“She called Child Welfare and told them Oliver Sale, my firm’s general counsel, broke his daughter’s arm,” Chandler announced, and Rue’s heart sank. “This is an upstanding member of the community and a valued colleague of mine,” Chandler’s voice was rising, “and he is very upset. Very upset. And so would you be, if you suddenly found the police at your door because some harebrained…”
“Chandler, please stop shouting at me. I can’t make a sensible decision if I can’t find out what happened.”
“I just told you what happened!”
“In the first place, it’s not police who come, it’s a social worker, and they don’t go to the house. In the second, Mrs. Trainer didn’t call them without a reason.”
“How do you know, you’re three thousand miles away! Wouldn’t you be upset? If the police or whoever came prancing on campus to decide whether you’re fit to raise your own child…”
“Chandler, stop shouting at me.”
“This is a man with an impeccable reputation, and now of course this rumor is all over town, Oliver Sale beats his kid!”
“Stop shouting at me.”
There was a moment of silence. Finally Rue said, “I take it Lyndie has been injured in some way.”
“She fell down the stairs in the dark and broke a bone in her wrist.”
“I see.”
“And she told Mrs. Trainer that. She told her exactly what happened!”
“And whom else did she tell?”
“Oh whom else? Could you stop for once talking like you’ve got a goddamn hot potato in your mouth?”
“Yes, I can. Sorry. Did she tell Mr. Dianda?”
“I suppose so, he took her to the hospital.”
“And she told the doctors, I suppose.”
“Look, I have to get back to Oliver. I told him I’d have an answer for him tonight. What am I going to tell him?”
“Please tell him that I am extremely sorry that this happened, and I’d like to meet with him and Sondra on Monday.”
“I’m not going to say that, Rue, I’m going to tell him that Mrs. Trainer is fired.”
“You can’t do that. You can set policy, but you cannot do my job for me.”
“This is policy.”
“It absolutely is not.”
“Rue, let me be clear. I am taking this personally. I want you to consider this as if it had happened to me. Your teacher, a useless neurotic, who I’ve warned you about before, has accused someone very close to me—a lawyer, Rue! She’s accused him of a felony, he could be disbarred, did you think of that? I told the Sales I would give it my first priority, as if it had happened to me. To me, do we understand each other? I told them it would be taken care of.”
“And so it will. But if it’s taken care of by anyone but me, you’ll be looking for another school head.”
Chandler hung up.
Rue dialed Mike Dianda and got a busy signal. She waited five minutes and tried again. Still busy. Mary or Trinnie must be on, probably doing homework with a friend across town. She called the operator and told her it was an emergency.
Mike, it’s Rue.”
“We’ve been trying to reach you all day!”
“I know, Chandler got to me. Tell me what you know.”
“First let me tell you about the Oliver Sale School of Charm. He called me this afternoon and said if I didn’t put you on the fucking phone he was going to come over and rip it out of the wall.”
“Lovely.”
“Only he didn’t say Mrs. Shaw, he said Mrs. Shay.”
“How soon did he get around to his close friend, the President of the Board?”
“Right quick.”
“Oh, god. Well I’m ready. What happened?”
“Remember the speech you make before school opens, that no one should call CPS without talking to you first, unless they think you are the abuser?”
“Yes.”
“Someone didn’t hear it. Someone has a trap door in her brain that she opens and drops out all the information she doesn’t want.”
“Why do I always think of Catherine when you say these things? Did she talk to you, at least?”
“No, she talked to Bonnie.”
“Nothing like following procedure. And Bonnie told her to call CPS?”
“Bonnie expressly told her not to, until she discussed it with you. Catherine of course was in my office in tears for at least an hour this afternoon. She had done the only thing she could do, it’s up to her to protect that little girl, and there’s a hawk on campus eating birdies that has something to do with it….”
“Oh god.”
“She said Norman told her she was right…”
“She didn’t.”
“Rue, I couldn’t make this up.”
“Just do one thing for me, don’t ever tell anyone else that. If that gets around, she’s completely cooked.”
“I know. But I have to tell you, when she finally told me what Lyndie said, I felt she was right. I could kill her for not telling us first, but I think she was probably right to make the call.” He told Rue about the conflicting stories and about the ghost. Rue drew in her breath.
“Oh, no, the poor little thing,” she said.
“Really.”
“Clearly something is wrong…but god, I’d have wanted to talk to her, I’d have asked her to talk to Bonnie…”
“I did say to Oliver Sale, this afternoon, that while I was sorry about what had happened, I thought Lyndie was asking for help, and it would be wise to consider family therapy. He began to rave about how he was so much smarter than any goddamn therapist, he took a psych course once at the U of Chicago, and believe me, he knows it all.”
Rue sighed. The wood stove was finally beginning to throw some heat, but she wished she could cross the room to put the kettle on. It occurred to her that she’d given her parents a cordless phone for Christmas, and wondered what they had done with it. Found it too complex to work, she imagined. You have to remember to turn it on.
“So I take it a Child Protection worker paid us a visit.”
“Yes. Now as you know, it was Grandpersons’ Day, so the campus was crawling with visitors. Right before lunch a behemoth appears at Emily’s desk. We got Lyndie out of class and gave him an office to use.”
“Mine.”
“Yours. When he finished, middle school was just going down to lunch, so they all got a good look at him. He weighed at least three hundred pounds, and his stomach hung halfway to his knees, in two bags inside his pants. I think he was Rumanian. In any case, he did not speak English as a first language, or as a second, that I could tell.”
Rue groaned.
“Lyndie was very upset when she left. Every kid in the middle school saw Man Mountain, and of course in ten minutes they all knew what he had come for. He stopped to talk to me before he left.”
“And? Did he speak enough English to understand about the ghost?”
“She never told him about the ghost. Lyndie told him she tripped in the dark, that the arm didn’t hurt till she got to school, that everything is fine at home and she’s a happy little girl, and he figured that settled that. Then he got up to leave and stepped in Bucket’s dog dish. Broke it right in half and never noticed.”
Rue laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “Oh lord, this is a real mess.”
“Yes. It took until two o’clock for the news to reach Chandler Kip. I had a nice talk on the phone with him, and then a nice talk with Oliver Sale, and then Mrs. Sale came home from her aerobics class and they both appeared on our doorstep.”
“Both Sales.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know her at all—tell me.”
“He came in in his gray suit and his white shirt and his big black shoes, and she came in after him, this little bit of a thing all in neon spandex. It was like Beauty and the Beast. It was like one of them is in black and white and the other one’s in color.”
Rue laughed.
“I explained about th
e form we all sign, and I said these things happen and we would like to help in any way we could, and that was not the right thing to say. He began to roar at me, what kind of goddamn help did we think they needed, who did we think we were, he’s an upstanding citizen, a member of the bar, his mother belonged to the Eastern Star and his wife’s father works for the FBI.”
“Does he really?”
“Yes, apparently. So he went on flailing at me and she stared around the room. She has a figure that must be half plastic, at least.”
“Did she talk?”
“Not much. She clearly hates Catherine Trainer. She doesn’t want her fired, she wants her killed.”
“Are they going to withdraw?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think they know yet.”
“If you had to choose one word to describe the wife…”
Mike thought carefully. “Flighty? No, that’s not it. She did keep staring around and making little motions with her head, like a bird. But wait, I’ll get it.”
“Frightened?”
“That seemed like part of it. But it was more that she seemed disconnected. I’d say she has an inappropriate affect, but that’s not one word. I wouldn’t say she was a relaxed or happy woman.”
“I’ll see for myself soon enough. I don’t know that I’d be too relaxed, married to that man.”
“No.”
“I don’t suppose you brought up the subject of Jonathan?”
“You know,” said Mike, “it just didn’t seem like the time.”
“So where do we stand?”
“They wailed away at me until they wore themselves out, and now they’re back in their corners having their brows mopped and their mouthpieces fitted, waiting for you.”
“Great. Okay, now, talk to me about Lyndie. Have you seen her?”
“She didn’t want to talk. She seemed mortified by Man Mountain.”
“Is she frightened?”
“I can’t tell. She’s too angry. And not much inclined to trust me, at the moment.”
“I see. Now, where do we stand? The family refuses therapy. If they leave the school the children may be in danger and no one will care, but if they stay, then it’s our problem, but there’s nothing we can do. And of course it’s entirely possible that Lyndie makes up stories to get attention. She may even hurt herself to get attention. What’s your gut feeling?”
Mike said, “My gut says Oliver Sale could certainly throw a child down the stairs. But Lyndie…I don’t know. I don’t know. You better talk to her yourself.”
They sat in silence for a while, on opposite edges of the continent.
“Do we know what house they live in?”
“Why do you ask?”
“What is the chance it really is haunted?”
Mike didn’t laugh. She could tell he had thought of this himself. “At that address, I’d say not much. That section was all developed about the same time; it’s the California Palazzo style, vintage nineteen seventy-six.”
“Of course, we don’t know how ghosts behave, exactly,” Rue said. “There may be haunted places that no one died in. There may be ghosts who haunt people, not places.”
“It might be one of the Plums!” Mike exclaimed. “It’s an angel gone wrong and it followed her home from school!”
“I hope it isn’t that. I don’t want to have to explain it to Protective Services.”
“Or the accreditation committee.”
“Listen, before I get back, will you talk with Catherine, tell her you want to see her at least once a week, to talk about class preparation and lesson plans and anything she needs help with?”
“I already did.”
Rue breathed relief. “Thank you.”
There was another silence. “How’s your mom?” Mike asked.
“She’s better than I expected. It’s good that I came.”
“Good. I’ll let you know if there’s any more excitement.”
“Let’s hope not. I’ll see you Monday.”
Rue sat for a while in the bright kitchen surrounded by blackness. Then she damped down the wood stove, turned out the lights, and went upstairs. She had to clear her Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls off the pillow before she could get into bed.
The first thing Rue did Monday morning, after Flag Raising and taking attendance, was send for Lyndie.
Lyndie came to the door of her office and stood like a wraith, waiting for Rue to notice her. Rue was shocked when she did. Lyndie’s skin looked gray, and her hair, which she had worn in fat pigtails last week, was hacked short. She did not look directly at Rue but stood staring at the floor.
“Come in, Lyndie,” Rue said, and Lyndie did. She took a chair far from Rue’s desk and perched on the edge of it. Rue got up and shut the door, then went to take a chair closer to her. She waited a moment or two hoping Lyndie would speak, but the girl looked steadily at the carpet.
“You’ve got a new haircut,” Rue said. Lyndie nodded. “I like it.”
Lyndie didn’t reply. She did not, apparently, care whether Mrs. Shaw liked it or not.
“How is your arm, Lyndie?”
Lyndie was wearing a lightweight cast, strapped on with Velcro. Under it a dirty ace bandage held her wrist stationary. “You’ve got a V-wrap bandage there, I see. I used to know how to wrap that, from Girl Scouts. Does your mother wrap it for you?”
Lyndie shrugged, and Rue couldn’t tell if it meant I don’t know or I’ll say anything you want if you’ll leave me alone.
“Does your arm hurt much?”
Again, Lyndie didn’t bother to answer.
“Lyndie—you seem very angry about something.” There was a pause. Lyndie stared at her shoe, and then nodded.
“Is it anything I can help with?”
No answer.
“If you tell me what you’re angry about, or who you’re angry at, maybe I can do something about it.”
Lyndie suddenly looked out the window. She stared at the sky, her face hard to read.
“Are you angry at me, Lyndie?” The girl shook her head no. Then she looked at the floor again and said bitterly, “Mrs. Trainer.”
Rue sat up. “You’re mad at Mrs. Trainer?” she said softly. “Did she do something bad?”
Lyndie looked at her fiercely. She looked like an animal that’s been beaten in an unfair fight.
“I told her a secret, and she told.”
Rue took a deep breath. “That is bad,” she said. “I always think of Mrs. Trainer as someone you can trust.”
Lyndie looked as if that made Rue a bigger fool than even Lyndie.
“Are you sure she knew it was a secret?”
Lyndie nodded angrily.
“I don’t suppose you can tell me what it was about?”
Lyndie apparently did not think this deserved an answer.
“Lyndie, it seems to me that a bad thing has happened here, and I don’t know quite what to do about it. I’m sure Mrs. Trainer thought she was doing something for your good.”
She could see she was getting nowhere.
Emily came to the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Sale are here, Rue.” Lyndie looked alarmed. Rue said, “Ask them to wait just a minute, please.” To Lyndie she said, “Your parents are very upset about what happened Friday, and I want to talk with them about it. Would you like to stay?” Lyndie shook her head.
“You go on back to class, then, and I’ll find you later and we’ll decide what to do.”
Lyndie didn’t move. She stared at Rue, a deep, stubborn, demanding stare. Rue found it both frightening and touching. Again, she had the image of Lyndie as a hurt animal that can’t tell you where it hurts so you have to guess. On an impulse, she said, “I’ll tell you what. Go to the library and tell Mrs. Nafie I sent you. Ask her to help you choose a topic and show you how to look it up in three different reference books. If you have time before I come to find you, you write me a one-page paper on what you’ve learned. Is that all right?”
Lyndie nodded. For the first time since
she came in, there was some light in her eyes. She stood up, and Rue stood too, and put a hand on her shoulder. Lyndie jumped as if she’d been burned.
Rue spent an hour with Oliver and Sondra Sale, during which she heard in detail how humiliating, intrusive, uncalled-for, and stupid they found having their private business exposed for the whole town to discuss. They were upstanding private people, Rue learned, and to be the subject of rumors, especially ugly and false ones, was a great and serious harm. Rue bowed to it.
“In Mrs. Trainer’s defense,” she said once, “she felt she was obliged by law to act as she did. It’s up to the State to evaluate the…”
“Section one-one-one-six-six of the Penal Code, I’m a lawyer, Mrs. Shaw,” said Oliver. “‘Knows or reasonably suspects’ is the language. Are you saying this was reasonable?”
“I’m only saying it must have been reasonable to her.”
“I find this incredibly offensive,” he said, and stood up. Sondra went on staring at her skirt. “There was nothing wrong with Lyndie when I drove her to school. I think she had an accident here, on the playground or in class.”
“Why do you think she would not tell us that’s what happened?”
“How the hell do I know? She’s protecting someone—another student. Even a teacher. Where’s the piece of paper for parents to sign, that if they know or reasonably suspect that a child has been injured at school, they should sue the hell out of the place to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else?”
Rue listened as quietly as she could. Toward the end of the hour, when she began to be aware of the press of other matters that were stacking up outside her office, she said, “There is no way any of us can change what happened. But I don’t have a clear sense of where we should go from here.”
She was waiting to hear that they were withdrawing their children and filing suit. But instead, Sondra Sale said, “We demand that you fire Catherine Trainer. Lyndie has been upset since the moment she met that woman. She’s a danger to the children.”
Rue looked at her, slightly thrown. She said “I’m afraid I can’t agree. She may not be perfect, but I am quite sure she is not a danger to anyone.”