All the Best People Page 8

  Warren pointed at the boy. “What d’you say we give Jersey here a swimming lesson?”

  Rooster peeled off his sunglasses and put them aside. “Radical.” He got up and stood next to Warren. A senior named Andy came over and so did a dropout called Juice. The boy from Poughkeepsie fidgeted. He snuck a glance behind him, like he might make a dash for the trail.

  He’d never make it. Alison returned to the design, her stomach sour. The lines glowed brighter. She finished drawing the star. It was upside down, with two points facing up and one down. Weird. The soapstone grew hot in her fingers.

  “Ready, guys?” Warren grabbed the boy’s ankle. Rooster took hold of the other.

  “Hey!” the boy said, kicking, but Warren and Rooster held on. “Leave me alone!” He flung his arms around. Andy and Juice laughed and pinned him down. His face went from pink to white. “Leave me alone!”

  Some kid started clapping and chanting, “Swim lesson! Throw him in! Swim lesson! Throw him in!” Lester and the rest joined in. Warren and the other three dragged the boy down the rock to where a thick stripe of quartz ran across it. If the water was above the stripe, you shouldn’t go in. The river wasn’t that high today, but there was a lot of current. Especially if you couldn’t swim.

  “On the count of three,” Rooster yelled.

  “Don’t, you guys!” Alison said.

  The boy’s face was a mess of fear. He was wriggling like his shorts were on fire, and trying not to cry at the same time. Grunting, Warren and the others lifted him.

  “One!” They rocked him forward. “Two!” They swung him back.

  Something nudged Alison from deep inside. She spun to face the drawing. It was burning white, like the middle of a fire. Her hand moved to the bottom of the arc. Without knowing why, she closed her eyes and said: “Warren.” She opened them again and the soapstone dropped from her hand. The star was in a circle.

  “Three!”

  She spun around to see the boy in the air above the pool. As he fell, he threw his arm out, grabbed Warren’s forearm, pulling him off balance. Warren’s feet went out from under him and he slid into the pool. The boy disappeared under him.

  Warren popped up, a look of shock on his face. The boy thrashed to the surface, mouth gaping. He clutched at Warren and climbed on top of him as if he was a life raft. Warren opened his mouth, then closed it as the boy sank him.

  The other boys gathered at the edge of the rock, peering into the pool. Lester was standing in the water, laughing his head off, thinking it was all a game. The murky water roiled as the boys grappled under the surface. An arm appeared, then the face of the Poughkeepsie boy, stretched in terror. He gasped for air and sank again. Why didn’t Warren push him off and swim away? The boy must be standing on him, or, more likely, Warren was lying at the bottom, waiting for the perfect moment to leap out of the water and laugh at everyone for falling for it. But what if he hit his head going in? Her mouth went dry and she felt strange—dizzy and excited all at once, like the world was spinning on a new axis.

  The seconds ticked by. The boys glanced at one another. Rooster said, “That fat kid is weighing him down.” He dove in, the bottoms of his feet flashing white in the sun. The Poughkeepsie boy came up again, slapping his arms on top of the water, making huge splashes. He spotted Lester ten feet away. Worry crept onto Lester’s face. He stepped toward the boy and held out his arms. “You gotta kick! Kick, kick, kick, kick!”

  It was what their mother had told them when she taught them to swim. The boy started kicking, from his knees, which wasn’t the way to do it. Nothing he was doing looked anything like swimming, but it was keeping him afloat.

  Rooster’s head popped up. He shook the water from his face, took a big breath, and dove again. The boy was churning the water like an outboard, making it impossible for anyone to see into the pool.

  Warren had been under a long time. Alison stared at the upside-down star on the wall, her heart fluttering. She recognized the design now. Her witchcraft book. The upward points of the star were devil horns. Satan’s sign. She’d cursed her brother. A wave of panic flowed through her. She glanced at the swimming hole. The boy had beached himself downstream of Lester and lay on his side, panting. Rooster was diving again and Juice was in the water now, too, searching for Warren.

  Alison scooped water and threw it against the star. She tossed water on it twice more and frantically rubbed the markings off. The rock wall was burning hot, but she scraped her palms over it, erasing the star. She tossed more water, her breath sticking in her chest, as if she was drowning, too. She rubbed the stone again and again, ignoring the pain in her palms, not daring to look behind her at the pool. The wall was clean. Exhausted, she leaned her forehead against it. It was cool.

  “Hey!” A couple of boys cheered.

  Rooster and Juice dragged Warren onto the far bank. Lester hung over him, blocking Alison’s view. She jumped in and swam across, her eyes trained on Warren. Rooster rolled him onto his side and water spewed out of his mouth. He coughed, pushed Rooster off him and sat up, flicking his hair out of his face.

  “What the fuck is the matter with all of you goddamn pussies?”

  Alison let out the breath she’d been holding. She hadn’t drowned him.

  The boy from Poughkeepsie made his way back to the rock the long way, crossing the river below where they’d dammed it. The water ran fast there and he stumbled on the slippery rocks. He kept checking to see if anyone was coming after him, but they’d had enough fun for one day. He got to the big rock and put on his sandals, shaking, chewing his lip, holding himself together. One of the boys did a cannonball and almost landed on Rooster, making everyone laugh loudly, like they’d all been holding their breath, too.

  Lester and Warren stood together, waist deep, swatting at the mosquitoes buzzing around them. Alison hung off to the side, rubbing her arms, wishing she’d stayed home.

  “He couldn’t swim, could he, Warren?” Lester said.

  “No. But he did improve.”

  “Don’t fat people float?”

  “Apparently not. Sure sucks when they’re standing on you.” He glanced at Alison, noticing her for the first time. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  She shivered. “I’m going home.” She almost said she was glad he didn’t drown, but since she was the one who had cursed him, she couldn’t.

  She swam to the wall and stared at the place, still dark and wet. The chunk of soapstone lay in a puddle at her feet. She picked it up and cocked her arm to throw it into the current, but hesitated. Something had happened. Something powerful, not completely under her control, but not outside it, either. She lowered her arm and palmed the soapstone. She pulled her towel down from the tree branch, draped it over her shoulders like a cloak and stole into the woods.

  10

  Janine

  Janine turned right along the corridor to the office. At the far end, Greg Bayliss was leaving the staff room, heading her way. She breathed in deeply, squared her shoulders, ran her tongue over lips and resisted the urge to check her curls. Her hair was flawless this morning. She’d made sure of it. He’d been gone all summer and, finally, here he was. Her man. Her next husband.

  Last February, right before Valentine’s Day, his girlfriend had dumped him. She was a dreadful creature from Jericho, an earthy type who lived in caftans and clogs. As soon as Janine found out Granola Girl was history, she set to work reeling in Greg Bayliss. Janine wouldn’t have hesitated to out-and-out steal him from his girlfriend, but he seemed the loyal type (how quaint!) and she didn’t want to ruin her chances, not with a guy that good-looking. There wasn’t a better prospect in all of Lamoille County, even if he was only a schoolteacher. To think she’d been counting on becoming the wife of a state senator and, if she’d had her way, the first lady of Vermont
. She’d have preferred a bigger state, but now even pathetic little Vermont was off the table. Mitch’s death was a pain in the ass.

  She befriended Greg first, asking about Granola Girl and commiserating after he admitted they’d split. Janine deliberately dressed modestly during this time, and pretended he didn’t interest her much. She was friendly but never flirty, and made sure to ignore him now and then. After six weeks, which she judged the mending period of a man’s heart, she baited the hook, cast her line and reeled him in.

  Their first date was in early May, an excursion to the fair in Montpelier. He won a stuffed Bullwinkle at a throwing booth (he’d pitched in high school) and presented it to her with a flourish, imitating Bullwinkle’s voice.

  “Watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat, Janine!”

  His dimples showed and she couldn’t help being charmed, although she would gladly have exchanged some of his good nature for an extra helping of ambition. They went out again ten days later, to dinner at a restaurant outside Burlington, where he let drop he’d be teaching English as a second language in Mexico all summer. Janine’s fantasies of a romantic and productive summer were squashed. It was all she could do not to reach across the table and smack his do-gooding face. Mexico! What was wrong with leaving them to their own language?

  She tucked her chin and peered at him through her lashes. “Does it have to be all summer, Greg?”

  “The longer I’m there, the more I can do.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” Men lapped up that line. “But don’t you need a little vacation? Maybe have a little fun?” She gave him her sweetest smile. He liked nice girls, she could tell. It was a chore but nothing worth having comes easy. Except sex.

  “Teaching’s fun. That’s my vacation.”

  She studied him from across the table. In this light he resembled Robert Redford more than usual, with his sideburns, worn suede sport coat and faded denim shirt. She wondered whether she should just screw him. They could do it tonight. Hell, give her five minutes and she’d be fucking him on this table with thirty customers watching. Sadly, it was not a viable long-term strategy. Fucking was easy. Husbands were a different business. Maybe she should reconsider Ray What’s-his-name, the banker. His eyes stuck out too far but he had money and didn’t give a damn about Mexico. Maybe she should move back to Burlington or to another state. The problem was she had no savings and no marketable skills, other than the ones she was using now. Adams might be a dump, but it was cheap.

  He filled her wineglass and she sighed. He had manners, blue eyes and dimples. And she was sure he’d be great in the sack. Who cared about the summer? She’d screw his brains out before he left on his mission. Give him something to think about for a couple of months. Come September, he’d be hers.

  She touched her wineglass to his. “You’re a very special person, Greg. You know that, don’t you?”

  They shared a baked Alaska and the waiter brought the check. Greg pulled his wallet from the inside pocket of his sport coat. The label caught Janine’s eye: Brooks Brothers. On a teacher’s salary? As he stacked bills on the table, she toyed with the possibility his shabby clothes (and that awful Vega he drove) represented not real poverty but wealth pretending not to care about appearances. She’d seen it before, people from the Cape or Long Island with their round-heeled penny loafers and pilled cashmere sweaters, people with so much money they weren’t pressed to show it off.

  At the school office the next day, Janine had copied information from Greg Bayliss’s file and made several phone calls, pretending to represent the school, an alumnae association and a newspaper. Her hunch was right on the money, literally. She didn’t need a bank statement, she just toted up the addresses: Beacon Hill, Exeter, Harvard, London, Central Park West. Whatever his reasons for holing up in Adams, Mr. Gregory Bayliss, sixth grade teacher, was loaded.

  Summer vacation had been about to start. Janine had snagged Greg in his classroom after the lunch bell and shooed the stragglers out onto the playground. She’d set a pile of summer reading lists on the corner of his desk, taken his hand and pulled him into the coat closet, where she shushed him with one finger and gave him a quickie blow job, one of her specialties. She’d probably left purple fingerprints from the mimeo behind. Good. Every time he caught a whiff of the sweet damp mimeo ink, he’d think of her.

  Now fall had finally arrived. Greg was walking down the school corridor, reading from a sheaf of papers. He hadn’t noticed her. Janine’s scalp tingled in anticipation as she angled toward him, calculating her trajectory as if she were an ICBM and he were the Kremlin. She was a yard away. He raised his head, recognized her and smiled. Those dimples. And he was so tan! It made his eyes even bluer. Maybe he’d decided to go surfing all summer instead of teaching. She imagined him in swim shorts. A swirl of heat flared inside her, moved down between her legs. Lust and ambition had every nerve in her body on full alert. She widened her eyes at him.

  “Janine! Great to see you.”

  “You, too, Greg. How’d the teaching go?”

  “Difficult and fantastic. Such an amazing place.”

  She moved a half step closer, an inch from an improper distance. “Can’t wait to hear all about it.”

  He squirmed (worried someone might see them, no doubt) and peered past her down the hall. “Sure. But I’ve got a meeting with the other middle school teachers. Can’t be late.”

  “No, you sure can’t. I’m off to the mimeo machine myself.”

  His tanned cheeks flushed red. “Right. See you later, Janine.”

  She returned to the front office, made a few phone calls and got to the end of her to-do list. Staff day was over. Labor Day weekend was here, and a date with Greg was a near certainty. With the first day of school on Tuesday, he’d always be handy. She’d never looked forward to the start of school this much in her life.

  She retrieved her handbag from the bottom drawer.

  “One last thing, Janine.”

  Kawolski would be staring at her from behind his desk, swiveling in his chair, a few degrees in one direction, a few in the other direction, again and again, like a boy would. He knew she was leaving, that it was, in fact, ten minutes past her quitting time, on a Friday, no less. She placed her handbag on her chair and took a deep breath. Her eye caught the letter opener lined up next to the stapler. She imagined plunging it into his neck, right below his oversized earlobe. In three strides, maybe four, she’d be at his desk. She’d be quick. Spring across the desk and jab it in. She was flexible and her skirt had some give. He’d never see it coming.

  “Janine? If you have two minutes.”

  She smiled at him. “I might even have three.”

  He laughed his girlie laugh. He really was a ridiculous man. But the students loved him, the younger ones anyway, and so did the teachers and the school board. “Such a compassionate man,” they said. “A great communicator.”

  An insufferable idiot.

  She entered the office, readying her face for the other person she knew was there: April Honeycutt. The brand new special ed teacher was perched on the edge of a chair as if to make a point about how little space she occupied. She was too adorable for her own good, with her perky bobbed hair that bounced with her slightest movement and her back-to-school wardrobe prim enough to make her look as though she were playing teacher dress-up. Since meeting her earlier in the week, Janine had been trying to think whom April Honeycutt resembled. Now it came to her: Cybill Shepherd in The Last Picture Show, although not the scene where she strips on the pool deck. No, April Honeycutt wasn’t the stripping type. She had Cybill Shepherd’s innocent ’50s look, the same doe-eyed face and the same woman-but-really-still-a-girl body. If Little Miss Honeybutt weren’t so earnest and, well, vulnerable, Janine would have skipped the preliminaries and gone straight to despising her. But it wouldn’t be fair. A small dose of Janine’s bad vibes and April Honeycutt would crumble, may
be burst into tears. Janine examined April’s face, musing whether she’d be a pretty crier or an ugly one. She couldn’t decide.

  “Hello, April. How are you settling in?”

  “I’m a little overwhelmed, to be honest.” She heard herself complain and put on a cheery expression. “But that’s how first jobs go, I guess.”

  Janine tipped her head sympathetically and smiled.

  Kawolski ran his fingers down his tie. “Janine, I was hoping you would have time to show Miss Honeycutt how to fill out a requisition. She would like some special supplies for her students.”

  Special supplies for special ed. A moment’s curiosity about what those supplies might be (Training treats? Restraints?) gave way to impatience. Janine fought the impulse to look at her watch.

  “As you know,” she said to Kawolski, knowing perfectly well he did not, “requisitions won’t go anywhere on a Friday afternoon.” She addressed April. “We’ll see to it your first free period Tuesday, when you’re fresh. You’ve had a big week.” A maternal tone had crept into her speech, making her feel old and, worse, maternal.

  April smiled sweetly. Janine checked the impulse to kick her in the shin. Instead, she allowed her gaze to drift to the window, signaling that an empty overflow parking lot held greater interest than the biggest week in the young woman’s pathetically sincere life.

  Kawolski clapped like a circus seal. “If that suits both of you . . .”

  His voice paused on an upswing, which meant he’d thought of something else. One Last Thing. Janine wished them a good weekend and left the room. She grabbed her bag and noticed the letter opener again. Not today, she thought without regret or residual anger, and escaped the office before Kawolski could open his mouth.

  • • •

  Janine had decided on the menu within minutes of Greg accepting her dinner invitation for Saturday. Her repertoire was limited; she had, at most, a week of meals suitable for company she could put together without breaking a sweat. Marriage to Mitch had taught her that. He didn’t mind eating out—preferred it, in fact—but inviting his business associates and political allies (and their spouses) to his house for a homemade meal was as central to his success as a firm handshake and a well-executed stump speech. Mitch was thirty-two when he proposed to Janine, and political aspirations were forming inside him like the new skin of a snake takes shape before the old skin sloughs off. Janine, barely twenty, had never displayed any interest in the kitchen, other than making coffee and arranging conspicuously small portions of food on her plate.