In the Dead of Summer (3 page)

The only Pepper House I knew about was the one I’d grown up in outside the city, a standard-issue two-story brick colonial. The floor plan you knew even before you opened the front door. Little center hall. Living room on one side, dining on the other, kitchen behind dining. Three bedrooms upstairs. We’d been part of a postwar development. There were probably a few thousand similar homes around the city and a goodly proportion of those in my neighborhood. I didn’t think that was what Five meant by the Pepper House.

“And there’s George Wharton Pepper, of course,” he continued.

At what point was I required to break his enchantment with me and tell him that I was not a part of any illustrious Pepper lineage? I decided I was supposed to tell him that when he asked.

“
The
Philadelphia lawyer,” he went on. “‘Old Philadelphia’s Grandest Old Man,’ he was called, and how does that
Life
magazine poem about him go?”

Luckily, that was a rhetorical question I wasn’t expected to answer, because I was fully occupied by trying not to gape. The man was a master of Pepperabilia—a subject field I’d never known existed. He recited:

“G. Pepper of Penn. is a model for men;

A bulwark in peace or in war,

With character rounded and solidly founded

On learning and logic and law.

When Senators bicker of tariff and liquor,

As Senators will now and then,

The speediest stepper is certainly Pepper,

George Wharton Pepper of Penn.”

“Not precisely poetry,” he said. “What would you call it? A jingle?”

I would call it amazing. Incredible. Where on earth had he heard that, and why on earth would he want to know it?

Perhaps he noticed my dangling lower jaw. “I’ve been reading as much local history as I can,” he said, “especially about the movers and shakers who shaped this country.”

Wait till I told the detective that there was a history besides that of the yellow fever plague to be read. Even a poem—okay, a piece of doggerel—about a Pepper, and he hadn’t known about it. But did I also have to tell the history teacher that my family wasn’t known for shaping anything, except maybe cousin Lou who’d been a doughnut maker?

“Original family name Pfeffer. German. Anglicized it. Any Pfeffer cousins left?”

“I really wouldn’t—” I began, but a cloud of scent and a long flowered skirt interrupted my weak stab at honesty.

“It looked like you two were having just too good a time,” she said, “so I thought I’d join you. I’m Phyllis Esther Estes-Sessions.” The name emerged as one long hiss. “This is going to be fun, don’t you think? Nice old building, an interesting mix of students, nice location. And how are you liking our fair city?” Phyllis asked Five. “The Cradle of Liberty and all that. What have you seen and do you need any suggestions, or guides?”

A little obvious, Phyllis, I thought. Ease up. And what were those last names about? Didn’t they imply a Mr. Sessions? Or a Mr. Estes?

“I’ve been in the area a few years,” Five said kindly.

“I suspect this man knows more about local history than any of us,” I added. “Definitely more than I do.”

“And do you like it here?” Phyllis continued, looking only at him.

“Very much so.”

“And Mrs. Dennison? Or do we call her Mrs. Five?” Phyllis-the-unsubtle inquired.

“My mother died when I was a child,” he said. “And she was Mrs. Four.”

“I meant—”

“Actually, since we seem to have reverted to talk of our ancestors, the fact is, we were just discussing Amanda’s, not mine,” Five said. “Her forefathers were much more illustrious.”

Phyllis tried to look delighted by the swerve in attention and topic, but she succeeded only in looking queasy.

I hated disappointing this man, particularly in front of the snaky Phyllis. Still… “The Senator wasn’t related to me,” I said. “I don’t think we’re a branch of that particular Pepper family tree.” I
knew
we weren’t. My mother was chronicler of the Delaware Valley’s web of human connections, and never had she mentioned anybody of historical significance with our name. In fact, most of her energy was devoted to getting me to give up that last name and take on somebody else’s, so she couldn’t have considered it wildly renowned.

“Really?” Five sounded unwilling to believe in my ordinariness.

Phyllis smiled. One small step for her sibilant, nonacclaimed last names.

“Different Peppers,” Five mused, almost to himself.

“Maybe even different Pfeffers,” I added.

“Your family’s German, then? Like his?”

“I didn’t mean that. My family is a hodgepodge that would give a genealogist the shakes. Kind of the prototype for the melting pot concept.”

“Have you been to Valley Forge yet?” Phyllis asked overbrightly. Asked him. I had slipped over the horizon again where she was concerned. “We always think of it in winter—Washington’s soldiers in the snow and all. But it’s gorgeous in the summertime. A great place for a picnic.”

“You know your Philadelphia history,” Five said.

“I’m a buff. People think because I’m a biology teacher that I’d be narrowly focused, but—”

“You’ll have to tell me more of your ideas as soon as I have time to do them justice,” he said. “Right now, I’m afraid I…”

And without saying what he was doing right now, he demonstrated it. Right now, he was gone. Phyllis-the-S-woman had no use for me whatsoever, and I was pretty convinced she wasn’t about to become my new best friend. People say women’s goodbyes take forever, but it surely wasn’t true in our case. We were not off to a good start. But maybe that’s S.O.P. in the city of maximum hostility.

DESPITE MY HAVING CLAIMED TO BE SOMETHING
scraped out of the melting pot, I never was overfond of the term. It raised hellish images of folks boiling in an iron cauldron, liquefying into shapeless, indistinct lumps. So I had no impulse to apply the tag to my class, which was lucky, since despite my hopes, they showed no desire to become anything except what they were, very separate ingredients that’d be damned before they’d combine.

This was apparent on day one
.
On minute one, actually, despite the high hopes I’d had for the potential in this combination.

One more high hope lowered. One class down. One half day closer to the end of summer school, I comforted myself. But each step would be a long one, because classes were bloated four-hour sessions. That’s how an entire semester is theoretically condensed into eight weeks.

My
A.M.
Communications class—that sounded less politically incorrect and offensive than Remedial English or Primitive Skills with Paper and Pen—had fifteen teens. Three were Philly Prep hardcores. It’s damned difficult to fail a course at our school if your tuition payments are up to date, because parents seldom are glad to shell out for a second dose of what we did not impart the first go-round. Any failure is taken to be ours.

But this trio had forced the issue. One had missed an entire semester—the rumor was a drug rehabilitation program. I wasn’t sure at first glance whether the rehabilitation had taken. A second, “Toy” Drebbin, actually could communicate quite well. I knew that because last autumn he had clearly explained that his allowance was larger than my paycheck, so why should he “break his back over dead writers”? What had they ever done for him, or for his family’s tow-away business? And the last of the homegrown musketeers, Rina, had spent her sophomore year drowning in hormones, unable to spell anything except M-A-L-E. I had little hope that summer’s heat would help her adjust to the idea that there were two sexes, and until such time as she did, all concepts that made it through her brain were X-rated.

The semischolars from other private schools looked suspicious and hostile. This was not how they’d planned to spend their summer vacations, although it was probable that planning was not their forte, and that they had fiddled while a school year burned.

And then we had the students who gave my principal dyspepsia. They came from the public schools on special grants, and they had names like April Truong and Miguel Hernandez and Jhabal Muhammed. Or they were like Tony “Model T” Ford, who had a skull tattooed on his cheek and two gold hoops in his right nostril. Or his pals: Woody Marshall, who may have provided the swing vote in the All-City Hostility Sweeps, and pale, silent Guy Lawson. The three were a sullen but constant trio.

Or Carmen Gabel, an “Oh, yeah?” girl whose sneer was on automatic pilot and who had obviously never met a cosmetic she didn’t like. And Miles Nye, a gangly Norman Rockwell–freckled redhead who managed, even on this first day, to challenge—in a cockeyed, good-humored way—every idea I put forth. Could he
please
be a little creative with assignments? he asked. He couldn’t define that any more closely, because he was talking about
creativity.
Did he really have to use
words
? Why shouldn’t “Communications” include nonverbal techniques? Wasn’t it true that sixty-five percent of all human communication was, in fact, nonverbal? But if he did use words, did it matter if they were prose? He liked poetry better, I was made to understand. I wished I remembered the Pepper of Philadelphia jingle. It might have impressed him. Nothing else I did was able to. He seemed a nice enough kid, and probably bright, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a prime incentive for a nervous breakdown.

Don’t despair, I told myself as they filed out. It was only the first day. With time, maybe there’d be a miracle, and the little collection of separate people would chemically reinvent itself into a class, with its own personality and dynamics. A class that put out as much energy as it received. That’s when teaching justified itself, became exciting.

And maybe not. Maybe they’d stay hostile and barricaded, fifteen black holes in classroom space.

And my reward for completing class and walking outside would be Lowell Diggs, lurking somewhere even as I thought about him. I now knew his first name because my mother’s note about a perfectly
lovely
young man she’d met had been in my mail the night before. She’d enclosed a studio portrait that was so flattering, the photographer must have served a long apprenticeship with aging movie stars. Vaseline on the lens, soft focus, magnificently hazy lighting all made Lowell Diggs seem almost attractive.

The letter and photo had arrived weeks late because the envelope had the wrong zip code. I wondered what Freudian repression or sense of underlying guilt or remorse had caused my mother to suddenly forget my full address.

I sketched a calendar in my head and ticked off the first half day of it as I watched a slender, long-haired student go to the window and look out, as if checking the weather. Two of the toughs—the Model T Ford and the scowler, Woody—stopped en route to watch her from across the room. So did tall, gangly Miles of the nonverbal expressions. And he’d been correct about body language conveying a great deal. His said that he, too, was watching the girl—but watching the two boys observing her as well. And while he wasn’t exactly on the outs with them,
they
were buddies, and he wasn’t one of them.

The girl turned from the window. She was quite lovely despite her worried expression. She glanced at the two toughs and, I thought, half nodded. It was a subtle gesture, if it was at all intended, and I couldn’t be sure. Then she came to my desk.

“Miss Pepper?” Her voice was not much more than a whisper. I glanced at her almond eyes and down at the roll sheet.

“Truong,” she said softly. “April. I introduce myself because I have five years here in the U.S., and my English writing is weak. I wish to learn that, also the history. And to go to college. I am older than my classmates. I need to learn fast. I hope I will not be a problem, Miss Pepper, because of my slowness.”

A problem would never say anything like that. A
student
would say something like that. The summer now had possibilities, all contained in the slender form of April Truong. I reassured her. “And if you need additional help, we can arrange that,” I heard myself say. I decided I meant it. “An hour after school as needed, maybe?”

“Yo, April,” Miles said from where he stood. “Want lunch?”

She froze for a moment, then shook her head and waved him on. Model T Ford and Woody the sulker stayed put, looking quizzically at both Miles and April.

“But I keep you from your lunchtime,” April said to me. “I should not do that. I will see you tomorrow.” She glanced at the two young men at the doorway. “Perhaps we could…if you mean that offer—after school? Tomorrow? Would you help me with how I talk?”

I nodded, and she seemed so pleased and relieved that I allowed an actual frisson of teaching excitement to fizz through my system.

As she left the classroom along with the two hulking young men, Five himself appeared outside my door, eyebrows raised. “With that grin on your face, you look like one of those ads for…” he said when I came out of my room.

“For what?”

“I don’t know what to call it nowadays. For an old-fashioned kind of teacher. An old-fashioned kind of school.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or a put-down. Nostalgia for the good old days—which, if you really study them, weren’t, except for a handful of the privileged—makes me nervous. I must have looked wary.

He chuckled. “I’m jealous! You obviously had a great morning, and I felt as if I were pushing at Mount Everest for four hours. It’s a good thing U.S. history is required, or nobody would take it. If it’s going to be history, they want knights in armor, assassinations in togas, or the little boys locked in the tower.”