Shadow Season (3 page)

“Judith. I’m glad I caught you before you left.”

“No need to worry about that,” she says, and he’s convinced she’s depressed, and not just because an empty campus makes everybody depressed.

“No? Why not?”

He shouldn’t ask, but she wants to be asked. He’s got to do his part. Sometimes you play the role and sometimes the role plays you.

Judith Perry is the dean of St. Val’s, an administration wizard and a top-notch science teacher. In the Victorian era she would’ve been called a headmistress and been admired for her hard-edged dignity. The girls think she’s overly rigid and demanding because she’s repressed and miserable. Finn thinks they’re not far off. She has the voice of an exacting, sharp woman that occasionally softens with plaintiveness. She takes tiny but solid steps. He has shaken her hand only once, during their initial meeting when she hired him three years ago.

Since he lost his sight, his mind craves details. If they can’t be provided by his other senses, his brain fills them in. The surgeons told him this is normal. The shrinks tell him not to worry, this is normal. It doesn’t fuckin’ feel normal. When he sees Judith he sees his mother. It’s both strange and calming. He has to stay especially focused because it’s easy to go along with the fantasy, and he has to stop himself from calling her Mom.

Judith shares other traits and particulars with his mother. She’s twice divorced, on the downside of a third marriage, and has an ungrateful adult child. She is probably bipolar. She’s had several affairs that she believes to be secret but are common knowledge to anyone paying even a little attention. Judith believes herself to be fat
but she’s only brawny. Touch her arm and you can feel how physically powerful she is. You wouldn’t want to roll around in the mud with her, but you might throw down in the sack.

That strength doesn’t seem to mean anything to her. She’d prefer to be dainty and delicate, a starved wisp that men would fawn over. She uses too much perfume and hair spray and bathing oils in an effort to be more feminine. She doesn’t know how to laugh. Her sense of humor pretty much sucks ass. She’s always on the edge of a world-class sulk.

When they find themselves alone like this without any need for going over reports, they speak honestly and with some real depth.

People open up to him because they can see him and he can’t see them. It’s like playing the peekaboo game with a baby. If you can’t watch them, you can’t bear witness. You’re not really there.

The snow begins to fall, ice crystals brushing against the glass.

Judith tosses her cigarette out the window, flicking it hard with her fingernail. After the thaw, Murphy and his crew will be out there plucking bits of cotton filters out of the bushes for days. He’ll shout up to her, “Shite, can’t you smoke unfiltered Camels or get the hang of a good pipe, now?”

She very carefully latches the window shut and fights to keep from sighing. She only partially succeeds. He knows she’s pining for Murph. Or at least lusting for him.

Finn sits in the comfortable leather visitor’s chair
and extends the question. “What are you still doing here, Judith? Why don’t you head home to your family?”

“And why would you want to wish that hell on me?”

He can’t help but smile. “Troubles again?”

“Troubles, dependable and enduring.”

“You’d better leave now or you’ll get caught in the storm.”

“A ready-made excuse, not that I need one.” She shifts her stance, comes down hard on one heel. “There’s no one to tell it to.” She clears her throat. “I’m maudlin, I know, but bear with me.”

“You’re not thinking of staying here for the whole two weeks, are you?”

“Why not? It’s supposed to be a vacation. If I go home, it’ll be anything but relaxing. The tree’s still not up. The presents are unwrapped, what few there are. My son has been out of work for the last eight months. I don’t have the energy to argue with him, so I’m just as responsible, irresponsible really, as he is. My husband put twenty-five years into the fire department, retired, and still works in a volunteer capacity every holiday. He hasn’t been home for Christmas or New Year’s for the last four years, which is eighty percent of our marriage. He doesn’t even have the ambition to cheat on me, which would do him a world of good and make him at least a bit happy, and that would be pleasant. No, I really see no reason why I should rush home.”

Home is forty minutes away over the Connecticut border in a posh township. Her husband’s name is Mike or Mark, but she never addresses him as such. Her son’s name is Billy. Or maybe Bobby. Billy-Bob? She refuses to say his name either. Finn wonders what his psychiatrist
would think about that. Is it simply detachment or de-humanization?

But he never thinks of his shrink by her name either, she’s just his shrink. Maybe he’ll broach the subject of replacing names with titles and what the psychological ramifications might be the next time he visits her. If he ever goes back.

“You could always invite the local orphans to your house,” Finn says. “Give them the toys your kid won’t play with.”

“My goddamn kid is thirty-two.”

“You could build snowmen, go to church, find the richest mean-hearted bastard in Connecticut and melt his icy exterior. So that everybody learns the true meaning of Christmas? So the angels all get their wings?”

“Fuck that,” Judith says. She’s naturally foul-mouthed and has a hard time holding it back around the kids. When she gets a chance to cut loose, she lets fly. “My kid also has prescriptions for three antidepressants. He’s never held a steady job, never had a girlfriend, and spends all of his time online playing
World of Warcraft
with people in Senegal and Polynesia.”

“Really?”

“Like I would lie about that?”

“I mean, Polynesians stay inside on the computer? When they could go outside and enjoy being in … Polynesia?”

“Apparently so.”

“Christ.” Finn sees lots of topless brown-skinned ladies in grass skirts dancing, covered in flowers, holding fresh jungle fruit. “Well, we could sit around and get drunk on spiked eggnog.”

“The thought has crossed my mind repeatedly, believe me.”

“I do.”

“I know you do.”

Judith lets out a hiccup of laughter, trying to sound quaint. What she really wants is to get bombed with Murphy and rip it up. Finn hopes she’ll overcome her insecurities long enough to let it happen. He has to force his mind away from imagining it because when he does he sees his mother down in the custodian’s apartment doing extremely un-Mom-like things. It makes his stomach churn.

She walks around behind him, staring at the side of his face as she does. He can feel the faint gust of her breath disturbing the air as she goes by. The skin on his cheek tightens. The earpiece on his sunglasses cools a couple of degrees.

Despite the entire floor being empty, she closes her door. This is what he’s been waiting for. She only shuts the door when they talk about personal issues. The only personal issue left is Vi. He thought he didn’t want to talk about Vi, but he probably does. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come to Judith’s office in the first place.

“Tell me how things have been with Violet Treato,” she says.

“Status quo.”

“And that status being?”

“She’s staying the hell away from me.”

That’s not going to be forthright enough for Judith. She needs to expound and dig. She tsks and taps her lengthy fingernails lightly at the corner of her desk. It’s not all an act. She smells of nervous sweat. The school
only has 250 students and the economics for small private institutions are growing worse all the time. She’s got a lot to deal with, and now this.

“It’s a precarious situation.”

“Yes,” he admits.

What, like he’s going to argue? He’s got to take his medicine again, and it’s all his own fault. Still, he’s got to force himself not to wag his head, everything falling into place step by step, the way it has for months. His fist tightens on his cane and slowly exerts pressure, waiting to hit the exact point when the stress will begin to snap it. He’s got to keep himself busy, has to play these sorts of marginal games to constantly keep himself aware that he hasn’t vanished.

“I’m not overdramatizing, Finn.”

“I know. I’ve done what I can.”

“I’m worried.”

“I know that too, Judith. I offered to resign.”

“I don’t want your resignation.”

“Not yet anyway.”

“That’s right.”

It always comes back to this. He can’t help but repeat himself. “Well, when you need it, you’ll have it.”

“Don’t play the martyr, you prick, you know whose fault this is.”

“I’m not playing and yes, I do.”

That’s left out there for a few seconds, the room heavy with expectation. He fills it. “So, there’s no chance she’s leaving for the holidays, I take it?”

“No. Her parents are spending the chilly months traveling the Mediterranean.”

For every working-stiff father putting in overtime,
there’s a fat-cat blue blood sending his kid through St. Val’s. “How very nice for them.”

“I would’ve hoped the lure of the Aegean would have been too tempting to resist.”

That’s a setup for a nasty comment. She wants to slap him around some more. Finn actually braces himself in his seat. He assumes it will be something like,
But presumably you’re the greater temptation, the more powerful lure
. A young girl’s heart wants what it wants. And her body as well. Finn feels guilty over the fact that he doesn’t feel as guilty as he should.

Judith says, “I want you to be careful around her.”

“I am. I will.”

“We can’t afford another misstep.”

What the hell does he have to say to that? He tries not to incline his head and can’t quite do it. His chin drops toward his chest like a dog ready for a beating. He nods to cover. “I know.”

“Her grades have been improving all semester.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Of course she’s always been excellent in English.”

“Yes.”

“She’s trying to show off for you. She’s hoping to be the woman she thinks you want. Educated. Sophisticated.”

“I realize that.”

“Finn—”

“I know.”

“You don’t know shit.”

The conversation is little more than a repeat of last week’s. Judith is feeling him out, seeing if he’ll suddenly be overcome by guilt and admit to greater or ongoing
shenanigans. Finn doesn’t blame her. Trust is in short supply all around.

She’s going to mention Roz now. Only because she wants to hear again that some relationships under the worst kinds of strain still manage to work out. Also because she dislikes Roz, and she wants to remind him of that. Roz is only here because she and Finn were a package deal, and that fact has always annoyed Judith.

“What happens if Roz learns of this?”

“I tell Roz everything.”

“She knows about the events with Vi?”

By implication he’s already answered, but Judith always needs additional confirmation. She reminds him of DAs he once had to deal with, always worrying the same nugget of information.

He told Judith all of this three months ago when Vi first hit on him. Events. She makes it sound like the Olympics.

“Yes,” he says.

“I’m glad.”

“Are you?”

“I just said so. Yes.”

He wants to ask why but lets it slide.

This isn’t Peyton Place, but anytime you throw men and women together in an environment as lonely as St. Valarian’s, in an area as rural and declining as Three Rivers, you’re going to have to deal with all this movie-of-the-week shit. He knew it would happen, he just didn’t know it would happen to him.

He realizes he can’t pacify or help Judith, and that he should just keep out of her way for the next two weeks until classes start up again. He stands and expects
her to say something about joining him at dinner, but she doesn’t. He’s relieved and lets it go at that.

“What are your plans for the break?” she asks.

“Roz and I will spend New Year’s in the city. We’re splurging on the Plaza for three nights. We’ve got reservations for Tavern on the Green.”

“What’s the occasion? Are you finally going to pop the question?”

Finn doesn’t answer.

But Judith is waiting. She’s not quite through with squeezing out as much drama as she can.

The truth is, Finn’s terrified of even spending more alone time with Roz. And after all these years he doesn’t know why. She’s been good for him, as good as anyone could be. Maybe it’s the city. Manhattan used to be the hub of his world. The action, the grind, the heat, and the juice. Now they’ll just hang around a suite in the Plaza paying two grand a night so they can make love in a bigger, softer bed. The food will be better. The view will be amazing, for her. They’ll take in a musical on Broadway. She’ll think he’ll be able to enjoy it. He won’t. But he’ll sit there and smile and applaud the way he’s supposed to. The other patrons will be glad that he doesn’t have a seeing-eye dog with him shedding on their best evening wear.

Finn once rousted a low-level syndicate mook out of the Plaza, wrestled him through the lobby, and threw him in the fountain out front. The guy hadn’t been resisting arrest, Finn just wanted to embarrass the prick and really ruin his day. Finn knows that when he and Roz arrive at the hotel, he’ll be thinking about that mook and others just like him, spending wads of dirty green on
their girlfriends. Roz will want to toss a coin in the fountain, and he’ll stand there in the sun while she asks him to make a wish. It’s the kind of small romantic gesture that she never used to care for but has now taken on greater meaning. She needs something more from him, and he simply can’t give it.

But he’s still got to try. That’s all this vacation signifies for him. A last ditch effort. Another act of will. To see if he can sit there in a hansom cab while the driver points out picturesque areas in Central Park, and Finn listens to the endless clip-clopping of hooves and smells the horse shit, and children laugh all around them and Roz tightens her hold on his arm, and he grins politely and swallows his screams.

Judith says, “Finn?”

“Let’s just say that after hearing your inspiring tales of wedded bliss, I will seriously consider it.”