A Changed Man (43 page)

For one blessed moment, Bonnie accepts it all. She appreciates what Vincent’s done. She’s satisfied with that. They never asked for a lifetime commitment. A moment later, she feels crazy. She needs to see him. At once. So much is still unresolved.
Was
there anything between them? Could she have fallen in love with him and somehow not have noticed?

She can’t get used to his absence. It’s like a death. Except that no one’s dead. She hopes. The fact that he packed his duffel bag and straightened up his room put an end to Bonnie’s fear that a hit squad from ARM might have kidnapped him when he stepped outside the
Chandler
studio for a breath of air. Nazi thugs don’t drive you to Clairmont and wait while you make your bed. Unless, of course, they waited while Vincent got the money and drugs that Raymond claimed he stole. Was Raymond telling the truth? She’d never thought that Vincent was on drugs. And he stole nothing from her and the kids. Which either meant he was never a thief, or that he
had
changed, after all.

So another man left her. Leaving after a few months and one clumsy mistake of a kiss is nothing compared to bailing after thirteen years of marriage and two kids. So why should she feel worse about this than she did about Joel? Because Joel was about the past, and Vincent seemed like the future. A future with Vincent Nolan? Bonnie needs therapy. Now.

She can say that Vincent has gone on a retreat. She can start her speech that way. Sometimes you need a break from your life to see where your life is going. That wouldn’t be a total lie. It’s true. The guy has retreated.

Bonnie takes the last parking space in the faculty lot. Go ahead, let them tow her. As she introduces herself to the guard at the door, she sees, standing beyond him, an angelic blond girl in a white satin dress. The girl spots Bonnie and steps forward and gives her a single red rose.

“I’m…” Bonnie misses the girl’s name. She’s been sent to meet her and take her to Mr. Armstrong’s office. Bonnie’s getting the VIP treatment. Already she’s choked up. Why didn’t she have a daughter? Why didn’t she have more children? She wishes she had a toddler who still loved to cuddle. Why should Joel be the one to get the Bulgarian baby?

Bonnie and her beatific escort weave through the crowd of kids converting their discomfort at seeing each other in caps and gowns into manic activity and squawks of raucous laughter. Bonnie has never felt so alone. How different this would be if Vincent—or Max and Danny—were with her.

Bonnie’s precisely on time, so why are Linda Graber and David Armstrong waiting for her in the hall, peering down the corridor like sailors looking for land? From a distance Bonnie can see on their faces an expression she knows all too well, the taut desperation of longing to see a particular person.

“Great to see you!” David Armstrong kisses her cheek as if they’re old friends. In fact, the first time they spoke was when he called to strong-arm her into this. Bonnie only knows who he is from seeing him at PTA meetings at which his main function seemed to be leading the parents in a round of applause for the terrific job the teachers are doing. Armstrong reminds Bonnie of a clean-cut, bespectacled, 1950s game-show host.

“Great to see you, Bonnie. Really great.”

“Welcome.” Linda Graber shakes Bonnie’s hand. “We’re so happy you could be here. I so admire what you do, and what I respect even more is that you’re still doing it. Most people would have burned out by now.” Is Linda implying that Bonnie’s stuck in a job that anyone but a masochist would have quit ages ago?

“I guess the same could be said for what
you
do.” So instantly, instinctively, Bonnie and Linda have fallen into that special relationship you have with a teacher who doesn’t much like your kid, a relationship that Bonnie has had with too many of Danny’s teachers. Now she tries not to stare at the moles on Linda’s neck and chest, above the Frida Kahlo shawl that goes with the center-parted, rolled-up dark hair.

“May I ask…where’s Mr. Nolan?” Smiling rigidly, David Armstrong peers over Bonnie’s shoulder, as if Vincent’s absence is a childish prank that Bonnie will soon tire of.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I honestly don’t know if he’s going to be here or not.”

That’s all the raw material Armstrong needs from which to manufacture shock and disappointment. How could Bonnie
not know?
Obviously, she’s lying. Or making excuses.

And she
is
lying. Mostly. She’s ninety-nine percent certain that Vincent is not going to show up. But there is that one percent of her that almost dares to imagine that this could turn out to be like some cheap Hollywood romance. At the very last minute, Vincent will come through. He knows when and where graduation is. She’ll look up and see him at the back of the auditorium. And she’ll know that he has decided. Chosen Brotherhood Watch. Chosen her.

How depressing that her fantasies have regressed back to that scene in which Dustin Hoffman appears at the back of the church in
The Graduate.
But Vincent’s appearing would mean more than that. This is not about some confused rich kid having sequential affairs with a woman and her daughter. If the miracle happens, if Vincent comes, hundreds of young people will witness someone choosing good over evil. They will remember it all their lives. It will be more like a religious event than a high-school graduation. Except that only Bonnie and Danny will know what it really means. Everyone else will just assume the ex-Nazi showed up late.

Why is Bonnie fooling herself? Vincent isn’t coming.

“Where is he?” echoes Linda. Didn’t they see
Chandler
? Are they so eager to have a speaker who just trashed his cousin on TV? But that’s not what they saw at all. They saw Vincent protecting Meyer.

Vincent didn’t care what anyone thought. He was punching out his past. Bonnie doesn’t believe in violence. But is one guy hitting another guy really the end of the world? Raymond parked in her driveway and terrified her child. Raymond came after Meyer. It’s not that Raymond deserved to be hit. But he wasn’t exactly blameless.

On the drive home from
Chandler,
Danny finally told Bonnie about finding Raymond in the driveway. Bonnie was as frightened as if it were occurring right then.

“And you didn’t
tell
anyone?” she said.

“I did,” Danny said. “I told Vincent.”

Both boys were jacked up and babbling, saying more than they meant to. “Fucking Raymond,” Danny said.

Bonnie let the language go. Danny was right. Fucking Raymond. It was Raymond’s fault that she and her boys were going through this. No one told him to come to the show. If he hadn’t spoiled it, it would have been a great program, a whole hour about Meyer and Vincent and the foundation. Vincent would have gone home with them. They would have been celebrating….

Graber and Armstrong are waiting for her to say something. “I
know
that Vincent knows when graduation is. He was looking forward to doing this.” It’s all she can say. And all they can handle. Meanwhile they’ll settle for Bonnie, who is at least physically here. Against formidable odds, they have found an acceptable last-minute replacement, a speaker who is not being indicted on child pornography charges. One speaker will have to do. They’ll let her explain to the crowd that the celebrity former skinhead canceled at the last minute. Not that the crowd much cares. The students want their diplomas. And the parents would just as soon not hear from a guy who could spoil this happy occasion by bringing up subjects like hate.

Once again, tears threaten. Bonnie swallows hard. She’d rather not break down in front of Linda Graber and David Armstrong.

“We really appreciate this,” Linda says.

“It’s a pleasure,” says Bonnie.

“You never know,” says Dave, confidentially. “This could work both ways. Some of these kids have very wealthy parents looking for a tax-deductible charity.”

What a vulgar, awful man, making this about money! Rather than what it’s really about, which is flat-out blackmail. Instead of struggling over Danny’s paper, which is what she should be doing, Bonnie’s taking the easy way out, pulling strings for her kid, which hardly puts her in the best position to tell Dave Armstrong to go to hell for suggesting that she shake down the wealthier parents. Besides which, Bonnie will accept any donations the parents want to make. It’s not for her. It’s for Meyer’s work. Whatever that is now.

Lately, Meyer has been talking about going on a series of solo fact-finding missions to Turkey and the Middle East. By now it’s reflexive for Bonnie to encourage Meyer, partly because his ideas are often so marvelous and surprising. Secretly, she’s terrified by the thought of him jetting into some hostile outpost and relying on charm to protect him.

It’s admirable that a man of Meyer’s age would have the courage and the integrity to leave his comfortable life and see, up close and personal, what his fellow humans suffer. How inspiring that someone who has achieved what he has achieved should push himself, should ask more of himself. He
is
a saint. An angel. Of course, he has his flaws. But all told, he is a good man, a man who is trying to do good.

Unlike selfish Bonnie, who can’t help wondering: What do Meyer’s plans mean for
her?
Meyer sounds as if he means to spend the rest of his life on the road, bouncing from one scary airport, one filthy jail cell, one torture chamber to another. Yesterday, he told Bonnie that Irene had accused him of wanting to wander off and stage a theatrical public death, like Tolstoy’s last hours in the deserted railway station. And Meyer had told Irene: What’s good enough for Tolstoy is good enough for me.

But what about the foundation? Without Meyer, it will be nothing. Everyone is leaving. First Vincent and now Meyer. Meyer isn’t a young man. This can’t be good for his health.

Just then, an air raid signal goes off.

Linda squeezes her eyes shut. Dave chuckles.

“Don’t panic,” Dave says. “It’s the first warning before assembly.”

“Euphonious, isn’t it?” Linda says.

“What do they need to be warned about?” asks Bonnie.

“Us,” says Linda.

“Heh-heh,” says Dave.

“Tardiness,” says Linda.

The brain-frying buzzer sounds again. Danny listens to this all day. No wonder
annoying
is the most common word in his vocabulary. This buzzer is constantly interrupting his thoughts, his daydreams, anything he might be learning. Naturally, the kids come home wanting only to gobble chips in front of the TV and be numbed out by its soothing drone. How could Bonnie have not heard the sound track of her children’s days? It’s only a buzzer. She’s got to relax if she plans to get up onstage and talk. Suddenly unable to recall one sentence she planned to say, Bonnie struggles against a sudden urge to sit on the floor and put her head between her knees.

“Are you all right?” asks Dave.

“I’m fine,” says Bonnie.

“Nervous?” says Linda Graber.

“Not at all,” says Bonnie.

“Do you do much of this sort of thing?” Linda’s on to Bonnie. She knows that Bonnie is lying about not being nervous.

So Bonnie might as well lie more. “Constantly,” she says.

After the second buzzer, Linda and Dave turn, zombielike, and head for the auditorium. All around them, the seniors hold their mortarboards onto their heads and stampede.

As they navigate the rush, Armstrong chooses this moment to tell Bonnie the plans for the ceremony. The hall is noisy, the kids are loud, she and Dave keep getting separated. She hears maybe a third of what he’s saying. Prayer, chorus, diplomas. Bonnie nods and fakes comprehension. She’ll figure it out. Somebody will signal her when she needs to begin her speech.

Dave opens a door and ushers Bonnie and Linda down a corridor that leads over cables, past amplifiers and costume closets, the usual backstage mess. It reminds Bonnie of
Chandler.
She and Vincent and Meyer went there together and waited in the Green Room.

“The auditorium has some structural problems,” says Dave. “Every time a lightbulb burns out, we have to send a midget through the infrastructure to change it. It would cost over a million to fix.”

“That’s too bad,” says Bonnie.

The three of them stand awkwardly in the wings, from which they can see a sliver of stage and a few rows on one side of the auditorium.

“I need to check a couple of things. Can I leave Bonnie with you?” Dave asks Linda. Bonnie feels like a child in a fairy tale, dropped off at the witch’s for day care.

Linda turns to Bonnie. “So Dave told you about the order of the graduation program? I know it’s a little complicated, but I’m sure you’ll catch on.”

Bonnie smiles.

“It’s a miracle you could hear Dave, walking down that noisy hallway.” Linda wins! How good she is at ferreting out a lie. The kids must be helpless before her.

“Well, actually,” says Bonnie, “I
couldn’t
hear—”

“So you have no idea what the order is,” Linda says.

“Basically, no,” admits Bonnie.

Linda sighs. “All right. First the pledge of allegiance, then the nondenominational prayer. Then the choir. Then the awards. Then the choir again. Then they’ll hand out the diplomas. Then you. Then the valedictorian. Then Dave will say a few words. And we’ll hear one more time from the choir.”

This is going to last fifty years! How many songs is the choir singing? And they’ve got Bonnie talking
after
they give out the diplomas, when all the kids will be busy looking to see if they’ve got the right one? No one ever schedules the speeches after the diplomas. No one is that thoughtless.

Look for the hidden blessing. Bonnie might as well talk when no one is listening. What does Bonnie have to say that these graduates need to hear? Meyer would tell her to do her best, to try and make the most of this chance to change one young heart at a time. As always, thinking of Meyer helps her forget her personal problems and concentrate on what she can accomplish. If only she didn’t keep thinking how different this would be if Vincent were here. She could speak for a minute or so, and then let Vincent take over. He was brilliant at the dinner. His first time speaking. Dying.