Lullaby for the Rain Girl (3 page)

“So when Daisy goes back to Gatsby’s house,” I said, looking out at the thirty or so mostly dark faces, “Gatsby starts showing her all his shirts. Why do you think he does that?”

“He wants to show her what a big success he is,” my star pupil, a somewhat brittle girl named Annie, volunteered. Annie was smart, but knew it too well for her own good.

“Sure,” I agreed, wandering in the front of the room with the book in my hand, “but why
shirts?
I mean, if you’re trying to prove to someone you love what a successful person you are, are you going to show them your
shirts?”

“If they’re nice shirts, hell yeah,” said Dion, a moderately bright boy given to smart-ass responses. There was a general chuckling, which I joined.

“Dion, Gatsby has a
mansion.
He’s incredibly wealthy. There must be a million things he could show her that would impress her more than shirts.”

“Well, it got her into his bedroom, didn’t it?”

Another chuckle. The kids at the rear were paying no attention, but then they never did. I hated the fact that I invariably found myself teaching only to the front of the room—nine or ten students—and I occasionally made at least token efforts to include the twenty or so farther back; but anyone there who actually wanted to be a part of the class quickly learned to sit near the front anyway. It was a Faustian bargain: in return for being left alone, the kids in the back half of the room kept the noise down, falling completely silent and pretending to be attentive if another teacher or an administrator happened to walk in. In return for that, I let them be. As a result they learned nothing; and as a teacher, day in and day out, I failed. What was interesting to me, and very sad, was that I’d never talked to the kids about this arrangement. It was understood, that’s all.

The fact that many other teachers did similar things was only a slight comfort. I still felt sick inside when I thought about it too much; but not nearly as sick as I’d felt ten years earlier, when I’d first taken this job and, in hopeless frustration at the crazy, off-the-wall behavior of many kids that made it impossible for anyone to learn anything, I’d first decided to perform a kind of triage and direct my attentions largely to the students in front, where the more attentive ones naturally gravitated anyway. I’d been appalled during my first visit to the school, when I’d observed other teachers doing this.
Not me
, I’d thought.
Never me
. 

As a couple of kids discussed Daisy’s tearful reaction to Gatsby’s shirts, my mind drifted. The sight of the girl in the rain yesterday came back to me. The vision of her and what must have been an optical illusion—the rain not touching her face or hair, not touching any of her, in fact—was vivid in my mind, yet I found it difficult to remember what the girl had actually looked like. I was left only with a general impression of big brown eyes and straight hair hanging down to her shoulders.
For some reason I couldn’t hold her image firmly in my mind. I recalled only the vague outline, not
her
.

BANG!

The sound of the ancient radiator in the back of the room kicking in jolted me into reality again. This always happened in cold weather—the radiator’s terrible, shotgun-like noise—yet it always made me jump. It obviously had just now, since several of the students giggled.

“Man, you’re touchy today,” Dion said.

“Sorry,” I said, refocusing on the room. “I swear I always think…” But then I realized I didn’t want to make a joke about guns going off, not with what had happened at Columbine so fresh in everyone’s minds. Our school had been blessedly free of such violence—so far. But last summer metal detectors had been installed at the main entrance, and an additional security guard now roamed the halls. It was all useless, of course—there were any number of ways for someone to get into the school that didn’t involve the front door. But it gave the office downtown some cover; they were, in fact,
doing something
about the violence in schools, even if what they were doing would obviously be ineffective. In the meantime the principal had taken it upon himself to try to solve the problem of unmonitored doors by padlocking a number of them, in clear violation of any possible safety code. I dreaded the moment we might have a real emergency—whether a shooter, a fire, anything that would cause a mass rush to the exits. Disaster awaited.

“So what does it reveal about Daisy that—”

BANG!

“—that she becomes so emotional when—”

BANG! BANG!

“—she sees—”

BANG!

The students laughed as I shook my head, holding up my hands in defeat. “Folks, the bell’s going to ring anyway. I give up. Did you all write down the reading for the weekend?” I gestured toward the blackboard, where the assignment was scrawled.

“How ’bout lettin’ us go early?” called one of the voices at the back.

“You know I can’t do that, Marcus. Anyway, the bell will ring any second.”

BANG!

“I think that’s it, man!” Marcus shouted.

More general laughter. I smiled, rolling with it. I knew I was finished, but I also knew that for a lesson on a cold, rainy Friday afternoon, things had gone reasonably well. I’d held the encroaching chaos at bay for one more period, one more day.

At last the bell sounded. Much talking and shuffling and moving toward the door. A couple of kids waved to me or wished me a nice weekend; I did the same, even as I felt my headache returning full force. The relative success of the lesson had gotten my mind off it for a while. Now, with the room emptying and quiet coming on, it was back, like putting on an old familiar hat that was always much too tight. With the headache came my first hunger pang of the afternoon for a cigarette.

Slipping on my coat and filling my briefcase with homework, I made my way downstairs, stopping in the main office to check my mailbox. The only thing in it was a powder-blue sheet on which was typed the agenda for Monday’s staff meeting. Halfway down the list I saw it—
Item: Theft of Chalk from Supply Office
. I chuckled and slipped the sheet back into the box, closing it and walking out.

The steps were slippery; what was falling from the sky was a kind of freezing drizzle. Kids were congregated around the doors and I had to push past them to get to the sidewalk. Making my way along N Street I considered stopping for something hot to drink but decided against it; better to keep moving through the cold slush. The sooner I was back at the apartment, the sooner I could…but I refused to allow myself to think of getting into bed and pulling the covers over me, as sorely pleasurable as that vision was. I had to stop it, I knew. It wasn’t healthy.

I thought of my cigarette again, still in the pocket of my coat where I’d dropped it yesterday. I realized suddenly that I never had smoked it. That gave me a slight sense of accomplishment, at least for a second or two.

I’d stopped at the curb at 22nd Street to let the traffic sizzle past when I realized that the girl from yesterday was standing next to me. She was dressed just as she’d been the day before; her face, which I saw in profile, was pensive. As the traffic cleared we both started across the street.

“Aren’t you cold?” I offered, finally.

“I’m okay.”

“That coat looks pretty thin. And you should wear a hat.”

“I don’t get cold that much.”

“I didn’t see you as I was leaving school.”

“I saw you.”

“Do you live over this way?”

“Do
you?”

“Sure I do,” I said. “I’m going home now.”

“A house?”

“No, just an apartment. Top floor. Off Dupont Circle.”

“Oh.” She seemed to think about it. “Do you have any kids?”

“No—well, I have a stepson. Only he’s not really a child anymore. He’s an adult now.”

“Your wife’s son?”

“Yes, my—well, she’s my ex-wife. Or will be. We’re divorcing.”

“Why?”

I frowned and felt the headache behind my eyes. This girl was certainly direct. Yet, honestly, I couldn’t find it in myself to think that she was being offensive. The way she looked at me was utterly flat, without any affect whatsoever. Guileless. She desired information, that’s all. She saw nothing wrong in asking for it.

We were passing by the Blockbuster video store I frequented. I’d thought of stopping in to rent a couple of movies, but somehow I didn’t want to break up my conversation with this girl. I didn’t know why. Anyway, we passed the store.

“Um—that’s hard to say. Really. We were married for eight years—well, we’re still married—I told you that—and, well, people who are married for a while…it gets complicated. I don’t think I can say it better than that.”

“I think marriages should be simple.”

I smiled. “I couldn’t agree more. But it never seems to work out that way.”

“Were you married before?”

“Before…? Oh. No. No, I wasn’t married before. She was my first wife. There were a couple of serious relationships back there, but no marriages before this one.”

“Why didn’t you marry the other ones?”

Good grief, I thought. But I wanted to answer the question.

“Well, one left me,” I said. “And one—died.”

“How did she die?”

I was surprised that it came out very naturally, with no hesitation at all. “She committed suicide.”

“Why?”

That, finally, made me stop. I stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, people passing us by on either side, looking down at her. Her eyes were very big. “You ask an awful lot of questions,” I said, more harshly than I’d intended. To soften it I added, “I don’t know why. It was many years ago. And far away from here.”

“Where?”

“Santa Barbara. In California. That’s where I’m from originally.”

“Oh.” She seemed to consider it. “How did you end up here?”

“My dad moved here. And my sister. Many years ago, around the time I went off to college. He worked in aerospace and his job transferred him to Washington. Eventually I came to visit them and just—I don’t know, decided I liked the area, I guess.” I tried to smile. “Is that enough of an explanation?”

She cocked her head. “Are you mad at me now?”

I studied her a moment longer, then sighed and started walking again. “No,” I said, “I’m not mad. I’m just wondering why you’re so curious about me.”

“I’m a very curious person.”

“Mm. Yes, you are. Very
curious,”
putting a “curious-strange” spin on the word.

“Ha ha.” But she did smile, just a little.

“Do you live near here?”

“Me?” She seemed surprised by the question. “No. I don’t live near here.”

“Where are you going, then?”

She shrugged. “Just around.”

“Well, don’t stay out too late. This drizzle is going to get worse, the weatherman says. Freezing rain. You know, ice on the streets. Dangerous.”

“Why did you write that book?” she asked suddenly. “I read it.”

I glanced at her, but was thrown off-balance conversationally for only an instant. I was getting used to talking to this girl. “What book? You mean
Leprechauns Can Be Murder
?”

“Yeah. That one.”

“Well, I wrote it to make money,” I admitted, feeling the slight embarrassment I always did when I thought of my one and only published novel.

“Did you make any?”

“Some. Did you like it?”

We were entering the nicest part of my walk home now: a pleasant neighborhood of old brownstones built in the early part of the century. It was an affluent area: beautiful wrought-iron gates, cobblestone front paths, ornate oak doors.

“I thought it was silly,” she said.

“Well, you’re certainly honest,” I said, a little annoyed despite myself.

She shrugged. “A mystery story about an old Irish widow who runs a tea shop, owns a parrot that says nothing but bad words, and solves murders on the side?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be great literature.”

“What was it supposed to be?”

I sighed. “Fun.”

She glanced up at me. “I just think you can do better, that’s all. Did you ever write any more books about that lady?”

“No.” The publishers had wanted me to. The novel had done well, as paperback originals by first-time mystery novelists go. But even before I’d finished the manuscript I’d grown to loathe Abigail McGillicuddy (kind of a combination of Angela Lansbury and Lucille Ball, with an Irish brogue thrown in) and her goddamn parrot, Clyde. My idea had been to support my writing—my serious writing, my
real
writing—by creating a salable series of novels in a commercial genre. Or really two genres, as I planned to add a hint—only a hint, open to interpretation—of fantasy to each tale (hence the leprechaun of the title). I’d pounded out the wretched thing in a mood of utterly cynical rage, sailing from initial idea to the words “The End” in six days flat.

On the seventh day, naturally, I rested.