Saying Grace

  “Why on earth?” Mike Dianda asked.

  “It’s Yom Kippur,” said Rue. It was so terrible they both began to laugh.

  “We’ll have to reschedule.”

  “Can’t,” said Rue. “It closes Friday. It was the only day she could get the reservation.”

  “I can see why,” said Mike, and howled. There seemed nothing for it but for Rue to turn her bow into the wind and accept the storm, and they knew it would blow. It was true that the nonobservant Jewish families would rather have their children see the exhibit on Yom Kippur than not see it at all. It was also true that the observant ones were deeply offended, and right to be. Rue felt that maturity, or civility, or perhaps she meant sanity, consisted of the ability to hold in the mind as many points of view as a situation required and retain the ability to function. It appalled her how often she herself failed to meet her own standard, considering that she knew that she at least was trying.

  And at this moment she only laughed because it wasn’t funny. There was no doubt at all that anti-Semitism was alive and well, or alive and ill, on their little stretch of America’s Gold Coast. Last Rosh Hashanah, she’d had an angry visit from a Fundamentalist faculty member, who complained bitterly because the second and third graders had been taught to sing a round in Hebrew for flag-raising. She said it was offensive, if this was a school with no religious affiliation, to teach the children songs of spiritual significance. The music teacher pointed out that it was a secular song, it just happened to be in Hebrew. No one was satisfied.

  There were sadder things to consider. The parents of Roberta Shaftoe, the prekindergartner who wouldn’t come to school without her hats, demanded a meeting with Mrs. Shaw.

  “I think Mrs. Yeats is making a mountain out of a molehill,” said the furious Dudley Shaftoe. “Roberta is very musical, she loves color, she’s very quick at rhymes…”

  “Mr. Shaftoe, Roberta’s teacher is spending sixty percent of her time dealing with one child in the class. It simply is not fair to the other children.”

  “I don’t understand. At home she plays by herself for hours.”

  “That may be true. But in a more stimulating setting, she is very easily upset. A child is not ready to participate in a normal kindergarten program if she becomes hysterical several times a day because she’s lost her hat.”

  “But she’s made so much progress!” exclaimed Mrs. Shaftoe.

  “In what way?”

  “Last year, she wouldn’t go to school at all, except in full costume!”

  Mr. Shaftoe added aggressively that they had had Roberta tested and had been told that she was absolutely “not abnormal.” Rue asked permission to speak to the therapist, which the Shaftoes readily gave.

  “Did you find that Roberta Shaftoe was not abnormal?” she asked, after being told which diagnostics had been used. The psychologist was shocked.

  “Of course not,” he said. “I found that she was not psychotic.”

  “Do you believe that she can thrive in a normal academic setting?”

  “Not a chance,” said the therapist. He added, once assured that the remarks would never be repeated, that he thought he had never seen a stranger child in his life. He said he thought she might be possessed.

  Rue was just hanging up and wondering if maybe now she could begin the work that she had been trying to get to for two days, the high school recommendation letters, when she heard the words she had come to dread, the words that were measuring out her life in coffee spoons: “Rue, do you have a minute?”

  It was Catherine Trainer at the door, wearing the puffy-sleeved blouse and dirndl that made her look like a superannuated extra from a movie of Heidi. She was holding a Kleenex box in her hand and looking grave.

  “Come in,” Rue said, unnecessarily. Catherine had taken the chair across from Rue.

  “I was moving some desks to make room for a spelling gauntlet when this fell out,” said Catherine, handing over the box. Rue wondered what a spelling gauntlet might be, but decided not to ask. She picked up the box. It was well stuffed with lined papers, each sheet tightly folded to a tight square, such as could be concealed in the palm and passed to someone else under the teacher’s nose. Rue took one out and unfolded it. On it she found three distinct ten-year-olds’ handwriting. One wrote mostly script; the other two printed. Rue found the theme easy to follow. There were rude drawings, scatological doggerel, and conspiracies, all aimed at insulting, excluding, and driving to despair a plump, gormless child named Nicolette Wren.

  “Well, this is charming,” said Rue. “Can you identify the authors?”

  “Jennifer Lowen, Malone Dahl, and Lyndie Sale.”

  Rue’s heart sank. Poor Emily. And poor Catherine, who didn’t know that both the Lowens and the Sales were leading the pack howling for her blood.

  “Please send them all to see me.”

  “They’re at Art.”

  “Please pull them out and send them here immediately.”

  Catherine nodded and bustled out. When she passed Emily’s desk, she deliberately looked at the ceiling.

  Fifteen minutes later, three little girls in skirts and sweaters, with their little stick legs looking long and bare above white socks, marched in single file through the front office. Malone looked sheepish as she passed her mother’s desk on her way to Mrs. Shaw’s office. Emily looked after them, puzzled.

  The girls found Mrs. Shaw sitting at her desk, grave and unamused. She looked larger and older than when she was smiling. She asked them to close the door behind them and sit down. They felt her gaze on their faces, like heat, as each caught sight of the Kleenex box full of notes. Mrs. Shaw was looking at them like some flesh-and-blood Buddha as the terrible silence lengthened.

  Rue took a piece of lined paper from the box, opened it, and studied it. She looked at the girls, and they looked at the ceiling and floor. Rue pointed to a paragraph and asked, “Who wrote this?” Both Jennifer and Malone were darting looks at Lyndie, who was looking at her lap. “Lyndie, will you read this aloud, please?” Rue handed her the paper, and after a moment of resistance, Lyndie read:

  “My Dad has a machine for recording phone calls. Why don’t we call Nicolette and tell her we want to be best friends, and she’ll be excited and then afterward we can play back the tape and laugh.”

  Rue gave her a long look. She chose another paper with a different handwriting and looked at the girls with raised eyebrows.

  Reluctantly, Malone raised a finger. Malone managed to take the paper and read without ever looking up enough to look at Rue’s face.

  “Did you see who came and sat beside me at lunch? GROSS. She ate all the white stuff out of her cookies and then licked them. I got up and left her alone at the table.”

  Rue looked from face to face again. The girls were not enjoying this.

  She chose another piece of paper, a paragraph from the third hand, the one who favored green ink.

  “This must be yours, Jennifer.” She handed her the paper and pointed to a paragraph. Jennifer began to read.

  “If you’re captain again at recess, be sure Miss Asswipe gets chosen last.”

  Rue said, “I want each of you to take home the paper that I just handed you and have your parents sign it. I want them back on my desk before class tomorrow morning.

  “Both parents?” Lyndie asked.

  “One will do. Now, why don’t you tell me what is so serious about these notes.” Nobody spoke. “Jennifer.”

  “We wrote them in class.”

  “That’s not a good thing, but that’s not what bothers me.”

  “Bad words,” said Jennifer.

  “No, it’s not the bad words.”

  There was a silence. Rue looked from one to the other.

  “They’re mean,” said Malone.

  “They are very mean,” said Rue. “They are extraordinarily unkind. I’ve been thinking a good deal about what I want to say to you, since Mrs. Trainer left to go get you, and I’ve decided that I shouldn??
?t say very much. But I’ve made a short quiz for you.” She handed them each copies of a paper. The girls had no idea what a struggle she’d had not only to write so fast, but also to make the computer print in three columns. Gravely, they read to themselves:

  A

  B

  C

  “I have the right to choose my own friends, and no one can make me be friendly to a girl I don’t like.”

  “I have my friends, but I try to get along with everyone.”

  “I must be nice to everyone.”

  “When someone offends me, I ought to tell her off.”

  “When someone offends me, I can choose to tell her, or I can decide to let it go.”

  “When someone offends me, it’s better to ignore it.”

  “When I don’t get my way, I get mad.”

  “When I don’t get my way, it’s not the end of the world.”

  “I don’t expect to get my way most of the time. Other people are usually right.”

  “People in authority make mistakes, and when they do, I ought to complain.”

  “When a teacher makes a mistake, it may be because she’s human. I make mistakes too.”

  “People in authority should always be obeyed. It’s better that way.”

  Rue let it sink in for a moment. Then she said, “When you were in third grade, you were all like A. But when you’re as old as I am, you can be like A, or you can choose to be different. You have choices to make right now about what kind of person you want to be. Now, who do you want to grow up to be?”

  She looked from one to the other.

  Malone said “B” in a low voice.

  Rue looked at Jennifer and she said “B.”

  Rue looked at Lyndie and Lyndie said “C.”

  Malone came into the kitchen (with the spatter linoleum floor she so admired) where Emily was cleaning vegetables for soup. She got herself a diet drink from the refrigerator and sat down to drink it.

  “What’s up, honeybunch?” Emily knew this wasn’t an idle visit.

  “We got sent to Mrs. Shaw today,” said Malone.

  “I noticed. What was that about?”

  “I don’t really know,” said Malone in a grieved voice. “See, Jennifer is having a birthday party, and the school says if she has more than half the girls, she has to have all of them!”

  Malone waited for her mother to sympathize with her outrage, but her mother was apparently too stupid to grasp the situation.

  “Yes?” said Emily.

  “Well—it isn’t fair, that means she has to have Nicolette Wren and Bharatee and that will ruin it!”

  “In what way?”

  “Mom, you don’t understand, Nicolette ruins everything!”

  “Honey, why don’t you tell me what Mrs. Shaw wanted to see you about.”

  There was a pause, as Malone heaved some deeply put-upon sighs. Finally she produced from her pocket a piece of lined notepaper, much folded, with three different handwritings on it.

  “Mrs. Shaw says you have to sign this.”

  Emily put down her knife, wiped her hands, and took the note. When she had read it all, she put it down, and looked long and hard at her daughter.

  “What do you have to say for yourself, Malone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Malone was staring at the table. Her face was sullen.

  “What do you think Nicolette is feeling tonight?”

  “Nothing….”

  “Malone. What do you think Nicolette feels when you treat her that way?”

  Silence.

  “Do you think she doesn’t notice?”

  “She doesn’t act like she does.”

  “So that means she isn’t hurt? Haven’t you ever pretended not to mind when someone hurt your feelings?”

  Silence.

  “I won’t tolerate unkindness, Malone. You don’t have to like Nicolette. But you do have to treat her with common courtesy.”

  Emily peeled another carrot into the sink, then spoke again.

  “I think you’re so wrapped up in your new friends that you’re not thinking for yourself. I want you to spend some time away from them so you can remember that it’s important to think with your own brain. You are grounded for a week.”

  “MOM!” Malone roared, and burst into tears. “That means I can’t go to Jennifer’s party!”

  “I’m sorry. You can go to school and come home, but other than that, you stay in the house. No play dates, no riding your bike to the mall, and no telephone.”

  Malone leaped up, threw her empty soda can into the sink, making a clatter, and stamped out of the room. Emily stood still at the sink.

  Malone slammed back into the room, her eyes streaming and her mouth contorted with angry sobs. She had unplugged the phone in her room and brought it downstairs. She slammed it violently onto the table and shouted, “You say you’re sorry, but you’re not. You’re not sorry about anything! You won’t even let me have my own feelings!”

  “You can have your feelings, absolutely. What you can’t do is behave horribly.”

  “Who says? Are you so perfect?”

  “No.”

  “Is that why we live in a house with a floor that looks like someone threw up on it?”

  “Malone, go to your room until you can control yourself.”

  “This isn’t fair…”

  “MALONE!” Emily shouted. Malone marched out of the room and up the stairs and when she slammed her bedroom door it made the house shake.

  Oh great, Emily thought, now I’m a child abuser. For a long time she felt a pulsing rage at Tom for putting her in this position, having to work all day for less than he paid his bimbo nurse, and then at night deal all alone with an angry baby woman who seemed perpetually premenstrual. She felt an irrational cloud of anger at everyone who was happily married and didn’t particularly deserve it. She made herself stop and think whether she would like to have Tom there with her right then, in a mood to help, and had to admit she didn’t. What she really wanted was to turn back the clock to a time before all that had gone wrong began. She wanted to choose a different path and be successful and admired and loved. By somebody.

  She wanted to go upstairs and apologize to Malone. Go ahead, grow up to be a selfish bitch, Malone, just be pleasant to live with. It was tempting.

  After a while she went to call the Lowens hoping for some comfort from them, since they were going through the same thing with Jennifer.

  Only they weren’t.

  Corinne Lowen was very cool. “We aren’t very pleased with having Rue Shaw tell us how to raise our children. A private party is private, and my daughter should be allowed to invite whoever she wants. They can’t force someone to like someone else. There have always been girls who were more popular than others.”

  “Oh,” said Emily. There was no mention of the notes, she noticed.

  After a glass of wine for courage, Emily dialed the Sales, and got Oliver.

  “I’m Malone’s mother, one of Lyndie’s friends,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about their meeting with Mrs. Shaw today.”

  There was a pause. “Did you want to talk to my wife?” Oliver said.

  “Has Lyndie told you about their meeting with Rue?”

  There was another pause, and then a clunk, as if the phone had fallen on the floor. When he came back on the line, Oliver Sale said, “What did you say your name was again?”

  Emily told him. “I’m a single mother,” she said, wondering if she’d ever get used to saying that. “It’s hard to discipline when you’re on your own. I thought it would make an impression if we made some kind of united front.”

  “I’ll tell Sondra you called,” said Oliver. “Maybe she knows something about this.”

  Emily got off the phone and decided to finish the bottle of wine. Tomorrow she was going to have to listen to the most painful wailing about how unfair she was, and how Lyndie’s mom and Jennifer’s mom were on their side and why was she such a bitch? Malone would
have learned a valuable lesson from this whole episode. That unkindness is unacceptable? No. That actions have consequences? No. That her mother is a bitch. Thank you, Mrs. Lowen and Mr. Sale, and the horses you came in on.

  It was Sunday morning, the second weekend in October. There had been a strange warm wind all night, so that Henry had gotten up in the middle of the night to turn on the air conditioner. Now in the cool, gray hum of morning, Rue and Henry had slept past nine.

  Rue woke slowly, feeling as if she could go on sleeping forever, watching the movie inside her eyelids.

  Henry was awake, she could tell, because he was lying on his back, but he wasn’t snoring. She rolled over and wrapped an arm across his chest, and he made a shoulder for her head.

  “I had strange dreams,” Henry said with his eyes closed, as if he were still having them.

  “Mine weren’t strange at all. I dreamed we were taking Henry Kissinger kayaking.”

  “Really? How did that work out?”

  “He liked it because he thought the kayak and his life vest were bulletproof.”

  Henry laughed.

  “What were your dreams?”

  “Oh—they’re mostly gone—no wait. You and I were living in Maryland, on the shore, and my father was alive, and we had a puppy.”

  “Did we? What kind?” Rue had always wanted a dog, but Henry and Georgia were both allergic to animals.

  “It was one of those ones that are all fur, with little legs sticking out. Maybe a collie. You know what I mean. Well it looked like an ostrich.”

  Rue laughed, a gravelly belly laugh.

  “Did you like it?”

  “Oh,” he said, “I loved it. Now I’m sad.”

  “Maybe we could get a poodle. People aren’t supposed to be allergic to those.”

  “Don’t they yap?”

  “Not big ones. Or a manx.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a cat that behaves like a dog. It has no tail, and its back legs are longer than the front ones so it looks like a bobcat.”