What was the problem?
Several theories were discussed, each teacher making a contribution in turn, both Sonia and her mother nodding in consternation and agreement.
Diet.
Be certain Sonia had a good breakfast each day.
Routine.
Be certain she had time each evening to do her homework.
Help.
Be sure she had a mentor to help her after every assignment.
Eyesight.
Have her eyes checked. Perhaps she needed glasses.
(Although the fact that she’d nailed two three-pointers from well beyond the arch the night before seemed somewhat to belie this theory).
And this theory and that theory and this theory and that theory for twenty minutes or so, all of it coming to an end by eight thirty when everybody had to be back in class, and the meeting breaking up with the mutual assurance of all concerned that these things would continue to be tried until a solution was found and Sonia had begun to perform up to the level everyone knew she was capable of reaching.
The fact that Sonia did not speak English was not mentioned.
Because there was not a helluva lot anybody could do about that.
So why worry about it?
And the meeting was adjourned.
That was the second thing that happened on Friday morning.
The third thing was, she heard from the ghost-hunting Margot Gavin.
It was early afternoon. Her cell phone rang, and she opened it.
“Nina Bannister....”
“Hey Nina!”
“Margot! You’re back!”
“I am.”
“What kept you? I thought you were only going to stay a week; it’s almost two weeks now.”
“Well…it’s complicated.”
“I want to hear all about it.”
“And so you shall, my dear”
“Great. By the way, did you hear already? Meg Brennan and Jennifer Warren are getting married!”
“Wonderful!”
“Isn’t it? There’s a wedding shower planned for them tomorrow night.”
“Excellent. What time?”
“Seven.”
“Where is it to be?”
“Your shop.”
“Ah. Well, good. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find it.”
“No such worries now.”
“No indeed. Have I been planning it for long?”
“About a week. You’ve sent out all the invitations.”
“Good for me. I’m very proud of myself. By the way though, what was going to happen if I hadn’t made it back to Bay St. Lucy on time?”
“I would have opened the shop—I have a key, you know—and ordered a lot of liquor in your name. Nobody would have missed you.”
“Did you order the liquor anyway?”
“Of course I did.”
“Splendid.”
“By the way, Margot…”
“Yes?”
“Did you find a ghost?”
Pause.
Did Margot’s voice soften slightly?
“Yes,” she said. “Yes I did.”
It may have softened, or it may not have.
But whatever had happened to it, the humor had disappeared.
She meant it.
“I did meet several ghosts, Nina. But one of them…well. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow night, at the shower.”
For a moment, Nina knew nothing to say.
She finally settled on:
“Good to have you back, Margot.”
“It’s good to be back. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure. See you then.”
And, so saying, she flipped her cell phone shut.
There followed two hours of chaotic bliss, since this was Friday, and the last Friday, before a long holiday.
“One o’clock! Not much time to go!”
“What are you going to do tomorrow?”
“I’m going to sleep late!”
“Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Give me some of that egg nog!”
The students were in a festive mood too, of course, but they were locked in classrooms. The teachers and staff members, at liberty to roam the halls and pop in and out of various offices, felt no restraints and gave vent to the POTENTIAL HOLIDAY FRENZY that arises inevitably from the fact that no one hates school as much as the people who have to run it.
Two o’clock.
Two forty-five.
What could go wrong?
NOTHING COULD GO WRONG, THE DAY WAS ALMOST OVER…
And something did go wrong.
At precisely three o’clock, a man wearing a uniform—not an athletic uniform but a uniform like those worn by hotel bellmen or butlers in old movies—walked into the school, asked to see Ms. Bannister, the principal, and said to her:
“Your car is waiting, Ma’am.”
This pretty much stopped things in the office.
Ms. Peterson, Ms. Forbes, Ms. Janekosky, Tommy Lawrence, Lakeesha Roosevelt, and Coach Suggs (the offensive line coach in fall and the drivers training teacher the rest of the time), all froze.
The man, who was standing, framed in Nina’s doorway, his blue captain’s hat held under his arm, repeated:
“Ma’am, your car is waiting.”
Nina, who’d been sitting at her desk wondering whether to go over attendance reports or attempt the New York Times Friday crossword puzzle (which she had never succeeded in doing) rose, looked at everybody in the outer office, each of whom was looking back at her, and asked, firmly:
“What car?”
“For the yacht, Ma’am.”
“The yacht.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Don’t ask what yacht, don’t ask what yacht, don’t ask what yacht—
“What yacht?”
“The Sea Beagle.”
“The Sea Beagle.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Well, I hate to tell you, young man, but I––”
At which point, Pearl Johnson, not the main administrative assistant (secretary), but the associate administrative assistant (secretary), stepped out into the middle of the anteroom, slapped both of her palms against her cheeks, so that her face began to resemble Edward Munch’s great and frightening painting “The Scream,” and uttered the scream:
“Oh, my God.”
Silence.
The rain had become harder; it now sounded as though a stream of gravel was being poured upon the roof of the building.
“Oh, my God. I’m sorry.”
The conversation did not seem, Nina thought, to be giving her many options.
“For what?” she said, which, like ‘what yacht’ a minute ago, was obviously the only thing she could say.
“I forgot to tell you.”
Nina nodded:
“You forgot to tell me something about a yacht?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Well, that begins to clarify things a little bit.”
“You’re supposed to go to a yacht after school today.”
“I see.”
“Now, actually.”
“And the reason?”
“The press conference.”
“What press conference?”
“A Doctor van Tinsdale or van Mothdale or…”
‘Van Osdale? April van Osdale?”
“I forgot the name exactly. It sounded something like that. They called early this morning to invite you but you were in with Ms. Ramirez and we were trying to find a substitute for Mr. Thompson and somebody found a condom in––”
Nina interrupted, not wishing to hear more details concerning the condom, or its location, or its owner, or its destination.
“It’s all right. I’d heard there was going to be a press conference, but I thought it was going to be after Christmas.”
“No, ma’am. It’s today.”
“I also assumed it was going to take place downtown somewhere.”
“No, ma’am. It’s on the y
acht.”
“And I really didn’t know I was invited.”
“Yes, ma’am. You are.”
“Well, then––”
Nina looked back at the young man who had initially brought this news, and who was, she now realized, a chauffeur.
Whose chauffeur?
Probably the chauffeur of the man whose yacht it was.
And so, every day has its little surprises.
She walked around her desk, assembled her rain gear, smiled at the man standing in the doorway, and said:
“Let’s go to the yacht.”
And that (her going to a yacht) became the fourth thing to happen on Friday afternoon.
“And when I say women I don't mean you.”
––William Faulkner, Soldiers’ Pay
The limousine was the color of the rain, which was the color of the mud running in dark rivulets across the school parking lot, which was the color of the sky, which was the color of the ocean.
All of these elements ran together, so that all she really remembered was being tugged or pushed gently from one place to another—the school road, the beach drive, the wharf, the motor launch, the boat ramp—until, someone’s sensitive hands peeling her rain gear off her, she was ushered below decks into a stateroom the size and splendor of the Robinson Mansion.
She looked around her.
It did remind her of the Robinson Mansion!
And if that opulent palace as rebuilt by old mob money and Eve Ivory’s taste had resembled the sunken Titanic inverted and put right, this yacht’s interior—had she ever been in a yacht before? Maybe, but not this kind of yacht—reversed the process, taking a mansion, and making it a seagoing thing.
All glass and brass, all shining mahogany hand rails and thick colorless carpeting, hutches smiling with dishware and cutlery, paintings of ships and enlarged group pictures with various United States presidents grinning and shaking hands.
A waiter, his shirt starched and white, skin starched and white, approached her and smiled:
“Welcome to The Sea Beagle, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Cup of coffee?”
“Of course. Would you care for a pastry?”
“Just the coffee will be fine.”
She looked around her at the milling crowd. There was a familiar face here or there, but for the most part, these were people she did not know well, because they were the truly wealthy set of Bay St. Lucy.
Among them were people in BIG OIL.
The owner of The Sea Beagle, she remembered having heard, was a highly placed executive in Mississippi Oil and Petroleum, the corporation that ran one of the huge drilling platforms forty miles or more offshore.
These were people who played golf in foursomes. They wore suits to work and were proud of their ties.
She filtered through the crowd, and several people, a few men, a few women, felt sorry for her and introduced themselves.
“Tom Harkness. I’m in digital sales.”
“Hi, I’m Jill. My husband and I do financial analysis.”
“I’m Morgan Carpenter. I’m a systems engineer.”
Her mind went back to Sonia Ramirez, who was struggling to learn how to conjugate the verb “the.”
“Good luck, Sonia,” she whispered to herself.
And then there were lights flashing in the front of the room—
––or ‘fore,’ she probably should have said—
––and there, scurrying around like mice attempting to flee the ship, were two reporters she recognized from The Bay St. Lucy Gazette.
They were not alone.
More reporters now.
And TV cameras.
Which produced, conjured up as though from celestial education dust—
April van Osdale.
There she was.
After at least fifteen years.
April van Osdale. Who must now have been in her late thirties, but who seemed ageless.
April van Osdale was a cake. With a long, tangled, glowing, blonde wig.
She looked like something that had been baked and decorated.
She also wore not make-up, but frosting.
Everything about her was artificial—including the massive, curled, flowing, upswept blonde, blonde, blonde wig––and always had been, dating back to that afternoon years earlier when she had walked into the study room and extended a vanilla greeting and a marzipan hand, saying:
“I’m April. You must be Nina.”
No one had ever said anything more damning to her.
The study sessions—there had been three of them during the semester—had turned into nightmares. Each had involved four women: Nina, April, and two others. The task had been to prepare oral reports on Thomas Dewey or some educator or theoretician or another. April had never been satisfied with the work of her co-reporters.
“We don’t want an ‘A’ on this project, ladies. We want an ‘A+’ Or at least I do.”
It was during the second session that she had stood and screamed:
“I WILL NOT BE ASSOCIATED WITH—WITH SECOND RATE PEOPLE!”
The second rate people, Nina remembered, had sat in stunned silence.
April had gone to the teacher, requesting not a new group, but the chance to be her own group.
To do the report by herself.
The teacher had refused, of course, citing some gibberish about it being a good thing to learn to work with other people—gibberish, because April herself, though certainly ‘other,’ was hardly a person and April had returned for a third attempt, during which Nina had sprung to her feet and would have leveled at her a stream of obscenities had she known any obscenities other than “Shame on you!”
They received a “B-” on the report.
April never spoke to any of them again.
And now she was at the speaker’s stand, waiting for the hubbub surrounding her to diminish.
Her suit was perfectly pressed, perfectly white, and expertly trimmed in cherry-flavored ice cream.
Nina was perhaps thirty feet away from her, and could not stop staring at her face, upon which there were neither age lines nor wrinkles. Had they been removed by medical procedures or had they never come into existence in the first place? Did April van Osdale have finger prints?
No, the woman had sprung fully-formed from a seed pod, like the creatures from some science fiction movie that had postulated the overthrow of earth by spores floating through space.
Perhaps that was it: perhaps she was not a cake at all but a flower, or a greenhouse orchid.
What had it been about her that had so disturbed, so frightened Nina, even from the first moments?
Not her unbridled, stupendous, unceasing, and measureless ambition, for many people had been ambitious.
No, it was simply the fact that she was not real.
What seemed to be there was not really there.
And what was there in place of what should have been?
“Thank you! Thank you all! I want you all to know how grateful I and the senator—and all of the senator’s supporters at the capitol—are for your support. You make us feel very special!”
Applause.
“As you all know, I’ve recently been appointed to work with school officials here in this part of our state. I see my job as extremely important, blah de blah de blah…
More applause.
Nodding of heads.
Mutter mutter mutter…
“Our children, as you know, are our most important blah de blah de blah…”
And after what seemed another fourteen or fifteen hours of ‘the test scores must rise,’ and such not, but was really only two minutes of real time…
…the speech was over.
April van Osdale stepped down from the podium.
There was a mild hubbub surrounding the podium for a time, and Nina, almost against her will, found herself drifting forward, magnetized toward the polar i
ce cap that was this woman.
She was going to have to greet her.
And how would that go?
If she had never in her life met and tried to work with a woman she so completely despised, did the same not hold true for April? Did she not continue to despise Nina?
Probably.
Of course, it would be masked.
Nina was a principal now and April was surrounded by the press. There would be a frothy and sugar-laden show of surprise and joy.
“Oh, how good it is to see you Nina! How long has it been? It’s going to be so good working together again!”
But would there be a momentary glint of iron gray in those flinty eyes peering out of the confection that was masquerading as a face?
Would there be just hint of the old animosity?
Well, no more time to speculate, one way or another.
Nina was near the podium now, three golfers in front of her, now two data consultants, now one off shore exporter..
… and now April van Osdale.
Standing there, in the yeast, if not in the flesh, before her.
She extended her hand.
“Hello, April. It’s been a long time.”
April van Osdale stared back into her face, blinked once, stared a bit longer, and finally asked:
“Do I know you?”
There was a pause.
After a time, Nina shook her head, said:
“No.”
Then she turned around and left.
“When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have a second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there’s no holding me.”
––William Faulkner
Saturday morning was spent running back and forth to Margot’s, answering the shop door to accept presents, arranging presents, telling Margot all about her adventures as principal, waiting for Margot to tell her all about the ghost she’d encountered at this haunted plantation/artists’ retreat, mixing punch bowls, and making sure all was in readiness. All this joy Nina might have shared, of course, had it not been for her rage at being snubbed—forgotten actually—by April van Osdale.
How could this woman have the gall, the unmitigated gall, not to hate back as much as she was hated?
“Do I know you?”
PULEEEZE!
True, Nina had not thought much about April van Osdale a great deal during the last fifteen years. But there was a special little niche in her brain reserved for bitter enemies, and that niche was sacrosanct. It was an important place. What kind of a lifetime was it that might be spent wholly devoid of just the smallest piece of utter detestation?
Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) Page 6