Barefoot: A Novel

by Elin Hilderbrand

  “Wel ,” said Brenda. Thinking: He’s older than I am! But he’s a sophomore in college. He’s my student! “Thank you al for sharing. Does anyone have questions about the course or the syl abus? The assignments?” She paused. Nothing but polite stares. “Okay, then, I think we can cal it a day.

  Please read to chapter ten by Thursday.”

  She watched as the girl-women col ected themselves and left the room—some alone, some chatting. Jeannie buzzed out in the wheelchair. A cel phone rang—one of the Rebeccas. She said, “Hel o? Yeah, I’m out.” As though she’d been in prison. Was it that bad? Had Brenda seemed anything like the person who’d taught last semester? Brenda was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she didn’t realize John Walsh was stil sitting. When she saw him, she jumped.

  “Geez,” she said, and she laughed. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

  “I was wondering,” he said. He was turning his pencil again. “Would you like to grab some lunch?”

  “What?” Brenda said. She checked the room. Who else had heard? Just her and the Jackson Pol ock. Was John Walsh asking her on a date?

  Her, the professor? The first day of class? “I’m sorry, what? ”

  He didn’t look embarrassed, not even a little bit. “I don’t have another class until two,” he said. “And I don’t know anybody here. This is my first semester. I was kind of hoping there might be some people here my age. I went to the orientation for ‘nontraditional’ students, but . . . you know, there were a couple of fourteen-year-old whiz kids and a housewife in her forties and a guy even older than that who was some kind of tribal chief in Zaire. I’m looking to make some friends.”

  “But I’m your professor,” Brenda said.

  “So you can’t go get a slice of pizza?”

  “Sorry,” Brenda said.

  He sighed in an exaggerated way, and then he smiled. He was so attractive that Brenda didn’t even feel comfortable sitting in a room alone with him. She had to get out!

  “There are al these sil y rules,” she said. She had stumbled across the lines in her Handbook of Employee Rules and Regulations when she’d paged through it on the crosstown bus after her orientation. Romantic or sexual relationships are forbidden between a faculty member and a student. Romantic or sexual comments, gestures, or innuendo are forbidden between a faculty member and a student and will result in disciplinary action. There are no exceptions made for tenured professors.

  “I’m over eighteen,” he said. “It’s just pizza.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Brenda said. “I’m sorry.”

  Walsh slid his pencil behind his ear. “So I guess I’m eating alone again today. Ah, no worries. See you Thursday?”

  “Yes.”

  Brenda let him out ahead of her because she had to lock the door and reset the security code to ensure the safety of the painting. But Walsh lingered in the hal way, and they walked toward Mrs. Pencaldron’s desk together. Mrs. Pencaldron had her eyes trained on them al the way down the hal ; Brenda felt herself emitting guilt. But why? He had asked her to lunch, she said no.

  John Walsh pushed through the door that separated the English Department from the rest of the drab university.

  “Ta!” he said—to Brenda or Mrs. Pencaldron, Brenda wasn’t sure, nor was she sure what ta meant. She waved instinctively, relieved to see him go.

  She handed the key to Mrs. Pencaldron. “He’s Australian,” she said.

  “So I gathered.”

  “We had a good class,” Brenda said. “Short. First day, you know. They hadn’t read anything. I went over my expectations for the class and the kids introduced themselves. That’s how I knew he was Australian.” Stop talking! Brenda told herself.

  Mrs. Pencaldron tilted her head. “You reset the security code?”

  “Uh . . . yes.”

  “He didn’t see you do it, did he?”

  “Who?”

  Mrs. Pencaldron smiled impatiently. “The Australian.”

  “Uh . . . no,” Brenda said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. He waited down the hal a bit. I shielded the keypad with my body.”

  “Okay,” Mrs. Pencaldron said, though her voice sounded specifical y not-okay. She sounded like she suspected an international art theft ring.

  “Giving the security code to a student is against the rules. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Brenda said. “And nobody brought cans or cups into the room, either. Or bottles. None whatsoever.”

  “Oh, I know,” Mrs. Pencaldron said. “I saw to that myself.”

  So many silly rules, Brenda thought as they approached the hospital’s soda machine.

  She had sandwiched the note that said Call John Walsh! into her copy of The Innocent Impostor and then locked the book in its briefcase.

  Brenda wasn’t sure why she was keeping the note. She couldn’t think about John Walsh and Fleming Trainor at the same time; that much had already been proven.

  “Are we getting a Coke?” Blaine asked. “Real y, are we?”

  “Real y we are.” If this was what it took, this was what it took, Brenda thought. It wasn’t like she was offering the kids cigarettes, or shots of Jägermeister. She filched five quarters out of Vicki’s bag and let Blaine careful y slip them into the slot, but she couldn’t find any more change, and the smal est bil in Vicki’s wal et was a twenty. Porter babbled. “Ba ba ba, da da da.” The nonsense a person said before the real nonsense began.

  “Wouldn’t you know,” Brenda said. “We need more money.”

  Blaine, panic-stricken, looked at Brenda as they walked back to the admitting desk. “What about the Coke?” he said.

  “We need more money,” Brenda said, and Blaine started to cry. Hearing Blaine cry made Porter start up again in louder tones. “Boys,” Brenda said. “Please. Just wait a second.” Was it any surprise that Nantucket had the world’s most expensive soda machine? She would have to break a twenty for one lousy quarter, but that made perfect sense. That was how her day was going.

  And of course Didi, at the admitting desk, was now deep in conversation with someone else, a guy her age. Brenda tried to wave the twenty over the guy’s shoulder. Didi would hear the kids crying, she would sense urgency. But no—Didi was oblivious, she was completely focused on this other person, who was wearing a hunter green polo shirt and khaki shorts and grass-stained Adidas sneakers. He had a fresh haircut; there were short hair trimmings al over the back of his shirt. He was holding on to one end of a white envelope, and Didi held on to the other end, looking like she might cry.

  “This is it,” Haircut Guy said. “And I want it back!”

  “I know,” Didi said.

  “By the first of July. Not the second. Not the fourth. The first.”

  “Righty-o.”

  “With interest.”

  “What about Friday?” Didi said.

  “What about Friday?”

  “Zach’s party.”

  “Are you going?” Haircut Guy said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then I’m staying home.”

  “Excuse me,” Brenda said, waving the twenty in the air. It was rude to interrupt, but Brenda couldn’t stand around with two screaming kids while Didi and her friend discussed some kegger. “I need change. For the soda machine.”

  Didi wiped a finger under one eye. Her chest heaved. “I don’t have any change,” she snapped. “If you want change you’l have to go upstairs to the cafeteria.”

  Oh, no, Brenda thought. No way. “I only need one quarter,” she said. “Please? Do you have a quarter you might just lend me?”

  Didi snatched the envelope from her friend’s grasp. “No,” she said. “I don’t.”

  Haircut Guy turned around. In his outstretched hand was a quarter. “Here,” he said. Then he looked at Brenda. “Hey,” he said. “It’s you.”

  Brenda stared at his face for a second. She knew this person, but how? Who was it? One thing was for cer
tain: She had never been so happy to see twenty-five cents in al her life.

  Josh walked with Brenda and the kids to the Coke machine even though he heard Didi making noises back at the admitting desk. Blaine held the quarter and Josh lifted him up so that he could feed the machine, then push the button—and they were al silent as the Coke tumbled down the shoot. Even the baby was quiet. Josh took the Coke from the machine. “Shal I do the honors?”

  “You’re the guy from the airport,” Brenda said. “The one who brought me my book. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. You got a haircut.”

  She looked so astonished that Josh felt embarrassed. He cracked open the can. “Yep,” he said. “I’m Josh.”

  “I’m Brenda Lyndon.”

  “I know,” he said. “I remember. Dr. Lyndon.”

  “I’m not a doctor doctor,” Brenda said. “I’m a doctor of American literature. The most useless kind of doctor there is. We’re here because my sister, Vicki, is having a port instal ed for chemo.”

  “Chemo?” Josh said.

  “She has lung cancer,” Brenda whispered.

  “You’re kidding,” Josh said. But what did he remember about the other sister? Her heavy breathing. “Oh, man.”

  Brenda shook her head, then made a motion over the kids’ heads. Blaine said, “Coke! Coke!”

  Josh knelt down and helped Blaine with the Coke. Lung cancer? Pregnant? I’m not a doctor doctor. The most miserable-looking people he had ever seen. That’s what Josh had thought, right from the beginning. And no wonder.

  “Are you here al summer?” he said. “Because I saw your friend Melanie at the airport a couple of days ago . . .”

  “My sister and I are here al summer with the kids,” Brenda said. “The jury’s stil out on Melanie.”

  “She seemed real y nice,” Josh said.

  “Nice, yes, that she is. Very nice,” Brenda said. “Hey, you don’t know anybody who needs a babysitting job this summer, do you?”

  “What kind of babysitting job?”

  “Watch the kids twenty-five hours a week. Go to the beach, the playground, throw the bal , build sand castles, take them for ice cream. Twenty dol ars an hour, cash. We need somebody responsible. And I mean rock-solid. You would not believe the weekend we had . . .”

  One thing about lending Didi the two hundred dol ars was that it meant Josh couldn’t quit his job at the airport. He had given her more than half his savings, and no matter what she promised him, he knew he would never see it again. But twenty dol ars an hour cash was a lot more than he was making now. He had taken the job at the airport because of his father, though it was truly dul . The most memorable thing that had happened al summer was when Melanie fel off the steps of the plane.

  “I’l do it,” Josh said.

  Brenda looked at him askance. “You already have a job,” she said. “And you’re a . . . guy.”

  “I’m quitting the airport,” Josh said. “And I like kids.”

  Brenda stuck the nipple of the pacifier in the can of Coke, then popped it into the baby’s mouth.

  “Porter’s only nine months old,” she said. “He’s very attached to his mother.”

  “I like babies,” Josh said. This was only true in the hypothetical; Josh didn’t know any babies. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Didi rise from her desk and start over toward them.

  “Can you change a diaper?” Brenda said.

  “Of course.”

  As Didi closed in, Blaine chugged the Coke like a man who had been stranded in the desert. Josh gently pul ed it away.

  “Whoa there, pal. Easy, or you’re going to get sick.”

  “You’re available mornings?” Brenda said. “Weekdays, say, eight to one? Porter naps at one.”

  “I’m available.”

  “You have a car, right? The Jeep? Do you think the baby seats wil fit in the Jeep?”

  “Baby seats?” Didi said. She was upon them, sniffing around in an accusatory way, as though what they were talking about were her business if only because it was taking place in admitting, which she considered her domain. She brandished a handful of quarters, as if to spite Brenda, and got herself a diet Dr Pepper.

  “They should,” Josh said. He had no idea if the baby seats would fit in his Jeep; he didn’t know what baby seats were exactly, but the longer he stood here with this woman, the more desperate he was for a connection with her. “I can do it,” he said. “I real y want to do it.”

  “Do what?” Didi said.

  “Do you have a criminal record?” Brenda asked. She wondered how pissed Vicki would be if she hired this guy herself, without consulting Vicki.

  A guy. Was that weird? With Ted gone, it might be good for the kids. It would be good for the kids, Brenda decided. It would be good for al of them to have a man around on a regular basis; it would even be good for Melanie.

  “Criminal record?” Didi said, scoffing. “This guy is as straight-laced as they come.”

  “Okay,” Brenda said. “You’re hired.”

  S and on the kitchen floor, a collar around the toilet bowl, dandelions, running out of hot water in the shower, a bug bite scratched until it bleeds, losing the plot strands of Desperate Housewives , the New York Times Best Seller List, damp beach towels, mildew, Ted calling from the road to say he was stuck in a five-mile backup outside of New Haven, Ted calling to say the Yukon broke down and he was at a service station in Madison, Connecticut, Ted calling to say he was going to miss the ferry and not to expect him until tomorrow.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” Ted said. “This is beyond my control.”

  Beyond your control? Vicki thought. I thought I was talking to my husband, Ted Stowe, the man who rants and raves and throws money at problems until they’re solved. Vicki hated the defeated tone of Ted’s voice. Her cancer was making him helpless. He couldn’t even deal with traffic, or with an overheated engine. He was going to lie down and die.

  “I need you here tonight,” Vicki said. “The kids are expecting you. Blaine has talked about nothing else al week. You can’t just not show. Take a taxi to the nearest airport and fly in.”

  “And do what with the car, Vick? It’s ful of stuff.”

  Ah, yes, the stuff: a case of Chardonnay from their favorite vineyard in the Russian River Val ey that Vicki was craving, the items she’d bought in bulk at BJ’s—paper towels, cleaning supplies, juice boxes, diapers. Then there was Blaine’s bicycle, a carton of the kids’ favorite children’s books, the paints and the Play-Doh, Vicki’s vitamins (she’d forgotten them on purpose because they made her vomit). Her extra suitcases, one of which contained a blond wig.

  Gingerly, Vicki touched her port. A surgeon had instal ed it, and Vicki’s new oncologist, Dr. Alcott, decided to administer the first dose of chemo right away. Why not? Dr. Alcott said (cavalierly, Vicki thought, as though he were deciding to have a piece of Key lime pie for dessert). She had to admit that physical y she felt no better or worse than she had al along. She kept waiting for a change—was the chemo working? Was it gobbling up the cancer cel s like a Pac-Man with those stupid dots?—but the only thing the doctors could guarantee was that her breast milk would be poisoned. Her breasts grew warm and buzzed with pain every three hours like an alarm, but Vicki couldn’t feed the baby. Porter had screamed through the first night. He refused to take a bottle, though Brenda had gotten him to drink a little bit of water from the bathroom cup. Stil , Vicki told herself, things could have been a whole lot worse. She wasn’t nauseous and her hair wasn’t fal ing out in clumps the way she had feared. Brenda had hired the ramp attendant from the airport to babysit starting next week, and the sun was shining. As soon as Ted arrived, they could go to the beach as a family, proceed with the summer as though everything were al right. What Vicki realized during the phone cal , however, was that she had pinned al her hopes on today, Friday, the day of Ted’s arrival; he might as wel have been riding in on a white horse. Now he wasn’t coming.

  He couldn’t leave the car ful of stuff.
Vicki waited for devastation to set in, but instead, al she experienced was a scary nothing. She didn’t care.

  Ted’s arriving one day late was just one more item on her List of Things That No Longer Matter.

  She hung up the phone. Blaine and Brenda were sitting out on the front step, tossing pebbles into a paper cup. Porter sat on the tiny lawn in just his diaper, eating dandelions. Melanie was taking her third outdoor shower of the day. For some reason, the outdoor shower made Melanie feel better. She claimed it took her mind off Peter.

  I’m sorry about all the hot water, she said.

  Shower away, Vicki said.

  Now, Vicki watched her children. They were happy, blissful, unaware. She wanted to be happy. What was going to make her happy? Anything?

  What would make her happier than she was now? She heard the voices of the people in her cancer support group chanting in her mind like a Greek chorus. You have to make yourself fight. You cannot, under any circumstances, give up.

  Vicki tapped Brenda on the shoulder just as she sank the first pebble of the game.

  “Yes!” Brenda said with a raised fist. “Two points for Auntie Brenda.”

  “Bren?” Vicki said.

  Brenda looked up. “What?”

  Vicki motioned for Brenda to step inside, though first she checked that the gate was latched—it would be just like her kids to take off on their own down Shel Street.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” Vicki said to Blaine.

  “And don’t cheat,” Brenda said. “I’l know if you cheated.”

  Blaine threw a pebble in anger and knocked the cup over.

  “What is it?” Brenda said.

  “Ted’s not coming until tomorrow.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “He got stuck in traffic, and I guess the Yukon overheated or something. He’l come in the morning.”

  “You’re okay with that?”

  “I want you to cal the sitter.”

  “The sitter?”

  “The boy. The guy. Josh. See if you can get him over here.”

  “Right now?”

  “In an hour. I want to go out.”