Yesternight (3 page)

T
he rustling I heard, it so happened, derived from someone leaving a cotton laundry bag on the dark wood floor outside my door. Not a Peeping Tom.

“Did you find the bag I left?” asked Mrs. O'Daire from around a bend to my left, at the far end of a pristine white hallway dotted with golden knobs on four-paneled doors. She climbed into view from the top of the staircase, drying her hands on an apron she now wore over her simple brown dress.

“Um . . . yes.” I lifted the bag.

“It's for your wet clothing.”

“Ah.” I nodded. “Thank you.”

“Slide them inside”—she headed toward me, pantomiming the movement of sticking clothing into a sack—“and I'll wash them up for you.”

I smiled. “You and your son are far too kind, Mrs. O'Daire.”

“We just feel so awful about our weather. Michael said he found you clinging to the wall of the depot, soaked to the bone, shaking.”

“Yes.” I laughed. “I was just thinking how much I must have resembled a drowning rat. I'm sure my hair still looks a fright.”

“You look fine.” She patted my upper right arm—she was one of those people who liked to touch, it seemed. “I admire you young women who possess the courage to march into the dangers of the world on your own. I hope you had time to warm up with your tea.”

“Yes. I'm now toasty on both the inside and the outside.”

“Good.” She imparted one final pat, this time to my left shoulder. “Now go fill up that bag so I can attend to your clothing. Then you can run straight back into the rain and meet Miss Simpkin and the children. My son is waiting for you downstairs.”

“Mainly I'm meeting Miss Simpkin today,” I said, just to clarify. “I'll start working with the children tomorrow.”

She squished her lips together and nodded, and again neither of us mentioned little Janie.

T
HE DRIVE TO
the schoolhouse proved to be far less traumatic than our previous trek through the streets of Gordon Bay. A light rain spat against the windshield, and the bruise-black clouds rolled westward, over the crests of the Coast Range, away from town. The sky overhead gleamed from the sun hiding behind the lingering gray, and the winds pushed against the car with more of a nudge than a shove.

Mr. O'Daire drove us along a street that ran perpendicularly to the main section of town. We passed two more souvenir shops and one eatery, every one of them closed.

“As I told you before,” he said, following my gaze to the wilted-looking buildings, “Gordon Bay dies every autumn. It's a dramatic, crumbling death that strikes right after the beginning of September.”

“So I see,” I said. “It must be a struggle for everyone to make ends meet during the rest of the year.”

“It is, unfortunately.”

Up ahead, in front of a barber shop, a scarecrow of a fellow in a plaid cap teetered on the edge of the sidewalk. An auburn beard that resembled tree moss rambled down to the open collar of his olive coat, indicating that he most certainly had not just visited the barber shop behind him.

“Is that man all right?” I asked.

“That's Sam, one of our local veterans.” Mr. O'Daire slowed the car to a stop and rolled down his window. “You all right, Sam? You're standing a little close to the edge of the road there, buddy.”

Sam gave a salute and swayed to his left. “I'm fine, Mikey. Just trying to keep my feet dry.”

“Get yourself out of the rain. Have a cup of coffee, why don't you? Do you need a dime?”

“Just trying to keep my feet dry,” said the fellow again, and his right foot plunked into a stream of water flowing through the gutter. His shoes weren't tied, so he soaked his laces.

“Sam?”

“I'm all right, Mikey.”

Mr. O'Daire shook his head and rolled up the window. “I'll check on him later—make sure he's not still standing there.”

“Is the poor man drunk?”

“Probably, although he acts that way when he's sober, too.” He sighed and drove us onward.

Not more than a quarter mile farther, in an empty field of mud-matted grass, stood our destination: a whitewashed schoolhouse that looked like dozens of other schoolhouses I had already visited in my brief career as a traveling test administrator. A bell tower with a pointed peak stretched high above a set of doors, reached by
wooden steps in desperate need of sanding and painting. I could practically smell all of the odors waiting for me within: dusty blackboard chalk; damp shoes; a sooty fire in a potbelly stove; the sour stink of children who hadn't bathed in the past week.

“Did you say the schoolteacher, Miss Simpkin, is your former sister-in-law?” I asked.

“That's right.”

“Might I inquire what your current relationship with her and your ex-wife is like? Are you all on speaking terms?”

Mr. O'Daire offered a strained smile that failed to involve those charming dimples of his. “As much as people can be in this sort of situation.”

“Miss Simpkin doesn't mind you coming to the school?”

“Don't worry”—he shifted the car into a lower gear—“you won't witness any squabbling. We're civil to each other, even if we all have different opinions on what's best for Janie.”

He pulled his vehicle alongside a long black motorbus inhabited by a heavyset driver who puffed on a cigar.

“Oh, how nice,” I said in the direction of the bus. “I presume this is transportation for the children who live too far to walk?”

“It is.” Mr. O'Daire stopped the car and climbed over the back of the seat once again, knocking objects about down on the floor behind me.

I met the eyes of the driver beside us. He smiled and nodded and didn't seem to question the upside-down person next to me. Primarily, he looked to be avoiding an early death of hypothermia. A pythonesque scarf encircled his neck, and a wooly gray hat consumed his hair, eyebrows, and ears.

“You might want to duck,” said Mr. O'Daire.

I did as he asked, and something fluttered over my head. When I sat back up, I found him clasping a green umbrella.

“Hold tight.” He opened his door and then the umbrella, everything whooshing and blowing and reminding me again of my dramatic arrival on the depot platform. “I'll come around and get you,” he said, and he did just that.

I grabbed my black leather briefcase and joined him under the umbrella, which covered the both of us, but only if we tilted our heads two inches apart from each other. I smelled his rich shaving soap—a peppery, gingery aroma—and clutched my briefcase against my left side, doing my best not to look him in the eye at that close of a range. I once ended up in the bed of a fellow graduate student after sharing an umbrella in precisely that manner.

We hurried up the short staircase and, after Mr. O'Daire tussled with the collapsing mechanism and closed the umbrella, we dove into a cloakroom that housed satchels, lunch pails, and jackets of various sizes and thicknesses. Through the open doorway to the classroom, I spied children sliding out of their seats at the wooden desks and gathering up books. They ranged in age from about five to eighteen—a mustached young man may have even been nineteen—and I moved my head about to try to see past the taller ones in the back and find a girl who may have been seven-year-old Janie O'Daire.

One girl seemed a likely candidate: a wide-eyed thing with nut-brown hair cut just below her ears. She cradled her books against her chest with her shoulders stooped, and she lined up behind a redheaded girl with posture so impeccable that the brunette disap
peared behind her, even though the brunette was taller. The children trooped our way, and I waited for Mr. O'Daire to introduce me to the hunched little urchin.

“Hello, Daddy,” said the redhead in front of her instead.

“Hello, Janie.” Mr. O'Daire scooped his arm around the confident-looking child and pulled her out of the line.

The brunette fetched her coat and lunch pail with the rest of the children.

“I want to introduce you to Miss Lind,” said Mr. O'Daire, beaming down at his daughter. “She's a kind lady who will be helping out at your school for the next week or so.”

From beneath a fringe of bangs cut straight as a paper's edge, Janie peered at me with eyes more intense in color than both her father's and her grandmother's, even though they all shared the same bluish-green hue. It was as if someone had squeezed more paint out of the end of a brush when creating the girl and allowed her to show up a little brighter in the world. A splattering of freckles formed a tidy constellation across her cheeks and turned-up nose.

“Hello, Janie.” I offered my hand to her. “It's a pleasure to meet you.”

Janie maneuvered her books beneath her left arm and accepted my handshake. “I'm pleased to meet you, too.” Her bobbed red hair swayed at her chin line.

Her father kept a hand on her shoulder. “Miss Lind is here to give all of you children a fun test to see what you're best at.”

Janie peeked up at him with a grin that showed off a fascinating jumble of teeth—big ones, baby ones, and three missing eyeteeth. “We already know what I'm best at, Daddy.”

“Well, you can tell her all about that when she tests you.”
Mr. O'Daire grabbed a little navy blue coat from a hook. “She's here specifically to listen to you. Talk to her about anything you want.”

Janie closed her mouth and nodded.

A young woman with curls even redder than Janie's locks sauntered our way, her eyes switching between Mr. O'Daire and me.

“You must be Miss Lind,” she said.

“Yes. Are you Miss Simpkin?”

“I am.” She offered her right hand and spread a powdery layer of chalk against my palm. “I'm so sorry about our weather. I worried the wind might cause our windows to implode, so I'm sure it was quite a shock for you.”

“I survived,” I said, “thanks to Mr. O'Daire.”

“Yes, Mr. O'Daire was keen on being the first to meet you.” She dropped her hand to her side.

Beside me, Mr. O'Daire helped Janie into her coat. “I'm going to gather up some of Janie's friends,” he said. “I'll drive them home in case the weather acts up again.”

“Take Janie straight to her mother after you deliver the others,” said Miss Simpkin.

“Of course.” His gaze shifted to me. “Do you want to chat with Miss Simpkin for a while? I could come back and fetch you after I get them delivered.”

“Would that be all right?” I asked the schoolteacher. “I brought the test materials to show you, if you'd care to take a look before I start administering the evaluations tomorrow.”

“Yes, a chat would be lovely.” She reached out and patted Janie on the head. “Tell your mother I hope she weathered the storm safely. Look after her, all right?”

“I will.” Janie rose to her toes and kissed her aunt on the cheek.

Mr. O'Daire escorted the child out of the schoolhouse, but not without a quick glance back at me. I turned away, having nothing yet to offer him about Janie. He closed the door, and I heard their footsteps, as well as those of three other students, galumphing down the stairs outside. The sudden silence of the emptied-out schoolhouse made my ears hum.

“Please, come in.” Miss Simpkin swiveled on her heel and led me down the aisle between rows of desks with seats attached to the fronts of the desks behind them. The words A
RMISTICE
D
AY
dominated the blackboard, and I remembered for the first time that day that I'd arrived on November 11. No rain-drenched Gordon Bay parade appeared to be celebrating the seventh anniversary of the Great War's end, however. I thought again of poor veteran Sam, teetering on the edge of the sidewalk.

Miss Simpkin scooted a spare chair in front of her desk, near a wood-burning stove. “Please, have a seat.”

“Thank you.” I sat down with the briefcase on my lap.

The schoolteacher circled around to the other side of the desk, her movements brisk yet stiff. From the look of her, I'd say her age was close to mine, mid to late twenties, but her face and figure possessed a roundness and softness that made her seem more womanly, more maternal, than me and all of my sharp angles. The halo of red curls framing her face resembled those of the film star Greta Nissen, whom I had recently seen with my sister Bea in the tolerable comedy
Lost: A Wife
.

She plopped down in her chair with a sigh, and all those curls rustled, as if taking a breath themselves. “Do you mind if I have a smoke?”

I shook my head. “Not at all.”

“I truly thought we were all going to die today.” She slid open a desk drawer and fetched a red and white box of cigarettes and a silver lighter. “Storms plow through this area all the time, but from the way the wind wailed through this old schoolhouse and rocked us about, I thought for certain the roof would blow off and suck us all out.”

“I don't blame you. The wind literally knocked me to the ground as soon as I stepped off the train this afternoon. You should have seen—” I burst out laughing at the memory of my body splayed across the platform and my hat shooting off my head. “Oh, but it was dreadful. Thankfully, Mr. O'Daire showed up and assisted me to his automobile.”

Miss Simpkin's eyes lost their pep at the mention of my driver. “Well, I appreciate you coming all this way. I don't know if the Department of Education told you, but I specifically asked them to send a test administrator familiar with children who are”—she shook a cigarette out of the red box—
“perplexing.”

“Yes, they told me.”

“You've had experience with difficult cases?”

“I have, indeed. Ample experience.”

Miss Simpkin gave a flick of the lighter and set a flame to the end of the cigarette. Her eyebrows puckered. She inhaled a deep smoke and then removed the cigarette from her mouth and asked, “What did Mr. O'Daire say about Janie?”