I Knew You'd Be Lovely (7 page)

“I guess that explains why that one never called again,” she said. She found her gaze shifting to Mr. Hennessey's hands. There was no wedding band; there was no evidence of children's things around the house.

“How about you?” she said. “Dating any chemists?”

“No.”

“Did you ever marry?”

Mr. Hennessey put down his cup of tea. “No.”

“Why not?”

He looked at her. He'd always encouraged his students to be candid and direct, and his expression implied he was pleased that someone had finally taken him up on it.

“Just not for me, I suppose.”

“I know what you mean,” Ginny said. “I feel that way about eggplant.”

Mr. Hennessey clicked his tongue. “Now that's a pity. That means you won't be able to sample my beer-battered fried eggplant extraordinaire.”

“I hope you're kidding,” Ginny said. “Wow, you're
serious? How about just a beer, minus the eggplant extraordinaire.”

Mr. Hennessey rose to his feet. “All right, Virginia,” he said. “But it's your loss.”

Two beers later, she was feeling much more relaxed. Mr. Hennessey had put on a Tom Waits CD, and Ginny thought he had the saddest yet most hopeful voice she'd ever heard.

“Mr. Hennessey, would you mind if I asked you a question?”

“On one condition: You have to stop calling me Mr. Hennessey. You make me feel as if it's still 1987. We need to bring ourselves up to date.”

Ginny offered her hand. “Deal,” she said. She took a breath. “Arthur, do you think the good things human beings have done outweigh the hideous things?”

Mr. Hennessey nearly spilled his beer. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“The kind my kids ask. That's from Julia, who's an ace, but so shy. She writes these ingenious paragraphs about the overlooked dross of the world, but never makes a peep in class. Then the other day she finally spoke up, and I let her down. I couldn't help her,” Ginny said. “It was awful.”

“I'll tell you what I think: It only takes one moment of perfection to atone for a lifetime of waste.”

Ginny sat up as if he'd slapped her. “Perfection? I beg your pardon? Aren't you the man whose blackboard
perennially read:
Strive for perfection, but learn to work with imperfection?
You taught us perfection was a chimera. I thought it was a fiction.”

“So did I,” he said. “But I was wrong. Perfection isn't outside us. Perfection is a way of seeing.”

Ginny fell silent.
You were less cryptic before you became enlightened
, she wanted to say, but the lines on his face appeared freshly earnest, as if each were the receipt for some suffering, and she changed her mind. Mr. Hennessey split the caps off two fresh bottles and handed her one. She thought about declining, not certain what it would mean in terms of her drive home, but she accepted, and clinked her bottle to his.

“To perfection,” she said.

“To 1987,” said Mr. Hennessey.

While Mr. Hennessey was in the bathroom, Ginny realized she was drunk. It felt good; it felt as if she'd needed to get drunk for a long time.

“Personally, I think the whole endeavor is overrated,” she said as he reclaimed his place beside her.

“Which endeavor is that?”

“Life. The pursuit of happiness. Love.”

“Is that so.”

“That is definitely so. I swear by it. My kids, for example. My class. They're so suspicious and disengaged. I think they sense something insincere in me, and they hate it. They hate my class.”

“
Is
there something insincere in you?”

“No. Well, yes. I mean, teaching. I'm not sure I want to be a teacher anymore.”

The words hung in the air; Mr. Hennessey didn't seem to have a response. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to burden you with all this stuff. I just thought you might have some advice.”

He leaned back against the couch. “Tell me,” he said. “What do you think will become of Julia?” She didn't blame him for changing the subject; she hadn't meant to dump her life in his lap.

“I don't know. She's so sensitive, I worry. I think either she'll have to toughen up, or the world will toughen her up.” Ginny had noticed that people didn't seem to value sensitivity much. “Don't be so sensitive!” they'd shout—not the most delicate way to handle a finely attuned person—as if sensitivity were voluntary.

He smiled. “Or not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe she'll find a way to capitalize on her sensitivity.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why's that?”

“I just do.” Ginny thought about the way Julia's hands shook when it was her turn to read aloud, how the skin on her arms turned to gooseflesh whenever she read a sentence that was especially moving.

“You don't think it could ever be an asset—perhaps her greatest asset?”

“No.” Ginny laughed. “I don't.”

Mr. Hennessey gave her a funny look.
Interesting
, his
expression said. “Would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”

“That'd be only fair.”

“What was your poem? When I had the students memorize their favorite poem and recite it.”

“Oh, God, I don't remember. That was so long ago. I couldn't begin to remember.”

He smiled an enigmatic smile she didn't appreciate. He was sitting only a foot away, and she found herself partly wanting to scoot over next to him and partly wanting to reach for her purse and flee.

He leaned forward and set his bottle down on the table. “Well, I'd say if you truly don't enjoy teaching, you should leave. But if you do enjoy it, you should stay. Personally, I can't picture you as anything other than an excellent teacher.”

“But—I'm not like you. I'm not the way you were.”

“You're like yourself,” he said. “Even better.”

“You don't know me,” she said, becoming annoyed, wishing she hadn't accepted that last beer. Or was it that she felt as if she were only seventeen again? Her father had taken her aside that year, told her he was worried about her, that she was like a turtle without a shell. “You don't know me,” she said again. “I toughened up. I grew a shell. I'm not—”

He put his hand against her back but, oddly, she felt it in her stomach. “Your shell is papier-mâché,” he said. “You are a piñata.”

She looked into his face. It was still so handsome.
You were my favorite teacher
, she wanted to say, but she
was too embarrassed, too afraid she would sound like a schoolgirl with a crush.
You were everybody's favorite
.

He held her eyes. “And I'm no good at being in love, either,” she said abruptly, shifting away from him. She sometimes had a talent for dispelling awkward moments by making them even more awkward. “I don't like the idea of giving yourself up, of surrendering. Why does it have to be like that? Who invented this system, anyway?”

Mr. Hennessey appeared stunned, and she wondered if she'd scared him.

“Did you put truth serum in my drink?” she said, hoping to recover a little. But he had grown pensive. For the first time, she recognized the expression she knew from the classroom.

“I don't know that you necessarily have to give yourself up,” he said. “Maybe your self just becomes larger.”

“Spoken like a lifelong bachelor,” she said, but when she saw his face, she regretted it.

“I was engaged once,” he said, turning to the window. Outside, the sun was setting, and the western sky was the colors of a bruise: purple and yellow, fading to gray. “She was curious about everything. And what a heart.” As he spoke, the room seemed quiet in a way it hadn't before. Ginny sat perfectly still.

“Her name was Isabel,” he said. “When she left, it took something from me. Changed me. I almost feel as if I've been in hibernation. For a while, I suppose I was waiting for her to come back. But at a certain point, I imagine one's supposed to give up.” His face had a vulnerability
she'd never seen in it when he was her teacher. “I guess I just never knew when to give up.”

He seemed about to say more, but then he stopped. He pressed his lips together.
If I see this man cry
, Ginny thought,
it will break me. If I see him cry, I will break in two
. But instead of attempting to say more, he just smiled—a broad, apologetic smile—as if he were laughing at his own predicament, at how funny it was to have been through such heartache.

“That was five or six years ago now,” he said, sitting up. “The interesting thing is, I stayed friends with her father. He lived right up the road. I used to go over and help him out with repair-type stuff around the house, things he was too weak to do himself. Sometimes we'd just sit and talk. But we never mentioned Isabel. One day, one of the last times I saw him before he died, he looked at me and said: ‘Arthur, God answered all my prayers. All my prayers in life—except for one.' I knew he was trying to help me.”

Ginny didn't know what to say. She wanted to help him, too, but she didn't know how. She felt terrible then, terrible that she was considering leaving teaching, terrible that she was such a failure.

“I'm sorry if I let you down,” she said softly.

Mr. Hennessey shook his head. “You didn't let me down. You could never let me down.” He lifted her chin. “You were my Julia,” he said. “You were my quiet ace.”

Ginny closed her eyes. “ ‘Suddenly I realize that if I stepped out of my body I would break into blossom,' ” she said, and kept her eyes shut, afraid to open them, afraid of everything.

“James Wright's ‘A Blessing.' Of course. That would be the perfect poem for you,” he said. Then he leaned in and kissed her, respectful and slow at first, then in a way that let her feel his hunger. She kissed him back, raising her hand to his neck. The simple act of touching him with tenderness made the hair on her arms stand up.

When they stopped kissing, he pulled her into a hug, both arms locking her against his body, tight. Then they both started to laugh—real, deep laughter—and the more they laughed, the more they wanted to laugh. It was as if they had just heard the funniest joke in the world. It was as if they
were
the funniest joke in the world. When they stopped laughing, Ginny felt as if she might start to cry again. She stared at the vertical row of buttons on his shirt.

“I can't remember what I used to think was beautiful,” she said.

“You're beautiful,” he whispered. “You just might be the most beautiful thing.”

“You're drunk,” Ginny laughed. “And insane. Both.” But her giddiness quickly evaporated. She didn't want to hurt him, not Mr. Hennessey, not this great, invisible love of her life.

“I should get going,” she said, releasing him and glancing at her watch.

“I'm not sure you're medically fit to drive,” he said. “Besides, I was just about to offer you the guest room, and suggest we make pancakes tomorrow morning, then lounge around all day reading books.”

“Reading books, eh?”

“Or engaging in stimulating activity of one fashion or another.”

Ginny smiled. “I told you, I'm no good at the love thing.”

“I'm willing to wager you're better than you think. And who said anything about love? I said pancakes.”

She stalled for a moment. She knew she should leave. She knew her pattern, her tendency to leave a broken heart in her wake when she returned to her solitary ways.

“Arthur—”

“Stay.”

She reached for her purse. “I can't. I'm sorry. I really have to go.” She started for the door.

He took her arm. “Wait,” he said. He drew a breath. “I do miss it. I miss every damn thing about it. I should never have left. It was ego, pride. I'm envious of you,” he said. “I'm jealous.”

Ginny sat down, shocked. “What? That's insane. Why don't you go back, teach again somewhere? You could start fresh.”

He was shaking his head. “It's not that simple,” he said. “I've been away for so long. Sometimes you can miss something even when you know it's not for you anymore.”

“That's a load of bull. You were a fantastic teacher. You could get a job again in an instant. Heck, you can have my job. You just have to teach me how to carve tables.”

“Classes could be arranged,” he said, taking her hand.

She slipped her hand away. The clock on the wall read 8:35. The alcohol was wearing off, and she suddenly felt very tired.

“I really should leave,” she said.

“Fair enough,” he said, and they both stood up. Then he kissed her again, and it was as sweet as before. When she opened her eyes, his pupils were wide.

“Hold on—I'll be right back,” he said. “I think I still have something you'll get a huge kick out of.” Then he headed up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

While he was gone, Ginny scanned the room, her eyes lighting on the bookshelves, the stereo, the coffee table. For a moment, she took in the whole scene, herself included, as if viewing it from above. She laughed. She knew then that she would leave teaching; she could see how much it had been misplaced admiration for him all along. And she imagined with equal clarity the possibility that he would return to it. She could see the strands of their lives crisscrossing like two chromosomes.

Outside, the sun had fully set, and a few lights glimmered through the clouds. Somewhere in the darkness a dog barked, and she heard a screen door slam. Ginny took her purse, and without making a sound, went for the door. All of her instincts told her to vanish, to flee. All of her instincts, except for one. The next minute, she was climbing the stairs—very slowly, like a woman sleepwalking, incapable of imagining the dream that awaits her when she wakes up.