Staggerford (36 page)

Doc Oppegaard stood up and invited the editor to join them.

“No thanks,” he said. “You two have your fun.”

“Fun?” said Doc. “We’re here on business. We’re testing Stella’s new teeth.”

Stella threw her head back and screeched with laughter, the gold of her bridgework gleaming in the candlelight.

The Miles Pruitt Memorial Book Fund was Imogene’s idea. Imogene had decided immediately upon hearing of Miles’s death that she would be very strong and businesslike, as Dr. Gordon Beam advised in his latest book,
Happy Me, Happy You
. Rather than grieve, she would put her energies to some useful purpose. It helped to think that she was probably the last person Miles Pruitt had kissed. The thought that that kiss might have brought bliss to his last days made her feel warm and generous and good and positive and constructive. She phoned Mrs. Oppegaard and
invited her to be the initial contributor to the Miles Pruitt Memorial Book Fund.

Mrs. Oppegaard was honored. Indeed she was flattered to tears. “Oh, thank you,” she said. “Whatever I can do …”

“There are so many good books being written on interpersonal relationships these days,” said Imogene, “and library funds simply cannot pay for them. And books on women. Women are coming on strong, and with a special memorial fund the library can increase its holdings on women.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” said Mrs. Oppegaard. “Whatever I can do. Oh, I know so little about the library’s holdings. Oh, I know so little about interpersonal relationships. Oh, I know so little about women.”

“Pruitt would want it this way,” said Imogene. “He would be all in favor of increasing our holdings on women.” She lowered her voice then, and told Mrs. Oppegaard about the kiss.

Mrs. Oppegaard pledged a thousand dollars.

Parents’ Night at the high school was canceled. Delia Fritz canceled it, and it was one of her rare mistakes. She thought that after burying Miles the staff would rather not spend the evening talking to parents. However, the staff, with Miles on their minds, spent a deeply miserable evening at home. Ray Smith, historian, was typical. After supper Ray Smith went out for a walk in the snow. Then he returned to his living room and sat with his wife before the TV, but he did not watch it. His eyes were focused on the floor. After a while he got up and went to the front window and stood there rattling the change in his pocket. He went to the kitchen for a shot of whiskey, neat, and then he went to bed. Ray Smith would have preferred any distasteful chore—even talking to the parents of his students—to spending the evening at home.

On Tuesday it became clear to Wayne Workman that Miles was pestering him from beyond the grave. In order to get Mrs. Horky to take over senior English, Wayne had
to promise that he would sit in on second hour every morning and station himself within earshot of study hall every afternoon.

Tuesday, on his way to second-hour English, Wayne paused at the bulletin board in his outer office and looked glumly at the list of Indians turning sixteen.

“And now to top it off,” he muttered to his secretary, “I’ve got to find Sam LaGrange a new friend.”

It was on Tuesday as well that the Bonewoman was transferred from the Berrington County Jail to the psychiatric wing of St. Luke’s Hospital in Duluth. Before the day was out it was determined that she would be sent to the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

When Dale Pruitt arrived back in Los Angeles, he phoned Carla again. “I flew to Minneapolis and took a bus from there to Staggerford,” he said. “I stayed overnight in one of Miss McGee’s spare bedrooms and the next morning I accompanied her to the funeral. I was the only relative there. After the funeral I gave Miss McGee a box of assorted greeting cards and I went to Dropper’s law office and assigned him to probate the estate. Then I took the bus to Duluth and visited Dad. He kept calling me Miles. I didn’t tell him Miles was dead. I gave him a box of greeting cards. I flew from Duluth to Minneapolis and then nonstop to Los Angeles. Miles left a savings account of about thirteen thousand dollars, so you’d have been worse off if you’d have married Miles. Thirteen thousand wouldn’t last you very long. I’ve already paid you that much in alimony and child support and it’s only been three years since you moved out.”

Carla hung up and cried again, and that was when Trish, home from the choir trip, came into the apartment.

“What’s the matter?” Trish asked. She put down her suitcase and followed her mother as she lumbered from the phone into the bedroom and flopped heavily onto her bed.

“What’s the matter?” she said again.

Her mother wiped her eyes on the pillow and heaved herself over in bed so that she faced the wall.

“Your Uncle Miles is dead.” said Carla.

“Who’s Uncle Miles?” said Trish.

Superintendent Stevenson’s health took a miraculous turn for the better.

When Stevenson was told so bluntly by Wayne Workman that Miles was dead, his heart leaped into his throat the way it had when Jeff Norquist jumped out the window. When he attended the prayer service at the funeral home, his heart rattled and thumped the way it had at Fred Vandergar’s retirement party. When he stood at the snowy, open grave, his heart shuddered the way it had the previous week when the study-hall girls screamed bloody murder. His heart performed these three tricks on three successive days, and the superintendent was certain that each day was his last, for surely no heart would send out such frightening signals unless it were preparing to stop.

But it didn’t stop, and that was why on the day after the funeral the superintendent began to revise his opinion of his heart. It occurred to him as he sat at his window watching Mrs. Horky trying to open the eyes of first-hour English in the classroom across the courtyard that he might have in his breast a better heart than he had thought. Any heart that jumped, rattled, thumped, and shuddered, and then returned to this steady beat must be a fairly good heart, a serviceable heart.

Second hour he tested it. He stood up very straight and walked quickly to the door of his private lavatory, where he stopped and timed his pulse. He took a deep breath. He trotted back to his chair. He timed his pulse again. He touched his toes. He felt like a boy.

Third hour, he went to the outer office and told Delia Fritz to get the governor on the phone; he wanted to thank him for sending out the state troopers and the National Guard. Fourth hour, he asked Delia to call in all copies of the Faculty Handbook, for it was obsolete. Fifth hour he told Delia to inquire of the Community Fund officers
whether they could use his help. Sixth hour, he told Delia to see about having his filing cabinets returned from her office to his.

After school he went home and put his arms around the heavy softness of Mrs. Stevenson’s middle and lifted her, astounded, three inches off the floor.

Jon Hassler
was born in Minneapolis in 1933. He received degrees from St. John’s University in Minnesota, where he is now Regents’ Professor Emeritus. Jon Hassler is the author of nine widely acclaimcd novels:
Staggerford, Simons Night, The Love Hunter, A Green Journey, Grand Opening, North of Hope, Dear James, Rookery Blues
, and
The Dean’s List
.

“A WRITER GOOD
ENOUGH TO RESTORE
YOUR FAITH IN FICTION.”
—
The New York Times