10
I REACHED MY BROTHER, WHO was in the process of towing a car that died on an off-ramp. As swiftly as I could, I summed up my predicament. After only “They thought I was raising money for myself!” he yelled, “What the fuck!” and then to an apparent passenger, “Excuse my language but my sister just got fired.”
I said, “No, I didn’t! They’re threatening probation,” then I supplied a few more details of my dilemma.
“Did you say the check was for a hundred grand?”
“I actually said a hundred thousand dollars, but yes.”
“I swear to God,” he said. “If I didn’t have a client in my truck and her SUV hooked up to the back, I’d race over there and—I don’t know—make somebody apologize.”
Next thing I knew, he was saying to his passenger, “You wouldn’t know a good lawyer, would you?”
“For what?” I heard.
“It’s my sister. She raises money for Everton Country Day and a big check came in made out to her instead of the school.”
I said, “Joel! That was confidential! She could be a reporter for the Echo for all you know.”
“I’m not,” a woman’s voice said. And then another muffled sentence, which Joel amplified for me. “Her brother-in-law and his wife are lawyers, both with fancy firms.”
“In Everton?”
“In Boston,” the woman said.
“Boston’s good. Big-city lawyers. That’ll scare ’em,” said Joel.
Next I heard this passenger ask therapeutically, “What’s her name?”—the prelude to Joel passing her his phone.
“Faith? It’s Paula Gabriel. My car died coming off 495. Sorry to hear about your troubles. One question re the hot water you’re in. Forgive me, but . . . did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Arrange for the check to be made out to you? I have to ask because neither my brother-in-law nor his wife are criminal attorneys.”
I sputtered, “I’m not a criminal! I worked and worked to get this donation, and the husband died and the wife—because she was grief stricken or just in a fog—wrote a check. To me. Because she was confused. She just copied the name from my business card!”
And then, as if we were acquaintances or even intimates, she announced, “Your brother seems upset. I don’t think he should be talking about this while driving.”
Joel yelled, “You’re damn right I’m upset.”
I asked if I was on speaker.
“It’s okay,” he said. “What’s said in my cab, stays in my cab. Right, Paula?”
I said, “I hope so. The whole day has been a nightmare. A meeting in a fun house . . . in an insane asylum.”
That last reference inspired Paula Gabriel to confide that she was a psychiatric social worker specializing in family counseling.
Though ten seconds earlier Joel had been spitting mad, he now let out a hoot of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“This! My sister’s flipping out, and whose car breaks down but a shrink’s?”
“I am not flipping out and you have no discretion. None!”
I detected a change. Joel’s voice was now sounding closer. “It’s just me,” he said.
“Good! Did you hear what she asked me? Was I guilty?”
“Sorry,” he said.
“I have to go. I don’t know why I called you.”
“I’m your big brother. I beat people up for you. I bet it’ll be settled without a lawyer. Are you on paid leave?”
“I don’t know anything.”
Paula was expounding again. Joel translated. “She’s asking if you’re faculty and if there’s a faculty union. Because then you’d get representation.”
“No, I am not. I’m not faculty, and FYI Everton faculty isn’t unionized. I’m getting off.”
“Look . . . sorry. It’ll be okay. I’ll call you tonight. Wanna do dinner?”
I said, “I guess so. Not in public, though. Come down.”
“I’ll bring pizza.”
Paula was talking again, but I only caught “relationship.”
“Did you hear that?” Joel asked. “She said she envied our relationship.”
“I couldn’t care less what she thinks.”
“Roger that,” said Joel.
Nick returned, looking anything but victorious. I asked where he’d been and whom he’d talked to and . . . anything good? Anything?
He shook his head sadly and plopped into his chair.
“Speak,” I said.
“I went to see Dickenson. He was in a meeting, which I barged in on, and it was totally unrelated . . . architects . . . additions . . . so I had to back out, apologizing, looking like an idiot. Then I went looking for the chaplain. Good idea, right? Did you know he teaches two classes every morning?”
“Meaning you didn’t speak to him?”
“Correct. But I thought he’d be sympathetic . . . would want to do the right thing. Ethics and all that.”
“What about Reggie?”
“What about Reggie?”
“You left here chasing after him.”
“I caught him. He’s not the one who can fix the probation part of it. That’s only Dickenson.”
“I’m fucked.”
“No, you are not fucked. Did you do anything about getting a lawyer?”
I told him I’d made a call, which went nowhere.
“Okay. Time for some tough love. You, miss, have to get your shit together.”
“Where’d you learn that lovely expression? Phillips Exeter Academy?”
In decidedly un-Nick-like fashion—tentative and apologetic—he said, “Maybe this is the right time to tell you that I didn’t leave Exeter voluntarily.”
Did I just hear that Nicholas Franconi, the jewel in our crown, the man with the golden résumé, had left Exeter involuntarily?
He repeated, “Did that penetrate? I said I didn’t leave Exeter voluntarily.”
“Fired?” I whispered.
“They whitewashed it. If I quit on my own, they’d call it a resignation. And give me good recommendations without mentioning my Achilles’ heel.”
“Which was what?”
“Too embarrassing,” he mumbled.
“You brought it up. You have to tell me.”
“I will. But first I have to tell you that I’m cured,” he said. “I’ve fixed the problem.”
I was expecting something confessional or criminal or pharmaceutical, but his hands were over his face covering an unexpected grin. The answer that escaped between his fingers was “Time management. Aaargh!”
“Time management? Like late for work?”
“I kept missing planes and trains—chronically, they said—so at the other end, I’d miss meetings with potential donors, which, believe me, tends to piss off everyone. So at first it was just ‘Try harder . . . buy a watch, set it ahead, set your alarm earlier, read a book on time management, for Chrissake.’ And then it was see a shrink and pretty soon don’t put him on the road. And finally . . . Sayonara, asshole.”
“Yikes,” I said. “I never would’ve guessed that in a million years.”
“I have my tricks now.”
I said, “I appreciate your telling me. And not just because it startled me into forgetting my own troubles for two minutes.”
“I was asked to leave. You’re only on probation. And may I remind you, until you get it in writing, it’s just hearsay.”
I was still sitting at my desk thirty minutes later, trying not to do anything rash like packing up my personal effects. Surely Nick would return, having fixed some or all of this mess. I knew Stuart would be unavailable. I tried anyway and left a message saying, “Did you grasp that something terrible happened at work? Here’s a clue. I’ve been wrongly accused of steering money into my own pocket. With a little help from you, by the way. If interested, call me back.”
Next, I sent an e-mail to myself at work to see whether I’d been snuffed out. It didn’t bounce back. And there was my picture and bio still on the school’s website.
Stuart texted me, That sucks. Cant talk now wcb asap.
Of course, being unreachable due to his exalted role in life, he couldn’t talk, now or ever. It evoked a thought that was increasingly running through the part of my brain that handled logic—that maybe we weren’t engaged at all. And if the red string on my finger was a symbol of his marital intentions, maybe I should I break it off, literally and figuratively.
But I did nothing, recognizing that my bad mood might be responsible for this romantic disillusionment. And also because my phone was ringing—my father calling back! Without my having to say hello, I heard, “What’s wrong? What happened?”
For the umpteenth time, or so it felt, I outlined the morning’s charges. He said, “Are you at school? Do you want me to come get you?”
And for the umpteenth time—or so it seemed—I asked, “Where are you?”
“Didn’t Joel tell you? Or your mother? I was in Florida, but—”
“I’ve had it with your ‘Florida’! Like that explains anything!”
“But I told them . . . they both know—it’s business.”
“What business! You’re a painter. That’s not a business! What’s the big secret? Is there a woman down there?”
“Faithy—what’s gotten into you? I mean besides being accused of embezzling?”
“You’re impossible to reach! It’s like you have a secret life. And my fiancé can’t call me back, either, due to God knows what.”
He said, “I flew home today. I was on a plane when you called. I’m back in Boston now. I’ll drive to Everton tonight. We’ll have a family meeting and we’ll get this straightened out.”
Such a simple phrase. We’ll get this straightened out. Not that it was clear which “this” he meant, but finally I was hearing a string of syllables I believed could be true.