A Hole in Juan (2 page)

This week, I wished we lived in a normal place with walls, instead of the loft’s wide open spaces. Our bedroom and the bathroom were sectioned off, but the rest was free range.

I worried about leaving a teen at loose ends while Mackenzie and I both worked, but Lutie had known the situation and thought it would be all right. Pip was basically a good kid, simply lost at the moment, and Philadelphia was as good a place in which to be lost as anywhere else, she’d said.

We’d spent the weekend showing Pip the city, acquainting him with the SEPTA schedules for buses and trains, giving him the short, introductory tour of Independence Mall, standing in line to see the Liberty Bell, walking up and down the Parkway, then giving him guidebooks plus a personalized list of worthwhile things to see while we worked, although I heard him mutter “museums” with less than enthusiasm. But that’s what we’d done. Yesterday, before we left for work, we made sure we’d exchanged cell numbers and expressed hope that this would work out to everyone’s benefit.

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A HOLE IN JUAN

He’d been home when he was supposed to be at the end of his first solo day, which was the good news. The bad news was that he’d been there all day, watching TV. But all right, we’d told each other late at night. He was acclimating. It took time.

I reminded myself that in many societies, Pip would be considered fully grown. Finished and complete. He’d be married and working and on his way to becoming an elder of the tribe. I was silly to worry about him.

But I did. I worried that he’d become too acclimated to us.

I worried about myself, afraid I’d OD on teens. I worked with them all week long and had become comfortable with adults-only evenings and weekends, during which time I could decompress. Having Pip here around-the-clock was like staying on the thrill ride too long.

I busied my hands and mind with hard-boiled eggs and tuna salad sandwiches and apples. We stretched our pennies every which way while we juggled the financial realities of our current life. C.K.’s tuition at the University of Pennsylvania was high. My school, Philly Prep, paid next to nothing. And now, we’d added Pip to the mix and, truth be told, the boy—lovesick or not—ate like a mastodon. Was it shallow of me to have noticed that?

I wrote him a reminder that there was food in the refrigerator. I added a P.S., asking him to phone me if he wasn’t going to be home by the time I returned. I tidied up the pile of brochures and the list of suggestions we’d given him, hoping he’d act on at least one of them today.

By that time, Mackenzie had started the coffee and had a breakfast of cereal and fruit ready for the two of us. The system worked. I handed him his bagged lunch, and sighed.

Mackenzie looked up, a spoonful of cereal and blueberries midway to his mouth. “Worried about that party?”

I shook my head. “You’re the one worried about that.”

“Then it’s that business again?”

Of course. When the beginning of the term was marked by silent anger in a class, in this case the seniors, and when other GILLIAN ROBERTS

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teachers also complained about minor but unsettling rebellions and disruptions, I’d been sad that this wasn’t going to be a banner year with that group. Then, when I’d intercepted a note (“it’s too late for that—shut up or else”) and of course, nobody knew who’d written it—the person whose desk it was on claimed to have found it there and to not know what it meant—I worried, but only a little. But I worried more when one day later, I saw a ripped piece of paper on the floor after class and the remains of it read:

l give in

ll see

panic!

dy knows!!

It was the same time when confusing notices appeared on the student board, which was normally filled with mundane announcements—lost backpacks, texts, bikes, need a ride to . . .

and lately, lots of flyers about Friday’s party. They featured a jack-o’-lantern with a body attached, on the gallows. The printed notice said don’t get hung up (and don’t hang us up!) come to the mischief night party! But someone had been adding comments with a felt-tipped pen, such as, “Guess who’ll hang?” and

“Wise up and don’t put yourself in this picture!”

Stupid, like the notes. Meaning nothing—except what if they did? Did schools that later made gory headlines ignore noth-ings like this, dismiss tensions and pretend only wee innocents dwelt within the schoolhouse?

“It’ll be better today,” Mackenzie said.

I hoped so. Yesterday the tension in the room had been oat-meal thick.

“Mischief Night,” C.K. grumbled. “If it’s simply mischief—

why the fuss of having a school event so as to keep the kids off the streets? Mischief ’s no big thing.”

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A HOLE IN JUAN

“Some parts of the country call it Cabbage Night. Would that make it more significant?”

He grinned. “From cabbage crop to coleslaw on lots of front porches? That’s
mischief.
That’s my point.”

“Some places call it Devil’s Night. Lots of arson. How about that? The idea goes back to the Druids. It was their new year, when the Celtic elves, fairies, and ghosts walked the earth.”

Mackenzie nuzzled my ear. “I love it when you get all teach-ery,” he whispered. “Tell me more about Mischief Night.”

Pedagogical seduction.

Intriguing.

Interrupted.

A voice from the sofabed shouted, “Radical! We don’t have Mischief Night at home. I love this city!”

I stared at the lanky boy in pajamas, remembering C.K.’s mother’s big-hearted acceptance of any child who needed a home. I didn’t want to seem cruel. I liked Pip. I like children. I’d like to someday have children—but not have them arrive as sixteen-year-old high-school dropouts with spiked hair.

“I’m gonna stay here forever!”

Tuesday was not looking good. Not yet eight a.m., and I was ready to crawl back into bed, to try to enjoy the comforts and serenity my cat took for granted.

Two

The October morning was brighter than I was, and not yet as cold as it would surely be by the weekend. My childhood memories of Halloween are of the miracle of being transformed by a costume. With my homemade ballgown on, I wasn’t dressed as Cinderella—I
was
Cinderella.

Unfortunately, my mother could read the thermometer.

That transformative magic of disguise is endangered in Philadelphia in late October. Would the prince have fallen for Cinderella if she’d had to wear a bulky coat atop her gown or layers of sweaters underneath?

Year after year, I left to trick-or-treat—swaddled, disgruntled, and unhappy—and then I forgot all about it as the other 13

A HOLE IN JUAN

adults, who’d also sent out disappointed, insulated children, pretended to be amazed by my disguise.

In any case, today was brisk and invigorating, and I was glad I’d decided to walk. School is only a few miles away, and city miles are interesting.

This is probably a blot on my English-teacher-as-upholder-of-our-cultural-legacy report card, but I’m not a great fan of Henry David Thoreau’s
Walden.
It’s enjoyable reading, and it has many wise observations, and the countless times I’ve taught the book, I’ve shown proper reverence. But I knew myself to be a hypocrite.

I, too, want to know, as did Thoreau, “what . . . is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life?”

But given that desire, why hightail it away from community and variety to hole up in the woods? I’d stay in the city because one of the “true necessaries” of life is other people, and where better to study life than in the thick of it?

My book wouldn’t have been called
Walden.
It would have been called
Philadelphia.

Besides, I’d read that Henry David took one of the “true necessaries” of life—his dirty laundry—home to Mom during his famous time of roughing it. As far as I’m concerned, there goes the integrity of life in the wilderness.

My route to school always involves a taste of history whether I walk through Independence Mall or veer slightly to the north and pass the new Constitution Center, which is a visual pleasure even from the outside. I enjoy its combed and manicured green swath of lawn—my kind of nature—sweeping up to its sleek façade, and I’m proud of the city for creating this deserved and elegant celebration of an amazing piece of writing and thought.

We’d tried making the place part of our communal outings, but Pip never looked excited by the idea, not even when we pointed out that the law was a part of the criminal justice system.

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I’m not sure he was happy that civilization had found a way to settle disputes without fists or guns.

I hoped my students would be more enthusiastic when I presented the idea. I wanted to join forces with the social studies teacher, Louis Applegate, for an interdisciplinary unit that hinged on a trip to this center. I made a mental note to speak to him about it today. I knew we taught many of the same students.

And with that thought I was into a teaching mode, and I mentally rehearsed the day. Anxiety about the seniors remained, but I was excited as well about the juniors’ poetry reading, and hoped nothing—not stage fright nor technical difficulties—

would keep it from running smoothly. I was still in mild shock that they’d instigated the idea. I’d originally worried that it was a prank, a Mischief Night prequel, because why would students suddenly want to tape and broadcast their original poems?

But they seemed sincere and appealingly innocent, so now I hoped it would be precisely as they’d envisioned it.

When you walk, you see things you miss completely if you drive by, and not for the first time, I observed how Halloween had mutated from one night to a season. Halloween flags waved on poles, Halloween wreaths filled front doors, pumpkins were painted onto windows and jack-o’-lanterns, plastic and real, sat in entries and on sills. Half the magazine covers on the newsstand promised recipes or decorating ideas for All Hallow’s Eve. That dreadful cobwebby stuff ringed a shoe-repair shop’s window, black cats arched against imaginary moons, and scarecrows guarded produce in two groceries I passed.

I peered into the window of a not-yet-open stationery store and considered a long rack of Halloween greeting cards. I really wanted to know what sentiments the holiday engendered.

What were we so determinedly celebrating? Tricks and treats?

Ghosts and goblins? Orange and black? Maybe we hadn’t come all that far from those Druid creatures who roamed the earth one night a year and needed to be appeased, although probably not with preprinted greeting cards.

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Next thing would be demands for a National Day of Haunt-ing.

I was still vaguely amused by the excess of it all when I entered Philly Prep and greeted our newest secretary, Harriet Rummell. The school had been running through office personnel almost on a weekly basis, and I wasn’t sure how long Ms. Rummell would be with us, either.

This is not to say she had any of the flaws of the past secretaries. She was neither a hostile antagonist, a hoarder of school supplies, a twittering puzzle-happy incompetent, nor too terrified to function.

Another thing the solitary Thoreau missed knowing about was how many and various are the ways in which co-workers can grate one upon the other.

Harriet Rummell was a happy woman. Her happiness was based on how wonderfully well her life was going. I’m not knocking that, but Harriet also took it for granted that the entire world wanted to share the details of her joy, and nothing short of bind-ing and gagging her would disabuse her of that idea.

That, I’m knocking.

Maybe even that wouldn’t be bad—except that it took so little to make Harriet happy, and not necessarily anything even mildly amusing. It simply took an event or idea that had happened to her.

“Good morning, Miss Pepper!” She had sweet, small features. The horn-rimmed glasses that constantly slid down her small nose echoed and underlined the roundness of her face, as did her mop of brown curls. She was something like a child’s drawing—all circles and loops, and an almost eternal wide smile.

She giggled. “Or should I call you Mrs. Mackenzie?”

We’d been through this almost every day since I’d told her I had to change my personnel records, adding my student-husband to my medical insurance. Her joke was way beyond stale, but as I said, it took precious little to amuse Harriet, repeatedly. “I’m still keeping my maiden name,” I said as quietly as I GILLIAN ROBERTS

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could. “Just like I was yesterday. Our students already seem confused about most things. I’m trying not to add to their burden.”

She giggled and beamed, shaking her curls as if she could not get over my wit. Once she’d regained control, she straightened her face into her all-business expression. “Big day, huh?” she said.

“Derek Ludo was in, and he told me. As if I needed a reminder!

How often do we tape an actual TV show here?”

I bit my bottom lip. Nobody but Harriet would define videotaping a poetry reading for the school’s closed-circuit system as a TV show.

“Bet you’re excited,” she said. “Mrs. Producer herself.”

Nobody was the producer. Derek Ludo was one of the school techies helping the juniors broadcast their poetry to those schoolmates who wanted to see it.

“I hope it’s not out of line for me to compliment you, my not being a teacher and all,” she said, “but you do come up with such creative ideas, like a TV show!” She nodded emphatically and pushed her horn-rimmed glasses up her nose again.

“It’s not really all that—”

“It’s a quality I value in people.”

The muscles of my back twitched. I knew where she was headed—where all Harriet conversations headed. We were en route to Erroll Davine, her fiancé.

Harriet had been engaged to Erroll Davine since she graduated from high school. By using my sleuthing powers—Pip would be proud of me—and by virtue of her incessant chatter about Erroll, I had figured the engagement to be twelve and one half years old. “Erroll’s had a hard time finding himself,” she’d said by way of explanation.