Flat Water Tuesday (38 page)

“Jumbo and Ruth are with him, near the covered bridge, on the school side of the river.”

A pause. “Have Mr. Mantisorri place a call to the headmaster, and tell them exactly what you told me.”

“I already have. Mr. Channing?”

But he had clicked off. The receptionist ushered us into Mr. Mantisorri’s office. He was on the phone to the sheriff, urgently explaining where the covered bridge was. The headmaster and paramedics had already been notified. A paramedic team arrived from the town within minutes.

We were put into the ambulance and Mr. Mantisorri directed the paramedics back to the bridge. The vehicle’s sirens were off. Its lights flashed red, blue, white while the headlights alternated. It took longer to drive than I would have thought. Mr. Mantisorri kept saying, “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be fine, boys.”

But everything was not fine. Connor’s body was in the overgrown grass by the water. Ruth and Perry were kneeling near him, Ruth in the same crouch she’d been in on the bridge, Perry as if in prayer. When he saw the lights of the ambulance Perry stood up and stumbled toward us. He was pushed aside by the paramedics, who ran down to Connor carrying what looked to me like a toolbox and an oversized tackle box. One of the men stripped off his jacket and hunched over the body, breathed into it, and then pushed on the stomach.

The sheriff appeared in a brown Dodge. I can’t remember what Perry said to me, if anything. Mr. Mantisorri walked over to Ruth and helped her up. She was pale and shaking and kept saying she was fine and not to touch her. When she saw Wadsworth and me she burst into tears and came over and folded herself into me, keening sobs racking through her. We stood there and watched them work over Connor’s rag-doll form. After a while they covered his face and lifted his body onto a stretcher. Ruth was still clinging to me when Channing and the dean arrived and got us out of there.

*   *   *

Even though we told them all what had happened, several times, the police insisted on formal and separate interviews. When we arrived back at school, Ruth was gently led away by a policewoman to her dorm to shower, warm up and change. Wadsworth and I were also told to get cleaned up and dry and to report to the headmaster’s study as soon as we had finished. Perry was taken directly to the infirmary. I didn’t know why then, but he was treated for hypothermia and shock. Later I’d learn Ruth had to be treated for shock as well. That meant they gave you a major pill, a true-blue chill pill.

The sheriff interviewed me first with the headmaster, dean, and Mr. Channing present. The headmaster seemed extremely uncomfortable and made it clear he wanted the interview to be over as quickly as possible. The dean didn’t say a single word and just sat there looking shell-shocked. Channing was still wearing his rain gear over his faded khakis and his boots, and looked as if he had aged by ten years. He had the presence of mind to point out that I had a choice; I was entitled to refuse the interview. I should take my time to decide. I was nineteen years old—no longer a minor—but Channing also reminded me that the school was still acting
in loco parentis
. I agreed to answer the sheriff’s questions.

He asked me to describe events from our meeting at the boathouse, through the run and our stop for shelter on the covered bridge. He tried to have me explain in detail about why Connor had jumped on the railing but Channing interjected. “The boy was behaving immaturely and recklessly. That’s it.”

Did anyone tell Connor Payne to get off the railing?
Yes
.

Did Connor Payne routinely engage in this sort of dangerous behavior in front of his friends?
No
.

Was anyone else on the railing with or near Connor Payne?
No
.

Why was I so sure Connor Payne had jumped off the bridge and not slipped?
He told us he was going to jump and we saw him do it.

He told us and we watched him do it? Why did no one stop him?
He had said he wanted to make the jump on several occasions, but never did. We didn’t think he would ever actually do it.

Why had none of us reported Connor’s suicidal behavior to one of our teachers?
We didn’t think he was suicidal. It was just something he always did, almost a tradition, a ritual. Connor would hop onto the railing and say he would like to make the jump. We would all say it was impossible. He would insist it wasn’t. We would tell him to get down and, eventually, he always did and we’d run back to the boathouse.

On and on and on until the headmaster objected.

The sheriff nodded and then looked at me. “When Connor Payne jumped off the bridge he was on the side facing the school, am I right?”

“That’s right.”

“His body was downstream, had traveled under the bridge and then into the rocks. How did he get to the shore?”

“I pulled him in. Jumbo helped me.”

“Jumbo?”

Channing interjected again. “John Perry. He was with Ruth Anderson when Robert and Chris reported the accident, Frank.”

The headmaster shifted in his seat and cleared his throat in an irritated way. The sheriff was running out of time.

“Okay, Robert, we’re almost done here. I need to be clear about something. Before you ran down to the river, did you actually
see
the body when it came out the other side of the bridge, carried by the current?”

“Yes.”

Another pause, another scratch in his notebook. He looked at me, and then his eyes flickered over to Channing, and I knew damn well what was coming.

The sheriff finally asked it. “Do you think Connor Payne was alive after he splashed down?”

Channing exploded. “For the love of God, Frank, what more do you want from this kid?”

The headmaster stood up and said, “This interview is over, Sheriff. Robert Carrey has more than co-operated with you and needs time now to recover from this very traumatic incident.”

The sheriff shut his notebook in acquiescence but all four adults continued to look at me.

I looked back at them, and shook my head.

32.

Wadsworth’s interview went pretty much the same as mine. The girl’s dean terminated Ruth’s before it even started. Incoherent and clearly traumatized, she was in no state to be interrogated. Perry spoke briefly to the headmaster and to Channing in the infirmary, but I never found out what he said. Our parents were called and we were all sent home for a week. We missed the race against Exeter. The JV four stood in for us, and lost, but not disgracefully. Ruth and Perry agreed to be questioned in the presence of a lawyer once they were sufficiently recovered, and that was it. Nobody ever asked me for another interview. I spent most of my time at home sleeping. Of course I spoke to my parents about what had happened and they were concerned about me but there was only so much comfort they could provide about the death of someone else’s child.

Everyone in the school knew what had happened within a day or so. The headmaster made an announcement in chapel—Connor had drowned in a tragic and regrettable accident—but the rumors about us had already flown around. Upon our return, Fenton held a memorial service and Connor’s family attended. They filed into the front of the chapel in dark, well-cut suits and frozen expressions and none could hold my eye when I glanced at each of them from my pew. Were these really the people who loomed so large in his life? They seemed too ordinary. Perfectly groomed and obviously wealthy, yes, but nothing like the monsters of my imagination. There were two parents, each with new deferential partners, and the matriarchal grandmother in ivory and black. They glanced around the chapel discretely and they looked, if anything, perplexed. The only thing I knew for sure was that they clearly had not known their son and grandson.

Connor was buried in Osterville. We heard about it from Channing. It was a private service.

We all spent ten days off the water. I had no idea how the others were doing or what they were feeling. We did not contact each other while we were at home, and we did not sit together on the day of the memorial service. Later in the week, I had had enough. I walked down to Middle Dorm and knocked on the window until Mrs. Horeline came to the door and gave me the same look the rest of the teachers had been giving me since my return—a mixture of pity and contempt. I asked if she could get Ruth and she disappeared into the building. I waited on the stairs for a while and finally Ruth came down. She was wearing jeans and a button-down shirt and loafers. She opened the door and stepped out into the sunlight, blinking.

We didn’t speak to each other right away. Instead, we walked into town, past the Station Shop and the Fox and Fiddle to the diner. We sat at a table, alone, near the window, looking out into the main road of Fenton at the Jeeps and BMWs from the city. We ordered coffee. She drank hers black and I dumped sugar and milk into mine. She was wearing makeup, I realized, just a little. A clear gloss shone on her lips and her cheeks were rosy with a hint of blush. Her dark hair was loose but swept back off her face with a tortoiseshell comb. Her green eyes looked huge, intense, haunted. She was beautiful. Sitting there I could not think of her screaming obscenities at us in the boathouse.

She had brought a purse with her into town, the first time I’d seen her with one of those as well. She unzipped it, dug around and fished out a piece of paper that she handed to me wordlessly. She watched my face as I read it. It was from Yale, an acceptance letter. I wasn’t sure how to react or what to say. I read it to the end—the words of congratulation, the invitation to come to the school—and then I folded it twice and set it between us.

“I knew you’d get in. I knew it.”

“It came today. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

I couldn’t help myself. “Have you heard from Harvard?”

She waved her hand at the room, dismissing rowing, us, Harvard, everything. “I don’t think I will, Rob. I think I’m going to Yale and I’m allowed to be happy about it.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“What are your plans?”

“I have no idea. Really, no idea at all.”

“The police asked me a bunch of questions.”

“Me, too.”

“Have they said anything else to you?”

“Nope. It doesn’t matter, anyway. We told them what happened.”

She looked at her coffee, sipped it, looked at the table next to us, at the waitress by the serving counter, then at me. “Did we?”

“Yes, we did. I did. Whatever I left out, they wouldn’t understand. We’ve got nothing to hide, Ruth. I wouldn’t care if they interviewed me again.”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

“Are you still going to cox the four?”

“I don’t know. Channing sent me a note. He’s moving Phil Leonsis up from the JV boat into the bow and Wads will move to stroke. Perry will stay at two and you’ll still be the three seat. If that doesn’t work they’ll put you on the stroke seat. I haven’t written Channing back.”

“You should.”

She shrugged, looked at me, her eyes different than only a minute ago. “I keep seeing Connor, Carrey. Lying there. You two left us with him, you jerks. Perry had no idea what to do. I didn’t either.”

“He was gone when I got him out of the water.”

She thought about that, nodded. “He was. There was nothing we could have done.”

“Absolutely nothing. And that’s the end of it. You have to believe it and try and put it behind you.”
Why did I sound so angry?
“I’m going to tell Perry and Wadsworth I want to row again. I want them to row again, too. And I want you to cox us.”

“That’s a lot of wants, Rob.”

“We worked hard this year, Ruth. I’ve never been on a faster boat. Connor or no Connor.”

“You don’t know that for sure. We haven’t rowed without him yet.” Her eyes teared up as she said it and instead of compassion I felt another flash of rage that I swallowed with the last gulp of my coffee.

“It seems kind of silly now, doesn’t it? This dumb, prep-school thing.”

I looked around the restaurant quickly, then at her. “That’s not why we have to keep rowing. And you know it.”

She finished her coffee, looked at the cup and looked at me, set the cup in the saucer. “Have you ever really wanted a drink, Rob?”

“You mean a real drink? I’ve wanted one pretty badly, sure. But I’ve never
needed
one, yet.”

“I think I could really use one right about now.”

We walked back onto campus, Ruth next to me, close, but we were already separating from each other. I could feel it. That letter in her purse meant that she was free from here in five or six weeks. I studied her and admitted to myself that in the end we had nothing in common except rowing and a secret. And the fact that maybe she knew I’d loved her from the first time I saw her. But that was plenty. When we got to her dorm I glanced in the window. Horeline wasn’t at her desk. I took Ruth’s hand and pushed open the door. She pulled away, looked behind her, then back at me. “I think you read my mind, Carrey.”

“I hope so.”

“Just be careful with me, okay?”

*   *   *

She hasn’t changed much, I tell myself as we walk toward each other on the long, green expanse of lawn. Put her into the school dress code, give her back that famous leather satchel of hers, and she might be able to pass for eighteen again, at least from a distance. As I neared her I saw the signs of age. Her face had matured, had become, if possible, more beautiful. Her hair, still dark, was swept back from her ears and her eyes were still intense and piercingly green. She’d always been poised, and she came toward me with the confident gait of a woman used to being watched. She looked casually elegant in a black, sleeveless sweater, choker string of pearls, white Bermuda shorts, and flat, black patent sandals. She smiled when she saw me and we hugged, close, her body firm and reedlike in my arms.

After our embrace she continued to hold onto me, as if to confirm I was really there. Her hands were the hands of an older woman, but they were the same hands, with carefully manicured fingernails now rather than ragged cuticles. It was startling how fine and smooth her skin was. It felt good to see her again.