things yourself.

  “Hey, Dottie,” I started. “Want in on something really interesting?”

  Her tattooed-on eyebrows rose a few centimeters, her curiosity piqued.

  I laid out the details. When her day ended at four o’clock, she was out the door in a flash.

  Seventeen

  I stretched the black lace thong between my fingers and determined that despite the fact that my butt wasn’t that big, there was no way this thing was going to fit.

  I was having dinner with Crawford, which I hoped would lead to a spirited game of I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. But I wasn’t going to be wearing this gift from Max. I stretched it as wide as it would go. No, there was no way I was wearing this. It was back to the Jockey for Her panties and jogbra—the pushup was in the wash—that had served me well thus far.

  I didn’t know where Crawford and I would go for dinner, but if history was any indication, it would probably have “steak” in its name. Trying to pair the day’s fashion choice with several hours of teaching followed by dinner was easy. I threw on a pair of wool pants, a black turtleneck, and a blazer, topping the whole thing off with a pair of black boots. I had no one to impress today—Madeleine Cranston was not on the agenda—so the day called for neat but professional. I thought I had accomplished both.

  Until I got a look at my hair.

  The situation was reaching crisis proportions and I needed to do something about it. My late mother had been a stunning woman with sleek, thick, black hair, which she normally wore in a chignon. She had impeccable taste and was elegant to a fault. I, however, took after the Bergeron cheese farmers: short of waist, pot-bellied, and long-legged, with the frizziest hair I’ve ever seen. I was never sure, as a child, if the concept of conditioner had ever reached the outer boundaries of Baie-Saint-Paul or if my forebears just eschewed it. My father was mostly bald as far back as I can remember, but old photo albums reveal the frizz that resided atop the head of all Bergerons. Sometimes I caught my mother looking at me out of the corner of her eye and knew exactly what she was thinking: “Where did she come from?”

  I know! I wanted to scream. With a mother who resembled Cyd Charisse and a father who looked like Gene Wilder, why, oh why, had things turned out the way they had in the genetic lottery? But despite being follically challenged, the Bergerons were a smart bunch, spreading their cheese empire far through Canada. Put that in your vintage Dior coat and smoke it, Mom.

  I put some styling gel in my hair and combed it straight back until it was flat. I took a hair band and tied it into a low ponytail, deciding to just let it go at that. If I stared at myself too long, it was trouble. I gave myself one last look in the mirror behind my door and called it a day, focusing instead on the things I could control, like my pants and sweater.

  I said good-bye to Trixie and headed to school. It was gorgeous outside and after a dreadful winter, both on the weather and personal fronts, there was a hint of spring in the air. A light breeze threatened to undo my plastered-to-my-head ponytail and I rushed to the car before any stray hairs came loose. It was still crisp but the sun warmed my face as I walked across the backyard to my garage.

  I drove down the Saw Mill River Parkway, about a twenty-minute drive during rush hour, and took the exit for St. Thomas. I was on campus less than five minutes later, parking my car in its usual spot at the men’s dorm. I got out and yanked my beat-up leather messenger bag from the passenger side of the car and pulled it across the gear shift, normally a successful extraction routine. The bag opened and papers flew out, some landing in the car and some into the parking lot. The light breeze that I had enjoyed when leaving the house had kicked up into a sust
ained gust and I watched as my freshman composition papers blew across the lot and sailed toward the cemetery on the other side.

  I left the stuff that was in the car right where it was and darted across the small parking lot toward the cemetery, thankful that I had worn low-heeled boots and could sprint after the errant papers. The parking lot also serves as a one-way exit for other parts of the campus but is rarely used; most students who use one of the several student lots exit later in the day. That early, most people were where they needed to be. So, like an idiot, I didn’t look where I was going, single-minded in my task of getting the papers before they were strewn about the cemetery and stuck to the graves of long-passed nuns.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a yellow car making its way up the hill and toward the parking lot exit. Figuring I had a few seconds before the car reached me, I went for broke.

  Bad idea.

  The car, a Chevy Cavalier, grazed my left buttock and sent me flying onto the hill at the base of the cemetery. I heard the driver’s side headlight burst at the impact, and glass went flying. I lay on the grass, stunned, a little sore, but, fortunately, atop most of the papers that had gone asunder when I exited my own vehicle. The carefully constructed ponytail of the morning was a goner.

  I stared up into the sun and a tiny bonnet-headed nun appeared over me. “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, kneeling beside me. “Dear, are you hurt?”

  Two things worked in my favor. One, I was hit by a slow-driving nun so the damage to my ass would be minimal, and, two, said nun was a nurse. I stared up into the concerned face of Sister Louise, owner of the 1990 Chevrolet that had presumably been stolen. I sat up and put my hand to my left buttock. “Wow. That hurts.”

  She pushed me gently back onto the grass. “Stay down, dear. I’ll have Sister Magella call 911.” Sister Magella stood by the dented Cavalier, her own bonnet askew, her hands together in a worried prayer. She pulled a very sophisticated iPhone out from underneath her wimple and started to make a call. My cell phone has an antenna and is nearly the size of a man’s shoe but this nun—who had presumably taken a vow of poverty—had an iPhone. Go figure.

  I held up a hand. “Anything but that.” The last thing I needed was anybody affiliated with the 911 system reporting this embarrassing turn of events to Crawford. I would put my own spin on it tonight over martinis, making it suitably hilarious. That is, if my butt wasn’t swollen to the size of a watermelon and hilarity was still called for. I sat up again. “You’re a nurse, right?”

  Sister Louise stared down at me, her brow furrowed in worry. “I’m actually a nurse practitioner.”

  Oh, that’s a relief, I thought. “I thought your car was missing, Sister?” I took in the group of students who had gathered at the base of the hill and gave them a little wave.

  She smiled, forgetting about our little collision for a moment. “It was recovered!” she exclaimed. “Praise the Lord!”

  Magella chimed in. “God is great!”

  That was fast. I had put Dottie and Charlie on the case a little less than sixteen hours earlier. I knelt and picked up the papers, eventually standing on shaky legs. Sister Louise held my elbow and helped me down the hill. Sister Magella, who found a few loose papers herself, handed me a crinkled batch of essays. “These must be yours, dear.”

  “Yes, Sister. Thank you.” I turned to Louise. “I’m sorry, Sister. I should have looked before I . . .”

  “. . . leaped?” she asked, smiling beatifically.

  I nodded. “Yes. Leaped.” I took in the dent on the driver’s side and the headlight. “Sorry about the headlight.”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll get an estimate and give you the bill.” See, nuns are like that. Blameless. Innocent. Irreproachable. Above suspicion. Let’s face it: I hadn’t been running that fast or dead on into the path of the car. Yet, I would be handed a bill for roughly two hundred dollars to fix the oldest car in the Bronx. This day wasn’t off to a good start.

  “So, where did they find your car?” I asked, presuming that the police had something to do with it.

  Magella got into the passenger side and slammed the door; Louise was about to do the same when I asked my question. She paused, her hand on the handle of the driver’s side door. “It’s the oddest thing. Dottie and her man friend, Charlie, were having dinner over by Mercy Hospital and saw my car parked on the street.” She waited a beat. “It’s actually more funny than odd. Apparently, I forgot where I parked the car and it was exactly where I’d left it!” She chuckled as if this was the funniest thing she had ever heard. She asked me one more time if I was OK and when she was confident that I wouldn’t die from internal bleeding, she took off, burning rubber out of the parking lot.

  Funny. And for this, I was supposed to have Crawford log overtime? I shook my head, laughing insincerely the whole time.

  I was muttering as I collected all the papers and shoved them into my bag, the intense pain emanating from my backside coloring my mood. I slammed my car door, my ass throbbing to a salsa beat. I mimicked Sister Louise as I stepped gingerly up the back steps so as not to put too much pressure on my left leg. “ ‘It’s the funniest thing!’ ” I said, laughing sarcastically. The few students I passed looked at me like I was insane. “If I can’t have sex with my boyfriend because my ass hurts, lady, we’ll have something very serious to talk about.” I opened the back door, went in, and slammed it shut.

  Dottie was at her desk when I entered, clearly waiting for me with the news. “Didja hear?” she asked. It was obvious that she was talking about the retrieval of the car, given her self-satisfied expression.

  I stopped her in her tracks. “Yes, I did. Thank you. But Sister just hit me with the previously missing 1990 Chevrolet and I’m not happy, to say the least.”

  Dottie’s eyes got wide. “You OK, doll?”

  I rubbed my ass. “I’m fine. But she lost the car? It wasn’t stolen?”

  Dottie nodded. “Exactly. I asked her where she parked it and Charlie and I went over there to see if we could find anything having to do with the car being stolen and,” she paused, throwing her arms wide, “there it was. Funny, huh?”

  Not funny. Why didn’t anybody understand that? Maybe it was just the pain talking and I would find it funny in a few days, but right now, I was not amused. “Hilarious.”

  “Do you want an ice pack for you bum?” Dottie asked helpfully.

  I gave her a hard stare. “No, I do not want an ice pack for my bum,” I said, slowly. I softened when I saw her hurt expression. “I’m sorry, Dottie. This just really hurts.”

  She opened her top desk drawer and rummaged around, coming out with a prescription bottle. She dropped her voice a few decibels. “Do you want a Vicodin?” she asked, shaking the bottle.

  Yes, I want a Vicodin! I wanted to scream. I had had a very loving relationship with Vicodin, but we had broken up. I love, love, love Vicodin. I had only had it once, after a gunshot wound, but it had been great; it had been so great that I had flushed the remaining eighteen tablets down the toilet for fear of getting strung out on the stuff. I completely understood how people got addicted to it; it had made me incredibly high, but in a good way. In an “I can function and everything is great!” way. I looked at the prescription bottle. “No,” I said firmly. “I’ll take some Advil. And maybe a Midol.” I went down to my office and closed the door.

  It was an hour or so later that I heard Sister Mary’s voice in the main office area, and I slid down in my chair hoping I could hide from her. I listened carefully and found that she was praising Dottie for her hard work in finding Sister Louise’s car. At least she was giving credit where credit was due. I hoped she would deliver her thanks and then take off for her office, but no such luck. A few moments later, there was a knock at my door.

  You don’t just tell Sister Mary to come in; she considers that rude. So, I hoisted myself out from behind my desk and hobbled to the door, rubbing my sore buttock along the way. I opened the door and was stunned t
o see the chubby-cheeked Richie Kraecker standing in front of me.

  I did a classic double take. “Richie? What are you doing here?”

  “Is that any way to greet an old friend?” he asked.

  We’re not old friends, I wanted to remind him, but instead I gave him one of those half-smiles that doesn’t go all the way up to your eyes. I stepped aside as he pushed his way into my office, taking a seat across from my desk. He turned and looked at the floor-to-ceiling book shelves that lined one wall and whistled. “You read all of those books?” he asked.

  “Most of them,” I lied.

  He smirked. “Liar.”

  I did another double take. “What?”

  “I bet you’ve read all of them,” he said. “You’re just too embarrassed to say.” He turned back around and folded his hands on his lap, one ankle resting on the opposite knee.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. “What can I help you with, Richie?”

  “Have you decided which condo you’d like to buy?” He smiled, revealing a smile that was not even close to that of Jack McManus. If I had Kraecker-type money, and if I were Richie, the first thing I would do is get all new teeth. His were small and crooked and a few were discolored.

  I stammered a bit. “Well, I’m not sure . . . you never know . . .”

  He waited.

  “Probably the Majestic,” I finally said, as definitively as I could being as that was a complete lie.

  He nodded slowly. “The Majestic,” he repeated.

  “Probably.”

  “Probably,” he repeated again.

  “Yes.” My hairline, under my ponytail, got a little damp.

  He rubbed his chin with his hand. “That’s interesting.”

  “How so?”

  “Your boyfriend, Mr. McManus, had no idea that you were interested in moving.”

  “That’s because he’s not my boyfriend.” Boy, way to sound like you’re in junior high, Alison.