Douglas Kerchek taught twelfth-grade advanced-placement English at St. Agnes High School on West Ninety-seventh and Broadway, and Nicole Bonner was the standout in his class. She was the tallest, at five feet ten, the oldest, at nineteen, and the smartest, with a flawless A. She wasn’t the prettiest, Douglas thought—not beside the spunky nose of Rhonda Phelps or Meredith Beckermann’s heart-shaped derrière—but Nicole was dangerously alluring. She had a chopped black Cleopatra haircut and wise blue eyes, and her recent essay on Othello had ended with this note:
Dear Mr. Kerchek:
Last night in bed I read Fear + Loathing in L.V. It is puerile, self-involved gamesmanship. I suppose I don’t love drugs enough, although my parents made me drink brandy with them every night. They consider it a gesture of affection.
I saw you yesterday, outside the locker room, changing your shoes to go running, and your ankle looked quite blue. What did you bang it on?
Respectfully,
Nicole Bonner
This note caused Douglas some concern. He, too, disliked Hunter S. Thompson, but Nicole had also written “in bed” and mentioned his bruise. It was Nicole’s habit to do this, to call out random, intimate specifics from the world around her and bring them to Douglas’s attention. She’d done it that day in class.
“Iago is filled with lust, Mr. Kerchek,” said Jill Eckhard.
“He’s a Machiavellian bastard,” said Rhonda Phelps.
“You know what’s an excellent word to say out loud repeatedly?” Nicole Bonner chewed her hair. “ ‘Rinse.’ Think about it, Mr. Kerchek, Rinse. Rinse.”
That evening, as always, Douglas walked home to his shabby studio apartment. Douglas was thirty-one. He lived alone, five blocks north of St. Agnes, in an apartment building filled with Mexican men who drank Pabst and held boisterous, high-stakes poker games every night in the lobby outside Douglas’s first-floor apartment. They were amiable, violent men, and their nickname for Douglas was Uno, because whenever he sat with them he had one quiet beer, then bowed out.
“Uno,” cackled the Mexicans. “Come take our money, Uno.”
“Fuck us up, Uno.”
A twelve-year-old boy named Chiapas rattled a beer can. “Come get your medicine, Uno.”
Douglas grinned wanly, waved them off, and opened his door.
Rinse, he thought, frowning. Rinse. Rinse.
After a quick sandwich, Douglas corrected essays. He was a fastidious, tough grader. Also, he had short black sideburns with streaks of gray in them, a boxer’s build, a Ph.D. in English literature from Harvard, and no wife or girlfriend. These qualities made Douglas a font of intrigue for the all-female population of St. Agnes—both the lay faculty and the students—but in truth Douglas led a sedentary life. He loved books, he was a passionate, solitary filmgoer, and he got his hair cut every four weeks by Chiapas, whose father ran a barbershop down the block. All told, Douglas was a quiet and, he thought, happy man. He was also the only male teacher at St. Agnes. Cheryl, Audrey, and Katya, the three single women on the faculty, would have taken up the crusade of dating him, but he wasn’t drawn to his co-workers. Cheryl wore electric shades of suede that confused him, Audrey had two cops for ex-husbands, and Katya, despite her long legs and Lithuanian accent, was cruel to the girls. So Douglas spent his nights alone seeing films, correcting essays, and occasionally chatting with Chiapas and company. On this particular night, Douglas was barely into his stack of essays when the phone rang.
“Hello?” sighed Douglas. He expected it to be his mother, who called weekly from Pennsylvania to see if her son had become miraculously engaged.
“Good evening, Mr. Kerchek.”
Douglas frowned. “Nicole?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How did you get this number?”
“Off the Rolodex in the principal’s office. How’s your ankle?”
Douglas sneezed, twice. He did this instinctively when he didn’t know what to say.
“God bless you,” said Nicole.
“Thank you,” said Douglas. He glanced around, as if expecting his apartment suddenly to fill with students.
“How’s your ankle?”
“It’s … it’s all right. I banged it on my radiator.”
“Really?”
The truth was, Douglas had slipped in his shower, like an elderly person.
“Yes, really. Nicole—”
“Do you know what’s happening to my ankle as we converse?”
“No.”
“John Stapleton is licking it. He likes to nibble my toes, too.”
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(illustration credit 3.2)
Douglas blinked several times.
“John Stapleton is a domestic shorthair. Sometimes he licks, other times he nibbles.”
“I see,” said Douglas. There was a substantial pause.
“John Stapleton is a cat,” said Nicole.
“Of course,” agreed Douglas.
“Do you enjoy gnocchi?”
Douglas set his essays on the couch beside him. “Pardon?”
“Gnocchi. Italian potato dumplings. We had them for dinner tonight. Father makes them by hand every Thursday. It’s the only thing Father knows how to cook, but he’s good at it.”
Douglas crossed his ankle over his knee.
“So, do you enjoy them?” said Nicole.
“Gnocchi?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes meaning you enjoy them, or yes meaning you understood what I was asking?”
“Yes. I mean yes, I like them.”
Nicole Bonner laughed.
“When should I start hearing from colleges?” she asked. “It’s nearly April.”
Douglas was relieved at the topic. “Any week now. But you’ll get in everywhere. It’s all about what you want.”
“I want Princeton.”
Douglas imagined Nicole sitting on a dorm bed, reading, sipping soup. He imagined baggy sweater sleeves covering her wrists.
“Fitzgerald went there,” said Nicole.
“Yes,” said Douglas.
“He was a career alcoholic.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know that John Stapleton is toilet trained?”
Douglas laughed out loud, once. This usually happened only at the movies, if he was alone and the film was absurd.
“Toilet trained. Meaning what?”
“Meaning that he uses the toilet, like a human being. He crouches on the rim of the bowl and does his business and presses his paw on the flusher afterward. He’s very tidy.”
“Nicole,” said Douglas.
“It’s the truth, sir. It took Father aeons to train him, but he did it. We don’t even have a litter box. Father was a marine.”
Douglas checked his watch. “John Stapleton’s an unusual name for a cat.”
“He’s an unusual cat,” said Nicole.
“I think maybe I should hang up now, Nicole. Why don’t we talk in school tomorrow?”
“All right. I don’t want to inconvenience you in your evening time.”
“It’s all right.”
“Really?”
“Well,” said Douglas. “What I mean is, it’s no problem. But, um, we’ll talk in school tomorrow.”
“Inevitably,” said Nicole.
Douglas had written Nicole a letter of recommendation for Princeton. In the letter he’d said this:
Whether she’s tearing across the field-hockey grass, debunking Whitman, or lecturing me about Woody Allen films, Nicole exudes an irrepressible spirit and a generous unguarded tenacity. She reads an entire novel every night, not to impress anyone but because she loves to do it. She is organized, clever, and kindhearted, and once she knows what she wants she will pursue a thing—a line of argument, a hockey ball, a band to hire for the prom—with a charmingly ruthless will.
Douglas prided himself on his recommendations, on making his students shine on paper. It was one of the few vanities he allowed himself. When
it came to crafting words, Douglas felt that he’d been blessed with a knack for always knowing what to say. That was why, the morning after the call from Nicole, Douglas awoke feeling flummoxed. He’d spent ten minutes on the phone with a nineteen-year-old girl and tripped over his tongue like a schoolboy the whole time. During the night, he’d also dreamed he’d been walking barefoot down a beach with Nicole. In the dream, she wore a lowrider black bikini and a lovely blue scarf in her hair like Jackie Kennedy. Douglas, meanwhile, wore green Toughskins jeans and a shirt made of burlap. Every time the waves washed over their feet, Douglas scampered back and yelled, “Beware the manatees!”
Ridiculous, thought Douglas. Embarrassing. He put on a smart coat and tie, and decided to give the girls a pop quiz.
At school, in the faculty lounge, he forced himself to make small talk with Cheryl, the suede-clad mathematician. When the bell rang for his class, Douglas strode into the classroom with confidence.
“Mr. Kerchek.” Meredith Beckermann jumped from her desk. “Jill’s going to ask you to come watch softball today, but you promised to see our Forensics meet against Regis, remember?”
“I remember,” said Douglas.
“Suckup,” Jill told Meredith.
Meredith glared at Jill. “Avaunt, and quit my sight,” she sniffed.
Douglas set his satchel on his desk, surveyed the room. His advanced-placement class consisted of six girls, the brightest lights in the St. Agnes senior class. There were Meredith and Jill, the arguers; Rhonda Phelps, the bombshell achiever; Kelly DeMeer, the agnostic; Nancy Huck, who was always on vacation; and Nicole Bonner, who sat by the window.
“Where’s Nancy?” asked Douglas.
“Bermuda,” said Rhonda. “Snorkeling, with her aunt.”
Jill tapped her copy of Othello. “Can we discuss the last act?”
“Desdemona’s a dipshit,” said Meredith.
“Meredith,” Douglas warned. He glanced at Nicole, then at Kelly. They spoke the least of the six, Kelly because she was cultivating spiritual fatigue and Nicole because … Well, thought Douglas, because she was Nicole. The look in her eyes when she stared out the window reminded Douglas of when he was a boy and he would gaze at his mother’s dressing-room mirror, wondering who lived on the other side.
“Vocab quiz,” said Douglas.
The girls cleared their desks. They whipped out pens and blank pieces of paper.
“Three synonyms, from Latin roots, for ‘bellicose.’ ” Douglas thought out loud. “Two antonyms for ‘abstruse.’ One example of synecdoche. Extra credit, list four books by Melville. You have five minutes.”
The girls began writing immediately. Douglas watched them with fondness. They were gifted young women, and they would conquer this class and every literature class in their future. He passed among them, staring at their bent heads, at the roots of their hair and their earlobes, wondering how many had prom dates, how many might end up teachers, how quickly Rhonda would marry. He rolled his eyes at Meredith’s and Jill’s papers: each of them already had seven synonyms for “bellicose.” Kelly had finished in three minutes, and was now drawing hangman nooses—her trademark—on all of her “T”s. Then Douglas looked over Nicole’s shoulder. Her paper was in a band of sunlight, and on it she had written no vocabulary words whatsoever. She was, however, busily churning out sentences. Douglas watched, then caught his breath. Nicole had written verbatim, from memory, the entire first page of Moby-Dick, and was still going. Douglas waited to see if she would run out of steam or turn her head to look at him, but she didn’t.
Douglas leaned down. He could smell Nicole’s raspberry shampoo. He scribbled in the margin of her paper, “This isn’t what I asked for.”
Without glancing up, Nicole crossed out what he’d set down and wrote, “It is a far, far better thing that I do.”
“Pens down,” said Douglas.
After school, he performed his daily regimen, half an hour of free weights followed by a three-mile run in Central Park. He got back to St. Agnes with just enough time for a shower before the Forensics match. Outside the locker room, lounging on her back on a windowsill eight feet off the ground, was Nicole Bonner.
(illustration credit 3.3)
“How’d you get up there?” panted Douglas. He was winded from his run.
“Flew.” Nicole sat up, studied her teacher. Douglas had a privileged view of her ankles, which were crossed and not at all blue. She wore low black pumps.
“What’d you read last night?” he asked.
“The Moviegoer. Walker Percy. Did you know, Mr. Kerchek, that thousands of runners die every year from heart attacks in mid-workout?”
“I don’t think I run fast enough to induce cardiac trauma, Nicole.”
The girl on the ledge didn’t swish her legs. Even when she chewed her hair, Douglas thought, she didn’t do it nervously. She made it seem correct.
“ ‘Trauma’ is an excellent word to say out loud repeatedly. Trauma. Trauma.”
“I should shower,” said Douglas.
Nicole pointed at him. “Give me one good reason why I should go to college at all.”
“Tons of reading time,” said Douglas.
Nicole jumped off the ledge, landed lightly on her feet a yard from Douglas.
“I’ll accept that,” she said, and off she walked.
It was three weeks later, on a rainy Tuesday morning in mid-April, that Douglas received the invitation. Just before chapel, Nicole Bonner poked her head into the faculty lounge, where Douglas and Katya Zarov sat beside each other on the couch. Douglas was reading the paper, and Katya had just noticed a run in her stocking.
“Mr. Kerchek,” said Nicole.
Douglas and Katya looked up.
“No students in here,” said Katya.
“Mr. Kerchek, I need to speak to you privately.” Nicole stood with her hands behind her back like a butler.
Douglas stood. Katya Zarov made a little snort.
Out in the hall, Nicole flashed Douglas a smile.
“Princeton’s taking me,” she said.
Douglas had a fleeting image of hugging his student. He patted her once on the shoulder.
“That’s wonderful,” he said. “Congratulations.”
Nicole noddded sharply. She had a Bible under one arm, which surprised Douglas.
“As a thank-you for your letter of recommendation, my parents and I would like you to join us for dinner this Thursday at our home.”
“Well,” said Douglas, “that’s very kind, but there’s no need.”
“We’ll be serving gnocchi that Father will have prepared by hand. I’ve assured Father that you enjoy gnocchi.”
“Nicole,” began Douglas.
The bell for chapel rang.
“You told me that you enjoy gnocchi, Mr. Kerchek.”
“Oh, I do,” said Douglas quickly. “But—Listen, Nicole, I’m very proud that you’ve gotten into Princeton, but you don’t have to—”
“I’m reading the Book of Revelation.” Nicole tapped the Bible. “In case you were wondering.”
Girls surged past Douglas and Nicole, chattering, chapel-bound.
“Come on, Nicky,” said Rhonda Phelps.
“Good morning, Mr. Kerchek,” said Audrey Little, the horny health teacher.
Nicole cocked her head to one side. “Did you know, Mr. Kerchek, that there are creatures in the Book of Revelation covered entirely with eyeballs.”
Douglas shook his head. He felt slightly dizzy, in need of ibuprofen.
“My parents and I will expect you at seven on Thursday.” Nicole stepped backward. “We live in the Preemption apartment building, West Eighty-second and Riverside.”
“Preemption?” called Douglas, but Nicole Bonner had turned away.
On Thursday afternoon, Douglas got his hair cut at the corner barbershop. Chiapas, who wasn’t yet five feet tall, stood on a milk crate, moving an electric razor over Douglas’s sideburns, grinning at him in the mirror.
“Yo
u a week early, Uno. Hot date tonight?”
Douglas smirked. “Yeah, right.”
Chiapas whistled a tune Douglas didn’t know. Because Chiapas was only an apprentice, Douglas got his haircuts for free, but, in what he recognized as a ridiculous instinct, Douglas felt he was keeping the boy out of trouble.
“Bet you got a date, Uno. Bet you and Grace Kelly going out for langostino.”
“Uh-huh.”
Chiapas knew Douglas’s movie addictions.
“Ow.” Douglas flinched, and Chiapas pulled the razor away. Douglas turned his head. Two inches below his part, the razor had bitten his hair down to the scalp.
“Whoops.” Chiapas shrugged. “Sorry, Uno.”
Douglas fingered the gash. “Chiapas. Today of all days.”
The boy’s eyes lit up. “You do got a date.”
Douglas blushed. “I do not.”
Chiapas inspected Douglas’s head. The cutaway hair was in the shape of a question mark without the period. “Don’t worry, Uno. It’s cool. She’ll love it.”
“There is no she,” insisted Douglas.
At 7 P.M., Douglas arrived at the Preemption. He wore a camel’s-hair sports coat, and he carried a German chocolate cake from Café Mozart. He’d thought first to bring wine, then decided it was inappropriate, since Nicole was his student.
In the lobby, Douglas was met by a tall black doorman with an oval scar on his forehead. “Douglas Kerchek?” said the doorman. “This way.”
Douglas followed the doorman to an ancient Otis elevator, the hand-operated kind. “Top floor. Penthouse.” The doorman ushered Douglas into the elevator, pulled a lever, and stepped out. “Bonne chance.”
The elevator doors closed, and Douglas was alone, moving. The mahogany walls smelled like something Douglas couldn’t place, a medieval monks’ library, maybe, or the inside of a coffin. When he disembarked, the door to the Bonner penthouse was already open. Nicole stood leaning against the jamb.
“Good evening, Mr. Kerchek.”
Douglas made an effort not to widen his eyes. Nicole was wearing the most exquisite black silk evening gown he’d ever seen. It lay along the lines and curves of her body so perfectly that the material might have been woven around her as she stood there in the doorway. The gown was exactly as black as her hair, and, for a fantastic second, Douglas imagined that crushed black diamonds and the ink of several squid had gone into making the silk.
The Big New Yorker Book of Cats Page 6
