Clair De Lune

by Jetta Carleton

  “Isn’t that lovely! I’d like to have the pineapple motif all over my house!”

  Mrs. Frawley, twinkling with pride, handed Maxine another package. “Two more now, dear, and then the surprise!”

  “Oh, good granny!” Allen muttered, unheard under the cackle.

  It was her fault. It had begun in the faculty room, while they were planning the party. The faculty men were to join the party in time for refreshments, and the Ladies had decided that Max should be brought in—“in some real clever way”—as a special surprise. After a few lame suggestions, Allen had quipped, “Why don’t we put him in a box and gift wrap him?”

  “That’s it!” Gladys said.

  “I was kidding.”

  Mae Dell squealed. “That’s cute!”

  “I wasn’t serious.”

  “But it’s such a cute idea.”

  “Oh, come on!” Allen turned to Verna, appealing to her better sense. “Tell them it won’t work.”

  But Verna thought it just might, and Allen listened, in some horrification, as in spite of her protests—Max would never do it, who was going to ask him, where would they find a box that would hold him—the Ladies took the idea and ran.

  And any minute now, the surprise would come, special delivery, brought in by the faculty men: a cardboard box with a reinforced bottom and a bow on top, and inside—Max, all doubled up with his head on his knees, ready to spring out like a jack-in-the-box. The men were gathering now in the dean’s backyard. She could hear them through the window, muted voices and the careful closing of car doors in the drive. What, she wondered, was dear Mr. Frawley making of all this!

  Verna, glancing at her watch, vanished into the kitchen and reappeared, beckoning to Mae Dell. The Ladies glanced at one another. The tension was mounting and Maxine still exclaiming with her pleasure.

  “Excuse me,” Allen said into Mrs. Ansel’s ear, “I have to leave early. It’s been nice to see you again.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “I hope we’ll see you at the wedding.”

  She rose and worked her way bit by bit around the edge of the circle. Under cover of the general hubbub she leaned over Mrs. Frawley’s shoulder. “I have to leave a little early,” she whispered. “Thank you for a lovely party.”

  “Isn’t that cute?” said Mrs. Frawley as Maxine lifted a figurine out of the tissue. She cocked her head enough to turn an ear toward Allen. “What was that, dear?”

  “I’m sorry, I have to leave early.”

  “Now who is that from?” Mrs. Frawley had not taken her eyes off Maxine.

  Allen edged away unnoticed, slipped through the double doorway into the entrance hall, opened the front screen, closed it soundlessly behind her, and fled.

  Hair blown back and the damp wind on her face, she ran up the empty street away from the cackle and gabble. She was sorry to run away. They were good women; they were her friends and she was attached to them. They were like blood kin to whom, though she might not have chosen them, she was bound by common ties. And Maxine was very gallant. She would have liked to join in with a whole and willing heart, but the heart wasn’t in it. Remorseful and eager, she ran pell-mell toward home. It was close to seven P.M.

  She had reached her corner when a figure emerged from the shadows, coming toward her with a familiar loose, loping stride.

  “George!” she cried out, running to meet him. He was the next best thing, and where he was, Toby mightn’t be far away.

  “What are you doing out here? Where’ve you been?” he said.

  “Over at the Frawleys’. Shower for Maxine. Come on up, I’ve got some beer.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Where’ve you been?” she said, running ahead of him up the steps.

  “Orchestra practice. I walked Lulie Moss home after.”

  No one was waiting on the landing. Though she had left the door unlocked, Toby was not inside.

  “There’s some potato chips in the cupboard,” she said, going into the other room. No Toby there either, though she’d known he wouldn’t be. Taking her saddle shoes out of the closet, she said innocently, “Where’s your sidekick tonight?”

  “Damned if I know,” George said from the kitchen. “He was supposed to be at rehearsal, but he wasn’t there.”

  Where was he then? She stopped with one shoe on.

  “Shall I get out the beer?”

  “Bottom shelf. You know where the glasses are.”

  Where was he? And how was he? She went back to the kitchen and sat down at the table, sick with worry.

  The beer didn’t help much. It didn’t do much for George either. Neither of them could drum up much fun. They tried, but the laughter was forced and the wisecracks not very wise. And anyway, George was gloomy about yesterday’s audition. “I played that damn sonata better than I ever played it in my life, and when I finished they didn’t say a word. None of ’em. The not knowin’ is the hard part,” he said.

  “Didn’t they even smile?”

  “Yeah, one of them did. They thanked me politely and said I would be hearing from them, and Mr. Delanier and I came on home. That was it.”

  “Well, George, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It’s a committee, and you know how committees are—they have to go off and confer, hash it around a while before they commit themselves.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “But they might have said something and not kept you dangling like this. That was mean.”

  George stared gloomily into his beer, and for a moment only the crunch of potato chips broke the silence. She thought Toby should come by and say something too; she was dangling as much as George.

  “I wonder where he is?” she said. She hadn’t meant to say it, it just slipped out.

  “Who? Oh. Home studying, maybe. I don’t know.” He drained his glass and stood up. “Gotta go, Teach. Thanks for the beer.”

  “George—I’m sorry about last night, I’m sorry I couldn’t go to the movies.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I don’t have to do anything Friday night. If you and Toby want to come over, we could have a sandwich or something and go to the movies after.”

  He picked up his empty glass and set it down. “I guess I’m the one who’s tied up next weekend.”

  “Oh?”

  “Amy Jean Proctor’s having a party.”

  “Oh. Well, that’ll be fun.”

  “I’m going to take Lulie.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Little ol’ Lulie,” he said, grinning.

  “She’s cute.”

  “Those white eyebrows. And that funny little lisp. ‘What I don’t underthtand, Mith Maxthine…’ But she sure plays the fiddle good.”

  “You’ll have a good time.”

  “Yeah. Thought I’d better show up at one of those parties. I haven’t gone to one for quite a while. And school’s almost over. Well, see you in the halls. Oh,” he said, turning with his hand on the screen, “I’d better take my bike.”

  “It’s not in my way.”

  “I better take it though. I been grabbin’ the bus too much. Got to start savin’ my money.”

  “Guess you better.” She held the screen open while he walked it out. “How did you ever get it up and down these stairs?”

  “It wasn’t easy.”

  “Here, let me help you.”

  “Nah, that’s okay. I can make it. See ya, Teach. Thanks.”

  “Glad you came by. Let me know if you hear anything about the scholarship.”

  “I will.”

  She sat down again at the table, the glass between her elbows, a swallow of beer left in it. The bubbles winked and went out. Foam shrank and dried around the edges.

  In the Frawleys’ living room they would be drinking coffee now out of Haviland cups, nibbling the heart-shaped cakes around the table they had dressed like a bride in white lace. Max and Maxine would behave as they were expected to, royalty for the season and perhaps forever after. But she
couldn’t hold that against them.

  Maybe they’d think she went to the john.

  She rose and brushed away the crumbs of potato chips. Putting the light out, she stood a moment at the door, listening. Well, anyway, he would never arrive, Max-in-the-box, with a bow on top!

  She hooked the screen, turned back and unhooked it, and went to bed.

  Fifteen

  Monday and Tuesday passed, then Wednesday, and still no sign of Toby, though she stayed at home every night and waited. Sometimes she played records to keep from listening for him. When she could stand it no longer, she turned the music off. In the silence her two rooms echoed like a barn, and the emptiness where the bicycle had stood was a rebuke. Even George didn’t come by to report the results of his audition.

  In the mornings she hurried to school, eager to get there, where she could catch glimpses of Toby. That’s all it was, only glimpses and an occasional quick greeting as they passed in the hall. In the afternoons she stayed late in her classroom, hoping he might come in. So far, no one had come except Dr. Ansel.

  On Thursday Ansel came in exultant, waving a long white envelope. Earlier in the afternoon Mr. Frawley had handed around the contracts for the coming year.

  “Well, looks like we’re going to work again.”

  “Looks like it,” she said.

  “I’m sure glad to know.”

  “Yes, so am I.”

  “Good teaching jobs don’t grow on trees.”

  “Not in this climate. We’re lucky.”

  “You can say that again.” He nodded sagely. “Sure is a relief to get the contract. Ever hear of a board waiting this late?”

  “Guess I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “They’ve been a little slow this year. I wasn’t really worried, understand. I figure I stand pretty high with Souder. That’s what counts, since he’s head of the board. I’m in pretty good with that Medgar woman too, I think.”

  “It doesn’t pay not to be. She’s a tough one.”

  “Ah, she’s all right if you know how to handle her.”

  “She has a mean heart.”

  “Well, she’s got problems, you know. That invalid husband, for one thing.”

  “Oh?” said Allen, remembering the photograph in Mrs. Medgar’s parlor.

  “Something wrong with him. Lost his mind, I’ve heard, something like that. They had a kid, a son, but something happened to him. Drank himself to death, some say. The report I read said he was killed in an automobile accident somewhere up by Chicago. I found it in the files down at the newspaper office.”

  “I didn’t know about all that.”

  Ansel always knew everything about everybody. “You don’t hear much about it. If the old gal ever caught anybody talking about her, she’d probably take ’em to court.”

  “I heard she used to teach here in town.”

  “Thirty years, in the grades and then the high school. So she’s got her notions about it. Anyway, we’ve got our contracts. It’s a relief to know I can pay the taxes on the place again next year.” A worried frown came over his face. “Mother wants me to resign.”

  “Why?” she said.

  “She wants me to get down to the farm as soon as school’s out and stay there. She thinks we’re going to get into the war, thinks if I’m putting in crops and milking cows, they won’t draft me.”

  “She’s right, isn’t she? Farmers will surely be exempt. My brother’s a farmer and he has a family. They couldn’t take him, could they?”

  “Well, if things get worse, who knows? But I’m not a farmer. I’m an educator, and I’m not about to quit a good job and give up my chances for advancement. If they let Frawley go this year—”

  “You don’t really think they will?”

  “You never can tell.”

  “Have you heard anything?”

  “Not yet. But I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what held them up. They were debating over him. The old man just may get let out this time.”

  “I’d hate to see that happen.”

  Ansel grinned. “That’s right, you were the holdout, weren’t you?”

  “I like Mr. Frawley.”

  “Ah, I like him all right. But we need a younger man.”

  She made no reply to that, and after a few more comments Ansel excused himself to take his mother to the grocery store.

  “By the way,” he said, “I’ll have the car out. Guess you wouldn’t want to take a little spin this evening?”

  It was not the first time he had asked her out. He had done so often here of late, flying in the face of faculty ethics. He had been so persistent that at last, two weeks ago (with a fleeting vision of Toby) she had told him she was “going steady.” She didn’t say engaged, but Ansel took it to mean that and it cooled him a bit; he was very proper. But now and then he still tried.

  “How about it?” he said. “A little breather after supper?”

  “Thanks, I’m afraid not.”

  “You sure? Just for a little while, go get a Coke or something?”

  “I really can’t.”

  He shook his head. “Too bad you met that guy first.”

  She was on the verge of saying what guy, but managed to say she hadn’t meant it that way. “I’ve got work to do. Look at this stack of papers!”

  “Yeah, okay. Well, don’t work too hard.”

  He went away and she sat for a moment staring out the window at the street. Then, turning her attention to the work, she began to read.

  Except for an occasional voice in the hall, the building was quiet. She heard Lordy and Pickering passing a comment, and the occasional slam of the outside door as someone left. Presently from upstairs came the sound of singing. Maxine, rehearsing the chorus again, George at the piano, Toby among the baritones.

  The stack of term papers went down slowly. Taking up another, she smoothed it open. “The Seasons as Depicted in Oliver Goldsmith.” She made her way through the handwritten sentences, underlining here and there in red, with notations in the margin. The next paper attempted an analysis of Andrew Marvel. She laid it aside and rifled through the others, reading titles. “Love in the Writings of My Faverite Poets.” A swayback purple hand, circles over the i’s, under the title a broad flourish, and under that an extravagant purple flower. That was one thing Lindsey Homeier could do: he could draw.

  Lindsey’s “faverite” poets consisted solely of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She read the first three pages and stopped to count the rest. Lord have mercy, seventeen. But of course, Lindsey’s handwriting was large. “Miss Browning”—she circled the “Miss,” wrote “Mrs.” in the margin—“uses many large words and you can’t always understand her but if you read between the lines you can understand her.... When she says Thee and Thou she does not mean God as we do in Church. She means the person who was going to be her husband…”

  From the second floor there came a roar of laughter. She looked up, listening. It went on for fully a minute, followed by abrupt silence and, after another minute or two, more singing.

  “She used to lay awake nights” (another red circle and “Gr” in the margin) “and dream about him. That was not because she was a sick woman. She was sick but some might say she was lovesick too.”

  Bravo, Lindsey.

  “Miss Browning’s poems are famous for their universilty. Everyone knows what they mean because everyone feels the same way about somebody. When you love somebody you want to write poems.”

  Skipping through the pages she learned that “Miss Browning’s” sweetheart had “adducted her to Italy where they were warm and got married.” Then a paragraph about marriage. Lindsey was in favor of it. “Miss Browning had long brown hair but short brown hair is nice too especially when its curly like some peoples that I know.” (Oh dear.) “When Miss Browning counts the ways she loves there are a lot of them. I can think of lots more.”

  She had stopped making corrections. Swept up in Lindsey’s purple prose, she read on through the slaunchways decla
ration with an amused frown on her face. She looked up only as someone went past the door singing “The Hut Sut Song.”

  George and Toby. George backtracked a couple of steps and looked in. “What are you doing here?”

  “I work here,” she said. “Come in.”

  “Hey, you didn’t find a stray library book, by any chance?”

  “In here? No. Have you lost one?”

  “I laid it down somewhere.”

  “Not in here, you haven’t been here.”

  “Thought somebody else might have picked it up.”

  “Maybe they turned it in.”

  “I checked. It’s not in the library. I better go look in the gym.”

  “What book was it?” she said, trying to keep them there. Toby had followed George in but was hanging back by the door. He hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even so much as looked at her.

  “A history book—American politics nineteen hundred to nineteen something. I had to do a paper on it.”

  “You guys been pretty busy?”

  “Up to the bustle-bone,” George said.

  “Maxine’s sort of working you overtime.”

  George looked over at Toby and grinned.

  “I heard you up there this afternoon. How’d it go?”

  Both George and Toby’s grins grew broader. “Oh, it went just fine,” George said.

  Toby sputtered, trying not to laugh out loud. “What’s so funny?” she said. “Have you two been up to no good again?”

  “Aw, we didn’t do anything. Much.”

  At that, they exploded, unable to hold it any longer. She was laughing with them, though she didn’t know why. “Well, tell me!”

  Red in the face, Toby moved into the room now, leaned against the blackboard.

  “Come on, you guys.”

  “Well, it was this song,” George said and choked up again. “Ol’ Tobe said something lewd in the baritone section.”

  “How do you know?” said Toby. “You were up there at the piano.”

  “Your lips were moving, and it wasn’t in song.”

  “You were thinking lewd things.”

  “What did you say?” she said. “Tell me!”

  “Well, this new song she wants us to sing”—George let out a whoop—“an iddle, a lay.” Pulling himself together he sang solemnly, “‘Where the bee sucks, there suck I.’”