The Ghosts of Lovely Women Read online

  I pondered my first question. What would be fair yet relevant? What would test their knowledge without being an unrealistic expectation? I went with “What is bothering Banquo at the beginning of this act?” That would be pretty easy even if they hadn’t read beyond the first speech. (I had only assigned two pages, as it was. We generally read Shakespeare together). Then I wrote “Bonus question: what thematic word does Banquo use in his speech?”

  The word I was looking for was FOUL. It continued that wonderful motif in Macbeth, spoken first by the witches: “Fair is foul and foul is fair…” and it’s true all through the play; what initially seems beautiful is ugly, corrupt, evil. And what might appear bad has in fact a fair quality at its core. Shakespeare invokes the law of binaries by showing the contradictory nature of human beings. The character of Banquo is disturbed; he fears Macbeth has murdered the king. Macbeth has everything he has ever longed for, and Banquo, in a moody soliloquy, says “I fear thou playd’st most foully for it.”

  “Most foully,” I said aloud, thinking of Kathy. Macbeth’s motive was power and ambition; Raskolnikov’s motive was hatred and adherence to a philosophy of superiority. Did people really have motives like that outside of fiction — motives so rooted in the mind? But then again all motives were rooted in the mind: jealousy, anger, fear. What had motivated someone to strangle the life out of Jessica? To plow a car into Kathy? What had motivated someone to steal my key, break into my house, search through my things? What was the “piece of paper” that Danny said Kathy had been looking for?

  Teddy Thurber knows, too. That’s what the note in Kathy’s briefcase had said. The police had asked me about it and I’d had to claim ignorance. “Unless it’s referencing something in the book I gave you, or something on the tape, I can’t imagine,” I had said to McCall’s controlled face. I didn’t understand the notations on Kathy’s paper, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to know — but I feared it was putting me in danger.

  I finished my Macbeth quiz, feeling distracted, and printed out a vocabulary quiz for three of my classes. My hard drive contained a wealth of quizzes and handouts that I’d made over eight years — I wondered if whoever had been in my apartment had looked at my files, too.

  This made me feel violated in a new way, and depression was settling over me like a fog.

  The phone rang. I jumped, then wheeled my chair to a side table and picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Hello.” Derek’s voice, low and sexy.

  “Hey. What’s happening?”

  “I was working on lesson plans.”

  “Me, too. Aren’t we boring?”

  “Professional. Worthy of respect.”

  “You have a positive view of everything,” I said.

  “Isn’t that the best view? I’d like to see you; I miss you.”

  One ancient rhetorician compared words, persuasion, to a drug that people couldn’t resist. That was how I responded to Derek’s words. The sound of his voice was already something that my system had started to yearn for; he was the narcotic I’d only just started using but already couldn’t stop.

  “Me, too. Do you want to come over?”

  “Actually I’d like to make you dinner over here.”

  I laughed. “Make me dinner? Is this one of those “come for a sexy dinner and end up in my bed” sort of invitations?”

  He didn’t laugh. “I suppose that many scenarios have spun through my head while I daydreamed about you, and that was one of them. But it’s not the only one. There are lots of options, Teddy.”

  I was overdosing. I needed to get off the phone. “What time should I be there?”

  “Six. You like shrimp?”

  “Yeah. Not too much wine, though. We have to work tomorrow.”

  Sixteen

  “Poor worm, thou art infected.”

  —Prospero, The Tempest, Act III

  Derek was a good host. He thought of little things, like putting water on the table and making sure we had napkins (so many men forgot napkins). A bouquet of yellow tulips curved sensuously against the sides of a clear glass vase in the center of the table. I admired them while we ate.

  “This is delicious,” I said.

  “I learned to cook a long time ago. A single guy who doesn’t want to eat out every night has to come up with a way of coping.”

  “Well, this is downright artistic.”

  “Thanks. And may I say that’s a pretty top you’re wearing?”

  “You may.” I had bought it just a week before; it was a flowered cotton print, slightly off the shoulder with an elegant oval neckline. “How’s my little friend Charlie?”

  “He’s great. He can say the word ‘psychology.’”

  I laughed. “Priorities, huh?”

  “Any word from your ex?”

  I shook my head. “No e-mails, no phone messages.”

  “Good. Should we pursue the restraining order?”

  “Will seems to think — well, that it’s just a piece of paper. That it would do me no good.”

  “I think it could do some good. But we can wait, if you want. See if he tries to contact you again.”

  “Let’s do that.”

  Derek stood up. “Can I get you some more?”

  “No — no. It’s delicious, but this is the perfect place to stop.”

  He took my plate into the kitchen, then re-filled my wine glass. “Should we adjourn?”

  I laughed and followed him into the living room. I set my wine on the coffee table and sat on his couch; he sat next to me. I knew where this was leading, but I was in that place, that tentative, temporary place, where I could view the possibilities. It was like being on top of a mountain. I could travel down into Love Town or into Abstinence Town. One was obviously more fun — they had parties there all the time. My brain studied this odd metaphor while Derek stared at the side of my face. “I think you’re so pretty, Teddy.”

  “Thanks. You have a certain something yourself.”

  “Can I kiss you?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “You’re nervous!”

  “No — it’s just anticipation. I’m not good with that. So kiss me already and put me out of my misery.”

  He did.

  Kissing, when viewed objectively, is such a stupid thing. Two people mashing their faces together at the lips. Now, though, I was starting to understand why people sometimes lost control…

  His lips traveled across my cheek and down my neck. A flame burning my skin, shooting into my center. “Derek,” I said. All of my civilized instincts were in an emergency meeting. The inner alarms were going off, but they were background music. I was on the verge of tearing off my clothes before Derek could even think of doing it.

  He sensed my panic; his lips returned to mine, briefly, and then he leaned forward to pick up his wine and sip it. “Why did you choose English, Teddy?”

  He sat back to wait for my answer. I wondered if he was missing his pipe.

  I leaned my head on the couch, still dizzy from his kissing. “Why? It’s just always been that for me. I started reading early — my Mom says I was five — and I couldn’t get enough books. Then I got older and started reading really great works. These people, women and men, wrote these amazing, beautiful words, and the words stayed in my head, floated around in there, and I’d find myself living in fictional worlds, or applying fictional speeches, to my real life. Even now I think my life is half fiction.”

  Derek laughed and touched my arm, his eyes cast down.

  “So when it came to a career, I knew that what I would love most was a chance to share those works, those words, with other people — young people, who were still open to being inspired, and who had ideas of their own that might help them connect with these authors, these characters and the important things they said.”

  “You’re very good at what you do. I hear the students talk about you — how energetic you are, how much knowledge you have.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know how
good I am, really. I just know I couldn’t do anything else as well. My brother says, with disgust, that everything that happens reminds me of something in literature.”

  “I like your brother.” He set his wine down. “And I like you, Teddy. I like you so very much. And, if you’ll forgive what sounds like a horrible cliché, I knew there was something there the moment I saw you. It was like something popped inside my mind. A giant arrow, or a compass, pointing to you.”

  “I thought you liked Lucia.”

  “Who?”

  “Derek — this is a pretty rapid courtship, isn’t it?”

  “It is. I’m sorry if I’ve been heavy-handed.”

  “Not too bad,” I said.

  He leaned in to kiss me again with his warm, wine-flavored lips. This was the sexiest thing that had ever happened to me, and it was because Derek used words — the perfect way to seduce an English teacher. A giant compass, pointing to you.

  Once again Derek moved away. “I have one last bottle of wine. We don’t have to drink the whole thing; I just want you to taste it. Cindy — my sister — claims it’s the best in the world.”

  “Wow.”

  “Where did I leave that damn bottle opener?” he asked.

  “Hmm? Oh — I’ll go check in the kitchen. You look on the low table there.” I fled, partly to get away from him and have a stern meeting with myself. I ran some cold water over my hands at his sink and splashed some on my face. Settle down, Teddy. I hunted on the counter where he’d opened the other bottle of wine; I looked in the sink, which contained our dinner dishes.

  Distracted, I flicked open the junk drawer from which I’d seen him retrieve something earlier. I rooted around with one hand, moving my fingers over some of Derek’s tools, Charlie’s toys, Cindy’s nail polish. Then I spied something that made me gasp. A necklace. It was out of context, and for a moment I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. But my mind was replaying something, specific as a videotape.

  “Look, Miss Thurber!” Jessica had said to me when she was a junior. “We went to England over spring break and saw Dover Beach — it was so beautiful!! Someone told me the stones were good luck, so I brought you a couple. And look — my mom had one of mine put into a necklace. See? She even put my initials on it. Now I’ll have Dover Beach with me forever.”

  She said it casually, as though all teenagers went to Europe for vacation, as though all parents had expensive jewelry created for their daughters.

  And here it was, in Derek Jonas’ kitchen junk drawer. A smooth brown stone set into a golden circle, suspended on a delicate gold chain. On its face were the initials J.L.H. Jessica Lynn Halliday. My hand shook; should I leave it? Should I take it? What did I do? Confront Derek? Take this to the police? “Oh, God,” I said softly.

  I slipped it into my pocket. It seemed to be burning me where it touched my hip. My hands were shaking; I couldn’t concentrate. My brain was trying to process theories, but it wasn’t doing a good job — only starting questions that went nowhere. Had Derek killed Jessica Halliday? Had she been wearing this necklace on the day she died? Why had Derek paid so much attention to me? Had Derek broken into my apartment? How did Derek know Jessica Halliday? Why did he pretend not to know her?

  “Teddy? Are you coming back?” called his voice, placid and domestic but still with the hint of sex.

  Did he sound like a murderer? A guilty man? Was he some kind of sociopath? I tried to apply what I’d learned in Crime and Punishment. Was Derek’s behavior authentic? How could I know, when I’d only known him for a week? Underneath my fear was real regret. I’d really liked this guy! He was the one who seemed to put all the others to shame. He was the one I felt I could trust. I was infatuated, and that was what was making this so painful…

  I was fighting tears of shock and anger when Derek appeared in the doorway. “Hey, beautiful. What’s—” My expression stopped him. “Teddy? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” He looked around the room to see what might have hurt me.

  “No— I— have to go. I have to go, Derek.” I tried to push past him, but he held me, searching my face.

  “Teddy! What in the world happened? What’s going on?”

  The tears were streaming down my face now. How had this happened to me? How had I gotten into this situation? I wanted to rip the necklace out of my pocket and jam it into his face and scream “Explain this!” But if I did that, and he was a murderer, then wouldn’t he murder me? Would Derek murder me?

  “Let me go,” I said. I wouldn’t look at him.

  “Teddy, please. Did someone call you? Did someone upset you?”

  “Derek, I’m sorry. Please let me go. Thank you for dinner,” I babbled. “I have to go.”

  *

  Later, in my apartment, I sat and looked out the window, but I couldn’t escape from his face: the surprise, the disappointment, the eventual sadness. He saw that it was over, but he couldn’t figure out why. As I was leaving he’d said, “Walk carefully,” to me, still with that look of shock. Perhaps he was reading about my behavior now in one of his psychology books.

  The real explanation for it sat in the palm of my hand; I hadn’t decided what to do with Jessica’s necklace. It didn’t mean that Derek had killed her. Perhaps he had simply known her. Perhaps he had met her once without knowing who she was. Maybe she’d given him the necklace — why? Maybe she had left the necklace somewhere and he had found it. Didn’t that make more sense than Derek murdering her and taking the necklace away from her dead body? Didn’t Derek seem like the most peaceful, kind, sane man I’d ever met?

  Thoughts like these traveled in circles through my mind, tormenting me, depriving me of sleep. When dawn came I gave up and took a shower, then stared at a book, pretending to read while my brain asked me how I expected to get through the coming day.

  Seventeen

  “Yes, I’m very tired. Soon now I’ll sleep.”

  —Nora, A Doll’s House, Act III

  Monday. By the time I reached my classroom via the back stairway, the tiredness had already hit me. I logged onto my computer, my fingers moving with appalling slowness on the keys. A shadow appeared next to me and I jumped.

  “Oh, Javier, you scared me!”

  “Miss Thurber, do you have some time? I need help with my thesis statement,” he said, wearing a ‘please don’t hit me’ expression.

  I wanted to cry; I felt a sudden strong empathy for Javier. Who really knows his thesis statement? Who knows what they’re doing, what they’re proving? And, ultimately, what did it all matter?

  “Of course, hon. Let me see what you have.” My hands shook slightly as I took his paper.

  His sentence said, “I am comparing The Stranger to The Great Gatsby.” I sighed, then touched his hand. “I know where you want to go here, but your reader won’t really see it. The thing is, you have to put what you’re thinking down on paper. And get rid of the word I. What do the two books have in common?”

  Javier rambled for a couple of minutes, trying to put his thoughts into words. He did a pretty good job, considering that he probably hadn’t read either book very carefully. “So what you’re saying, if I hear you right, is that both characters were isolated from their societies. Could that be the theme that you want to express?”

  His face brightened. “Yeah. And they’re both, like, lonely and misunderstood. And they both die.”

  “Okay, then. Three supporting points — perfect. So let’s make a tiny outline here. See? Now I want you to try to put these three points into a sentence. Do that now while I check my e-mail.”

  Javier worked at a desk and I read some basic work e-mails. Nothing from Derek, thank God. I didn’t even know if he had come to school today. I had skipped my usual stop in the mailroom. I wanted to meet no one, talk to no one.

  Javier came back and showed me his thesis statement: “Jay Gatsby and Monsieur Meursault are both isolated characters; this is evident in their loneliness, in the way they are misunderstood, and in the way that they die.” I l
ooked up at him, shocked.

  “Oh my gosh, Javier, I think you have a thesis!”

  He clapped his hands. “Yes!”

  “But let’s be clear: you are way behind. I want you to bring me the whole first paragraph by period five, and then try to have your first two points written out in a draft by tomorrow. I also need to see the notecards you’ve written up until now.”

  “Okay. I will. Okay,” he promised.

  “Javier?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Would you be a pal and run to the teacher mailroom? Tell them I forgot mine and ask them to hand it to you.”

  “Sure,” he said. He left; minutes later he returned with a small pile of mail. There — problem solved. I wouldn’t have to see anyone for today. But what about tomorrow? And the day after? How was I supposed to face Derek or deal with the reality of Jessica’s necklace? Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…

  The bell rang then, and my first period class filed in. Rosalyn walked up to me. “I have a reading question,” she said. “Oh my gosh, Miss Thurber, you look so tired!”

  “I never got my coffee today,” I said feebly. It seemed utterly sad, that fact. “What’s the question?”

  “Oh — okay. Is Porfiry Petrovich the same as Ilya Petrovich?”

  “No. Remember what we said about the patronymic? It’s a middle name, derived from the father’s first name. What’s your dad’s name?”

  “Stephen.”

  “So your name would be Rosalyn Stephanovna Baxter. That’s the feminine. If it were Danny, he would be Danny Stephanovich Washburn. See? The Petrovich patronymic just means both men had a father named Petrov.”