SK01 - Waist Deep (8 page)

Mrs. Byrnes stared at me, a curious smile playing on her lips.
“Haven’t thought about high school in a while, have you?”

“No,” I answered truthfully.
Hardly ever, until Matt Sinderling came along. I cleared my throat.
“What do you teach, Mrs. Byrnes?”

“
Marie
,” she said.
“Please.
And I teach Spanish.
All four years of it.
And I am one of the
drama
advisers, as well.”

And drama is where her passion lies,
I realized in a flash.
I had a brief vision of
Marie
Byrnes thirty years ago.
Her hair was a deeper black then, I was sure, and had none of the gray streaks in it today.
I imagined her expectant eyes looking for a challenge, her teaching certificate in hand and the theater beckoning.
Or had she tried her hand at acting first, and slipped into teaching because she hadn’t made the grade?
I wasn’t sure.

“Are you close to Kris?” I asked.

She shook her head sadly.
“No, not really.
She’s in my Spanish class and received good marks, but she could have done much, much better.
This absence will be difficult for her to overcome.”

“Is she outgoing?”

Marie
Byrnes gave me a look that was part
conspiratorial, part
jesting and then said, “Outgoing?
I suppose.
Outwardly so, at least.
But I don’t think many people really became too close with Kris.”

“Why not?”

“Have you ever met her, Stef?”

I shook my head.

“Well,” she said, “I think she is very much
apart
.”

“Apart?
You mean different?”

“Yes and no.
She has a different quality, a sense of overwhelming beauty, I think.
But there is also a distance that she exudes.
A distance in age and station.”

I thought of the glamour picture that Matt had given me and I knew what she meant.

“She is already an adult,”
Marie
said, “even though she is only a
junior
.
Too adult for her classmates, even the
seniors
, including the boys who try to date her.
And…”

“And what?”

Marie
Byrnes smiled again.
“She doesn’t really have a whole lot of time for us adults, either.
That’s where the difference in station came in, I believe.”

“She told her
dad
she was going to be a star.”

Marie
nodded.
“In some ways, she probably thinks she already is.”

“Is she?”

Another nod.
“In this very small pond, yes.”

I paused, thinking about what she’d told me.
Kris was every bit of what I had thought she’d be.
Perhaps even more than I thought.

Marie
Byrnes watched me and drank her tea.

Finally, I asked, “What about
drama
?”

She nodded.
“I believe Kris is taking
drama
this year.”

“I thought you taught it.”

She shook her head slowly.
“No, here in District 17,
drama
is not a class.
It’s an extra-curricular activity, just like athletics.
In fact, our students are even able to letter in
drama
.”

“But I thought you said you were the coach.”

“I am.
As is Mr. LeMond.
We alternate years and this is his year.”

I heard the distaste in her voice and noted that she did not use LeMond’s first name.

“You don’t like him, do you?
Or the arrangement of alternating years?”

She shrugged.
“I would prefer to coach every year, if that’s what you mean.”

“But it’s more than that,” I said.
“I can tell.
You don’t like him.”

She glanced down at her cup of tea.
“Perhaps I’ve said too much.
Aside from teaching in the classroom, I don’t have many conversations anymore.
I suppose I’m becoming exactly what the students think all of us are.
Teach and go home.”
She looked up.
“And I
don’t
know you.”

“
Sure you do
,” I told her.
“
I’m Stefan Kopriva
.”

Marie
smile
d again, but this one had less
warmth.
“Stefan.
That’s not a very common first name.
And that last name.
Is it Polish?”

“Czech.”

She nodded her understanding.
“Of course.
These days we get every variation of common names.
Daniel somehow spawns a Y
, Christopher
comes with a K
, that sort of thing.
And then there are some names which are just plain made up and not very original at all.”
She shook
her head.
“It seems sad to just throw away tradition so glibly, doesn’t it?”

“Not a very liberal sentiment,” I observed, watching her.

Warmth touched her smile again.
“
Touché
,” she whispered.

15

Bill wasn’t very happy about being banished to the hallway during my conversation with
Marie
Byrnes and his cold silence let me know it.
I said just two words to him—“Mr. LeMond”—and he grunted and led me to the teacher’s offices.

From my time on the job, I didn’t remember District 17 security officers being such assholes.
In fact, most of them had limited commissions and worked hand-in-hand with the police department.
But that had been ten years or so ago.
There was a different Chief of Police now.
And who knows how many administrators the school district had gone through.
And maybe Bill was an anomaly.
It could be that he was the only one who looked like a post-retirement brown shirt with a belly.

The analogy made me grin slightly.
I half-expected Bill to chastise me for daring to show a smile in his presence, but he still wasn’t talking to me.

He wasn’t taking any chances on being dismissed again, either.
When we reached a door that opened into a short hallway, he merely pointed and held up three fingers.
I walked in and he remained in the hallway.

The third office belonged to Mr. Gary LeMond, according to the placard outside the door.
Behind a cluttered desk, a man in his late thirties leaned back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head and his eyes closed.

I took the opportunity to study him.
He was slender, though not the kind of slender a runner or a swimmer tends to be.
More like the kind of slender that is simply a gift from God—blessed to never be fat, but denied every attempt to develop some muscle anywhere.
His sandy brown hair seemed too long for a
high school
teacher
in such a conservative town
.
He hadn’t shaved, as there was intermittent stubble on his cheeks and chin.
His mustache cut sharply downward over his lips and along the sides of his mouth.
Another half-inch on both sides and it would fall into the category of porn mustache.

His face was relaxed, but I didn’t think he was asleep.
He wore a pair of black Dockers and a gray sweater with a severe design on it.
A pair of John Lennon glasses sat on the desk in front of him.

I knocked on the threshold and his eyes popped open.
“Yes?”

“Mr. LeMond?”

“Yes.”

“I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute.”

“Sure,” he said with a deep breath.
“Sorry about that.
Just envisioning some blocking for the play we’re producing.”

I stuck out my hand.
“Stefan Kopriva.”

“Gary LeMond,” he said and took it.
His handshake was negligible,
all touch and no grip
.
“Sit down.”

I took a seat next to his desk.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, his hands clasped behind his head again.

“I’m trying to locate Kris Sinderling for her father,” I said.

There was an uncomfortable flicker in his eyes, then it was gone.
He rotated slightly left and right in his seat and watched me.

“You’re not the police,” he finally said.

“No,” I told him.
“I’m just looking into this for her father.”

He nodded and continued to
rotate
left and then right.
“Well, anything I can do to help, you got it.”

“Thanks.”

“Kris is a special kid.
I hope she’s okay.”

“Special how?”

LeMond smiled then.
“Come on.
Have you ever met her?”

I shook my head.

“Seen a picture?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you know.”

I shrugged.

LeMond’s smile darkened.
“Okay, go ahead and play dumb, Mr…
what was it
?”

“Kopriva.”

“Okay, Mr. Kopriva.
Are you really going to sit there and tell me that you don’t see Kris’s special qualities, even in a photograph?”

“I suppose.”

“You suppose?”
His dark smile deepened.
“Well, let me tell you this—if all you saw was a picture, you have no idea what kind of magnetism that young woman has.
She commands the attention of a crowd, draws them to the edge of
their
seat
s
and leaves them haunted afterward.”

“Powerful words.”

He shrugged.
“True words.”

“Still,” I said.
“Pretty powerful description for a
sixteen
-
year
-
old girl.”

“Art has no age,” LeMond said.
“And she is beyond her years, anyway.”

“You seem quite taken with her.”

LeMond’s eyes snapped to me.
“Be careful, Mr. Kopriva.”
He waggled his hand, indicating the adjoining offices.
“Teachers are the worst gossips known to man.”

“I’m just saying—“

“And I’m just saying, be careful.
That’s how rumors start and become fact, as far as anyone cares to look, anyway.”

I didn’t answer, but the small hairs on the back of my neck bristled on end.

“I am a teacher,” LeMond said after a moment.
“And an artist.
My art is the theater.
That is the context I was speaking in.”

“Kris was in your class, then?”

“In my English class and she was involved in
drama
after school.”

“Did you work closely with her?”

LeMond nodded.
“I did.
I was trying to produce a one-act play that I wrote.
She was going to star in it.”

“Before she ran away?”

“No,” he said.
“Before Principal Jenkins became involved.”

“What does that mean?”

LeMond sighed.
“What type of work do you do, Mr. Kopriva?”

“None,” I said.
“I’m retired
.”

He raised an eyebrow questioningly, but when I didn’t offer any further explanation, he shrugged it away.
“Well, you are awar
e of the term ‘office politics,’
are you not?”

“Of course.”

“Well, that is what I’m referring to.
School politics.”

“I still don’t understand what—“

“Essentially,” LeMond said, “
Marie
Byrnes carped at Jenkins long enough and hard enough that he probably got tired of listening, so he came down here to my office and told me that we would
not
be producing my play.
We would produce a play that had more parts instead of just the one.
He said it was so that more students could participate in acting roles.”
He gave a disgusted snort.
“As if there wasn’t enough lighting and set and costume design to keep everyone busy.”

“So he cancelled your play?”

“Exactly.
Even though it is my year to produce and direct and with that comes the privilege of selecting the work to be produced.”

“How’d Kris take that?”

LeMond shrugged.
“I didn’t notice.”

You didn’t notice? I thought with surprise, but then I realized that he had probably been too intent on how the decision affected him to notice the fallout it caused with anyone else.

“I suppose it must have upset her,” he offered.
“She quit
drama
shortly after the cancellation.”

“Before that happened, had she seemed upset about anything?”

“No.”

“Mention any problems?”

He shook his head.

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

LeMond’s eyebrows raised in surprise, then he smiled and shook his head.
“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Girls like Kris spend most of their time brushing aside clumsy attempts to court them by high school boys.”

“How about college boys?”

He shrugged.
“I doubt it.
At least nothing steady.”

“Again, why not?”

“She spent a lot of time rehearsing,” LeMond said.
“I don’t think there was a lot of time for dating.
Not for her.”

“Do you have any idea why she might’ve run away from home?”

“You mean
do I think there were problems at home, don’t you?”

I half-shrugged, half-nodded.

LeMond considered.
“I don’t think so,” he said finally.
“I got the impression that both her mother and father were rather simple people, but not cruel.
I just don’t think they understood her.”

“Understood what?”

“What you saw in that picture of her,” LeMond said.
“What I saw her do on the stage.
What every boy and every girl in this school saw.”

“Which is?”

But LeMond only smiled at me and shook his head.
“I don’t know where she’d go, Mr. Kopriva, though I very much doubt she’d go to the homes of those girls she called friends.
I don’t even know if she’d stay in River City, which after all, is a very small place in this world.”

And the world is an ugly place, I thought, remembering
Marie
Byrnes’s words.

“I hope she comes back soon,” LeMond said, “And safely.
She is missed.”