Authors: Beth Gutcheon
Saying Grace / 143
Over the muscleman’s head was a thought balloon. “STUD,” the figure was thinking, as he looked in the mirror. In the mirror, a very different male figure looked back. He was a puny-limbed, sagging creature. In his thought balloon, in perfect mirror writing, were the words
Eat Shit
. Around the drawing was a frame of thick, wonderfully drawn branches, with twigs and leaves and words woven along. Half the words were normal, and the other half were mirror writing. The straight writing gave words like
Jock…Macho Man…Punk
Cruiser
. The mirror ones, cleverly disguised among leaves and tendrils, said
Asshole
or
Suck My Dick
.
“Pat, what are these?” Rue held up several of the drawings.
“Oh, aren’t those clever? Those were done by the sixth grade two years ago.”
“This year’s eighth grade.”
“Yes.”
“Who did this one?”
She carried the drawing with the mirror writing to Bonnie and Pat. She could see that Bonnie saw at once why it interested her.
“Guess.” Pat made a face.
“Tell me.”
“Kenny Lowen.”
144 / Beth Gutcheon
Bonnie was holding the drawing. “This is extraordinary,” she said.
“It really is, isn’t it? He’s incredibly talented. But awful.”
“May I take this?” Bonnie asked.
“Well…”
“I just want to copy it. I’ll bring it back.”
“All right,” Pat said, but suddenly again she sounded angry.
She turned and went back to her sink. She ran the water and searched for a while for her sponge, which was on the floor. Eventually she found it, swore, and resumed washing the paint stains from the porcelain.
“What did you want my help with?”
“I wanted to ask you what kind of a year Lyndie Sale is having in your class.”
Pat stopped scrubbing again. “Lyndie Sale…Lyndie Sale. I think fine. Let me get my grade book.”
She walked off, leaving the water running. Rue turned it off. “Can’t stand running water,” she said to Bonnie. “Georgia’s got me trained.”
Pat came back from her office with a ring-bound notebook.
“Lyndie Sale…got a B+ for her fantasy map and a B on her tie rack.
She had trouble handling the stain. Other than that she’s doing fine.
Why?”
“No special reason. She gets along with the other children?”
“Always has.”
“But you haven’t seen a change this year?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well. Thank you. That makes my life simpler.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ll bring this drawing back Tuesday,” said Bonnie.
“No problem.” Suddenly there was a feeling that Pat was in a hurry for them to leave. So they left.
They walked across the wide lawn toward Home, looking at Kenny Lowen’s drawing.
“Are you going to show it to Cynda?” Bonnie asked.
“What do you think?”
“I think yes. What about the parents?”
Saying Grace / 145
“There’s no point now. I certainly would have if Pat had seen fit to show it to me at the time he did it. But hold on to it. I think we’re going to have a rough year with him.”
“I think you’re right. What are his parents like?”
“Bradley’s a sweetheart. Very bright and funny and kind. Corinne is one of those intense moms who lives through her kids, and she’s very competitive. They have a daughter in Catherine Trainer’s class.”
“Jennifer Lowen? That’s his sister?”
Rue nodded. “Kenny was the most adorable toddler. But always a dickens. Jennifer is entirely different. A princess, with all that that implies.”
“Interesting family.”
“Tell me about Pat Moredock. Did she really wash the brushes twice?”
“Not only that, I watched her take the tops off the paint jars and then screw them all on again.”
“We seemed to scare the hell out of her. What is that?”
“Don’t you know?” Bonnie asked.
Rue felt a sudden shift of terrain, a momentary blankness. Was there something right in front of her she couldn’t see?
“I have no idea. Do you mean you do?”
“Of course.”
The two women stopped and looked at each other. Bonnie was puzzled. Rue was feeling rather frightened.
“Well?” said Rue. “What is it?”
“She was drunk,” said Bonnie.
Rue gave no reaction at all for a moment, except to blink.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Haven’t you ever seen anyone drunk?”
Rue looked completely bewildered.
“Poor Pat,” she said at last. “Now what am I going to do?”
“We better talk about it,” said Bonnie. “Does she have any family?”
“A daughter at college. She’s divorced.”
“Mother? Father?”
“I think so. In the south someplace. Maybe Arkansas. Should we do an intervention?”
146 / Beth Gutcheon
“Well, wait. How drunk is she? How often does it happen? Is this temporary or chronic?”
“I see what you mean.”
“I know of a case where a business did an intervention on a longtime bookkeeper. They sent the woman off to a dry-out farm.
She’d been functioning at a pretty high level, so they didn’t figure her for a hard case. She did the whole course, and then on the way back to San Diego, she got off the plane in Denver and got so drunk in the airport she wound up in jail. After that the company fired her, and her family wouldn’t take her. Her sister says she was arrested a year later stark naked, up in a tree. Throwing things at people.”
“So you don’t just bust in on someone who’s operating without a safety net.”
“I’d give it careful thought.”
They walked in silence. “I’m exhausted,” said Rue. “I think I’ll go home to my husband.”
“And have a stiff drink,” said Bonnie.
“And a big cookie,” said Rue.
They both laughed.
Bonnie said, “That should work. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”
And they parted.
C
handler Kip and his wife, Bobbi, were giving a Christmas party for the faculty and trustees. Their vast half-timbered Tudor house was filled with decorations of the Olde English variety. There were strings of twinkling white lights winking in the many-paned leaded windows. There were pine boughs on every mantelpiece and tucked behind every picture frame. There were pine ropes twined along the long curving bannisters, tied with red velvet ribbon, and clutches of mistletoe hanging at every doorway. The immense Douglas fir in the front hall was so tall Bobbi had had to have the top four feet cut off, so it seemed to grow into the ceiling. It was strung with popcorn, cranberries, and paper snowflake chains made from silver paper. Instead of electric lights, it was lit with candles, clipped to the boughs in genuine antique Victorian holders. Unfortunately, every time someone opened the front door the candles flared, threatening to ignite the paper chains. That, or half of them blew out. Bobbi, who had only spent a full month of her life planning the decor for the holidays, had been called a moron by her husband, and had wept much of the day. Chandler had now solved the problem, sort of, by employing their nine-year-old daughter, Missy, to sit beside the tree throughout the party holding a fire extinguisher.
Missy, who appeared to be borderline anorexic, was a ballet fanatic, and agreed to this duty if she could be dressed as the Sugar Plum Fairy.
Oliver and Sondra Sale were the first to arrive. Oliver was wearing his usual gray suit, white shirt, and black tie. Sondra was in a forest green form-fitting cocktail dress, and her blond hair was violently coiffed. They found Chandler in his Savile Row tweeds, wearing a red Christmas vest printed with tiny green holly wreaths, applying sandpaper to the ornate iron handrail that had recently been installed to aid the infirm in ascending the front steps.
148 / Beth Gutcheon
Chandler’s mother, though not old, was infirm and had arrived to spend Christmas and most of January.
“Merry Christmas,” announced Oliver as he preceded his wife up the stone walkway from the four-car garage. The walkway was lined with paper bags half-filled with sand and lit from within by votive candles. Each bag had been stenciled with Christmas motifs by Missy. At least Chandler believed that Missy had done it, as he had paid her a quarter a bag for the job. Actually Bobbi had found that Missy was getting spray paint all over the green marble kitchen counters, and she refused to move out to the garage because there was no TV out there, so Bobbi had done the bags for her. In doing so, Bobbi had gotten red spray paint on her fingers, and when she removed it, the mineral spirits also removed most of her nail polish, so she had to have her manicure redone this morning at a cost of $32, including tip. Chandler, who vetted his Visa bill minutely with a calendar at his side, would need to know why she had had two manicures in one week. But by then it would be January, and Bobbi would have thought of some excuse. Missy, meanwhile, had made $2.75 on the deal.
“Bobbi let the damn contractor put the wrong kind of paint on this thing, and it’s started to blister,” Chandler told the Sales. He gave the railing a last fierce swipe, put the sandpaper in his pocket, and gave Sondra a kiss on the cheek.
“You have a lovely home,” said Sondra.
“Are we early?” Oliver asked.
“Right on time. Bobbi’s in the kitchen trying to make eggnog,”
said Chandler.
“I’ll go help her out,” said Sondra, with relief. She handed Chandler the white beribboned poinsettia she was carrying and started off in the wrong direction.
“No the kitchen is that way,” Chandler called after her. Flustered, she turned and looked at Chandler, who was pointing. She nodded once and went off again, walking stiffly on high heels.
“Come in, have a drink, how are you?” said Chandler, shepherding Oliver in through the front door. Oliver seemed to tower over him, as if he would have to duck to fit through the door. The candles fluttered wildly on the tree as the door opened.
“Come say hello to Mr. Sale,” said Chandler to Missy. Missy Saying Grace / 149
put down her Christmas red fire extinguisher and arabesqued her way across the stone floor to Mr. Sale, for whom she performed a deep curtsey. Oliver bowed in return, and the skeletal little girl in a silver tutu and pink tights pirouetted back to her place beside the tree. Chandler hoped she wasn’t going to keep
that
up all evening; if she did, she would soon be knocking into waiters with drink trays and waitresses with platters of canapes. He led Oliver into the den, where the bartender was setting up.
They both ordered spritzers. “How’s Lucky Lyndie?” Chandler asked.
“They kept her overnight to be sure she didn’t slip into a coma,”
Oliver said. “Sondra spent the night with her and brought her home this morning. She’s got a hell of a goose egg on the back of her head.”
“That must smart.”
“I’m getting rid of those rollerblades—I think they’re dangerous as hell. She just got out of a cast, you know.”
“Have you ever tried them?”
“No, have you?”
“They’re a lot of fun,” said Chandler. “I was going to get a pair, but my orthopod had a fit.” Chandler’s son, Randy, had introduced him to rollerblading. It hadn’t been easy, the last few years, for them to find things they could do together or interests to share. Randy fought savagely with Bobbi if he was allowed in the house. Bobbi thought he’d taken his father rollerblading in the hope he’d break both his arms. But Chandler didn’t see it that way.
The doorbell rang, and Chandler went to answer it. It was Pat Moredock, the art teacher. She was wearing a candy-cane bracelet and a Rudolph Reindeer pin with a tiny electric bulb for a nose, blinking on and off. When Missy saw her, she flew across the room and leaped into Pat’s arms, crying “Mrs. Moooooredock!” Art was Missy’s favorite subject. “Daddy, can I show Mrs. Moredock my room?”
Chandler closed the door so carefully that the candles on the tree barely flickered at all. Missy took Mrs. Moredock by the hand and dragged her toward the stairs.
“Why don’t you let Mrs. Moredock get a drink first?” said Chandler. To Missy’s disgust, Mrs. Moredock seemed to think this 150 / Beth Gutcheon
was a good idea. But once she had given her coat to a butler and let the bartender pour her a hefty scotch on the rocks, she consented to be led.
Next came Janet TerWilliams and her husband, Carl. They had brought Helen Yeats and Charla Percy with them, and all exclaimed over the originality of real candles on the tree. Helen went to very few parties where butlers waited on her, and to her especially, the warm, twinkling house smelling of pine and fragrant wood smoke seemed like a wonderland.
Rue came to the party determined to be on her best behavior. She and Henry arrived rather late, on purpose, not much liking cocktail parties, which Henry called bun fights. They brought Emily Goldsborough with them. The driveway was already full of cars, and they had to park far out on the road and walk in. The pathway, lit with lumieres, reminded Rue of Christmas in Maine, and she thought again how odd it was to feel a warm evening wind in the early darkness that meant December, and to pass along a rock garden of cactus on her way into a house full of evergreens and Christmas music.
The party had spread throughout the downstairs of the house by this time. It had not been announced as a dinner, but the buffet in the dining room was so lavish, with roast beef, turkey, and ham, huge bowls of boiled shrimp, crudités, cheese puffs, platters of cheese and fruit, and salvers of hot chicken livers wrapped in bacon, that most of the guests were making a meal of it.
Rue soon found herself trapped by a trustee who believed that her son was being picked on by one of the most beloved teachers in the school. Rue urged her to call for an appointment, so that she and Mrs. Percy and the McCanns could sit down together. Carson McCann agreed that that was the way to handle it, then went right on regaling her with tales of Mrs. Percy’s bizarre and unjust behavior to little Ashby.
Blessedly, Henry cut in.
“Do you want some dinner?” he asked Rue. “I’m going to eat as much meat as I can, before Georgia gets home.” They made their escape.
“I’m going to find a place to sit down.”