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Hawthorne began to speak, then turned away. A bony, angular face with a jutting chin—the morning light emphasized every wrinkle that had appeared since Krueger had seen him last, and again he recalled Lily’s glorious curls. The mother, too, had been blond.

“Skander will be associate headmaster and continue as bursar, as well as teaching a section of geometry. The board chairman kept saying how everyone would have to bite the bullet. Otherwise, there’s a psychologist at the school, a couple of mental health counselors. I’ve looked over the records of about half the students. I’d like to hire another psychologist as soon as possible.”

“And the physical plant?”

“Serviceable but failing. There’s a fund drive to replace the roof of the main building, Emerson Hall. Several of the dormitory cottages need substantial work.”

Hawthorne ticked off various problems on his fingertips: a crack in a boiler, the need to replace a stove in the kitchen, faulty wiring in one of the dorms, cracking plaster. Krueger asked questions and his friend responded. Despite the difficulties, Hawthorne was eager to face the challenge. It was a new undertaking to fill his mind. As he said, a new beginning.

Krueger had heard from Hawthorne two days earlier after a silence of six weeks. He was leaving San Diego and would fly into Logan Sunday evening, then stay at a hotel and drive up to Concord on Monday. In his initial surprise, the only detail Krueger found odd was that Hawthorne would stay in a hotel. He probably had dozens of friends in the Boston area. It was only after Krueger hung up that he began to wonder about Hawthorne’s whole enterprise.

“Why’s Jim coming to New Hampshire?” Deborah had asked.

“He’s taking a job at Bishop’s Hill. Headmaster.” Saying those words, Krueger had thought they sounded crazy, as if his friend had taken a job flipping burgers. Even though it was the weekend, Krueger made some calls. Maybe something had changed at Bishop’s Hill in the past few months. But nothing Krueger heard had encouraged him and what had started out sounding insane only appeared more so. Perhaps, he thought, Hawthorne was planning a book and the school was connected with some new area of research.

Now, talking to Hawthorne, Krueger felt in no way persuaded, especially since the research and writing appeared to be a dead issue. But even if Hawthorne’s only intention was to keep the school afloat and even if the board had committed itself to a new financial effort, it seemed too little too late. Krueger rubbed the back of his neck and wondered where he had put his aspirin.

“Maybe you can do it,” said Krueger, trying to be optimistic. “It’s astonishing that the place is still open. And of course it’s expensive. Dumping grounds usually are.”

Hawthorne rose from his chair and walked to the window. Sunlight illuminated the white bark of the birches on the far side of the parking lot. Hawthorne looked both ready and stoical, like a man about to lift something heavy. But mixed with his stoicism was sorrow. Not that his brow was creased or his shoulders were bent; he seemed perfectly calm. Indeed, in the strong chin, Krueger believed that others would see determination. But Krueger couldn’t help but imagine the awfulness of Hawthorne’s memories. If it had been his own wife and child, he didn’t see how he could live.

Hawthorne walked over and squeezed Krueger’s shoulder. “Jesus, it’s great to see you. You remember those basketball games we used to have? Maybe we can do that again.”

The warmth of his smile was a great reassurance. Krueger tried to speak but could only nod a little foolishly.

“I wanted to come out to California in February.”

“I couldn’t have seen anyone. I was dead. Dead inside at least.”

“Even so . . .” Krueger tugged at his mustache.

Hawthorne turned again to the window. “What other problems do you think I’ll have at Bishop’s Hill?”

With relief Krueger returned to the subject that, though bleak, was at least precise. “Your presence should do wonders for morale. I’ll bet even the non-psychology types have been reading your articles. You’ll have to be firm, of course. I’m sure they’ve been worried by how things have drifted along. The main thing is the children—teenagers really. They’re the ones who’ve suffered.”

“Anything more than educational neglect?”

“A tenth grader was arrested for shoplifting in Plymouth in May. Some drunk driving. Marijuana. The school uses a totally antiquated merit system with so many checks resulting in punishment. On the other hand, a new teacher joined the staff in January. I don’t think it’s an us-against-them scenario. There’s even a new cook.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I’d like you closer to Concord, where I can see you.” Krueger gave a laugh, but it sounded false to his ears. “And it’s not your area of expertise.”

“You think I won’t be able to do it?”

“You’re a tremendous administrator.”

“That was before.”

Krueger turned in his chair. “I’ll be frank with you. I don’t understand why you want Bishop’s Hill. It’s a pseudo-prep school for kids who have managed to stay out of agencies or institutions only because their parents have money. It’s a sinking ship. I don’t know if anybody could fix it and I don’t know why you want to.”

“I told you, I want to do something different.”

“And that’s sufficient reason to go to Bishop’s Hill? You could go to one of the best places in the country and you’re choosing one of the worst. The money must be terrible.” Krueger tried to make it a joke, but it didn’t sound like a joke.

“I’m not doing it for the money.”

“So what
are
you doing it for?”

“Simple professionalism.”

“It’ll be like trying to empty Lake Winnipesaukee with a pail.”

“Maybe that’s what I’m good for right now. Listen, I have to start completely over. Can’t you see that the fire was my fault? When this position opened up at Bishop’s Hill, I jumped at it.”

“You know as well as I do who caused the fire.”

Hawthorne ignored him. “If Bishop’s Hill doesn’t work out, then I’m finished. I don’t mean I couldn’t get other jobs. Just that this is the last chance I’m giving myself.”

The silence that followed was filled with the whine of the saw. Krueger heard his secretary laugh and a door slam. He thought of how far Hawthorne had traveled from Krueger’s own life. “You’ll spend the night? Deborah’d love to see you. And your namesake, he’s already four.”

“I’d like to get up there as soon as possible. About how far is it?”

“Two and a half hours door-to-door. The color should be just getting started.”

“I had some stuff shipped from San Diego. It’ll arrive next week.”

“But you’ll stay for dinner?”

“Thanks, but I still get tired pretty easily.”

Krueger stood up. His chair spun back and hit the wall with a thud. “We need to talk more. Stay for lunch. If I were the one going up there, I think I’d move into it gently.”

“You think I’ll fuck up, don’t you?”

“Of course not, but they’ve had lots of time to get fixed in their ways.” Krueger was aware of not answering the question. What did he know of his friend’s mental state? Only that Hawthorne had chosen to bury himself in a backwater, which was itself evidence of eccentricity. Perhaps something worse than eccentricity.

Hawthorne had paused at the door. “As you say, the children come first.” It seemed only politeness that was holding him back.

Krueger gave up. The conversation had exhausted him. “Give me a call once you get there. Or I’ll call you. You know that my office is at your disposal.”

Hawthorne grinned. “It’s been a while since I’ve gone to school.”

They shook hands again. This time Krueger kept his eyes away from the scars. He wondered how much was hidden by Hawthorne’s clothes, whether his entire body had the shiny delicacy of the wrist. Although Krueger felt guilty, he was comforted by Hawthorne’s grip. It seemed evidence of something positive. I’m grasping at straws, he thought.

After he had shut the door, Krueger was struck by something Hawthorne had said. What had he meant by saying the fire was his fault? That kid Carpasso had set the fire. Everyone knew that.

—

The girl sat on the edge of the stage with a cigarette hanging from her lips and stared at her toes in their small, golden thongs. The toenails had just been painted a shade of red called “Passion Juice” and were not entirely dry. They sparkled in the intensity of the spotlights. The girl’s back was bent and a strand of peroxided hair fell forward, concealing one side of her face. She picked at a dab of red on her toe and blew smoke from the corner of her mouth. Around her left ankle was a gold chain with a heart, a gift from her father six years earlier.

She seemed alone in the room despite the two dozen men and the waitresses in their skimpy dresses weaving between the tables. A few men clapped as Gypsy, naked and businesslike, walked briskly from the stage to the dressing room, carrying a little blue dress in one hand and a pair of black high heels in the other. She had just finished her number, and briefly there was a kind of silence. Someone whistled shrilly; a chair scraped; the neck of a beer bottle clinked against the rim of a glass.

The music began again. The girl dropped her cigarette and ground it into the tile. By the time she was on her feet she was already into her dance, sashaying up the remaining two steps and across the stage, her eyes focused on the spotlights so everything would be a blur when she looked away. The music was the long disco version of the Stones’ “Miss You,” and she matched her steps to the staccato precision of the drums and bass, snapping her fingers and lifting her knees so they flashed in the lights. She thought of the music as antique—the song was twenty years old—and she imagined that her parents had once danced to it, her father taking Dolly’s hand, then spinning her away.

The girl kept her head raised as she moved to the chrome pole in the middle of the stage. She was the cool one who never let her eyes drift below an imaginary line, as if beneath that line were only fog, like early-morning fog at Rye Beach. When she table-danced, men would often say, “Why don’t you look at me?” And sometimes they whined and sometimes they called her “Bitch.” She wanted to say, “Fuck you,” but she’d just smile as if her thoughts were in exotic places, Zanzibar or Rio de Janeiro. And when the men tucked ten- or twenty-dollar bills under the thin gold chain around her waist, she would stroke their cheeks just once and draw her nails lightly down the stubble on their faces, but she still wouldn’t look at them.

Gripping the pole with her right hand, the girl swirled around it with her head back and her nearly white hair streaming behind her. She had pinned it up but, as she spun, her hair came free and she could feel how the men grew attentive, as if her hair’s very loosening were a sign of her wildness. The girl focused on the mirrors on the ceiling above the stage, watching the pretty, heavily made-up face of her reflection stare back at her. At one moment she was amazed by her beauty and at the next by what she saw as her ugliness: her lips not enough of this, her nose not enough of that, and the blue of her eyes insufficiently dazzling. She wore a mixture of pastel-colored veils that fluttered in the breeze from a fan at the edge of the stage: a two-piece costume made by an ex-dancer who had gotten fat and now designed costumes for other girls, polyester delicacies whose only function was to be ripped away in a fantasy of sexual abandon. The veils whirled and eddied around her in varying shades of blue, green, and red—pulsings that let the girl imagine herself a multicolored bird of Eastern mythology, beautiful but deadly. The stage was eight feet wide and formed a runway between the tables where the men sat. The dancers called it the meat rack. As the girl spun round the pole, the veils separated and came together, giving glimpses of her tanned body and revealing her small breasts—too small to the girl’s mind, small and undeveloped, almost boyish. They embarrassed her, but after all, she was only fifteen.

As she spun, she kicked off one slipper, then the other. Her movements were a mixture of sensual languor and military precision as she keyed them to the rhythm of the song: “I been sleeping all alone; Lord, I miss you . . .” She had begun work that day at one and now it was rush hour on a Monday afternoon, September 21—men leaving work in Boston and heading to suburbs along the North Shore. A few would stop for a beer and to watch a pretty girl show her naked body. Some would pay to have the girl dance for them alone—one man at a table with a beer and a shot and the girl weaving back and forth with her pubic hair trimmed into a heart shape or diamond shape, whatever had become the newest fashion among the girls, the same way they would get boob jobs or even lip jobs and rush to one surgeon after another. And this girl, too, though she needed every penny she earned, had gone to get implants—it only made sense, she told herself, because her breasts were so small. The doctor had refused, saying she was still growing, but he didn’t say anything else; that is, he didn’t report her, though he could tell she wasn’t eighteen.

The club had no windows, so it could be any time of the day or night. Mostly it seemed like one unchanging minute. One dancer replaced another, one song replaced the next, and even the men looked the same in their longing and feigned boredom—small but endless variations of the same sixty seconds till the club closed at one in the morning and the girls went off to whatever domestic deficiency they called home. By then the girl would have danced on stage a dozen times and, if she was lucky and the club was busy, she would have danced at a dozen tables. She would have washed a dozen times and changed her makeup a dozen times and still she’d feel the places where men had touched her ass or tried to rub against her breasts and tell her what a fox she was or what a bitch and how they wanted to push her down on the floor and do things to her. One fat man had come back night after night to say how he wanted to piss in her mouth, until she had complained and Bob had told the man not to come back, because he wasn’t spending any money. But if the man had been buying drinks, then Bob would have told her to get used to it and what the hell did she expect. She would have accepted it because Bob knew that her ID was phony, but he wouldn’t let her go unless there was a problem, because he got his percentage and many of the men liked babies, liked little girls, even if their tits were small and they looked like boys from the back, the cheeks of their buttocks tight and shiny.