Until I Find You (29 page)

“Lucinda is having one of her
bad moments,
children,” Miss Wurtz needlessly informed the grade-three class. “What might we do to make her feel better?” Jimmy Bacon, of course, moaned.

Jack wanted to help, but
how
? “I just
kissed
her,” he tried to explain.

“You
what
?” Miss Wurtz said.

“On the neck.”

Jack saw the eyes roll up in Lucinda Fleming’s head; she appeared to be passing to another world. Lucinda emitted a strangling sound of her own—as if she meant to comfort the Booth twins, long separated from their kindergarten blankets. Even Roland Simpson, destined for reform school and ultimately jail, was instantly afraid and (for the moment) law-abiding. And if Jimmy Bacon had been wearing his bedsheet—well, there’s no need to spell it out.

Caroline French suddenly looked like a girl with a
hundred
hamsters rushing through her hair. Those utter boneheads Grant Porter and James Turner
and
Gordon French—in fact,
all
the boys in the class, Roland Simpson and Jimmy Bacon included—were absolutely disgusted with Jack. He had kissed Lucinda Fleming, evidently a mentally retarded girl. (Now
there
was a disgrace to live down!) Perhaps fearful of
never
being kissed, The Yap began to cry—although nowhere near as noticeably as The Wurtz.

Had Lucinda Fleming swallowed her tongue? Was
that
the reason for the choking sound she was making? “Now she’s
bleeding
!” Caroline French cried. Indeed, Lucinda was bleeding in the area of her mouth. But it was not her tongue—she had bitten through her lower lip.

“She’s
eating
herself!” Maureen Yap screamed.

“Oh, Jack, this disappoints me more than I can
say,
” Miss Wurtz sobbed. By the commotion she made, you would have thought he’d gotten Lucinda
pregnant.
Clearly his time in the chapel was nigh. This was what could come from
kissing:
the urine, the blood, the impressive pantomime of rigor mortis—and to think he’d kissed only her
neck
!

That was when Jimmy Bacon fainted. The Gray Ghost’s sudden appearance was so spectacular, Jimmy must have been too frightened to poo. None of the children had seen her coming. Suddenly Mrs. McQuat was kneeling over Lucinda. The Gray Ghost pried Lucinda’s teeth apart, thereby rescuing her mangled lower lip. Mrs. McQuat then stuck a book in Lucinda’s mouth. “Bite that . . . Lucinda,” The Gray Ghost said. “You’ve done
enough
to your lip . . . already.”

Jack would remember the book. Unfortunately, his memorization skills couldn’t always distinguish between the trivial and the important, although Edna Mae Burnham’s
Piano Course: Book Two,
which he’d often seen on Lucinda’s desk, was not exactly trivial to Jack Burns. He assumed it was a book his dad had used. Jack was sure William had taught from that very book—he’d probably assigned it to someone, back in those days when he was fooling around with two girls at St. Hilda’s. Possibly one (or both) of the girls had been an Edna Mae Burnham reader!

It was all too much for The Yap, beginning with the kissing. Maureen fainted, less spectacularly than Jimmy. It might have been that The Gray Ghost’s sudden appearance, especially her kneeling over Lucinda, made it appear to Maureen that Mrs. McQuat was the Angel of Death. But of course The Gray Ghost would know how to attend to someone who’d bitten through her lip. (If she’d been a combat nurse, in whichever war, surely she’d seen more blood than that.)

Miss Wurtz, naturally, could not stop crying—thus the inevitable ensued. “Which of you,” Mrs. McQuat began in her breathless way, “made Miss Wurtz
. . . cry
?”

“I did,” Jack answered. Everyone seemed astonished that he had answered for himself—that simply wasn’t done. Only The Gray Ghost looked unsurprised that he’d spoken up. “I’m
sorry,
” he added, but Mrs. McQuat turned her attention elsewhere.

Lucinda Fleming was on her feet, albeit unsteadily, blood oozing from her gashed lip; her shirt and tie were soaked. And then there was the urine—Lucinda didn’t seem to notice it. The unnatural serenity of her smile was intact, as before.

“You need
. . . stitches . . .
Lucinda,” The Gray Ghost was saying. “Take her to . . . the nurse’s office . . . Caroline.” Miss Wurtz once more thought that Mrs. McQuat meant
her,
but Caroline French understood that she was the designated helper. “Not
you . . .
dear,” The Gray Ghost told Miss Wurtz. “This is your class . . . you
stay.
”

The Booth twins were instructed to accompany Maureen Yap to the nurse’s office as well. Not entirely revived from her swoon, Maureen looked dizzy. Jimmy Bacon wasn’t completely recovered from his fainting spell, either. He was down on all fours, as if he were still searching for Gordon’s deceased hamster. Grant Porter and James Turner were assigned the task of taking Jimmy to the nurse. (They were such dolts, Jack doubted that they knew where the nurse’s office was.)

As for Jack, he was surprised by how gently Mrs. McQuat took hold of his ear. Her thumb and index finger, which pinched his earlobe, were ice-cold, but when The Gray Ghost led him from the classroom, he was not in pain. And in the corridor, where she released his ear—her cold hand still steering him by the back of his neck—they struck up quite a cordial conversation, considering the circumstances.

“And what is . . . Miss Wurtz’s problem
. . . this
time?” Mrs. McQuat whispered.

He’d been afraid that the issue of the kiss itself might come up, but he hesitated only a second. To lie to The Gray Ghost was unthinkable. “I kissed Lucinda Fleming,” Jack confessed.

Mrs. McQuat nodded, seemingly unsurprised. “Where?” she whispered.

“On the back of her neck.”

“That’s not . . . so bad,” The Gray Ghost said. “I expected . . . much worse.”

There was no one in the chapel, where Jack regarded the prospect of turning his back on God with the greatest trepidation. But Mrs. McQuat steered him into one of the foremost pews. They sat down together, facing the altar. “Don’t you want me to turn around?” Jack asked.

“Not you, Jack.”

“Why not?”

“I think you need to face . . . the right way,” The Gray Ghost said. “Don’t you
ever
turn your back on God, Jack . . . in your case, I’m sure . . . He’s looking.”

“He
is
?”

“Definitely.”

“Oh.”

“You’re . . . only eight, Jack. You’re . . . already kissing girls at eight!”

“It was just on the neck.”

“What you did was nothing . . . but you saw . . . the consequences.” (Urination, bleeding, rigor mortis,
stitches
!)

“What should I do, Mrs. McQuat?”

“Pray,” she said. “You should be . . . facing the right way for prayers.”

“Pray
what
?”

“That you can . . . control your urges,” The Gray Ghost said.

“Control my
what
?”

“Pray for the strength to . . . restrain yourself, Jack.”

“From kissing?”

“From . . . worse than that, Jack.”

From his father inside him, Mrs. McQuat might as well have said. When she’d added, “Pray for the strength to . . . restrain yourself,” she hadn’t been able to look him in the eye—she was staring at his
lap
! She meant the little guy, and all that he might be up to. Whatever was worse than kissing, Jack prayed for the strength to resist it. He prayed and prayed.

“Excuse me for . . . interrupting your prayers, Jack, but I have . . . a question.”

“Go ahead,” he said.

“Have you ever done . . . worse than kiss a girl?”

“What would be worse?”

“Something
. . . more
than kissing . . . perhaps.”

Jack prayed that The Gray Ghost would forgive him if he told her. “I slept with Mrs. Oastler’s bra.”

“
Emma
Oastler? She gave you . . . her bra?”

“Not Emma’s—it was her mom’s bra.”

“But Emma . . . gave it to
you
?”

“Yes. My mom took it back.”

“Mercy!” Mrs. McQuat said.

“It was a
push-up
bra,” he explained further.

“Go back . . . to your prayers, Jack.”

In her ghostly way, she left—genuflecting in the aisle and making the sign of the cross. In her kindness to him, Jack couldn’t help but feel that she was more alive than he first thought; yet the message Mrs. McQuat had left with him was as chilling as an admonition from the grave.

God was watching Jack Burns. If Jack turned his back on God, He would see. And if God was looking so closely at him, this was because He was certain Jack would
err.
(The Gray Ghost seemed fairly certain of this herself.) Whether the fault lay with his father inside him, or with the independence of mind and imagination already exhibited by the little guy, Jack seemed as predestined for sexual transgression as Emma Oastler had predicted.

He prayed and prayed. His knees were sore, his back was aching. Moments later, he recognized the smell of chewing gum in the pew behind him—this time, it was a fruity flavor. “What are you doing, baby cakes?” Emma whispered.

Jack didn’t dare turn around. “Praying,” he answered. “What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“I heard you kissed her, Jack. It took four stitches to close her lip! Boy, have we got our homework cut out for us! You can’t kiss a girl like she’s a
steak
!”

“She bit herself,” he explained, to no avail.

“Passion of the moment, eh?” Emma asked.

“I’m
praying,
” Jack said, still not turning around.

“Prayers won’t help you, honey pie. Homework will.”

Thus did Emma Oastler distract him from his prayers. If Emma hadn’t found him in the chapel, he might have followed The Gray Ghost’s instructions to the letter. And if he’d successfully prayed for the strength to restrain himself, which of course meant restraining the little guy, too—well, who knows what Jack Burns might have been spared, or what he might have spared others?

12

Not Just Another Rose of Jericho

Y
ears later, Lucinda Fleming would still include Jack among the bored recipients of her Christmas letter. He didn’t know why. He never kissed her again. He hadn’t kept in touch.

Emma Oastler’s theory was that Jack’s third-grade kiss on Lucinda’s neck was her first and best—possibly her last. But given the sheer number of children Lucinda Fleming would have—they were mentioned by name, together with their ages, in those repetitive Christmas letters—Jack would be inclined to refute Emma’s theory. Spellbound as he was by Lucinda’s prodigious childbearing, Jack could conclude only that her husband had been kissing her—even happily. And in all likelihood, the husband who had spent the better part of his life kissing Lucinda Fleming had
not
caused her to bite through her lower lip and pee all over herself.

Looking back, Jack wouldn’t miss Lucinda—or the rage she saved seemingly just for him. It was The Gray Ghost he would miss. Mrs. McQuat had done her best to help him not become like his father. It wasn’t her fault that Jack didn’t pray hard enough, or that he lacked the strength to control what The Gray Ghost called his “urges”; that he turned his back on God was more Jack’s failure than Mrs. McQuat’s
or
his dad’s.

He had a ton of homework in grade four. Emma genuinely helped him with it. Jack’s
other
homework, his sexual education, remained Emma’s responsibility; she was tireless in her role as his self-appointed initiator.

As his grade-four teacher, Mrs. McQuat stayed after school two days a week to help Jack with his math. He actually concentrated on the math; with The Gray Ghost, there were no distractions, no conflicting desires to breathe her in. He never dreamed about Mrs. McQuat in
anyone’s
underwear. In fact, Jack should have thanked her for the sympathy she showed him—not only for what she said to him in the chapel, but the degree to which she tried to counteract the command Caroline Wurtz took of the boy whenever she turned him loose onstage. (Or turned him not-so-loose, as was more often the case with Jack’s performances under The Wurtz’s uptight direction.)

He was cast as Adam in Miss Wurtz’s cloying rendition of
Adam Bede.
THEY KISS EACH OTHER WITH A DEEP JOY,
the stage directions read. Overlooking the disastrous results of the Lucinda Fleming kiss, which afforded no joy of any kind, Jack devoted himself to the task. Given that The Wurtz had cast Heather Booth as Dinah, the kiss was indeed a daunting one. Not only did Heather make her disturbing blanket-sucking sounds when he kissed her, but her twin, Patsy, made identical sucking sounds backstage.

Miss Wurtz had cast Patsy as Hetty, the woman who betrays Adam. And what a god-awful misinterpretation of
Adam Bede
it turned out to be! Jack-as-Adam eventually
marries
the identical twin of the woman who cheats on him! (George Eliot must have rolled around in her grave over such a liberty as that!)

And The Wurtz was overfond of the passage at the end of Chapter 54. Following her own inclinations, as ever, Miss Wurtz gave the passage to Jack as dialogue, even though it is actually George Eliot’s narration. Looking into Heather Booth’s love-struck eyes as he delivered his weighty lines didn’t help. “ ‘What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?’ ” Jack-as-Adam asked Heather-as-Dinah, while she persisted in making barely audible sucking sounds in the back of her throat—as if his kiss had made her ill and she were readying herself to vomit.

“Jack,” Mrs. McQuat said, when she saw his performance, “you must take everything Miss Wurtz says with a grain of salt.”