What Was Mine: & Other Stories (18 page)

But the whole school isn’t closed, he reminds himself. One of the other teachers …

There is no harm in calling. When people are upset, they might not focus on what needs to be done.

He thinks about calling Francine at the hairdresser’s.

He goes downstairs, pulling on his robe, tiptoeing and skipping the third stair, which creaks. He walks to the kitchen, gets the telephone book, and looks up the name of the shop. He dials the number. It rings four times. On the fourth ring, a recorded message comes on, giving the shop’s hours of operation. It will not be open for two more hours. He hangs up.

Sun is streaming into the kitchen. He goes to the stove, shakes the kettle, feels that there is enough water, turns on the burner, and leans against the counter. The room goes slightly out of focus. What would I do if it happened to Francine or Julie? he thinks, as the room shimmers.

He thinks of how precious every scrap of paper Julie ever colored on would become. How precious every doll would become. And Francine: what it would be like to run his fingers along the padded shoulders of the silk blouses, all in a row. How he would feel taking the top off her tube of lipstick, how it would break his heart to pick up her bottle of perfume from the bathroom counter.

In a sweat, he sees clearly that he and Francine have made a mistake. That the way they’re living, with only an occasional moment for time out, is wrong. It comes to him—in the way analysands get good at understanding their dreams—that he imagined the two of them as tiny figures in a painting because he sensed they were not living up to their potential. He conceived of them as bits of human-shaped plastic in a snow dome because they have been immobile, trapped, going nowhere. They’ve wanted to think they were adventurous, but what adventure have they gone on? First he convinced her to marry. To have the child. Then she convinced him to quit his job. To stay home while she worked. They changed roles, but aren’t they still two little people going nowhere? What have they been doing but applauding themselves, and each other, for the slightest effort?

By the time the kettle whistles, he has regained some equilibrium. Certainly a death so close to home would make anyone question the way he has been living. Everyone would have to admit there were flaws in his life. What exactly had he been thinking just a second ago? He had made the image of a snow dome a metaphor for their lives. It was as ridiculous as his epiphanies on acid, years before. He is standing in a two-thousand-square-foot house, not on the two-inch base of a snow dome. It is just a crazy irony that out the window it has begun to snow.

Lifting the kettle from the burner, he begins to talk himself down, to convince himself that they are average. That things are essentially fine. Quick images come to him of their early days together: Francine, curled on her side, crying on the mattress in the apartment on Sixteenth Street. But on top of that image he superimposes the image of the upstairs bed, queen-sized, neatly made. Then he sees Francine pantomiming in acting class, the one time she invited him to sit in and watch. On top of that image he lays a memory of Francine looking into his eyes, the neon sign flashing behind her head, talking animatedly as she drinks champagne. He closes his eyes. The then-and-now game could go on all morning. Forever. It could go on as long as he let himself think about things.

He picks up the phone book again. There is, as he suspected, only one Angawa listed. He looks at the address. Then he flips to McKee. There are seven, but the third McKee lives on the same street as Mr. and Mrs. Angawa.

He dials the number and almost hangs up without saying anything, he is so startled by Mr. McKee’s thick, sleepy voice saying hello, as something topples from a table.

That is how he comes to be the bearer of bad news. Mr. McKee has been asleep. No one has yet called to tell him.

*  *  *

Francine takes the day off and stays home to comfort Julie. She smells faintly of chemicals. With their red eyes, mother and daughter look very much alike.

A little after five, Stefan goes to the bar where he has arranged to meet Mr. McKee. Mr. McKee’s first name is Tony. He holds out a big rough hand and shakes Stefan’s hand without looking into his eyes. He is wearing a brown plaid jacket. Both elbow patches need to be resewn. Tony McKee has already had a few drinks. The whole school was given a half day, he says. He is not a drinking man, but if ever there was an occasion for drink, it is a day like the day that just passed.

“What can I do for you?” McKee says, as Stefan slides onto the bar stool next to him.

“Forgive me,” Stefan says. “I don’t know exactly why I’m here. The one time I had a real talk with Mrs. Angawa, she mentioned you very fondly. I think I’m here just to let you know she cared about you.”

McKee takes a sip of beer. The bartender stands in front of Stefan and raises an eyebrow. “Same thing,” Stefan says, looking at McKee’s Budweiser. McKee is running his hand over his forehead.

“I know you were neighbors,” Stefan says. “What about Mr. Angawa? How is he doing?”

McKee shrugs. “I don’t see them on a daily basis, you know. I live next door, and she always sought me out. She was a real lady, a very kind person. But Hideo—he was a hard one to figure. In fact, half the time he wasn’t around.”

“He traveled?”

McKee looks at him. He seems to be judging Stefan’s sincerity. “Traveled? No, he didn’t travel. He just took off.”

The bartender puts another bottle in front of McKee and walks away.

After staring at the bottle silently for a long time, McKee turns toward Stefan. “You got a kid in the school, right? Brokenhearted to lose her teacher.”

“Yes. She and her mother are writing a good-bye note. She wanted to write a farewell note to Mrs. Angawa.”

McKee twists off his beer cap. “Tell me again, is there something I can do for you?”

“Actually, you’re going to think this is crazy, but I have some concern for the rabbit. Do you think someone went into the classroom to take care of the rabbit?”

McKee frowns deeply. Again, he searches Stefan’s face.

“In the closet,” Stefan says, gesturing as if the closet were in some corner of the bar. “The rabbit. In the closet, for the night.”

“You’re wondering if anybody remembered the bunny rabbit?” McKee says. “I take it you’re being perfectly serious?”

Stefan nods. He shrugs then, to let McKee know he realizes his concern is a little ridiculous.

McKee leans closer to Stefan. “She was a real lady, and it ain’t none of my business,” McKee says, “but one time she told me she had a secret love, and when you called this morning, I put two and two together and wondered if that might not be you.”

“No, no,” Stefan says. “We only talked once, actually. In passing, on Parents’ Night, but only once in person. She
was
a very special lady, but no: there was nothing like that between us.”

“And the situation is, you have a little girl who’s in her class, and the little girl is worried about the bunny rabbit.”

Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of that? “Exactly,” he says, almost pouncing on McKee’s words. “She won’t rest easy unless she knows the rabbit’s taken care of.”

McKee runs his tongue back and forth over his front teeth a few times. “Kids,” he says. “Ain’t they somethin’?”

McKee shifts on the bar stool. “Of course, worries can get the best of all of us,” he says. “One night not so long ago, Mrs. Angawa had a mental picture of it dead, and I tell you, when she and I went into that room and the bunny rabbit was just lying there in that cage, my heart fell into my boots. I was so spooked by her being so sure it was dead that it took me a minute to realize that the bunny rabbit was sleeping, just like you might expect. Stretched out sleeping, and we woke it up.” McKee shakes his head and laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “I don’t guess Bugs Bunny’s gonna die for lack of a drink of water. Of course, he might not have a drink of water left.” He runs his hand over his chin. Stefan realizes that either McKee has not shaved that day or his beard grows in quite quickly. “But if it would make your little girl feel better in the midst of this tragedy, I don’t guess there’s any harm in openin’ up and seeing if the bunny rabbit’s okay.” McKee narrows his eyes. “Your name, Stefan,” McKee says. “Is that an Italian name?”

“Named for my grandfather,” he says. “My grandmother never wanted to leave Ravello. My mother was her only child. She named me Stefan, after my grandfather.”

“Never was in Italy, myself. I was in the Philippines during the Second World War,” McKee says.

“You were?”

“I was. You know what I accomplished for the United States of America? I was head bartender for the monkeys. Made every man leave one big swig at the bottom of his beer can, and I’d hand them up into the trees. Sometimes they’d lose their grip and fall right down.” McKee looks at his beer. “Kids,” he says. “We was stupid as shit.”

Stefan takes a sip of beer.

“You wasn’t in Vietnam, I take it,” McKee says.

“No,” Stefan says, shaking his head. He takes another sip of beer. There is a long, awkward silence.

“Let me just say one more time that I wouldn’t care who Mrs. Angawa had any kind of relationship with, but I sure would hate to be dragged into the situation because of my going into her room at night with you, using my key,” McKee says.

“I swear to you,” Stefan says. “There was nothing between us. We’ll go in, and I’ll go directly to the closet.”

McKee laughs. “That sounded funny,” he says. He slaps Stefan on the back. “Hell,” he says. “Let’s not discuss what is and what ain’t the case all night. We’ll go to the school and look in on Bugs Bunny.”

Stefan turns over McKee’s tab and his own. A twenty will more than cover both. He puts a twenty on the counter.

“Should I follow in my car?” Stefan says.

McKee pauses. “You know, that might not be a bad idea,” he says. “I might just continue on from there to somewhere down the line.”

“Right behind you,” Stefan says.

McKee gets in his truck. Stefan gets in his car.

It is so quiet inside the school that Stefan breathes shallowly, hesitant to make a sound. McKee strides ahead, shining the small beam of a flashlight he’s taken from his truck. At the end of the corridor they turn right, then stop at the first door. The light from the streetlamp makes the old glass in the top of the door shine like mirrored sunglasses. McKee unlocks the door. A rectangle of light slants across the floor. Again, the smell of chalk dust is as intense as smoke. Something in the room gives off a faint, burned smell. McKee sniffs also.

“This school ain’t made my allergies kill me, nothin’ ever will,” he says. “Hereditary asthma. Better since the doctor gave me an oxygen inhalor for bad moments.”

The room seems cavernous and mysterious compared with the narrow anonymity of the hallway. McKee sits on one of the desks. He shines the flashlight toward the closet, in the direction where Stefan will walk. Only when Stefan comes close to the closet door does the beam begin to whiten and dissipate. When he opens the door, there is blackness inside, and he can only vaguely make out the shape of the cage and the table it sits on. “McKee,” he says quietly, “would you mind shining that light in, or could I borrow—” He turns and sees McKee opening the top drawer of Mrs. Angawa’s desk. He has opened it with a tiny key on the same keyring he used to open the door.

McKee’s face is lit from below like a jack-o’-lantern’s, as he feels around in the drawer. “I lied to you,” he says. “Wasn’t any secret love but me, as far as I know, but I thought I’d open up and see if you really headed for that closet, or wanted to do what I’m doin’, repossessing some letters you and Mrs. Angawa might have exchanged.” He puts the packet of letters in his inside coat pocket, smiling. “I trust that since I can rely on you not sayin’ we was in here after hours, I can rely on your silence about this little matter as well.”

“Sure,” Stefan says, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice. “Absolutely. Certainly.”

“And now to part two, where we check the bunny rabbit,” McKee says.

When McKee stands close to him, shining the beam into the closet, Stefan can smell the alcohol on his breath.

“When you said that about what I meant to her, I figured you either knew, or you knew without really knowin’, if you know what I mean. Didn’t seem any coincidence you’d call me,” McKee says.

“No,” Stefan says, without being sure what he is denying. “No. I mean, I didn’t know anything but what I said to you. That she said she’d seen you socially, and—”

“Yeah,” McKee says. “She saw me socially.”

A scraping sound makes Stefan whirl around. In the cage, in the pool of light, the rabbit suddenly stands, its bright eyes flashing.

“Looks fine,” McKee says, his voice almost kind. “Let’s see does it have water.”

He stands beside Stefan, moving the light so it shines into the corner of the cage. The dish of water glows much the way the glass pane in the door shone when approached from the corridor.

“One bunny rabbit, perfectly fine,” McKee says.

“Okay, wait a minute,” Stefan says. “Maybe just so whoever comes in here tomorrow can’t possibly overlook it, we should lift the cage out into the room.”

“You think a whole classful of schoolchildren are gonna forget they got a bunny rabbit, when your own daughter can’t sleep, she’s so worried it ain’t got water?” McKee snorts.

“Yes, well, who knows,” Stefan says. McKee continues to shine the light as Stefan lifts the cage from the table and walks with it to Mrs. Angawa’s desk. He puts it squarely on top. The light from the streetlamp streaks through the center of the cage. He moves it back, angling it so most of the cage is in darkness.

“Let’s give it fresh water,” McKee says. He looks around. He dumps Mrs. Angawa’s pencils, all sharpened to a perfect, sharp point, onto the top of the desk and carries the cup into the hallway. Stefan listens while his footsteps recede.

“I had a premonition, too,” Stefan whispers to the rabbit, putting his fingers through the cage until the tips of his fingers touch its white coat. “A premonition that you were dead, which would have been one more thing than the children could stand. But I guess that premonition was wrong.”