The Best Man (7 page)

T
hen the four of us were barreling through school. Past our fifth-grade door, where the troops were clapping for jumping jacks. It was kind of a long-ago sound for some reason. We stopped outside the sixth-grade door.

I thought we might bust in. I planned to go last. But Mr. McLeod said, “Archer, go get Mrs. Dempsey. Raymond, go tell Mrs. Stanley where we are. I shouldn't be keeping you guys out of class, but this will be short and sweet.”

I wasn't sure how to get Mrs. Dempsey. But in her outer office the secretary was playing video poker
on her phone, so I just strolled past her. I opened a door, and Mrs. Dempsey was looking up at me from her desk.

“What is it, Archer Magill?”

“Mr. McLeod would like you to come down to the sixth grade. He can't go in there because he's not a real teacher yet. But a bunch of them tied Russell Beale to a faucet and wrote a word on his forehead.”

I thought that covered it. I added “ma'am” because Mr. McLeod would. Mrs. Dempsey stared. Then she sort of erupted out of her chair and charged out the door and down the hall. I could just about keep even with her.

• • •

Leaving me and Raymond and Russell by the door, Mrs. Dempsey and Mr. McLeod walked down the hall for a little conference. He may have told her the word on Russell's forehead. When they came back, Mrs. Dempsey barged into the sixth-grade room.

The sixth graders were all over the place. The girls were in clumps of desks. The guys were up on the window ledges. Their party was to be in the afternoon. They were hanging out, waiting for that. They weren't doing anything, but you couldn't hear yourself think.

The sight of Mrs. Dempsey silenced them, but it didn't last. When Mr. McLeod walked in behind her, every girl in the room screamed. My ears rang all day. This was as close to him as they'd been. Out came the phones they weren't supposed to have. Selfie sticks—everything. The room was a zoo, a mosh pit probably.

Raymond and Russell and I came in last. They couldn't have told one fifth grader from another, except the ones who'd recognize Russell.

“Into your seats at once!” Mrs. Dempsey barked.

The guys took their time, cool and barely moving. The girls were dressed for junior high already. They were showing some skin, and you wondered about tattoos.

Their teacher, Mrs. Bickle, was older than the school. She was at her desk. A sudoku book was open in front of her.

In a doomish voice Mrs. Dempsey said, “Mrs. Bickle, kindly step next door and ask Mrs. Stanley to join us. Then will you stay with her class in her absence?”

Mrs. Bickle looked up. “I'll get right on that, Velma.” She was so old, she called Mrs. Dempsey Velma. She shuffled out the door.

Then here came Mrs. Stanley, a little beaded up along the hairline from working out. She looked for Russell. When she saw him, she reached out. “Here's my lost sheep,” she said.

“I wasn't lost,” Russell said. “They came up behind me.”

Mrs. Dempsey drew herself up. The sixth graders were waiting to find out what this was about.

“Children,” she began, “as this is your last day at Westside School and Mr. McLeod's too, I'm sure you'll be glad to meet him. After all, he's put our school on the map.” She looked around. No maps here.

“I know you envied the fifth graders their opportunity to learn from Mr. McLeod in Mrs. Stanley's class. Now this is an opportunity of your own to ask him anything you'd like to know.”

She was setting them up for something, but they didn't suspect. We're all Gifted, of course, but they were borderline.

Mr. McLeod stepped forward. You never saw posture like that. He waited. Whimpering came from some of the girls. Finally a guy raised a casual hand. “Dude, you ever shoot anybody?”

Mrs. Dempsey sighed. Mr. McLeod said, “No, and I hope not to. I joined the National Guard because
they'll pay your tuition for graduate school. I want to be a teacher. It's my goal.”

The class thought that over, more or less. Phones flashed. Mrs. Dempsey said, “Speak to us of goals, Mr. McLeod. Are these children going to need goals when they get to junior high?”

“We all need goals,” he said. “Here's one: Stay away from people who don't know who they are but want you to be just like them. People who'll want to label you. People who'll try to write their fears on your face.”

He let them think about that; then he reached in his pants pocket and pulled out the yellow clothesline. He held it up. They watched it coil in the air. Then he pulled out the Magic Marker.

“Does anybody know who these belong to?” I don't know how he knew it, but he figured somebody was going to want to tell. And he didn't have long to wait. A gawky, hollow-chested kid at the back unfolded out of a desk. He had a flop of blond hair and was working on sideburns. He raised a big hand. All the girls dragged their eyes off Mr. McLeod. The kid pointed and said, “Jeff Spinks brought the clothesline.” He pointed again. “Aidan Cooper did the lettering.”

“Thanks, Perry,” they muttered. “Thanks for dropping us in it.” They were way down in their desks.

“And who would you be?” Mr. McLeod said.

The kid raised his eyebrows. I guess he wasn't used to people who didn't know who he was. Two girls giggled. “Perry Highsmith,” he said. “Leave me out of this. I was just the lookout at the door in case anybody interrupted us. Them.”

Mrs. Dempsey was turning a dangerous color. Next to me Mrs. Stanley was none too happy. Russell was on my other side, not moving.

“It was no biggie.” Perry looked away through his flop of hair. “It was just like some fun on the last day. It was our
goal
to have some fun.”

Mr. McLeod laid the clothesline and the marker on Mrs. Bickle's desk, like Exhibits A and B.

The girls' eyes were back and forth between Perry and Mr. McLeod. They didn't know where to look. Even scraggly sideburns are a pretty big draw in sixth grade.

“Hey, it's the last day,” Perry said. “What can anybody do about it?”

In her voice of doom Mrs. Dempsey spoke. “Here's what I can do for the three of you: you Perry, you
Jeff, you Aidan. You can have your graduation party in my office while we wait for your parents to get here.”

The girls murmured. Would it be a party without Perry?

Perry shrugged. Parents didn't seem to be a problem for him. He started to drop back into his seat.

“Get up,” Mr. McLeod said, and waited till Perry did. “What about the word?”

“I didn't write it,” Perry said. “Ask Aidan.”

“What was it?” Mr. McLeod waited. Everybody did.

“It was just a word,” Perry said. “It was . . . random. Ask Aidan.”

Mr. McLeod waited some more.

“Gay,” Perry muttered.

A whispery sound made the rounds of the room. It started out a giggle and ended with rumbling at the back.

“
Gay
's not a random word,” Mr. McLeod said. “It's an identity.”

“Whatever,” Perry mumbled.

“It's my identity,” Mr. McLeod said.

Silence fell. You could have heard breathing, but there wasn't any.

Then one more time the girls screamed. It was ear-splitting.

• • •

With all this going on, the morning was half over before I got back to my desk. Still, Mr. McLeod was there first, holding a pointer against a map already rolled down. We were going to have an actual lesson on the last day of school. The sixth graders had already had theirs.

Lynette leaned across the aisle. “You missed Mrs. Bickle. So where were you?”

“Around,” I said. “We had to get Russell out of the boys' room. Then we had to go to the sixth graders. It took a while.”

“That's it?” Lynette said.

“Basically,” I muttered. “Also, Mr. McLeod's gay.”

Lynette's eyes practically rolled out of her head. “You really take your sweet time, don't you, Archer?”

“Time to what?”

“Mr. McLeod must really have put it out there if you picked up on it. He must have spelled it out.”

It got spelled out all right, on Russell's forehead.

“Lynette, you don't know everything,” I said.

But, privately, I thought she might. Anyway, it was time for map study.

• • •

By the end of the day—by noon, even—everybody knew everything. They definitely knew Mr. McLeod was gay. People in Kazakhstan knew. Bulbs flashed in the schoolyard trees.

Natalie Schuster was steamed. “Honestly, he has the scoop of the semester,” she said, “and he gives it away to the sixth graders. That is so gratuitous. Men!”

A sound truck for the ABC affiliate turned into the parking lot as I headed for home that afternoon. The weekend section of the
Trib
pictured Mr. McLeod under the headline:

SORRY, LADIES

I was dragging before home was in sight. My backpack outweighed me. My ears were clanging like Big Ben.

Mom was leaning over the upstairs banister when I came in. She'd have heard all about our last day of school in real time from Mrs. Stanley. They text. I'm sure of it. But she wanted to hear the whole day from my viewpoint. She's like that.

And she was going to have to creep up on the subject because I don't tell my school day without a fight. We play this game. She'd ease in with some
quirky humor. She's done it before. She'll do it again.

“Care to join me in my office?” she said. Then I was on her sofa, and she was back behind her desk. “Just a routine day?”

“Mom, you took the words right out of my mouth. We did some map study.”

“Ah,” said Mom. “Any place in particular?”

“Crimea? Crimea, I think.”

Mom was sitting back in her chair, scanning the ceiling. Here comes the quirky humor: “Archer, honey, I think it's time we had The Talk.”

“If it's about sex, Mom, Mrs. Forsyth covered it in first semester.”

Mom looked sad. “Did Mrs. Forsyth tell you about the cabbage leaves?”

“Mom—”

“That's where babies come from, you know. That's where I found you, Archer, honey—under a cabbage leaf. When I brought you home, it took your dad a week to notice you. Of course when he did, he was delighted.”

“Where was this cabbage leaf?” I asked.

She looked all over the ceiling, racking her brain to remember. “Washington Park,” she said, “on the other side of the bandstand. That's where you came from.”

“I came from the Washington Park bandstand?”

“No, honey, from under a cabbage leaf.”

“Mom, Mrs. Forsyth walked us through the whole deal last fall. We have sonograms. Your water broke, and there I was. That ship has sailed.”

Mom looked sad again. “Mrs. Forsyth has taken all the poetry out of the experience.”

“Did you find Holly under a cabbage leaf?”

“Heavens no,” Mom said. “I was in labor with her for thirty-six hours. I thought I'd die.”

By the way, where was Holly? She was due to storm in any minute now. Mom's last chance to pry the school day out of me was slipping away because footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Only moments were left, which I decided to fill. “Well, thanks for sharing about the cabbage leaf. And it's not like I don't believe you. But you said one time that Grandma Magill and Mrs. Ridgley were best buds at the Salem witch trials. And, Mom, if that's true, they'd be like two hundred years old.”

“I'm standing by that,” Mom said.

The footsteps seemed heavier than Holly's. Mom watched the door to the hall. I watched over the back of the sofa.

Heavy treads. Muttered voices. Baritones.

Then filling the doorway was Uncle Paul, since it was getting on for Friday evening. Uncle Paul large as life: hundred-dollar haircut, manscaped stubble, a whiff of Tom Ford aftershave. And in his hand a Whole Foods sack, full of large purple growths. Eggplant. What Dad calls aubergine.

“Can you believe it?” Uncle Paul said. “Ed McLeod outs himself with no escape plan? I knew by ten o'clock, and North America knew by noon. I had to smuggle him out through the furnace room again.”

I couldn't believe my ears. “You were at school, Uncle Paul? We had to clean out our cubbies today. I had to carry all my stuff home. You could have given me a lift.”

I mean, why not? And I didn't see any pizza box either. Just aubergine.

“And how did you make these arrangements, Paul?” Mom inquired from the desk. She gave him her innocent look. You know how she is. “Do you have Ed McLeod's number?”

“The whole world has his number now,” Uncle Paul said. “I've brought him for dinner.”

“I thought you might,” Mom said. “And what have you two done all afternoon? You and Ed?”

“Hung out,” Uncle Paul said. “I don't know. Starbucks?”

“Starbucks,” Mr. McLeod said, walking in around Uncle Paul. “Hey, Archer,” he said, though we'd spent most of the day together, except for me having to walk home with ringing ears and all my stuff.

“Hey, Mr. McLeod,” I said. “Crimea, right?”

“Turn left at the Black Sea,” he said.

The front door banged below us. Holly. Home from high school and wherever she goes.

She'd hit the porch at her top speed and wasn't slowing for the stairs. “Mom,” she screamed, getting closer and closer. “Are you sitting down? Mr. McLeod's gay!”

I
f this was a story and not real life, that Friday evening would be a good way to wind up the fifth-grade chapter. But then came three days of standardized testing to kick a hole in the next week.

We should have been out in the sun, healing from the school year. Instead, monitors worked the aisles, watching us fill in the ovals with the special pencils.

On the last day Lynette and I ate lunch together up on an all-purpose-room riser. They wouldn't let us outdoors even over lunch. Maybe they thought we'd make a run for it.

I had a Tupperware tub of what Dad calls “vichyssoise,” which is cold potato soup. Don't ask. I forgot
what Lynette was eating, but she didn't want any of mine.

“The school's hired Mrs. Stanley to teach fifth grade again this fall. She figures she's too famous to fire. It'd get in the papers if they didn't have her back,” she said. “
I'd
call them.”

“So that's great, right?”

Lynette shrugged. “At least we don't have to move.”

I hadn't thought about them having to move.

“And it means Mrs. Stanley can afford to send me to camp. She and my dad are splitting the cost.”

Can you picture Lynette Stanley at camp? I couldn't. Lynette around the campfire, singing along? Lynette weaving a lanyard? “What kind of camp?”

“Just a camp.”

“Where is this camp?”

“Michigan.” She looked away.

“The Upper Peninsula?” I said. “Because they have one, you know.”

“Wherever,” she said.

Now we were back at our desks. “There's no such thing as a regular camp anymore. They all have themes,” said I, the big expert. I hadn't even been to
day camp. Dad and I had always been too busy. We didn't do Little League either, not after T-ball. Dad said he didn't need it if I didn't.

“I bet I know what kind of camp it is,” I said. “Vocabulary camp, am I right? Camp for people with over-developed vocabularies.”

“Something like that,” she said, very vague.

“Now that Mrs. Stanley isn't going to be your teacher anymore, are you going back to calling her Mom?”

“I think I'll stick with ‘Mrs. Stanley,'” Lynette said. “I've got puberty coming up, so I need to keep my distance.”

• • •

The day finally wound down. Natalie was on her feet and her phone.

“It's been a good semester for Natalie,” Lynette said, handing in her last test. “She was taking pictures with her phone the whole time. Constantly. Mr. McLeod—in the classroom, at the arboretum, everywhere. She posted them, and the media picked them up. She figured out how to charge them. She made good money. She takes PayPal.”

“Natalie was like a mole for the media?”

“Essentially,” Lynette said. “She actually is Gifted,
the little—” The last bell rang. “And she won't be back next fall.”

People milled around now, saying, “See you in sixth.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Natalie's not coming back next fall?”

Everybody was fist-bumping everybody else. Little Josh Hunnicutt was fist-bumping over his head. But Lynette was out of there. That's the end of school for you. You wait and wait. Then it's over before you're ready.

Dad was outside, set for summer: ball cap on backward, T-shirt with the cutoff sleeves. He was in Grandma and Grandpa's Lincoln. I slid in on the passenger side and buckled up.

Four or five Mr. McLeods would fit under the glove box. It was an easy car to get Grandpa in and out of, except he wasn't going anyplace now.

“Good day?” Dad inquired.

“I didn't have a day, Dad. It was testing.”

“What did they test you on?”

“Dad, if I knew, I'd tell you.” We rumbled off, into summer. It was only last summer, but seems longer ago.

• • •

We had a Nash Rambler that needed major restoration and paint. Ugliest car ever built, but the Nash museum in Kenosha wanted one in mint condition. We worked on that and ordered parts.

Dad and Grandma wouldn't hire anybody to be with Grandpa at night, so we were always home by evening. We carried Grandpa into the guest room, where Dad could sleep in the other bed. They didn't want him waking up to a stranger. Grandpa was like a leaf now, that thin and curling at the edges.

• • •

I woke up one night, about a month later, and the lamp was on. Mom was sitting on the edge of my bed in her robe.

She told me that Grandpa had died in his sleep, at the hospice. It's the last place you go, and Dad had been with him. I looked to see if Cleo was at the window. I looked back, and where my sheet had been was a blur. My eyes were wet.

After a minute or two, Mom said, “You need to get dressed. Your grandma has to go to the hospice. I don't want her driving herself.”

Mom was in a little pool of light when I came out of my room. Holly was there, dressed, with something in her hand. She opened to show me. Car keys.

“Mom, aren't you coming?” I said. “Aren't you driving?”

“You go ahead,” she said. “You need to be there. You've moved up a step, Archer.”

I didn't even know what that meant. “Holly can drive,” Mom said, “and you can both look after your grandma. You're Magills. Be there for each other.”

“Mom, you're a Magill.”

“I'm half a Magill,” she said. “I'll come later when it gets light.” You could smell coffee brewing in the kitchen, drifting up.

She turned away, so we were supposed to go, but Holly said, “Mom?”

And when Mom looked back, she was wiping tears away.

Holly and I went out the back way past the swing. You couldn't see where you were walking. Holly took my hand.

• • •

Then the three of us were on the Lincoln's big slab front seat. Holly behind the wheel. Me in the middle. Grandma next to me. How Holly got the Lincoln out of the garage I don't remember. I guess she found reverse.

We were heading into gray daylight. Actually,
Holly was doing okay: both hands on the wheel, both eyes on the road.

Grandma had been quiet, but now she kind of cried out. “Turn this car around! We have to go back. I've forgotten something.”

I braced. There was no seat belt for the middle passenger, and I was scared Holly was going to U-turn. You don't do that in a '92 Lincoln. It's an aircraft carrier. You'd take out a front porch, and I could end up as the hood ornament.

But Holly kept going. “I didn't bring his suit,” Grandma said. “I laid everything out and walked right past it. What's the matter with me?” She made fists and shook them.

“Listen, Grandma, it's okay,” I said. “Dad took Grandpa's things the day after we moved him into the hospice.”

“Which suit did he pick?”

“The seersucker.”

“Oh, I'd have picked something darker,” she said.

I didn't mention the Cubs cap. “He'll look nice in the seersucker, Grandma. He loved summer. Dad took care of it.”

Then we were in the parking lot, being Magills. Holly got on Grandma's other side.

In the room Grandpa's hands were folded over the sheet. You could almost see through them. His eyes were closed, but he was squinting into the sun of an August day. So the seersucker suit was going to be all right. With the Cubs cap tucked into the inside breast pocket, over his heart. And Dad was there.

Later, when it was light, Mom came. Grandma went right over and took her hand. Then she reached for Holly. “I need my girls,” Grandma said, which was a new thing we hadn't heard before.

The sun was up now, and the birds were singing. And Grandma turned to me. “Open the window, Archer,” she said. “Let the birdsong in. Let Grandpa out.”

So I did, and I think he breezed past me, out into the morning.