The Ghosts of Lovely Women (2 page)

She’d been popular, too. Student Council vice president, an athlete boyfriend, a theatre scholarship…

I smacked my head. “Danny,” I said.

“What?” asked the new man politely.

“Oh, it’s just — the girl who uh— who has died. Her boyfriend was a year younger; he’s a senior now. He must have heard; he must have known something. That’s why he was barreling through the hall this morning.”

“It’s a terrible thing,” he said.

We reached the lab and I opened the door and quickly turned off the chirping of the alarm warning. I flipped on the lights and the new guy thanked me.

“You’re welcome, uh—”

”You forgot my name? I hope so, because I forgot yours.”

I managed a real laugh. “Theodora. Which is horrible, so I go by Teddy.”

“Like the bear. Easy to remember.” He smiled. “I’m Derek.”

“Derek. Like the… nothing I can think of.”

He laughed. “I’ll wear a nametag.”

“I’m just across the hall if you need anything, Derek.”

He thanked me and I moved to my own room. It was an Honors World Literature class full of seniors and I anticipated that if they hadn’t already heard the news, many of them would be upset when they did so. I tried to think of some quiet work that I could give them so that they could process their feelings in their own individual ways.

The bell rang and the students began to file in. As usual, they seemed to know far more than we did. While Fred had only just received the news, some of these kids seemed to have lived with it for a while. I wondered, as I overheard their conversations, when Jessica had died.

Rosalyn came in, smiling. She, for one, obviously hadn’t heard. She and Jessica had been friends; they’d been in a play together. I said, “Class, be quiet, and let’s wait for announcements.”

But Matt Jacoby came to my desk, looking angry and confused. “Miz Thurber, you heard about Jessica?”

I nodded. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“But it’s not true, right?”

“What’s not true?”

“About Danny. They’re saying that Danny killed her!”

“I alone did everything. Remember that.”

—Nora,
A Doll’s House
, Act II

Period One was difficult; after prayers came tears, from those who had already known and those who had just heard. There were a few students who didn’t know Jessica, had never known her, and they felt distinctly uncomfortable, not wanting to feign grief but also not wanting to seem callous.

I told them to work quietly. I allowed a few to go to the school chapel to pray; Fred had announced over the p.a. that our campus minister would be there, along with some counselors.

Despite my own shock at the news, I didn’t want to forego class entirely; I wrote a few main questions about the reading assignment on the board and asked students to try to respond to them all before leaving, but also noted that they could work at their own pace.

The students wanted to talk.

Matt Jacoby was still angry. “Why are they saying Danny did it when he loved Jessica? He was gonna like, ask her to marry him after graduation.”

“Who is saying that he did it? How would you know that?” I asked.

Matt looked secretive. He ran a hand through hair that looked still damp from a morning shower. “Kids are talking and stuff. Just go in the halls and you’ll hear it. They’re saying the cops want to question him, and that’s why he went running out of here this morning.”

Some of the other students mumbled agreement with this.

I held up a hand. “I’m not really interested in hearing any sort of rumors, and you shouldn’t be, either. A girl that we knew and liked has passed away, and she and her family need our prayers and support, not our speculation.”

That quieted them briefly, but then Nancy Cavanaugh, red-haired and fiery, stuck out her chin with a fierce expression and said, “I heard that Jessica had just gotten a really good part in a New York show. That was what she always wanted. She was going to be a big Broadway star!” This brought tears again.

I realized they felt sorry — yes, for Jessica — but also for themselves, because they were being forced to acknowledge that death could happen to them. They were feeling their way, wondering how much they were supposed to feel, not knowing how to process the murder of a nineteen-year-old girl.

They talked a bit among themselves and made a half-hearted attempt to answer the questions. I went to my desk and sent a quick e-mail to Fred, telling him that I doubted Danny had showed up at his first period class, and that perhaps he should contact Danny’s family and let them know that he had stormed out of school; I also mentioned the rumor about Danny’s involvement. Much as I hated rumors, it was something the administration would want to know about, especially if the police came knocking on our door. I copied our principal and the senior counselor on the e-mail and clicked send.

I turned back to the class, where one of my most scholarly students, Christopher Angelini, was staring at the blackboard. He raised his hand. “I have a question about
Crime and
Punishment
,” he said.

“Sure.”

“You ask about Raskolnikov’s motive for murder, but that’s easy. He hates the pawnbroker because he sees her as a leech, someone who feeds off of the poor, the worst sort of person.”

“True.”

“But that makes motive easy and understandable. What makes someone kill a girl like Jessica? A pretty, nice girl who was friends with everyone?”

I could see that quiet, even-tempered Chris was on the verge of tears.

I sighed. There were several reasons why a person would kill a pretty girl, and none of them were acceptable; they certainly weren’t things I was prepared to discuss with these already hurting young people. “It’s a fair question, Chris, but I can’t answer it. We’ll wait for the police to tell us just what happened.”

I was concerned about Rosalyn; she hadn’t said anything since she’d heard the news. She sat in her desk, white-faced, looking down at her hands. At one point I noticed her rummaging for something in her purse.

Tracy Olzewski spoke out, looking angry. “This is going to just kill her mom and dad. I mean, they love all their kids, but Jessica was like this star of their family. And she was the only girl.”

Her classmates nodded, their faces looking very young, yet suddenly old.

* * *

I managed two periods and then fought my way through the crowded halls and down the stairs to the teacher’s lounge, where I hoped, finally, to make copies.

There were people in line at the far copier because the other two were not working. Someone had written “OUT OF ORDER — AGAIN!!!” on two pieces of paper and then taped them on the malfunctioning machines.

“Oh, for CRAP’S SAKE!” I said. My colleagues looked at me with mute despair from the line, clutching their handouts and obviously clinging to the hope that the one working machine wouldn’t suddenly give up the ghost.

The only one who seemed unconcerned was Lucia Donato, one of the Italian teachers. I pretended to resent her because she was blessed with every advantage, the most obvious of which was her gorgeous body. Today it burgeoned generously under a red knit dress and matching red heels that set off her long dark hair. Lucia was forty but looked thirty; she had a beautiful Italian accent. She was also intelligent and kind.

“I hate you,” I said as I got in line behind her.

I noticed that the new guy — Derek (there, I remembered)—was gawking at us in what I call Stage One of Lucia fascination. At first her looks are just beyond belief. She’s an extra helping of everything.

“You don’t,” she said, shrugging.

“No, but I should. If I wore that dress I would look like an ill-paid prostitute, and you look like some glorious mythological queen.”

She threw back her head and chuckled her throaty Lucia chuckle. Derek, who was using the paper cutter, almost amputated his fingers.

“Oh, Teddy. You always make me laugh.” She edged forward slightly in the line and consulted a pretty silver watch on her wrist. “Besides, you don’t need to envy anyone. You’re one of those small and pretty girls that men love.” She eyed me, nodding. “Do you have Italian blood?”

“Sorry — just English, as far as I know.” I scowled at her. “You also smell like a field of flowers. What perfume is that?”

“Oh, what did I put on today? I think it’s called Bacio. Would you like me to bring you a bottle? I have an uncle in Italy who sends me cases of it. He knows I like it, so.”

“By uncle you mean lover.”

She laughed again, probably because it was true. Then she sobered. “Teddy, do you believe this about little Jessica? She was such a pretty girl, and her Italian was excellent. She told me that when she was finished with college she was going to take a trip to Florence, just to see all the places we talked about. Oi, so sad.”

“I know. Do you know I saw her this summer? We had coffee and talked. She was a thinker; I always feel like those kids who are independent thinkers will go the farthest. One of the girls told me Jessica had gotten a part in some Broadway show. Do you know if that’s true?”

She shrugged again, then moved forward again in the line when someone left with a stack of papers. “Who knows? A lot of facts will come out in the next few days, right? Oh, darn, I forgot my workbook. Where did I put it? Save my space, Teddy.”

She walked swiftly on her red heels back to the mailboxes. Derek stood frozen at the paper cutter. Lucia has, as my Aunt Nora from Indiana used to say, “a swing in her back yard.”

I leaned toward Derek. “She’s spoken for.” This was true in more ways than one: about five men were in love with Lucia, and she had strong feelings for at least three of them. She complained of the difficulty in choosing one over the other. She regaled me with tales of romantic moonlit dates, impromptu trips to Sicily and Rome, mountain wildflower bouquets sent to her home, baskets of exotic fruit shipped to her at school. There were occasionally chocolates that she offered to me because “I get so many, Teddy.”

Derek reddened beneath his well-trimmed brown beard, seemingly distressed to have been caught in Lucia’s siren spell. He left the room, holding the little pile of papers he’d been cutting. I felt badly, now, that I hadn’t asked if everything was going all right for him. I’d assumed that it was, especially after some of his first period students had come into my second-period class proclaiming that he was “really cool” and that his psychology class was “going to be so awesome.”

The copy line inched forward; Lucia reclaimed her spot. “Who was that man who just left?” she asked. “I didn’t want to ask while he was standing there staring at you.”

I sniffed. “He was staring at
you
, voluptuous. And he’s the new social science chair. Kathy Olchen is going to be furious.” The previous department chair, James Gruben, had left under mysterious circumstances a month before; the administration had told us only that he had a “personal health issue,” which we knew could mean anything from a real health problem like a dodgy heart to a euphemism for “he was asked to leave because of unacceptable behavior.” Lucia was convinced that he’d made a pass at a student. Our friend Joshua swore that he’d smelled marijuana on Gruben on more than one occasion. Neither of these had seemed like very likely reasons to me.

In any case, Kathy Olchen, a most ambitious but not very good history teacher (or so I heard on the grapevine), had applied for Gruben’s job, and had interviewed along with several other candidates. Jonas had won, and I could only imagine what Olchen would be saying right now. It was spring, but summer loomed, and that would give her time to get used to the new reality.

I taught my period four class. They were a group of sophomores who had not known Jessica Halliday very well, so things were a bit more calm. We discussed the first act of
Macbeth
and managed a lackluster vocabulary drill; then the bell rang and I went to a Period 5 committee meeting, lugging my sad brown bag lunch with me.

At St. James, teachers were required to be on what seemed about six hundred committees, all of which were exhausting and rarely yielded results. Today’s meeting was for the school’s new image. Our principal, Anthony Fairchild, had announced at the beginning of the year that we had received a grant from a local bank to improve the landscaping at St. James, a lovely old building much admired in Pine Grove. We had 5000 dollars to use as we wished; Anthony had asked for volunteers to serve on the committee, research various landscape options, and discuss feasibility. We had met four times and had not reached a consensus. Joshua and I had gotten so frustrated that we had started to suggest ridiculous and outlandish things while maintaining a serious demeanor, and sure enough, our committee took them seriously and debated about them.

Today we sat in an empty classroom and endured all sorts of gossip about Jessica Halliday. “I heard she was found in an alley, sitting in the front seat of her car,” said Chad Rivera. “Someone was likely hiding in the back seat. They could have just jumped up and strangled her — not much time to fight that.”

“But that doesn’t mean she was killed in her car,” said Tricia Ellis. “Don’t you watch the cop shows? She could have been killed somewhere else and then moved to her car. They always move the body, right? Especially if it’s a crime of passion.”

“True,” said Chad. “Wherever it happened, they could have driven her car closer to her home, then put her body in the driver’s seat. Made it look as though it was done there.”

“Who would do that?” someone protested.

“God knows. I can’t imagine the girl having enemies.” That was from Josh.

“We don’t really know our students,” Marnie Taylor said. “We think we do. We idealize them. But we don’t know them, or what they go through. What their demons are.” She rested her hands on her pregnant belly, as though to calm the swimmer within. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

That silenced the gossip. We got down to committee business; I think people were almost relieved to let the subject drop; instead we listened to Kathy Olchen, who had grown surprisingly silent during the Jessica chatter, drone on about the various kinds of pine trees and the surprising advantages of decorative wood chips. Joshua put aside the essay he was grading and held up his hand. “Kathy? I got those figures on what it would cost to uproot some Florida palms and have them planted here.” He scanned his sheet of notes with a look of great concentration. Since Pine Grove is just west of Chicago, it was a particularly obnoxious suggestion.