The Book Borrower (26 page)

—I assume he went in Berry's car.

—But it's too icy. That car is so old. The tires must be bare. Why did he go to Massachusetts?

—To visit Mary Grace Laidlaw.

—Why?

—That's all he said, Tobe. I'm going to visit Mary Grace. I'll see you, Dad. Now Harry got out and slammed the door and went into the store. Probably he only slammed it because the street was sloped, or maybe he slipped a little. When he came back, she said, Is he coming home tonight? Does Berry know about this?

—He didn't say anything else.

Ruben had written two letters to Mary Grace, but they hadn't been answered. As children Peter and Mary Grace played together, but more often she'd played with Stevie. These days Peter said he might not like girls. I might like old ladies. I might be in love with Berry.

—But she's a hundred, Ruben said.

—A hundred and five. But sexy.

She hadn't seen any of the Laidlaws since the funeral. Once, she saw Jeremiah across the street, and he waved mournfully.

They went home and ate leftovers, and then good Harry read aloud to Ruben the papers she hadn't yet read, because she couldn't find her old glasses. In big letters, Ruben wrote comments on each paper. It took a long time. She had already prepared the reading assignment: an essay and a poem, “Travel: After a Death” by Jane Kenyon, but mostly she'd talk about structure. Peter did not come home. As they were falling asleep, Harry said, I'm not a good person.

In the morning, she looked out the window for Berry's car. She looked for Peter's coat. No Peter. Harry was asleep. As she was leaving for class, the phone rang. Could you ask Petey to telephone when he awakens? said someone: Berry. I presume he is sleeping.

—He's not here.

—Out this early?

—He didn't come home.

—Sex, sex, sex, said Berry. Good-bye, Mrs. Ruben.

Did that mean Berry didn't know where he'd gone with her car? Probably. It made her stomach hurt that Peter had gone without permission, not that Berry's permission would have made it safer. Ruben had to walk to the college. She couldn't drive without glasses, even if she weren't afraid of the ice.

—What's different about
you
? said June. June's voice had a jokey roughness: as if Ruben were being predictably naive and childish. But maybe she was.

—She does look different, Deirdre said. Deirdre was taking off a brown coat and a big brown sweater under it. Underneath it all she was a skinny long-waisted black lady in a black silky blouse. Maybe she'd pray again, for Ruben's poor glasses.

Ruben envied Deirdre for being comfortable in the cold class-room in just a blouse. Ruben kept her sweater on and looked round and clumsy. She yanked down the ribbing at her waist.

—A haircut? said nice Lillian. No, I guess not.

—You really don't know? Norma, the oldest, said. She al-ways sat under the window, with light behind her. The authority. She's not wearing glasses.

—Oh, that's right, said Lynne, from across the room. Did you get contacts? No, they really broke, didn't they? I could have told you that would happen, Mrs. Ruben.

Ruben had worn tape between her eyes for weeks. She'd been teased for it. Sometimes all her students were her mothers, making up for the one she'd lost. When she taught structure she always began with a limerick. She began inventing one on the blackboard:

A discerning old teacher named Toby

Loved books:
Pride and Prejudice, Moby-

Dick.
She taught writing,

Which she found exciting,

And some of her students found it exciting, too.

—Uh . . . no, said Norma.

—Why not?

Ruben discussed the shape of the room, the shape of their hair; they looked embarrassed, probably because her own was messy. How could she get a haircut when Deborah was dead? Some things were possible, others were not. She had brought in a reproduction of a painting by van Gogh, and the students pointed out that the bed looked as if it was sliding down the floor, and that the floor was tilted.

Maddy said, Moby and Dick have to be on the same line. Maddy had changed.

—Not that I see the point of all this, said Maddy, after all.

—Oh, you never see the point of anything, someone said.

—She's a rebel, said a voice from the corner.

—No, she's not a rebel, said Norma. Toby's the rebel, and we're going along with her. Maddy's a loyalist.

—Loyal to
what
? someone said.

But they didn't keep to the topic. There really was a topic. Why was teaching them so hard?

—Lightbulb in the sky! Ruben shouted then. I just understood what's wrong with you guys! You have no sense of structure!

—Lightbulb? A voice from the right.

—You know, dummy, like in a cartoon. A voice from the left. She's finally figured us out.

But Ruben couldn't keep them on that topic, either.

Ruben remembered that she had thought it would be useful to read Louise's essay out loud. She didn't remember why. She couldn't read her notes. Nor could she read the essay without glasses, but she asked Louise to read it. Louise was not a good reader. But Ruben hoped the essay would clarify the point she was struggling toward. She wanted this shapeless crowd to think about shape: the bad limerick. The limerick had been lost in the discussion.

—Things have shape, and can be made more shapely, she said. She ought to have known: June made jokes about breast size, and they were off again. There were those with big breasts, those who favored (and had) small breasts, those who believed exercise might enlarge one's breasts, those who believed that talking about breasts proved that men ruled their lives, a woman who confessed that she had had silicone implants (and there is nothing wrong with them, she said), another who knew someone who'd had her large breasts cut down (general astonishment) and the treasurer of a chapter of La Leche League. At any time, an untaught, nonspecific feminist roar might come out of this group. Only Maddy believed in what they called the Way Things Used to Be.

—Life with My Nine-Year-Old, read Louise. The essay concerned heartwarming and difficult moments with her daughter. Much of it was boring. Then Louise read, One problem I had with Stacy was when she decided to write a story. My mother was in the hospital having a hysterectomy. Stacy wrote a story called The Death of Grandma. Only she didn't tell me, and she read it aloud to my mother when we went to visit her in the hospital. In the story the little girl wasn't named Stacy. She was named Lacy. At the end the grandmother died. Well, I almost collapsed when Stacy read this aloud to my mother. Some people would just laugh, but you don't know my mom. On the way home I told Stacy she had to change the story, and go back the next day and read a new story in which the grandmother didn't die. She said no. She is so stubborn. Finally I promised to get her a new outfit for her Barbie if she'd do it.

—Well, I see why you liked that paper, said Norma. Norma, who was big, had a way of sitting under the window in the small college chair that made the chair seem silly. Only a chair in which Norma looked good would be a good chair. Norma said, It would be nice if we could change life so people don't die, the way we can change stories.

Ruben, astonished, had had no idea that was why she liked the paper. In fact she didn't think she'd liked it much. It was just an example. She thought Louise should have written the whole paper about the incident with the story and the grand-mother. The rest of it was pointless and obvious. The point she wanted to make was that in a revision Louise could select and shape her material.

Deirdre's favorite part was about how cute Stacy looked at Halloween, dressed up as a witch, but Ruben wanted Louise to cut that part.

Ruben said, Don't you see? The paper just naturally wants to be about Stacy and the story of the grandmother.

They did not see. Wait a minute, said June. What right do you have to tell your daughter what to put in her story?

Louise said, You'd know if you knew my mother.

Lorna said, Toby seems to think she has the right to tell us what to put in
our
writing.

—I know just what Louise means, Deirdre said. I have a mother like that.

—Is that the point? said Ruben.

—Wait, said Lorna. I think Stacy has a right to make the story come out the way she wants it.

—Did she change it? someone asked.

—I bought the Barbie outfit, and she changed it, said Louise. Then she changed it back. She wouldn't read it to my mother with the change.

—She's a conniver, said Maddy.

—No, Lorna said. It's not her fault. She didn't realize how important it was to her to keep it as it was, until she tried changing it.

—Does she want her grandmother to die?

Lynne said, I agree with Louise. You don't let your kid go to the hospital and read her grandmother a story called The Death of Grandma. You just don't!

—But if Stacy needs to write this story, said June.

—If it just had to be that way, Lillian said.

—There's no such thing, said Lynne. Nothing just
has
to be any which way.

—Art, said Ruben. You're talking about art, and the next thing she knew, she'd promised to invite Berry Cooper, the first artist who came to mind, to visit the class and discuss this problem. She didn't like Berry much, and at present she felt the students deserved a crabby guest speaker. But Berry was undoubtedly an artist, and presumably an expert on the question of whether art must follow rules or be free. Never mind that the art under discussion was by a child. Never mind that the topic was structure. Maybe Berry could be persuaded to talk about structure as well. Just before the class ended, Ruben heard running footsteps in the quiet corridor and suddenly Harry flung himself into the room, waving her old glasses, the ones she'd worn years ago. She was furious, especially because he ran. The students cheered and cooed, and she had to put on the glasses. She hated the old frames. And the prescription had been right four or five years ago, when Deborah was too busy to be dead.

Harry drove her home, but they had to go to his office first. He'd left in a hurry the night before, and wanted some numbers. Harry no longer priced fire engines. He was the budget director of the parks department, and he directed others to price the dredging of polluted streams and the leveling of tennis courts. Meanwhile they ate lunch at Bosey's, an old restaurant that still had booths. Ruben, docile without glasses, was too tired from teaching to be angry with Harry for making what she called the Spectacles Spectacle; he laughed when she made the joke and they were reconciled. She put on the old glasses and sat with her hands braced on either side of her on the scarred vinyl, crying without blowing her nose when she remembered being there with Deborah, years ago, accompanied by several babies. They'd stopped during a walk for cold drinks, and Deborah had worn a straw hat.

—I'll have whatever you have, she said, and Harry ordered chicken souvlaki and tea. His office was around the corner, and they walked on the ice, grabbing each other's arms. It was less cold. The patches of ice had gray edges.

Harry had a dark green office in a corner of the third floor of City Hall, with a window that opened and let in light. He had a view of a bank. That month he was preoccupied with a pocket park to be constructed in a slum. He was considering indestructible basketball hoops. It took him a while to put onto a disk all the numbers he wanted. Ruben sat at his desk chair, which he never used, preferring a smaller chair near the computer table. She nosily looked over Harry's papers, sure there would be no secrets. Next to the phone was a white pad and on it was written, Peter. Mary Grace. Laundry.

—Laundry? said Ruben.

—Oh, God, Harry said.

—What's wrong?

—I forgot twice. Peter said he'd promised to do Berry's laundry. But he didn't do it. He wanted to know if I'd go to her house and get it, and wash it at our house.

—I didn't know he did that for her.

—I guess he does. But I forgot. I suddenly remembered while I was falling asleep.

—You said something.

He said, When I thought of it, as I was falling asleep, I got terribly scared. It felt as if Berry's dirty laundry could make Peter have an accident on the ice and die. But in the morning I forgot again.

—I didn't know you worried about accidents, too, said Ruben. It was necessary that Harry believe her worries were foolish, though of course they were not. She and Deborah had talked about death for years, and sure enough. But they had worried about the children.

She needed to go home in a hurry to make sure there was no bad news about Peter. I'm not really worried, said Harry, when she jumped up. I don't ordinarily worry. It's just Deborah.

But at home, putting the key into the lock, she heard talking. Look, Harry was saying behind her. Berry's car was parked on the sidewalk near their house. He'd left the driveway for them. Nice boy. Peter and Mary Grace were sitting on the fake oriental rug, pulled up to the coffee table.