American Wife (49 page)

“Not at all,” Nancy said. “What can I do for you?”

“I hope this won’t seem too odd, but I—we—have some family friends, and there’s a girl who’s just finishing sixth grade—her grandmother is very close to Charlie’s family—and she’s quite smart, clearly a strong student, and I’m wondering if there’d be any way of squeezing her into the seventh-grade class for this fall.”

“You mean this fall as in three months from now?” Nancy laughed, but not unkindly. She and I didn’t know each other well. We had met when Ella was applying to Biddle as a three-year-old, an application that was a bit ridiculous in that it mostly entailed our confirming that she was potty-trained and wouldn’t bite other children, and also in that John was head of the board of trustees. Charlie joked that Ella would have had to make a bowel movement on the floor of Nancy’s office not to be accepted, and even then they probably still would have taken her.

“I realize it’s a long shot,” I said.

Nancy said, “But not necessarily impossible.”

“There’s more,” I said. “I suspect she’d need full financial aid, or close to it.”

“Oh, jeez, Alice.”

“She’s African-American,” I added. “I’m imagining that might help? But really, she’s just incredibly bright and nice, a leader in her church’s youth group, she’s on student council, and she’s a voracious reader. She’s graduating from Harrison Elementary, and she’s supposed to enter Stevens, and, Nancy, between you and me, the thought of this really promising girl—”

“No, I know,” Nancy said. “It’s heartbreaking.” She exhaled a long breath. “Let me have a think and get back to you. What I can already see that we’ll run up against is the financial-aid factor. Even though the incoming seventh grade will be big, we can usually make room for another. But the aid was allotted months ago, and it’s tight as a drum.”

Biddle’s endowment, I knew, was five million dollars, and I understood why it would be unwise to start draining it, but it was hard to imagine that fifty-five hundred dollars—the tuition for seventh grade—would make a difference.

“We could make her a top-priority candidate for the fall of ’89,” Nancy was saying. “But if the chance we can come through with aid is so slim this year, I’m hesitant to set the application process in motion—I don’t want to get her to campus only to turn her away.”

“No, of course,” I said. “I appreciate you even considering the possibility.”

“Give me her name.” I could hear Nancy rustling through pieces of paper.

I said, “Jessica Sutton,” going slowly enough for Nancy to spell it out.

“Now, Alice, I don’t mean to be forward, but the obvious person to talk to about this is your brother-in-law John. Have you spoken with him?”

“I wanted to run the idea by you first.”

“I’ll be honest. On the one hand, I don’t feel hopeful, given the timing. On the other hand”—Nancy chuckled a little—“we at Biddle do love the Blackwell family.”

BIDDLE’S LAST DAY
of school officially ended at noon, at which point the children in each class were loaded onto buses and shuttled off to their respective end-of-the-year parties. For the third-graders coming to our house, I’d gotten hamburger meat—not Blackwell brand—and a sheet cake that said
HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!
in unnatural-looking red icing, several tubs of ice cream, and balloons in maroon and navy, which were Biddle’s colors. When I went to the party store to pick up the balloons, the clerk told me I was the second person that morning to request this color combination. Back at home, I called Jadey, who was hosting the seventh-grade party for Winnie’s class, and said, “Did you also get blue and maroon balloons from Celebrations?”

She laughed. “As I was placing the order, I even thought of doubling it and giving half to you.”

Two other mothers, Joyce Sutter and Susan Levin, came over to help with the party, bringing chips and condiments and two-liters of pop, and we unrolled the Slip ’n Slide in the backyard. Joyce positioned the hose nearby as Susan scooped the ground beef into hamburger patties. I was a little surprised to discover that neither of them knew how to grill, so I doused the charcoal in lighter fluid and dropped in a match myself.

We all hurried to the front lawn when we heard the bus, and we found third-graders everywhere, boisterous and disheveled. One boy tore his shirt off, shouting, “I call first on the Slip ’n Slide.” Many of the children were already in their bathing suits, with towels around their necks; they tossed their bags and backpacks at will on the grass. “Everyone, please go around back,” I kept repeating in my loudest and most authoritative voice. “The party’s in the backyard.”

Ella bounded over to me. “Where’s my starfish towel?”

“It’s in the kitchen. Remember, Ella—”

“Mother, I know,” she interrupted. “I’ll be a
very gracious hostess.
”

When she’d disappeared, Susan Levin stage-whispered, “Isn’t she becoming a looker? Alice, she’s the spitting image of you and Charlie.”

In the backyard, I’d set the grill away from the patio but in a spot where I could still observe the children on the Slip ’n Slide: the running start, the belly flop onto the wet yellow plastic—Joyce Sutter stood there continuously spraying the hose for maximum slickness—and then the long skid forward, arms first. I desperately hoped that no one would knock out their front teeth on a root or rock.

Ella ate her burger standing next to me, shivering in her wet swimsuit, and I said, “Get your towel, ladybug,” but she shook her head.

“I’m going again.”

“Don’t get a tummyache.” I scanned the yard. “Honey, where’s Megan Thayer?”

Ella shrugged.

“Did she come to school today?”

Ella thought about the question, then nodded.

“Was she on the bus?”

Ella shrugged again. “After this, can I wear my Addams Family dress?”

“Not while guests are still here.” I nodded across the patio, where a girl named Stephanie Woo was sitting by herself. “Why don’t you see

if Stephanie wants to play a game of H-O-R-S-E?”

“I’m going back on the Slip ’n Slide.”

“One game,” I said. Ella was obviously about to protest, and I said, “I thought you wanted to wear the dress.”

I set the top on the grill, closed the valve, and approached Joyce, who was standing by the pop table; Susan had taken over hose duty. “Would you mind keeping an eye on the grill while I run inside?”

In the house, I did a quick circuit of the first floor, which was empty except for the living room, where two boys—Ryan Wichinski and Jason Goodwin—were goofing around on the piano. Seeing them there brought me pleasure: Ella had so loathed the lessons I’d signed her up for that we’d let her quit after a year, and neither Charlie nor I could play at all. “You two are talented musicians,” I said as I stepped into the front hall.

Upstairs, the doors to all the rooms were open, and in the last one, the master bedroom, Megan Thayer was sitting on the floor, impassively paging through an issue of
Penthouse
magazine. Several more issues were spread out around her, and before I was close enough to see what they were—oh, that she might have been perusing
The New Yorker,
or gleaning decorating tips from
House and Garden
!—I knew.

It seemed she had not found the magazines right away. First she had tried on a few pairs of my shoes, then a few pairs of Charlie’s (they were scattered across the bedroom rug), and she’d sprayed herself with my lily-of-the-valley perfume—on my bureau, the cap was off the bottle, and the smell hung in the air—and she’d also dumped a jar of change Charlie kept on a windowsill onto the bedspread and separated out the quarters.

She looked up, and I am tempted to say the look she gave me was knowing, adult even, but to claim such a thing would only be an attempt to absolve myself. She was not knowing, she was not adult. She was nine years old, looking at photographs of women opening their legs, insolently thrusting out their abundant breasts.

I strode forward, swooping in to pull the magazine from her lap—she didn’t resist—and I said, “Megan, honey, that’s not appropriate for you.”

She simply watched me, saying nothing, slumping there with her dark hair and her broad shoulders.

“Did you go in there?” I pointed to the bottom drawer of Charlie’s nightstand, which, though it had a lock, he had apparently left open. “These kinds of magazines are for grown-ups, not children,” I said. “They have pictures that can be very difficult to understand.” (After the party, I started to page through a magazine, feeling that it would be responsible to know exactly what Megan had seen. I got to a spread of what I suppose was meant to be a “classy” woman: In the first shot, she was emerging from a limousine, wearing a fur coat and heels and nothing else; in the next, she was standing inside some sort of ballroom with her back to the camera, her buttocks on display, looking archly over one shoulder and holding up a flute of champagne. That was enough for me—I couldn’t look at any more, and I shut the magazine. It was so silly, the model was so painted and plasticky, the magazine’s notion of elegance was so
in
elegant, but it also seemed deeply strange, a violation of this woman’s privacy that I should know what she looked like unclothed. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would expose herself in such a way unless she was in the most desperate financial circumstances.)

Megan pointed to a magazine on the floor. “That one has a naked lady bowling.”

What on earth was I supposed to say? When her mother came to pick her up, I would have to explain what had happened, and the idea of confessing to Carolyn Thayer that her daughter had stumbled on my husband’s porn stash was about as unappealing a scenario as I could imagine.

“If you have questions about those magazines, Megan, I suggest you talk to your mom. I wish you hadn’t looked through the drawers, because those are private, and they’re not yours. But I’m also sorry about what you saw. It isn’t meant for a nine-year-old.” I hesitated. “And not all grown-ups look at these magazines. Personally, I don’t care for them.”

“Then why do you have so many?”

I’d asked for it, hadn’t I? Stalling, I gathered the magazines into a stack and deposited them back in the nightstand; naturally, I didn’t know where the key was. From outside, we could hear the sound of the kids shouting and playing in the yard. When I turned around, she still was sitting there. “I hope you won’t discuss this with Ella or your other classmates, because it would make them uncomfortable. All right?” I gazed at her—I was a big believer in the power of eye contact, and not only with children.

“This is a stupid party,” she said. “You don’t even have a pool.”

I forced a smile. “Well, isn’t it lucky that you do?”

“Only at my mom’s house.”

“Why don’t you come downstairs with me?” I said. “I’m about to cut the cake, and I could use your help.”

She stood, adjusting her shorts. So she wasn’t that uncooperative after all, I thought, and then she said, “I bet Mr. Blackwell likes those magazines because the ladies in them are prettier than you.”

She was not a sociopath, as Jadey had claimed, but she was obviously a girl who made herself as hard to like as possible, and thinking this allowed me to feel sympathy for her rather than irritation. The likelihood was that she’d be fine, she’d grow up and have a normal life like anyone else, but what struck me as we stood in the bedroom was that middle school and even high school would probably be very rough for Megan.

I said, “Megan, our families are old friends, and that’s how I know this hasn’t been an easy year for you. But you’re a very good, special person, and I hope fourth grade will be better. Now, I know Ella and some other girls are playing H-O-R-S-E, if that sounds like more fun than cutting cake.”

We walked into the hall, and when we reached the top of the stairs, she said, “I made a three-point basket.”

“That’s terrific,” I said.

“It was in our driveway, and my brother doesn’t believe me, but I really did.”

I patted her shoulder. “I believe you.”

OVER THE PHONE
, Charlie said, “Put on your dancing shoes. You’re talking to the new managing partner of the Milwaukee Brewers.”

“Congratulations. That’s amazing, honey.”

“I’m thinking dinner at the club. You want to make a reservation?”

“Charlie, this is great, but would you mind if we eat at home? I need to pack for Princeton, we had a big afternoon here with Ella’s class party—”

“When’s the last time I suggested a night out?” It was true. Besides attending baseball games, it must have been months. “It’s time to celebrate, woman,” Charlie said. “It’s gonna be all over the papers tomorrow, but you heard it here first.”

“I assume you’ve told your family?”

“Just got off the phone with Dad, and I’m about to break it to Arty and John. Ooh boy, but my brothers are gonna be jealous. Should we say seven-thirty?”

“I’m thrilled, sweetheart, I really am, but is there any way I can persuade you that we should eat here? I’m still cleaning up from the party, and—Well, there’s something I want to discuss with you.”

“What is it?”

“I’d prefer to wait until you’re home.” It had turned out that Carolyn Thayer hadn’t picked up Megan, that Megan had left in a carpool driven by Joyce Sutter, which meant I’d had to call Carolyn. The conversation had proceeded about as disastrously as it could have—“I’m shocked that you of all people would let this happen,” she’d said, and also, “I hope you know Megan won’t be returning to your house.”
And that’s a threat?
I’d thought, but I’d been profusely apologetic. While talking to her, I’d realized, not having previously considered it, what a tasty morsel this could be for everyone we knew in Maronee. I might or might not have been able to prevent Megan from repeating to her peers what she’d seen (I shuddered at the thought of kids taunting Ella at swim practice), but would it be naive to hope for Carolyn’s discretion? Perhaps, to protect Megan, she wouldn’t share the story, but I knew that the pull toward gossip was difficult to resist. When I’d hung up the phone after talking to Carolyn, I’d felt the claustrophobia of Maronee, its intermittent oppressiveness.