CHAPTER 26
In December, the parent organization at Meadows put on its annual holiday lunch for teachers and staff in the upper school’s library. Tables were decorated with pinecones, garland, and snowmen that some enterprising parents made out of papier-mâché and cotton balls. Nonreligious holiday music (Frosty the snowman, was a jolly happy soul . . .) played loud enough over the speakers to hear but not overwhelm.
“A few years ago Candy Cosgrove spiked the punch and everyone got hammered,” Kitty told me as we stood in the doorway to the library. I laughed, even though she’d told me this last year. School had ended for the holiday a half hour earlier and wouldn’t resume for nearly three weeks. There was nothing quite like the frenetic energy of three hundred children, all anticipating Christmas and winter break, for weeks on end. The fact that Hanukkah coincided this year made their collective anticipation almost unbearable. We were all exhausted.
“Let’s see what the troops brought in.” Kitty started for the food table.
“I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes,” I said, eyeing something on the library counter. It wasn’t often that I came up here. Our building down the hill housed everything we needed, all classrooms, a small library and cafeteria. The administration prided itself on keeping the middle schoolers away from our easily influenced younger kids.
I said hello to several middle-school teachers—we got together as a large group often enough for me to know almost everyone—and stopped in front of the counter. Standing up and facing out between the card catalogue boxes was a copy of Listen, Before You Go.
How did this get here? It was much too old for middle-school students. I reached to take it down, to hide it, but stopped and put my hand in my pocket. I didn’t want anyone to see me with it, to think I was the one who put it here.
I opened the card catalogue, to give me something to do. Although only a few people here ever asked about my mother, I had a feeling that everyone knew our connection. I glanced at the book again. The plastic cover was new, the edges not yet abused, and the spine wasn’t broken. Maybe no one had ever checked it out. Maybe the librarian put it out today. I glanced around but no one was paying attention to me. Maybe I could just push until it fell behind the counter?
I began flipping through the cards. I hadn’t looked at the cover in a while. Certainly my dad had copies all over the place, but I treated them as I would the refrigerator and water faucet—just part of the fabric of the house. On the cover Whit and Phoebe stood with backs to the camera, Whit leaning on his crutches, Phoebe holding her brother’s forearm with both hands as if afraid she’d lose him if she let go. The blue sky above them faded into the white edges of the book so that Whit and Phoebe always looked as if they were floating. At the time it was published, reviewers mentioned how innovative this cover was. Now it looked old-fashioned.
I stared at Phoebe with her shoulder-length brown hair and stick-figure legs. Toward the end of the novel, Whit told her that everyone had a gift and the trick in life was to find it and that hers was to “help people.” As readers, we knew this was true because she’d kept Whit alive and she’d kept the family together and as one reviewer wrote, “She’s the Virgin Mary, Mother Teresa, and Holden’s Phoebe all wrapped up in one.” This was my mother’s favorite review, not only because she liked being in Salinger’s company but also because it was the only time anyone compared Phoebe to Mother Teresa. I always thought that comparison was over-the-top. But now, thinking about what Oliver had told me at the memorial service months ago, I wondered if it had some kind of other meaning for my mother.
“Thinking of doing some reading instead of eating?”
I turned to see Justine Meachem, an eighth-grade English teacher, behind me. She had a cup of punch in one hand and a plate filled with food in the other.
“Oh, no, I don’t know.” I glanced over her shoulder at the people hovering over the food table. “How is it? Worth fighting the crowd?”
She put her punch on the counter, stabbed a piece of turkey with her fork, and put it in her mouth. She smiled, chewing. “Most definitely. Although I’d say that about anyone who cooks for me. I’m lousy in the kitchen but my husband’s a good sport about it. What about you? Are you a good cook?”
I thought about Logan’s offer to fund a restaurant and my desire long ago to make scones and cookies to sell at Lorenzo’s coffeehouse. Yes, at one time I’d thought about doing something with this interest, but I hadn’t had enough confidence to pursue it. But Justine didn’t need to know this. I smiled. “I get by.”
She stabbed another hunk of turkey and swooped up some salad with it. Justine was tall with short blond hair, thick eyebrows, and big green eyes. She always dressed in long, flowing skirts and wispy peasant shirts, even in the winter, which made her the resident hippie. She and I were two of just a handful of teachers that didn’t live in the suburbs, and I liked her even if I didn’t know her well.
“You’ve dropped out of book group?” she asked. I nodded and looked away. I felt bad about this and that I’d only been to one meeting. “It’s okay. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. You probably read more compelling books, anyway. I know I do. But it’s fun to be with everyone, you know, just hanging out.”
“Everyone’s so nice,” I said. And they were. The novel we’d read was compelling enough, too. I didn’t know why I couldn’t go to the group and hang out. It was only one night a month.
“Should I read that one next?” She nodded at Listen. I felt a little flustered as I glanced at Phoebe but then she laughed. “I’m kidding. I know your mom wrote it. I read it a long time ago. My question is, why is it in a middle-school library?”
“That’s what I was wondering,” I said. “The ending is so bleak.”
“The book’s language makes it accessible to eighth graders and it certainly addresses important topics.” Her voice was slow and thoughtful. “But that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate. I worry that if kids read certain novels before they’re ready, it might turn them off reading. Or scare them unnecessarily. I don’t know. I think I’m just annoyed at these parents in our school who push and push. So what if a kid wants to read comic books. At least they’re reading?”
“So, do you see your job as cultivating happy readers or making sure they’re prepared as critical thinkers for the next grade?” I asked.
With her fork, she poked at the remaining turkey on her plate. “Honestly? Sometimes it’s all I can do just to get them through the day with their little self-esteems intact.”
We laughed. Maybe she worried about her students’ friendships, too, and whether she was a good enough teacher. It had been a while since I talked to anyone like this. With the lower school teachers, our conversations were mostly about lesson plans, benchmarks, misbehaving kids, and lately about the new gym teacher. I heard a burst of laughter and we turned to watch Kitty and some of the others who had formed a tight circle around him. He was too young for them and a little too sporty, but he was good looking. I could see the attraction.
“What are you doing over vacation?” Justine asked.
“My husband and I are going to New York this afternoon for a few days.”
“Lucky!” She smiled. “For fun?”
I wasn’t looking forward to going, despite the promise of an amazing meal at the Christmas party tonight and the fancy hotel where we were staying, all expenses paid. “Ben, my husband, has a work party. The New York office of his law firm invited us down for it. For the rest of vacation, we’ll be here. He has to work through the holidays. Unfortunately.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know the feeling. My husband will spend this vacation trying to finish his dissertation. I’ll be so happy when it’s over. Hey, I was going to suggest that we get together for dinner with our husbands. But maybe just you and me for coffee sometime over break? To commiserate?”
I startled. What did she want? It was one thing to work together and talk, but to have coffee? To do something together out of school? That meant something more, like a friendship, and I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to go there. I didn’t really know her. She didn’t know me, either. She didn’t know anything about me.
I saw the corners of her smile droop, and I tried to recover by saying, “Okay. Sure. That’d be nice.”
But it was too late. She’d seen my hesitation.
“Have you guys tried the lasagna yet? It’s awesome.” Kitty was beside me, thrusting her heaping plate between Justine and me. The lasagna was stacked nearly two inches high and oozing with cheese, spinach, and a garlic red sauce. And then two middle-school teachers walked up, also with plates of lasagna, and soon I lost Justine in the crowd.
After a while, I helped myself to some food, although I didn’t feel hungry. I tried to catch Justine’s eye several times but she wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t tell if that was because she was hurt or if she’d simply written me off. Not long after this, I left. I had to go home before picking up Ben at the office. We needed to be on the road by three in order to get to New York, settle into our hotel, change clothes, and make our way to the Manhattan partners’ Christmas party.
At home, I found a message on the answering machine from Ben, who said he was running late. If I picked him up at four o’clock, he promised to be ready. I sat at the kitchen table, still in my winter coat, and felt irritated in a way I usually didn’t. Most likely we wouldn’t leave until at least four thirty and then what were we supposed to do, change clothes in the car on the way to the party? Why did he work so much? Why did we have to go to this party? I didn’t want to go to Manhattan. Ben wasn’t friends with the lawyers he worked with. He liked to keep these two parts of his life separate. That was what he always told me.
That was what I’d done with Justine today, too. But I cringed because this wasn’t completely true. I put my elbow on the table and sunk my head into my hand. I didn’t want to go to coffee and then maybe a movie and then after that to dinner with our husbands because eventually we’d talk about ourselves and our lives and at some point she’d realize I wasn’t the person she thought I was. I’d disappoint her.
But wasn’t I being ridiculous? After all, I tried so hard to be a good person now. I could be a good friend, too. But as I looked out the window at the bare brown tree branches, like spider legs across the pale blue sky, I felt such longing pull at me. Could I name my close friends? Did I even have any? Instead, I counted coworkers and acquaintances and people I saw at the gym and while waiting in line at Dunkin’ Donuts and the supermarket.
“You had so many friends when we were in college,” Ben said to me one morning several months ago as he headed off for another fourteen-hour day. “Why don’t you call someone? You know, get together for dinner or something?”
Would I call Diana, whom I hadn’t seen in five years, since I quit working at the coffeehouse? Lorenzo, whom I had nothing in common with now that we no longer worked together? Friends from high school, most of whom I didn’t know anymore? I barely even talked to college friends. I didn’t know why.
Of course I knew why.
I was a coward.
I stood and went into our bedroom, pausing in the doorway. We’d recently had the walls painted dark beige that matched the new comforter cover. Antique wood nightstands stood on either side of the bed. Our condo was beginning to resemble the distinct parts of our personalities. Clean, modern, and neat (Ben). Antiques and books (me).
What was Lee’s apartment like? And what about her husband? Did she want children? Was she trying to conceive and not having luck, either? I imagined tomorrow, out for a walk in midtown, and running into her. What would we say? How would I defend not calling or writing after receiving her letter months ago? Although I’d put it away in my nightstand drawer and hadn’t looked at it in a while, I knew it by heart. I’ve learned some things that have given me some peace with all that has happened. Maybe it would give you some peace, too. I have a favor. I need your help. And below that her address and phone number in Manhattan.
I walked to the nightstand table, opened the drawer, and took out the letter. Maybe it was because I felt bad about Justine or because I couldn’t get rid of the longing in my heart or maybe because I just wanted some peace, after all, but I put the letter in my pocket. And then I turned out the light and went back to the kitchen to wait for Ben’s call.