Part 12 (1/2)

”Donna Wirthman came in really upset. It seems Conlon stepped over barriers in all kinds of ways. He and Donna's daughter had an affair: she has letters to prove it. That's bad enough. But he gave Amber a s.e.xually transmitted disease, and now it's possible she isn't going to be able to have children. The Wirthmans are talking lawsuits. Big-time, Joe.”

I knew better than to ask the president what he thought we should do. That was why he'd come to me; if he'd had any good ideas, the matter wouldn't have gone any further than his office.

”Set up a meeting, Joe. You, me, and Conlon. And get Larry Casper. Don't say a thing without him being there.”

Larry Casper was the university counsel. I'd be glad to have him in the room.

I don't know whether Tom Conlon suspected what was wrong, but if he did, he didn't dress for an occasion that might be serious. He was wearing jeans and a works.h.i.+rt; his boots were spattered in paint. He didn't make eye contact with the president or Larry Casper; he looked to me as if he considered me the one ally in the room. I didn't know how I felt about that. Or no, that's wrong; I did know how I felt. I wanted to say to Tom, ”Don't look to me for help. You got yourself into this mess, get yourself out of it.” Then I thought of Bertie.

”Amber Wirthman's parents have been in to see me,” the president said.

I had to give Tom credit; he blushed. ”OK,” he said. ”That can't be good.”

”It's unfortunate,” Tom said. ”But she's an adult. She was twenty-three last July. She works half-time for her father; that's why it's taken her so long to get her degree.”

”Her age is neither here nor there, nor is her degree status,” the president said.

”Well, actually, Mort, it's better that she's not a minor,” Larry Casper said.

”You understand we'll have to ask for your resignation. You're not tenured, so we can do that. I'm sure you understand why we would want to. I'm hoping that will forestall a lawsuit, but I can't promise.”

”You're saying I could be completely wiped out; I'm losing my job; and then they could sue me on top of it? Well, the good news is I haven't got a cent. What are they going to take, my car? I suppose they could put me in debtors' prison.”

”I think you fail to understand the gravity of the situation,” the president said. ”You committed a very serious breach of student-teacher trust. You've betrayed your position; you've betrayed the values of this college.”

”Save it,” Tom said, getting up. ”I'll pack up my gear, but I don't want any bulls.h.i.+t about students and teachers. She's an adult. I'm an adult. I didn't hurt her.”

”She may be unable to have children,” I said.

”That's a crock,” he said. ”Lots of people have chlamydia and do just fine.”

”I wouldn't suggest taking that line with the Wirthmans,” Larry Casper said. ”I would have no contact with them without an attorney present.”

”Are you my attorney?” Tom asked.

”No, I represent the college.”

”How am I supposed to pay for a lawyer?”

”Maybe you should have thought of that before,” Larry Casper said.

When I phoned Bertie to ask if I could take her out for coffee, I was hurt by the eagerness in her voice.

”To what do I owe this incredible pleasure, loe?”

”A sticky issue, I'm afraid, Bertie,” I said. ”I can't talk about it on the phone.”

She ordered a mocha frappuccino with whipped cream. I had a double espresso. After I left Bertie, I had to go to a faculty budget committee meeting. I needed straight caffeine.

”It's about Tom,” I said.

”He's all right, isn't he,” she asked, looking alarmed. ”He's not sick or anything? He isn't hurt?”

I explained the situation to her.

”I don't believe it,” she said. ”The girl is trying to frame him. She was probably infected by some rich boy who can afford expensive lawyers and the parents know Tom's an innocent, a babe in the woods, an easy mark.”

”Your brother hasn't denied anything,” I said.

”Why would he do something like that with a student? He has Andrea to keep him on the straight and narrow. It doesn't make sense. He's too old for all of that; he's put all that behind him. Let me talk to the girl and her parents; I'll get to the bottom of this.”

”I can't stop you, Bertie, but I don't think it will do any good. You have to consider the possibility that they might be telling the truth.”

”I won't consider it for a moment, Joe. And I'm surprised that you would. I'm going to leave now.” She walked out of Starbucks like she'd like to set the whole thing on fire, with me inside it.

I don't know what happened with Bertie and the Wirthmans, but they decided not to sue. Tom's gone back to New Haven. Andrea's stayed in the apartment. I don't know if she considered going east with him or not.

I really don't get to speak with Andrea anymore, because I don't have a lot of contact with Bertie. When Bertie has some business at the college, she makes a point of going over my head. Sometimes I think of talking to Andrea about the situation- offering my condolences, or something like that. But why would I say condolences? No one died. Anyway, what could I tell her? About a situation like the one with Tom and Bertie, I don't think there's much that can be said. And what could I ask her? I saw her once, in a parking lot- I think it was the supermarket, or it may have been the mall. It was late September; she was pus.h.i.+ng a shopping cart, but it didn't look like it had much in it. The light was clear and it fell straight onto her; her hair looked golden; she was wearing a red jacket that looked quite wonderful that day. But I didn't say anything to her; I didn't even wave; I don't know if she even saw me.

What would I say to her? I would have liked to say, ”I miss you and Bertie. I miss the two of you terribly.” I would have liked to say the words accompanied by some gesture; I would have liked to put my hand on her shoulder; I would have liked to touch her hair. I would have liked to say, ”How are you, the two of you? Are you all right? Tell me how you are, what has happened to Tom. How has Bertie taken it all?”

I understood very well that there really wasn't anything I had a right to know. I wasn't close to anyone involved. I hardly knew Andrea, and I would be the last person Bertie would want knowing the details of her life.

I sometimes wonder what Bertie said to Tom. I could imagine her saying something like ”Forget it, Tom, it's over, go on with your life. No one appreciates you like I do. No one understands you but me.”

And there'd be no one, no one at all, to tell her she was wrong.

Walt.

I own a famous store. In the back of the store, we cook the food that people buy, the food we set out in the showcase. Our food is created as much to be looked at as tasted: it is a thing of the eye as much as the palate. More of the eye, perhaps, because it's food that's meant to be more representative than nouris.h.i.+ng. People bring home my food so that in solitude or in their two-person families they can feel bountiful, part of the generous world.

Sometimes we cater parties, and I often wonder whether the hosts pretend to have cooked the food themselves. Now that my food is so famous and desirable (we couldn't possibly serve everyone who wants us) I'm more and more curious about whether or not people acknowledge that the food that they are serving came from me. It's questionable now whether people would receive more praise, would be seen as doing more for their guests, for having cooked the food themselves or having had what is required- luck? wit? discipline? connections?- to be among the ones I choose to serve.

From time to time I cook on television. I did today. This morning I woke up at four to be ready for the limo they were sending at five. It could have been dangerous, out on the street at that hour, but I didn't feel in danger. I'm often on the street at four, four thirty, on my way down to the market for what is to me the most pleasurable and most important part of my work. I love everything about the market: the hum and buzz of money changing hands, insults, praise, the sound of tearing paper, barrels sc.r.a.ping across pavement, s.n.a.t.c.hes of song, curses, the glazed eyes of fish, the redness of radishes, whiteness of cauliflowers, dewy cabbages with the pallor of a damp summer moon.

This morning I wasn't dressed in jeans, workboots, and sweats.h.i.+rt, my market garb, but in a long, wide skirt and a teal-colored silk s.h.i.+rt (for television it's important to have a well-defined neckline). Everything I was experiencing made me feel a rich and blameless joy. Innocently as a child, I reveled in it all: the deep breeze that lifted the hem of my skirt, exposed my legs to the damp air, then chilled them; the dark limo jetting through the half light; the new smell of the car's upholstery; the cavernous backseat where I could doze for the half-hour ride.

From the moment I got into the car, there was a while when everyone I saw was uniformed, beginning with my driver, proceeding to the guards of the television station: a series of underemployed young men directing me down corridors as if I were an astronaut and they were showing me the way to outer s.p.a.ce. Even the receptionists wore blazers with the network's symbol on the breast. Among them, I always felt alone. I knew that I was neither one of them nor important enough to engage their imagination. Later in the morning, politicians, actors, sports figures would arrive. They would be important to the uniformed ones; they would receive their smiles, their engaged nods, their grateful gestures. Sometimes one of the young women would say: ”My mother made that cheesecake you did on the show last month,” or ”One of these days I'm going to try that cabbage soup.” That was the most I'd ever get.

After every TV appearance I make, two things happen. Business increases and somebody from my past reappears. This morning, after the TV show was done, I was in the back of the store going over the books. I do this now more than any other work. It's surprisingly pleasant, so different from the rushed, hot work done in the kitchen, the room of white tiles and stainless steel industrial-style appliances. Different, too, from the subtle, ingratiating work of selling that goes on in the front of the store: consisting as it does of the offering of samples, along with a word suggesting a paradisiacal outcome that can only be effected by the customers' giving up more money than they'd like. As I was working in the back, the young man from Argentina who was serving customers up front knocked on the office door. ”An old friend of yours is here,” he said to me.

At first I couldn't believe it was really Walt. I'd feared seeing him for so long that the reality of him was rather rea.s.suring. Often, on the street I'd think I'd seen him, but I'd turn away, convincing myself that it was impossible for us to be living in the same place. Although we both were born here.

”I thought it was time I came to see you.”

It sounded like a threat, but I knew he didn't mean it as one. He never meant to seem dangerous; he wouldn't have understood if I said he'd often frightened me. ”I only did what you wanted. That's all I would ever do,” he'd say if I told him he'd frightened me. But that's just the kind of idea that can set many horrors in motion. Certainly with somebody like Walt.