Twisted River

by Siobhan MacDonald

  They’d retire out to Long Island, just like Oscar’s parents had done—at least that’s what Oscar had always planned. When Jack and Estelle Harvey had moved out to live in their second home in Sag Harbor, Oscar and Hazel had moved into their Riverside Apartment. But all that had changed now. Changed utterly.

  As she came to the canopy-covered piles of fruit outside the Fairway market, she stopped and hovered over the oranges and lemons, inhaling their citrus aroma. She often stopped to pick up a bag of fruit for the day, but today she hadn’t even managed breakfast. She couldn’t imagine having an appetite anytime soon. She waited for the lights at the crosswalk. Across the road, a line of people had started to form outside the Beacon Theatre. A chat show host was performing there tonight. When they’d first moved to Riverside Drive, she and Oscar regularly went to the Beacon or to Lincoln Center, reveling in all the district had to offer. Oscar’s sister, Helen, or Celine would stay over with the kids, and in a way it almost felt like a second honeymoon.

  As she stood staring trancelike at the DON’T WALK signal, she remembered her first meeting with Oscar, at the opera in Verona. The vast jaws of the arena breathing out the heat of the day, bats and swallows crossing the paths of powerful spotlights. Armies of tourists clambering up and down stone steps. The smell of cooking dough wafting in from pizzerias. The orchestra tuning up. Dignitaries entering the arena on the red carpet. And she remembered a large man panting beside her, his breathing labored, sweating for Italy.

  She thought he might easily have a heart attack, collapse, and flatten her. As the corpulent man swayed in the heat, on her other side, a voice said in her ear, “How you doing there?”

  She turned around and looked into those eyes for the first time. Such crystal blue. She remembered the squareness of his jaw, his easy charm. His confidence. Oscar had shifted position to make more room for her. He called a nearby attendant and bought two fans and two red cushions. One each. The stone steps were far too uncomfortable, he said, she’d never last, she had to trust him. And she had.

  “Move it, lady!”

  She hadn’t noticed the signal change. Gathering her thoughts, she walked across briskly and made her way down the subway station at Verdi Square. The train pulled up just as she made it to the platform. She was thankful that there had been only one flight of stairs, unlike the tube from her London days, when descending countless assortments of stairs and elevators into the bowels of the earth made her feel claustrophobic.

  All the seats in the car were taken. As she raised her arm to reach for the pole, an elderly man made as if to offer up his seat. She nodded her head to signal that she was fine. Good Lord! How distressed must she look for an old man to offer up his seat? Suddenly, it felt as if everyone in the car were staring at her. Rather than gawk at her reflection in the darkened window, she concentrated on a tiny pebble that rolled around on the grimy floor, breathing through her mouth and trying to ignore the smells of sweat and feet.

  Six stops later, the seat next to her was vacated and she shimmied in next to a bald man in a tie and short sleeves. He was reading the Wall Street Journal. As he scrolled through the pages on his tablet, a flashing ad caught her eye—a Discover Ireland tourist ad. She smiled. The collage of images might have been updated but it was the selfsame palette of photos over the decades—dusted off and recycled to show green fields, smiling faces, sheer cliff faces, and the ubiquitous pints of Guinness. “Come to Ireland for the craic,” it invited. No mention, of course, of the empty coffers or the IMF being in town.

  As the train swayed and shuddered, she shut her eyes, allowing the briefly glimpsed electronic images to take her on a journey back to Ireland. It was fifteen years since she’d left, not long after her mother’s funeral, her sense of family blown away, disintegrated. She felt as fragile now as she did then. She remembered walking down that pathway from the house on O’Callaghan Strand, realizing that she was an orphan. The river was full that day, threatening to break its banks. She remembered getting into the taxi and looking over her shoulder one last time at the FOR SALE sign staked at the entrance. She had closed the door on one life and entered another.

  • • •

  “Stand back, sir! I am asking you one more time to stand back. You there . . . get in line!”

  A zealous police officer was barking at the straggling line of students.

  “Face furniture off,” the squat officer shouted at Sabrina King. Nonplussed, Sabrina King stared straight ahead and tossed her outsize earrings into the plastic tray next to the metal detector. The plastic tray was already brimming with an assortment of potential classroom weaponry.

  Behind Sabrina was Beatrice Obande, earnest and compliant. Hazel admired Beatrice for withstanding the aggravation she had to put up with. Hazel seethed with the deep unfairness of it all. Her own kids were attending a private, well-run, safe school. Beatrice wanted to learn, to better herself. She didn’t want to end up in a penitentiary like her brothers. And this is how she got her education, going through a metal detector every day, treated like a criminal. There was no doubt about it. The regime at this Impact School was harsh, the penalties severe. Three strikes and you were out.

  As Hazel hurried past the metal detector, flashing her ID badge, the police officer gave her more than a cursory glance. Jay Mahoney stared at her as he lumbered past. Hazel’s pulse began to quicken. He stared at her in that sneering way he had, flint-eyed and fearless. She quickly ran through her timetable again in her head. She had Jay second period after lunch.

  “Your old man keeping you in line, then, Miss Harvey?” taunted Gumbo Hernandez as he passed her on the stairs.

  Oh, no!

  How was she going to get through this day?

  And yet Hazel had to remember why she did this. Why she taught in this school. Sure, she’d steadfastly ignored all the advice she’d received. But she had to have faith in herself, in her convictions. Gripping the handrail and taking the stairs more purposefully, she told herself again why she did it. For the kids like Beatrice Obande. And the kids like Tyler Black and Shauna Doherty, two more students she liked to think of as her protégées.

  At first, Hazel delighted in the degree of latitude she’d been given with her lesson plans. But her early attempts had failed. The Great Gatsby was a total failure. She’d been naïve. What possible resonance could these students have with a version of ancient society that was all white, college educated, and swanned about in mansions? She’d tried Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Would the notion of a money lender wanting a pound of flesh strike a chord with them? “Man, they sure spoke like faggots back in the day” was the response she got. Next they did The Pearl by Steinbeck. Surely these kids would identify with Kino, the poor fisherman struggling to pay the town doctor when his son is stung by a scorpion. What would they make of the greed and violence aroused in the locals when they discover the value of the pearl that Kino has found? Would they see parallels in their own lives? But her twelfth graders were not impressed. Her paraphrasing of the story engaged them only in spurts and starts, but in the main it proved a crusade against apathy. And in the end, the mistaken killing of Kino’s child left them confused and deflated.

  “What the fuck . . . ?” Danny Santiago had looked over his shoulder at Jay Mahoney. “Kino’s child gets iced and that’s it? He throws the pearl into the sea and it’s over?”

  “Miss Harvey, gotta tell ya, that ending sucks.” Jay had thrown it out there in a challenge.

  “Okay, Jay—the ending sucks. That’s your opinion.”

  “Yes, Mizz Harvey. That is my considered opinion.”

  A titter had rippled through the classroom. Jay had stared, daring her to challenge him, yet knowing his hands were tied. Jay was in perilous territory. He already had two strikes for unacceptable behavior. One more and he was out. He’d leaned back in his chair, opening his legs wide with sexual aggression. Hazel had let it go, trying to de
fuse the tension that had slithered into the room.

  All morning, Hazel kept it together, ignoring the knowing looks about her face. Ignoring comments about her old man keeping her in line, ignoring the cell vibrating through the sticking linen of her pants. She was a professional, she told herself. Yet every now and then her heart would race—reminding her that she was human after all.

  By the time the afternoon came around, Hazel was beginning to think she just might cope. But she still couldn’t look at her cell. Oscar was checking up on her. No longer angry. Just a concerned husband now. She’d taken two more anti-inflammatories and was feeling groggy. She just might be able to get through this. It was the class she’d been dreading. Second period after lunch. The twelfth grade. Her most challenging class.

  Jay Mahoney sat six rows back, sullen, cradling some perceived grievance as usual, his spiky hair an outward display of his overall prickliness. As he muttered and bit his nails, she tried to ignore him. Blank him out. She didn’t want any trouble.

  “Have any of you suffered racial discrimination?” Hazel read from the script. Before she’d even finished the question, she realized her mistake.

  “Seriously, Miss Harvey?” came one response.

  “Is a frog’s ass watertight?” asked another.

  “I guess we don’t need to debate that point,” she conceded. “Okay, let’s imagine that you had to go on trial for a crime you did not commit . . .”

  From the corner of her eye she saw Jay Mahoney straightening up.

  “Like a GBH or rape, Miss Harvey? Is that what you mean?” He dusted off his combat pants and stared at her, his eyes boring a hole right through her.

  “For any crime, I’m not being specific here . . .” she addressed the class at large.

  “Well, Miss Harvey, we know all ’bout that round here,” interrupted Tyler Black, nodding vigorously. “Someone gets carjacked or mugged and the Five-O are straight on our asses like flies on shit.”

  It ended up being a long, drawn-out, tetchy class. Hazel had no idea how she managed to get through it and she was glad when it was over. She was also glad it was Wednesday, the day she usually met her friend Elizabeth, if Elizabeth was free.

  • • •

  “Oh my God, Hazel!” Elizabeth whispered in shock as Hazel sat down to join her in the diner.

  “Gee, thanks, Elizabeth. It’s not like I don’t feel bad enough already,” Hazel muttered.

  “Honey, I’m so sorry, it’s just that . . . Oh, Hazel, this just isn’t right.”

  They usually met in the diner on the corner of Broadway and West Seventy-fifth or in the coffee shop with squashy sofas on Amsterdam. Today it was the diner. It was busy with the din of jabbering tourists and locals, the sound of food being prepared, and loud orders being exchanged.

  “This does not look good at all.” Elizabeth sat down and leaned over to move Hazel’s fringe aside to better examine the damage. “Your eye? Is that eye okay?”

  “It looks worse than it feels, believe me.”

  Elizabeth was her longest-serving friend in New York. Hazel had met her when they were both doing an internship with Reuters. Even though their paths had split, they’d always managed to stay in touch.

  “You could have a detached retina. You think of that? I’m assuming you’ve had it checked?”

  Elizabeth scrutinized her and sighed. “Hazel, you haven’t had it checked?” She paused, sliding her heavy black-rimmed glasses back up her nose. “Oh, honey, I just don’t know what to say. Really, I don’t.”

  It wasn’t often that Elizabeth was lost for words, and seeing her so made Hazel feel worse. Hazel was struggling to contain the feelings that washed over her. She stared out the window at a crew unloading sets for the theater next door while Elizabeth placed her order.

  “Not that there’s any excuse, but what exactly sparked it off?” Elizabeth asked gently.

  “Oh, Elizabeth, do these things ever need to be about anything?” Hazel shrugged. “Some slight or other . . .”

  Combined with the shock, it angered her that they should even try to find a logic to rationalize such behavior. Elizabeth leaned back in her chair as the waitress set down the strawberry pancakes.

  “Thanks, Anita,” Elizabeth said, smiling.

  “You ladies okay for everything now?” replied the waitress.

  “Yes, thank you, Anita,” Hazel said, nodding. The waitress tried her best not to stare at the bruise again. But in her effort to ignore it, she made her curiosity all the more obvious. No doubt she’d liaise with Du Bois later. Anita was Du Bois’s sister.

  “Anita makes me feel like one of the clients in the soup kitchen,” remarked Hazel.

  “I assume you’re not volunteering tonight?” said Elizabeth. “I know you want to go to school but you can skip the soup run, right?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  Hazel ran a finger lightly over the crusted gash on her forehead. She felt each knobbly granule along its path. She’d already decided to give the soup kitchen a miss. She didn’t want to give Oscar another excuse to get worked up.

  Elizabeth was cutting the strawberries into tiny pieces and wrapping each piece into a pancake fold. Hazel sipped at her Americano.

  “Look, hon, I’ve been tossing and turning about this ever since you called me last night. There’s nothing else for it. You’re going to have to go to the authorities.” Elizabeth dabbed a dribble of cream at the corner of her mouth.

  “I think you’re wrong, Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth stared at her hard now.

  “Hazel, are you saying you’re not going to report this?”

  “No.” She paused. “I know you don’t agree, but I’ve given it a lot of thought as well, and I think it would only make things worse.”

  “Hazel, hon, you’re making a big mistake. The only thing that’s going to make this worse is not reporting it. This has to be stopped. He’s going to think he can keep on doing it. And what happens next time?”

  “There won’t be a next time.” The strong coffee was kicking in now. She should really have had a decaf.

  “Oh, Hazel, how can you be so sure?” Elizabeth wasn’t going to let it go.

  The truth was she couldn’t. But she’d think of something. She always did. She was competent. Resourceful.

  “Jess and Elliot? They shouldn’t have to see you like this. What did you tell them?”

  “That I was attacked by a drunk on the subway.”

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  “And Oscar?” she said eventually. “He was happy to send you in to work like that?”

  Hazel didn’t answer straight away.

  “No. No, he wasn’t. In fact, he wasn’t happy about me going in at all.”

  “I’ll bet he wasn’t,” spat Elizabeth. “Damned sure, I’ll bet he wasn’t.”

  Hazel gritted her teeth, desperately trying to stay in command of the tears that wanted to come.

  “I can’t show him how upset I am.” Her voice came out all quavery and sticking in her throat.

  Elizabeth looked at her. Stern. Somber faced.

  “And how is Oscar now?” She twisted the paper napkin into an ever tighter screw.

  “Worried,” answered Hazel. “Not mad anymore. Just worried, you know.”

  “Worried . . .” repeated Elizabeth. “Worried,” she said again, and this time Hazel could see the curl of her lip.

  Usually, she appreciated Elizabeth’s advice, her forthright nature, but today she just wanted her to listen, not to scrabble about for a solution. Hazel would find one in her own time. She stretched her arms behind her head, lifting the weight of her hair to cool the back of her neck. The dead heat and stickiness of the day were oppressive. The air-conditioning in the diner needed to be turned up.

  “Okay, then.” Elizabeth pursed her lips. “If you’re not
going to the authorities, I think you should at least go to counseling.”

  Hazel fidgeted with her rings, twisting her large solitaire diamond round and round.

  “Maybe. We’ll see . . . yeah, I’ll think about it.”

  “Good.” Elizabeth squeezed out a small smile.

  “And now tell me, how’s the man in your life?” Hazel asked, tired of being the focus of the conversation.

  “He’s doing just great, thanks. Way busier since he became VP.” A genuine smile this time.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Elizabeth—you lucked out there. Zack is one of the good guys.”

  Mouth full, Elizabeth nodded her agreement.

  Hazel steered the conversation away from herself by inquiring about Zack’s publishing company and what was happening with the big conglomerates. As she spoke, little thought bubbles were floating about her head. Much as it pained her to admit it, perhaps Oscar was right. Maybe she should have stayed in that world, but it was all a bit late for regrets now. She’d burned her bridges there.

  “You’re looking good, Elizabeth. Toned.”

  The capped sleeve of Elizabeth’s printed jersey dress showed lithe arms that had seen a workout.

  “Still hangin’ in there. Still going to the dance studio. I miss the fun we had.” She looked up from her pancake. “You didn’t need to leave, you know.”

  “Let’s not go there, Elizabeth,” Hazel said with a grimace. “Ancient history.”

  “I’m only saying . . .”

  “Well, don’t.”

  For the remainder of the conversation, they chatted about Zack and Elizabeth’s new apartment on the Upper East Side, steering away from anything contentious.

  “Yours?” asked Elizabeth, as they got up to leave.

  She’d spotted something on the floor between Hazel’s chair and the booth behind.