The Last First Day (9 page)

For a while she had wanted passionately to be a playwright. She’d written a play set in the nineteenth century about a Japanese geisha, but she couldn’t seem to drag her mind sufficiently away from
Madame Butterfly
, which she loved, to make the work original. Then she’d tried a novel about a star-crossed mixed-race couple in the antebellum South that owed a good deal to
Romeo and Juliet
. Peter had faithfully read both the play and the novel, but she’d known they weren’t any good.

This is really pretty darn sad, Ruth, he’d said, rubbing his
head in a distressed way after turning the last page of her novel. Did both of those young people have to die in that fire?

She’d taken up plein air painting for a while, signing up once for a weeklong course on an island off the coast about two hours from Derry. Peter had framed one of her paintings from that course—a seascape—as well as one she’d done at Derry. She’d enjoyed the hours executing them, but she wasn’t an idiot. She could see that she had no real talent.

She still played the piano from time to time, but mostly she’d given up on the rest of it. And she did not really regret having abandoned these pursuits—except occasionally, she thought now, on evenings such as this one. The world felt to her on this night full of mysterious, blazing beauty and also fear and tragedy. The unsettled day, its little portents, her sense of dread and loneliness … and yet also the stars, and the deep blue of the night sky, the white silhouette of the chapel’s spire. She wanted to be able to
answer
the world somehow, to
say
something about how extraordinary it was, how extraordinary it was being alive. And how complicated it was, as well.

For how did it happen that sometimes the goodness of things—the beautiful world, her love for Peter, her gratitude for the life she had led, as opposed to the life she
might
have led, without Peter—made her feel like weeping?

She had no answer for any of this.

After that foolish business over the weathervane, she had apologized to Peter. She’d perfected that in their marriage, saying she was sorry.

She had gone to his study later that evening after their quarrel, bearing a tray with cake and a pot of coffee.

Knock, knock, she’d said, pushing open the door with her shoulder, entering the room, tray first.

Peter had not turned around from his desk, looking down studiously at the papers on his blotter, as if he had not heard her come into the room.

She’d set the tray on the table in front of the fireplace, poured the coffee.

Next to the word
pedant
? she’d said finally. In the dictionary?

Outside the study window, rain from the gutter had made a distinct, dripping sound. Peter had not spoken.

A little picture of me, she’d said. Boring mistress of the crossword.

Peter had taken off his glasses, rubbed his eyes.

She’d hated herself then. Who could
stand
to live with her?

I come bearing cake, she’d said instead, busying herself with the plates.

Finally he had swiveled around in his chair to face her. She had made an apple walnut cake, his favorite. She could whip up one of these and get it in the oven and have it out in under an hour.

He’d taken the plate when she handed it to him. He never could resist food. It was wonderful to cook for him, his delight boundless. You had to watch out for him when he was hungry—he was capable of knocking her practically off her feet when he needed to eat—but he was always so
grateful
to be fed.

She’d given him a fork, put a napkin on his knee.

Then she’d perched on the ottoman by his chair, knees together, chin on her fist, watching him.

It’s a little crumbly, she said. I left it a couple of minutes too long in the oven. Sorry.

She meant, sorry for being such an awful bitch, but she didn’t say that. She said
god damn it
and occasionally
shit
, but neither of them used the f-word. They just didn’t do that.

He’d eaten the cake, hunched over. She knew he was not above acting a little pathetic when he wanted to extract an apology. This is delicious, he’d said at last. Thank you.

She’d leaned forward from the ottoman and put her arms around his neck, her forehead on his shoulder. God damn it, she’d said then. Stop enjoying that cake so much.

When she let go of him, sitting back and wiping the wetness off her cheeks, he’d looked at her from under his bristly eyebrows. The look had been sly, pleased. He was happy to have aroused her pity, if that’s what it took.

Later that same night, before they went to sleep, she had trimmed his eyebrows. She’d made him sit down on the seat of the toilet, his big face upturned, long legs sticking out of his boxer shorts, while she wielded a tiny pair of sewing scissors over his eyes in the bright light from the fixture above the bathroom sink.

You look like a bad old hog, she said, nipping and tweezing. A big wild old pig.

Eyes closed, he had smiled, reached for her, running his palm up the inside of her thigh.

She’d swatted him away. I’ve got a pair of scissors here, she said.

When she finished, she looked down at him.

His face had been calm, untroubled. The lines across his forehead and around his eyes and mouth were the kind of lines that people who smiled a lot tended to get; they made him look good-humored.

She, on the other hand, had awful grooves between her eyebrows, as if she’d spent her whole life frowning, as if everything that had come before her had required her careful inspection, had misbehaved and refused to stand still properly.

She leaned down and put her lips against his forehead. She loved the way Peter smelled, of wood smoke from the fireplace and of Drysol, the old-fashioned deodorant he stubbornly preferred—it was hard to find these days—and of his whiskey from before dinner.

Better? he’d said. Less piggy?

She’d kissed him again.

A thing of beauty, she’d said, is a joy forever.

At the entrance to the chapel now, she hesitated, letting people move past her. She looked up the path, but there was no sign of Peter in the group of boys and teachers coming down the hill. People greeted her, embraced her, kissed her on the cheek, marching forth with unrecognizable faces out of the shining night.

She smiled brightly. Hello! she said. Hello, hello!

She caught a glimpse of Charlie Finney, the school’s new vice president. He’d come to Derry just three years ago. He was a big, fit young man, highly competitive on the tennis court—he had quickly abandoned Peter for younger, spryer opponents—
and with a weightlifter’s exaggeratedly developed chest. He had a high, intelligent-looking forehead, receding blond hair, a long pointy nose. He reminded Ruth of an Irish setter. His wife, Kitty, seemed like a cheerful person, busy with their three rambunctious young boys, all of them thick-legged, curly-headed people like Kitty, always in a kind of sweaty state, it seemed to Ruth.

A few times Ruth had run into Kitty on campus, and she had seemed eager to talk with Ruth, but one little boy or another was always dashing off or bonking his brother on the head or something—Ruth watched them, marveling—and mostly the women’s interactions had ended with Ruth waving an awkward good-bye at Kitty’s apologetic retreat.

Once, in the post office, Kitty had looked imploringly at Ruth, meanwhile trying to restrain a squirming toddler from running into the parking lot after his brothers.

I’d love to have you over for tea one day, Kitty said, just to hear about all your time here, Ruth. You know so much about this place, and you’ve done so much … but the house is always such a mess, and Charlie hates it when …

She had trailed off.

Stop it, Nicky, she’d said sharply to the child thrashing in her arms. Then, to Ruth, she had turned an embarrassed face, damp eyes. Sorry, she’d said.

Ruth felt surprised. Peter was regularly acknowledged for his contributions to the school, but it wasn’t often that people took note of her work. Yet she could not think about this; she wanted so much to reach out and touch the head of the child in Kitty’s arms. What a crop of perfect curls he had, like a cherub’s.

You can come to our house, Ruth said. Bring the boys. Anytime.

I’d love that, Kitty had said. But they’re such a wrecking crew …

Heavens. Nothing to wreck, Ruth began, but a howl had gone up from one of the other boys.

Oh, god—Kitty had dashed away.

Just telephone, Ruth had called after her. Anytime.

But Ruth had never heard from Kitty. She had imagined that Kitty was—as any young mother would be, of course—too busy for tea with an old lady.

Charlie had been clever about the school’s investments, Peter said. He was knowledgeable about secondary school curricular reform and accreditation matters and so forth. Yet Ruth disliked him. She did not in general trust people who spent too much time working on their own bodies, she told Peter—though not without a twinge of self-consciousness over her added pounds—and every time she saw Charlie on campus he always seemed to be emerging from the gym, a towel around his neck, or heading off on his bicycle in some silly-looking outfit that made him look like Spider-Man.

Charlie Finney was ambitious, Ruth had said.

Nothing wrong with that, Peter said.
I
was ambitious.

But Ruth thought Charlie was manipulative and disingenuous, as well as ambitious. She imagined that he wanted Peter’s job, and she had no doubt that he thought he could do it far better than Peter, though he was too calculating to say so outright, too well mannered, too political, to reveal himself in that way.

He sometimes called Peter
Pater
. Ruth hated this.

It’s so patronizing, she’d told Peter. And so … 
stupid
!

Peter had shrugged. I think he means it fondly, he said.

Oh,
Peter
. Ruth had gazed at him. Honestly, she’d said. I know you’re not such an innocent. Can’t you see he means to dethrone you?

Well, it isn’t much of a throne, Peter had said. It’s just an old swivel chair and a couple of drawers full of paper clips.

You’re just putting on an act, she told him. I don’t know why you do that.

Peter had run Derry brilliantly for all these years. He had the respect of his peers at other schools, had chaired national committees, had overseen many improvements at Derry, all the while working hard to find the boys for whom an education would matter most. People loved him.

But Charlie Finney just wanted to turn Derry into a fancy prep school, Ruth thought. He wanted to live in the headmaster’s house, and he wanted to get rid of as many of Peter’s poverty cases, as she’d heard Charlie call them, as possible. There was no question about it; Charlie Finney wanted to be king of the hill. He did not care about the scholarship boys, the children for whom the school had been founded. He talked often and with great seriousness about sustainability—which, as Ruth said to Peter, was just a way for people to avoid having to have principles and do the necessary work to live by them. And he was always cracking his knuckles, a habit that got on her nerves.

He brushed her cheek now, not a kiss exactly. Something that would look to others like a kiss, she thought.

You look absolutely lovely tonight, Ruth, he said. What a pretty pin.

Oh, stop, she said. Despite his politicking and his obsequiousness, she found that she occasionally enjoyed sparring with him. He got her dander up, as Peter said.

But sometimes she also felt a little sorry for him. No one would ever love Charlie Finney the way Peter was loved. Charlie Finney had never sacrificed himself for anything or anybody, she thought. People loved Peter because, in the end, he did not believe himself better than anyone else. He believed in the inevitable virtue and happiness of a community if all members were treated with respect and kindness.

Yet despite her suspicions about Charlie and his motives, she wanted him to reassure her now. He had probably spent more time today with Peter than anyone else. What had Jimmy meant earlier, asking her if she was all right, if Peter was all right?

Did things go all right today, Charlie? she asked.

Where
was
Peter now? she wondered.

But Charlie had turned away to speak to someone else, and he didn’t answer her. She felt embarrassed.

How dare he act so important, she thought.

People passed her on their way into the chapel.

Yes, yes! she said. Drinks at our house, as usual. You know where to find us. Good to see you. Had a nice summer? Welcome back.

The line dwindled, boys shuffling ahead and disappearing into the dimness. Still she waited on the threshold. Inside the chapel, candles had been lit in the sconces and on the windowsills. She looked in the door. Watery cones of light flickered up the cool, white walls. She stood for a minute, letting her eyes
adjust, and then finally she moved forward into the dimness to take a seat at the end of a pew. The boy beside her was apple-cheeked, with a wild mop of brown curls, his knee going up and down in a maddening way. A pair of sideburns crept down his cheeks like fuzzy orange caterpillars. This was the new style, she had noticed at dinner.

She tilted her head back against the pew. Earlier this summer she had finally cut her hair short, after years of wearing it long. She still enjoyed the feel of her new head, how light it seemed, her hair a fluffy silver cap. The wood under her neck felt silky and cool.

Why didn’t I do this before? she’d asked Peter, sitting at her dressing table on the evening of the day she’d had it cut.

She’d turned her chin this way and that, examining herself in the mirror.

I always wait too long to do things, she’d said. Like changing with the fashions.

She’d glanced at Peter, who had been sitting up in bed, glasses on his nose, eyes on the page of
Time
he was reading.

Or is it too much like a crone? she said. Too much ancient vestal virgin?

From the pillows, Peter had put down the magazine.

You look beautiful, he said. It was what he always said.