A Little Learning

by Margot Early

  Rory saw difficult choices ahead. He was going to have to find a partner in the Sultan Mountain School, or hire someone to take over as director for him. If family life allowed, Rory could be a partner in running the school. She did not want the directorship, however; not on her own.

  Seamus had been looking at property in Sultan. He’d concluded that he could open a second work location in Sultan. The offices could send files via e-mail and by courier; it could work.

  Rory found that, as sensitive as Seamus initially had been about her accepting the job her father had offered, now he was willing to compromise. He saw that her father’s health wasn’t good, and he was more willing to make it possible for her to help at the Sultan Mountain School. Lauren, too, seemed less adamant about remaining in Telluride. She and Beau and Caleb and Belle had accompanied Seamus on a tour of the K-12 Sultan school the previous week. Lauren had said it “seemed all right.”

  Now, Rory asked her, “Lauren, would you like to be in the wedding?”

  Lauren shook her head. “Not really.”

  Samantha and one of Seamus’s employees would be maid of honor and best man, respectively. Rory had selected a fairly simple ivory dress. It was long-sleeved and should be warm enough for an outdoor ceremony, even at high altitude. She planned to wear a wreath on her head. Neither she nor Seamus wanted an elaborate ceremony. They’d invited family, his employees and a few close friends. A local minister in Sultan would perform the ceremony.

  Caleb came out of the house with Seuss on a leash.

  Lauren said, “We shouldn’t take him. He won’t be able to go in stores and stuff.”

  “We can tie him up outside,” Caleb said.

  Rory hesitated. While it was good for a dog to be able to wait courteously outside a building, it was also a good way for a dog to be stolen. She pointed this out to Caleb.

  Caleb said, “I guess you’re right. C’mon boy.” He took the dog back inside, then ran out again to join his sister and Rory.

  They climbed into Rory’s car and drove downtown. They’d promised to take Caleb to the Telluride Skate Park and also to a bookstore, so he could use the gift certificate Fiona had given him.

  They parked the car and walked to the skate park, where Rory sat watching Caleb while Lauren walked across the grass to a friend’s house, which adjoined the park. The friend was named Cassidy and Rory had met her only once, briefly. Lauren promised to be back in half an hour.

  Caleb had the park almost completely to himself. He came over to Rory’s bench to ask her to watch one trick or another and to time him crossing the big bowl and coming back. She was doing this when she heard what sounded like the report of a gun.

  It had come from the houses near the park and terror immediately seized her. Where was Lauren?

  “Caleb,” she called and waved him over as she stood up. She gazed toward the houses just as Lauren came out of her friend’s house. Lauren, too, was glancing around, looking for the source of the gunfire.

  She crossed the lawn to Rory and Caleb, looking back over her shoulder.

  “Probably someone cleaning a weapon,” Rory said uneasily.

  Lauren hugged herself, and for a moment they all stood gazing toward the houses, waiting uneasily. Caleb stood on his skateboard and practiced ollies in place, until Rory said, “Let’s get on to the bookstore, Caleb.”

  They walked back into town, and then to the bookstore. Lauren was uncharacteristically pale and quiet.

  Rory said, “Was Cassidy there?”

  “Oh. Yes.” Lauren nodded abruptly, seeming preoccupied.

  “You okay?” Rory asked.

  Lauren nodded again. “Fine.”

  A sound on the street. Maybe it could have been a car backfiring. But Rory felt sure that Lauren’s thoughts had turned to handguns; to the possibility of an accident somewhere, an accident like her mother’s or with equally tragic consequences.

  “Want to have a chai or something, while Caleb looks at books?”

  “Yes,” Lauren said. “Maybe a frozen chai. It’s kind of warm out.” And yet she shivered, rubbing her arms.

  In the bookstore, while Caleb wandered the kids’ section, then began looking at books of photos, Rory and Lauren sat at a table in the back, near the espresso counter. Rory ordered a latte and Lauren a frozen chai, and they sat together sipping them.

  A siren cut through the sounds of the store, the sounds outside.

  “Oh, no,” Lauren said.

  Rory instinctively grasped her forearm. “It’s probably not related.”

  “You’re thinking about it, too,” Lauren observed.

  “Well…yes.”

  The barista, overhearing them, said, “That’s a fire truck.”

  “You’re sure?” Lauren looked toward her, anxious.

  The woman nodded. “Yeah. I’m on the ambulance crew. You learn the different sirens. That’s the fire guys.”

  “Not related,” Rory repeated.

  Lauren nodded, then drew on her straw. She said, “I can do that whole fire staff routine three times in a row without a mistake.”

  “Really?” Rory knew, as Lauren did, that this was the forerunner to being able to use a lighted staff. She said, “I’m willing to ask your dad if you can work with a lit staff, but you have to make me a few promises first.”

  Lauren waited.

  “Absolutely no alcohol or drugs and fire arts together,” Rory said. “I mean it, Lauren. We’re going to look at some pictures of the burns people get, so you appreciate this.”

  “It would be really dumb,” Lauren said. “I don’t do that stuff, anyhow. I don’t like feeling out of control.”

  “Me, either,” Rory agreed fervently. “And don’t get in cars with drunk people or people on drugs.”

  “I know,” Lauren said.

  “The other thing is, no fire arts unless I’m there. This isn’t something to, like, show your friends you can do. You need to be with other people who are part of your team and who have a lot of experience. Usually, I completely discourage people under eighteen from using fire. I would only do this because I know you very well and trust you to only do it when I’m there.”

  Lauren nodded.

  “There are all sorts of protocols for using fire,” Rory continued, “and we have to follow them precisely. Things like tying up your hair and getting it completely wet. Having a spotter with a fire blanket. Sometimes people think it’s just as safe to use a wet towel, but you can get really bad steam burns that way. And how you deal with fuels on the wicks takes experience. There’s no other way, or you can have lit drops of kerosene flying everywhere, burning people or starting fires.”

  Lauren looked appropriately apprehensive.

  “So, that rule of doing it only when I’m there with you, supervising, is absolute.”

  “What about, say, Samantha?”

  “Actually, no. Samantha does know what she’s doing, but she’s not a guardian for you. When I marry your dad, I will be.”

  “Okay,” Lauren agreed.

  Her eyes suddenly drifted away, looking in the direction of the skate park as if she could see through walls and buildings to the source of the gunshot they’d heard.

  She said, “I’m not sure I want to do it with fire.”

  “Good,” Rory answered. “I’m really happy to hear you say that.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s something to be afraid of. Fear isn’t bad. It keeps you alive and healthy.”

  Lauren nodded, lowering her eyes.

  Caleb came over to their table with a book called Off the Map, which showed objects on the earth photographed from space. “Found it,” he said. “Can I have a chai?”

  *

  THAT EVENING, THEY sat around the large-screen television upstairs to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 2. Belle was already asleep, having accepted the fact that the movie had “scary parts.” Rory leaned against Seamus on the couch, and Lauren, Beau and Caleb flopped on big pillows on the floor. />
  Just after the opening credits, Lauren’s cell phone rang. She looked at the number, made a face and said, “Don’t pause it.” She stood up and walked into the other room.

  Rory followed her with her eyes, and Seamus looked at Rory’s face. “Everything all right?”

  It was one of those tingling feelings.

  Lauren didn’t return for several minutes, and Seamus stood up to see if she was still on the phone. The light was on in her bathroom, and he heard her retching through the door.

  He knocked. “Lauren?”

  “Yes,” came through the door.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Yes,” again.

  She was kneeling in front of the toilet, her eyes filled with tears.

  “Are you sick?” Seamus asked.

  She shook her head and seemed unable to speak. Her eyes were wide and stricken.

  He crouched beside her. “What is it? Tell me.”

  She only shook her head.

  Rory came into the bathroom behind him. “What is it, Lauren?”

  “The shot,” Lauren said to her.

  Rory, too, crouched beside her. “What was it?”

  “A guy shot an oil lamp in his wife’s house. Or ex-wife or something.”

  Seamus frowned. He’d heard about this incident earlier in the day. The fire truck they’d heard had been responding to the fire that resulted. The estranged husband had been drunk and was violating a restraining order, but at least no one had been wounded. “No one was hurt, were they?” he said.

  She shook her head, eyes wet.

  Rory, on her knees beside her, hugged her. “That shot scared me, too, when I heard it,” she said.

  Seamus said, “Do you want to call Simone, Lauren?” Lauren’s counselor.

  Lauren shrugged. “Maybe.” She held onto Rory.

  Seamus rubbed his daughter’s head. “Feel like watching the movie?”

  Lauren nodded. She said, “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “Don’t be. None of this is your fault.”

  “What I said.”

  “When?” But he didn’t need to hear the answer. He knew what she was sorry for. She was sorry for arguing with him about Janine’s owning a handgun. She was sorry for loving her mother’s memory.

  “Stuff.” She shook her head.

  “Lauren,” he told her, “your mom was scared of people like that guy. And it’s pretty normal to be scared.”

  She nodded and stood up slowly.

  Rory, standing too, ran water in the sink. She suspected that Lauren’s nausea had come from fear at the thought of the firearm the man had wielded—from realization of what a gun could do.

  Lauren splashed water on her face and grabbed her toothbrush and the tube of toothpaste. “I’ll be okay,” she said.

  “You are okay,” Seamus told her. “You’re very okay, Lauren Lee.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THEY WERE IN Sultan for the week, using the Empire Street house, with Kurt Gorenzi’s blessing, during wedding preparations.

  On the morning of the wedding, however, Lauren and Rory and Samantha were at Sondra Nichols’s home helping Rory dress, while Belle played with her stuffed animals in the next room, when Rory’s cell phone rang. Rory was at her dressing table and unable to move because both her grandmother and Lauren were holding up pieces of her hair.

  “Should I answer?” asked Samantha.

  “Yes, please.”

  “Hello? No, it’s Samantha. Hi, Beau. No, she can’t talk.”

  “I can,” Rory said.

  “I’ll talk to him,” Lauren said, as though prepared to sort out the brother who’d dared to call at such an inconvenient time.

  Samantha took the part of Rory’s hair which Lauren had been holding and they traded the phone.

  “What?” said Lauren. Then, “You’re kidding. What did Dad say? Really? Okay. No, I’ll tell her. She’s getting her hair done. Bye.”

  She hung up. “Your old house is for sale again.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know,” Samantha said. “The guy’s business is tanking, and he needs cash right away.”

  “It’s a cool house,” Lauren said.

  “For, like, a family of six,” Samantha put in. “Maybe with a housekeeper thrown in.” She laughed.

  “What did your dad say?” Rory asked.

  “That he won’t live in a pink house.”

  Samantha and Rory made faces at each other. They’d always liked the exterior of Desert’s house. Desert wasn’t able to come back to Sultan for the wedding. She said her parents couldn’t do without her, even for a few days.

  Sondra said, “I should say not. That place looks garish. I was surprised the new owner didn’t paint it first thing.”

  “That’s part of its charm,” Samantha told her.

  They continued weaving the wreath into Rory’s hair.

  “Does he like the house except for its being pink?” Rory asked Lauren.

  “Beau’s not sure. The pink was the big deal. And Caleb likes it pink.”

  “I like pink, too.” Belle came in carrying Mouse and Squish. Her dress was a child’s version of Lauren’s, in light blue. “So does Squish. Squish’s tentacle got squished by Elsie Cow, and he needs it kissed.”

  “Didn’t you kiss it?” Samantha asked.

  “By Lauren.”

  “Oh.” Her sister crouched down. “Which one was it?”

  “I don’t know,” Belle said.

  “Better get all of them,” Samantha advised.

  Belle nodded in agreement as the doorbell sounded.

  Sondra made a perplexed face, then hurried to answer it. They heard her speaking to someone, and then she called, “Lauren, will you come here?”

  Lauren left the bedroom, and Rory wondered who was there.

  A moment later, the girl returned to the bedroom with Sondra behind her. Lauren carried a large white envelope, the size of a tabloid newspaper. Her eyes were bright, excited.

  Rory looked up at her.

  “I’ve been entrusted by Dad to give you your wedding present,” Lauren told her. She placed the envelope on the table in front of Rory. “I’m supposed to explain it to you.”

  As Samantha finished her hair, Rory opened one end of the envelope and slid out the contents. It was a glossy image, a print, of an anime character with curly brown-and-gold hair and huge brown eyes. She was surrounded by fire and carried lit coals in each hand. Behind her loomed a massive yellow-and-white snake with red eyes. Lola with a cobra’s hood and fangs, breathing fire.

  “Her name is Mieko. She’s a fire goddess. The snake is Tama. She protects Mieko. And Dad wanted you to be sure to know that he asked me and I said it’s okay. In fact, we kind of came up with it together—Koneko was dedicated to the fire goddess as an infant. She chose to turn from that calling and become a demon. But Koneko is still tied to Mieko, and she can never break that bond, and Mieko watches over her and sometimes calls her back from evil.”

  Rory’s reflection swam in the mirror. Swallowing, she set the print against the glass as Samantha pinned the wreath to her head.

  Rory said to Lauren, “Thank you,” and reached a hand toward the girl.

  Lauren reached around from behind and hugged her. “You look pretty,” she said.

  *

  RORY RODE TO Blythe Meadow in her father’s Toyota Land Cruiser, with Belle and Lauren, while Sondra rode in Samantha’s car.

  My father is going to give me away on my wedding day. A year ago, none of it would have seemed possible. But now she was his partner at the Sultan Mountain School. She and Seamus had decided that the family would live in Sultan—all they needed was a suitable house.

  Rory hoped that Desert’s old house would meet the criteria, but there were other possibilities, as well, including building a new house—an idea her father embraced, of course, as a boost to Sultan’s economy.

  They reached the meadow, and Rory peered across the sunlit grass until she spotted Seamus in a tuxedo, speaking with
the minister.

  Beau ran toward the Land Cruiser and opened the door. “I’m helping you out,” he told Rory.

  “Thank you,” she said and scanned the guests, waving to Sultan friends and turning toward Samantha’s vehicle. “Will you go help my grandmother, too, Beau?”

  “Yes.” He shut her door behind her and ran toward Samantha’s passenger door. Caleb beat him.

  Kurt came around the front of his car and offered his arm to Rory.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said.

  The guests were nearly all seated in folding chairs set up in the meadow for the ceremony. She saw Jay Norris from the Sultan Mountain School ushering a woman in a head scarf and a man in a dark suit and yarmulke into seats on the bride’s side.

  “No way,” Rory said.

  “Yes, way,” Samantha told her. “But you’ll have to wait until after the ceremony to say hi. Just don’t pass out when she introduces him.”

  “As?”

  “The Rabbi David Stern, her fiancé.”

  Rory laughed out loud. “Is she still Desert?”

  “Noami,” Samantha said with a smile. “Though I get the feeling this guy might have some pretty sweet names for her when they’re alone.”

  The recorded wedding march began to play on the car stereo that was serving as sound system. Seamus’s best man offered his arm to Samantha, and they began the walk ahead of Rory and Kurt.

  Kurt said to his daughter, “Well, I’m glad all my scheming paid off.”

  “What scheming?”

  “My dear, what kind of generous soul do you think was going to give Seamus Lee and his kids the gift of a three-month course with the Sultan Mountain School?”

  Rory gazed at her father, aghast. “Someone with ulterior motives, obviously.”

  “Well, you weren’t part of the plan. Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?” They needed to start walking, but she wanted to hear the answer to this.

  “Let’s go,” said her father. As they took the first steps that would lead her to the rest of her life with Seamus, Kurt told her, “You were only part of the plan, in that I’d learned the hard way that there’s a price for letting someone else raise one’s child, or children. It’s losing something you can’t experience again.”