The Red Blazer Girls

by D. Michael Beil

  I have a sudden urge to hug my mom. I don't think we've ever gone twelve hours without talking, and this lady hasn't spoken to her daughter in God knows how many years.

  “They live overseas—or did, until a few months ago. Malcolm tells me that they have recently moved to the city, up in Washington Heights. Caroline is following in her grandfather's and father's footsteps and is teaching at Columbia.”

  “So your ex-husband never lost touch with Caroline?” Margaret asks.

  “That's what he tells me. I see him once or twice a year and he gives me an update.”

  Margaret takes a deep breath. “But don't you want …”

  Ms. Harriman smiles sadly. “Yes. No. I don't know. It's been so long. And now this,” she says, holding up the birthday card and placing her hand over her heart.

  Margaret looks first at Rebecca and then at me. “What do you think, guys? Up for a little adventure?”

  “Always,” I say.

  “No problem,” says Rebecca.

  Margaret then copies the note exactly as it is written on the inside of the birthday card and hands the card back to Ms. Harriman. “Do you know anything about this play he mentions, Het Cholos orf Lanscad by Renidash? The title kind of sounds like it might be Latin, or maybe Greek, but I'm not so sure about the author's name. That doesn't sound familiar to me at all.”

  Ms. Harriman shakes her head. “I'm afraid I can't help you there. It doesn't ring any bells for me, either. My father, he was interested in so many things, and Caroline was exactly like him. They were always solving puzzles, or playing chess or backgammon, or reading some obscure poet. I used to feel a bit left out—maybe even a little jealous. From the time she was a little girl, I don't know why, but my daughter and I never seemed to have enough in common.”

  “Can you tell us a little more about what she was like at the time this letter was written?” Margaret asks. “What kind of things did she like to read? What else was she into? You know, like fashion, or photography, dance, whatever. What did she want to be? Anything that might help us with this first clue.”

  Ms. Harriman ponders this for a second. “What did she read? Anything, everything. She wanted to be an actress. More than anything. She was the lead in several plays at the school: Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Emily in Our Town.”

  “That's my absolute favorite play,” I gush.

  “Mine too,” Ms. Harriman agrees. “Although I haven't been able to see it, or even read it since Caroline—it hits a little too close to home, if you know what I mean. And I almost forgot—she played the violin.”

  “Me too!” says Margaret, who is Mom's star pupil and part of the reason I switched to the guitar a couple of years ago. (She was playing Bach and Mozart when I was still scratching away at “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” while Mom winced encouragingly.)

  “Caroline was like that Schroeder character in the Peanuts cartoon—she just loved her Beethoven. I really miss her music. Margaret, maybe you and Sophie can play for me sometime.”

  Quick, change the subject before Margaret agrees to some wacky violin-guitar duet. “Do you have a picture of Caroline? I don't know why, but I think it might help, just knowing what she looked like.”

  Without a word, Ms. Harriman goes to a table behind the sofa and gently lifts a framed photograph from it, cradling it in her hands as if it were her most precious possession—and perhaps it is? “This is Caroline with my father, and her new kitten, on her thirteenth birthday.” She hands the frame to me. “That tiny kitten, believe it or not, is Teazle. He was a gift from my father. Twenty-one years old and still going strong.” Teazle lifts his head briefly at the sound of his name.

  “She's beautiful,” says Margaret. “Your daughter, I mean. Not the cat. Not that he's not beautiful, too,” she adds, very Margaret-like, for Teazle's sake.

  Everything about this girl in the photograph seems perfect, and suddenly I am overwhelmed with sadness. I hand the frame back to Ms. Harriman without looking her in the eye. “Thank you. It's nice to have a face to go with the name.”

  We start to head for the door.

  “Girls, thank you. Thank you for listening, and for offering to help.”

  “We'll let you know as soon as we find anything,” Margaret says.

  “If,” I say, half under my breath.

  “When!” Margaret corrects.

  And that, gentle reader, is how the Red Blazer Girls got their very first case.

  In which I play fast and loose with the

  English language and we add a recruit to

  our ranks

  All the way home on the subway that afternoon, as Margaret chatters about Ms. Harriman, the note, and our one clue, I can't stop thinking about that girl in the photograph. It is hard for me to process that that amazing-looking girl, confidently posed in her red blazer, is now almost thirty-four years old and has a daughter of her own who is practically our age. And the man she is standing next to, looking at with such love, has been dead for twenty years. I have never even met these people, but I am almost in tears thinking about them. And then there is Caroline's father, Ms. Harriman's ex-husband. She had said his name was Malcolm Chance. Mal Chance. Mal chance. That's, well, French for “bad luck.” In addition to hugging my mom when I get home, I resolve to call all my grandparents, even Great-grandmère Henrietta in France, which is always a bit of a linguistic adventure.

  I lock myself in my room and make it through the first ten chapters of Great Expectations. It isn't too bad. (“Isn't too bad!” Mr. E cries, clutching his chest in a mock heart attack when I make that very observation in class the next day. “It's Charles Dickens, for crying out loud.”) This is my first real Dickens experience, and I am pleasantly surprised at how funny it is. There's this line about Mrs. Joe raising Pip “by hand”—meaning she smacks him a lot—and that part where Pumblechook thinks the tar water he's drinking is brandy has me laughing out loud. So, though I'm still not sure it's the “greatest novel ever,” I am definitely getting into it.

  After I set Mr. Dickens aside, I resist the urge to go online and dig out my math book. By nine-fifteen, totally confused and desperate for help, I IM Margaret.

  Sophie: M did u get 5???? Help!!!

  Margaret: Soph, you're kidding, right? That's the easiest problem of the bunch. Wow, this is such a George and Emily moment.

  Sophie: what ru talking about?

  Margaret: Our Town. George and Emily. Remember?

  George Gibbs. Emily Webb. Our Town. She means the scene where George and Emily, who are next-door neighbors, are talking from their bedroom windows. Emily, the “smartest girl in school,” is helping poor, dim George with what seems to be a pretty simple algebra problem. I'm pretty sure I've just been insulted.

  Margaret: A hint. The answer is in square yards of wallpaper.

  Exactly what Emily tells George.

  Sophie: biteme

  Margaret: If you want my help, you're going to

  have to improve your manners. That kind of

  language is wildly inappropriate.

  Sophie: ok sister margaret manners ill try

  pleasepleasepleasehelphelphelpme

  Margaret: Much better. Now, if you know that angle B is 65 degrees, what does that tell you about angle C?

  Oh, good Lord. A monkey could solve it.

  Sophie: ur right im an idiot

  Margaret: I never said that. Soph, I've been

  thinking. This thing with Elizabeth, we should

  tell Leigh Ann, too. Let her in the club.

  Sophie: really? why?

  Leigh Ann transferred to St. Veronica's from another girls' school and we are just getting to know her. She seems nice enough, I guess.

  Margaret: Because she's really smart, and nice,

  and funny, and sweet. Give her a chance—

  she'll fit in perfectly.

  Sophie: ok i guess but i like my old friends

  best

  A few moments later, Rebecca calls.

&nbs
p; “Did you get number five in the math homework?” she asks.

  “Only after Margaret gave me a hint.”

  “What was the hint?”

  “Look at angle B—it's sixty-five degrees, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So …”

  “So what?”

  “So angle C has to be what?”

  “Ohhhhh. That is easy. Thanks.”

  “No problemo. Hey, Becca—what do you think of Leigh Ann? Margaret thinks we should, you know, let her into the club.”

  “We have a club? I dunno. She seems okay. Beautiful, that's for sure. And kind of brainy. Is she as smart as Margaret?”

  “Is anybody as smart as Margaret?”

  “Good point. Oh, Soph, you know that Dickens thing you guys talked me into?”

  Every fall, Mr. Eliot hosts this wacky event he calls “A Dickens of a Banquet.” He dresses up like Charles Dickens and reads from his favorite novels, and the cafeteria ladies serve a traditional old-fashioned English meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and Brussels sprouts, and something rumored to be fig pudding for dessert. (My dad raised a suspicious French eyebrow when I explained the concept of the Dickens banquet. “An English feast? I think not.”) Parents and other adults have to pay, but students get to eat for free. There's a catch, however: if you want to eat, you have to perform. You can go it alone with a reading or a monologue, or, for the slightly more adventurous, a group of students can write and perform a skit based on a scene from a Dickens story. Margaret, Leigh Ann, and I are in Mr. Eliot's honors English class, and Leigh Ann, who loves to perform, talked us into doing a skit with her. We recruited Rebecca and decided to adapt a scene from Great Expectations, since we had to read the book anyway.

  “Yeah, what about the banquet?”

  “I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it with you guys.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because after tomorrow, I'm going to have to start going straight home after school, and I doubt that you guys want to schlep down to Chinatown every time you want to practice.”

  “Why do you have to go straight home?”

  “To babysit my brother and sister.”

  “I thought your mom was working the night shift. Isn't she home in the afternoon?”

  “Well, she was, but things have changed. As of next month, it looks like she's out of a job, and who knows what's going to happen to us. If she doesn't find a job right away, I'm probably going to have to leave the school. Tuition for three of us—there's no way we can afford that.”

  “I'm sure she'll get another job. Your mom is awesome. And can't you talk to Sister Bernadette about financial aid? There must be something the school can do.”

  “I already get half my tuition paid from a scholarship, but that runs out this year. Next year, I'll have to pay the whole thing, and there's no way, even if the school comes up with some of the money.”

  “Rebecca, you cannot leave St. Vs.”

  “Believe me, Soph, just the thought of not being with my girls … hey, I have to finish my homework. And, Soph?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please don't say anything to anybody. And look, don't worry about it. It's not your problem.”

  But I am worried. I love our perfect trio. No Rebecca? Unthinkable!

  Margaret calls me on my cell the next morning—at six o'clock.

  “What.”

  “Good morning, darling sunshine. Did I wake you?” She actually giggles.

  I glance out my window. “It's still dark outside! For Pete's sake, Margaret! Don't you dare be cheerful.”

  “Oh, c'mon, just get up. I'll be at your building in eleven minutes,” she says.

  Not ten minutes. Not twelve minutes.

  “I want us to be there when the school opens. Mr. Eliot always comes in early. He can let us into the library, right? Sophie, are you up yet?”

  “I'm up, I'm up,” I lie, I lie.

  “We'll stop at Perkatory; my treat.”

  “I'm ordering something very expensive.”

  Just around the corner from the church is Perkatory, a favorite coffeehouse/hangout for St. Veronica's girls (and some teachers). The entrance is a few steps down from the street—not quite aboveground, not quite below, hence the name. Like purgatory, get it? When we go inside, Mr. Eliot is seated at a rickety café table with his coffee, a pain au chocolat (yum!), and the New York Times. He looks up at us and then at his watch. A strange expression crosses his face.

  “I'll take a large, no, make that an extra-large hot chocolate. And can I have one of those?” I say, pointing at Mr. Eliot's pastry. “S'il vous plaît.” I drop my backpack and slump into a chair, laying my head on the table.

  A few minutes later, a disgustingly cheerful Margaret sits down with our hot chocolates and pastries. “So, did you tell him yet?”

  Mr. Eliot lowers his paper a few inches and raises his eyebrows.

  “You might be interested to know that Sophie was right,” Margaret says.

  “Sophie St. Pierre? My God, what are the odds?”

  “Hey, she did see something yesterday.”

  “Ah, the scream.”

  “Exactly. The valid scream.”

  Margaret spills about everything, including the part where we snuck out of school. “And after school, we went over to her house.”

  “Was she wearing a tattered, yellowing wedding dress? Did she invite you in to play cards with an ill-tempered girl named Estella?”

  “As a matter of fact,” I say, lifting my head from the table, “she was not wearing a wedding dress, she had both shoes on, the clocks were not all stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and her name is Ms. Harriman, not Havisham.”

  Mr. Eliot grins. “Glad to see that you've been reading your Dickens.”

  “There was no Estella or Mr. Jaggers, but there was a Caroline,” Margaret adds. “Which is why we're here.” The rest of our escapade leaves him shaking his head.

  “That is one heckuva story.”

  “It is pretty cool, huh?” I know he is more interested than he's letting on; he has folded his paper and set it aside so he can devote all his attention.

  “As a responsible adult,” he says, “I should be really angry with you. You meet some random woman in a ‘secret passageway’ in the church, and without a second thought, you go right in her house. She could've been an ax murderer.”

  “Oh, don't be so dramatic, Mr. Eliot,” Margaret says. “Jeez, give us a little credit. We're city girls—we've got street smarts and all that.”

  “On the other hand,” he continues, “I have to tell you: I wish to God I'd been there with you. The whole thing is positively Dickensian! The long-lost birthday card with the mysterious clue, the strange voice on the telephone, the estranged daughter who marries the foreigner, the twenty-year-old giant cat, the walls covered in masterpieces. I can't wait to hear what happens next!”

  With that, Margaret hands him his briefcase and pushes him toward the door. “I am happy to hear you say that, Mr. Eliot. Because you are going to help us decipher our first clue.”

  In which a small piece of the past comes to

  light, and we learn the shocking

  family secret that William Shakespeare doesn't

  want you to know!

  “I'll give you half an hour,” Mr. Eliot says as we make our way from Perkatory to the school. “Just be out of the library before Mrs. Overmeyer gets in. School librarians are very territorial. And no snooping around her desk or on her computer.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Eliot, sir!” Such mistrust!

  Margaret has already determined which years we are looking for, so we go straight to the shelf where all the old yearbooks sit, collecting dust.

  She pulls one out and blows dust off the cover. “This should be her freshman year.”

  “What are we looking for, anyway?”

  “We need to see her in her environment—see what else we can learn about her. I can't figure out this Het Cholos o
rf Lanscad thing. I looked online, but there was nothing about it or a writer named Renidash. Here, you take her sophomore year and see what you can find.”

  I start leafing through the book at one of the library tables, its wooden top pocked with decades of student scratching and graffiti.

  “Hey, here she is, in this picture of the Drama Club,” Margaret says. “‘Caroline Chance was our Juliet.’ God, she was beautiful, and jeez, a freshman with the lead in Romeo and Juliet? Don't tell Leigh Ann, but I'm not so sure even she's ready for that kind of part. How about yours? Find anything?”

  “Think so.” I turn Margaret's attention to the inside back cover of the yearbook I am holding. “It says: ‘To Mrs. Overmeyer, Thanks for all the terrific book recommendations and for all your help with my Brit Lit project. Who knows, maybe together we'll make RBS popular again! Enjoy your summer in Ireland, away from our own little School for Scandal. All the best, Caroline Chance.’”

  “I'm sure Mrs. Overmeyer will remember her,” Margaret says. “It sounds like they knew each other pretty well. I wonder what RBS is.”