All's Well That Ends (6 page)

“Yes,” I said, flipping through a Xeroxed news story about a young man who’d conquered a physical disability, near-starvation, homelessness, and a precocious bout of alcoholism to go on to win a college scholarship. The headmaster, Maurice Havermeyer, who was maintaining his record for never once coming up with a good idea, had scrawled across the top, “Good story to inspire our youth!”

I could just imagine the response. The young man in the article deserved praise and respect. He would not get it if I read this story to my classes. They’d be intrigued by the alcoholism, not the recovery.

“In my day, it meant you were a bad boy. The kind your mother didn’t want you to associate with.”

I untangled Opal’s sentence. Two boys were involved. One bad, one told not to associate with him. Or perhaps one bad boy and one girl whose mother didn’t want her associating with him.

But I still didn’t know what she was talking about.

She saw my puzzlement. “Gambling!” she said. “A ‘poker-playing man,’ they’d say, meaning a gambler.” She shook her head and pursed her mouth. “Code for up to no good in my day.” Then her features relaxed. She must have been a pretty, delicate young woman, and she was still attractive, even with 41

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS

accordion-pleated skin. “Nowadays, it’s a fad! It’s fashionable.

Look at these boys, the crème de la crème!”

Hardly. We were a school filled with intellectual skim milk, not cream.

She sighed. “I know I’m out of touch with this modern world because Mr. Codd watches the poker tournaments on TV, too.

Loves them, and I’m sure those boys do, too. Besides, who knows better than the administration—”

I was proud of myself for not informing her that pretty much everybody knew better than our administration.

“—and obviously, Dr. Havermeyer and his board aren’t perturbed by it.”

“By poker playing?” Poker held no interest for me. I’m not great with numbers, and I can’t remember what was played or what to do about it. I thereby infuriate everyone else in the game, and bore myself. So I responded to Mrs. Codd out of polite-ness, not interest. “Why would they be?”

“Well, the way our boys—it is almost all boys—play so much.

Noon, and after school, and for all I know, into the night.”

“Here? In the building?” How had she noticed and understood so much in a week, and why hadn’t I?

“Not inside the school.” She shook her head. The silver tendrils swayed with her motion. “Our archididascalos forbids it,”

she said, then she chuckled.

“Mrs. Codd—”

“Opal, please!”

“Archididascalos?”

Another chuckle. “I like a little sparkle in my sentences, so I’m studying up. Need a better vocabulary now that I’m here in a place of higher learning. Need to set an example.”

“And archididascalos?”

“School principal. Dr. Havermeyer.”

“I’ve never heard that term before.”

“Few have, alas. And amazingly, it’s not in every dictionary, but it is a perfectly good word.”

GILLIAN ROBERTS

42

Perhaps so, but I didn’t see the point of a word that obscured meaning rather than clarified it. Perhaps that was evidence only of my ignorance.

“Put his foot down, as I understand,” she said. “The woman who was here before me? That lovely young woman?” She paused, brow creased.

“Harriet Rummel,” I prompted.

“Yes,” she said with another of her smiles. “She was so kind to stay a day and train me, and she told me the rule about no playing in school. It’s the gambling part, you know, not the playing itself, that’s so worrisome.”

“Times do change,” I murmured. I felt mildly queasy about kids rushing off to play poker in the cold. Queasier still that I’d been unaware of it till now. Still, I knew watching poker on TV

or playing it online was almost a mania, and I wasn’t surprised.

Or particularly interested.

“Harriet was a sweet young thing, wasn’t she?” Opal Codd said. “And so deeply in love. I do hope things worked out for them.”

Our last secretary had been engaged to a man who was so preoccupied with finding himself and following his bliss that he was rarely to be seen. They’d been engaged for over a decade, and still, he was lost. He’d thought he’d found himself at taxidermy school, but after nearly completing his course of study, he apparently had been chastised for misstuffing a wildcat. “You’re a clown,” the instructor had said, and he took it to be an omen and a portent.

Harriet followed him to Florida, to Clown School, sure that once there and settled in—and while she continued as always to support him—they would wed.

I’d liked her, the poor deluded woman, and I hoped against hope that even at this very moment, she was walking down the aisle with a man in a fake, red ball of a nose and oversized clown shoes.

Four

Itried to get out of school quickly, not out of any urgency to get to the job with Sasha, but so as to beat the traffic over the bridge into New Jersey. Bordentown was about thirty miles away, and could be a quick enough trip or a nightmare commute.

I hit gridlock at the front door, with students hellbent on getting out of the building, and I once again was jostled by parkas and mufflers and lined leather gloves.

“Sorry!” a young male voice said. That same word, that same voice—time-delayed echoes in these hallowed halls?

“Jonesy?” It was indeed. He looked horrified by the sight of me. And frightened, too. “We have to stop meeting this way,” I said.

Not only did he not find my remark witty in the least, but GILLIAN ROBERTS

44

the boy next to him looked perturbed. Almost angry. “Meeting?”

he said. “Why?” His eyes flicked over me dismissively and fixed on Jonesy. “Why would you?”

I disliked his rudeness—why would he be that incredulous about somebody meeting with me?—but wasn’t surprised by it, or by his stupidity. I disliked him. “It was a joke, Griffith,” I said.

“An old joke.”

I knew he didn’t like having his entire first name used, and that he wanted to be called “Griff.” Otherwise, people thought of his father, Griffith Ward, host of a popular local TV talk show, occasional guest reporter on the evening news, and former movie actor. His movies had been dreadful, and his talk show was nothing if not ordinary, but he was a man of great charm and that seemed enough to draw in interesting, or at least famous, celebrity guests. As for his string of forgettable films—Philadelphians forgot about them.

I liked him, too, or whatever I knew of his public persona.

But his son was another matter. He had charm, but only a thin veneer that barely covered a smug, arrogant, and slow-witted personality.

I felt wretched admitting that I did not like Griffith Ward the Younger. I entered teaching intending to and believing that I would respect and fully appreciate each child’s individuality. If asked back then, I would have reacted with sincere horror at the idea of a teacher’s disliking a student. I might even react with the same horror now.

And yet, here we were.

It didn’t happen often. Not that negative emotions were never in play. I was often-enough annoyed, also vexed, irritated, miffed, put out, riled, and chafed by students’ behavior. But that was different. That was justified, at least to me, and transient.

My feelings about Griffith Ward the Younger and his ilk were deep-set. He didn’t like being confused with or compared to his father, but he didn’t mind trading on his father’s popularity. The faculty considered it a laughable prank when he declared himself 45

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS

a candidate for Junior Class president, a position that held little responsibility, but a strong promise of reelection as Senior Class president. That, too, meant little in the grand scheme of real power, but it was a test of popularity, and participation in student government looked great on college applications.

Eventually it didn’t matter if he was taken seriously or not.

He became the candidate of choice when his father, with superb political timing, presented the school with two summer intern-ships on his show, and invited his son’s entire eleventh grade classmates to a special day’s taping at the studio. A day that featured a rock star, plus the chance for many in the audience to speak on air.

That was it. The new and future class or school president was a shoo-in. How could you not like that vacant, happy, glad-handing jock? I wouldn’t mind the complete lack of intellectual interest, not as much as I do, if he were not so arrogant. If he didn’t strut around the school with a smirk on his face. If he weren’t always surrounded by a group of toadies. Jonesy, I could see, was one of them.

“A joke,” Griffith said with a typical sneer. “Yeah. An
old
joke. Got it. Sorry. I should have known.”

He made it sound like an insult. Or maybe it was.

“We’ll be late,” he told Jonesy. “Hurry up.”

And they were gone, and so was I, none of us up for long farewells or even civilities. Good thing that neither Jonesy nor Griffith was particularly verbose or glib, because that meant they left me with time to get over the bridge without a single snarl. I pulled up outside Phoebe’s house in little more than a half hour, and felt as if I’d done a good thing.

The neighborhood she’d shared with her fifth husband was unprepossessing but pleasant: small vintage homes from before one of our wars, each with a bay window in the living room, almost all with tieback drapes and sheer curtains, and all with a square of green lawn neatly divided by a path to the front door. A few owners had tinkered with the symmetry, turning garages into GILLIAN ROBERTS

46

rooms that almost looked as if they’d always served that function, but the look of the street was settled, comfortable, and unpretentious. It was not the sort of neighborhood I’d have expected Phoebe to wind up in, given her dreams of grandeur. I wondered if she’d been surprised to find herself here.

I pulled into the driveway behind Sasha’s car, and as I slammed my door shut, I sensed movement to my left. A woman stood framed in the front window of the house next door. She held back a sheer curtain, and as I caught her eye, she nodded at me. I nodded in return, happy to know she was there. A solidly nosey neighbor is always a good thing and makes my job easier.

I knew Sasha was waiting for me inside Phoebe’s house for cleaning and tossing detail. But she also wanted me to find out more about Phoebe’s death, so why delay when a friendly face snooped? I went toward the neighbor’s house. “Hi,” I said when she answered the bell. “I hope I’m not interrupting you.”

“Not at all. Saw you drive up. It’s always good to keep an eye out, I say. You selling something?”

“No, I’m with Bright Investigations, and I wonder if—”

“Hah!” she interrupted. “That’s a good one all right. Don’t suppose anybody’s going to come to the door and say they’re from Stupid Investigations. Or Dim Investigations.”

I nodded. “It is a silly-sounding name. Only it’s the actual name of the owner. Ozzie Bright.” I didn’t add that his I.Q. didn’t fit his surname, either.

She looked somewhat abashed.

“I was wondering if you had some time.”

“You sure you want me? You’re parked in my neighbor’s driveway, not mine.” She had the throaty tones of a devoted smoker.

“Not that I watch all the time, or anything—don’t want you thinking I’m that kind of person. But I happened to see you pull up.”

“I’d love the chance to speak with you,” I said. “And I’m parked next door because I need to visit that house, too. I’m—”

47

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS

“Investigating. Brightly.”

I chuckled, and she looked pleased. “My name’s Amanda Pepper,” I said.

She nodded sagaciously as if she’d suspected that name all along and I’d just confirmed her hunch. “What is it? Problems with the will?”

“Umm.” I tried not to lie in these situations, and most of the time, being noncommittal prompts people to provide the information I’m withholding.

“Bequests?” She looked interested and a bit hopeful.

Once again, not lying but not answering, either, had worked.

“Umm,” I said again.

“Oh. Right. You can’t talk about it, probably. Client privilege, whatever. Right?”

I hoped I looked as if I secretly agreed, but was unfortunately sworn to silence. Then I sighed and cleared my throat. “I was hoping you could answer a few questions, the kind a neighbor might know. I’d only take a few minutes of your time.”

The word “bequest” was probably still playing in waltz-time in her mind, and she opened the door wide, and invited me in, first putting out a hand. “Ramona Fulgham here.”

I handed her a business card and she ushered me into her house, which was tidy, organized, and devoid of personality. It could have been a display in a furniture showroom for the surface-phobic. Nothing was allowed to remain uncovered. Bits of a dark blue sofa peeked out from under a ribbed white bedspread. The TV screen it faced was almost as large as the wall behind it, except it had a long runner atop it, making it look as if it were wearing a headscarf. The dark wooden coffee table was covered with glass, and the carpet beneath my feet had a plastic runner over it.

Ramona Fulgham gestured me to an uncomfortable-looking chair with doilies protecting its already plasticized arms and back.

I hadn’t seen crocheted doilies since my great-grandmother was still alive and carefully protecting every hard-won thing she GILLIAN ROBERTS

48

owned against human stains. The net result then and now was to make me feel as if I were a dirty wild thing trespassing on the premises.

I sat down gently on the side chair, which was as uncomfortable as its contours had suggested, and Ms. Fulgham seated herself in a corner of the sofa. It was a perfect vantage point to see the comings and goings of the neighborhood, should the TV

provide inadequate entertainment. The glass-covered end table next to her was carefully arranged for her convenience with a copy of
TV Guide,
a large ashtray, a waiting pack of cigarettes, and a teacup and saucer. This one corner of the room reflected its owner, after all. “Mind?” she asked as she lit up.