Sticks and Stones

by Janice Macdonald

  Gwen hadn’t needed the journal as exercise, but she seemed to have reveled in it. She poured herself into coming to grips with my topics, which I had to admit were occasionally off the wall. I tried for a mixture of topical arguments thrown into syllabus-based questions. Every once in a while I would allow an open-ended topic to gauge their ability to ­create an argument extemporaneously. While Gwen dealt with the course-dictated topics well, it was on the topical and freestyle issues that she soared. I found myself enjoying the read, which couldn’t be said for most of my day prior to this.

  It was the entry dated two weeks before her murder that caught my attention, pulling me out of an interesting read into the world in which policemen came to call.

  I had been rushed that day, I remembered, and I’d slapped up “Admit what's been eating at you” on the board to gain myself some time to review my notes on Gatsby.

  Gwen's entry began with: “I lied to my therapist yesterday.”

  Now if that wasn’t a grabber, I couldn't name one. I read on, captivated.

  I was talking to my therapist about my study group with two girls from my geology class, and how we alternated bringing a big Thermos of coffee. Jane seemed to pounce on the fact that this showed I had a positive relationship with compatible people who shared nurturing and all that crap she’s always on about, when she’s trying to make me see what I’d been missing before. As if bringing a Thermos of coffee was equal to caring for a child or listening to your desires. Anyhow, although I’m not sure why I said we alternated the coffee bringing in the first place, I felt as if I couldn’t really correct her.

  We don’t alternate bringing coffee. I’m the one who always remembers. Maybe I’m the only one with a Thermos. Maybe it’s because I'm ten years older than they are and they figure it’s up to me. Maybe Jane is right and I am trying to buy love with good deeds.

  Perhaps it’s the way I was brought up, but it seems like ­selfishness to want something just for yourself. Jane is one of those “happy me, happy others” sermonizers. Maybe she’s right. But right now, here, where it’s all for me, “happy me” doesn't seem to be surfacing.

  It makes me wonder if any of it is worthwhile. I’m paying what I think of as an enormous price to be here, and not just money-wise. Is it worth it?

  It has got to be. It hurts too much to be for nothing.

  I sat back, a little bit shocked by the honesty on the page. Had Gwen been so wrapped up in her thoughts she’d forgotten this was an open journal? Or was this a message to me personally? Had she seen me as someone she thought she could to talk to?

  The phone rang just then, but it was a pre-recorded announcement listing the locations of the blood donor drive the following week. While I jotted down the dates, I skimmed through the few remaining pages of Gwen’s journal, finding only the breezy voice of the earlier entries. Not sure what to do with it, and unwilling to put it back in with the other ­journals, as if somehow it might contaminate those belonging to living people, I pulled out some old thesis notes and phone directories and stuck the journal beneath them in the second drawer of my desk.

  The rest of the afternoon was eaten up by journals, but around six o’clock I was finished and ready to head home. I set the box of journals on top of my desk in order to remember to haul them back to their owners. I sighed as I recalled that I would only be trading them for similarly uninspired essays, then I shrugged into my duffel coat.

  It was pitch black in the hallway outside my office. I hated being alone in the building in the dark. The trouble was, I’d got used to working till eleven during the summer with the sun just setting as I walked home. Now, it was only early evening and I was spooked. I inched my way down the stairs and let myself out the back door, pulling it firmly behind me.

  November in Edmonton. Real Edgar Allan Poe weather. Oh well, at least the snow was holding off.

  11

  T THE RADIO ANNOUNCER WOKE ME UP WITH THE cheery ­message that the snow storm had begun around 2:00 a.m. I rolled over and lifted my rice paper blind two inches, causing my phone, which I keep on the windowsill, to fall on my head. I was off to a great day.

  I used my entire share and half of Mr. McGregor’s share of hot water in my shower, threw on my rose-dotted Stanfields long underwear and fuzzy slippers and schlepped out to heat water for my cereal. From the looks of things outside the window, there was already about a foot of snow on the ground, the big fluffy variety, puffed up like a down comforter. One thing, it did make the world outside a lot brighter.

  I flipped on the radio in the kitchen. The morning show hosts on CBC One seemed to be trying to get as sappy as the private station jocks. I wasn’t sure why they thought this would boost their ratings. At least the weekend and FM hosts retained some dignity, maybe because they were resigned to their ratings. I don’t know why they bothered. Everyone I knew listened to CBC during the day, and had CJSR, the campus station on in the evening. Mind you, since leaving high school, I’d run with a tonier crowd. I no longer could count as personal acquaintances people who opened beer bottles with their eye sockets.

  The kettle sang and I filled the cup with instant coffee and the bowl with expanding fiber, drained the water off the cereal, and took the two to my small kitchen table. Milk in both, sugar on cereal. I listened with semi-somnolent ears to the morning’s “Commentary.” Some woman down east was speaking about the irony of violence outside abortion clinics. I’d wondered about that myself. I’d always figured I’d have more respect for the pro-lifers if they were seen fostering children and baby-sitting so that teenaged mothers could finish high school. I wondered how much the CBC paid for the “Commentary” spots, as if I could come up with a cogent opinion on anything topical at the moment. I knew I was just hungering for freelance gigs because the Damoclean sword of marking papers hung over my weekend. And I had to get through two classes before I could even get on with them.

  I hate teaching on the days that essays are due. No one wants to listen. If they’re keeners, they’re still hung up on their papers’ topics and want instant feedback. If they’re drones, they figure that getting the paper in gave them immunity against thinking for at least a week.

  So, all in all, I was pleasantly surprised to see Officer Steve waiting for me on the steps of my office when I’d trudged through three blocks of unshovelled snow. Anything that could take my mind off my job and the weather would be welcome, I figured, and this diversion came so well wrapped.

  He smiled at my mock salute.

  “They told me your teaching schedule at the main office; I was hoping you’d have time to talk before your first class.”

  I thought of the buzz his request would have created in the office. Let them talk; my life was so pristinely boring that any innuendo could only enhance my image.

  “Is there something more I can help you with?” I asked, letting him in the front door. We stamped our boots in ­unison, and he followed me into the kitchen. First one in has to start the coffee was the rule in the House, so Steve waited as I did the necessaries.

  “It’ll take about five minutes. Come on up. I’ll run down and get us a cup in a minute.”

  I backed Steve out of the kitchen and he led the way up the stairs this time. I pulled my huge ring of keys out of my coat pocket, along with a wad of fuzzy Kleenex and two old gum wrappers.

  When Steve and I were settled in my office, with the space heater blasting at our feet, he got down to business.

  “Things are pretty much still up in the air with the Devlin case, although I’d rather you didn’t spread that about. The powers that be here on campus would like things cleared up as soon as possible. They’re getting a lot of heat from parents of the other girls who received the so-called invitations, as well as the fact that any murder on campus doesn’t look good to potential students or investors.”

  “I can imagine.” I bit my tongue on the thought that things might have gone a lot easier on them if they’d been just as quick to deal with the letter busin
ess in the first place. I ­wasn’t quite sure where Steve stood on feminist issues, and I have to admit, the uniform did its required bit to cow me.

  “So, to facilitate matters, I suggested to my superiors that we ask you to aid us in our investigations.”

  “Isn’t that what they say in the detective novels just before they book someone?”

  Steve laughed. It was a nice laugh. “I wouldn’t know. I’m more into speculative fiction, myself.”

  This guy was looking better and better all the time. I checked my yellow wall clock. I was due in front of the first class in about an hour. Too bad. The coffee would be ready by now, too. I excused myself to run down and get us some, glad that Steve took his black, since the milk in the decrepit fridge smelled suspicious.

  “How do you think I can help you?” I asked as soon as I was back in my office. “I thought I’d told you everything last time.”

  “Well, although the crime replicated the words of the letter published in the newspaper, we’re thinking beyond one of the poison pen writers or a copy cat crazy, although we’re not ruling them out.”

  I liked the fact that he hadn’t called them “boys.” I leaned forward on my desk, thinking he was telling me an awful lot more than policemen in novels ever seem to divulge and wondering where I’d fit in to all this.

  Steve continued.

  “We’re checking on Ms Devlin’s family and friends as well, to see if any motive appears. What I’d like you to do is to look through her notebooks and school work, to see if anything jumps out at you as out of the ordinary.”

  “I thought you were the campus expert.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going to catch something in her English papers or her margin notes.”

  “And you think I will?”

  Steve pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase.

  “We found these in her room. They appear to be the rough drafts and a finished copy of her essay for your class. I was wondering if you could look them over and see if anything might reflect her state of mind when she was writing them.”

  “You’re not implying she committed suicide?”

  Steve looked grim. “I don’t think that's physically possible.”

  Maybe I started to look a little green around the gills again, because he hurried on.

  “No, it’s just that it’s been a long time since I read The Great Gatsby, but the Valley of Ashes part doesn’t ring a bell with me at all.”

  I was intrigued. I wondered just what slant Gwen had taken on the essay.

  “The Valley of Ashes would probably appeal if you were coming out of a rotten marriage,” I said.

  “And you’re sure she was?”

  Just then I remembered the journal sitting in my drawer. “Well, I know Gwen was separated from her husband, and that she was seeing a therapist.”

  I’m not sure why I didn’t just hand Steve the journal right there and then, except that his pager went off, and that distracted me. Oh heck, my whole life could be said to have been guided by random non-occurrences, sort of Odysseus in reverse.

  “Sorry about that, I have to be somewhere. You wouldn’t know the therapist’s name, would you?”

  “Jane; that’s all I know. Maybe you can find her in Gwen’s address book or something.”

  Steve made a note of it.

  “Well, if that's all you want …”

  “Right,” he said as he rose. “I know you have to prepare for a class so I won’t keep you any longer. I appreciate your aid on this.”

  “Oh, that’s okay, it'll be like marking one more essay, that’s all. When do you need my opinions by?”

  “As soon as possible.” Steve stood in my doorway, with his empty cup of coffee in one hand and briefcase in another. No rings on either hand.

  I made an amazing jump of audacity and found myself saying: “Well, if you want to come by my place for dinner tomorrow night, I could give you my impressions then.”

  Steve raised one eyebrow slightly, in a manner I’d practiced in a mirror to no avail one summer when I was twelve, and smiled.

  “That would be nice. I’d like that,” he said.

  I hurriedly pulled open my middle desk drawer and hunted out one of the business cards I use for freelancing.

  “Six-thirty all right?” I asked.

  “I’ll be there.”

  I stood, barking my thigh on the still open drawer. I am so damned graceful sometimes it’s a wonder I didn’t spend my childhood at the National Ballet School. Avoiding a curse, but wincing a bit, I took his coffee cup and followed him down the stairs. Then I hobbled back up for my coat, notes and the first box of journals to return. I had just enough time to detour to the main office for my mail, if I hurried.

  Stomping through the snow with the cardboard box held the way one of the little Wise Men would hold the myrrh in a children’s church pageant, I mentally kicked myself for forgetting to give Steve Gwen’s journal. It wasn’t as though I was her therapist holding confidential files, and I had told him what I figured was the most important element of its ­contents. I resolved to take the journal home with me tonight and give it to Steve when he came over for dinner.

  Dinner with a cop. What the heck would I serve? You can’t base an entire menu around doughnuts.

  12

  I’D FORGOTTEN ALL THE SIDE BENEFITS THAT COME with having a new person over for dinner. For one thing, the apartment was sparkling. It looked almost as good as it had during the final draft of my thesis, when I would cheerfully defrost the fridge rather than get to work. This time I’d alternated one hour of cleaning for every hour of marking, and managed to fold the last load of laundry and put it away with only three papers left to mark. I’d decided on lasagna for the meal, since the dishes could all be cleaned up after I’d built it and shoved it in the oven in the afternoon.

  Steve had arrived on time with a moderately priced bottle of Okanagan white and no uniform. Instead he looked great in a brown leather jacket over a Cosby-styled sweater and dark wide-wale cords. I was impressed. My father had always looked better in his Air Force dress uniform than in any casual clothes or even a tux, but Steve was one of those ­people who make the uniform rather than the other way around.

  I was surprised at how easy conversation came to us. Somehow we made a tacit agreement not to talk shop during dinner, and even over coffee we were casual about getting into the deep stuff. He asked me questions about sessional work, but they seemed motivated by just your average ­curiosity. I didn’t have the sense I was being probed, if you know what I mean.

  He soon had me off on one of my favorite subjects, the faux pas and malapropisms I collected from freshman essays. My winner from this last batch had been the one where one of my students had referred to Jay Gatsby as a “Flin Flon man.”

  Steve laughed.

  “Obviously not a native of Manitoba,” he said.

  “You never know.”

  “Is it really as bad as they say? I mean, are the schools producing illiterates who are entering university?”

  “The best way to answer that would be yes and no.” I was off on another favorite topic, but Steve had asked for it. “My feeling is that students are probably no better or worse than ever before, even with ‘whole language’ rather than phonics and with no grammar being hammered into them. It’s just that the concept of the university seems to have changed in the last ten or fifteen years. While the term elite has taken a beating lately, it’s probably a useful one for the classic ­concept of a university. Not that many years ago, there were perfectly acceptable routes for the average person without a degree to follow toward a career. But now there is an insistence that universities be available for anyone. It never used to be a sin not to go to university; now you’re a failure if you don’t. In addition there’s less government money for ­institutions, so universities need more students and more tuition. Pressure gets put on the university to lower its standards and admit more students. The five percent who would have been there
in the first place thrive, and the others play catch up or sink; and then feel like they've been tricked when there’re no jobs for them at the end of the rainbow.”

  “Is that the ratio of good students in your classes? Five ­percent?”

  “I usually manage a fair crop of sixes with a few eights and one or two failures.”

  “You’re still marking on the stanine system?”

  I nodded and poured him another cup of coffee.

  “Can you explain it? I never did understand a marking system of nine.”

  “No I can’t explain it, and few universities use it. Most are on a four-point system. Here goes, though. Nine is the ultimate mark, four is a pass, often conditional, and six is a solid mark. Most good students see a lot of eights and maybe two or three nines in their entire university career. Nines are ­easier to get at the grad level, but that’s just because you get booted out if you get lower than a seven, and the department doesn’t like to admit they made a misjudgment in accepting you in the first place.”

  I wrapped my fingers around my coffee cup. It was my favorite, a large mug with an impressionist view of Boston on the side. My neighbor Fiona had brought it back for me after a summer at the Music Conservatory.

  “Do you give out many nines?” Steve asked.

  “I once heard a prof say that he’d give out a nine only if he wished he’d written the paper himself. I got the feeling he was never going to admit that, so I suppose he didn’t give out many. I liked what he said though, and I follow his rule to a point. I give out nines when I wish that I’d written a paper like that when I was in first year university.”

  “You strike me as a fair marker, Professor Craig.” Steve smiled.

  “Oh, I hope so.” I felt myself blushing. “I’m probably a bit too easy. I’m trying so hard to make them like the subject that I find myself giving them credit for simply appreciating what they’ve read.”