Uncharted Territory

by Betsy Ashton

  “Like clean, comfy, light colors, less stuff, squishy furniture. A place where my grandchildren can relax. Where I can too.”

  “I’m your man. Let me glue Ben back together. A Cosmo or two should do it. When do you want to meet?” I heard a partially muffled comment. “Ben, will you be quiet?”

  We agreed on a few days out. I’d taken the first steps toward changing my internal and external landscape. Emotional pounds lifted from my shoulders. I wanted to blend the best of my past with the best of my present.

  ####

  I puttered around my apartment, marking items for transfer to storage. With time on my hands before I could meet Corey to plan the face-lift, I rooted through the safe in my bedroom for insurance photos. What with inheriting half a century of art collected by two rich husbands, I hadn’t a clue what I owned. I sat on my balcony with a cup of hot tea on a small table beside me. Red and gold trees in Central Park promised autumn’s impending arrival. I thumbed through an inch-thick stack of glossies.

  Where did I get all this stuff? And such expensive stuff at that. I was bored to tears with Reggie’s dark European paintings and large oils of ships. Sailing had been one of his passions. I admitted I loved our modern sailboat, but the seventeenth-century ship portraits on storm-ravaged seas hanging throughout my apartment depressed me. Maybe I should have a yard sale, courtesy of Sotheby’s. I sorted the glossies and set aside photos of a small Cezanne and a couple of Picasso sketches I wanted on the walls.

  Where was the modern art? Reggie had collected a number of pieces as an investment with no intention of hanging them. Had he bought anything I wanted on the walls?

  I found the insurance rider at the bottom of the safe. Sure enough, it included a Kandinsky, an early Jackson Pollock and several paintings from less well-known artists. The colors and lines lifted my spirits. One of the modern pieces would fit with Richard du Lac’s Two Sisters, the oil I bought the day Merry was injured. It hung in my bedroom where I could see it as soon as I awoke. It reminded me of the promise of happier times.

  Two prints stuck together. I separated them, taking care not to damage them, and clapped my hands. I’d rarely bought art after Reggie and I married, but early on I fell in love with a bold oil hanging in a café in Lafayette, Louisiana. Reggie called the painting kitschy. I didn’t care; I bought it anyway.

  George Rodrique’s blue dog paintings today sold for over twenty thousand. I paid less than five hundred. He might not have liked my taste in paintings, but Reggie would have approved of the return on my investment. I put Blue Dog #3 at the bottom of the stack. I couldn’t wait to show the photos to Corey. We were going to have such fun shopping in my vault.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  New York, week of August 22

  “Hi, guys.” I grinned into the camera. I missed hugging the kids, but I was getting used to this new means of communication. I no longer minded its delays and jerky movements.

  “Do you have blinking red pompoms on your head?” Emilie leaned closer to the camera. This from the girl whose hair was streaked yellow and orange. Pink was passé.

  I patted my blonde hair before I tweaked the pompoms. They danced back and forth. “Do you like the new look?”

  “I double-dog dare you to walk over to Auntie Raney’s wearing them.” Emilie collapsed into giggles.

  “I’ll do it when you come to visit.”

  “Yippee!” Alex shouted and tried to elbow his sister out of camera range. “Can we come to New York as soon as we get back?”

  Emilie slid out of the frame, mouthing, “Boys.”

  “We’ll see. Tell me what you did today.” The pompoms blinked on and off. I admired my reflection. I couldn’t feel serious wearing such goofy things.

  “Charlie and Dad took us horseback riding to an abandoned village yesterday. I found some old bones.” Alex bubbled over about his latest adventure.

  “They weren’t bones,” Emilie said off camera. “You found pieces of wood.”

  “Well, they looked like bones.” Alex hated to be corrected by anyone, especially his sister.

  “How’s the hunt for a teacher coming?” Whip moved Alex aside to enter the narrow picture. He was as dusty as his son. No matter if the work was physically difficult, he was happiest on some remote construction site where being dirty at the end of the day didn’t matter.

  “Don’t get me started. Why are people incapable of understanding the written word? Particularly when it’s a want ad for a teaching position? In the past two weeks, I’ve had applications from five young women who wanted to be nannies in uptown apartments.”

  “Wish I could help.” Whip’s expression, though, said better you than me.

  “So do I. Wait ’til I tell you about my interview with Mrs. Doubtfire yesterday.”

  I’d arranged to meet the applicant at a midtown teahouse. On paper she was almost too well-qualified. In person she could have been a tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Her physique didn’t exclude her, but her behavior did. She let me know almost before we finished introducing ourselves what her minimum requirements were.

  “Her own room with a sitting room and a big-screen television, access to the kitchen and any food in it, three-day weekends, two weeks off each quarter, a car if we weren’t going to be in the city, taxi allowance ‘since I won’t drive in this insane traffic’, private hotel room when we travel.”

  The Peru group laughed. Charlie walked through the picture behind Whip, flapped a hand and passed out of sight.

  “Tell me you didn’t hire her,” Emilie said as soon as she could breathe. She leaned over her father’s shoulder. “If you did, me and Alex—“

  “Alex and I.”

  She stuck her tongue out. “Alex and I’ll behave like complete and total brats. We’ll run her off in a day.”

  “I knew at hello she wouldn’t work. The more she talked, often while chewing, the more revolted I became. Terrible manners and crude language. I admit I judged her first by her looks, but that judgment held up.”

  I peered around my den. Was the perfect teacher hiding among the thousand-plus books on the shelves? Had I missed her in the shadows?

  “If I can’t find a qualified teacher, we’ll have to stay in Richmond.”

  Whip shook his head. “Out of the question.”

  I glared at him. He wasn’t manipulating me into being the kids’ teacher. Two roles, parent and grandparent, were more than enough. “What if I can’t find someone? Are you going to homeschool them? Or do the kids not go to school?”

  “You’ll find a way.”

  “Yeah, sure.” My frowny face was in direct conflict with my bouncy headgear. “What gets me is the deplorable lack of basic knowledge. Even among the barely competent candidates, all college grads, mind you, they don’t speak grammatically correct English. Either they know something about math but nothing about civics and world history, or vice versa. I haven’t found anyone with a well-rounded traditional education. I haven’t gotten as far as talking about living in an RV with any of them.”

  “We don’t have to go to school,” Alex yelled from off camera. “We can learn everything we need over the Internet.”

  “And a whole lot more you don’t need.” Whip stopped that line of thinking.

  “Eleanor knows a man in her church that might do. I haven’t seen his résumé or met him yet.” I crossed my fingers.

  “A man, huh?” Whip was interested. “Could work.”

  “Maybe he’ll keep Alex focused.” I worried about Alex picking up too many bad habits in Peru. Whip was too lax for my comfort.

  “I’m focused,” came Alex’s shout from behind his father.

  “Yes, on everything but your schoolwork.” Whip grinned at his son.

  “Anything else going on I should know about?”

  “We’re going to stay in the States. Tops has a project in the Pacific Northwest that looks hopeful.”

  “The dam job?”

  “How did you know?”

  “
Johnny told me. Let me know when you’re ready to leave Peru. I need a few days to get to Richmond and stock the town house.”

  “It shouldn’t be longer than a couple of weeks. That okay?”

  “Sure is. I can’t wait to see you guys.”

  “Love you, Mad Max,” Emilie signed off.

  “Bye,” from Alex.

  “See ya,” from Whip.

  Another wave and a flash of red hair from the ever-moving Charlie before the connection faded.

  CHAPTER SIX

  New York, week of August 29

  Even though I was nervous as if I were on a first date, I was late to Eleanor’s. Usually so punctual you could set your watch by me, I was fixated by the television coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Warnings before it made landfall promised this storm would be bad. Never in my wildest nightmares did I foresee the New Orleans levees breaking and an entire city being drowned. Eleanor opened the door.

  “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t tear myself away from what’s going on in New Orleans.” I gave my handbag and sweater to Joyce, Eleanor’s longtime maid, and hugged my friend. “Now I understand why people can’t look away from a train wreck.”

  “What those poor people in the Super Dome are enduring is inexplicable. I never thought I would see our own country treat people in desperate straits this abominably.”

  Eleanor tucked my arm through hers and led me into her sitting room. A tall man stood looking at a bookcase, his hands locked behind his back.

  “Certainly not,” I said.

  The man turned to face me.

  “Stuart, may I introduce Maxine Davies.”

  “Maxine, this is Stuart Duxworth-Ross.”

  We shook hands; we made no attempt to hide the fact we sized each other up. Mr. Duxworth-Ross was a head taller than me and wiry lean, with gray eyes, caterpillar eyebrows, a trimmed beard and fading red hair. Dressed in a navy blazer, tan slacks and a white shirt, the one out-of-the-ordinary touch was a polka-dot cravat instead of a tie. Eleanor motioned for us to sit and offered coffee from an urn on the butler’s table.

  “Joyce will serve lunch in half an hour.”

  Aromas of fresh baked bread and homemade tomato soup filled the brownstone.

  Since it was dominating the airwaves, we talked about hurricane-ravaged New Orleans before turning to a variety of social topics from childhood obesity to the war in Iraq to the deplorable state of education in the US. Although I learned very little about Mr. Duxworth-Ross himself, the more he talked, the more interested I became. His diction and grammar were Queen’s-English perfect.

  When Joyce called us to lunch, we moved into the dining room. She put bowls of soup and egg salad sandwiches in front of each of us. I waited until she left before turning to the reason we were together.

  “Mr. Duxworth-Ross, I believe Eleanor’s told you I’m looking for a teacher to homeschool my two grandchildren.”

  “She has. Please, call me Ducks. It’s less of a mouthful.” His smile revealed white, slightly overlapping front teeth.

  “With pleasure. I’m Max, Maxine to Eleanor, who loathes nicknames.”

  “Yes, I learned.” Ducks grinned. “The hard way.”

  “My grandchildren went through a year of hell.” I gave the barest information about Merry’s accident and murder, its aftereffects on Emilie and Alex, where they were in school and their current escapades in Peru.

  When I paused over a bite of sandwich, Ducks asked, “If I may be nosy, are they in therapy?”

  Well, that was refreshing. His first question was about the children. Prior applicants talked about their personal requirements and ignored my grandchildren’s needs. I filled in more blanks about how they were continuing therapy through technology.

  “Ah yes, the e-couch. How very wise.”

  “Alex’s bounced back with the resiliency of an eleven-year-old. Em still has nightmares, but she’s learning to fear them less. Her doctor says they’ll get better but may never go away.” I crunched a homemade crouton in the soup. Yum. Dark rye.

  “And she’s how old?”

  “Almost thirteen.”

  “Did she see her mother killed?” Ducks set down his empty coffee cup.

  “No. She didn’t.”

  “Right. I’ll want to hear more later. It’ll help me know how to approach her the first time.” Ducks earned more points by keeping the focus on Emilie. Thus far, he’d asked for nothing but the right kind of information to access her state of mind.

  I lifted a spoonful of soup. Hot enough to singe my tongue. I held the spoon for a few moments. “I assume, Ducks, you’re a teacher.”

  Ducks looked startled. “Right. You don’t have my CV, my curriculum vitae. It’s what you call a résumé.”

  “I’ll want to see it as soon as possible. Did you bring a copy?”

  “No. I wanted to meet you first. Now, to answer your question. I was a teacher. I taught math, science, and English in England for fifteen years. I was headmaster across the pond before coming to the States in the same role at a progressive private school in Massachusetts. Even as headmaster, I continued teaching math and physics.”

  “What made the school progressive?” Eleanor, a semi-retired university professor, had a keen interest in education at all levels.

  “Year-round classes were radical at the time. We gave the students two weeks off a quarter.” Ducks put his spoon down. “I adopted it from the Japanese school system. As a private academy, we didn’t have to satisfy an elected school board, just a board of directors.”

  “What else did you try?” Up to now, nothing disqualified this urbane man.

  “We live in a global society, yet we’re sorely inept at using our own language, let alone a second one. I introduced teaching math in Spanish and history in French. We even had an option of Mandarin for social studies.”

  Imagine taking a class in a different language. Not taking the language per se, but using it to study a subject like history or economics. How cool was that?

  “How did combining math and language study work?”

  “After a few bumps, very well.”

  “I would be happy if children in New York City could read English when they graduated.” Eleanor had little faith that the current system educated students.

  “I agree.” Ducks held up his cup. “Any chance for more coffee?”

  Eleanor pressed a buzzer. In a few seconds, Joyce arrived with a fresh pot.

  “Which languages did you teach?” I motioned toward my cup for a refill.

  “Well, I don’t speak Chinese, but I’m fluent in Spanish and French. Not too bad in German or Italian. Some Swahili.”

  “That is quite a range,” Eleanor said.

  “I can’t pretend to be fluent in Swahili. My level is conversational at best.” Ducks dropped two sugar cubes into his coffee and stirred. “Have your grandchildren started language studies?”

  “Em started Spanish last year. Alex begins this year. They’re pretty good in conversational Spanish, since the laborers in Peru don’t speak English. I don’t want to think what they’re really learning, though.” I shook my head.

  Alex’s bad manners had morphed into an art form since he wasn’t under my scrutiny. I had so much work to do. If that continued, I’d need lessons in parenting. I had no clue what the current trends were. I was way old school.

  “If you approve, I’ll use Spanish textbooks to teach everything from algebra onward. Science too. We’ll study history and social studies in French.”

  “What about electives?” I stirred cream into my coffee, my spoon making soft clinks against the thin porcelain cup.

  “Like what?” Ducks sipped more soup.

  “Economics. Ecology. Civics. Science. English and American literature. Computer science.”

  “Certainly. There are plenty of books and study plans we can use. Shouldn’t be a problem. Anything else?” Ducks’s calm put me at ease.

  “Em loved her after-school creative writing class.” I’d picked h
er up twice a month. She read me everything she wrote. Some of it was damned good. Some needed a lot of work.

  “Brilliant. I play with a bit of writing myself.”

  Okay, we had the basics out of the way. Down to one more issue. “Several teachers I interviewed wanted to teach to the New York Learning Standards exams. What do you—?”

  “State-legislated ignorance! This obscene overemphasis on testing has reduced education to a mockery of what it was a few decades ago. It wasn’t all that good then. Preposterous!”

  Eleanor and Ducks argued the demerits of standardized testing with a vehemence that shoved me to the sidelines. The more I listened, the more I liked what he said, but I couldn’t jump to conclusions. Not with my grandkids’ education at stake.

  “Okay, we agree students can learn more than the basics. How would you challenge Alex and Em? They still have to pass the exams, after all.”

  “I pushed my students to do more than they thought they could. I’d do the same with your grandchildren once I assessed their strengths. I like to build on what they already know and what they like.” Ducks outlined a rigorous program incorporating traditional subjects with more unconventional ones. Computer science for Alex, creative writing for Emilie. Plenty of exercise as well.

  We talked for another half hour before I had to leave to meet Corey at my vault. As I reclaimed my sweater and bag, I gave Ducks my card and asked him to e-mail me his contact information, résumé, and a list of references both in the US and England. My gut told me he was the real thing, but my gut wasn’t enough. If his references checked out, he’d have to pass Emilie’s gut too.

  “One more thing. We won’t be staying in New York City or in Richmond.”

  “Eleanor mentioned trailers.” Ducks winked at our hostess.

  “By the way, how long have you been in the States, Stuart?” Eleanor jumped in before I could deny the RVs were trailers.

  “Twelve years. I became a citizen two years ago, so you don’t have to worry about my status. I’m legal.”

  I shook Ducks’s hand, kissed Eleanor, and walked through the sunshine to the corner to hail a cab.