Another Pan (6 page)

New York (first day of school)

Thirteen is a bad year for hair. Shiny blond curls disappear, making way for darker, coarser bundles of frizz. Cowlicks grow less and less manageable. And a whole slew of new hair-taming possibilities — not just gel and mousse, but also styling sand, highlighting pomade, and Bed Head polish — complicate a once-simple life of rinse-lather-repeat. John stood in front of his bedroom mirror in an oversize bath towel and rubbed a buttery substance with a sugary scent into his palm.

“If it’s supposed to make me look dirty, then why shower, huh? Where’s the logic?” he asked his reflection, wiping his greasy hands into his hair. Three chunks of it stood on end, making a crown on his head. “Yeah, oh
yeeeeeah
.” John nodded, pursing his lips the way he had seen Connor Wirth do it in his coolest moments, which were many. Connor not only had the best hair ever, but he also had enough money to cover his entire body with Bed Head twice a day. So unfair. John separated the giant crownlike middle chunk into two parts. The crown now looked like a serving fork made of hair.

John took another look at his overgreased hair and raised an eyebrow. Then he flexed his left arm. Then both arms. Nope, no change. He was still scrawny, still skin and bone. He sucked in his barely-there preteen paunch and picked at a hair on his chest. Was that there yesterday? Yep . . . still as bald as a well-oiled salamander. No problem. What he was lacking in physique he would make up for with a good dose of dirt and grime in his hair — a little more of the underground speed-metal look, and a little less of the preppy jock (which was too much work and lacking originality anyway).

Wendy walked past her younger brother’s bedroom just as he was flattening a tsunami wave of hair into his signature look — slicked back and parted on the side, then tousled until it looked exactly like it had when he came out of the shower forty minutes ago, minus the hope of ever drying. She peeked in from behind the half-closed door and said, “
The Banker
again? Hurry up, kiddo. It’s time for school.”

“Can’t rush first impressions, Sis,” said John, who was still not dressed. “Especially not when it’s the first day of the best year ever.”

“Oh, geez,” Wendy mumbled to herself as she pulled out her cell phone to text Connor. She’d need a lot of help if she was going to save John from himself. But as she was typing out her first words, Wendy stopped and clicked the phone shut. She shouldn’t call or text Connor first. After all, he hadn’t contacted her in two days. Maybe things would be different now that school was starting and he had all his old friends (and girlfriends?) back. Maybe their romance was just a summer thing and it would all blow over now. Would Connor want to date a teacher’s daughter at school? Would he want to date just one girl?

It felt strange thinking about the possibility, because even though Wendy hated the idea of losing Connor, she wondered if she shouldn’t feel more panicked at the possibility. How would other girls handle the situation? Wendy had no idea because she had no mother to ask.

Wendy and John’s mother hadn’t been all that great an adviser. She was too young to be a mother, too pretty, too impulsive. According to Wendy’s father, she had married him when he was in the prime of his career, a dashing Egyptologist, already successful, full of adventures and stories. The perfect mix of young and old. He knew that as far as his wife was concerned, he would
never
grow old.
Never
lose his hair.
Never
grow soft in the belly and begin forgetting birthdays.

But in the real world, even adventurous men grow old, and sometimes, pretty young wives don’t stop being young and pretty. Sometimes, they get bored. Sometimes, renowned Egyptologists become underpaid high-school teachers living in school-owned brownstones — happy, obscure . . . aging.

Sometimes, pining graduate students come along and sweep pretty wives away with the promise of adventures yet to come. When she left, Professor Darling had told Wendy, he felt it was entirely
his
fault. For promising too much. For being a never-never man, the way all husbands are at first.

When Wendy thought about Connor, or even boyfriends in general, she wondered if she should feel about him the way her mother felt about her father or if she should feel the way her mother felt about that grad student. Wendy imagined that Mrs. Darling’s relationship with this other man was all fire and passion and illicit meetings in dark hallways. She imagined that it was thrilling, that it was the kind of thing that made you shudder in your sleep. Connor and Wendy were definitely not like that. Connor was nice to Wendy. He took her out to group events and made a point of including John in everything. Connor was definitely the “Mr. Darling” of this situation, and even though there was no magic or fire between them just yet, the comparison made Wendy want to stick with him — to show her mother that it could be done and that Mrs. Darling had been a weak and cowardly woman for leaving. That she had put her own base desires over the happiness of the entire family. Now that Wendy was sixteen, she realized that her biggest ambition in life was to become as little like her mother as possible.

Downstairs, Wendy caught her father packing and repacking his old leather briefcase, trying to fit in a stack of notes he was probably afraid would be stolen by Egyptology-enthusiast thugs while he was out of the house.

“Daddy?” she said, only to get a grunt as a response when he tried shoving his fist in after the papers. “I was gonna drop by that café after school . . . um . . . for that job I told you about?”

Professor Darling looked up with alarmed eyes. “Right,” he said. “I’ve thought about it, and it really isn’t a good time —”

“Daddy, I really could use the money. And John, too . . . I know you think all the kids at Marlowe are over-the-top extravagant, but John could use some real friends this year.”

“He doesn’t need the kind of friends that require cash payment,” Professor Darling huffed, and looked away from his daughter. “That’s not what I’ve taught him.”

“It’s not
them,
” said Wendy. “They’re cool. It’s all in John’s head.”

“OK, Wendy, let me think about it some more. But this is a very busy year for you . . . with tougher classes . . . and the exhibit.”

“The exhibit?” Wendy tried not to yell, but this was exactly the kind of thing her father pulled all the time — ignore the issue and pretend you’ve won, until everyone forgets and you eventually do win by default. “I never said I’d do that!”

But Professor Darling was determined to plow through with his own point. “John should do it, too. I was supposed to get an assistant from the British Museum to help catalog all the items, but he was mugged by a street gang and then his flight was canceled. Or something like that. Anyway, he’s not here, and I’m swamped.”

“And what about my job?” said Wendy. “How am I supposed to do both things?”

Professor Darling shrugged.

“Daddy, you can’t fix it so it’s impossible for me to negotiate.”

“Sure, I can, honey. And you’d better get used to it. Minimum-wage laborers often find negotiation impossible.”

“No, they don’t!” Wendy huffed, gathering her backpack. “Stop being so elitist. I hope you don’t say that stuff in public.”

As Wendy ran back upstairs to get John, she overheard her father mumbling, “The big difference between intellectual snobbery and elitism, my dear, is that one is
earned
— though I suppose neither is very nice.”

When Wendy and John had set off for Marlowe, Professor Darling finished gathering his papers and packing his briefcase. Since the day Wendy had turned thirteen, she had insisted that she be allowed to walk to school alone.
I’m old enough now,
she had argued.
I don’t need to be walked to school
. Professor Darling encouraged his daughter’s independent streak. He enjoyed watching her try to take care of everyone and everything herself. It made him proud. So, despite the fact that they were headed for exactly the same building, at exactly the same school, Professor Darling felt obliged to wait a full fifteen minutes before setting off. He had promised Wendy, after all, and he usually kept his promises.

“It’s been more than fifteen minutes, I think,” he said confidently to himself five minutes later. He strolled out the door with thoughts of the Marlowe Egyptian exhibit swimming in his head. For a long time, he had suspected the importance of these particular pieces, mostly considered minor by his colleagues. He had worked so hard, called in so many favors, to have them in his care. Now he would finally get to study them up close, use them to teach the children something new, something undiscovered. If only they would show more interest. . . . George Darling knew why Wendy wanted to do so much on her own, why she was so adamant to have her way. She was determined to never again be left behind. He could see by the way she watched him, the way she watched everyone, that she was more careful now, more guarded. He felt sad for his daughter.
I’ll ask for some funding,
he decided.
A paid job for Wendy at my exhibit — where she can learn something
. He nodded, congratulating himself for the idea. He wanted to help his daughter in his own way. To make sure that she was happy. That she never had another heartbreak.

Never is a long time,
he thought. But he could do it. He was the never-never man.

The front lawn of the Marlowe School was teeming with wired freshmen, sleep-deprived seniors, and sunburned teachers reminiscing about summer novels and comparing fall syllabi. John and Wendy lingered for a moment before entering the familiar crowd — even before Wendy had started at Marlowe, the two had always visited their father here on the first day of school. Now teachers said hello as they passed, and old friends waved Wendy over.

“Who’s that?” Wendy said, looking across the clusters of students toward the main building of Marlowe, where a mousy brown-haired woman, probably in her thirties, was waiting, silent and motionless. She didn’t look rushed or eager to speak to anyone. She just observed everyone (and no one) with her one good eye. From the distance, her left eye seemed somehow damaged. She didn’t bother to swat away the moths hovering around her dark blue sweater set. Twice, she coughed into her white lace handkerchief.