Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree (9 page)

Emma-Jean knocked on the doorframe to announce herself. Ms. Wright smiled and motioned for Emma-Jean to come in.

“Did you have a question about class?” she asked, tossing the crusts of her sandwich into a brown paper bag and brushing her hands together. “I just finished grading your essay about Robert Frost’s poem. It was a lovely piece of work, I think.”

“Thank you,” Emma-Jean said.

“You obviously appreciate Robert Frost.”

“Robert Frost was an excellent poet,” Emma-Jean said. It had been easy to write about him. His observations about winter in New Hampshire made Emma-Jean feel that she and Mr. Frost shared the same pair of eyes.

“I like him too,” Ms. Wright said.

“Do you like poetry in general?” Emma-Jean asked, believing that somebody interested in poetry would likely have far-ranging interests.

“I like many types of poetry,” said Ms. Wright. “I’m introducing myself to more and more modern poets.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a paperback book. “This is Mary Oliver’s collection. Would you like to borrow it?”

Emma-Jean shook her head. She was too busy at the moment. If Ms. Wright married Vikram Adwani, Emma-Jean would find the time to borrow her poetry books. She was hopeful that the young couple would live in Vikram’s third-floor apartment. That would make the borrowing of books highly convenient for Emma-Jean.

Emma-Jean reached into her briefcase and pulled out her thermos. It was not filled with soup today. It was filled with curried chicken and lentils. She’d also brought an extra spoon and paper cup. She unscrewed the top, planning to offer Ms. Wright a sample. But before she could, her teacher gasped and said, “Is that curry I smell? Oh, that is my absolute favorite! You know, I traveled in India for a year after college and I just love the food . . .”

Ms. Wright went on, but Emma-Jean was no longer listening. She had no doubt that she had found a more than suitable wife for Vikram Adwani. There was just one last thing she had to determine, a rather delicate matter.

“My friend Vikram Adwani cooks this food. Perhaps you’d like to come to dinner. You could bring your boyfriend if you like . . .”

“Oh, well, I’d love to come, but I don’t have a boyfriend. ”

“That will be fine. You should come by yourself. I will follow up with some possible dates.”

Walking home, Emma-Jean imagined what she might wear to the Adwani/Wright nuptials. Perhaps she would wear a sari.

Chapter 14

The following Tuesday, Colleen Pomerantz was changing for gym class in the girls’ locker room. As usual, she stalled until the other girls were in the gym. Colleen had the worst cellulite in America and didn’t like changing in front of people. She had folded her clothes and put them in her locker when she heard footsteps. She grabbed her gym shorts, but before she could put them on Laura Gilroy appeared. She stood between the rows of lockers, cornering Colleen like a chipmunk. A chipmunk with cellulite.

“Well, hi,” Laura said, folding her arms across her chest and leaning her shoulder against a locker.

“Hi, Laura,” Colleen said. Somehow she put on her gym shorts, which wasn’t easy because her legs were shaking.

“Nervous?”

Colleen closed her eyes and shook her head.

In nightmares, sometimes Colleen would close her eyes and think really hard,
This is just a nightmare,
and when she opened her eyes the killer lunatic maniac with the bloody axe would go
poof
and Colleen would be back in her happy pink room with her flowered rug and Hello Kitty clock ticking softly. But now when she opened her eyes, Laura Gilroy was still standing there staring at her. Colleen would rather have the maniac. At least he’d kill her quickly, chop her head right off. Laura would definitely torture her first.

“I know exactly what’s going on,” Laura said in a scary cool voice. “I know you asked Emma-Jean Lazarus to write that letter because you were so peeved about me going skiing with Kaitlin. I figured it out, because I’m not an IDIOT. So you might as well admit it to me now, because you are both going to be in huge trouble. You might even get expelled.”

How did she know for sure? Did Emma-Jean tell?

No, that was impossible.

Colleen opened her mouth but couldn’t talk because her tongue was stuck and she couldn’t look away from Laura because her eyeballs were cemented in place. She was a rock. It was like in that Greek myth Ms. Wright read to them, where that lady with live snakes for hair—Madonna? No, Medusa!—she would look at you and if you looked at her in the eyes, she was so horrible and evil, you would turn to stone.

Laura was like Medusa! She had turned Colleen into a statue!

“I knew it had to be you,” Laura/Medusa hissed. “You’re so lame, Colleen, to stoop so low, with Emma-Jean Lazarus.”

There was a knock on the locker room door.

“Hello? Hello?”

Mr. Johannsen.

"Anyone in here? I hear there’s a toilet on the fritz!”

Colleen sprang to her feet, freed by the sound of the nice custodian’s voice.

“You’re so lucky,” Laura murmured, heading toward the exit. She threw her shoulder against the door and stepped out.

“Careful there, young lady!” Mr. Johannsen said, but too late. Laura tripped over the edge of his bucket, and brown soapy water sloshed onto the floor, soaking one of Laura’s spanking-new sneakers.

“Why don’t you watch where you put that thing!” she cried, bending down to inspect her foot.

“You all right there, missy?” he said. “I’ve got some paper towels right here.”

“My shoe is totally RUINED!” said Laura, fluttering her eyes. “You should pay for this!”

“Sorry, Mr. Johannsen,” Colleen whispered, scurrying away from Laura.

She had escaped, for now.

But there would be a next time, and Colleen knew she wouldn’t be so lucky.

Chapter 15

The night before their dinner with Ms. Wright, Vikram and Emma-Jean sat at the kitchen table discussing Vikram’s menu ideas. Emma-Jean had not informed Vikram that the guest was very likely to become his wife. He simply knew that their guest was a teacher Emma-Jean admired, and that a festive meal was called for. He was describing to Emma-Jean one of his mother’s signature dishes, a stuffed bread called puran-poli, when his phone rang.

Emma-Jean assumed it was one of his students, who often called in the evenings with questions about office hours and assignments. But then Vikram began speaking very quickly in Hindi. Emma-Jean had to wait until he had hung up the phone to learn that the caller had been his sister, Shefali.

“My mother is very ill,” Vikram explained. His voice sounded different, as though he had burned his throat on very hot tea. “She has experienced a heart attack. She is now in the hospital, in intensive care. I must fly to Mumbai immediately.”

A frenzy of activity swept the household. Emma-Jean’s mother got on the phone to make Vikram’s plane reservations and Vikram packed. Emma-Jean joined him in his room. As Vikram tossed clothes onto the bed, Emma-Jean folded them neatly and put them into his worn red leather suitcase. She carefully sealed his toothpaste and shampoo into Ziploc bags and packed those as well.

“Thank you for helping me,” he said.

“How long will you be gone?” Emma-Jean said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I cannot think clearly right now. I have been seized by a painfully irrational thought.”

“What is that?”

“That I broke my mother’s heart.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I broke her heart by leaving India and coming here. By not marrying.”

“You told us your mother urged you to come here. You said it was her dream that you become a professor at a great university.”

“That is true,” he said. “I told you I am not thinking clearly. Right now I think my own heart is breaking at the thought of my mother suffering.”

“Your mother has a very strong heart,” Emma-Jean said.

“How do you know?” Vikram said. “You have not met her.”

“It is obvious. Because only a woman with a good heart could have raised a person of your excellent character.”

Vikram looked at Emma-Jean and nodded, and then quickly looked down at his suitcase. “Thank you, Emma-Jean,” he said softly.

Emma-Jean’s mother said that of course she and Emma-Jean would take him to the airport to catch his midnight flight. Emma-Jean felt uneasy about Vikram being by himself during this crisis, away from her and her mother. What if he became distressed during the flight? What would he do for comfort?

Emma-Jean rushed up to her room and took her father’s quilt off her bed. She held the soft cotton up to her face, breathing in its deeply familiar smell. She hesitated for only a moment before folding it up into a neat rectangle and rushing it down the stairs. She tucked it into the Pittsburgh Steelers duffel that Vikram had packed to carry onto the plane, satisfied that it would bring him as much comfort as it had brought her during those long and difficult nights over two years ago.

It took them under an hour to get to the airport. They found the Air India terminal, and Emma-Jean’s mother pulled up next to the curb. She and Emma-Jean got out and stood with Vikram as he checked his pockets for his passport and travel documents. Through the window, Emma-Jean could see many people lined up at the ticket window. Many of the women were dressed in orange and red and yellow, which brightened the grim and dark night.

“I wish you the best, my friend,” said Vikram to Emma-Jean. “I will call as soon as I can.”

He turned and looked at Emma-Jean’s mother.

“I’ll miss our talks.”

“I will too,” her mother said. “We will be thinking of you all the time.” She leaned over and hugged Vikram, who wrapped his arms tightly around her mother’s narrow shoulders. It was some time before they stepped away from each other.

Emma-Jean stared at her mother and then at Vikram. Suddenly, in a burst of light, Emma-Jean saw a possible future. It was as though, for an instant, the night had turned itself inside out to reveal new and unsettling possibilities.

Emma-Jean and her mother stood close together on the curb as Vikram walked through the automatic doors and was swallowed by the brightly colored crowd. They shivered in their parkas, but neither moved until a bus pulled up and the driver shouted for Emma-Jean’s mother to move the car.

After they got home, Emma-Jean’s mother kissed Emma-Jean good night and went up to bed. Emma-Jean went to the kitchen and looked up Ms. Wright’s phone number in the William Gladstone Middle School Directory. She left a message informing Ms. Wright of an unforeseen crisis in Vikram’s family, and that the dinner would have to be postponed indefinitely.

She hung up the phone and stood for several minutes in front of the picture of her father on the refrigerator. The kitchen held the lingering aroma of curry and garlic, which made Emma-Jean miss Vikram even more. However, she told herself that it was best that her friend had gone.

There could be only one love of Emma-Jean’s mother’s life, and that was Eugene Lazarus.

Chapter 16

Emma-Jean was about to leave the William Gladstone building on Friday afternoon when Will Keeler stopped her at the door.

“Hey,” he said softly, his bright eyes darting up and down the hallway. The buses had departed but students were still in the building for extra help and chorus practice. Will motioned for Emma-Jean to follow him, and led her upstairs to the foreign language wing, which was deserted.

“So, uh, did you do something?” he said.

“What do you mean precisely?” Emma-Jean said.

"I mean, did you do something to get Petrowski to leave me alone?”

“I did take some action designed to help you with your problem.”

Will Keeler’s smooth, angular face broke into a smile.

“Nancy freakin’ Drew.”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a crumpled slip of paper. “Petrowski gave out the third-quarter grades today.”

“I know,” Emma-Jean said. Her average was, as usual, 100 percent.

He pushed the paper into her hands.

“Look at this! Eighty-one! He didn’t take the points off! I got my B minus! B minus, baby!”

Will Keeler pumped his fist in the air, a gesture of triumph.

“What did you do?” Will said. “I gotta hear this.”

“I prefer not to discuss the details and am pleased you are satisfied with the outcome.”

“Hey, I’m pleased. I’m gonna wet my pants, I’m so happy!”

Emma-Jean stepped back in alarm, but Will Keeler leaned close to her, so close that she could smell the coppery scent of his skin.

“Listen, Emma-Jean. I owe you one. Big time.”

“You owe me nothing.”

Only an unscrupulous person would accept payment for solving a problem.

Will Keeler put his hand on Emma-Jean’s head and ruffled her hair.

“You’re really okay, Emma-Jean. I mean, you’re a good kid.”

After Will had gone, Emma-Jean took a walk through the William Gladstone parking lot. She knew where all the teachers customarily parked. She stopped in front of Mr. Petrowski’s parking space and noted with satisfaction the brand-new cherry red Cadillac Escalade. Emma-Jean shook her head. People really weren’t so complex after all.

As she walked home, Emma-Jean had the feeling that Will Keeler’s hand was still resting on her head. It was a most pleasant sensation.

Chapter 17

Emma-Jean and Henri were enjoying a quiet afternoon in Emma-Jean’s room when the doorbell startled them both.

Emma-Jean left Henri in her room and went to investigate. She opened the door and saw perhaps the very last person she would expect to see on her porch: Laura Gilroy.

“Hi,” Laura said. “I was in the neighborhood. Mind if I come in?”

“Yes,” Emma-Jean said. “I am not permitted to have visitors while my mother is at work.”