Chapter 30.

The next morning, his day off from the kennel, Josh drove into the village to get a signal for his cell phone. Cool air flowed in the car window, and his mind felt marvelously clear. This must be his new life, Life Beyond the List. He could do better than dragging himself along a few percentage points at a time.

Josh had thought of making his visit to Carol Harrison this morning, but first things first: Starting today, Josh would man up and do his part to support his mother. He got it, now: It wasn’t enough to just show up. And he already had a plan to do something she would actually enjoy. The day was September-bright, although it was only late July, and Josh imagined gallantly seating Martha on the patio of an upscale little café.

Parking at Cumby’s, Josh took out his phone and dialed. “Bless you, Josh!” his mother answered. “It must be ESP—I was just thinking how wonderful it would be if you happened to call.”

Josh started to ask if she knew of a restaurant near Northport Commons, but Martha Hiller interrupted, “No, no; I don’t want to go out to lunch. Can you could drive me to the hairdresser? Apparently the Commons shuttle doesn’t go there today.” She added sharply, “I’m positive they changed the schedule without announcing it.”

So why didn’t she take a taxi, or book an Uber ride? Josh sensed that this was the wrong question to ask. “Sure, Mom. What time’s your appointment?”

It wasn’t until one o’clock, so Josh had time before he headed north to do his second most important thing: call Nancy Reston. With his thumb hovering over the Kingstown Academy number, Josh pictured Nancy as he remembered her, radiating benevolent energy. The picture of her on the Kingstown website had looked much the same, give or take a few creases and gray hairs.

But Josh’s mental image of Nancy morphed into the smooth pink face and round blue eyes of Principal Voss during their last encounter. He’d walked into her office the week after the field trip to Washington. “Excuse me. Can we talk?”

Charlene Voss looked mildly surprised. “Oh. I’m in the middle of something, but if this is important . . .” She gestured at a chair facing her desk. As Josh started to close the office door, she said, “Leave that open, please.”

Josh shrugged and sat down. Did she want Glenda, the office administrator, to be able to testify that she was not sexually harassing him? Or did she think he would try to strangle her, if they were alone together? Or did she say it just to throw him off balance?

Never mind. He held up a flyer titled “Creating a Safe Space in the Classroom.” “Why did you put this in my mailbox?”

“Oh, yes. The sensitivity workshop.” Her smile was bland. “Didn’t I clip a note to it? I thought you’d find it helpful for personal as well as professional development.”

“But why did you put it in my mailbox? And nobody else’s.” Josh tried to get more comfortable in the chair, which was low and wooden, with a seat tilting down toward the back. It folded his body, squeezing his already tense guts.

Pulling out a file drawer, Voss removed a manila folder with a tab labeled HILLER, J. Wow, that was a thick file. Either she was storing her junk mail in there, or she’d been taking notes on every single smart remark he’d made this year.

The principal opened the folder and frowned, as if it was hard to know where to begin. “Let’s see. Well, you were the teacher in charge on the Washington, D.C. field trip. And I’ve noticed other indications . . . But I wouldn’t recommend the workshop unless I thought you had the potential to benefit from it.”

“The field trip. Oh. Are you talking about the incident with Kaylee?”

Charlene Voss nodded regretfully. “I have to wonder how you could have her in your class for most of a year and not sense how vulnerable she is. I could see that myself, in just one classroom visit last fall.”

“I remember how sensitive you were that day,” said Josh. “Aside from the fact that there was no reason for you to observe my class.”

Leaning back in her high-backed, padded swivel chair, Voss said, “As the principal, it’s my job to run this school.”

“But not your job to harass teachers while they’re conducting a class.”

“So that was your interpretation.” The principal regarded him for a moment, nodding her head. “Do you know that you have a serious problem dealing with women in authority?”

“What?” exclaimed Josh. “That came out of left field.”

“Hardly,” said Voss, tapping the “J. Hiller” folder. “The way you handled the post-field trip follow-up is just one example.” She turned a page in the folder. “According to the docent at the National Gallery, you failed to model active listening for the students during the tour.”

“I failed—” Josh began to get the picture of what a detailed dossier Charlene Voss had compiled on him. “You actually went to the trouble to hunt up that docent?”

As if he hadn’t said anything, she went on, “And Amanda Gill noticed that you watched Kaylee walk over to the antique chair and sit down without trying to stop her.”

That hurt—Josh had thought he was on good terms with Curtis Gill’s mother. “I guess Amanda Gill was thinking the same thing I was: namely, that Kaylee wouldn’t actually sit down on the chair. Because she didn’t try to stop her, either.”

“The worst part of it, of course, was the way you took advantage of Kaylee’s distress with intimate touching.”

“What! I did not . . .” Josh’s voice trailed off as he remembered that moment in the portrait gallery. Kaylee with her head hanging like a scolded dog. His arm around her, his hand patting her head as if she were Molly. And Sarah Rothman’s glare as she pulled the girl away. “If that’s what Ms. Rothman told you, she completely misinterpreted what I did.” He had a mental image of the principal with a phone pressed to her ear, making call after call, asking question after insinuating question, taking careful notes. The prosecuting attorney.

“That was not only insensitive,” Voss was saying, “but highly inappropriate behavior. This workshop could help you understand that.”

“I hope you understand that Sarah Rothman overreacted. Maybe she felt guilty about the way her own daughter picked on Kaylee.”

The principal frowned. As if Josh’s explanation was too far-fetched to even acknowledge, she continued, “Getting back to the authority issue. Our protocol at the Westham Middle School—and you’ll remember I explained this to the faculty at the beginning of the year—is for a teacher to consult with me before discussing an incident of this nature with the parents.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Josh. “The important thing was for me to talk to Kaylee’s parents right away, so that they understood why Kaylee came home unhappy. That they got the whole picture of the other girls, including Margaret Rothman, teasing her. Did Ms. Rothman mention that? Anyway, Kaylee’s parents appreciated my call. We had a good discussion.”

Charlene Voss was looking over his shoulder. “I think you’re proving my point even as we speak. To be clear, the sensitivity workshop is not a suggestion. It’s a directive. And then we’ll re-evaluate in June.”

“I see.” Josh tried to jump to his feet, but getting out of the low, back-slanted chair was awkward, making him even angrier. However, he managed to restrain himself from saying, “Fuck your directive.” He merely tore the flyer in half and dropped it onto her desk on his way out.

 

Now, on the point of calling Nancy Reston, Josh hesitated. Maybe the reason he hated Charlene Voss so much was that she’d pinpointed his weakness. If she’d been Charles Voss, would he have had as much of a problem with her?

Josh had resented his principal’s authority so much that he’d given her cause to remove him from the classroom three weeks before the end of the school year, leaving his students to be babysat by a substitute. He shouldn’t have done that to them. It wouldn’t have killed him to sit through a sensitivity workshop. Much worse, in fact, to sit through three weeks of make-work in the superintendent’s office, listening to “Take This Job and Shove It” through his earbuds.

As Josh fiddled with his phone, a school bus drew up beside him and stopped for the crosswalk. Such a golden yellow bus, against the bright blue sky. A boy leaned out a window, calling gleefully, “Help! They’re taking us to an institution!”

Ah, middle school. That boy reminded Josh of Curtis. Curtis’s decision-making center in his prefrontal cortex had a long way to go, and he’d tested Josh’s patience many times. But he’d also given Josh the “World’s Best Teacher” coffee mug.

Schools couldn’t have started already—these kids must be in some kind of summer program. Still, Josh felt uneasy, as if there were a classroom in which eighth graders milled around, waiting for Mr. Hiller to show up. Josh wanted to walk into that classroom.

Josh picked up his phone again and called Nancy Reston’s number. He only got her voice mail, which was a letdown. But he liked the way his own voice sounded—friendly, upbeat, and professional—as he left a message. Vicky was right; he wasn’t entirely crushed.

As Josh headed north on Route 24, the phone rang: Kingstown Academy. His pulse sped up. “Nancy! Hey, thanks for getting right back to me. I’m on the road; let me pull over.”

The sound of Nancy’s voice took Josh back to his graduate school days. She still had that same force—not a bullying kind of energy, but a steady passion that made you want to grab a pike and follow her into the breech. “Of course I remember you, Josh. Anyway, you’re famous—a runner-up for Massachusetts Teacher of the Year two years ago, right? I wish I had a place to offer you at Kingstown.”

Oh. “I wish you did, too.” Josh kept his tone regretful, but not as disappointed as he felt.

Nancy went on, promising to ask among her consortium of private schools for him. “What if a position’s out of the area—would you consider that?”

“I’d consider it, but I’d rather stick around Boston. My mother is pretty frail.”

They agreed to be in touch, and Josh sung back onto the expressway. Well . . . not the news he’d hoped for. Still, Nancy knew—Nancy cared—that Josh Hiller had a reputation as an outstanding teacher. She’d probably Googled him to find that out, but if so, he was pleased that she’d taken the trouble.

Another possibility was that Ron Watanabe might have been in touch with Nancy to let her know Josh was looking for a new job. If so, Ron had put himself out for Josh, and that was a heartwarming thought, too.

 

 

At Northport Commons Senior Living, Josh waited in the lobby while the receptionist rang his mother. He gazed up at the high ceiling, where whimsical mobiles floated. He looked over at the fern-banked entrance to the dining hall, where several residents sat slumped in wheelchairs. One woman slept with her mouth open.

In contrast, Martha Hiller looked almost sprightly as she stepped out of the elevator carrying a handbag, a lemon-yellow cardigan sweater over her shoulders. “Josh, you don’t know how much this means to me, getting my hair done. I couldn’t stand it a moment longer.” Pushing her white bangs off her forehead, she rested a hand on his elbow. “I don’t need my cane, if I can take your arm.”

As they drove out the gated entrance to the Commons, Martha gave Josh directions to the hairdresser’s salon. “After you turn onto Endicott Street, it’ll be on the right, past a Starbuck’s.” She chuckled. “The ‘Mona Lisa,’ it’s called.”

“So I should expect you to come out with a mysterious smile?”

At the salon, Josh opened the glass door for his mother and walked into a cloud of shampoo and hairspray vapor.

“Hello, Martha!” The woman behind the counter, who looked as if she used all the products available in the salon, beamed at her. “Diana will be right with you.” She nodded toward the back, where a hairdresser wielded a hairdryer and brush over a customer. “Let’s see”—she tapped her computer keys—“you’re having a cut and perm, is that right?”

Josh felt his mother’s grip on his arm tighten. He looked down in alarm—was she going to faint?

Martha Hiller opened her mouth, frowned, and shut it. She opened it again, seeming to make some kind of effort, but still she didn’t answer. She shrugged, and her frown deepened.

The salon receptionist raised her sculpted eyebrows at Josh, and he wondered if his mother had heard the question. The earlier customer, her hair now as immaculately styled as a wig, stepped up to the counter and looked at Martha. Josh bent down and spoke distinctly into his mother’s ear. “She’s asking if you’re having a cut and perm today.”

Martha made a weak noise in her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. Finally she looked straight at the receptionist and nodded vigorously.

“Mom, are you okay?” asked Josh.

But before Martha Hiller could answer—or not answer—the hairdresser called Diana hurried up to them and took his mother’s arm. “Martha, so good to see you! Let’s sit down right over here.”

Was his mother okay, or not? Josh watched the hairdresser settle Martha Hiller into a black swivel chair and fasten a black cape around her shoulders. His mother still wasn’t talking, but she was smiling contentedly.

Josh sat down on a vinyl-covered couch in the waiting area. Maybe he should check with Vicky about their mother’s odd behavior. He took out his phone and sent her a text, explaining what had happened. She didn’t answer right away.

Josh connected with the Mona Lisa’s Wi-Fi (security: weak) and checked a couple of news sites. He brought up Coastal Canine’s website and admired his own pictures of the day-care dogs. He loved the one of Tucker showing his teeth just a little, as he did to emphasize some doggy demand.

A lot of the pictures included Tucker, Josh noticed, even though his goal had been to get one shot of each dog. Here were Tucker and Buster play-bowing before they threw themselves at each other in a wrestling match; Tucker shouldering Lola aside to plunge his muddy muzzle into a water bucket; Tucker shoving his snout right into the camera, a caricature of a dog with a huge head and tiny body.

Josh noted that the Beginning Obedience class was still posted, in spite of the disaster with Murphy and the cat and Tucker and Carol. Did that mean that Erica wanted him to continue teaching it, or did it mean that she hadn’t gotten around to taking it off the site?

Looking up to check on his mother, Josh saw that she was now sitting under a hair dryer. She seemed all right, placidly turning the pages of a magazine.

Josh checked his messages again, but nothing from Vicky.

Maybe the hair dryer meant that Martha Hiller’s appointment was almost finished. Josh got up to ask the receptionist.

She smiled tolerantly at him. “Not really. I’d say another half hour.”

Sheesh. If he was going to wait that long, Josh might as well wait at the Starbuck’s next door.

However, once he was perched on a coffee bar stool with a large latte and a pastry, Josh felt uneasy. He walked back to the salon and peered through the glass door at his mother, still under the dryer. He returned to the Starbuck’s and checked his messages again. No Vicky text.

Josh Googled “loss of speech symptom.” That search turned up “possible TIA,” which stood for “transient ischemic attack.” Which meant a mini-stroke.

Oh shit. Josh jumped down from the stool.

Back in the salon, the woman at the counter was welcoming another customer. Her eyes widened as Josh burst in.

“My mother’s had a stroke. I need to get her to a doctor.”

Martha Hiller was now lying with her head over a sink, as Diana removed curlers and rinsed the white curls. “I’m fine, dear,” she said. “Oh, are you worried because of that little hitch when I first came in? That was nothing.”

“You couldn’t talk. You were having a mini-stroke. I’m taking you to a doctor.”

“Josh, you’re making too much of this. It goes right away.” Martha sat up, with the help of the hairdresser, and allowed a towel to be wrapped around her head.

“We’re just about finished here,” said Diana soothingly.

Josh wondered for an instant if he were causing a scene about “nothing,” as his mother called it. Yeah, it wasn’t wise to diagnose an illness over the internet. But then he reminded himself of Martha’s very peculiar behavior an hour ago. “We are finished. Mom, please get up before I drag you out of here.”

Josh must have convinced them, because the hairdresser removed the towel from his mother’s head and the cape from her shoulders and helped her stand up. “This is so unnecessary,” said Martha crossly. She insisted on giving Diana her tip and paying at the counter before she let him hustle her out the door.

While his mother was fumbling with her credit card, Josh had checked his phone. Still nothing from Vicky—he was on his own. Should he take his mother to a hospital emergency room? No. At an E.R., she might have to wait until she had a full-blown stroke.

Starting the car, Josh demanded, “Where’s your doctor now? Are you still with the clinic in Peabody?”

“This is all so unnecessary,” repeated Martha Hiller, but she sulkily directed him to a doctor’s office in Northport. At the clinic, she apologized to the nurse for her wet hair as she was taken off to an exam room.

Josh sat down in the waiting room. He texted Vicky to let her know they were at the doctor’s.

While he waited for Vicky to get back to him, Josh mused that his sister was right: Their mother tried to be brave. But compare her with Barbara Schaeffer, roughly the same age. Barbara could toss trash bags into the back of her S.U.V., while Martha Hiller needed support just for walking. It was as unfair as . . . as unfair as the way Labrador retrievers predictably gave out after age eleven.

A text popped up on Josh’s phone, but it was from Nancy Reston. Kingstown does have opening. Consider joining as coach? You’d love this school, + you’d be in line for something better.

But Josh didn’t want to coach. He wanted to teach history.

There was more: Full disclosure: We’d also need you to lead the first scheduled field trip, because . . .

Argh! thought Josh. No matter the reasons. No matter the destination of the field trip. Just, Argh!

In Josh’s answer, he didn’t mention the field trip. Appreciate offer! But I’ll keep looking for SS position. He pointedly thanked Nancy for promising to inquire about openings at another school.

Josh hardly had time to feel anxious about his employment prospects when he saw that Vicky was texting him back: OMG. I was afraid of this. Keep me posted.

She followed up immediately with another text: I was in a meeting, no phones allowed. So glad you were with her.

 

 

 

 

Never was there such a dog.

Jack London, The Call of the Wild