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  “Ah! That would be…unusual.” She removed her hand from his shoulder and looked around as if searching for someone.

  “Well,” Lester said, “I’ll see you around. Nice talking to you, Emily…”

  She reached out and took hold of his wrist. “Oh, you needn’t run off. I’ve been admiring your house. It’s really very charming.”

  “It’s okay,” Lester said, and thought he would like it a lot more if it hadn’t been a gift from Helen’s parents. Okay, not exactly a gift: they’d loaned her the down payment. Same difference.

  “This is a good location for Helen,” Lester explained. “And it’s only twenty minutes to Blessed Virgin.”

  “You’re the libararian there?”

  Lester wondered if that was what Helen had been telling all her faculty cronies to save face. “No, actually, I’m the library secretary. I still need to finish my M. A. before I can be a real librarian.”

  “Does it require a master’s degree?”

  “Well, almost. It takes about thirty semester hours.”

  “Are you taking them at U.C.L.A.?”

  “U.S.C.”

  “Ah, a fellow Trojan.”

  To Lester, Trojan would always be a brand of condoms. He didn’t mention this, however, to Emily Jean.

  “How long will it be before you’re done?” she asked.

  “Another two years, probably.”

  Another two years with Helen making three times as much money as him. And even with the degree, what guarantee did he have that he would find a librarian job?

  “It must be marvelous working with all those books,” Emily Jean said.

  “It’s not bad,” he told her. Why mention that the only books he currently worked with were accounting ledgers?

  “I love books,” said Emily Jean. “Do you love books, Mr. Bryant?”

  “Some of them.”

  “I just adore Tennessee Williams. Are you familiar with his works? I find them so grand and tragic and…lyrical.”

  “Yeah, they are. But I’ve really gotta get going. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  “Oh.” She blinked and seemed puzzled as she removed her hand from his arm. “Certainly. We’ll see each other later, I’m sure.”

  Forcing a smile, Lester turned away and headed for the bathroom.

  He was glad to get away from her.

  The woman was over the hill, a sad case.

  In the restroom, he locked the door and stepped over to the toilet.

  I shouldn’t be so hard on her, he thought as he unzipped his trousers. At least she’s nice to me.

  Nobody else is.

  Except maybe that Ian guy. He seemed like a pretty good fellow.

  But the rest of them were snobs who preferred to ignore Lester.

  Just because I’m working at some lousy job for peanuts.

  Bunch of assholes.

  Lester finished urinating and flushed the toilet. Before opening the door, he made sure his zipper was up.

  That’d be just what I’d need, he thought. Wander around with my fly open.

  As if anyone would notice, anyway. I am the invisible man.

  In the living room, he looked for Ian. He spotted the tall, solemn man in the corner talking with Helen and Ronald.

  Helen looked good standing there. Pert with her up-tilted nose and Peter Pan haircut. Sexy in her tight skirt and turtleneck sweater. The sweater really emphasized her breasts, clinging to each of them.

  She stood so close to Ian that her right breast was almost touching his arm.

  On purpose?

  Of course it’s on purpose, Lester thought.

  But Ian didn’t seem to be aware of her breast’s proximity.

  Unless he’s putting on a good act.

  Ronald was the one paying attention to Helen’s chest. He was an English teacher, but not at the high school. A few years ago, after marrying Dale, he’d transferred out of Grand Beach High and taken a position on the faculty of the community college. But he’d kept an honorary membership on the social committee and showed up at every function. Apparently, he liked to party as much as he liked to educate people. He considered himself the expert on every subject, and was always holding forth on something. Now, as he nodded sagely, talking and listening, Lester could see him sneaking glances at Helen’s breasts.

  He’d probably like to rip that sweater off her, Lester thought.

  Good luck, pal.

  Because underneath the sweater he would find a big stiff bra with four hooks at the back, and underneath the bra he would find a pair of very lovely icebergs.

  Or maybe not, Lester thought. Maybe she’s only an ice-cold bitch with me.

  Feeling squirmy inside, he looked away from his wife and the two men. He saw Emily Jean sitting on the couch, sipping her martini and talking to Dale.

  Her back to Ronald, Dale was unaware of the way her husband was ogling Helen.

  Maybe she wouldn’t even care.

  She sat there listening to Emily Jean, a rather smirky look on her face, a Scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other. As always, her cigarette jutted from the end of a long, slim holder that appeared to be gold-plated.

  Tall and sleek and elegant, Dale was almost beautiful. But she had a hardness about her.

  Don’t they all, Lester thought.

  No, they don’t all have the hardness. Emily Jean doesn’t. She seemed a little lost and vulnerable, certainly not hard.

  But Helen had it. And Dale had it. Most of them had it, especially the women.

  Maybe it comes with the territory.

  Feeling very depressed, Lester went out to the patio table where the drinks were. He filled his glass with ice and poured himself a screwdriver from his plastic pitcher. Then he went inside again. He sat on his recliner. He sipped his drink.

  Fuck them all, he thought, and wished they would all go home.

  SIX

  THE TOAST

  “The problem starts in the lower grades,” said Helen. She said it as fact, not opinion.

  Ian realized that he was gritting his teeth, irritated by her words. He’d known Helen Bryant for three years—ever since she first joined the faculty of Grand Beach High School—and the tough, humorless, defensive way she stated her opinions never failed to scrape his nerves.

  “You’re passing the buck,” Ronald told her, grinning and nodding and glancing down at her breasts—which seemed to be jutting out more than usual, maybe because of her tight-fitting white sweater.

  Why does she dress like this? Ian wondered. If it’s not a tight sweater, it’s a blouse you can almost see through or a miniskirt hardly long enough to cover her butt.

  She wore such revealing clothes not only to parties, but even to school.

  It seemed incongruous to Ian that a cold fish like Helen would want to flaunt herself that way.

  Maybe she’s not the cold fish she seems to be, he thought.

  Or maybe she’s oblivious of the way men react to such displays. Off in her own world of lesson plans and preparing tests and grading homework.

  “I’m merely explaining,” Helen said, “that most kids can’t read or write worth a damn by the time they get to us. They’re so far behind that…”

  “Why, Helen, you sound like a doctor complaining because his patients come in sick. Well, let me tell you what you can do. You can get your rear in gear and cure the poor blighters.”

  “That’s more easily said than…”

  “I get kids coming into my classes who don’t know a noun from a verb. They think a period is what women get once a month. And that’s college, for God’s sake!”

  “That’s city college,” Helen pointed out. “The ones who can read go elsewhere.”

  Ronald blurted out a laugh. “Touche!”

  “Besides,” Helen went on, “we only have the kids for three years.”

  “Only three?” Ronald asked with heavy sarcasm.

  Helen narrowed her eyes at him. “We can hardly be expected to overcome a doz
en years of ignorance in three.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “Especially when half of the kids don’t even speak English in their homes.”

  “Violins, please.”

  Helen nudged Ian’s arm with one of her breasts. The stiff cup of her bra seemed to cave in slightly and he felt the soft springiness underneath it. “You know how it is. Tell him.”

  Ian realized he was blushing.

  Why’d she do that?

  He shrugged and said, “I don’t see any way we can justify graduating illiterates.”

  “Bravo!” From Ronald.

  “Thanks a heap.” From Helen.

  “With those new competency tests for the kids,” Ian said, “we probably won’t be able to graduate them.”

  Emily Jean Bonner, delicately holding a fresh martini, strolled over and joined the three of them. Ian nodded a greeting to her and she smiled back as if surprised at being noticed.

  “I suppose,” Ronald said, “you’ll have to spend more time on sentence structure than on Shakespeare, for a change. It’s about time, if you ask me. Leave literature for college.”

  “Thou dost protest too much, methinks,” declared Emily Jean, smiling at Ronald and lifting her scarlet eyebrows. To Ian, the remnants of her Georgia drawl always sounded a bit sad. She made him think of an aging Scarlett O’Hara torn from Tara’s halls but clinging to her pride and, with the help of a beauty parlor, her flaming hair.

  “How does a sixteen-year-old kid,” Ronald asked Helen, “grasp the significance of ‘living in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty’?”

  “Marvelous!” blurted Emily Jean. “You do know your Shakespeare, Mr. Harvey.”

  “It comes with the territory,” he told her, and winked.

  Emily Jean laughed in her high-pitched, fragile way. “Did you know that I played the role of Linda Loman at the Wilshire Playhouse? To this day, tears fill my eyes whenever I hear the words of Willie’s funeral. Such a strong, sorrowful…”

  “So you think,” Helen interrupted with a wry, challenging glance at Ronald, “that we should give up teaching literature entirely?”

  Emily Jean looked hurt for only a moment. Smiling strangely, she drifted toward the rear door.

  “Not entirely, perhaps,” said Ronald. “Matters would certainly be improved, however, if you focused on reading material that isn’t miles over the heads of the students.”

  “Excuse me,” Ian said. Not waiting for any response, he went to the back door, slid it open and stepped onto the lighted patio.

  To his left, a picnic table was cluttered with paper bags, wet spoons and a stack of plastic drinking glasses. Bottles of liquor and mix, mayonnaise jars and pitchers containing drinks concocted at home, stood among the bags. The ice chest lay on the concrete floor.

  Emily Jean was kneeling beside the ice chest, holding her plastic glass in one hand while she fumbled with the latch. Ian watched her as he set his glass down on the table. Her white blouse was pulled taut across her back, showing the narrow straps of her bra and the prominent, jutting points of her spine. She looked damn breakable. He put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Let me get that for you,” he said.

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Collins.”

  “My pleasure.” He opened the ice chest. “How many would you like?”

  “I believe I could be quite happy with three.”

  He dropped three ice cubes into her plastic glass, then filled his own and secured the lid.

  They stood up. They were alone on the patio. “Shall I mix you a drink?” Ian asked.

  “Thank you for the thought, Mr. Collins, but I’ve already seen to that.” She tapped a fingernail on the lid of a half-empty mayonnaise jar. “My homemade martinis. I see that I’m getting a tiny bit low. I’m a naughty girl tonight, aren’t I? Am I not?”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t say that,” Ian told her, pouring vodka into his glass as he watched her unscrew the lid of her jar.

  “I shouldn’t either, really. I view overindulgence in gin as a trifling sin and a major solace. Mr. Collins, this may seem peculiar to a young man of your energy and talent, but I have been teaching for twenty-eight years and I feel that I’ve wasted my life.”

  Her eyes flashed a proud, painful look that defied Ian to contradict her.

  “I could have done so many things. I could have remained on the stage. I could have written books. I could have gone into business. So many things, so many opportunities. All thrown away, all lost.”

  “Teaching isn’t the most fulfilling of jobs,” Ian said.

  “As trite as the analogy may sound, Mr. Collins, teaching is like living one’s life on a merry-go-round down at the amusement pier. A teacher climbs onto his horse—or hers—and goes around and around, around and around, year after year. The Calliope makes charming music, but it repeats itself. It plays the same few tunes over and over.

  The scenery never changes. The faces do. Yes, the faces do change, unfortunately. That’s part of the tragedy, too. Some of the faces are so charming, some so full of pain and need. Some, you even grow to love. But they all go away after a while and you stay on your horse, going around and around, and they’re gone.”

  She gazed for a long time into her drink. “All the golden rings, Mr. Collins, are only brass. And the merry-go-round turns out, after all, not to be so very merry.” She laughed sadly. “That rhymes, doesn’t it? Very merry.”

  “Have you thought of climbing off the horse?” Ian asked.

  “And what would I do then?” Suddenly, her smile became less sad. “I have a daughter. Did you know that? I have a very fine, beautiful, talented daughter. She’s on the stage, did you know that? Quite a fine little actress. May Beth Bonner? Perhaps you’ve seen her performance as Laura…”

  Laura!

  The name, a blow to his heart, sent a jolt of pain and longing through Ian.

  “…Glass Menagerie at the Stage Door?”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said, forcing a smile. “But I’d like to see her perform sometime.”

  “I would like that, too. I would love for everyone to see her perform. Unfortunately, she ended her run last week. If you wish to see her as Laura…”

  Again, the name tore at his heart.

  His mind flashed an image of Laura’s face above his own, smiling at him, her soft auburn hair flowing straight down like curtains enclosing her face and his, hiding them from the rest of the world.

  Get over it, he told himself.

  I can’t. There’s never been anyone else and never will be. You only get one chance at love, and she was mine.

  Not necessarily, he thought. You never know. I might meet someone tomorrow…

  Not like Laura.

  Knock it off.

  Emily Jean opened her purse, took out her wallet, and flipped through several photos under frosted plastic. “Isn’t she lovely?”

  Ian looked at the snapshot. It showed a slim, attractive redhead in her early twenties. “She is beautiful,” he said. “She looks a lot like you.”

  Emily Jean chuckled softly. “Oh, Mr. Collins. And who said chivalry is dead? Though I must say, in all honesty, I did look almost exactly like May Beth when I was much younger. We might’ve been twin sisters. But that was long ago.”

  “Well, you’re both striking women.”

  “May Beth certainly is, at any rate. This picture, of course, does her no justice. Don’t you think she would look splendid on the big screen?”

  “She would.”

  “Some day, I’ll see her on the big screen. We all will.”

  “Does she have any film projects coming up?”

  “Oh, not that I’m aware of. It’s terribly difficult to break in, I understand. Terribly difficult.”

  “I’ve heard that, too,” Ian said.

  “But she’ll get into films one day. I know she will.”

  “I’m sure she will.”

  “And I shall be very pr
oud, shan’t I? Shall I not?”

  “Very.” He frowned into his drink.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “I’m…just thinking. I know a few people in the movie business. If you’d like to give me May Beth’s phone number…”

  Smiling, Emily Jean reached out and squeezed his arm. “Why, Mr. Collins! No need to prevaricate. I would find it absolutely lovely if you wish to call on May Beth.”

  “Prevarication and I are sworn ememies,” he said.

  “Ha! I do despise mendacity, myself.”

  “I really do know people who might be able to help your daughter break into films. I’ll see what I can do. It’s possible nothing will come of my efforts, but…” He shrugged.

  “Any efforts along those lines, Mr. Collins, would be most appreciated.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” he said. He pulled a note pad and pen out of his shirt pocket. “Do you know her phone number?” he asked.

  “Why, yes, I certainly do. She lives at home with me. I suppose I know my own phone number.” She giggled softly. “Unless my mind has grown too befuddled by demon gin.”

  She recited the phone number. Ian wrote it down.

  “That’s May Beth Bonner?” he asked.

  “Indeed, it is. She is. Shall we drink a toast to her success?”

  “Let us,” said Ian.

  They raised their glasses.

  “To May Beth,” said Emily Jean. “May she become a true star of the silver screen.”

  “To May Beth,” said Ian.

  They bumped together the rims of their plastic glasses, then drank.

  SEVEN

  NIGHT MISSION

  Albert wished he could take his father’s car, but starting it inside the garage would make too much noise. He took his bicycle instead, wheeling it out of the garage, climbing on and coasting down the driveway.

  At first, he was cold without his jacket. His turtleneck offered little protection from the night’s chilly wind. His only jacket was bright yellow, though. Such a color wouldn’t do at all for a night operation.

  Soon, the cold no longer bothered him. He enjoyed the feel of the wind in his face. It smelled fresh and clean like Betty’s hair.

  “I’ve got twenty dollars for you,” he had told her on the phone that afternoon.