My Latest Grievance (18 page)

"For the college, you mean?" said my grandmother. "In terms of parent relations?"

"Parents don't know what goes on," said Laura Lee. "At least that's been my experience so far."

"Did anyone notice that the president's wife was a danger to herself?" asked my grandmother.

"I noticed she was depressed," I said.

"Their marriage was on the rocks," added Laura Lee.

"Does anyone know why?"

"For the usual reason," Laura Lee said. "Because her husband was in love with someone else!"

"Not with a coed, I hope," said my grandmother.

"Certainly not," said my mother.

"Do they have children?" my grandmother asked.

"Only one's still on campus," I said. "And she's my friend. We used to ride to school together."

Laura Lee began sniffling again.

"You know the daughter, too?" asked my grandmother.

Laura Lee nodded bravely.

"I think I understand why Laura Lee is so upset," my grandmother confided. We waited. Nothing followed except a long sympathetic gaze at the ex-daughter-in-law who'd known a husband's infidelities.

I said, "Wait a minute? Do you think Laura Lee's upset because she feels
sorry
for Mrs. Woodbury?"

Laura Lee was on her feet for what looked like an abrupt exit. Instead, she crossed to the piano bench and swatted at me. I ducked easily. David and Aviva were instantly on the job, restraining my assailant.

"She's a little shit," said Laura Lee. "Someone should knock some manners into her."

"You're drunk," I yelled.

"Go to your room," my grandmother said.

Laura Lee didn't obey. She wiggled her elbows free of my parents and plunked herself down next to me on the piano bench.

"Watch it," I said.

"Frederica?" my grandmother said.

"Me?"

"For once," said my grandmother, "I'd like to have a strictly adult conversation."

I waited for my parents to defend my right to free assembly and to denounce corporal punishment, but they didn't. My mother, still at my side, said, "I'll go with you." She said to Laura Lee, "If you ever hit my daughter again, I'll see that she never comes within a hundred yards of you. Or your dormitory."

"She means it," I said, and put my arm around Aviva's waist.

Laura Lee stuck out her tongue after my mother turned away.

"Don't be childish," my father said.

"I'm dropping your class!" Laura Lee yelled after us.

"I wondered how long it would take," murmured my grandmother.

"I hope you're not beating up any of your students," I yelled back.

"Go to your room," my father barked after me.

I told my mother she could stay downstairs. I'd be fine. I'd read or play solitaire with the door closed so they could have their privacy. "Call me if you need help in the kitchen, Grandma," I remembered to add sweetly.

When the living room below me grew quiet, and I could hear meal-preparation noises from the kitchen, I came downstairs and asked my father if he wanted to go for a walk.

"Sure," he said. "Does Aviva want to join us?"

"She has to wrap some presents and some must be for me because she doesn't want me around," I lied. "She's really trying to get into the spirit of Christmas."

He liked that. I followed him to the coat tree by the door, where he wound a striped scarf around his neck and chose a tweedy crocheted hat of my grandmother's that I would have forbidden at home.

Once outside, I tried the opener I'd devised during my exile. "Is Laura Lee okay?"

"In what respect?"

"I'm no expert," I said, "but I think she was drunk."

My father walked half a block before saying, "It may have been the emotional strain."

"Is that what you'd say if someone in the dorm drank four cups of eggnog and hit her roommate? That she was under a strain?"

He shook his head sadly. "No. You're right. She had too much to drink."

"She brings a flask into Curran, you know. Filled with wine."

"Not now, Frederica."

I pointed down the block. "Same place?"

"Sure".

We were headed to the small cemetery at the end of the street. When I thought enough time had passed and we'd covered which of his neighbors' driveways he had shoveled in his teenage entrepreneurial days, at what wages, I asked, "Did you tell Grandma the whole story?"

"After a fashion."

I asked what that meant:
after a fashion.
Was everything out in the open now or not? Would we be pussyfooting through dinner or speaking honestly?

He took my mittened hand and squeezed it. "You don't need to keep up a brave front. We know you are extremely fond of Mrs. Woodbury. On top of that, Marietta is your chum. And most touching of all, you love Dewing. You're worried that something happened that could touch off a scandal. You don't need dinner etiquette as an excuse to know what Laura Lee said."

Even with his unblemished record of sensitivity, I wasn't expecting this much help. "Okay," I said. "If that's how you feel, just tell me everything."

We had reached the entrance to the cemetery and were on the path that led to our favorite spot, a granite bench, the memorial for an Ernest Lawrence Lamport. Confident that the full transcript of the adult powwow was forthcoming, I made some graveyard small talk. Wasn't it nice that Ernest's loved ones would choose something practical like a bench?

"Of course you remember that he was our head librarian," my father explained. "I think his wish was that people would come here with a book."

"Did you know him?"

"Of course! Everyone did. He came from one of the first families of Adams. Everyone knew that his annual salary was one dollar. When he retired, the town had to do some fancy footwork, budgetarily speaking, to finance an actual salary."

I waited a polite few seconds, then asked, "Can we call the hospital when we get back?"

"We called. No change."

"Did you talk to Woodbury?"

"I don't particularly want to."

"Can't Laura Lee call him?"

"At this point, no news is good news, hon."

I moved closer to the end of the bench so that I wasn't sitting on Mr. Lamport's name. My father put his arm around my shoulder, nudging me toward him.

I asked, "Does Grandma know that Laura Lee is the president's girlfriend?"

"We told her, but I'm not sure it registered."

I waited a few moments before asking, "Can
I
try?"

"For whose sake exactly would you be doing this?"

"For Grandma's! And for Aviva's. Unless you haven't noticed, your mother thinks Laura Lee is a saint. Better than Mom in every way: not a professor, not a rabble-rouser, not a Jew! It makes me sick."

He dropped his arm and said sharply that there was no need to raise my voice; it was disrespectful in this setting. And further, how could I accuse his own mother of anti-Semitism when she
was sensitive enough to wrap presents in Hanukkah paper and to bake cookies in the shape of six-pointed stars? Never had an unkind word about Aviva's religion been uttered under his family's roof—not now, not ever. See that yellow house with the orange shutters? Mrs. Marmelstein was Mother's best friend on the street throughout his entire childhood.

"Sorry," I whispered.

Immediately, the arm went around me again. "One more thing," he confided. "Your hostility toward Laura Lee. Do you understand it yourself? Do you want to talk about it?"

No I did not. I said, "How about that fact that she'll get fired, and we'll have to support her all over again because she'll never get another job? Have you thought of that?"

"Woodbury wouldn't dare fire Laura Lee. She'd have a rocksolid case before the Commission Against Discrimination if that came to pass."

"Is any of this against the law?" I asked.

"Terminating a worker after initiating a sexual relationship with her—"

"Not that. I meant the affair. If someone makes you want to kill yourself, wouldn't that be something you could sue over?"

"Alienation of affection," he said quietly. "Also known as grounds for divorce."

"What if she's stuck in a coma and can't divorce him?" I asked.

He landed a kiss on the top of my head. "Not your concern," he said.

Too late for that. I already held the firm conviction that everything was my concern.

M
Y FATHER, NOTICING ONE CAR
missing from the driveway, said, "Mother's been known to slip out to Vespers on Christmas Eve."

She hadn't. Instead, she'd lent the station wagon to Laura Lee, who'd pleaded for a change of venue and time to think.

"You let her drive drunk?" I asked.

"Drunk?" my grandmother repeated. "I don't think a person can get drunk on eggnog—something to do with the proteins canceling out the alcohol."

"I wasn't aware she had a license," said my father.

"She said she needed a change of scenery. I gave her directions to Panek's because she wanted to get some fresh eggs for Bibi."

"Why would a chicken farm be open on Christmas Eve?" I asked.

We were in the unheated mudroom off the kitchen. My grandmother pointed to the back door. "Shake the snow off so it doesn't melt in the house, please."

"Where's my mother?" I asked.

"In the guest room, grading papers," said my grandmother. "Apparently a quiet upper floor is a luxury she has yet to experience."

My father rubbed his hands together and asked if anyone wanted to join him for a cup of tea.

"All my burners are in use," said my grandmother. "But I suppose I could take the potatoes off for a few minutes."

I asked how long Laura Lee had been gone.

"Ten minutes? Twenty? Not very long."

"How would you describe her emotional state when she left?" my father asked.

My grandmother was filling her copper teakettle at the sink. "I don't notice those things the way you do," she said.

Two hours later, Laura Lee hadn't returned. My grandmother was stationed at a window that overlooked the driveway, while David had gone down the street to stand at our corner. My mother and I were side by side at the stove, keeping four pots of overcooked side dishes from burning. "We're eating at seven-fifteen, regardless, said my grandmother. "Seven-thirty at the absolute latest."

"Whatever you want to do, Jane," my mother answered.

"Should I go get Dad?" I asked.

"Please," said my grandmother.

She followed me into the mudroom, where she sorted through a bushel basket full of boots and rubbers. I agreed to a pair of semi-transparent plastic boots that fit over my shoes and ended an inch above my ankle. I stuck one foot, toes pointed, into the kitchen, prompting a laugh from my mother.

My grandmother didn't notice. "Do you think she could have gone straight to Schenectady with the eggs?" she asked.

"We can call Bibi," my mother said.

"No reason to get her upset," said my grandmother.

"Are
you
upset?" I asked.

She sighed. "I didn't have much gas in the tank. And she was never the kind of person who looked at the fuel gauge."

"Do you think she ran away?"

"In
my
car? I can't imagine she'd do that without asking my permission."

"Did she take her stuff?" I asked.

"Go check," my mother said quietly.

"Her suitcase is upstairs, exactly where she left it," said my grandmother. "I already checked."

My mother said, "Go get your father."

He was standing under a streetlight, hatless and gloveless in the snow, hands tucked into his armpits. Several neighbors and one squad car, he told me, had stopped to ask if everything was all right.

"They think you're a vagrant," I said.

"They were being Good Samaritans," said my father. "I told the neighbors I was waiting for our houseguest, who might need help recognizing Renfrew Street."

"Did the cop believe you?"

"I knew him. Rather, I knew his father from high school, from band. I told him the truth, though—just in case he sees Grandma's Hudson on his rounds."

"Do you think Laura Lee had an accident?"

"Not at all," he said unconvincingly. "We'd have heard. Someone would have called."

I asked if ex-husbands qualified as next of kin.

"Everyone in this town knows your grandmother's Hornet. Even if Laura Lee didn't remember the address, she'd certainly be able to supply Grandma's name."

I didn't say the obvious:
Unless she was dead or comatose or at the bottom of the river.
"How worried are you?" I asked.

Of course he couldn't say a simple "not very" or "quite"; he had to put himself on the proverbial couch and puzzle aloud over what he was failing to feel. "What does it say that I'm more angry than worried?" he asked. "Because if it were you or Aviva or Mother who'd disappeared for hours, I'd be frantic. I think the best description of my feelings is annoyed." He nodded. "Yes, no question: I am feeling acute annoyance."

I said, "Let's go back. Grandma made some kind of steak that's rolled up with stuffing so when you slice it you get a pinwheel."

"Pie?" he asked hopefully.

"That's tomorrow: pecan and pumpkin chiffon. But maybe she'll let you have a slice tonight."

He continued to peer into the distance, left, right, then back
again. A car approached, then another, neither familiar or slowing down.

I said, "C'mon. You're not going to accomplish anything out here."

He said, "I've had it, Frederica. I can't take much more of her drama and irresponsibility. Isn't it enough that I have to wait up nights when students don't come home? And those phone calls I have to make in the middle of the night to parents? Why did I ever let her come to Dewing?"

I asked if he thought something was wrong with Laura Lee—not this, not her disappearance, but what was happening back at school, the affair. All the flaunting and the showing off. Wasn't it creepy? Wasn't there a name for the condition when you don't know right from wrong?

"I think you mean sociopathy," said my father. "And you're not far off when you consider that certain characteristics, including personal charm, selfishness, impulsiveness—"