Somebody Else's Daughter (15 page)

But being her father's wife wasn't easy, even Willa knew that. He could be demanding. He could be distant. Her mother had figured out how to be a rich woman. She walked around in the most expensive clothes she could find with her shirt open too low so all the men on the farm could look into the deep crevice of her cleavage and see the lace trim on her bra—but it wasn't for all of
them.
She dressed like that for her husband, but he never seemed to notice.

Willa could remember reading the story of Thumbelina as a child, confused that such a delicate girl could marry an ugly mole, and it reminded her of her parents—her father, like the mole, was dark and hairy with large, brooding features, and he could be rude and unpleasant, especially on the telephone when he spoke to his people in California then complained afterward of their stupidity. Like the mole he had a preference for dark rooms, closing himself up in his paneled study, removed from fresh air and sunlight, smoking cigars incessantly, a proven method of keeping everyone out. It was all about money where her parents were concerned, and her father had tons of it. She didn't know where he'd gotten it all, but it was there— it was
everywhere.
And like poor Thumbelina, her mother had crawled into a hole, far away from everything she knew. Even Willa knew that you couldn't wash that kind of dirt off your feet once you'd trampled through it.

Down the road, a car was coming toward her. It was an old-fashioned car, a vintage convertible with the top down. The car was turquoise, with whitewalled tires. It looked familiar, and she thought it might be one of the cars in her dad's car club. She kept walking, the bright lights in her face. The car came up beside her and for a moment she thought it was her father, swiftly machinating an explanation for her whereabouts, but it wasn't. It was somebody else she recognized, Mr. Heath. “Hello, Willa.”

“Hello, sir.”

“What in God's name are you doing out here?”

“I'm walking home.”

“At this hour?”

She shrugged, unwilling to elaborate.

“Get in. I'll give you a ride.”

She hesitated for a moment, hoping that by now Teddy would appear, hurrying to catch up and apologize, but he didn't, and she couldn't help wondering if her Headmaster's fluke appearance was a cunning harbinger of the Angel's curse. Still, she was cold and scared and it was better than walking home. She got in and put on the seat belt, stretching the old-fashioned strap across her lap.

“Cool car.”

“It's not mine. I'm in a club—with your dad, in fact.”

“What is it?”

“A Thunderbird.”

“It's nice.”

“I'm kind of a car fanatic. It's always been an interest of mine. Believe it or not, I'm a pretty good mechanic.”

It occurred to her that Mr. Heath wasn't his usual tucked-in self. The tail of his Brooks Brothers' shirt was hanging out and there was a pack of cigarettes in the front pocket—she wasn't aware that he was a smoker and smoking was forbidden at Pioneer. A seedy corduroy blazer was jumbled up on the seat between them. His genial boyish charm seemed compromised tonight by the stubble on his cheeks, a sheepish glaze over his eyes. “Ever since I was a kid I've loved them,” he went on. “Cars, I mean. I was always good with things like that. Mechanical things.”

“Where did you grow up?” she asked him.

“Everywhere.” He looked over at her. “I'm an army brat.”

“That must have been hard,” she said, even though she would move the first chance she got. She would travel; she would live in Paris.

He grunted and shook his head. “As my father would say: Not hard enough.”

He smiled, but she saw that it was a sad smile, and it made her sorry for him.

“Let's see what this baby can do.” He shifted and stepped on the gas and they drove the dark empty roads. Willa was glad he was driving fast because with all the wind blowing around it was too loud to talk. She stared ahead at the road, her hair blowing wildly about her face. What Mr. Heath was doing driving around at this time of night eluded her. It seemed doubly strange that he hadn't asked her about Ada, who, at the moment, was stoned out of her mind in the Union Cemetery and by now was probably puking her guts out, which was not particularly unusual when it came to Ada, who threw up regularly for sport. The radio was tuned to the local jazz station, a raspy whisper through the speakers. It was Miles Davis, she realized. His tune “So What?”

Heath turned onto Hawthorne Road and sped up even more. He glanced at her and smiled and she couldn't help laughing, it was fun, it was terrific—and they passed all the landmarks she knew so well— the red cottage where Nathaniel Hawthorne had lived and the boys' summer camp on the lake, the little dark cabins along the shore, and the furry evergreens under the cotton-candy moon. They went over the bridge, where a lone man was fishing, then up Prospect Hill with its deep, narrow curves. Heath was driving well over the posted speed limit, looking more like a savvy race car driver than the headmaster of a school, and less than a mile from her house a cop pulled up behind them with his siren wailing.

Heath cursed under his breath and pulled over. Willa froze in her seat, her mouth dry. She couldn't help thinking about the little roach she'd stashed in her pocket. She hadn't wanted to take the joint when Monica had handed it to her, and she'd put it out and hidden it and everyone had forgotten about it. Worse, she noticed the neck of a gin bottle poking out from where he'd secured it between the seat and the gears column. Stealthily, he reached around for it and shoved it under the seat. Then he unrolled his shirtsleeves and buttoned them at the wrists. He swiftly retrieved a roll of Lifesavers from his pocket and put one in his mouth. By then the cop was there, his flashlight raised like a weapon.

“License and registration,” the cop said.

Opening the glove compartment, Mr. Heath touched her knee. “Was I going too fast?” With the cop watching, he flipped through the car's documents in search of the registration, then handed it to him. Willa's knee throbbed with heat where he'd rubbed it with his knuckles.

“I'll say,” the cop said, reading over the license. “Try seventy-five in a thirty-mile limit.”

“I didn't think this thing could go that fast.”

“Have you had any alcohol tonight, Mr. Heath?”

“Maybe a beer or two earlier with dinner,” Heath admitted. “But nothing since then.”

The cop studied Mr. Heath's face, then looked over at Willa.

“This is my daughter's friend,” Heath tried to explain. “I'm just taking her home up the road here.”

Willa nodded and tried to smile.

“A little late to be out on a school night, Mr. Heath,” the cop said, dissatisfied. “Why don't you step out of the car?”

“Is that really necessary, Officer?” Heath tossed a glance in her direction and the cop frowned.

“Step out of the car, Mr. Heath.”

Heath's face went peaked as he stepped onto the pavement. The cop led him away from the car, but Willa could still easily hear them. The cop made him walk along the thick white line bordering the road. Willa's heart thumped as she watched him. Tears prickled her eyes.
The poor man.
She was embarrassed, sitting there. She wished she could just get out and walk home, but that wasn't possible, not now with the cop there. Several minutes passed. Finally, Heath got back in the car, annoyed. “It'll just be another minute,” he told her. “He's writing a ticket.”

“Okay,” she said.

He rubbed his eyes. “I am so sorry about this.”

“It's okay. Really.”

They sat there in the screaming silence of the car. Heath had broken a sweat. She could see it gleaming on his forehead in the moonlight. “I feel just awful about it.”

She didn't know what to say to him. “Don't worry. It's fine.” She turned around and saw that the cop was talking on his radio.

“Adults make mistakes too,” he said stupidly.

She nodded.

“God knows I've made plenty.” He checked the rearview mirror to see what the cop was doing, then sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “It's not easy these days,” he said.

“What?”

“It's hard to know.”

She didn't really know what he meant, but she said, “It must be.”

“Too many choices, that's the problem. Sometimes you get to a point, you know?”

She looked at his face. His eyes seemed distant. “What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “You wake up one day and nothing's the same. It's like you're in the wrong life or something. I don't know how to explain it.”

“You mean like you're an imposter?” she asked.

“Something like that.” Again, he cracked a smile. “You're like a mime in a glass box, you can't get out, you're trapped. And nobody but you can see the walls. I know it sounds weird.”

“No, it doesn't.”

“I'm not making any sense tonight.”

“It's not good to feel trapped,” she said.

“No, it's not. And I don't. Not really. Not any more than you probably do.”

Now that she thought about it, she
did
feel trapped.

“We probably shouldn't be having this conversation,” he said.

“It's all right.”

“Sometimes things happen,” he said. “Change comes into your life like a meteor.”

“Totally out of the blue,” she said.

“Exactly. And suddenly you don't see things in the same way as you did before.”

“I get it.” She wanted to ask him what sort of change he was talking about, but by then the cop was walking back toward the car with the ticket. Heath sat up a little taller in his seat. The cop handed him back his license and the ticket. “You can go to traffic court to reduce that fee,” he told him.

Heath nodded; he looked annoyed.

The cop slapped the side of the car. “Good night, now.”

“Good night, Officer.”

Heath stuck the ticket in the visor and pulled back onto the road, slowly. The cop pulled out behind them, following from a distance. They went along in silence. She could tell Mr. Heath was nervous, his eyes darting up to the rearview mirror. Finally, with no shortage of relief, they came to her driveway and he turned into it. The cop roared past.

As they climbed up the hill, Heath said, “This is somewhat awkward for me, Willa, but if it's all right with you, I'd like to keep this little incident a secret. Can we do that?”

She nodded that it was.

“Thank you.” He glanced at her. “Are you sure you're all right?”

“I'm fine. Really.”

They didn't talk the rest of the way. She sat there, at once rigid and exhilarated, her hands clasped in her lap. At the top of the hill, Heath turned into the circular driveway. The house was enormous, a fortress. All the lights were on, making it look warm and inviting, which it wasn't. The grandeur of the house embarrassed her.

“Say hello to your parents for me.”

“I will.”

As she was getting out, he grabbed her hand, startling her. “We have our secret, now, remember?”

She nodded and he let her go and she started for the door, thinking:
left, left, left my wife with forty-eight kids,
and it occurred to her that she felt sorry for that poor wife, stranded on her kitchen floor; it wasn't anything to be mocking or celebrating, and it seemed to her that so often they did things—people did—without really thinking. The door was locked. She rang the bell, anxious that her parents would insist on coming outside to thank Mr. Heath for his trouble. But unlike other adults who had brought her home, Mr. Heath did not wait until she was safely inside. Instead, he pulled out quickly, stirring up the gravel, and was gone within seconds, before the chimes on the doorbell had stopped ringing and her mother, in her feathery nightwear finery, had answered the door.

Several days later, Ms. Harding, her adviser, e-mailed her with the news that she'd won the Sunrise Internship. Willa had filled out the application the first week of school, but never expected to get it, assuming that Ada, who was ten times smarter than her
and
the Head's daughter, or Bette Lawton, who had a perfect A average, would be chosen. Sunrise House was a women's shelter in Pittsfield, and she would be working there Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, in whatever capacity they needed, whether it be watching the younger children whose mothers were still at work, or washing clothes, or addressing envelopes. She needn't worry about transportation, it was provided by the school. “You should be very proud,” Ms. Harding told her.

On the first day of the internship, Mr. Heath drove up in the school's community service van. “Congratulations, Willa,” Mr. Heath said to her in his usual jovial voice—part Barney, part Mister Rogers, the Mr. Heath she had known and loved since she was little.

“Thank you, sir. I totally didn't expect it.” She climbed into the back of the van.

Heath turned around, his arm hooked over the top of the seat. “I was hoping they'd choose you.”

She could feel her face turning colors. To her relief, a group of sophomores climbed into the van. They were doing community service at Solomon's Table, a soup kitchen in Pittsfield. Willa had volunteered there last year as well. She moved all the way over, behind Mr. Heath, making room for the others. She could see his face in the oversized rearview mirror. If you didn't know better, you could almost mistake him for one of the students. He had a boyish look, the way his hair swept over to the side, the way his eyes shone salty and bright. The other kids were noisy and Mr. Heath was talking to some of them and she remembered their conversation in the car, their secret. As if he were reading her thoughts, he met her eyes in the mirror and smiled and she smiled back. It was a brief exchange, but it seemed to suggest that there was something between them, something special that separated her from the others. It was a heavy, uncomfortable feeling, as if she'd eaten a big meal. She wasn't sure what to do about it and hoped it would go away. Maybe she was just imagining it.