"Oh, God, he's colored - "
"Mother!" I promised to call over the weekend, and hastily said good-bye.
Schulz eyed me askance. "Didn't quite measure up, did I?"
"I heard her," Audrey said, and mimicked my mother's voice, "'Someone you picked up?' Sorry, Goldy. Why do women of our mothers' generation worry so much about what kind of man we're seeing or married to? Why don't they worry about how we're doing? That's what I tell Heather, 'I'm worried about you, honey, not some boy you might be dating and what his background is.' " Audrey moved to the sink and poured herself a glass of water. She finished with, "You should have told her Schulz went to Harvard."
"Oh, Lord, don't remind me," groaned Schulz. He turned and gave me a half-grin. "I went out to Elk Park Prep to get a few things cleared up, and the headmaster asked me where I went to school." He shrugged. "I didn't know what he meant, so I said, 'Well, first there was North Peak Elementary - ` and old.Perkins waved his hand and said, 'Stop right there.' "
I was shocked. This hurt as much as the spider bite. How dare Perkins insult Schulz, who was in every way his superior? I felt the slight as keenly as if Perkins had criticized Arch. "That imbecile!" I blurted out.
Schulz turned his unruffled, seawater-green gaze at me. I felt my face redden and a flip-flop tighten my abdomen. "Not to worry, Miss G. I know the difference between a person who's educated enough to handle life's challenges and a person who just needs to brag all the time.
Audrey's mouth sagged open. She said, "Make that 'the difference between a woman who can handle life's challenges and a man who needs to brag all the time.' "
Schulz said, "Hmm."
I didn't know where this was going and I didn't care. But Schulz was interested. To Audrey, he said, "Er, tell me what you mean."
Audrey's tone was defiant. "That's what I'm trying to teach Heather. I say, 'Get ahead now, honey, while you're young, you don't want to get stuck taking care of some man's socks and ego.'" She took a shuddering breath. "You see, if you don't get ahead when you're young, if you just let things go along, if you trust people..."
A cloud of bitterness soured her features. "Oh, never mind. All I want is for Heather to have things I never had. She is phenomenally talented," she said, animated again. "She ran the virtual reality simulator this summer for exploring Mars." She glared at us fiercely. "Heather is going to be a success."
Schulz leaned back in his chair and ,gave Audrey and me a benevolent, questioning grin. "Success, huh?"
When we had no response, he got up out of his chair and cocked his head at us. "You feeling okay, Goldy?" When I said I thought so, he added, "I'm going to make some tea."
We were silent while Schulz rummaged for cups, saucers, and a pot, and then drew water. Finally Audrey said glumly, "Success is what I'm not." She ticked off on her fingers. "No meaningful work or career, no relationship, no money..."
Well, I was not going to interrupt my part-time assistant and say, catering is meaningful work for some of us, if not for you. Catering pays the bills. That's my definition of meaningful.
Schulz said, "I grew up in eastern Colorado and paid for my own college education until I was drafted. I didn't finish a degree until I got out of the army. Criminalistics, University of Colorado at Denver." He frowned. "I've! killed people and thought it was wrong, killed them and I, thought it was right. Some criminals I catch and some I don't. I make a good salary and I'm unmarried, no kids."
He rubbed his chin, watching Audrey. "But I think of myself as a success. In fact" - here he gave me a wink - "I'm getting more successful all the time."
"Huh," said Audrey. The teakettle whistled. Schulz moved efficiently around the kitchen, first ladling in China black tea leaves, then pouring a steaming stream of water into the pot. He ducked into the refrigerator and came out with a dish of leftover Red 'n' Whites. I glanced at my watch: 3:00, Arch and Julian would be home within the hour, and we had nothing for dinner. Maybe Julian would want to cook, This time he'd get no argument from me.
Audrey's hand trembled as she lifted her teacup and saucer. The cup made a chittering sound as Schulz slowly filled it. Audrey did not look at me when she went on, "... I didn't go to a school where I could make some- thing out of myself. If only I had studied math, instead of..."
The pain in my hand was getting worse. I was having trouble focusing on Audrey's voice, whine whine, Caltech, whine whine Mount Holyoke, Heather's always been so gifted. Sudden exhaustion swept over me. I dreaded telling Arch and Julian about the spider bite. I longed to take my first doctor-prescribed hot bath. But now Audrey was complaining about how the best possible thing for Heather would be a big science-oriented school in California or the Northeast, since they had the best reputations and would assure her of landing a great job once she graduated. Maybe it was the bite, maybe it was my mood, maybe I had just had it with this kind of talk. Enough.
"Uncle! A big-name school is not going to make a person. You make it sound like it's sex or something!"
Schulz turned down the edges of his mouth in an effort not to laugh. He cleared his throat with a great rumbly sound and said, "Oh, yeah? Like sex? This ought to be interesting. Goldy? You haven't touched your tea."
I slouched back and obligingly sipped. "Let me tell you, my college counselor promised me the moon and I believed her."
Audrey said, "Really? Where did you go?" I told her; she was impressed. She said, "Gosh! A camel's-hair coat in every closet!"
"Spare me." I remembered undergraduate nights shivering in freezing rain mixed with snow. I didn't recall ever seeing a camel's-hair coat. I sighed. "Where do these reputations come from? People think, If you go to this or that college, you're in. Go to this or that school and you'll become beautiful and smart and get a great job and be a successful person. What a joke."
"She's getting cynical in her old age," Schulz told Audrey out of the side of his mouth. Then to me, brightly, "Would you pass the sugar?"
"I mean, just look at the catalogue." I slid Schulz the sugar bowl with my good hand. "Look at the close-up shots of Gothic spires... they do it that way so you won't see the smog. Look at the good-looking well-dressed preppy white Anglo-Saxon Protestant females striding together across the lush green campus. They and their friends vacated the campus over the weekend, while the less attractive girls stayed alone in the dorms, their minuscule numbers at meals an indictment of their own unpopularity."
I put down my teacup and held my hands open as if perusing an imaginary brochure. "Wow! Look at the picture of that energetic lecturer and those students eagerly taking notes - that must be a fascinating class!" I gave them a fascinated - class look. "The class is required for your major, but it took you three and a half years to get into it! Complain to your parents, as I did, and they say, 'For this we're paying thousands a year?'" I sipped tea and gave them a wide grin. "Man, I just loved going to a big-name school."
Schulz explained placidly to Audrey, "Goldy has an excitable temperament."
"Nah," I said, surprised by the passion in my little diatribe. "What the heck, I even give the school money."
The phone rang. Schulz raised his eyebrows at me again, and again I nodded. This time it was Julian. He had heard about the spider incident when Hank Dawson fulfilled his promise and delivered the cookies. Julian was frantic. Schulz tried to lighten it up by saying, "I've warned her not to try to cook with spiders," but Julian was having none of it. I could hear him yelling.
I signaled, "Just let me talk to him." When Schulz resignedly handed me the phone, I said, "Julian, I'm fine, I want you to quit worrying about me - "
"Who put that spider in the drawer?" he yelled. "Miss Ferrell? Trying to take attention away from her other problems?"
"Whoa, Julian. Of course Miss Ferrell didn't put it in the drawer. Come on. Everybody knows black widows live all over Colorado. I hardly think Miss Ferrell, or anybody else for that matter, would deliberately try something nasty like that."
"Want to bet? She just told me she doesn't know anything about food science! I'll bet she doesn't think it's worthy. She's not going to give me a good recommendation, I know it. She's a class A bitch from the word go."
"I'll talk to her," I volunteered. "Lot of good that'll do," he replied bitterly. And then he sighed. It was a deep, pained, resigned sigh.
"What else is going on?" I asked, concerned. "You sound terrible."
"We're all staying until about six. There's a vocabulary-review thing going on in Ferrell's room. Arch is in the library, don't worry. We'll just be home late."
"How was the Stanford rep? Did you have some cookies?"
"Oh, the room was packed. I didn't go." He paused. "Sheila Morgenstern told me she mailed in her early decision application to Cornell. She's sixth in our class, but she got 1550 combined on her SATs last year. I'm happy for her, I guess, but it's bad for me. Cornell will never take two kids from the same school. Especially if one of them isn't going to get a good recommendation from the college counselor."
"Oh, come on, sure they will, Julian. You're just making yourself miserable. Lighten up!"
There was a silence. "Goldy," Julian said evenly, "I know you mean well. Really, I do. But honestly, you don't know a thing."
"Oh," I mumbled, staring at my swollen finger. Maybe he was right. My life did seem to be a mess at the moment. "I didn't mean to - "
"Aah, forget about it. To make things worse, I flunked a French quiz this morning. And I flunked a history quiz too. Not my day, I guess."
"FIunked?"
"Oh, I was tired, and then Ferrell asked five questions about the subjunctive. Schlichtmaier asked about Lafayette, and I guess I missed that part when he talked about him." He mocked, "Veil, ve don't know for shoor..."
"Don't," I said.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, don't be prejudiced. Forgot to mention, half the class flunked too. Nobody's learning a thing in there." There was a silence. "And hey, I'm not the one making fun of Schlichtmaier. I stick up for him every chance I get."
"I'm sure you do."
But Julian's tone had again grown savage. "You want to know the truth, the guy who used to make fun of him is dead."
11
"Now, that's a happy note." I hung up the phone, somehow managing not to bang my injured finger. "Julian says I am totally ignorant. And worse, he's afraid Miss Ferrell isn't going to write him a good recommendation for Cornell."
"He's sunk," proclaimed Audrey. "He won't get in now if he invents a solar-powered car."
"Oh, give me a break."
"Come on," Schulz interjected. "That's just the kind of car we need down at the Sheriff's Department."
Audrey smiled shyly. On my index finger the bite area throbbed. I peeked under the bandage and saw that the redness had resolved itself into an enormous, ugly blister. I pondered it glumly. Schulz poured more tea. He wasn't going anywhere, and I didn't know whether this sudden lack of purpose stemmed from concern for me or curiosity about Audrey. I suspected the latter.
Audrey got to her feet. She left the bouquet of carnations on the table beside her empty teacup. "Well, I suppose I ought to be moving on. Think you're going to be okay to cook Friday? It's just a few days away."
I held out my hands helplessly, as in, Do I have a choice? I told her she could come by at six. "And thanks for the flowers. They're a great addition to the shop here."
"I'll walk you out," Schulz volunteered with unnecessary enthusiasm. I looked puzzled. He ignored me.
Outside, he stood talking with Audrey for a few minutes, then walked her to her pickup. After a few moments he came back, slowly sat in one of my kitchen chairs, then gently lifted my right hand and examined it. "I have to ask you the obvious, you know. Do you think that spider was intended for you? Or for somebody else?"
"I do not believe it was intended for me, or anyone else for that matter," I replied firmly. "There was a lot of confusion in the kitchen, a big crowd, a lot of chitchat about tasting jam." I saw my hand, as if in slow motion, go into the silverware drawer. "It just happened."
He mused about this for a while. For the first time I noticed the care he had used to dress for our lunch: pinstripe shirt, rep tie, knitted vest; corduroy pants. While I was looking him over, he winked and said, "Audrey didn't mention going to college herself."
"She went, all right, at least for a while. But it rained so much, she said her bike ran over fish on her way to classes. And I guess the classes themselves were awful. Dates were nonexistent. And everyone at her high school had told her it was going to be this wonderful experience. She got some therapy there at the school clinic. She hated that too. She finally concluded that what was making her unhappy was the school itself. So she left and got married. And now the marriage is breaking up."
