The Laments (25 page)

The stereo played Mozart, Aretha Franklin, and Dave Brubeck. Wine and cheese were served, as well as marijuana in a bong Avé had borrowed from her teenage son. At the end of the evening, Julia felt relaxed and in good company, and nobody had mentioned even once that she was a foreigner.

“Julia, will you come back next Thursday?” asked Martha as she saw Julia to the door.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Julia answered. It had been a long time since she had been in the company of friends.

IT WASN’T EASY
getting the hang of converting decimals when Miss Bayonard was wearing shiny thigh-high black boots.

“Will, you’re not concentrating.”

“Sorry, Miss Bayonard.”

When they got to absolute values, she wore a herringbone jacket and miniskirt with black stiletto heels. Will loved the dimples in her knees. He hobbled to the blackboard with his hands in his pockets, trying to conceal his arousal.

And it wasn’t any easier at night. His dreams had changed. Instead of the Midnight Chinaman, Miss Bayonard appeared, offering to discuss powers of ten, wrapped in nothing but a black feather boa.

“I think Will’s having wet dreams,” said Julia to Howard after Will had left for school.

“Already?”

“He
is
almost fourteen,” she replied.

“He seems anxious these days,” Howard remarked. “I’m not sure whether this tutoring is helping. Whenever I ask about it, he turns red in the face!”

“Let’s invite her for dinner,” Julia suggested.

IN THE WEEK PRECEDING
Miss Bayonard’s visit, Will felt a torrent of panic. For his teacher, a figure of erotic fantasy, to set foot in his house was the collision of two separate worlds.

He was thinking about this during a study session in the library when Marina noticed him. “What’s wrong with you?” she said. “You look like you’re about to throw up.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Will sputtered.

“How’s your brother doing?”

“Fine,” said Will, adding, “I think he’s finally over your sister.”

“What do you mean by that?” replied Marina.

“He was looking at her when he had the accident. He thought she was the Coca-Cola girl. That silly hair.”

“Her hair?” repeated Marina, looking upset.

Will nodded. “Her hair is what did it.”

Then Marina slapped him. It was a quick, sharp blow that made his eyes brim with tears. But, to his astonishment, he noticed tears rolling down her cheeks, too.

“Why’d you do that?” His face began to throb.

“Shut up about my sister’s hair!” she cried, and walked away.

Will felt Marina’s slap on his cheek for the rest of the day. There was nothing visible in the mirror, but his humiliation lingered. On his way home from school, she followed him, eventually catching up.

“I didn’t mean to hit you so hard,” she said.

Will kept walking.

“I thought you were blaming my sister for what happened, which wasn’t fair to her.”

For four blocks, Marina continued by his side, though she didn’t say another word.

“What
is
it?” he finally asked.

“About eight years ago, my sister lost her hair. She wears a wig.”

“I don’t believe you,” he replied.

“It’s true. When we came to America, I was five, and she was four, and her hair was beautiful, and it hung down to her shoulders. We couldn’t go anywhere without people talking about it. Then, a few weeks after we arrived here, it began falling out. Every morning she woke up with less of it. So my mom bought her this beautiful wig. And she’s worn it ever since.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“There’s a name for it, but I’ve forgotten. The doctors say her hair might come back, or it might be gone forever.” She gave him a warning glance. “It’s a secret,” she said. “Do you understand?”

Will nodded, and Marina headed toward her house. At her door, she paused and looked at him before disappearing inside. He sensed that he’d been told more than a secret. Marina had given up a burden.

When he walked up the driveway, Will noticed Marcus sitting on the steps, cracking acorns with his prosthesis.

“What were you talking to her about?” asked his brother.

“Nothing,” Will replied. How could he tell his brother that he had lost his hand for a girl who was a complete illusion?

THREE DAYS LATER
Marina appeared on the lawn as Will carried out a bag of trash from the kitchen.

“Did you tell anyone what I said?”

“Yes. Everyone,” he replied. “I told the whole world that your sister was as bald as a coconut.”

She stared at him, unamused.

“I’d kill you,” she murmured.

Marina told Will how ignored she had felt as her parents became obsessed with Astrid’s problem. As the first child, she had been demoted in affection. Will sympathized with this; he told her about the twins’ misbehavior, the story of the Ridgeback, the cat with a Ping-Pong ball attached to its tail, the escapades on the
Windsor Castle
. As elder siblings, Will and Marina became allied. It was like having another Sally Byrd. No, it was better than that, Will decided, because Marina knew what it was like to be a foreigner.

“You won’t tell anyone what I really think, will you?” he asked.

“And you won’t tell anyone what
I
really think, will you?” she answered.

ON THE NIGHT
of Miss Bayonard’s visit, Will fussed over his appearance in the mirror. He was almost as tall as Howard; his dark-blond hair fell to his shoulders, and his eyes had retained their melancholy cast. He searched for some family resemblance, the way he always did, and found none, then made one last attempt to tame his hair with the blow-dryer.

“Trying to look nice for Teacher?” asked Julius, watching from the bathroom doorway.

“Go away,” said Will.

“It won’t work, Will,” said Marcus sympathetically. “Your hair looks like an exploded banana peel.”

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” said Marcus with wicked delight, but Will beat him to it.

A New Jersey state trooper stood at the door. Black pants with a blue stripe, massive gun hanging at his hip, blue hat with shiny black visor, cuffs on the back of his belt, and a nameplate:
SCHNEIDER, B.

“Hi, I’m Franny Bayonard’s husband,” explained the trooper.

“Come in, come in!” said Julia while Will stood in shock, his hand glued to the doorknob.

“She’s on her way; we came from opposite sides of town.”

“Will!” said his mother. “Please keep Mr. Schneider company while I bring out something to snack on!”

Will sat down with the cop in the living room. What do you say to your teacher’s husband, especially when he turns out to be a trooper? Was Miss Bayonard even old enough to have a husband? Luckily, Marcus showed up. He blinked at Trooper Schneider and grinned.

“My brother’s been working on his hair for hours because his teacher is coming,” explained Marcus.

“That so?” said Trooper Schneider.

Will calculated the seconds it would take to pull the trooper’s service revolver out and . . . but reason prevailed.

Marcus bounced in his chair, eyes on the ceiling, trying to think of something else to say; then he grinned. “I’ve got no hand, wanna see?”

“Well . . .” began Trooper Schneider.

“Look,” said Marcus excitedly, pulling off his prosthesis.

Julia set a beer down for the trooper, then noticed Marcus waving his stub at the man.

“Marcus,” she cried, “for godsakes, go watch television!”

Trooper Schneider smiled nervously at Will, and dabbed at his forehead with a napkin. Will noticed that the man’s sideburns went down to his jawline.

“How do you like class, Will?” said the trooper.

“I love her—it—I mean, I love
it,
” said Will. He tried to think of a question to get off the subject.
How do you like shooting people,
perhaps?

When the doorbell rang again, the twins raced to answer it. Soon Miss Bayonard came up the stairs and smiled at Will. She looked different. Her glasses were missing; their absence made her eyes seem beady.

“Hi, Will.” She blinked.

“Hi, Miss Bayonard,” said Will.

“Honeybunch,” murmured Schneider, “where are your glasses?”

“Oh, Bernie?” She squinted. “Is that
yo
u
?”

For Will, what was most irritating about the meal was the way his parents seemed to share so many of their private aspirations with her.

“When did you decide to be a teacher?” asked Howard.

“Oh,” Miss Bayonard said, “when I was halfway through college, I just
kne
w
.”

Julia nodded. “I felt the same way.”

“Do you still teach?”

“No, I stopped with my first pregnancy, but I plan to work again,” said Julia, glancing briefly at Howard.

Miss Bayonard linked hands with Trooper Schneider, and there was a brief pause as the adults looked for something new to say. To Will’s horror, their eyes seemed to converge on him.

“Will’s a wonderful boy,” said Miss Bayonard, beaming.

“And how is he doing?” asked Howard.

Will felt himself blush. Now he was merely an object in the discussion. Miss Bayonard said something nice about his progress and assured his parents that the tutoring was just to introduce math concepts that weren’t covered in the British system until later.

Will watched Miss Bayonard eat chicken wings with her fingers, getting her long pink nails greasy and her lipstick smudged. During dessert, a strand of her hair fell into her ice cream bowl; she pulled it free, but it hardened. For the rest of the evening it stuck stiffly out of her head until Trooper Schneider set it right.

Will began to wonder what he’d ever found sexy about her. He wandered away to watch TV with the twins. It was a show about an impossibly happy family of six boys and girls.

“Will, come say good-bye!” called Julia later.

Will observed that Miss Bayonard looked rather squat next to his mother. And her eyes had wrinkles, like the doughy creases around mattress buttons.

“Well,” his mother said at bedtime, “she seems nice enough. And she thinks you’re clever. But we knew that, of course.”

“That’s nice.” Will brooded, for Miss Bayonard’s approval had lost its appeal. Strangely, he found himself thinking lustfully about Marina. She had something he’d never considered important before: youth.

Lost at Sea

TIMES-TELEGRAPH-DISPATCH

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, APRIL 18, 1970
:
The partially decomposed body of an American businessman was discovered by coastal authorities aboard a yacht floating in the Coral Sea, 20 miles east of Brisbane this morning. Sails in tatters, its fuel tank empty, the “Inspiration,” as it was named, had travelled some 1500 miles since its last radio transmission. Dental records have confirmed that the body was that of industrialist Chapman Fay, president of Fay/Bernhardt, a company based in Princeton, New Jersey.

Mr. Fay was a renowned inventor and ecologist, but he was best known for his attempts in 1967 to build a spaceship intended to colonize Mars. The spaceship venture, ridiculed by critics as a Noah’s ark fantasy, was abandoned for lack of funding, and Mr. Fay turned his efforts to improving the environment.

The deceased had no survivors. His remains have been stored cryogenically, and the majority of his estate has been left to a foundation established for paranormal research.

When Howard stopped going to work, the boys assumed he was sick. He rose late, and padded around in his pajamas. Julia told neighbors that Howard had been offered a paid leave of absence. This much was true, except that it was permanent.

American History

Though Will’s grades were high, he was horribly bored and drew caricatures of his teachers in the margins of his notebooks. The history teacher, as thin as a wraith, had gray mutton chops and a righteous air. Mr. Wallace claimed to have eaten squirrel regularly for dinner during his childhood in the Depression. Will drew him eating a dozen of the creatures at a gulp. When Mr. Wallace taught the American Revolution, Will perked up, unaware that the British, heroes for the last six years of his schooling, were about to become villains. When Mr. Wallace asked for an explanation of the events of 1776, Will’s hand shot up. But another boy in the front row, Ernest Woodbine, caught his attention.

“Yes, Ernest?”

“The British were imperialists, Mr. Wallace . . .”

Ernest spoke only to Mr. Wallace. This was probably why he was dismissed as a teacher’s pet by his classmates. He was frequently afflicted with nosebleeds and often found his bootlaces tied together when he stood up from his desk. Will nicknamed him Scabby because his eyelashes were perpetually crusty from pinkeye, and depicted him in his notebooks as a naked cretin licking Mr. Wallace’s boots.

“They oppressed the colonists with taxes and precip . . .” Scabby paused. “Precipitated a conflict.”

The other kids also hated his big words. But this was Scabby’s lucky day. He might have been a bootlicker, but he wasn’t a foreigner.

“Just a minute!” said Will.

“And, sir,” Scabby continued, “they forced the colonists to stage uprisings that led to the Revolution.”

“Yes, Will?” said Mr. Wallace.

“Forced them? They wouldn’t pay taxes,” Will argued. “Was the British army supposed to serve the colonies for nothing?”

“Unfair taxes, sir,” corrected the bootlicker.

“Taxes that paid for the soldiers who kept the peace,” argued Will.

“An oppressive army of redcoats, Mr. Wallace,” added Scabby. “Americans wanted freedom, justice, liberty—”

“Freedom? They
were
free!” argued Will. “They just didn’t want to pay taxes!”

Suddenly blood began pouring from Scabby’s nostrils. Quickly, he reached for the massive box of tissues inside his desk, clamped a wad to his nose, and, with a dramatic gulp, attempted to speak.

“Mr. Wallace? I don’t believe my ears. Is he calling the Founding Fathers cheapskates?”

Until now, a bluebottle fly had distracted most of the students with its drone as it looped around the fluorescent lights. But all seats creaked forward at Scabby’s cry. You could almost hear a fife and drum start up in the room. Mr. Wallace cast a troubled glance at Will.