Mrs. Cohen beamed. “So long as you are there in time for the Macy’s parade. I love the balloons.”
A crackling mike interrupted them at last. “Mr. Cohen, to the dais, please?”
Looking relieved, he stood. “Duty calls. Come, my dear.”
As the Cohens made their way to the front of the hall, stopping here and there to greet friends or accept congratulations on the evening, David sighed with relief. “Let’s go see what else we can find to eat.” He headed off with Sarah at his heels. She regarded him with a cocked eyebrow, but he seemed determined to avoid discussion until she pushed the issue.
“Is your father always that reticent?”
“No, you can see he’s comfortable with a microphone.” David nodded at the platform where Mr. Cohen was now calling out the names of those who had helped to put the evening together.
“So, did I do something wrong—zig when I should have zagged?”
“It’s not about you, Sarah. He and I are not on speaking terms right now. Silence has always been his favorite weapon. It’s annoying, but it’s better than the moments when he gives way to his rage.”
“Goodness! What did you do?”
“Nothing. And I don’t want to talk about it, OK?”
“OK.” She knew when to back off, but her curiosity nagged at her.
On the way home, she tried another path to more information. “About Thanksgiving? I don’t want to make things more awkward for you. I can drop your mother a note, thank her for the invitation, and plead off on account of work.”
“Please don’t do that. I want you to meet my sister Hannah, and mother will see that father behaves himself. He’ll be pleasant at the table, and the rest of the time, the television will be on. Give us a chance to act like a real family.”
Despite her reservations Sarah agreed. She ordered a bouquet of fall flowers to take to Mrs. Cohen and read up on the football schedule so she could talk about the games.
And as promised, Mr. Cohen was pleasant enough at the table. He complimented Sarah on her outfit and made sure her plate was full. “David warned us that you are allergic to tree nuts, so the cook avoided using them in anything. But that must make life difficult for you.”
“No, I just avoid them and try not to make a fuss. I hope I haven’t deprived you of your favorite pecan pie.”
“Not at all. It’s too sweet for me. I’m a pumpkin fan, all the way.”
“Me, too,” Hannah agreed, “but after all this turkey and dressing, I will vote we hold off on dessert until half-time.”
“Not for us.” David said. “Sarah and I will be leaving early. She has work to do, and I’m on duty starting at six.”
“Oh, David, I hate your weird work schedules,” Hannah said. “I’ve been looking forward to fighting over the games with you for old times’ sake. When are you going to get a job with regular hours so we can see more of you?”
Hannah’s husband shook his head at her and treated the matter as a joke. “I can see it now. The police force goes home to dinner every night, and the crooks come out from under their rocks, saying, ‘Gentlemen, jump-start your engines and let’s see how many cars we can steal before breakfast.’”
Everyone smiled except for Mr. Cohen. “David’s not interested in regular hours, Hannah. He had that kind of great job and threw it over to play super-cop!”
“Dad . . .”
“Well, it’s true, David. I sent you to the best law school I knew, watched with pride as you made Harvard Law Review and passed the bar on your first try. I offered you an early partnership in the best law firm around, and we set you up for life. And what did you do? You walked out, applied to the police academy, and started making traffic stops and chasing down shoplifters. Talk about a wasted investment. The current stock market failure is nothing compared to yours.”
Sarah paused in mid-forkful. Stunned, she stared at the man across the table from her. Harvard Law Review? The bar exams? A partnership? How could that be? How could she have missed the signs—his nice car, the family’s local prominence, his extensive vocabulary and encyclopedic knowledge? Guilt washed over her as she realized that her own attitude toward David’s occupation had been as snobbish as his father’s. She had assumed she was too smart for him. Now it appeared his education outranked hers.
She was quiet on the way home until David broke the silence. “You’re angry about something—I’m just not sure about what. Is it because I never told you about my brief aborted career as a corporate lawyer? Are you looking for a polite way to get out of this relationship because you can’t stand my parents? Or are you joining my father’s silent treatment because you agree with him that I’m a hopeless loser?”
“No, no, I’m confused. I don’t know what to think. I admit I felt stunned at your father’s revelations. You’re not who I thought you were, and I don’t know what to do about that.”
“I’m the man you think I am, Sarah. I’m David the cop, the guy who comes running when someone threatens you. Someone who brings you hamburger sliders when you are hungry, remembers to buy your cat a catnip mouse, and helps you find all the Milk Duds in the bag of Halloween candy. I’m the guy you’ve trusted, and the guy who has never betrayed that trust.”
“But I can’t believe that you have all this background and training and never mentioned it.”
“I never mentioned it because it doesn’t matter to me. It’s not important. Look, Sarah, I like you—a lot—and that’s not because you have a PhD from Columbia, or because you’re comfortable dashing off to Paris to give an academic paper in French, or because you are a professor of history at the U. You don’t mind getting barbecue sauce on your nose, you talk to your cat as if he understands every word you say, and you’re warm and kind. I admire you because, even though you are more than a little afraid of this student who seems to be stalking you, you care about her and defend her and try to help her.
“I believe that you are the person you seem to be. And I want you to feel the same way about me. I’ve never tried to deceive you by hiding my years at Harvard from you. Why would I? An insincere guy might do just the opposite—brag about his degrees and his awards, display the plaque he got for being editor of the Harvard Law Review, and downplay his tacky, working-class job.
“I’ve wanted to be a cop all my life because cops help people. That’s what my father taught me when I was a little kid: if you need help, you find a cop. I believed him then, and I believe it now. It’s unfortunate that he has forgotten the lessons he taught, but it’s not my problem. I’m the cop my father told me about, and I’m proud of that. If that’s not good enough for you, I’ll learn to accept your rejection, just as I accept my father’s rejection. It’s up to you now.”
“I’m not rejecting you, David. I’m jettisoning some of my own preconceptions. Give me a little time to get my head on straight.”
Chapter Fourteen
End of Semester Blues
Monday, December 1, 2008
“Welcome to the worst three weeks of the year,” Julia said as she stood in the doorway to Sarah’s office. “I hope your Thanksgiving break was fun, because things hit the fan now.”
“My Thanksgiving was a nightmare from which I am still recovering. I’ll tell you about it sometime, but not now. And here you are, suggesting that life will get worse? I need not hear that.”
“Sorry, but it’s true. The students will come back in an absolute panic about the work they still have to do. They’ll stay up late at night, pounding out papers that are already overdue, or cramming for exams they’re sure they will fail. Everyone will be sleep-deprived and short-tempered. That goes for the faculty, too. We never learn. Every one of us has a mile-high stack of papers and other grading that we can’t hope to finish on time. To top it off, the weather is about to turn cold and wet and sloppy. Three weeks of hell, I guarantee.”
“At the end of which, I have to worry about traveling back to New York, with the cat in tow, to spend Hanukkah with my folks.
“Uh-oh. You don't plan to drive it in winter, will you? The roads could be dicey.”
“No, I’m flying, provided I can get from here to the airport in Nashville. But the airline just informed me that Elijah the cat has to have his own cat-carrier stroller that fits under the seat. They sent me the ad for a store where I can buy one, but I’m betting they’re getting a kick-back on the deal. And I’ll ending up paying extra for shipping to make sure it gets here in time for Elijah to get used to it.
“Oh, and speaking of papers, I’m committed to chairing a panel at the American Historical Association annual meeting. I thought it would be easy, since I’ll be in town already. But I forgot I will have to read all those papers and come up with intelligent questions. Are you planning to attend the meeting by any chance?”
“No way. I’d rather drink hemlock! I served my time at those things before I got this close to tenure. So good luck, and you can tell me all about it when we get back.”
If any of her students imploded from the pressure of the last three weeks of the semester, Sarah knew who would lead the list. As she could have predicted, Cassie came in for advice Tuesday afternoon. With what appeared to be genuine tears in her eyes, she pleaded for understanding and a special break.
“I can’t do it, Professor Chomsky. There’s no way I can finish that annotated bibliography for your course before the end of the semester.”
“End of the semester, Cassie? It’s due this Thursday.”
“Yes, but I can’t finish it by then. I changed my topic because I wanted to do one of those you’ll-thank-me-later ones you told us about. My plan was to work on it over Thanksgiving, but everything just collapsed on me.
“First, Charlie’s mother got sick. I think it’s menopausal, but she’s having these horrible headaches that make her scream with pain. She spends her days lying down in a dark room because every time she tries to get up, she throws up. She sees flashing lights, and everything she hears is too loud. They’re like migraines, you know? Anyhow, she had invited the family for Thanksgiving dinner, but she couldn’t cook, so I had to do the whole thing. I went over to her house to work on the turkey, and she said it was in the garage. There was a turkey, all right—a live one who tried to peck me to death. Charlie had to come rescue me and help me cart the bird off to the butcher to wring its neck and pluck the feathers. Ugh! What a mess. I couldn’t eat it after that.”
Sarah was trying to look sympathetic, even when she wanted to giggle at the image of Cassie versus turkey.
“Then more stuff happened. I got a call from my babysitter’s husband. Mary Jo’s in the hospital. They think she has leukemia, which means she will die.”
“Oh, no, Cassie. You mustn’t think like that. They have a very good treatment for leukemia these days.”
“Yeah, like chemo, right? And that’s expensive. Bob and Mary Jo don’t have any medical coverage, just like we don’t. It’s too expensive until something like this happens, and then it’s too late. Now I don’t have a babysitter, and Lizzie can't stay with my mother-in-law because she’s sick, you know.”
“Charlie had to take Lizzie with him to the homeless shelter while I tried to study. But she hates it there and started screaming. He dragged her out and put her in his truck and slammed the door, catching her little finger and chopping the end joint right off.”
“Oh, no! Is she all right?”
“Sure. We got the bleeding stopped by using one of Charlie’s styptic pencils on it and then binding it up real tight.”
“Oh, but she needs to see a doctor. There could be germs . . .”
“Like I said, we don’t have medical coverage either, and the emergency room charges a thousand bucks just to let you in the door. Anyhow, she’s asleep out in the truck, but I can’t leave her out there too long in the cold. I just came to tell you to give me an F because I won’t get my paper done.”
“You can’t accept getting an F, Cassie. This isn’t like your undergraduate days. Even a C in a course is enough to get you kicked out of grad school.”
“I can’t help it. There aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything . . .”
“Let me finish. You may take an incomplete in my course. I must file it with the registrar, but the illness in your family will qualify you for a three-week extension, which needs not go into effect until the end of the semester. That will move your due date to—let me see—January 12th. That gives you seven more weeks to get your life straightened out and complete the bibliography. Can you do that?”
“Sure. I guess.”
“That’s not a very positive reaction.”
“It’s all I can find under this dark cloud that’s following me around these days.”
“It’s a bad time of year for everyone, Cassie—deadlines, miserable weather, illnesses, approaching holidays.”
“I need some powerful spells to make my problems go away. It’s a good thing I know a real witch.”
The word “witch” sent a tingle down Sarah’s spine, but she tried to laugh it off. “I wouldn’t rely on a magical spell, Cassie. Finding a new babysitter and doing some hard work in the library will be more useful.”
"Maybe not. I’m on my way over to the college’s herbarium right now. My new friend, Witch Lucinda, tells me there’s a powerful plant whose juice can cure migraine headaches and other menopausal symptoms. If I can find some growing somewhere, I can get my mother-in-law back on her feet so she can care for Lizzie. And that will count as more research for my bibliography, too.”
“Wait! What? What’s your research topic? It has to be historical, remember.”
“Yeah. I’m doing ‘Historical Attitudes toward Witchcraft.’”
Cassie gave Sarah an appraising look and grinned when she saw a horrified look on the professor’s face. “Thanks for the extension, Dr. Chomsky. I’ll use it well.”
“Wait! I didn’t approve that topic . . .” Sarah’s protest was too late. Cassie was already dashing toward the stairs.
When her phone rang, Sarah considered pretending she wasn’t there, but her conscience drove her to pick up the receiver. “Hello.” Her angry tone of voice warned the caller to watch his step.
“Sarah? This is David. If it’s a bad time, I can call back.”
“Bad time doesn’t describe . . . But, no, it’s not likely to get any better as the day wears on. What do you need?”
“It’s not what I need; it’s what you need.”
“Come on, David. I don’t have time for games.”
“Whoa! OK. I promised mother I’d check and see what plans you have for Hanukkah.”
“I’m going home to New York.”
“For your whole holiday break?”
“Yes. I’m leaving the minute I turn in my grades and not returning until after the American Historical Association’s annual meeting the second week in January.”
“Well, that will disappoint my mother—and me, too. We were hoping we could have time to show you the brighter side of our family's holiday gatherings.”
“I don’t need another . . .”
“Don’t say it, please. I hoped . . . But never mind. How are you getting to New York?”
“Elijah and I are flying. There’s a direct flight now out of Nashville.”
“And how are you getting to Nashville?”
“Driving. Leaving my car in the long-term lot. You don’t have to worry about me. It’s all taken care of, unlike the problems here this afternoon.”
“I’m sorry. We can discuss details later. But please let me drive you to Nashville. You don’t want to pay those long-term parking fees if you can help it.”
“As you said, we can discuss it later. I have to go now.”
Her hand trembled as she put down the receiver. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone?
To keep from thinking about David, Sarah shifted her worrying back to Cassie. She didn’t like the thought of this strange young woman studying and writing about witchcraft. It wasn’t a matt
er of scholarship—the topic was legitimate enough. But Cassie seemed to have difficulty separating the real world from a fictional one. Several times during the semester, she had mentioned a character from a novel as having experienced a historical event. Once she had asked Sarah why Scarlett O’Hara and her slave girl Prissy had not had more experience in childbirth since babies were always born at home in the nineteenth century. When Sarah suggested that the author had not thought of that, Cassie’s response was, “No, but Scarlett saw other babies being born, didn’t she—in real life, I mean?”
Now Cassie was investigating historical attitudes toward witchcraft and befriending someone who was a member of a modern coven. Could she separate the two? Sarah doubted it. And if that modern witch was recommending herbal remedies and sending her off to find the plants in the college herbarium, there was a great potential for trouble. Sarah remembered that Martha Wright had once mentioned Kevin Chalmers as the college’s resident expert on monastic institutions. Perhaps he might provide some guidance about what Cassie might find in the herbarium.
“Kevin, do you have a few minutes to chat? I need a little advice.”
“Sure, Sarah, come on in. How can I help?”
“Martha Wright mentioned that you know a lot about the old nunnery that used to be here. What can you tell me about their herbarium?”
“That old herb garden behind the Student Center? Not much. I sniffed around there once (and yes, I did some actual sniffing) to see what might have been growing there. But it was all so overgrown and weed-filled that the plants weren’t worth identifying. The cooks use a small portion of it to grow some seasonings today—basil, parsley, chives, and such. The rest of it no longer qualifies as a real herbarium. I thought about trying to restore it when I first came here, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. Why do you ask?”
What Grows in Your Garden Page 12