the Writing Circle (2010) (14 page)

“May we speak with you for a moment, please?” said Jerry.

Paul didn’t need to ask what it was about. He slid his sketchbook behind the pillow and pulled his knees up and hugged them close to his body. His father entered the room, Gillian just behind him. He saw them looking around, trying to find a place to sit. The bed was piled with stuff, which was a good thing. Paul didn’t want either of them that close to him, didn’t want either of them sitting on his bed. Jerry moved some clothes from the desk chair to the desk and offered the chair to Gillian. She sat, and Jerry stood beside her, one hand on her shoulder, linking them together, making it clear to Paul that whatever they were going to say to him had been worked out in advance, that they were a team. Paul’s navy blue Academy sweatshirt was still draped over the chair back, one arm hanging limply.

Jerry’s face looked bloated, the way it did just before he started yelling at Paul’s mother. Gillian’s face was serene, unsmiling. She looked straight at Paul.

“Gillian received a call today from the headmaster of your school,” began Jerry. “What she heard from him was upsetting to both her and to me.”

Paul pulled back closer to the wall. He looked down at his feet. He had a hole in his sock, and his toe stuck out like a little white, bald head.

“I’m waiting for you to say something,” said Jerry. His voice was louder now. “What’s been going on with you? What the hell did you think you were doing?”

Paul didn’t say anything.

“Look at me!” shouted Jerry.

Paul looked up. Gillian’s hand moved and rested on top of Jerry’s hand on her shoulder. Her voice was soft and cool.

“Paul,” she said, “we don’t really understand what could have motivated you to do something so”—she paused for a second, not so much to search for the perfect word as to lay emphasis on it—“so dishonorable,” she said. “It’s puzzling to both of us, since it seems previously you had been doing perfectly acceptable work in that course. And it’s particularly distressing to me, since you live here, with me, and should know to value the words of any writer. The Internet may make things easy, but it’s no excuse.”

“I didn’t say it was,” mumbled Paul.

“What was that?” asked Jerry.

“Nothing,” said Paul. He moved closer to the wall, but he was in the corner; there wasn’t anyplace to go.

“If you ever borrow anything from another writer,” said Gillian, “you need to transform it, make it better. You need to make it yours.”

“Here’s what you’re going to do, young man,” said Jerry. His voice was rising again. “You’re going to sit down tonight and rewrite that paper. And you’re going to bring it to school with you tomorrow and turn it in to your teacher.”

“I’m going to fail the course anyway,” said Paul.

“It’s not a question of failing or not failing,” said Jerry. “It’s a question of doing things right.”

“What about Thayer’s paper? Do I have to do that one, too?”

“Thayer?” asked Jerry.

“The other kid.”

Jerry looked at Gillian. “What’s this all about?” he asked.

Gillian shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “All that was discussed with me was the question of plagiarism, and the possible consequences the school is considering for Paul.”

“Let’s not get offtrack here, then,” said Jerry. “And, Paul, I don’t want you trying to lay any of the blame for this on some other kid.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do,” said Paul.

“If you’re expelled from The Academy,” said Jerry, “we’re going to have to hustle and get you enrolled in the public high school, you know that, don’t you? And you know what a disappointment this is to Gillian and to me? It was no easy trick getting you admitted to The Academy. Gillian had to really pull strings to get you in.”

“I can go live with Mom,” Paul said. “I can go to school there.”

“That certainly occurred to me,” said Jerry. “But Gillian thinks you should be allowed to continue living here with us. She wants us to give you another chance. I’d like to hear you say thank you to her.”

“Paul doesn’t need to thank me,” said Gillian. “I know how remorseful he must be feeling right now about all of this.” She stood up and started walking towards the door, her hand around Jerry’s arm.

Jerry sighed. “All right, then,” he said. He followed Gillian, but before he left the room he stopped and took a hard look at Paul. “What I want you to do is get up right now and sit at your desk and get to work rewriting that paper. I expect it done before you go to sleep tonight.” He thumped his knuckles on the footboard of the bed.

Paul closed his eyes, but his lids didn’t hold back his tears. He didn’t open his eyes until his father and Gillian were gone, until his room was his again.

I
N THE UNDERSIZED, OVERHEATED KITCHEN OF RACHEL’S
apartment, Virginia basted the turkey while Rachel stirred the vegetarian stuffing, which was sequestered in a pot, a safe distance from the roasting bird. Rachel had assigned Joe and Dennis to look after the guests in the living room. Bernard and Teddy would both be on good behavior, but the tension between them was so palpable it was safer to keep them apart until the meal was served. While Teddy could be counted on to avoid Bernard, Virginia wasn’t sure Bernard could be trusted to avoid Teddy.

Rachel was wearing a hot angora sweater. Her face was flushed, and her wire-rimmed glasses had slipped down on her moist nose. Virginia knew that the sweater had been a gift from Bernard and Aimee, selected no doubt by Aimee, and that Rachel was wearing it even though she was uneasy about the possible mistreatment of rabbits that had gone into its creation. Aimee herself wore only tailored, expensive clothes in greys and black, and although Rachel’s style was less severe, she would never have selected a sweater like this, pink, with sequins and a scalloped neckline. Virginia wondered if this was how Aimee saw Rachel, or if there was just a touch of condescension in the gift. Not charitable of me, she thought. And she was too happy not to have charitable feelings, even about Aimee.

Virginia pushed the turkey back into the oven and turned to Rachel. “Would you like me to take over for you, Peachie?” she asked. “You look like you could use some fresh air.”

“Thanks, Mommy,” said Rachel. “I’m fine. Really.”

Virginia smiled, and because she was so happy, because she couldn’t contain herself, she leaned forward and kissed Rachel on her glistening brow.

“Oh, darling,” said Virginia. She had learned Rachel’s secret two weeks ago and knew that Rachel had planned this occasion to share it with all the family. When Rachel had called to confide in her—and that in itself was a miracle, it was only in the past few years that Rachel was so open with her—Virginia laid her head down on her desk and cried with happiness and relief. She’d never let Rachel know, but she’d been afraid that Rachel, serious and hardworking as she was, might never get around to thinking about motherhood until it was too late or that, because Rachel and Dennis were poor but reluctant to accept monetary aid, they would feel they couldn’t afford to be parents.

Rachel had asked Virginia to keep the news a secret from everyone, even from Joe, but Virginia had pleaded. “He’ll see me going around the house with a besotted look on my face,” she’d said, “and what am I to tell him when he wants to know why I’m so happy? I’m really quite incapable of lying to Joe.”

“You’re hopeless, Mommy,” Rachel had said. “But Dennis and I did want to surprise everyone with this at Thanksgiving, and now if Joe knows, he won’t act surprised, and then Daddy will know that I told you and not him.”

“I’ll make Joe swear ahead that he will act suitably surprised,” said Virginia.

In fact, Virginia hadn’t told Joe, not exactly. Eager to prove worthy of her daughter’s confidence, yet disinclined to have any secret from her husband, she’d solved her moral quandary with a semantic trick.

“Rachel has confided in me something quite wonderful,” she’d told Joe, “but would prefer that I keep it a secret for the moment. I’m sure you can guess what it is, but would you mind very much if I left the telling of it to Rachel herself?”

Joe’s answer had been to take Virginia in his arms. “Oh, Ginny,” he’d whispered. “What happy news!”

Dennis came into the kitchen, ostensibly to see how things were going, but Virginia guessed it was probably to escape from Bernard, who tended to patronize him, and Aimee, who tended to ignore him. He kissed the back of Rachel’s neck.

Rachel turned around towards him suddenly. “You’re not leaving certain parties unchaperoned out there together, are you?” she asked.

“Joe’s talking to Teddy and Marika,” said Dennis, “and Aimee’s out on the porch making calls on her cell, and Bernie’s somewhere, I don’t know where, but a safe distance from Teddy.”

“Go look after him, please,” said Rachel.

“Don’t you need some help in the kitchen?” asked Dennis.

“Mommy and I have dinner under control,” said Rachel. “You menfolk are on cleanup detail, remember?”

“Does that include me?” asked Bernard, who had come into the kitchen, wineglass in hand.

“Sure, Daddy, you’re included. We have an apron in your size.”

“I like washing up, Peachie,” said Bernard. “I’m an expert with crystal that doesn’t go in the dishwasher, and I always did the pots for your mother, didn’t I, Virginia?”

“You did not do the pots for
me,
” said Virginia. “They were your dirty pots just as much as they were mine.” But she gave Bernard a friendly little poke on the arm. They were going to be grandparents together. Just wait, she wanted to tell him, there’s something marvelous in store for you.

“Maybe Aimee would help you set the table,” said Rachel, “when she’s done with her calls. I left the seating chart on top of the piano.”

“All right,” said Dennis, and he went off to the dining room. Virginia was fairly sure he wouldn’t seek Aimee’s help.

When Dennis was gone, Bernard made himself comfortable on a stool by the kitchen counter, unfazed by the chaos around him and, it seemed to Virginia, remarkably unaffected by the heat. He’d always been able to tolerate extremes of temperature, and now he made no move to loosen the cravat around his neck, or remove the new cashmere blazer that Virginia guessed Aimee had outfitted him in.

“So, Peachie, tell me what’s been going on at The Academy with Gillian’s stepson,” said Bernard. “She made some mention of his being on probation there—I gather he’s something of a problem at home—and I figured you’d know more of the story.”

“Oh, that!” cried Rachel. She turned the heat off under the pot of stuffing and covered it with a lid. “That poor kid, Paul. He got bulldozed into writing a paper for an odious boy named Thayer, whose family’s a major Academy donor, and when Stewart Joralemon figured out there were some parts that had been lifted from articles on the Internet, he hauled in Thayer. And do you know what Thayer said in his own defense?” Rachel paused, and Virginia shook her head and smiled at her daughter. She admired the passion Rachel brought to her work, but she did worry sometimes about Rachel’s intensity.

“He claimed he wasn’t guilty of plagiarism because he hadn’t written the paper at all, Paul Traub had written it. And here’s the kicker: he was actually indignant that Paul had given him what he called a ‘crappy’ paper!”

“Why was Paul writing a paper for another student?” asked Virginia.

Rachel pushed her hair back off her face and took a deep breath. “That’s what makes it such a heartbreaking story,” she said. “Paul’s one of those shy, unpopular kids. He wanted Thayer to be his friend.”

Bernard cleared his throat. “Maybe, Peachie, Paul is more clever than you think. Maybe he felt pressured to produce a paper for this Thayer character and inserted plagiarized sections with the hopes that Thayer would be exposed. The perfect revenge.”

“Oh no, Daddy, not at all,” said Rachel. “Paul’s the kind of kid who would never imagine doing anything like that. He’s innocent—pathetically so. And his own paper had unacknowledged quotes in it as well. He was stuck trying to produce two papers in a short time and didn’t know what else to do. You said Gillian suggested he was a problem at home. I can’t believe that. My guess is that Gillian is a problem.”

Bernard raised his eyebrows. Virginia had to smile. She had guessed that once, most probably after she and Bernard were no longer together, there had been something brief between Bernard and Gillian, but she was fairly certain that Rachel had no idea.

“You like this boy, don’t you,” said Virginia.

Rachel sighed. “I hate to see any kid get treated unfairly,” she said.

“If all he got was being put on probation, it sounds as if he was treated rather leniently,” said Bernard.

“But that’s only because I knew about Thayer,” said Rachel. Her face was red now. “Donald Bruer wanted to suspend Paul and let Thayer off. But that would be unconscionably inequitable. How could I keep silent about that?”

“Is that what you told him?” asked Virginia.

Rachel nodded and shrugged. “Something like that.”

Virginia smiled. She could just see her slender daughter, her slender
pregnant
daughter, rising to the defense of this hapless boy.

“I know Stewart Joralemon,” said Bernard. “I always took him for a rather square, honest chap.”

“Oh,
he
was fair. He was going to fail both boys in his course. But Donald Bruer couldn’t have Thayer Henniman fail a course. So he arranged it so both boys dropped the course so it wouldn’t appear on their records.”

“And Joralemon went along with that?”

“Not exactly,” said Rachel. “He took an unexpected early retirement. At least that’s the official word. But he was forced out. They’re paying him well, but they won’t let him teach anymore.”

“Oh, Peachie,” said Virginia, “I’m so sorry you have to work at a place like that!” She wanted to say that maybe, once the baby was there, Rachel could leave that job.

“I like the students, though,” said Rachel. “Well, most of them, that is.”

“You should be teaching at the college level,” said Bernard. “You should be teaching Donne and Marvell.”

“There aren’t a lot of jobs around here, Daddy, you know that,” said Rachel. “I’m lucky to have the job I’ve got.”

Teddy, with Marika so close behind him her head seemed perched on his shoulder, was standing in the narrow kitchen doorway.

“What’s the prognosis for dinner, Peachie?” he asked. “We’ve got a long drive home.”

“I think we’re just about ready,” said Rachel. “Aren’t we, Mommy?”

“I think so,” said Virginia. She looked back and forth between her two offspring. “I love having the two of you both together,” she said, and then, because she noticed Marika, quickly added, “I love having us all together for Thanksgiving.”

THERE WAS A PLACE CARD FOR EACH GUEST,
hand-lettered, Virginia could tell, by Rachel. Rachel had put Teddy and Marika at one end of the table and Bernard and Aimee at the other. She and Joe were across from Rachel and Dennis. There was such an abundance of food and drink laid out that Virginia knew, even if they sat there for a week, they’d never eat it all. It was Virginia who had carved the turkey, and, in deference to Rachel and Dennis, the carcass of the bird resided in the kitchen and only a platter of sliced meat was out on the table. Joe, as instructed by Virginia ahead of time, lifted his glass and proposed a toast. “Here’s to Peachie and Dennis for hosting this sumptuous feast, and for bringing us together. And here’s to a happy Thanksgiving to all.”

Marika had her head down, eyes shut, as if in preprandial prayer, but no one else seemed to miss a more religious invocation. “Huzzah!” cried out Bernard, and there was a raising of glasses, although the table was too broad for people actually to touch glasses with anyone except the person sitting on either side. Bernard attempted to clink his with Teddy’s and Marika’s across the table, then rather ostentatiously got up from his seat and walked over to their side so he could do it properly. He had tucked his white linen napkin (a wedding gift set) in under his chin. He always did this in restaurants, which made him look like a giant baby with a bib. It was one of the quirks that had annoyed Virginia when she had been married to Bernard but that now seemed not only harmless but mildly amusing.

Thinking of babies, Virginia looked over at Rachel, sitting catty-cornered to Bernard. She looked a little worn-out but beatific. She leaned her head on Dennis’s shoulder. They’d probably be making their announcement once everyone had had a first run on the food.

“I’ve done it!” said Joe, and Virginia turned to him.

“What?” she asked.

Joe pointed to a glob of cranberry sauce on the white tablecloth.

“I’ll soak it in cold water later,” said Virginia, “but for now—” She looked around the table and saw that everyone was absorbed in what they were doing, covered the spot with her bread plate, and gave Joe a conspiratorial smile.

There was the sound of a knife tinging against a glass. Virginia looked towards the sound. It was Bernard. Virginia wanted to think it was sweet of Rachel to have given this honor to her father. But she couldn’t help feeling surprised that Dennis had ceded the privilege to Bernard, and she was disappointed Rachel had conspired with Bernard when all along Virginia had been feeling so privileged by what she’d believed was her special prior knowledge.

Once he had everyone’s attention, Bernard cleared his throat.

“Since we are all gathered here, Pilgrim style, on this rare occasion, there is an announcement of a coming joyous event which it is my great pleasure to share with you.”

Virginia settled back in her seat; her moment of displeasure had passed. It hardly mattered who made the announcement; the important thing was that Rachel was going to be a mother. She looked at Rachel, but the look of contentment had vanished from Rachel’s face. Rachel held her fork midway between her plate and mouth, a piece of sweet potato speared on the tines.

“Aimee and I,” said Bernard, and he paused for just a second, “are going to be having a baby.”