1
“For today I asked you to read Melville’s ‘Bartleby the Scrivener,’ ” Nicole began, facing her Major American Writers class. “What was your impression of Bartleby?”
“I think he was nuts,” one student near the front volunteered.
“No, he ate nuts,” another countered, throwing the class into gales of laughter.
Nicole, who usually didn’t mind a bit of levity in classes, was uncharacteristically annoyed. “Those were very perceptive comments,” she said tartly. “Can anyone offer a more sensitive analysis of the character?”
Sensing her mood, the class fell silent. She waited. She looked at Miguel, whom she could usually count on for an intelligent comment, but he stared steadily down at his open book, clearly determined not to respond to her.
“All right,” Nicole said with forced patience. “Let’s start with something easier. What is a scrivener?” Silence spun out. Finally a mousy girl in the back row volunteered a halting answer.
Nicole was never able to get the class off the ground, and as she trudged back to her office, she blamed herself. When students sensed the teacher’s lack of enthusiasm, they responded in kind. And I like that story, she thought. But with all the other stuff going through my mind, it’s hard to work up any fire for sad young Bartleby.
When she returned to her office, she called her mother. “Feeling better today?” Phyllis asked.
“Yes. I’m sorry I disturbed you last night. I must have sounded like a lunatic.”
“No daughter of mine could ever sound like a lunatic.”
I wish everyone thought that, Nicole thought. “Mom, Roger wants to see Shelley. He sent Lisa to pick her up yesterday afternoon.”
“Well, that’s nerve!”
“I thought so, too. But he does have a right to see her. I told Lisa I’d bring Shelley to the hospital this evening.”
“You will do no such thing,” Phyllis said firmly. “I don’t want you around that man. I don’t want Shelley around him, either, but as you said, he has his rights. I’ll take her.”
“Oh, Mom, I hate to ask you to do that.”
“That’s the way I want it. For once indulge me, Nicole. After all, you know Roger won’t get violent or obnoxious around me. He’s always been intimidated by me.”
“I didn’t think you knew that!”
“Of course I know it. I deliberately cultivated it in him. I always sensed he might someday turn into a man who needed to be kept in line.”
Nicole laughed. “You read him better than I did.”
After a slight pause, Phyllis said, “Nicole, you’ve always wanted to see nothing but good in people. Sometimes I think you wouldn’t know evil if it looked you right in the face.”
Nicole was silent. Had she been unable to see it in Paul? In Carmen? Or maybe, if her fears about what she’d done during her bouts of sleepwalking were true, had she been unable to see it every time she looked in the mirror?
2
After her classes, none of which went much better than the first, Nicole hurried to the university library. Using one of the computers, she looked up articles on somnambulism. Finally finding one that looked promising, she began printing it out.
“Finding everything you need?” a librarian asked.
Nicole stiffened irrationally, feeling that if the woman saw the subject matter of the article spinning out from the printer, she would know Nicole’s purpose for wanting it. “I’m doing fine, thank you,” she said in a strained voice.
“If you need any help, let me know.”
“I teach here. I know how to use the library.” The woman looked slightly affronted. “Thank you for your help, but I think I’ve found exactly what I was looking for.”
“Well, good for you,” the woman muttered as she turned away.
Nicole was ashamed of snapping at the woman, but her nerves felt raw. After the printer finally stopped, she hastily gathered the pages of the article, stuffed them in her briefcase, and left the library.
She had almost reached her car when she saw Avis Simon-Smith heading toward her own old brown Mercedes. “Avis!” she called.
The woman stopped and turned toward her. Students filled the parking lot. Some of them glanced up at Nicole as she reached Avis. “I’m glad I caught you,” Nicole said, slightly breathless from her dash in high heels. Avis looked at her expressionlessly, her baggy pants flapping in the breeze around her skinny legs, her short, overpermed hair looking dry as a tumbleweed. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior the other morning.”
“You mean when you laughed at me right to my face?” Avis asked coldly.
“I wasn’t laughing at you, Avis.”
“Really? You could have fooled me.”
“No, honestly, Avis. I’m telling you the truth.” Or part of it, Nicole thought. “I’ve been under such a strain lately—my father’s suicide, the murders. I’m sure I don’t have to explain to you what that kind of tension can do to a person.”
One of Avis’s scanty eyebrows rose. “What makes you think you wouldn’t have to explain acting crazy to me? I don’t act crazy.”
This isn’t going well, Nicole thought. She was tired, her briefcase suddenly seemed to weigh a ton, and the two big books she’d tucked under her right arm were causing a cramp. “Avis, I wasn’t implying you act crazy. I was only saying that you must be able to imagine what the recent events in my life have done to me. I’m very nervous. When I’m nervous, I’m prone to laugh over nothing at all.”
“You do seem to be having a run of bad luck, but that doesn’t give you any right to take it out on me.” Avis’s voice rose. “But you like taking it out on me. You think I’m comical.”
Nicole blinked at her in surprise. “Avis—”
“Shut up! Let me finish. You think I’m comical because I’m over fifty, plain, and generally considered a washout”
“Avis, I don’t consider you a washout—”
“Yes, you do. But let me tell you something.” Avis stepped closer to her, the hollows under her eyes looking cavernous in the bright sun. “I’ve written a book—you haven’t. I’ve taught for years—you haven’t. I’ve spoken to hundreds of people at literary conventions—you haven’t. But I’ll tell you what I’ve never done that you have—I’ve never lost a man to a Kewpie doll whose IQ is less than her breast measurement.”
Anger flooded through Nicole. “That’s probably because you’ve never had a man to lose!”
Avis’s eyes narrowed, her gaze brimming with pure hatred. Suddenly she reached out, placed both hands on Nicole’s shoulders, and shoved. Nicole staggered backward. She could have caught her balance if her high heel hadn’t landed on a pebble. Instead, in a flash she lay sprawled in the parking lot, her briefcase and books scattered around her.
As Avis stalked to her car, students surrounded Nicole. “Are you all right, Dr. Chandler?” they asked. “Are you hurt? Everyone knows she’s wacko, but how could she do something like this?”
For the most part unhurt but embarrassed, Nicole pulled down her skirt, which had ridden up to expose her hips, and rubbed at her elbows, which had borne the brunt of the fall. “I’m fine, really,” she assured the students, her cheeks scarlet. “Gosh, what a scene. So much for winning friends. Could someone help me up?”
But while other students gathered around Nicole, murmuring comfort, offering help, Miguel Perez stood rock-still thirty feet away, his venomous gaze following Avis Simon-Smith’s Mercedes out of the parking lot.