And there it was among my bills, catalogues, and circulars, a white envelope of the highest stationery grade, its return address a Concord, New Hampshire, law firm. I opened it slowly, suspiciously, expecting nothing good. It said:
Dear Daphne Maritch:
I am pleased to inform you that our client, Peter D. Armstrong, has instructed me to make this initial distribution of $5,000 to you, enclosed. We shall hold funds that are to pay you this same sum each calendar quarter. The federal income tax status of these payments is not clear at this time. You will receive further information as we know more. Please don’t hesitate to call with any questions you may have.
Sincerely yours,
Francis A. Barber, Esq.
Five thousand bucks times four! Should I? Could I? What were the ethics of such a windfall? Had my benefactor died? Should I call him or call Francis A. Barber, Esquire? Return it? Cash it?
Be reasonable, I told myself. Five grand every three months would be a shot in the arm for someone living on subpar alimony checks.
I knew whom I’d not be asking for advice: Tom Maritch, who would surely consider this the buying and selling of my affections. Not to mention a violation of the promise Armstrong had allegedly made not to butt into my life. And the last thing I wanted to hear was my widowed dog-walker father saying I should return this and every subsequent check because he’d match it.
So I did nothing except walk the three blocks to my bank and deposit the check as fast as the ATM could take it. I chose print receipt not just for security but for show-and-tell, to say, Not only am I going for the Select and Silver cable programming, but I might even buy a flat-screen TV! I was sketching that whole high-fiving, glasses-clinking scene when, back in my building’s lobby, I spotted a fur-coated Geneva. Usually, I ducked into the mailroom to avoid her, but today I was feeling up to the task.
“You’re looking pleased with yourself,” she said as we watched the elevator readout descend to L.
Was that any way to greet a neighbor? I didn’t think so. I said only, “Life is good.”
“Ditto,” she said.
To engage or not to engage? I waited until we were in the elevator before asking, “Anything new with the documentary?”
“Which one?”
Oh, really—which documentary of the many you’ve been juggling? I said, “I forget. Either The Sorrow and the Pity or the one about my mother’s Pickering, New Hampshire, yearbook.”
“The latter. It’s moving forward. In fact, it’s on the front burner.”
What would that mean in the Geneva world of sketchy, underachieving work? “How so?”
“I’ve been talking to your mother’s students.”
“In person? On the phone?”
The familiar thud of the elevator meant we’d reached our floor. “Do you want to hear more?” Geneva asked.
Without waiting for an answer, she followed me to my apartment. I looked at my watch. Five minutes to 4. “Tea?” I asked.
“Well, that’s a surprise.”
I knew what she meant: a surprise to see a show of hospitality from hostile me. Without removing her coat, she took a seat in the living room while I put water on to boil. When I returned, she was on her phone, holding up a finger to ward off an interruption. How rude was that, silencing the host? Back in the kitchen, I entertained myself by rereading the letter that had accompanied my check, posted on my refrigerator until my dad’s next visit.
“Okay!” I heard.
I didn’t join her. “You’re free now? Because I’d hate to interrupt.”
“Do you have green tea?” she asked.
Back in her presence, having grabbed a dented box of generic supermarket tea bags, I asked, “No. This okay?”
She shrugged.
I asked in more neighborly fashion what she was learning from my mother’s students.
“It’s still being tallied,” she said.
Tallied? I asked if that meant she’d taken some kind of count? Or a poll?
“I sent a questionnaire.”
“About what?”
Her nonanswer: “I had it printed up at FedEx for the ones who don’t do email.”
I asked if I could see a copy. She twisted her mouth this way and that as she frown-scrolled through attachments, then handed me her phone. I read:
If you have other memories, comments, or observations, feel free to attach an additional sheet. Please provide your name, email, daytime, evening, and cell phone numbers. Thanks!
Geneva Wisenkorn, Gal Friday Films
Good thing I wasn’t holding mugs of hot water when I read this. I managed to ask if she’d distributed the questionnaire yet.
“Why?”
“Because I hate it! Asking for rumors and gossip? You don’t think that’s leading the witness?”
Geneva sighed at my obvious filmmaking naïveté. She said her work had a point of view. And a POV didn’t just appear without digging.
“You didn’t think to run these questions by me first?”
“This is basic research. This is how I find people to interview and ultimately film. And there’s a script that needs to be written. It isn’t all camerawork.”
I went back to the kitchen and made tea for one—me. And while it was steeping, I had an idea of how to frustrate, annoy, and torment Geneva in her quest for what was behind my mother’s overinvestment in a mildewed Monadnockian. I’d tell her outright that my mother had been having an affair for decades. I might even modify “affair” with “torrid.” But not until I uttered the phrase “off-the-record,” driving that home since Geneva was anything but a real journalist. She couldn’t use it! My reasoning: By swearing her to secrecy, I was handcuffing her. In the confines of my kitchen, it seemed logical: It was better to hand her the juicy missing link up front, accompanied by a gag order, than have her snooping around, reading between the lines of the questionnaire’s answers.
I returned to the living room. “I’ve given this serious thought, and I’ve decided to tell you something that is key.”
“About?”
“My mother. It would explain everything.”
Geneva visibly perked up. “Should I get my camera?”
“No. Because what I’m about to tell you is off-the-record. As I’ve explained before, it means you cannot repeat it, quote it, and—most important—you can’t put it in the documentary, should that ever get off the ground.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
“This better be good,” she said.
“This is strictly off-the-record. Do I have your word?”
“Yes! I get it! For Chrissake, just say it.”
“It’s come to light that my mother and one of her students—”
“Girl or boy?”
“Boy. But what difference does that make if you can never use it?”
“I bet it’s the one who was at our table, the senator.”
“Do you understand that none of that matters, not that I’m confirming a single thing, because it’s off-the-freaking-record?”
“Can’t I be interested? Is that against the law, too?”
I hadn’t yet told her anything. It was then that I came to my senses. I could not tell her something juicy on the theory that she’d drop the whole project if her hands were tied. So I said, “Oh, it’s nothing. It was about me.”
“But you were going to tell me something about your mother and one of her students.”
“Well, it was about her, but now I realize it was nothing, a stupid little story about”—What did I have? Oh, right, the Josh and Jason O’Rourke caper—“a set of identical twins in two different English classes, and she found out that the one who had the test in the earlier class took it all over again in his brother’s afternoon class!”
“That was it? Then why that buildup about off-the-record, never use, never film, never think about it?”
“I was babbling. I have nothing. Nada. Your questionnaire isn’t going to produce one juicy thing.”
“Even if it doesn’t, I have the yearbook. And I picked up a vibe at the reunion.”
“What kind of vibe? From whom?”
She said too smartly, “Oh, how about a former male student?”
Had my voice sounded strained? It must have. I tried reverse psychology in the form of “This is going to be the most boring biopic ever filmed.”
How was that working? If I thought that had deflated her, I was wrong. Just the opposite. What I heard was “You’re an open book. Your mouth is saying ‘most boring biopic ever,’ but your face is saying ‘I’m terrified.’”
“No, it’s not! You never met my mother! She was a stick-in-the-mud! She might’ve had a yearbook thing, but she certainly did not cross a line with any students if that’s what your questionnaire is trying to root out. I’m sure she didn’t even cross any lines with my father before they married! They had to be role models. They had to be discreet. They—”
“Trusted each other?”
“Of course. They taught together. They had two kids together. They were together until she died.”
“I met him, don’t forget.”
What was that smug smile for? “You had Thanksgiving dinner with him.”
“And all the eligible ladies—which was everybody, now that I think about it—were making a play for him.”
“Was that his fault? And even if he went out on a date with one of them, he was entitled.”
“New widower and all?”
“It was over a year since my mother died! Plus, I don’t like this line of questioning. My father is the dearest man. And a true gentleman. I can’t believe you’re implying that he did something wrong. You know what I think? I think you’re finally facing the truth: that all you have is a story with no payoff about a New Hampshire English teacher with a yearbook fixation.”
Did she just wink at the end of my tirade?
“Before this . . .” she began.
“What? Before what?”
“Before this, you struck me as a logical person. Someone who thinks before she speaks.”
I huffed that I always thought before I spoke.
“Daphne,” she said, sounding weary and charitable. “I’ve distributed the questionnaire. If anyone sends it back, hinting at some kind of hanky-panky, I’m off and running. There’s my story. I’d be quoting that person on deep background, not you. And maybe you don’t know the whole story. You’re the daughter. But I can find someone who’s been waiting decades to squeal.”
I said no, no, no, she wouldn’t. “People in New Hampshire would never speak ill of the dead.”
Who was I trying to convince, Geneva or myself?