Driver's Ed (19 page)

Morgan's head brought up the other stuff: how it was only a sign, how he had not actually taken a knife and stabbed Denise Thompson, a collision had killed her, he and Remy were just a contributing factor. But his tongue didn't use the excuses.

“Pull in,” said Nance.

It was a car dealership. What was she going to do, run him over? It was night, and the lots were bright with theft-prevention lights, but there were no salesmen at this hour. The place was an eerie combination of open and closed.

“Get out,” said his mother.

He got out. Dad got out. They were both scared of her.

Rows of shiny parked cars divided into little alleys for his mother to fling herself down, for Morgan to follow, for Dad to bring up the rear. He had the thought that Mom was going to kill him, and he wondered if he should just let it happen. One of the spotlights was failing, and its bulb sang like hornets' nests overhead.

His mother stopped in front of a beautiful cranberry-red Miata convertible. “I bought it for you,” she said conversationally. “To celebrate your adulthood. Your new driver's license. You.”

It was perfect. Color, accessories, Wow-factor. It was a teenage toy—the best.

“Do you know what I would like to do with it now?” his mother said to him.

He swallowed.

“I would like to take a tire iron and destroy it!” she shouted. “I would like to beat it to death! I could take it out on this car. I could hit it and hit it and hit it until it's dented and ruined and dead! Dead, Morgan! Are you listening to me? Dead! Do you know how long
dead
lasts?”

Dad tried to put his arms around Mom but she was in too deep for arms. “How dare you?” she spat at Morgan. “How dare you take our family, our lovely
family, and do this to us? How dare you take Christmas and do this to Christmas?” Her sobs broke, as rough and scraping as the hacksaw on the signpost.

“Oh, Rafe,” she said, trying to touch her husband, but stepping back at the same time, “I'm a terrible person. I'm more concerned with being a bad parent in public than with Denise Thompson. She's dead forever, she'll always be dead, and I'm busy being mad about my family.”

Rafe Campbell needed to hold each of them, but they were both too far away, and if he stepped toward one, he would step away from the other.

S
chool.

It never faded. Just when you wanted whiteout, there it was, in full color, full time.

Mr. Fielding said, “I canceled the driver's tests for today.”

Howls of pain rose from the two kids involved: Lark and Chase. “That isn't fair!” said Chase. “Mr. Fielding, this is life and death! I have plans and—”

“You spoiled brat!” shouted Mr. Fielding. He slammed his fist down on the library table so hard that even outside the glass walls, Mrs. Bee heard and jumped.

Lark said sweetly, “Is this a bad hair day, Mr. Fielding?”

Mr. Fielding stared at her, individually, for the first time in the eight-week session. What he saw so turned his stomach that even Lark dropped her eyes.

“I haven't taught a class yet,” said Mr. Fielding. “But I'm going to teach this one. So listen up. You're all brats, one way or another. I don't exempt a single one of you. But I'm worse, because I didn't care. I couldn't
have cared less what happened with any of you. I still don't. But there is one thing I care about.”

Nobody looked at Mr. Fielding, and nobody looked at anybody else. He was rabid, like a raccoon the sheriff would shoot. The thing was to lie low till it was over.

“She's dead,” said Mr. Fielding. “Denise Thompson. She's dead.”

That's what this was about? That old wrecked car on the lawn? Several people breathed inner sighs of relief. Several did not.

“You kids are always mentioning life and death,” said Mr. Fielding. “Getting into college is life and death. Getting your driver's license is life and death. Having a date is life and death.”

He waited so long, they were forced to look up, see what he was doing, see where he was going. When he had them all back, he said, “No. None of the above. Only driving is life and death. Holding a steering wheel is life and death. Choosing to control a car is life and death.”

The class relaxed. Yet another safety lecture. Maybe he had just found out that Denise Thompson was really his cousin, or his first wife, or something. It was nothing to do with them.

“I let this class be a joke,” said Mr. Fielding. “I let myself be a joke, I let driving be a joke. That's the joke, guys. Because this is the only class you'll ever take where you can go out and kill somebody if you're careless. You fail chemistry or you ace English, it's not life and death. This is the only life-and-death course you have, and I let it be a joke.”

People wanted to check the clock or their watches, but they didn't want to move and attract attention.

“And those kids? The ones who took the stop sign? Nothing will happen to them,” said Mr. Fielding very softly, as if he were speaking to Denise, to her grave, her ghost. “There is no legal remedy. The law can't get at this one.”

“I'm a member of SADD,” said Christine suddenly. “I think Students Against Drunk Drivers could get involved.”

“Only,” said Mr. Fielding, “if there were a drunk driver. In this case there's just a couple of stupid teenagers.”

“Still,” said Christine, “they might have to pay a fine or something.”

“So what?” shouted Mr. Fielding. “
So what
? The woman is still dead, do you understand that? Forget fines. Forget SADD. Forget legal anything. She. Is. Still. Dead.”

T
he mall was even Christmasier. At each of the distant four corners of the vast shopping center, school choirs sang carols, and from each door came the canned carols of separate stores. You could not tell one melody from another; it was like a dozen radio stations and a score of wound-up music boxes.

Morgan didn't mind. It kept his head full. He didn't need any space in there in which to think.

“I hate myself,” said Remy. “It was a Driver's Ed test, and we both failed. We should have said right there in class that we did it. I mean, Morgan, if we're looking for a punishment to wrap this thing up, we could let the class do it.”

They both knew the class would just separate itself, stay silent, and think on other things.

Wrap this thing up, he thought. How on earth do you wrap up death? Morgan wanted to shrug but found he could not make his shoulders do it. It would be shrugging over Mr. Fielding's last hideously separated words. She. Is. Still. Dead.

He finally taught a class, thought Morgan. I hope he knows that. That he was a teacher again. That he mattered. It mattered.

“What are we doing at the mall, anyway?” said Remy.

“We're buying Christmas presents,” said Morgan. His laugh sounded shrill to him. “What shall I get for my mother, Rem? She'd really like a tire iron and permission to split my skull open.”

“Is she talking to you yet?”

“She's avoiding me. She hasn't been in the same room with me once.”

“What do you do about dinner?”

“She doesn't come home. Dad is cooking.”

They stared into the window of a seasonal Christmas shop: it had opened in November and would close December 24th. You had to say for Christmas that it was pretty; everything about it was lovely and decorative and sparkly and bright.

“Mom isn't having Christmas,” said Morgan. He had not thought he could get those words out. His mother had taken the tree down. Packed up the collection of stars, thrown away the holly. She'd found restaurants in which to hold the rest of the season's parties.

He did not think anything had shocked him as much as the sight of his mother putting away Christmas before Christmas had come.

“How can you not have Christmas?” said Remy. “It comes anyway.”

Morgan had found his sister lying on her bed, weeping into her pillow.
There won't be any stockings, Morgan! There won't be any presents! We won't sing any carols and we won't have Christmas dinner. Mom won't even go to the Christmas Eve pageant, because you're doing it, and she says she can't think about how you killed somebody and you get to be in charge of Christmas anyway
.

Starr hated him. His mother hated him. His father was hanging on to everybody's love like double-sided tape.

“Mom says,” said Morgan, thinking how friendly and ordinary the word
Mom
was, and how it used to be he couldn't be in the room with her, for no reason, and now she couldn't be in the room with him, for valid reason, “Mom says she can't celebrate hope and joy now.”

Remy was looking at crèches. Tiny carved olive-wood camel strings from Israel. A hand-blown crystal manger and baby, as if Jesus were an icicle. A baroque gold and pale blue china Mary from Italy. “I can't decide, Morgan,” said Remy, “whether I hate you or I love you.”

Morgan marveled that she could say this out loud. Girls could do that, figure out what they were thinking and then use words to tell you. Morgan would have preferred to lift weights the rest of his life than say stuff like that out loud.

Remy was the only person in the world he could really talk to, and yet he wasn't really talking to her; she was talking to him.

Tomorrow would be the talk that counted.

What would he say to Mr. Thompson? I'm sorry? Of course, he could throw in I'm sorry. Like it would matter that he was sorry. Like Denise would be less dead or something.

On Sunday, Mrs. Willit had read from the Book of Job, in spite of the fact that it was the week before Christmas, and she was supposed to concentrate on the coming of baby Jesus. Mrs. Willit had never really caught on to the religious year. Job was from the Old Testament, was thousands more years ago than Jesus, and moreover, was the Bible story most likely to make you detest God, and here she was babbling about Job instead of the Magi or the Star.

Job, pronounced Jobe, was your basic nice guy. So what did God do with the poor slob? Used him as a punching bag. Entertained himself for years by slowly and cruelly destroying the guy's life. It was a bet. God had actually taken a bet that Job would love him anyway.

The Old Testament had a really tough God. He dished it out. You made a mistake, you paid. Even if you
didn't
make a mistake, like Job, you paid.

Mrs. Willit had her usual spazzed-out interpretation. For her, God was this friendly guy who would say, Hey, listen, I know you feel bad about the whole sign thing, so let's call it even. Now get a good night's sleep and don't torment yourself.

Morgan didn't know about God, but the humans in his life certainly didn't plan to call it even.

He'd wanted his father to do the right thing, and he thought maybe Dad was, but what would happen now? If only he could get a sense of what would hit him and Remy.

A singing tree-decoration electronically twittered “Silent Night.”

He had a sense that he had forever lost “sleep in heavenly peace.” Because whether Dad handled things right or not, She. Was. Still. Dead.

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do, Mr. Campbell?” said Remy.

Morgan's father parked the BMW. He took a long time to set it in park and pull on the emergency brake. “No,” he said. “I'm not.”

Remy had figured a person running for office was always sure of the right thing to do. She felt even sicker than she had during the last twenty-four hours.

The Thompson house was a small ordinary ranch, plain and solid. Its tiny front stoop was the kind where in order to open the door you practically fell into the bushes.

The rain came down. If the temperature dropped a degree or two, it would be snow, and then it would be beautiful and white and pristine; it would be romantic and Christmasy.

But it was only rain.

“Should we have a lawyer with us?” said Morgan.

“I'm a lawyer,” Mr. Campbell pointed out.

Remy had thought this was why you had lawyers: so that
they
had to have the meetings.

“You're not a criminal lawyer,” Morgan pointed out.

Mr. Campbell looked thinner. His cheek lines were deeper, his voice more tired. “You and Remy are not criminals.”

“He thinks we are.”

Remy did not ask the God of Tight Situations to help. It would be cheating. Besides, no such god had come through for Denise in her tight situation. Who needed a god who played favorites?

In a split second this door would open. A man would be standing there. She would have to speak. Hi, I'm Remy Marland, how are you, nice to meet you, I'm the one who is partially responsible for your wife's death.

Remy had started saying that to herself.
Partially responsible
. Anything to slide Denise Thompson's death over a space or two.

The door did open.

And Remy didn't care if God played favorites or not. She wanted him around and she wanted him on her team.

M
organ made himself smile at Remy, although he was afraid of being responsible for her; of having to hang on to her as well as himself.

She was composed. She'd worn a skirt, which she didn't often do. Just as Morgan had worn a tie, which he didn't often do.

Dress code for meeting the man whose wife you'd killed.

It'll be over eventually, Morgan told himself. It can't last any longer than your average dentist appointment.
Course, it could hurt more. This was, after all, a man who on television and in the newspaper had accused Morgan of being a murderer.

Morgan had looked up Mrs. Marland's quote. Did the Bible actually say you had to repay your crimes “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”?

The Bible instruction was a bit more detailed than that. “If any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”