Tyler shook his head no, then looked at the floor.
“That’s okay. In time. But if the mood strikes you…”
“Can you tell me about the curriculum?” asked Joanna.
Rainbow smiled in his affable way. “This is an experimental school. For movement, we might take the children out to the gym and have them invent their own ball game. We like our students to feel free to express themselves in order to reach their full potential.”
“Even when it’s freezing outside?”
“What is weather anyway?” Rainbow smiled.
Joanna attempted a serious expression while Tyler did a little break-dance move beside her.
“That’s fantastic!” said Rainbow. “Keep going, Tyler!”
Tyler stopped immediately and watched the dancing children.
Joanna expressed her concerns about bullying, and Rainbow reassured her that there was none of that here. The school was a breeding ground for pacifism, if anything. Classes were given in an impromptu, unstructured fashion, often letting the children themselves dictate the tone. There were no textbooks or homework or lesson plans. The staff believed they were in the middle of creating something new, revolutionary, creative, and were inventing it as they went along. The mission statement: “Freedom in learning. Learning in freedom.”
The cafeteria was vegan, using local organic produce only, which added to the already prohibitive tuition, of course, but who would want their kids to eat anything else? Rainbow happily rattled off the illustrious names of all the rich and powerful and famous parents who had donated time and money (a lot of money) to make the place what it was today.
The more she learned about the school, the more Joanna grew wary that Tyler would learn anything here. She imagined the classes as utter chaos. Children needed—even wanted—discipline and structure. They needed books.
The music changed; this time it was a man singing in an angelic, operatic voice. The children drifted about, waving their arms as if they were flying, mimicking the movements of the young woman who began to lead them.
“So if there are no books, how do the children learn to read?” she asked. “Or do they not?”
“Oh, they do! They do!” said Rainbow. “Somehow they do,” he added with a serene smile.
“What about when they go to high school? Won’t making the transition be a bit like culture shock? This is so different.”
Rainbow gave her another big, happy grin. “I’m not saying there aren’t going to be challenges later.”
Joanna sighed. Oh well. At least there wouldn’t be any bullies. And Rainbow did say the kids learned to read… somehow. “When are applications due?” she asked.
The serene smile left his face. “You have not applied?”
“No?”
Rainbow shook his head sorrowfully. “I am so sorry. Applications were due a year ago. We only have sixteen spaces, and we had hundreds of families apply. I am so sorry.”
And that was when Joanna realized that the little school with no textbooks, no lesson plans, and no physical education did have one thing: a surfeit of prestige—which was the one thing that mattered in the Hamptons.
chapter thirty-one
Tequila Sunset
Leaning against the cash register in a plaid shirt and jeans, Freddie crossed his arms as he ran an eye down the bar of the North Inn. The lone bleached blonde at the end, with oversize pearls and coral lipstick, was tilting off her seat, and he thought he better cut her off soon and call her a cab. Overall, he was getting good at this mortal thing, being unable to avail himself of his powers. His customers had drinks and ramekins of peanuts. It was midweek, early in the evening. Sal was in the back, playing poker with his septuagenarian buddies, and Kristy was home with Max and Hannah.
AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” began to play on the jukebox, the tolling of bells followed by a guitar’s opening riff. Freddie dug a beer out of the ice bin and popped it open. He took a long, hard swig, exhaled a satisfied sigh, and looked up at the hockey game on the old-school TV above the bar. His team was in the midst of scoring a beautiful goal and they were winning. Small pleasures, he told himself.
He always sensed the shift in atmosphere when a customer entered the bar. This time he felt it before the door opened. One second he flicked his eyes at the door and it was closed, the next the door swung open and someone was walking through it. He still had a little magic in him after all. The man striding toward him was nearly as tall and wide as the doorframe itself—football-player size, at least the breadth of his shoulders. Wait a second, thought Freddie, I know this guy…
“Odin’s beard!” Freddie said.
“Wha?” Troy laughed, swinging a hand out at him. Freddie grabbed it and his old friend tugged him forward to give him a bear hug over the bar top. The young men patted each other hard on the back as they laughed.
Troy took a seat. “Hey, man!”
“Wow! Look at you!” Freddie shook his head and whistled. “Thor, how have you been, my friend?”
“Good, good, everything’s great. Good to see you, man. I saw Ingrid the other day. She told me you were here. So… here I am!”
“That right?” said Freddie with a grin. “Wow! Ingrid, huh? Erda and Thor.” He laughed.
“Yep! Except I go by Troy Overbrook now.” He swung his bangs out of his face.
Freddie shook his head with a smile. “Troy Overbrook, Freddie Beauchamp at your service. What can I get you?”
Troy eyed the bottles on the shelves behind the bar. “How about we have ourselves a little reunion celebration?” He squinted at Freddie and gave a nod. “Tequila?”
“Perfecto!” Freddie got an unopened bottle of Sauza Gold along with shot glasses and dewy cold Coronas. He had already finished his own beer. He set the tequila and beers down between them. They licked salt off their fists, slammed down their shots, bit into limes, and took deep swigs of the chasers.
Troy flashed his glowing white teeth.
Freddie saluted Troy with his beer bottle. “What the hell have you been up to?” He didn’t usually drink on the job, but this reunion was a special occasion.
As they downed more tequila shots and beers, Troy proceeded to tell Freddie about his life in Midgard. He told him about his more recent fiasco: the after-hours club he had owned in the city, and how he finally had to give up the ghost. He had sold it and made a modest but decent chunk of change. He believed the club’s lack of success was somehow related to their magic waning. Then, on a last minute whim, Troy had decided to spend the winter in North Hampton and enjoy the quiet. He had some business here.
Freddie lifted his eyebrows inquisitively at Troy as he poured two more shots that spilled over the glasses.
“Well, I kind of just wanted to see Erda, to tell you the truth.” Troy shook his head. “I mean Ingrid. You know, give it the old college try.” The Sauza had loosened his tongue.
“Oh,” said Freddie. “Right, well, good luck with that!” He grinned.
“Help me out here, Freddie! A guy needs all the help he can get. Can’t you do something? I mean, she’s your sister! She really serious about that mortal?”
Freddie hiccupped. He took a long swig of beer, which seemed to help. “Sure looks like it. Sorry, bud.”
They laughed good-naturedly. Freddie replenished their beers, and they drained two more shots and bit into lime quarters, making puckered-up faces. Freddie quickly served the new customers who had wandered in, disappointed to find Freya and her pop-up drinks were gone, but Freddie made them forget his sister soon enough with his own brand of magic: being an energetic, good-looking guy at the bar. He refilled a few drinks, and returned to Troy, all ears, but not before pouring himself and Troy two additional shots.
Troy regaled him with tales from his immortal life—in Roman times, he had been a senator (tons of gold, bacchanalia, and debauchery); in sixteenth-century France, he had lived in the courts of kings (more gold and oh-so-many lovely breasts heaving up from tight corsets); the
n in the nineteenth century, he was with Jefferson in Paris (excellent cash flow and not stodgy at all—in fact, the libertines were total babes). And on it went with raves about gold and women, then eventually cars and motorcycles.
Freddie had started to feel a little edgy—or, rather, envious of Troy. His friend had lived all these amazing lives. What had Freddie done since he’d arrived in Midgard? Since he had made his way back from Limbo, he had fallen for this chick, Hilly, who had totally bamboozled him and he ended up forced to marry her sister, and just when he had completely fallen for Gert, she had left him. Most of his time in mid-world had, in fact, been spent playing video games, if he really thought about it. He had put out a few little house fires, but big deal.
He felt miserable, unaccomplished, drowsy, and punchy. A total loser. Tequila had a way of doing that. At first you felt wickedly on top of the world, then you were ready to sock the first person who looked at you askew. Vodka would have been better. And where was that bleached blonde at the end of the bar? It was looking a little blurry down there. Had she fallen off her stool? He had forgotten to call her a cab. He’d take care of it later. It was her own damn fault if she’d gotten too wasted. Someone came over and asked him for a drink, and he mixed it hastily, making a mess on the bar, which he didn’t bother to wipe, then he slapped the cash in the register.
“So what’s been going on with you? Tell me all about your lives!” Troy said enthusiastically, giving Freddie his big, dimpled grin.
Freddie stared blankly back. Why had Troy just asked him that? Of course Troy knew what had gone down, that Freddie had spent the last five thousand years whiling his time away in friggin’ Limbo because he had been wrongfully accused of destroying the Bofrir. WTF?
Troy’s smile went slack, and his broad shoulders deflated. He realized the faux pas. “Oh, I’m so sorry, dude… yeah… about that… At least you’re out, right? I heard the Valkyries found the real guy who did it.”
Freddie didn’t answer. It was his fault, what had happened to Killian. There were so many things he wished he could have done differently. Freya back in the past, Killian in Limbo, and here he was, stuck in this little town, getting drunk on tequila. He was useless. His life had been a waste.
“Hey!” said Troy, reaching over the bar to grab Freddie’s arm. “Did I say something wrong?”
Freddie smiled. “It’s cool, man. It’s totally cool! We’re good!” Freddie poured the rest of the Sauza into their shot glasses.
He couldn’t do anything for anyone. Not for his sister or his best friend. There was nothing to do but drink. Might as well finish the bottle.
chapter thirty-two
Shower the People
Guests sat on the carpet in a half circle around Tabitha. It was reminiscent of her reading hour at the library, only she was unwrapping baby-shower gifts in her living room. Hudson gathered the ribbons from the discarded wrappings and stuck them onto a paper plate, which then would be turned into a hat to place on Tabitha’s head. “A delightful and hilarious tradition,” he had remarked.
Ingrid was making a list of the gifts for thank-you notes. She had to admit there was something adorable about tiny, tiny socks and shoes and ever-so-soft miniature T-shirts and swaddling cloths, something that gave her a vague stirring. A baby. None of her siblings had ever had children. They were stuck, somehow; Freya and Freddie were perpetual adolescents, while Ingrid had been a spinster all her life, an unripened fruit, withering on the vine. But love had changed her, and she could finally understand what all the fuss was about.
“A tutu!” exclaimed Tabitha.
“Um, that’s from Ingrid!” Hudson quickly shot back.
Tabitha and her friends laughed.
“It’s a boy, right?” asked Betty Lazar, who had recently shacked up with her boyfriend, Seth Holding, the junior detective.
“Well, you never know!” said Ingrid, scribbling down tutu and her name beside it. She giggled.
“I love it!” said Tabitha. “It’s perfect. Every child should have a tutu. Thanks, Ingrid.”
“No trouble at all,” retorted Ingrid.
“I thought it was genius,” said Hudson, grabbing a pink ribbon to stick onto the belle-of-the-ball hat.
Ingrid glanced at the many shelves in Tabitha’s home library, which was so like Matt’s. Thinking of him made her wistful. She had been avoiding him lately, and he was starting to notice. She knew she was being silly, but she couldn’t stop feeling like a home wrecker even if Matt and Mariza had never shared a home.
“I’ve decided I’m going to practice attachment parenting,” Tabitha announced as she balanced a gift on her knees.
“What’s that?” asked Hudson. “Is that the thing where you see parents walking around with a child on a leash? Those little harness things? I always wondered about that.”
Even Ingrid had to laugh. Although she had always been puzzled by those leashes, but usually chalked them up to parents having watched too many true-crime shows.
“Silly!” replied Tabitha. “It’s a type of parenting method created by a pediatrician and has to do with developmental psychology. There are eight principles.”
“Like what?” asked Hudson.
“Like ‘Feed with respect and love.’ ”
“Oh, Scott does that with me,” he retorted.
Tabitha giggled. “It’s about nurturing a healthy dependency so that the child becomes a confident person.”
“I think my mom got the other handbook,” Hudson quipped. “Detachment parenting. The hands-off method!”
Ingrid laughed but her mind was still on Matt. Over coffee, Troy had told her that he thought she was making a big mistake, letting herself fall for a mortal. “I’ve done what you are doing. Trust me. I don’t recommend it. The pain…” he had said. “To be honest, it’s agonizing…”
Yes, the pain, thought Ingrid. Matt would be a fleeting moment in an endless life. Matt would die and she would be left with the pain of his loss for all eternity. Was it worth it? Was loving him worth the pain of losing him?
“Oh, my God!” squealed Tabitha, holding up the mini lederhosen.
“I hope your child yodels!” said Hudson.
“Oh, he will!” said Betty Lazar. “I hear they keep you up all night long yodeling!” At that she let out a yodel.
On the notepad, Ingrid inscribed the word lederhosen after Hudson.
chapter thirty-three
The Price of Admission, Part Two
In front of the low-slung main building—made of wood and blue glass—stood a white marble reproduction of the Greek statue Winged Victory of Samothrace. The goddess Nike of peace, efficiency, speed, and victory splayed her wings as she pressed her chest forward, facing the sea, as had her original counterpart in the port of Samothrace, to welcome incoming ships from their conquests. Every morning the statue greeted the five hundred or so kindergarteners through twelfth graders and the staff of the Carlyle School.
On the orientation tour, Joanna and Norman had visited the quaint little green schoolhouses, connected by wooden walkways at the back of the campus. They admired the lovely little playgrounds, gardens, greenhouses, and small farm with two pigs, five goats, and six sheep, which the smaller students were taught to care for. The barn doubled as the “art studio.”
Now Joanna and Norman sat in the principal’s office for the interview. Charlie Woodruff was a disarming, good-looking fellow in his early fifties with white hair and sincere blue eyes. He explained the school’s mission as one that encouraged their students to adopt a global outlook, embrace technology, pursue the arts and sciences as much as competitive sports. “We’re traditional but forward thinking, at least we hope to be so,” he explained. “So what do you think?”
“Where do we sign?” Joanna joked. Truly, it seemed like a dream school. She could already imagine Tyler in one of those little blazers with the school crest and gray flannel pants they wore as uniforms.
The principal smiled. “Of course, we will nee
d to meet with his parents as well, but ultimately everything will hinge on how Tyler tests.”
“Of course!” echoed Joanna and Norman.
“So who is your patron?” asked Dorothy.
Joanna stared blankly back from across the luncheon table at Dorothy De Forrest. What was her dear but self-important heiress friend asking her now? Joanna had grown weary of Dorothy’s chronicles of finishing schools and debutante balls but had agreed to the lunch, because if one did not see one’s annoying old friends, one might not have any old friends at all. “Excuse me?” She blinked.
Dorothy blinked back. “My dear, who do you have on the inside? At Carlyle?”
Joanna was from an old, well-known family. She was a Beauchamp. But she never understood why certain people gained a sense of entitlement from a name. Gentle birth. Landed gentry. Old money. It was all dumb luck. Who cared? “What do you mean?”
“I mean who is backing your application. Surely you have someone on the board? Surely Norman…?” Dorothy asked. “The Carlyle School is extremely selective. Admission is practically a miracle,” she said with a small laugh. “Surely you know somebody who can help.”
Joanna shook her head, feeling a bit sick to her stomach. “No, we don’t know anyone at Carlyle.” She took a sip of her wine. “Besides, we were told it all depends on how Tyler tests and I’m certain he’ll do very well.” She returned to slicing her duck.
“Of course, of course,” said her friend, cutting up the quail on her plate, which sat in a tiny basket made of potato strings on a bed of baby greens. “Sorry to mention it. Please pass the salt, darling.”
chapter thirty-four
Where Things Come Back
Sunday morning. Sort of. It was noon when Freddie awoke in his own bed for once. He would have slept longer had it not been for his cell persistently ringing on the bedside table. It had been a long week caring for Max and Hannah after evenings slinging drinks, and he had told Kristy he needed time to recover in his own space. The previous night had been a doozy, the North Inn remaining packed until four in the morning. He’d had to get ironfisted about last call, eventually kicking out the last lively hangers-on. “It’s not the Fourth of July yet. No need for fireworks,” he told them. “Just go home!”
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