A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room

by Dave St. John

  She turned her head, ear on her bare knee, eyes unfocused. “I’m not,” she said voice low. “I’m not afraid of you. I just can’t. I can’t go home with you.”

  Puzzled, he drove on through the cold rain. When the road emerged from the trees to follow the bank of the river, the rain let up some, and he could see the Siuslaw running alongside the road slow and wide. Melting snow filled it to its banks, brown water reaching the lower limbs of firs on the far side. He turned off onto a gravel road by the river, stopped, yanking the hand brake. “This is it.”

  She moaned, not seeming to hear.

  As he opened her door she made herself smaller, hugging bare legs close. He touched her cheek, and felt a cadaver. You didn’t realize how warm were the living until you’d touched the dead, and she was dead cold. Now it made sense—she had hypothermia, had it bad.

  She wouldn’t live long if she got much colder, and there wasn’t much time to warm her up. Taking her icy wrists in his big hands, he pried them apart, pulling her out of the cab.

  “We’ve got to warm you up, kid,” he said, “I’ve felt warmer corpses.” He slung her over his shoulder, finding her surprisingly heavy as dead weight. Somehow he got her in the boat, and up to the house. In the upstairs bath, he stripped off her heels and lowered her gently into the tub, pillowing her head on a folded towel. The tub’s brass nozzle belched steaming hot water into the old claw-foot. She lay, moaning fitfully, the cold room swirling with steam. Had he been quick enough? If her core temperature fell to 96, her heart would stop. From the feel of her she was close.

  On his knees next to the iron tub, arms over the cold rim, he gently massaged her feet, legs, hands, arms, temples. As he worked he watched her. For all her sarcasm, all her toughness, face open in sleep, she was a sleeping leopard, claws sheathed for the moment.

  Water lapping at her chin, she drew his hand back to her cheek. “Mmm,” she said, “that’s nice. I was so cold.” She squinted up at him. “Where is this?”

  “My house.” She moaned again, eyes flickering open. “Just what are you doing?”

  “You were cold, I drew you a bath.” Her head lifted unsteadily off the towel and predictably it slipped into the water. Irritably she pushed his hands away, “Stop it, I’m okay.” Reaching down, she smoothed her skirt. She scowled through half-opened eyes. “I’m okay, you can get out now.”

  He nodded, sat back, drying his arms with a towel. “You’re welcome.”

  “And by the way, I run my own baths, thank you.”

  “Letting you go into a coma would have been much more delicate.”

  “I need dry clothes. I’ve got to go.”

  Unsurprised, he leaned back against the sink, crossing his arms. “It’s getting dark. You’re not taking my boat and you’re not taking my truck, so what? You’re going to swim the Siuslaw and walk ten miles back to your submarine? I’m not giving you dry clothes for that. Wear your wet ones and have a nice trip.”

  “I . . .I can’t stay here.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  He went outshutting the old panel door behind him, and the crystal doorknob fell off its spindle to crack onto the tile. Cursing energetically, he strode for the stairs, her voice following him down the dark hallway.

  “Bring me some dry clothes!”

  Like hell he would.

  • • •

  Solange cringed in embarrassment, hands pressed over her eyes.

  He seen her as she flopped like a dead fish in the tub. Well, why should she care. He must hate her anyway for what she was doing to his life, his career. He must— And yet he persisted in treating her with the most infuriating kindness.

  And now for the second time today, he’d saved her life. Why, when all he had to do was do nothing, and all his problems would be, if not solved, at least set aside for the time being? Why would anyone do what he had done? for a stranger, for an enemy?

  Lying back until water tickled the down on her upper lip, she listened, eyes closed, to the overflow’s idiotic babbling, remembering the touch of his hand on her face. Willing herself not to think, she concentrated on the water, so hot it hurt, as it wicked the cold out of her. Moment by moment, she felt her strength return.

  She brought up a foot to cling to the brass knobs flanking the long spigot. Cold, slick, beaded with condensation, they squeaked satisfyingly when she worked them with her toes. She closed her eyes, dreading the hours ahead. Stupid to try to run her way across the flood, but now there was the night. Not more than a few hours before she could sleep. Really, how hard could it be? To eat, drink sparingly, say little, reveal nothing, ask nothing, grant nothing, keep her feelings wrapped up tight. How hard? Twelve hours—not long at all.

  She smiled, comforted, opening her eyes. She could—she would—make it through one night in his house. She would leave it the same as she had come. The same woman. No different.

  She thought of Hugh, and spotting the phone on the counter, leapt for it. Dragging it close, she punched in the number and slunk back under the water, causing a tsunami.

  “Hugh, it’s me.”

  “Solange, dear Lord! They said they found your car abandoned by Wolf Creek. I’ve been frantic, where the hell are you?”

  “I’m at O’Connel’s. Like an idiot I tried to make it through. He pulled me out.”

  “You okay?” Eyes closed, she took a long breath, pressing fingers to her temples so hard veins stood out from her wrists. A gust of wind slapped rain against the small window. It was barely twenty-four hours until the meeting where she would finish his career. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine.” How was it he saw through her so easily? Frustrated, she slapped the water with the flat of her hand, sending water spraying. “Dammit, what am I doing? I have what we need, but I’m not proud of it. He’s a decent guy, Hugh, a good teacher. He’s got no family, nothing but teaching, so I take that away? Is that what I’m here for? Is that my job?” Angrily she wiped her nose with a wet hand, looking over a bare shoulder to make sure the door was closed. Why did she always cry when she got mad? Why couldn’t she rage like a man without tears betraying her? “You’re doing what has to be done. He may be a good teacher, but he doesn’t belong where he is.” He paused, and she dreaded what he might say next. “I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with him. You’re just too close to it right now. Give this time, and you’ll be able to put it in perspective. A year from now you’ll be able to look back on this…”

  “And what? What will a year change?”

  “In a year you’ll be in my job. That’s what you want, isn’t it? She was a long time answering. “I thought it was.”

  “And now?”

  “Now— “ Her voice broke and she pounded her fist on the cold iron rim of the tub hard enough to hurt. “Of course I want the job, it’s just…”

  “Is this about something else?” He could always read her so well. She shaded her eyes with her hand, feeling her face color. How could he know? How could anyone know? She’d shown nothing, told no one.

  “Solange, you know how Mary and I feel about you. We wouldn’t have you hurt for anything in the world. Has this…gotten personal?” She hesitated, an ache gripping the back of her throat. It was no use, she was crying again. “Oh, Hugh—”

  “It’s all right. It’s all right kiddo.” Her breasts quivered as she sobbed into a short-nailed fist. “It’s all got to be such a mess.”

  “I see.”

  She reached for a Kleenex and he waited while she blew her nose. “Mary told me it might be something like that.” He chuckled. “You’d think as old as I am I might have seen it coming. Well, you do what you need to do. They don’t get O’Connel’s head, they take mine as consolation prize. Don’t forget that if I go, you go with me. Have you forgotten what it is you’ve worked for all these years?”

  Forgotten seven years of no personal life, no time for anything but work and night classes? Seven years? Was he kidding? “You know I haven’t.”


  “If you don’t want to be there, you don’t have to be. Just drop off your notes and I’ll handle the rest, and if you need a few days to work things out, take them. I’ve always been able to count on you, and I know you’ll come through for us both this time, too. Just don’t forget why you’re out there.”

  What right did she have to hate him? Wasn’t he just doing his best to give her what she always thought she wanted? “I won’t, Hugh, I won’t.” She tossed the phone onto the towel and lay back, sighed.

  Okay. So she was here for the night. Big deal. She’d spend tonight on the couch and tomorrow night she would send his career flushing down the toilet. After that, back to the real world. Back to her life. Nothing to get excited about.

  There was a hesitant tap at the door.

  “If you’ll promise not to run off into the dark like a lunatic, I’ll leave a stack of clothes out here. They’re Patty’s, might be a little big.” She flipped the drain knob with her toe, and stood, stripping. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  There were cream colored sweats, pajamas covered with terminally cute teddy bears, and a wisp of a cashmere dress in cobalt blue.

  She held this up before her in front of the mirror. Scoop neck, spaghetti straps, mid thigh. Oh, yeah, sure thing.

  She tossed it into the corner and stepped into the sweats. Binding her hair so tight it hurt, she calculated the effect in the mirror.

  Nodding with satisfaction, she opened the door. Padding down the squeaking stairway in bare feet, she ran her fingers over peeling wallpaper. This house was old. Lifting up a curled corner, she uncovered a newspaper from 1916—a very old house. The narrow stairwell, the worn pine flooring, the threadbare rug—they smelled of age.

  Rounding the rickety banister at the foot of the stairs, she found herself in a high-ceilinged living room. The floor was random slate, unevenly set. By the far wall a cast wood stove squatted, kindling and firewood close at hand. A braided rug. A chafed leather couch.

  A dog on her bag by the stove. Pine board walls yellowed with wood smoke and years. Not what she would have expected, but nice. It fit him.

  The black stove roared as it drew. Behind the smoky glass of the door, the fire glowed, ticking angrily as dry fir heated iron.

  He’d changed into worn jeans and an old Henley the color of an agrula mare. Setting a kettle on to boil, he turned to do a fine impression of a man jumping out of his skin.

  She did her best not to laugh, pleased she’d scared him. “See a ghost?”

  “Not used to company, I guess.” His smile lived a split second, then died, setting off a flare of guilt inside her. That had been cruel.

  The kettle wheezed. Big hands steady, he poured tea.

  She sighed, contrite. “I wish I were good at saying thank you. I’m not.”

  He went to the kitchen. “Don’t worry about it.” Feeling cheated by his off-hand response, she followed. If she were going to apologize, the least he could do was show some gratitude. She scented something that brought water to her mouth.

  He stirred a steaming pot with a long wooden spoon. She brought a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Oh, meu Deus!” She laughed anyway.

  He looked down at himself. “What’s so funny?”

  “The spoon—you look just like my mother. What’s cooking? Whatever it is, it’s making me weak in the knees.”

  “Soup, oxtail vegetable. Think you could eat it? I don’t have too much else right now.”

  Could she? “Just hand me a spoon and stand back.”

  “The oxtail doesn’t bother you?” She breathed deeply, face bathed in steam rising from the soup, eyes closed in rapture. “I had tea for breakfast, then lost my lunch. I’m only sorry the rest of the ox isn’t in there.”

  He ladled them each a bowl and they sat on the rug, backs to the couch in front of the glowing stove.

  “Have you got any wine to go with this?” He looked at her curiously. “Half bottle of Cabernet I use for spaghetti. Been open a while, might have gone off. Want it?” She did. Rarely did she drink anything at all, but tonight, oh, yes, tonight she would. He brought her a bottle three quarters full, and working the cork free with her teeth, she poured a glass.

  Sloshing it over her tongue, she swallowed. Dark, strong, bitter—it would do. Yes. It would do nicely.

  She had her spoon nearly to her lips when she noticed his offered hand. Irritated, she set it back in the bowl, sighed, looked at him. “What, grace again?”

  He looked at her with that patient smile of his. “If it’s all right with you.”

  She shrugged, irritated, taking his hand. “I’m a guest.”

  “I don’t have to say it.”

  She squeezed his hand, impatient to eat. “Just say it? I’m wasting away right in front of you.”

  He kept his eyes on her. “Lord, thanks for keeping me on my feet in the water, and getting us home. Amen.”

  She watched him curiously as he spoke, said amen, took up a spoonful of soup. “Even better than it smells. You make this?”

  “No, have it delivered from a chic little deli on Fifth in Eugene.”

  She bared her teeth at him. “Ha, ha.” She watched his hands as he crumbled crackers into his bowl, dusting off the crumbs carefully. Nice hands, strong. He didn’t spill a crumb on the rug. “No kidding, it’s good.” Draining her glass, she poured out another, thinking, watching him. “You pray a lot, huh?”

  He filled his spoon, scraping it carefully on the side of the bowl. He shrugged. “When I’ve got something to say. Not every day.”

  She reached for the box of crackers, bracing herself with a hand on his thigh, hard as the slate beneath it. She took out a handful and crumbled them between her palms. “My father used to say grace. You know what I remember about it? The dirt under his nails. I don’t remember what he said, not a word, just the clay under his nails, the black hair on the back of his hands.”

  The rain roared on the tin roof overhead, the kettle on the stove rolled and spit.

  He held the bottle up to the light. “How’s the wine?”

  “Not bad.”

  “You sure you should be drinking so much of it after this afternoon?”

  Annoyed, she took the bottle, drained the last of it into her glass. She didn’t need his preaching. “That’s my business.” That damned smile on his mouth again.

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

  Stomach burning, head a little off kilter, an idea crept into her mind, instantly igniting her imagination. It was insane, hurtful, impossible to resist. Fired by it, she drained her glass, got unsteadily to her feet.

  He raised an arm to steady her. “You all right?”

  She pushed his hand away. “Marvelous.” She climbed the stairs, both hands groping in the dim light for the rail. In the bathroom she reached with a bare foot to grasp the little dress between her toes, drawing it to her. Her whole body humming under the spell of the wine, she giggled, stepped out of the sweats to pull the dress, soft as web, over her head. Clinging like dust on moth wings, it slid over her soft as a breath. Undoing her hair, vision only slightly blurred, she examined herself in the glass. Sharp canines showed between her lips.

  Perfect.

  She padded down the old staircase, pads of bare feet silent on the cool boards.

  • • •

  O’Connel looked up from where he sat on the couch and forgot to breathe. What the hell was she up to now?

  Giving him no chance to recover, she went to stand before him.

  Hands on hips, she leered down at him, lower lip pinched between her teeth. “You like?”

  His eyes crept to her face. “Why— “ He cleared his throat, suddenly hoarse. “Why are you wearing that?”

  “It was in the stack you gave me. I thought you must want to see it on.” She spread her arms, smiling sourly, pulled out the material at her breasts. “Sorry I don’t fill it out the way she did.”

  “Patti never wore it, said it made her look like a whore.”


  She pressed her knees into soft leather between his thighs.

  The hem of the little dress clung tight over caramel thighs. “Well, does it?”

  He felt trapped with her so close. “Does it what?”

  “Make me look like a whore.”

  He turned away, hitched his glasses farther up his nose, fighting the burn in his gut. “No.”

  Smiling as if she were happy with herself— she weaved over him, the hem rising further up her legs a few inches from his face, his hands, his mouth. He was doing okay so far. If he could just keep his eyes off her legs, he would be all right, everything would be all right.

  “Why?”

  He looked up at her face, swallowed, throat dry. “Why… why what?”

  “Why did you come pull me off my car, bring me home, give me a bath? Why?”

  He looked down out at the river. She was drunk. He wouldn’t answer, wouldn’t get drawn in. He looked at his watch. “It’s getting late.” Lame, lame lame, but all he could think of .

  Solange dropped to her knees in front of him, snaking arms up his legs. Now it was she who looked up at him, eyes pleading. “Why’d you hold me when I fell?” She ran her hands down his thighs, nails rasping on his jeans. “You should hate me, but you don’t. Why not?” She propped her chin on his leg, smiled. “I know. I know why you did it. I know what you want, what you need…everything.”

  He massaged his brow with the heel of his hand. “You do, huh?” It was the wine talking he knew. “Tell me.”

  “When I showed up at your room you weren’t intimidated like most of them. Oh, no, you were glad to see me, weren’t you? You wanted me to see you teach, wanted me to spend time in your classes. Why?”

  “I told you why.” He sighed growing impatient, leaned forward to rise. “It’s late, you’ve had too much to drink and I’m going to bed.”

  She shoved him back down viciously, leaned close, hands on his thighs. “You’re not going anywhere.

  He sat pinned where he was by her eyes.