Cheating Lessons: A Novel (13 page)

Martha’s look withered her. “The Classics Bowl is not life and death. It’s just a contest.”

She stood up and left before Bernadette could think of a suitable reply. Just a contest! “And Olympic gold is just metal,” Bernadette said to a mute Alex. Talk about blowing hot and cold! Who would screech the loudest if Wickham lost to Pinehurst? Martha Terrell, that’s who.

Bernadette’s spirits rose every time she entered Borders Books. It was as soothing as church. Classical music played in the background, good coffee and cocoa fragrances wafted from the little café, and thousands of vividly colored books whispered,
Read me.
Usually she wandered the aisles for an hour before realizing she’d forgotten what she came for, her head was spinning, and she desperately needed the bathroom.

But today she made straight for cookbooks. Her father loved the electric bread machine he’d gotten for Christmas. But three months of Basic White had his daughter hungering for a change.

A whole shelf on bread machines. Amazing what people would write entire books about.
Bread Entrees, Bread for Left-Handers.
She settled cross-legged on the carpeting and immersed herself in
Miracles to Make in Your Bread Machine.
She was wondering whether Chinese Black Bean and Garlic Rolls would be interesting or vile when a voice above her said, “Hi.” Giant sneakers appeared by her knee.

She raised her head. Anthony Cirillo looked different today. Ah. The smirk was missing.

“Hi,” she said.

“Your dad told me you’d be here.”

Luckily she was already on the floor. McAss had called her? “Here I am.”

“Uh—you want something to drink?”

“If you’re buying.” She got to her feet. “I love hot chocolate.”

He grinned, and looked more like Anthony. “What, no coffee?”

“Gave it up for Lent,” Bernadette said. “Along with Brussels sprouts and milk of magnesia.”

Over tall mocha-caramel lattes (extra whipped cream for Bernadette), Anthony said, “I wanted to tell you something. You know how Spic ‘n’ Span had us moving furniture yesterday?”

Bernadette nodded. Who could forget The Sting?

“After we moved some file cabinets, she went somewhere—I think the bees shook her up more than she let on. Turns out they were in the bathroom drywall—the exterminator said the hot weather wakes them up. So anyway, David and I are moving everything out when I see this one cabinet with a drawer marked RECOMMENDATIONS.” He stopped.

“And?”

“So I figured maybe teachers filed recommendations of students there—a reference file so they don’t have to think up lines like ‘works to capacity’ and ‘shows good leadership skills.’ You know?”

“If you don’t hurry up I’m going to pour this on you.”

“Okay, okay.” He took a breath. “It was a file of recommendations
Spic ‘n’ Span
wrote, for teachers who had applied for other jobs.”

Bernadette stopped rushing him.

“She wrote one for Malory. To Pinehurst. Last August.”

“Impossible,” she said.

“It was a decent reference.”

“But he’s still here!”

Anthony stared into his cup. “I know.”

They sat there and thought the same thing.
Mr. Malory got turned down by Pinehurst.

The whipped cream tasted cloying and thick in Bernadette’s throat. Anthony was watching her with something dangerously close to pity in his eyes. That would never do.

“Well, of course he’d want to teach somewhere else. Who wouldn’t? Wickham’s a dump.” Her voice rose. “Kids at Wickham think
The Way of All Flesh
is a dirty movie! The cafeteria smells like armpits, the art trailer’s from World War II for God’s sake, and they have bees in the bathrooms! Malory would have seen right off that the place is full of losers.”

Mr. Malory had wanted to teach at Pinehurst? Inconceivable.

Anthony sipped his drink in silence, which enraged her.
She
had plenty to say. “Who the hell does Pinehurst think they are? I bet they’d turn down Jesus Christ—tell him his Shinto background was weak.”

“Malory knows his stuff,” Anthony agreed.

Bernadette eyed him suspiciously. If he added,
too bad he’s gay,
or
it’s a shame he talks like a wuss,
she would punch him. Right here in Borders.

Watching her as though hoping she was armed only with a spoon, Anthony said, “Maybe that’s why he wants to beat them in the Classics Bowl.”

“Revenge? What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t really think we can beat them.”

Bernadette worked that out. “But you think it does,” she said slowly. “Don’t you. You think he’s fooling himself, and us right along with him.”

Anthony raised his hands as if to say
not so fast.
“I want to hear what
you
think. You’re the Wizard with the memory.” His hand came across the tabletop to touch her own for a fleeting second. His skin was warm. “I’m not trying to pressure you. It’s just—man, we could use that ten thousand bucks.”

“Who couldn’t.” She thought furiously. So Mr. Malory had an excellent reason of his own to resent Pinehurst. How coincidental. How—surreal.

“No, I mean it. I don’t know if you know….”

Some awkwardness in Anthony’s voice made Bernadette stop pondering the implications of this news and look over at him.

“My brother’s my legal guardian. Our dad died when I was little, and our mom—she died two summers ago.” He addressed his knuckles. “That’s why Vince isn’t in college—he’s going to put me through, then I can put him through, if he doesn’t buy up a bunch of Mickey D’s before then. Ten grand that we don’t need to pay back would help a lot.”

“Oh, Anthony.” Bernadette set her cup down with a thump. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” Why
hadn’t
she known? A person being an orphan was not a national secret. Some detective she would make.

“It’s all right. I thought maybe Nadine might have said something . . . .”

“I haven’t seen Nadine much lately.” He must know why. She felt off-balance, ashamed. And as though she should repay him for entrusting her with something so personal.

Abruptly she said, “I don’t care about the TV part.”

“What TV part?”

“Looking stupid on cable TV. That doesn’t bother me.” Bernadette had never confessed this even to Nadine. She kept her head down over her cup so that her hair formed a curtain between them. “What bothers me is that we could lose by some huge margin because we have such a horrible background in the classics. It’d be different if it was the Cartoon Bowl. But it’s not. We’re trying to cram years of reading into one month. Lori and David petrify me—they think I’m so smart. You know how you just said I’m the one with the memory? Well, that’s the thing.
That’s all I have.
But Pinehurst—” She shook her hair back and met his eyes across the table. “Anthony, you have no idea. They’ve got people who are
truly
smart. Who know what these books
mean,
why they’re worth reading. This one kid on their team? Nadine and I debated him once, and he quoted
Voltaire
—and I don’t mean as a first affirmative. I mean on the fly. Needless to say, they won.”

There. It was out, her humiliating secret, and apparently all Anthony Cirillo could do was stare at her hair. When it dawned on him that she’d finished talking, he shook his head with a frown of disappointment. Bernadette’s stomach twisted inside.

“This isn’t about IQ!” he said. “This is about work. You think NCS wants us to prove the theory of relativity? Hell, no. We depend on you
because
of your memory. Debate logic won’t matter in this thing. What’ll count is how much we’ve managed to stuff in our brains for one hour. The rest’ll be luck. You want to worry about something, worry about how fast you can push a buzzer—not how smart you are. Or aren’t.” He had a grin like his brother’s, and Bernadette suddenly saw how a person could find that attractive. “If people want to give me prizes and money because I have a good memory, let ’em.
I’m
not stupid.”

“No, I—I never thought you were.”

“And if you’re worried that your memory will give out, don’t be. It never has before, has it?”

Only when certain people wore collarless shirts. “No . . . .”

“As for David and Lori—yeah, they do think you’re smart, but so what? It’s a common mistake. I’ve been known to think it myself.” He rolled his eyes in disbelief, but his smile held new assurance, as though her confession had pleased him in some way.

He must be using something different on his skin. It didn’t look as terrible as it used to. Flustered, Bernadette said, “Did you tell David about seeing the recommendation?”

“No. He was out in the hall.”

“Good. Don’t. If the other Wizards thought Mr. Malory was in some kind of grudge match, they could get all upset.”

“Not like us,” Anthony said blandly. “Whatever you say, Captain. I barely got the letter back before Spic ‘n’ Span came in. She gave us little packs of Lorna Doones for helping her.”

“Lorna Doones?”

“Yeah. She had a whole drawerful. I think she’s got a thing going with the vending machine guy.”

Bernadette giggled. Anthony had not so much as blown a straw wrapper across the table this whole time. He could have made a snide remark about Nadine and Vince, but he hadn’t. Her gaze fell on the bread book. “I should get going.”

“Me too. I gotta check out the Cliff’s Notes.”

“Don’t spend too much.”

Anthony was shocked. “I never
buy
them,” he said. “I read them here.”

“Oh. Well, thanks for the drink.”

Bernadette paid a teenaged clerk for the book, which he seemed to find very funny. Since when was bread funny?
She
wasn’t laughing at his nose stud. Back in the car she adjusted the rearview mirror and discovered that the ends of her hair wore a coating of whipped cream, as though they’d been dipped. She swore softly as she cleaned it off.

Still . . . Anthony hadn’t seemed to mind.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Friendship is constant in all other things

Save in the office and affairs of love . . .

—Shakespeare,
Much Ado About Nothing

H
er father loved the bread book. Bernadette phoned Nadine after church on Sunday while munching a piece of warm Jalapeño Corn Loaf.

Nadine was out.

Bernadette scowled at the wall. Nadine was out a lot these days.

She should be back by dinner at the latest, Nadine’s mother told Bernadette, as Vince had to work the evening shift. “Which is a good thing if you ask me.”

“What is, Mrs. Walczak?”

“That he has to work
sometime.
I don’t trust this big rush—dinners out on school nights, sending her roses, the whole bit. He reminds me of a Robert DeNiro movie.”

“Taxi Driver?”

“No, I don’t think he’s insane.” But she sounded doubtful, as though Bernadette had suggested a new and plausible theory. “The ones where he plays those Mafia types.”

Bernadette considered this. On first impression, Vince did have a kind of underworld savvy, but thinking he might be a hood was like thinking Nadine should know how to plant rice. “You really think the mob runs McDonald’s, Mrs. Walczak? That would be some cover.”

“That’s what my husband says.” Nadine’s mother sighed. “Don’t have daughters, Bernadette. Have sons. They can’t get pregnant.”

Bernadette did not point out some of the things they
could
do. After she hung up she wondered what it was with mothers. All they thought about was sex. Nadine had known Vince for only two and a half weeks.

Parents watched too much TV.

Bernadette didn’t expect it, but Nadine called back.

“Hi.” She sounded cool.

“Hi yourself. What’s up? How’s Vince?”

It was the magic question. “Oh, Bet! He’s great. We just got back from seeing
Farewell My Concubine
downtown. It’s Chinese.”

“
That
must have been fun.”

“It was. Not the movie, though, that was sad. Vince thinks I’ve been denying my heritage.”

“As a concubine?”