by Nancy Rue
Some people, it said, have written that the recent faculty changes at CCC mean Vice President Kevin St. Clair is right about the way President Ethan Kaye is running the place.
I folded the whole section over, twice, and deposited it into the wastebasket beside the bed, on a cushion of my damp, wadded-up Kleenexes. I didn’t need any more opinions of me.
I scooped the classifieds off the floor and dialed the number under Daylight basement apartment.
Sully turned the heat up in the garage office, again, and poured himself another cup of scalding coffee. The camping trailer was a bad idea. He didn’t use the kerosene heater for fear of waking up—or not waking up—charbroiled, so he spent every night shivering under the two quilts he’d bought at Goodwill and half the next morning thawing out. He took a sip of coffee, winced, and opened the newspaper. He’d have to wait until his hands unfroze before he could work on Isabella.
That’s what he called her. In the week he’d had her, he’d picked up a complete wiring assembly, new rotor and cap, points, plugs, thermostat, and carburetor rebuild kit. He’d barely started on the carb rebuild, but he could already hear the engine purring in his head.
He thumbed through the paper to the editorial section, which held all the action in Kitsap County. Aside from the occasional letter about the increasing absurdity of the television commercials for the Mattress Ranch & Futon Farm, everybody who took pen in hand had Covenant Christian College on their minds.
Things were heating up for Ethan, mostly because Kevin St. Clair and his faculty supporters were waving firebrands for a tightening of the rules. Sully skimmed one editorial. Are we educating Christians or Revisionists? the writer wanted to know.
Another one made a list of the issues Ethan Kaye allowed discussion on in open forums—divorce, capital punishment, the extension of grace to homosexuals, intelligent design. The piece was one long gasp at the dangers of debate over things the editorialist felt should simply be handed down as edicts to students so they could get on with spreading the Good News to all the world.
“Good news?” Sully said into his coffee. “I feel like I’ve just been spiritually mugged.”
One last letter, tucked into a corner at the bottom of the page, chimed in with a different tune.
Some people have written that the recent faculty changes at CCC mean Vice President Kevin St. Clair is right about the way President Ethan Kaye is running the place. I don’t think one has anything to do with the other.
Sully set his mug down on the upended oil case.
Sure, it looks a little suspicious. One teacher disappearing and the other one resigning. But couldn’t it be a coincidence that at the same time Dr. St. Clair is pumping up his campaign against President Kaye, two profs leave? Nobody’s talking about why they left. If there were a connection, wouldn’t Kevin St. Clair be blabbing it for all the world to hear? I say we forget about the obviously messed up Drs. Costanas and Archer and focus on keeping a fine man like Ethan Kaye where he belongs—in the presidential office.
Holy crow. Who was this person?
Sully looked for a name, but it was signed only “Fed-up Reader.” Unlike most newspapers where unsigned letters didn’t go into print, the quirky Port Orchard Independent’s editorial page was one big debate in anonymity. Still, Sully thought, it would be nice to know who “Fed-up” was. He’d take him to lunch.
He reached for his cell phone to call Ethan, in case he hadn’t seen he had a supporter, and the phone rang in his hand. He glanced at the ID.
“Good morning, Dr. Ghent.”
A chuckle resonated in Sully’s ear. Dr. Porphyria Ghent had a voice so deep, even her subtle laugh created the vibration of wisdom.
“It’s almost noon here,” she said. “The day is half over.”
Sully closed his eyes and settled back against the rich tones. He’d always said if an anxious patient could spend one hour listening to Porphyria’s voice, he wouldn’t need an antidepressant.
“It’s only ten here,” Sully said.
“Ah.”
She waited. Sully grinned. She was the only person in the world who cut him no slack. As honest as Ethan was, Sully could still charm him into letting things go. Porphyria was fooled by nothing.
“I’m up in Washington state,” he said.
“So that’s where you landed.”
“You told me to get away and not come back until I could listen to a country music station for an hour without crying.”
“And how’s that going for you?”
“I haven’t found a station yet.”
He could almost hear her nodding, eyes closed. She’d be in her favorite Adirondack chair, wrapped in a blanket woven by a Seminole, watching the mist on the Smokies and simply nodding.
“Still bothers me some,” Sully said. “But I’m coming to terms. We can’t save everyone. That’s abundantly clear to me.”
“Is it now.”
It wasn’t a question, or even a statement. It was a rebuttal.
“So what are you doing up there in God’s country?”
Sully got up and moved out into the garage. “You’ll be happy to know that I’m rebuilding a 1964 Chevrolet Impala.”
“That makes perfect sense. You have an anniversary coming up.”
“Yeah,” Sully said. “I know.” He ran his hand down Isabella’s chassis. “I think I’ll spend it rebuilding her carburetor. Fitting, don’t you think?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Only a black matriarch could make such a sound. Sully sagged before it.
“I don’t know if I’ll make my yearly trip to Mecca,” he said. “This feels right. You remember Ethan Kaye?”
“Of course. Ah, that’s who you’re visiting.”
“He’s going through a tough time right now—a college mess.”
“Is there any worse kind?” she said, chuckling again.
“I feel like I need to stand by him right now,” Sully said. “His wife’s in Europe, and his main supporters at the college are gone, which is a whole other story—”
“Sully to the rescue?” Porphyria asked.
“More like Sully walking alongside. I’m not giving him therapy, if that’s what you mean.”
“Mmm.”
She let there be a velvet silence, which Sully didn’t fill—until he felt her deep gaze penetrate through the wires.
“If it’s all right with you,” he said, “I’m going to play it by ear this year.”
“Oh, it’s all right with me,” she said. “Long as you make sure it’s all right with you.”
“You know I will,” Sully said.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “Mmm-hmm.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I moved into the daylight basement two days later.
Actually, “moved” is an overstatement. In thirty minutes I unpacked a pair of pajamas, the mini-toiletries I’d taken from my hotel room, and the same three outfits I’d been wearing for ten days. I kept telling myself I was only there for a short time. A very short time.
The apartment was furnished in Early Marriage—an eclectic collection that included a Wal-Mart dinette set, a mama’s cast-off couch and love seat, and an old gate for a headboard, obviously an attempt to follow the instructions in one of those “Redecorate Your Home in a Weekend” magazines. The mismatched place fit me. The pieces of myself didn’t go together much better.
Besides, the view of Puget Sound drew me straight to the built-in window seat. Even while sitting on cushions covered in mobile-home plaid, I could feel the Sound’s charisma, and I soaked it in. It was its own shade of blue-green, unmatched anywhere I’ve ever been, and it rose in the wind in small peaks, like miniatures of the majestic Mt. Rainier, which towered faraway and magical as a knowing old sage.
For such an impressive body, Puget Sound maintained a calm and uncanny quiet. Supertankers were barred—one spill and an entire ecosystem would be extinguished. But the absence of something was not what provided the tranquility. It seemed to know s
omething in its depth—because only a being of great wisdom could be so large and yet so at peace.
Puget Sound reminded me of God.
There on the window seat, I grew uncannily quiet myself. I’d emitted many outbursts toward heaven in the past two weeks—most of them along the lines of “God, forgive me!” “God, help me!” and “God, why did I do this?” I knew, however, that those outbursts had little to do with God and everything to do with my self-loathing. I didn’t expect my heavenly Father to answer.
Yet here was the sound, being still and knowing that God was God. Harboring His mysterious creatures—His Giant Pacific octopus and His black Dalls porpoise and His coveted silvery salmon. Mirroring His ever-changing sky, a seamless blue one moment, bowed with storm clouds the next. The sound simply did what God asked of it.
That came at me like an accusing finger. When someone knocked at the door, I nearly convulsed, then cried out, “Come in!”
“It’s a safe neighborhood,” said the voice that crossed the room, “but you really should see who’s out there before you invite them in.”
It was Mickey Gwynne, my new landlady, who lived upstairs with her husband Oscar, whom I’d yet to meet.
“It’s actually Michelle,” she’d told me the day she showed me the place. “But nobody calls me that except the IRS.”
She was a little sprite of a thing, the kind who made me feel like Clifford the Big Red Dog beside her. She had an elfin face with a smile almost too big for it and a mushroom cap of fudge-brown hair. Clad in skinny jeans and an oversized green cable-knit sweater, she looked like a teenager. Only the weathering of sun and life on her skin gave her away as late thirty-something.
“Just so you know,” she said now, “I don’t make a habit of dropping in on tenants. I wanted to make sure you were settled, see if you needed anything.”
“I’m good,” I lied.
She nodded toward the nook of a kitchen outside the bedroom door. “Did you find the goodies in the refrigerator?”
“No!” I said. I started to get up, but she waved me back to the seat and dropped into a rocking chair that had at least a hundred thousand miles on it.
“No big deal,” she said. “I know when people are relocating they don’t have time to get to the market, so I left you some fruit—couple jars of my jam—an artichoke. They were on sale at Central Market.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” My voice was thick.
“If you haven’t even opened the refrigerator yet, it’s probably a good thing I did.” She looked around, probably at my lack of personal décor. “So,” she said, “you like your view?”
“It’s spectacular.”
“On a clear day—which, in case you haven’t noticed, hardly ever happens—you can see Seattle from here.”
“I know,” I said. “I live—well, I grew up here. Went to South Kitsap High—graduated in ’83.”
If Mickey thought I was rattling on like a moron, she covered it well.
“Did you go to college here too?” she said. “You look smart.”
“No, I went to NYU—in New York City.”
“No, you did not.”
“I did—”
“The people we bought the restaurant from were from New York, which is why they called the place the New Yorker. They tried to do a fifties retro diner, but it didn’t go over here.” She gave a funny little grunt. “They didn’t exactly fit here—obnoxious. But you’re not that way—of course, you said you’re originally from here.”
I liked this woman. She didn’t make me think of something to say, and I kind of loved that right now.
“So now we call the restaurant Daily Bread,” she said.
She stopped to take a breath, and I felt I should contribute something.
“Is that the one on Main Street?” I hadn’t been there, but it had a reputation for offering fanatically healthy food that didn’t taste like grass.
“Best probiotic menu in town,” Mickey said. “We prepare everything as close to natural as we can, the way God intended.”
“Yum,” I said stupidly.
“Come in and I’ll make you one of my famous Synergy Smoothies, on the house.” She gave me an unabashed critical review with her eyes. “With extra coconut milk. Don’t you ever eat?”
Before I could answer, she put up her hand. Several rubber bracelets slid down her arm and disappeared into her sleeve. “You can tell me to mind my own business any time. I get the feeling this isn’t the happiest time in your life.”
I tried not to squirm. “It’ll pass.”
“So will you, if you don’t get some omega-3s and protein in you.” She put the hand up again. “Sorry. That’s just me. Some women see your outfit, I see your vitamin deficiencies.”
“Then you’re in the right business.”
Her open face invited me to say more, but I was suddenly exhausted. I felt like I actually had hauled armoires and steamer trunks full of knickknacks in on my back. The eyes I’d barely closed in a week chose that moment to become so heavy I could barely hold them open.
Mickey untwisted her pixie legs from the rungs of the rocker, stood up, and opened a cedar chest that served as a coffee table. “This is great for napping if you don’t mind a few moth holes,” she said as she pulled out an afghan in colors so loud I couldn’t see how anyone could sleep under them.
She spread it on my lap and nodded like one of the older, wiser elves. “You should sleep well here.”
When she was gone, I did.
Until I awoke with a start to a dark room. I thought fuzzily that the setting sun must have woken me up. Then I realized someone had tapped on the door. I stumbled across the room and felt for a light switch. Not finding one, I opened the door. In a pool of light from the outside lamp sat a grocery bag from Central Market.
I peered inside and found a pound of French roast, a container of what smelled like homemade chicken soup, and the Port Orchard Independent. A note at the bottom read, Hope today is a better day. I promise I won’t bug you.
Back inside the apartment I squinted at the clock on the microwave. 6:00 AM.
I almost cried. I’d spent the last twelve hours not thinking about Rich and my kids and the house I’d been exiled from. For an entire half of a day, I’d escaped self-hatred. It was a gift.
Since I now had a reason for caffeine, I plugged in the one-cup coffeemaker and brewed the French roast as thick as espresso. I tossed the newspaper into the trash can, since it had done nothing but taunt me for days. But as the lid swung closed I caught the unobtrusive heading at the bottom of page one: NO FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED IN PROF’S DISAPPEARANCE.
I fished it out and started reading while the coffee dripped. Detective Updike said they’d found no evidence of a crime in the sudden disappearance of Dr. Zachary Archer. I detected a hint of disappointment in his quotes, but I was actually grateful to him and his baby-faced partner. That day in our living room, they’d at least provoked Rich into showing some life for seven seconds.
I wondered whether Rich had even taken down the new contact information I’d left him. So far neither he nor the kids had tried to get in touch with me. With a night’s sleep behind me and some caffeine inside me, I couldn’t stand the distance another minute.
I rummaged in the drawers and found a pencil and a notepad and set up at the wobbly dinette table. The first order of business—make a list.
FORGET ZACH
GET RICH BACK
FOCUS ON KIDS
GET NEW JOB
I skipped number one for the moment. The fact that it was even on the list produced more guilt than the other three put together. I went to number two and tried to break it down.
After several frustrating attempts, during which the rest of my coffee went cold, I could only come up with the profound thought that it would take time.
I looked at my bare surroundings. If I was going to be here for the time it took to turn Rich’s heart, I was going to need some things to keep me from feeling l
ike an alien to myself.
I went back to the house at two-thirty the next day, a time when I was sure Rich would be asleep and the kids would be in class. I was afraid if any of them saw me carrying out my pillow and my twenty-ounce coffee mug and the ratty sheepskin jacket I only wore for taking out the compost, they would conclude that I’d accepted my ousting from the house as final.
But Christopher was ensconced in Rich’s chair in the TV area, scowling at the Port Orchard Independent, a publication I was really starting to hate. I felt principal’s-office nauseated.
“I didn’t see your car outside,” I said.
“Did you see this ?”
He snapped the Independent into a fold and thrust it against my leg.
With a profound sense of déjà vu I said, “What is it this time?”
Christopher squeezed out a derisive hiss that could have come from Rich himself and punched the footrest down with his calves. “Burn it when you’re done so Dad doesn’t see it.”
I would have thrown the thing into the pellet stove right then if there’d been a fire going. As Christopher’s footsteps faded into the second story, I sank to the arm of Rich’s chair and forced myself to fumble the newspaper right side up in front of me.
ST. CLAIR MAKES NO DENIAL OF COVER-UP AT CCC, the headline said.
Zach gazed at me from his photo, seeming less real than he had the last time. I put my thumb over his face and read on.
Dr. Kevin St. Clair, Vice President of Covenant Christian College and Theology Department Chair, changed his no-comment position Wednesday night at a meeting of the Board of Trustees. When asked by board chairman Peter Lamb to give an official statement regarding the recent resignation of Dr. Demitria Costanas and the disappearance of Dr. Zachary Archer, both on the CCC faculty, St. Clair said, “Mrs. Costanas was not asked to resign but stepped down for personal reasons. No resignation request was made of Dr. Archer, and his whereabouts are unknown at this time.”
In the wake of speculation over a possible link between the two events, the CCC pressed St. Clair for evidence of any unethical activity. His reply: “We can’t rule that out.”
