A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room (22 page)

“Am I? I don’t think so.” She pressed a finger into
his breast bone. “You want to die, Mr. O’Connel. And you want me to
help.”

He wanted to stand, to backhand her, to press her to
him so hard she couldn’t breathe. “Don’t tell me about me, you
don’t know anything about me. You come to fire me, now you want to
psychoanalyze me? I don’t need it—not from you.”

She got unsteadily to her feet, pushing herself up,
hands on his knees to stand again in front of him, thighs so close
in front of his face he could see the fine blond down.

“Oh, no, you’re not stupid. You knew what would
happen when you started this crusade, and you did it anyway. You
want to be fired, you’ve wanted it ever since they died.”

He was trembling, now, needing to yawn, to stretch.
Every muscle in his body hummed. If she didn’t stop, he would run
his hands up under her dress. He could feel her skin under his
hands, every muscle, every swell of her. He knew how she would
taste, how she would feel. Knew—didn’t have to imagine—knew. He
turned his face away. “Shut up, will you just shut up?”

“You need an excuse, an out, and I’m it. I’m doing
exactly what you wanted me to do, aren’t I?” She took his face in
her hands and made him look at her. “Aren’t I?”

He let her handle him. It was as if he were falling
from a great height, barb impaling heart and lungs. Soon he would
reach the tether’s end and it would unzip his ribs.

“But then something happened, didn’t it?” Voice
barely a whisper, she taunted. “And now you need something
else.”

Numb with disgust, for her, for himself, O’Connel
wrenched his eyes to hers. “What are you doing?”

Gently, ever so slowly, she straddled him. “I’m
giving it to you.” She pressed against him, running cold hands
under his shirt, breath on his face. “I’m giving you what you
want.”

There was an ache in his throat. “You’ve had too much
wine.”

She yanked the hair at the nape of his neck. It hurt.
“I’m the one who’s taking your job, I’m the death angel come for
you. Isn’t there anything you want to do about that?”

Eyes averted, he strained against her hand. “No.” He
could feel the pressure of her against him, feel himself
respond.

The room was suddenly stifling, the air thick as cane
syrup, every movement slow torture. Could a man want to rape and
cherish, strangle and caress, humiliate and protect the same woman
at the same time? Could he want all that and still be sane?
Trembling with tension that made arousal pain, he tried to swallow
and nearly choked. Their eyes mated, he couldn’t look away.

Slow as pitch, she leaned closer, eyes never leaving
his. His hands began their inexorable slide up legs he knew would
be silky enough to make him cry.

Her mouth nearly on his, he pulled away. “No, uh
uh.”

She settled herself more comfortably on him, the
fierceness draining from her eyes. “Yes.”

It was a plea now. He cupped her face in his hands.
“Solange, this isn’t you, this isn’t me, this isn’t the way it’s
going to happen.”

She snaked arms about his neck. “Yes, it is.”

He captured her hands, pressed them to cool leather.
As desolate, as disappointed as he could remember being, he shook
his head, doing his best at a reassuring smile. “No, no it’s
not.”

Seeing he’d made up his mind, she looked as if she
might cry. “Why not?”

Now she looked every bit the exhausted woman she was.
He drew hair from her face with a single finger, tucking it neatly
behind her ear. “Because you’re a strong, good girl who’s had too
much wine, and because you’d hate both of us, that’s why.”

She pressed her forehead into his shoulder. “I
already do.”

Just then Sonny came, nails clicking, to nuzzle under
the hem of her dress, and she nearly jumped out of his arms,
squalling in fear, and then they were both laughing. Her eyes
filled. “You don’t like me,” she said, lips against his chest.

Eyes shut he laughed low and long. How little she
knew.

Face stretched into a sorrowful mask, she keened
softly; pitching off of him onto the couch, curling up like a
child, trying to stretch the dress to cover her. “I’m so
tired.”

He tucked a soft wool blanket over her, slipped a
pillow under her head. She moaned, content as he stroked her hair,
already missing the weight of her on him. “I know. Rest now.”

Standing, he backed away, unable to turn. Sweet
Jesus, what sort of fool was he?

• • •

At dawn, he found her sitting in front of the stove,
hair flowing down her neck and into a dark, glimmering pool in her
blanketed lap. He remembered its fragrance, the silky feel of it
under his hand, the bulk of it, and clenched his hand. “Been up
long?”

“Couple hours. There were some coals left, so I added
a few logs.”

He dropped onto the couch. “Sleep okay?”

She lifted slender shoulders, shook her head no. “I
haven’t been doing a lot of that.”

He’s slept little enough, that was sure. He sat on
the couch near her shoulder. “Guilty conscience?”

She winced, smiled slowly. “About last night—”

So she remembered. “Forget it.”

The teakettle surged, spitting a wet whistle and she
poured two cups of tea on the low table. Her blanket fell open, and
he caught a glimpse of bare thigh and cobalt cashmere. She covered
up, met his eye, flinched. “I’m sorry.”

“It was the wine.”

Handing him his cup, she sat cross legged on the
floor, back propped against the couch. In the dawn twilight the
stove ticked, the kettle hissed, the alderwood fire the only light
in the dark house. It felt so easy having her here, so dangerously
natural. “You mentioned your father last night.”

“He died when I was ten. A tree went the wrong way in
the wind. Mama lives here, now, in Crow. I called her this morning,
and she’s angry with me. I promised a week ago to get somebody out
to patch her roof before the rain, and then forgot all about it.
She says yesterday it leaked. Now I’ve got to try and get somebody
out from Eugene.”

She leaned over his leg, craning her neck to see out
the window. “Already the sky looks dark.” There was a breathless
moment when she caught his eye and they both remembered the night
before. She drew the blanket closer around her and sank back onto
the floor.

He thought of something, and after rummaging around
the back porch, came back to hand her a blue can and a putty knife.
“Here you go.” She took it, puzzled. “What?”

“Roof goop.”

She frowned. “Goop?”

“Roof cement, stops leaks.”

She frowned up at him, confused. “I don’t know
how.”

He shrugged, the idea catching fire in his mind.
“I’ll show you…hell, I’ll do it for you, I’ve got nothing else to
do until seven tonight.”

“You can patch a mobile home roof?”

He had to laugh. “A roof’s a roof. You think I could
live in this old barge and not know how to patch a leak?”

“But…it might rain.”

“It works fine in the rain.” She was reaching for a
reason, he knew, any reason to keep him away. After last night it
was kind of funny. He watched her, waiting for the next try.

“What about a ladder?”

He was enjoying this. “Got one.”

With a sigh, she set the can on the rug. “I can’t let
you do this…not today.”

She was so easy to read. “Why not?”

“Tonight’s the board meeting.”

He took a swig of tea. It burned all the way down.
“Big deal, your mother’s roof leaks, right? You won’t get anybody
out there today.” He went to a window. “That sky’s hanging heavy as
a sow’s tits. It’ll come down tonight. I’ve got to cross the river
to take you in anyway, we could just as well swing by Crow after we
check on your car. If the creek’s down, we should be able to make
it across.”

She shook her head. “Only if you let me pay you.”

This was so typical of her. “Pay me?”

“Yes, pay you, that’s the only way I could let you do
it.”

He opened his hands in surrender, and went to get his
hat. “Okay, pay me then. Hundred an hour plus expenses.”

She looked up, mouth opening. “Hundred an hour? Plus
what expenses?”

He pretended to think. “Cement, gas, mileage, rent on
the ladder, it all adds up. I’m skilled labor, it’s that or
nothing.”

“Robber.” She turned back to the fire, showing him
that incredible hair.

“I’m the only game in town.”

“I’ll pay it.”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll get the boat loaded. I
left a blouse and slacks on the sink upstairs.” He hesitated at the
door, unwilling to let it go. “Unless you’d prefer to wear the
dress.”

She turned, fire in her eyes, then saw his smile and
let her breath go. “I deserve that.”

He opened the door for the dog, waiting for her to
totter out.

“I warn you, she’ll bore you to death telling you
what a wonderful wife I’d be.”

He followed the dog outside. That he didn’t want to
miss.

• • •

Their shoes crunched gravel as she followed him down
the path to the waiting boat, Sonny trailing behind. The river
stretched darkly below, only a faint glimmer of white through the
dense thicket of alder betraying the presence of a trailer on the
opposite shore. She caught a glimpse of a red car as it flashed
between the trees on the highway half a mile distant, a speck
against the looming hill beyond.

“What a place. I wasn’t sure I remembered it right.
You are on the other side of a river.” She pointed at the boat.
“You cross twice a day in that?”

Fending off the dog with his shoulder, he undid the
line, setting them adrift on the current. “Until now,” he said.
“Ready?”

She clambered over the rail, avoiding wetting her
shoes in the bilge. Starting the engine, he nosed the boat
upstream. An old man in a battered straw cowboy hat sat in a boat
anchored in the middle of the river, two poles held aloft in racks
at the stern. O’Connel cut the engine fifty yards upriver, and they
drifted down on him in the sudden quiet.

“What’s bitin’, Frank?” Face brown and wrinkled as a
black walnut, his expression soured as he chewed the end of a
short, soggy cigar. “Not a goddam thing.”

“I thought the steelhead were running.” He tossed the
stub over the side where it drifted on the current.

“They may be runnin’ but they sure as hell ain’t
runnin’ my direction.” Frank watched in contempt as a shining power
boat sped upriver.

The roar of the engine made talk impossible. They
rode out the wake in silence.

“And the fancy boys ain’t doin’ no better, neither,”
he said, a sly smile crossing his face. His eyes brightened. “So
Dai, who’s this, then?” O’Connel saw amusement in Frank’s pale eyes
as he introduced her.

“Well, if he’s takin’ you across the river, you must
be a pretty special gal. He don’t take nobody over there. Hell,
he’s like some kind of damned hermit.”

“See you, Frank.” O’Connel started the engine, pulled
away.

He parked in the school parking lot at a quarter to
eight, gut telling him he was late. Twenty years of 7:30 classes
made the feeling hard to shrug off. A light rain fell as they
walked down to the creek to find her car. The water had receded
below the bridge, leaving thick, oozing silt behind. Her car along
with fifty feet of guardrail had gone.

“Maybe someone pulled it out,” she said.

He shook his head, turning downstream. “There it is.”
A hundred yards down the creek, tow belt stretched downstream from
the bumper, her car lay upside-down, half underwater, wedged
against a thicket of ash. She gasped, turning back up the hill,
swearing under her breath.

Smiling, he followed. From what he could understand,
she was good at it. Leaving her in the office on the phone with her
insurance agent, he headed upstairs.

• • •

The school was quiet today, kids home for a long
weekend.

Upstairs in his room, a cold, gray light flooded in
at the windows, and he didn’t bother switching on the overheads as
he walked through his room for the last time.

In the bottom of one desk drawer, wedged into a joint
behind a pile of bent detention forms, he found a photo. He pressed
it flat on the scarred oak desktop.

Patti had taken it only a week before the accident.
Balancing her camera on a chair in the garden, she set the timer,
and hurried to join them on a carpenter’s stool under a blossoming
dogwood.

One of the simple flowers hung near her ear.

Nikki sat between them barefoot, holding Sonny by the
loose skin of her neck, the blue bow in her hair hanging tenuously,
as if at any moment it might fall. Patricia, a little out of breath
from her dash to the bench, had smiled just as the shutter clicked
open. An imperfect smile, a real woman’s smile, a smile he’d never
learned to live without.

He looked around the room for the last time,
remembering.

How many teachers had there been in this room in
eighty years? How many more would there be? He slipped the photo in
the pocket of his jacket, and let the door swing shut behind
him.

He found them in the lounge.

“Hey, here he is,” Lott said. “So where’s the bitch
goddess?”

“Hey!” Myrtle wagged a finger in Sid’s direction.
“That’s a good teacher you’re talking about—a damned good one!”

Lott gave up. “She’s not a teacher any more.” Myrtle
knitted furiously. “Well, she was, so just knock it off. You
showing up for this thing today, Dai?” He said he wasn’t.

“Come with us to the races!” Aurora said. “We’re
going to duck out after the morning session.”

“I’ve got some stuff to do.”

“Well, I think it’s lousy, them treating you like
this after twenty years,” Aurora threw her apple core viciously at
the trash bin and bouncing it off the wall.

Sid and Karl cheered. Aurora laughed as she scooped
it up. “I mean they send that Brazilian femme fatale up here—”