From Away

by Phoef Sutton

  “Can’t she go outside and play while we talk about this?”

  “That’s what we’re here to discuss,” Cara said. “Her notion of play.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, will you just tell me what’s going on?” I tried to recover my composure by adding, “I understand your difficulty. I’m a teacher myself.”

  Cara looked up in some surprise. Her loose-fitting cotton dress and pressed-tin half-moon earrings tried hard to give off a funky, “I’d-like-to-buy-the-world-a-Coke,” exhippie air, but her cold eyes just couldn’t carry it off.

  “Really?” she said.

  “Absolutely.” I didn’t think it was politic to add the word substitute. “So, really, I understand the, you know, context.”

  She nodded, as if unconvinced. “Maggie assaulted a boy in class.”

  Well, I didn’t answer at first. I gave you a glance over my shoulder. You were scribbling with a purple crayon and didn’t look at all like a juvenile offender. “Assaulted? You mean she pulled a knife on him?”

  “This isn’t something to joke about.”

  “She’s four years old.”

  “Four and a half!” you objected, looking up from your crayons, wavy hair not obscuring the fire in your eyes.

  Cara called to you in sugary tones. “Just keep working, Maggie. We can’t wait to see your picture.”

  “Okay, Cara,” you answered, going back to work.

  I hated the hypocrisy of Cara’s friendly tone; hated having to talk about you as if you weren’t there. “Just tell me what she did to this kid. And what the kid did first.”

  Cara’s round face crinkled in a sad and patronizing smile. “You see, we find that kind of blame assignment to be very counter-productive in these cases.”

  “Really? ’cause I always thought finding out the truth was very productive.”

  “I should really be discussing this with her primary caregiver. Why don’t you take her home, and I’ll talk to her mother on Monday?”

  “I have to take her home?”

  “I think that would be best.”

  “You’re kicking her out of kindergarten?”

  “It’s a policy decision,” she said, smiling pleasantly. She had that wonderful combination of liberalism and fascism that only American educational training can produce.

  “What did she do?”

  She frowned at the thought of having to actually impart information. “She was kicking and spitting on a child in the playground.”

  Well, to be honest, that did sound like something you’d do. “Okay, sometimes she does have a temper.”

  “She pushed the child’s face into the mud.”

  “Which child?”

  She hesitated, as if this were a national-security issue. “Bobby Neumuller.”

  “She likes Bobby Neumuller.”

  “They’ve always been friendly, yes.”

  “So, they got into a little tussle, that’s nothing to—”

  “Mr. Kehoe, Maggie also violated our sexual harassment policy.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She leaned forward, crescent moons bobbing. “She was angry with Bobby Neumuller because he wouldn’t take his pants off in front of her.”

  Which, I decided later, was probably the worst time in the world for your mother to walk in. She had her junior executive outfit on, and she flung the jacket onto one of the mini-chairs, knocking it to the floor as she hurried to you.

  “I’m in trouble, Mom,” you said.

  Charlotte turned to Cara, relief quickly changing to suppressed anger. She’d checked her machine at work and heard the message that something was wrong. Like any mother would, she’d assumed the worst, left work, and hurried here.

  “I’m sorry, I should have clarified,” Cara said. “It’s a disciplinary problem.”

  Charlotte’s potential for fury was a match for yours any day, but since she was a grown-up, she’d learned to channel it into withering glances and intestinal disorders. “You made me leave my job because of a disciplinary problem?”

  Cara demurred. She hadn’t made anyone leave anything. She had informed Charlotte of the problem and then called her secondary contact, which I remembered was me. Charlotte glanced at me, and I felt a little guilty just being in the same room with Cara Brendel.

  “Is anybody going to tell me what’s going on?” Charlotte leaned forward on a bookshelf, shooting down the cuff of her Anne Klein II blouse to cover the dragon tattoo on her wrist. Body art didn’t fit the righteously indignant image she was trying to convey.

  Cara didn’t notice it; she just fell comfortably back onto her catechism. “As you know, we take physical displays very seriously here at Willoughby.”

  This is where I came in, I thought, and I took you by the hand to lead you to the door. “I’m going to take Maggie for a walk.”

  We walked away from the playground and the screaming kids and sat on the curb by the water fountain. You still looked very solemn.

  I suppose this is as good a time as any to introduce you to your four-year-old self. A perfectly enchanting child, if a doting uncle’s opinion counts for anything. Dark, almost gypsy in complexion; not at all like the rest of us pale, apple-cheeked Irish Kehoes. You’d had long, black, curly hair from the day you were born; a howling, wild-eyed banshee squirming like a slimy eel in my arms in the delivery room. Mine were the first arms to hold you (we don’t count the doctor, that’s his job). I cut your cord and eased you into your mother’s arms, and you started nursing, precocious thing that you are, without the least prompting.

  Your eyes were shining and bright from the get go; none of those dull, wandering, glassy stares for my Margaret. You looked so unlike our side of the family that we used to laugh and make jokes about changelings and cuckoos, but you were one of us from the beginning. I know we spoiled you. You were the only solid feature of our lives. We focused on you to keep us steady.

  You walked early and talked early, but showed little interest in reading or playing the piano or tying your shoelaces or anything that involved being taught. If you didn’t already know how to do it, it didn’t seem worth doing.

  There were things going on in your mind, I sensed then and know now, that the rest of the world couldn’t guess at. I caught glimpses of it in some of the things you said. At night, you never asked for the lights to be turned off, but for us to “turn the dark on,” as if dark was a positive thing, not just the absence of light. Once we took you to the Natural History Museum, and you were entranced by a skeleton of a caveman in a glass case. Through some trick with mirrors, the caveman would change from a skeleton to a mannequin of a live caveman, then back to a skeleton. Back and forth, skin and bone, you watched, totally enthralled. Then you turned to me, eyes shining, and said, “You do it!”

  I would have, if I could. I will, in time.

  Now you sat on the curb at Willoughby Preschool, your old-soul eyes wide and sad, your olive face speckled with birthmarks like a wild bird’s egg, and asked, “Is Mommy going to get in trouble, too?”

  “Of course not.” Only if Mommy decides to choke the life out of your teacher, I thought. “Nobody’s in trouble. This is just silly stuff.”

  You shrugged. “I like silly stuff better when it’s funny.”

  I agreed, comforted by the absence of screams coming from the classroom. “So, why did you want Bobby Neumuller to take his pants off?”

  “I wanted to see his penis,” you said.

  I didn’t ask any more questions for a while. Then, “Why did you want to see Bobby Neumuller’s penis?”

  (It just occurred to me how much this is going to embarrass you. Maybe writing this is a mistake. Maybe I’ll never show it to you at all.)

  “’Cause it’s fair. How if I said I was going to do something and didun’ do it? That wouldn’ be fair.”

  “So Bobby Neumuller said he was going to show you his penis.”

  “And he didun’,” you said, emphatically. “I said I was going to show him my bagina.�
��

  “And you did?”

  “O’ course. I’m fair.”

  I shifted on the curb, uncomfortable. “Look, that’s kind of a private thing. Remember how you talked with Mommy about private things?”

  “But I love Bobby Neumuller.”

  “I know you do. But still, there’s a lot of people I love, and I—”

  “You don’t show them your penis?”

  “Right.”

  You thought that over. “But when you marry ’em, then you show it, right? After the wedding?”

  “Uh, yes, yes, sometime after the wedding.”

  “Why if I married Bobby Neumuller?” You always said what instead of why and why instead of what. I assume you’ve grown out of that.

  “Okay, well, you might do that. But, remember, you have to be a grown-up to marry somebody.”

  “Was Mommy a grown-up when she married Daddy?”

  “You bet she was.” The curb was getting more uncomfortable by the minute.

  “And then Daddy died.”

  I shifted a pebble from under my right buttock. I had enough trouble lying to you about the Easter Bunny; this lie always killed me. “That’s right.”

  “How if he didn’ die, and he just left?”

  This struck me as a pretty deep thought for a four year old. I looked into your big eyes and gave you a hug. “Well, he’d be crazy to do that, ’cause he’d be missing out on knowing you, and you’re such a great kid.”

  You didn’t look like you were buying it, but we were interrupted by a pudgy boy with stubble-short hair and an X-Files T-shirt who trundled over and sat next to you.

  “Did you get in trouble?” the boy asked. I’d forgotten that about childhood—the constant struggle to avoid “trouble” in the form of the adult world’s mysterious and arbitrary justice.

  “Yep,” you said, then added, “I’m sorry I kicked you and spit on you.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  You looked like you were waiting for something. “Now you say you’re sorry.”

  “Why? I didn’t do anything,” Bobby Neumuller said.

  “Just ’cause it’s fair.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry.”

  You asked if you could go play with him and I said yes and you ran off, all fences mended. Things back in the classroom were more complex. Your mother was confronting Cara in her lioness-defending-her-cubs mode. “Christ, didn’t you ever play doctor when you were a kid? Were you ever a kid?”

  But she couldn’t seem to get a rise out of Cara. Irony and sarcasm had been institutionally removed from her worldview. “Sexual curiosity can be perfectly normal. When it’s coupled with violence, we have concerns.”

  “Oh, God, you make her sound like a serial rapist.” Charlotte picked up her jacket, and I picked up her purse. We both knew she had better leave now.

  But Cara wouldn’t shut up. “I think it’s time to consider that Willoughby Preschool may not be the best environment for Maggie.”

  Charlotte groaned. “Oh, don’t do this.”

  “I’m recommending that she be tested for Attention Deficit Disorder.”

  “Christ. Do you people hate children, is that it?”

  “Charlotte—” Cara was patient, always patient.

  “No, really. If a kid’s jumpy, you call her Hyperactive, you give her a pill. If she daydreams, you say it’s ADD, you give her a pill. You treat childhood like it’s a disease.”

  Once again, Cara went on as if none of this had been said. Maggie had difficulty concentrating, Cara said. This was disruptive, Cara said, not only to her own learning process but to the learning of her classmates.

  “So, her mind wanders sometimes,” Charlotte said. “She’s creative. That’s why we sent her to a hippie school.”

  Cara hated that the mothers called Willoughby a “hippie school,” and Charlotte knew that. “These are not daydreams, Charlotte. These are…” And for the first time, I saw real emotion in Cara’s eyes. She stifled it quickly. “…disruptive to the learning process,” she finished, her old self again.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Cara took off her glasses and composed herself, as if fearful of letting honesty slip out again. “Yesterday she spent all of recess sitting next to a puddle. She said she was talking to the water.”

  “So, she’s got an imagination.”

  Cara continued, with mounting intensity. “She said she saw things in the water. She brought the other children over. She said she saw Jake.” Her voice broke for a second, and she pressed her lips tight.

  Jake had been the school’s unofficial mascot, Cara’s big Labrador. The kids had loved him. Cara had loved him. He’d been hit by a car in front of the school last month, and the kids had seen him die. The mourning had gone on for weeks.

  Cara shoved her glasses back on, as if they might hide the tears welling in her eyes. “She said he was in pain. She said she could feel the pain. She said he was crying. That he wanted to come home. All the kids started crying then. They’d just gotten over it, and now she had them all crying again.” She wiped tears and snot from her face in sharp, violent swipes.

  Charlotte looked chagrined. Even I had heard how much the dog had meant to this woman. “God, Cara, I’m sorry. But she was probably just expressing her feelings about—”

  “Bullshit!” The outburst shocked both of them. Cara’s face was red and mottled and she was spitting tears like venom. “She was just trying to get attention! It was cruel!” The anger of her words cut straight through me.

  Charlotte moved forward, not even looking angered by that statement, just sad and full of compassion. “Oh, she’d never do that.” But Cara backed off, moving behind the gerbil cage. Charlotte hesitated, to and fro, not knowing where to move or what to say. “Jesus, Cara, you can’t kick her out of school just ’cause you don’t like her.”

  Cara tried to pull together the remnants of her patronizing smile. “Don’t be ridiculous. Maggie’s a wonderful child, very special—”

  “Don’t give me that ‘special’ crap!” Charlotte circled the gerbil cage, crowding her. “Are you doing this because you think it’s what’s best, or because you’re scared of her?”

  Cara pushed past Charlotte and ran from the room, sobbing. The kids on the playground looked up in surprise as they saw their crying teacher running past them and into the haven of the teacher’s lounge. Then they went back to playing.

  The tiny fireplace in your house on Quander Road was not meant to contain actual flames, but the short winter day had ended so soon and the temperature had dropped so suddenly, we threw a Duraflame log in and hoped for the best.

  Charlotte hadn’t gone back to work; she called in a personal emergency. They probably wouldn’t ask her back at that office, but that was one of the best things about being a temp. If you burned your bridges, there were plenty more to cross over.

  “I can’t get Maggie into another school. Not in the middle of the year.” She dropped her head back on the sofa. “Willoughby’s the only place I can afford.”

  Well, it was time for me to make a decision. For the past five years Charlotte had always had to be the responsible one, the one who shouldered the burden while I went off on my crazy tangents. It wasn’t fair to her, and it was going to stop now. “I’ll help. I’ll get a real job.”

  Charlotte laughed fondly and patted my leg. “That’s sweet, Sammy, but you’re like Maggie. You’ve got ADD. Adulthood Deficit Disorder.”

  I laughed along with her, trying to ignore how uncomfortably similar Charlotte’s joke was to Anne’s rant of the night before. She took my hand, and we stared into the fire, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. There should be other people with us to shoulder these troubles. But no. There were just the two of us, clinging to the wreckage.

  “I’m really ready to do it, Charlie,” I said. “I mean, you’ve done enough.”

  Her hand in mine felt tense, and she gave me her big-sister-pity smile. “You have no idea
the things I’ve done.” Now, every now and then your mother would do this. She’d hint, darkly, about some terrible secret from her past that no one could ever know but that she was clearly dying to tell me about in great detail. Once she’d dropped her teasing clue, though, she’d always pull back, and no amount of cajoling could get the real story out of her. One time, curiosity got the better of me, and I invested forty dollars in margarita mix, tequila, and a video of The Breakfast Club, figuring if that didn’t soften her up, nothing would. All I got from my effort was a sledgehammer hangover and the sense that the world wasn’t ready to know The Truth About Charlotte Kehoe. Fair enough. We all have our secrets. But considering what I did know about your mother’s past, this unspeakable thing must have been pretty impressive.

  I smiled back at her, knowing there was no point in going down this road, not tonight. We sat in silence for a while, then I got up and found you in your little bedroom trying to put the head back on a Barbie.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  I sat yoga-style on the floor next to you and helped recapitate the doll. You thanked me.

  “Maggie, did you really see Jake the other day?”

  You looked up at me, your wild hair—which no twisty or scrunchy could ever tame—falling in your eyes. The shadows of your hair always made your face look smudged so that, no matter how clean Charlotte kept you, you looked like a Dickensian street urchin. “I really did,” you said.

  I patted your curls. “Do you know how we were talking about private things? Things we don’t share?”

  You nodded.

  “That’s one of them,” I whispered to you.

  THREE

  On Sunday I decided to get a career.

  Since I was on the downslope to thirty, I figured I didn’t have time to start from scratch, so I looked for things already in my life I could build on.

  I was a clerk in a video store. Not terribly promising on the surface, but it was a good video store, maybe a great one. Video Vista on Washington Street was an old brownstone just barely converted into a retail outlet by lining the walls of the rooms, all three stories’ worth, with shelves. And that rabbit warren of shelves had it all: classics, foreign films (Satyajit Ray emphasized), action films, cult films (Italian giallo emphasized), Blaxploitation films (Rudy Ray Moore emphasized), fine porn, and art house films. They had a mail-order business that went all over the country and a website I had personally designed. Hugh, the manager, loved me and had often tried to talk me into running a second store he was planning in the District. But I’d always turned him down, not wanting the headache, and Hugh hadn’t brought it up for quite a while. Besides, everyone knew video rental was on its last legs, about to be replaced by satellites and cable and God knew what. You couldn’t plan your future on a transitional technology.