Читать книгу No Ivory Tower - Stephen Davenport - Страница 16

NINE

Rachel sat very still at her desk, calming herself. Then she telephoned Amy’s mother. Other than the police, she should be the first to know that her ex-husband had come on campus.

“I should have known he wasn’t going to obey the order,” Jenifer Michaels said when Rachel finished describing what had happened. “The only orders he obeys are the ones he gives to himself. Could I bribe you to kill him the next time he shows up on campus? Because he will, you know. How about a million dollars for financial aid if you offer him a friendly cup of coffee with cyanide in it?” And, when Rachel didn’t respond, “How did Amy react?”

“He never saw her. She doesn’t even know.”

“You caught him trying to find her?”

“No, he came straight to the office and I called the police.”

“The police? He’s in jail!”

“No, he managed to leave just as the officer arrived.”

“Really? They only sent one?”

“I’m afraid so. Your husband just ignored him and walked away.”

“So predictable! And please don’t refer to that man as my husband. He’s not. He’s the crazy person who is going to cause your school a lot of trouble for not giving in and letting him see Amy. Thanks for that. But why would he come to your office? Did he think you were going to give him permission?”

Rachel hesitated. “No, he didn’t.”

“He didn’t ask? He wanted something else?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t about Amy.”

“About some other girl then? So you shouldn’t tell me. Of course not. But it is about Amy, isn’t, it? He thinks he should choose her friends. Wants them all to be innocent as five-year-olds. And what happens instead? Amy comes home with this beautiful nineteen-year-old woman who projects anything but innocence. It didn’t take me a whole lot of time after Amy and I had picked up Claire at JFK for me to guess what was going to happen to poor old Mitch. She’d twist him up in knots the minute she arrived in Madison. Yes, that’s what happened, I guarantee. Well, I’d come on to him too, if I had what that girl has and he was right there to torment for a whole long weekend. Too hard to resist when the prey’s just asking for it. And it happened right in front of Amy. I bet he asked you to move Amy out of Claire’s dorm so she wouldn’t have so much time to corrupt his daughter. I bet he said that if you put them in different dorms, he wouldn’t ever step foot on your campus again. But of course he will. You could put the whole United States Army on guard, and he’d keep coming back to try to see her. What you have to remember about him is he looks sane enough to be running the asylum, but he’s the craziest inmate of them all. How else could he think up the things he says on the radio?”

“Mrs. Michaels, I’m not prepared to discuss your ex-husband or Claire Nelson or any other student,” Rachel said, trying to sound authoritative. “I called you to inform you that your ex-husband appeared on campus against the court order and that we called the police and they came. And I assure you that we will be on guard and I’ll talk with the police about—”

“Yes, yes, yes, I know, but here’s what’s going to happen no matter what you do. Trust me. I lived with him for almost seventeen years. You will or you will not put Amy in a different dorm, and he will sneak back on campus to see her; he’ll never stop. I don’t want that for Amy in the first place, and in the second I surely don’t want her to be in the school when the cops do catch him and he gets revenge by making up the most horrendous stories you can imagine about your school and about Claire too—especially about her—and telling them on the radio. And even if he doesn’t get caught, the idea that he’s not allowed, that he has to sneak, will get to him. How would you like to be in a school when your own father is saying terrible things about your friend and your school to a huge audience over the radio? Well, that’s not going to happen. Not as long as I’m alive. Amy’s had her heart set on going to St. Agnes, that lovely school in England your school exchanges students with. She only postponed it until next year because Claire asked her to. You get my drift?”

Bombarded by this rush of angry words, Rachel didn’t answer. The shock of Michaels’s ultimatum and her concern for Claire had blinded her to the implications for Amy.

“Do you?” Amy’s mother insisted.

Rachel found her voice at last. “Do we really want to give in to him?”

Amy’s mother sighed. “I’ll talk to Amy,” she said. “And please make the arrangements with St. Agnes.”

“WHAT IS IT about vacations that the minute you get back it feels like you never went away?” Gaylord Frothingham asked as soon as he picked up the phone. “It’s that business again, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Rachel answered, and went on to tell him about the predicament both schools shared. She chose not to complicate the conversation by telling him about Amy.

“Oh, poor Claire!” he said.

Rachel was taken aback. She had thought he’d be more concerned for his school than for Claire. “Why?” she asked. “Do you think he would actually name her?”

There was a silence on the line. She imagined him gazing out the window of his office across West End Avenue to Central Park, in a tweedy sports jacket with leather elbow patches and a bow tie. Then he asked, “Do you listen to his program? I do. I like to know who my enemies are. And it’s fascinating, like watching car accidents. He’s very smart. It’s hard to dismiss all of what he says as just some more ravings of a whacko, though that’s what they really are. Even liberals agree with some of the things he says. No, he won’t actually name Claire. He’ll just leave a lot of clues and everybody will guess. He won’t talk about it on just one show. He’ll stretch it out. He’ll talk about your school and then, on another day, about mine, and then he’ll branch out and talk about how elitist and liberal all private schools are—enclaves for the wealthy who can do anything that strikes their fancy no matter how perverse and not be punished. Claire’s the perfect representative. He’ll find out every salacious event that ever happened at your school, stuff you don’t even know about, and broadcast it to the world. He’ll go on and on, and every time he does it will also be about Claire. That’s what I would do if I were he, with his agenda. It will be horrible for Claire. She’ll have to leave. If you need some help in figuring out where she should go, I’d like to help.”

“But how do you know that Michaels would keep to his bargain and not talk about her anyway?”

“Oh that’s easy. We’ll let him know we’ll come after him if he doesn’t. That’s what alumni are for. We have a bunch in the newspaper business. They’ll help me find out something he doesn’t want anyone to know, and if they can’t, we’ll make something up. We’ll make him wish he were dead, then we’ll insult his mother, then we’ll burn his house down, okay?”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. She’d had enough male posturing this morning. “Impossible.”

“Who cares? Just believe it and you’ll be fine. It doesn’t have to be true,” Gaylord Frothingham said. “And remember if you need any help finding a school for Claire, let me know.”

“We have an exchange agreement with St. Agnes School in England. We could send her there,” Rachel said. The idea was delicious: foil Mitch Michaels by keeping Amy and Claire together, both out of his reach and even closer to each other, sharing the adventure of going to a foreign land. But even as she thought of this, she realized how fervently she wanted to keep Claire in the school.

“There you go! That’s a wonderful school, a lot like yours, all girls, boarding, on Lake Windermere. Excellent curriculum. I happen to know the head. He’s a marvelous leader, one of the kindest people I know. Plus he’s a very fine artist. He’d reach out to Claire. And she’d be miles away. Think about it, okay?”

“Well, how about keeping Claire Nelson right where she is and making Mitch Michaels wish he were dead?” Rachel asked.

Frothingham chuckled into the phone. “That would be a lot of fun, wouldn’t it?”

“It would be right too!”

“Maybe. For a philosopher. Maybe a poet. But for the school? And your job? Have you any idea how hard it is to keep a job like yours and mine? And what about Claire?” His pause had a definitive air. “Goodbye, Rachel. Let me know when you want me to talk to St. Agnes. I will put in a good word for her.”

RACHEL CROSSED THE campus toward the Art Building to tell Eudora, knowing the world couldn’t get more beautiful anywhere, anytime, than it was here, on this campus by the side of a river in New England in September. It was a fact for her, not mere opinion. She was surrounded by glory. What an amazement to know this in spite of the bad news she would deliver.

In the anteroom of the Art Building, more glory: three huge chairs, pieces of Kinetic Visionary Furniture designed and built by students to fulfill Eudora’s assignment—to demonstrate a sense of humor while being intensely utilitarian. They’d been returned at the end of the summer by the Smith College Art Museum where they had been displayed for almost a year: a chair in honor of multitasking, with foot pedals for typing a novel, piano keys for simultaneously making music, a reading lamp so you can also read a book, a bracket that turned the pages, and, looming from above, a shiny cone for sticking your head into to get a permanent wave. Next to it, a Humpty Dumpty chair, disassembled into its many parts, which when you pushed a button was immediately reassembled, and next to that a chair that played “The Star-Spangled Banner” when you sat in it so that you had to stand up for it to stop. Each beautiful in shape, multicolored and shiny. A work of art that worked. To think that Claire would be separated from a teacher who could unleash such marvels!

In Eudora’s kingdom, it smelled of turpentine, paint, wet clay—and silence. A dozen girls, one of whom was Claire, each at an easel, were sketching a classmate who stood on a raised dais before them. She was tall, thin, gawky, only a little self-conscious, leaning glibly on a cane, trying to look debonair in a man’s tuxedo. Eudora, in a flowing yellow smock and big golden earrings, glided among her artists looking at their work, whispering, patting shoulders, sometimes nodding her head. There was nothing casual in this scene. It was dignified and formal. Learning how to see. That’s a serious business. No one noticed Rachel enter. She stood in the back until the bell rang and the girls reluctantly put their easels away.

In Eudora’s office, Rachel delivered the news and explained her reasons why it was imperative to send Claire and Amy away. She told Eudora that Amy’s mom was going to talk to Amy about going to St. Agnes School in England on an exchange with a St. Agnes student, and that she, Rachel, would call the head of St. Agnes right away to make the arrangements.