And Another Thing
When I was little, I had a bottle, of course, the way everyone does. Suky loved giving me my bottle. I kept it for a long time. When I turned three, four, she still made me a bottle with warm milk, or juice. And it didn’t end there. When I was eleven, twelve, if Suky felt especially warmly toward me, or we’d had a fight, she would offer me a bottle. And I loved it. She would fix it for me, and I would lie down and drink, staring out the window like an infant. Even after I figured out about the pills, even once her touch made my skin ache and I had begun to daydream about her death, we could still make up with a bottle. The last one I drank, I was sixteen years old.
Good
By high school, I was angry, and that made me cool. Flanked by a few minions, I terrorized the kids that got on my nerves. Even Amy came under attack eventually. Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes was so pretty, you could eat her. She had the posture of a ballerina, carried her books level in front of her, like they were a chocolate cake. Needless to say, we moved in different circles now. But one day, as I watched her waft out of the girls’ room, head held high, it occurred to me that she might tell one of her honor roll friends about our brief trip to the isle of Lesbos. If that got out, I would be ruined. I was seized by an impulse to smash her like a bug. I walked up to her and pinned her against the puce concrete-block wall, my hands squeezing her delicate wrists.
‘If you ever tell anyone about us, I will beat you up,’ I hissed. Amy’s blue eyes widened; she looked from side to side for help.
‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘I promise. Please.’ I let her go. She ran off. Tears stung my eyes. What the hell did I do that for? I loved Amy. I promised myself that the next day in assembly I would tell her I was sorry. But I was too embarrassed. And the worst of it was, after that day, Amy started fawning on me. She wanted me to be nice to her. She was lying down like a dog, letting me know I had won. She was weak and smart and beautiful and had a future, and I was strong and stupid and wasn’t good at anything but scaring people. She would come up to me and make a lame joke, and I would smile with one side of my mouth, letting just a little air out of my nose. Once, I trapped her in one of the big gym lockers. I got a few of my henchwomen to circle her, and we shoved her in. She was screaming, pounding on the metal. My heart was slamming against my chest, I thought I was going to faint. Afterward, she was angry, but she didn’t stand up to me. She just walked away, sniffling.
Horrified at this bully I was becoming, I went to church every Sunday at nine o’clock and prayed to be a better person. My father’s gruff, clotted voice ground on like a distant engine as my thoughts kneaded my sins over and over, turning them in my mind like dough. Please, Jesus, come into my heart and change me I am begging you I am begging you to make me good, please.
One summer night, it was so hot, my open window was like the yawning mouth of a dead man, emitting no puff of air. It felt like the oxygen had been sealed out of the world. I slept fitfully, my hair wet with perspiration, my legs flung over the sheets. Every few minutes, it seemed, I woke and looked around me, hoping for the dawn. The night-light emitted a sickly green glow. Each time I woke, I lay and listened to the tree frogs: ribbons of high-pitched sound layered on top of one another to create one pulsating scream that reached into my dreams like a claw, dragging me, time and again, into my room and the heat.
I heard a sound, a fluttering, thudding sound, coming from the open window. A flash of white, and then a clumsy thing, a feathered, heavy animal fell onto my floor and waddled toward me, its belly brushing the carpet. I wanted to scream, but I could not. Its webbed feet and large wings dragged along the floor, as if it was unused to perambulation. It twisted its neck to look up at me, and I saw a broad, solemn, human face, the face of a fifteen-year-old boy. The thing had shapely arms, too, which grew from the feathered trunk. With a sudden, violent flapping of wings, it heaved itself aloft and landed on my bed, its rubbery, black-skinned paddles scrambling over my bare feet. I crept back, terrified and repulsed, shrinking into the corner. The creature settled onto my crumpled bedclothes like a broody hen, then looked at me, somewhat out of breath from its efforts. It had pale, light-soaked eyes. I knew it for an angel, yet it disgusted me. I wondered if I had invoked it with all that praying I’d been doing.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. That seemed to cover everything – both the bad behavior and the excessive prayer. The great wings began to spread; the thing extended itself, stood up; it was the height of a small man, towering over me in that bed. The wings were as wide as a canopy above me. One pale, human arm floated down toward me. I felt its hot hand resting on my head. My eyes were so heavy, I strained to keep them open; the eyelids felt glued together. The thing’s hand was hot, burning; heat surged through my body, then it felt like tiny insects were crawling inside my skin. When the feeling receded, my eyes snapped open. The angel had vanished. I looked around me, frightened, breathless, ran to the open window, shut it, locked it.
The next morning, I was running a fever. My mother kept me in bed. I wondered what she would think of my angel. Would she believe he was real, and if so, what would his visit signify to her? She would probably think there was something unseemly about it. Suky had a dirty mind. She always leapt to salacious conclusions, about parishioners, politicians, movie stars, using amused disapproval to mask intense interest in anything sexual. Why would my angel be any different? I yearned to tell her, but I was afraid, because I knew she would see my angel as her fault, somehow. My sins were her sins; I was a part of her. That was the way she saw it.
Mr Brown
I sat through a lifetime of Sunday mornings, and in all that time I can remember only one of my father’s sermons. I don’t know if that is because it was so beautiful or because my father gave it to the congregation on the very day that changed my life. I was sitting in my usual seat in the front row, to Suky’s right. She sat bolt upright, her eyes pinned to my father, eyebrows up, her small, weathered hands clamped together, one foot jiggling as my sleepy brothers slumped, inert, on the other side of her.
The sermon was about the cross, and how it is made up of both a vertical and a horizontal beam. Christ, my father posited in his growling voice, was those two things: vertical – godly – and horizontal – of the earth, a living creature. Christianity existed where the two lines met. He said that was what was so special about our God. He had been one of us, yet he was endless and almighty. Because I was actually listening to him for once, I truly saw Des at that moment. He was not a tall man. The way he held his short arms out as he described the cross, palms up, as if feeling for drops of rain in a drought, made him seem futile and precious – a man praying for order in a life governed by chaos. I felt so sorry for him. And then I turned, and it happened. I laid eyes on Mr Brown.
He was sitting across the aisle from me and one row back, beside the Oakley boys, boarders from the local boys’ prep school, in their maroon blazers with light blue crests on the pockets and wrinkled navy slacks. The campus, with its white clapboard buildings and dark green shutters, was, in fact, only a stone’s throw away from my house, across the green. From the first moment, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Mr Brown. He was in his forties and seemed ancient to me at that time. But there was something about his face – a bony, veined face – that seemed deeply good to me. I loved his rust-colored mustache, his balding pate, his ruddy cheeks. Every Sunday after that, I situated myself in a place where I could see him; I even sat right next to him for one thrilling service. All my life till then, Suky had sat to my left at church. Once I started moving around, she was puzzled, but she didn’t stop me. She rarely disciplined me anymore; when she tried, I shrugged her off with a poisonous glare.
Mr Brown always looked straight ahead during the service, like a bird dog. His wife was an athletic-looking, serious woman. She seemed preoccupied all the time, never speaking to her husband, and acting as if he wasn’t beside her at all. He compulsively stroked her shoulder with his thumb, his arm around her, and occas
ionally he would whisper something in her ear, which she would listen to, an opaque expression on her face, and nod. I became convinced that she didn’t love him. I watched Mr Brown in church for ten months. He was my Unimpeachable Gentleman.
I got an after-school job at the Oakley Academy, working in the kitchen, just so I could be close to him. Every day at four o’clock, I would walk across the green to the enormous, steamy Oakley kitchen, reluctantly tuck my copper locks into the requisite paper bonnet, and start peeling carrots and potatoes, dicing celery, getting everything ready for the evening meal. Then it was showtime; I would serve the kids their grub. At first I was frustrated; all the contact I had with my beloved was saying hello as I spooned mashed potato and meat loaf onto his plate. But I shot him glances as I worked. He ate with his wife every night. Their conversations seemed strained yet civil. He always pulled her chair out for her. He talked more than she did; mostly she nodded, unsmiling, staring into her plate. Directly after she had finished her meal, she stood up, murmured a goodbye, and walked out. Mr Brown would then get himself a cup of coffee and circulate around the dining hall, chatting with the boys. He seemed to relax when his wife was out of the room. He loosened his tie and sat at the edges of the refectory tables, joking with the students. He was reassuring with one, ruffled another’s hair, spoke with stiff severity to another. I managed to catch his eye once or twice, but after several weeks I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to speak to him.
One night, as he was walking down the hallway after dinner, I threw myself down a short flight of stairs and landed at his feet. I actually sprained my ankle doing this stunt, and he had to hold me up as I limped to the school infirmary. He smelled like talcum powder. At one point, my lip brushed his ear as I hobbled along. He blushed from his neck all the way up to his temples. That’s when I knew I was getting somewhere. After that, he called me by my name and always asked how I was when I handed him his dinner. A couple of times I thought I noticed him lingering outside when I came out after my shift. But all he ever did was say ‘hello’ in a cordial, distanced way. Mr Brown was unimpeachable.
One night, as I left my job, my eyes dried up from exhaustion, my hands raw from chopping, I saw him walking up the stone steps to the dining hall, taking them two at a time with his long strides. He was about to pass me with a friendly greeting when I burst into tears. There was snot coming out of my nose, my knees went weak. I had to sit down. Mr Brown took out his handkerchief and sat down beside me. I wiped my nose and put my head between my knees. I was so embarrassed, but I was in heaven, too, because I could feel the palm of his hand on the small of my back.
‘What is it, Pippa?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I think I’m just tired.’
‘You must be. It seems like a lot for a girl your age, a job after school. Are you sure it’s necessary?’
‘It’s necessary,’ I said.
‘Can’t you talk to your parents, maybe they can –’
‘It’s not the money,’ I said. ‘I mean, we don’t have much money, but I don’t have to have a job in the school year.’
‘Then quit,’ said Mr Brown. ‘It’s too much for you. Use the time to study, or be just a kid.’
‘I can’t quit.’
‘Why not?’ I shook my head then, looking around at the boys walking back to their dorms. One sped by us on his way down the stairs.
‘Come with me,’ said Mr Brown firmly. He led me by the arm to a building a hundred yards away. There were pillars on the front of it. He opened the door and guided me down a short hallway, reached into an open doorway, flicked on the fluorescent lights. It was a classroom with math equations written on the chalkboard. I followed him in and sat down. He sat on the desk in front of me.
‘All right now. No one can hear you. Tell me what’s wrong.’ He was being the teacher now; he had done this countless times, led the troubled kid out of the herd for a few minutes of special time. I felt stupid to have thought it was anything else.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said, looking up at him. ‘I was just –’ He was listening to me, but he looked so weary. I was about to give up on him, I really was, but then the tears came to my rescue. I felt them, hot and thick, trickling down my cheeks.
He hopped off the desk, squatted beside me and put his arm around the back of my chair. ‘It’s just … what?’ he asked softly. I tried to think of a lie. I could tell him any horror now and he would believe me to be a victim of it. My mind was blank. I told the truth.
‘If I quit my job, I wouldn’t see you anymore.’ There was a moment of silence. I looked right at him now. Telling the truth had made me powerful. I had nothing to lose. It couldn’t get more embarrassing than this. He looked like the wind had been knocked out of him. And then his cheeks went all mottled. I loved the way his blood exposed him. That moment seemed to extend forever. I saw him hovering between falling toward me and retreat. I had to pull him in somehow. I had to take a risk. ‘I love you,’ I said. I knew immediately I had made a mistake.
His brows furrowed for a moment, then he sat back on his haunches. ‘How old are you?’ he asked.
‘Sixteen and a half.’
‘You can’t love someone you don’t know.’
‘But I do know you. I’ve known you for almost a year. I watch you in church. I see you in the dining room. I know you’re unhappy and lonely and blue, and that you don’t feel loved. You’ve gotten used to nobody understanding you, nobody being curious about you. You’re just Mr Brown, the guy who fixes things, just like you’re here to fix me.’ He looked up at me, pain and surprise on his face. ‘You don’t have to give me anything,’ I said. ‘I just … wanted you to know that there’s someone who … sees you.’ I felt his gaze churning into me. And I cannot describe how close to him I felt. Andrew Brown, dedicated teacher and resigned husband, was in a state of acute longing and desperation, and had become inured to that condition. But all it took was one little girl who really saw him and –
Mr Brown stood up, straightened his corduroys, and sniffed.
‘You’d better go home now.’ He smiled at me, a kind, sad, closed-lip smile.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Don’t be, Pippa. Never be sorry for having feelings.’ I walked out ahead of him and ran all the way home.
The next night, as I slid three slippery slices of turkey onto his plate and poured extra gravy over his mashed potatoes, I felt his eyes on me. I looked up, and there he was, his amber irises flecked with gold; the kindness radiated out of him. His wife came next. She looked right through me. The loose skin on her cheeks, her defeated, frowning mouth, seemed like an affront against the angelic Mr Brown. A week later, as I walked across the green at dusk after serving dinner at Oakley, I heard his voice. ‘Pippa.’ I turned. He was standing a few feet away. His breath was labored, as though he had hurried to follow me.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Would you like to take a little walk?’
We walked into the sparse wood that fringed the green. The moon had risen, and mist hovered between the young trees. I faltered, stepping on a rotten log; Mr Brown took my hand. We emerged at the Depot. He let go.
The place was deserted. Pharmacy, liquor store, ice cream parlor – they looked like strange buildings I had never seen before. I was forbidden to walk through my town after dark. We walked to the end of River Road, then along the bank of the river. The moon shed cold, blue light on the faint track worn away by fishermen and kids looking for a place to smoke after school. I had come here myself on occasion. We walked along for a few yards, then he sat down on a big rock covered, I happened to know, with obscene graffiti.
We sat side by side for a few minutes, listening to the high gurgling of the little river. Mr Brown slid his soft, warm hand over mine. I looked at him. His face was mostly in shadow, but I could see his eyes. He looked so sad. I put my palm up to his face and left it there. And then, swiftly, without warning, the unimpeachable Mr Brown kissed me. His mustache was soft. T
he secret tongue inside it felt so warm and new; it was like licking a little, wet animal.
*
We were busted eleven months later, in the narrow attic room that Andrew Brown used as a study and a place to meet his students. We were half-dressed (Mr Brown never allowed us to be completely naked), intertwined and sated on the couch, gazing at a spider as it glided through the air from the ceiling on its own glistening filament, when the door opened with a cursory knock, then swiftly shut. We couldn’t see who had come in, but Mr Brown immediately clamped his hands to his head, remembering his appointment with Mademoiselle Martel, a frowsy teacher visiting from Toulouse. And we hadn’t locked the door! I climbed down the fire escape, ran across the green to my house, and waited.
It turned out that, though French, Mlle Martel took a dim view of statutory rape. She blew the whistle, and my beloved Mr Brown was fired. I’m sure I was, too; I never went back to find out. My parents were called, however. Suky went hysterical. I mean really out of her mind. She wouldn’t stop shaking. Tears were flying out of her eyes. She kept saying, ‘How could you?’ I leaned back on the wall and looked at her with false calm; behind my ribs, my heart was going berserk. Chester held her arms while my father popped a couple of sleeping pills into her mouth. I tried to laugh, but my throat was closing up.
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee Page 8
