The Glass Factory (14 page)

We finally get on the state financial aid program, so I only have to pay thirty-five percent of the standard outrageous fee. I’d like to go see this Reggie Einhorn that Colomba told me about, but he’s at work. Since the hospital is only about half a mile from the center of campus, we go to the Carter Library.

And I’d better start disguising my motives better.

Now, I know it’s a stereotype here, but you’ve got to believe me when I tell you that the first reference librarian I talk to is an asocial ninety-seven-pound beanpole with thick glasses and permanently hunched shoulders. And when Antonia grabs hold of his leg he asks me to “get her off” him like she’s some slimy creature with eight tentacles and hundreds of suction cups. Screw him. The next librarian’s a polite, efficient woman who smiles at Antonia and says that her name is Prunella Isles. Small and thin, with a British accent that’s closer to Mick Jagger than Margaret Thatcher, she has obviously grown up among
people
and is actually able to converse with them.

I tell her I’m seeking information about the history of the village for a class assignment. She tells me about the Revolutionary heroes from the area, including one woman, Cynthia Crane, who used to signal rebel ships hiding in the coves by hanging a specified number of shirts on her laundry line, how the Battle of Running River was a significant part of the Redcoats’ struggle to pacify Long Island, and a few other things I can’t use. Of course it would help if I knew what the hell I’m looking for.

I tell her, “I’m particularly interested in the early twentieth century.”

I get the whole Carter family story.

“I understand you have architectural drawings of the Carter home,” I say.

“Which one? The Revolutionary cottage that collapsed in a hurricane in 1857? The three-story Colonial that was torn down in 1928 when Vaughan Carter built the Shore Oaks mansion—”

“The Shore Oaks mansion.”

“Ah, we have the
original
blueprints,” she tells me, taking me up a flight of spiral stairs into the Special Collections. Before long she’s unfolding them—brittle, crinkly, illegible, and turning to dust in some places. But a very classy act once upon a time. She asks me, Aren’t they beautiful?

“Do you have any more recent ones?”

I see the 1932 west wing expansion, the 1938 swimming pool plans—never built because World War II came along and they felt “it wouldn’t be proper” to show such ostentatiousness when everyone was sacrificing so—

“That was big of them,” I offer.

The 1947 cathedral window additions to the north and west wings, the 1955 reroofing.

“Nothing newer?”

“Well, there’s the revised blueprints from 1983 when the university was considering some major remodeling, but they’re of little historical interest.”

“I might find them easier to read.”

That seems to serve. She lays them out for me. It’s quite a spread. Servants’ quarters down below (converted to visiting faculty housing), all-weather archway with hanging lanterns over the wide, circular driveway, two kitchens, eight bedrooms on the third floor, recital hall–sized drawing room and the library on the second. They’ve even got the rare books case, the walk-in humidor, the pool table and the grandfather clock outlined in pale blue lines. There’s no indication of smoke alarms.

“Where could I find more information about the wiring?”

“What class did you say this was for?”

“It’s an Engineering course: addressing the fire risks in historic buildings. Those third-floor bedrooms would be a real challenge.”

“It sounds interesting. Who’s the professor?”

“He’s new.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose the best place to check would be with the village fire marshall.” We go back downstairs and she looks it up: “Three twenty-three East Main Street.”

She writes it down for me. “And where would I find a report on the fire itself?”

“Again: The village fire marshall.”

Say, I’m going to have to see this guy.

New topic: “Did any of the Carters go to SUNY Running River?”

“Oh no, it wasn’t endowed until 1958—they were all in their forties!”

“There are no more Carters?”

“Not around here.”

“So SUNY has no illustrious grads from Old Town?”

“On the contrary, there’ve been dozens.”

“When was that?”

“Throughout the university’s history.”

“Including now?”

“Certainly.”

“From the old families?”

“Well, a number of them have moved here rather more recently, but we do get a few from the old families.”

“I suppose their names are all in a
Who’s Who in the Universe
or something of that sort.”

“Well, most of them have
some
family member in the national volume of
Who’s Who,
not that we’d need it. Everyone knows the Hustons, the Brackens, the Cranes, the Bateses, the Hugheses, the Moores, the Ridgways—”

“No Bernsteins, huh?”

“The first Jewish family moved into Old Town in 1964.”

Well: Now I know
that.

“Thank you, you’ve been most helpful.”

“If there’s anything else I can do for you?”

Now that you mention it: “Might I see a copy of the university telephone book?”

No Brackens or Cranes currently enrolled. Six Hustons, all from other towns, useless to me, one Bates majoring in Radical Surgery—no thanks—a Moore in the Development Office and a Hughes in Comparative Literature, whatever that is these days.

Kelly Ann Hughes.

That’s
lyrical.

The twenty-year-old daughter of a prominent family might be the best way to get introduced to some of the town elite, who always have quicker access to privileged information. Coming from the other side of the tracks, I just might be able to strike up a friendship with some of the younger, more liberal children of the proud, old families, if this place is half the college town I think it is.

I find out from the overworked department secretary that Kelly Ann Hughes is in class. Old Agriculture Building, Room 109. But first I have to take Antonia to the bathroom.

The place we’re looking for is one of those low, red brick buildings built when the Carters were still hoping to cultivate a nice ivy-covered small town look that has since been dwarfed by state-funded science department megaliths. Some of the rooms still smell of cow manure. It lingers around us as we count off the room numbers, searching for the right one. Turns out she’s
teaching
the class in Room 109. She’s standing among the students, demonstrating something with one of their arms. Her back is to me, I can’t see what she’s doing. The students laugh and Kelly Hughes straightens, walks back to the blackboard. She’s wearing faded jeans and a short-sleeved polo shirt. She looks nineteen.

But she doesn’t talk like nineteen: “So we could say that Virginia Woolf sets up the binary opposition of male-female writing then proceeds to deconstruct it and call for androgynous writing. But are the binaries real? What about her own writing? What happens when she has dinner at the women’s college?”

Pause. “The food’s lousy,” says a student. Some laughs.

“Right. The food’s lousy. And what effect does that have on her?”

They don’t get that one, and Kelly Hughes has to tell them what page to turn to to find out.

“The food is lousy because …?”

Long pause.

She spoon-feeds it to them: “The food is lousy because the women’s college doesn’t have …?”

“Enough money?” ventures a brave soul.

“Exactly. But instead of giving you an economics lesson, Woolf describes the stringy stewed prunes, the tasteless meat. What else?”

“Water instead of wine?”

“Right. So rather than taking an essay form—and citing numeric data to demonstrate the differences between the endowments at the men’s college and the women’s college—she’s
physicalizing
her feminine dilemma, trying to get you to respond
emotionally
to the sensations created first by her descriptions of the sumptuous meal at the men’s college, followed by the tasteless meal at the women’s college, so that you, the reader,
experience
the difference: Is that ‘female’ writing?”

Pause. Nothing. Kelly Hughes has to fish for this one. “She makes it a
narrative
instead of statistics. Is this the ‘female’ voice that she argues she must assume?”

Pause. Then, hesitantly: “Well, yeah: ’Cause men are supposed to be logical. When you write an essay, you’re not supposed to let your emotions into it.”

“Good: Is the very idea of ‘narrative,’ then, a female form?” That gets responses ranging from half-sleepy bewilderment to bolts of lightning visibly striking two or three of the women students. “Or is it just the use to which she puts the narrative techniques that makes her writing ‘female’? In other words, are there female
forms
of narrative?”

She lets that one go unanswered, as the notebooks are already slamming shut, papers are rustling, and she already has to shout out next week’s assignment over the noise of scraping chairs and meaningless chit-chat.

“We’re starting
Taming of the Shrew
next week, people. Read Heilman’s introduction and act one!”

I wait for her to finish dealing with the crowd of students who
still
want to know what they’re expected to do for the final paper, then I get her as she’s packing up.

I say, “You should always reassure your students that any material accidentally learned in class
can
be forgotten by next weekend if they really put their minds to it.”

She looks up at me. Light brown hair, green eyes. Killer combination.

“I sure wish I’d had a teacher like you at the State University of Ecuador in Guayaquil. But we were always striking for better conditions, so I probably would have missed most of your classes anyway.”

“Excuse me, but who are you?”

“Let me answer that question by posing another: You say that language is male-dominated.”

“I said that the
authoritative use
of language is male-dominated.”

“All right. Well I have proof. Let me give you an example.”

“Go ahead,” she says, waiting.

“Okay. Imagine you’ve got a twenty-gallon pot full of warm spaghetti and tomato sauce.”

“Uh, yeah?”

“And you think there might be a peacock feather in the bottom.”

“Okay …”

“And you slowly part the spaghetti with your fingers as you reach down, until you’re up to your elbows in it …”

“Yes?”

“There’s no word for that.”

“What?”

“There’s no word for that. No
single
word to describe how your fingers feel when they part the buttery strands of warm spaghetti.”

She thinks. Then: “Squishy.”

“No, don’t you see how
violent
that is, how
masculine?
‘Squishy’? No, there’s no single word for what I’m looking for.”

She smiles, then lets it drop. “I’ve got to prepare tomorrow’s lecture—”

“But you need a break, don’t you? There’s a nice cozy coffee shop under the bridge and I’m dying for some intelligent conversation.”

We slide onto some wooden benches at the campus coffee shop, where Antonia can run loose and play with other kids.

“My name’s Filomena.”

“Mine’s Kelly. Kelly Hughes.”

“Yes, I know.”

She eyes me. “What is this about?”

Well, how would
you
begin?