It was inevitable that some situation would force the truth to be told around the school building. It simply happened faster than Tom expected.
He was passing the teachers’ mailboxes when the band director, Vince Conti, stopped him. “Oh, Tom ... I was wondering if I could come over and get that canoe one night this week. Duck hunting season opens next Saturday.’’
Weeks ago he and Tom had talked about Vince borrowing the canoe because his teenage boys wanted to take up the sport, which he had enjoyed years ago but had given up after he was married.
Nonplussed, Tom stammered, “Oh ... oh, sure, Vince.”
“Your schedule is busier than mine, so you name the night.”
“Ahh ... well, any night is fine, actually. I’ll ahh...” Tom cleared his throat and felt a spear of panic at the idea of divulging that his marriage was in trouble. He’d never guessed it would be this hard, or that he’d feel like such a loser when he made the admission. “The truth is, Vince, I’ll have to tell Claire where the paddles are and you can make arrangements with her to come and get it. I’m not living there anymore.”
“You’re not?”
“Claire and I are separating for a while.”
He watched Vince battle shock and search for the proper response. “Gee, Tom ... I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s all right, Vince, nobody knows. You’re the first one I’ve told. It just happened over the weekend.”
Vince looked grossly uncomfortable. “Tom, I really am sorry. You’d offered to let me borrow your canoe and—well, hell, I mean, I don’t have to—”
“No need to change your plans, Vince. You can still borrow it. I’ll make sure Claire knows you’re coming and that she has the paddles out for you. If you need some help loading it on your car I can make sure Robby is home to help you, or I can meet you over at the house.”
“No, no, I can take one of my boys.”
“Fine. Well ... you know where it is, then. Out behind the garage.”
“Sure.”
“Claire can show you.”
It was obvious from the look on Vince’s face that he was curious, but to his credit he asked no questions. When he walked away it was clear to Tom that in spite of the commonness of divorce, people still found it awful, and got uncomfortable when they were told about it. Perhaps Vince didn’t want to intrude. Perhaps he didn’t know what to say. The fact remained that the instant he was told, he put up a barrier that had never been there before.
Vince wasn’t the only one who had to be told that day. A school the size of HHH functioned much like a small community with many interdependent parts. As its head, Tom had to be accessible at all times, in case of emergencies, or simply to answer questions, necessitating his having to give his dad’s phone number to his assistant principal, his secretary, the liaison law enforcement officer, the chief of police, the head of the school board, the school counselors, and Cecil, the head janitor, who often called at night when his crew did the bulk of their cleaning. With all those people apprised of the situation, it took no time at all before the word seeped out to the general population of the building. Once it did, it spread faster than an Elizabethan plague.
Erin Gallagher came hustling to find Chelsea between classes. “Is it true, Chelsea?” Erin looked owl-eyed and dopey. “Everybody’s saying your mom and dad are getting a divorce!”
“They are not getting a divorce!”
“But Susie Randolph told me that Jeff Morehouse told her that your dad moved out.” Chelsea’s battle to control her tears confirmed the rumor. Erin immediately became sympathetic. “Oh, Chels, you poor thing. Oh, gol, how awful. Where did he go?”
“To my grandpa’s.”
“Why?”
Chelsea’s face began to corrugate. “Oh Erin, I’ve just got to tell somebody. I can’t keep it to myself anymore.” Her tears began running even before the words were out. The girls went and sat in Chelsea’s car, and Chelsea told her friend everything, then swore her to secrecy.
“Oh my gosh,” Erin whispered in wonder, “Kent Arens is your brother ... wow ...” Then she added, “I bet you’re bummed.”
The girls hugged, and Chelsea cried, and Erin asked if Chelsea thought her dad would ever move back home, which made Chelsea cry even harder. They skipped all of sixth period and part of seventh, and by the time they were ready to go back inside, Chelsea looked so puffy and red that she said, looking into the rearview mirror, “I wouldn’t be caught dead looking like this.”
Erin said, “Maybe you better skip cheerleading practice tonight, and by tomorrow you’ll be feeling better. You’ll look better, too.”
“What are we going to say to our sixth-and seventh-period teachers?”
Erin, usually the follower where she and Chelsea were concerned, suddenly became the leader. “Come on,” she ordered, opening the car door and heading straight for Tom’s office.
“No, Erin, I’m not going in there! I’m not going to talk to my dad!”
“Why not? He’ll give us excuses.”
“No! He’ll kill me if he finds out I skipped classes!”
“How are you going to keep him from finding out? Come on, Chels, you’re not making much sense.”
“But he and Mom don’t let us skip for anything, you know that! If there’s one thing at our house that’s inexcusable, that’s it.” Chelsea balked in the hall outside the main-office doors.
“Well, I don’t care if you’re not going in. I am.” She left Chelsea in the hall and went into the front office. Dora Mae let her go right into Tom’s office.
“Hi, Mr. Gardner,” she said from the doorway. “Chelsea and I have been sitting out in her car talking. She told me what’s going on at home, and she’s been crying a lot, but she wouldn’t come in here and tell you we skipped two classes. Would you give us excused absences?”
“Where is she?”
“Out in the hall. She said you’d kill her if you found out, but I didn’t think so since you know what we were talking about.”
Tom was up and heading for the hall, with Erin at his heels.
Chelsea stood around the corner where she could not be seen through the glass wall. When she saw him coming toward her, her eyes began to fill. When he hugged her, she clung. “Oh, Daddy, I’m sorry I told, but I just had to talk to somebody. I’m sorry ... I’m sor—”
“Shh, it’s okay, honey.”
Erin felt out of her element, watching her principal and her best friend hugging while he choked back tears and she bawled on his shoulder.
“I understand,” he murmured, rubbing Chelsea’s hair. “It’s a hard day for all of us.”
A student came out of the main office and gaped as she walked past.
“Come on,” Tom said. “Let’s go into my office. You too, Erin.”
“I can’t go in there looking like this,” Chelsea cried. “All the secretaries will see me.”
“You’re not the first student to come in crying.” He handed her a handkerchief from his hip pocket. “Just dry your eyes. I want to talk to you.”
He ushered them inside and closed his office door. “Sit down, girls.”
They sat facing his desk and he perched on the edge of it, close to them. “Now listen. I’ll give you excused absences because I understand that you couldn’t cope with everything today, but honey, you can’t skip any more classes. I know that’s a tall order, but I want you to try really hard for me.”
Chelsea nodded, eyes downcast and brimming, while she stretched Tom’s handkerchief over her thumbs.
“Because no good will be served if you start letting your grades slide on top of everything else.”
Chelsea kept nodding.
“Erin, you did the right thing coming to me today, but in the future, if you skip classes I won’t be able to excuse you.”
“Okay, Mr. Gardner.”
“Now I want you both to do something for me. I want you to see Mrs. Roxbury and get appointments to talk to her.” Mrs. Roxbury wa
s the counselor for the junior class. “Chelsea, the sooner the better for you. Erin, I think it might help if you talk to her too, because you’re going to be one of Chelsea’s support people, and it’s important that you understand what she’s going through right now.”
Erin murmured, “Okay ... sure.”
“Is it okay with both of you if I go and get Mrs. Roxbury and have her come in here now?”
The girls both nodded.
“Okay, I’ll be right back.”
When Tom went out, Erin whispered, “Gol, Chelsea, your dad is so nice, I don’t see how your mom could ever kick him out.”
Chelsea said sadly, “I know. She’s just spoiling everything.”
Mrs. Roxbury, a fortyish woman with rimless glasses and a shag haircut, came in and took the girls to her office. As they left, Chelsea looked back at Tom and said softly, with a wan smile, “Thanks, Dad.”
He smiled for her benefit and she went out.
Three minutes later Lynn Roxbury returned to find Tom sitting glumly at his desk, staring at the pictures on his window ledge.
“Tom?” she said quietly.
He swung his gaze to the door. “Thanks, Lynn. I appreciate your fitting them in.”
“No problem. I’ve got appointments with them tomorrow.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. “Listen, I’ve got time for you too, if you find you need to talk. There have been a lot of rumors flying around here today, so I have a pretty good idea why Chelsea’s eyes were red and you look like you’ve just lost your best friend. I believe you have.”
He sighed and ground eight fingertips into his eyes, tipping his desk chair back at a sharp angle. “Ohh, Lynn ... shit. To quote my son.”
She discreetly closed the door. “I hear that a lot in my business.”
“It’s been a hell of a month around our house.”
“I don’t think I need to say it, but anything you choose to unload will be held in strictest confidence. I imagine this is particularly hard for you and Claire, being you both work in the same building.”
“It’s just plain hell.”
She waited, and he said, “Sit.”
“I only have a few minutes right now.” She took the chair Erin had vacated.
He rocked forward, his forearms on his desk, his shoulders rounded. “I’ll give it to you short and straight. Claire and I have separated at her request. I’m living with my dad out at his cabin on the lake, and the kids are living with Claire in the house. The reason goes way back into my past and it’s kind of a shocker. It has to do with the new senior here, Kent Arens. I’ve just discovered that he’s my son.” Lynn sat with a finger against her lips but said nothing. Tom went on. “I didn’t know about him until he walked into the office to register for school. I never kept in touch with his mother, so I never knew, but as it turns out, he was born the same year as Robby. My indiscretion was a one-night stand the night of my bachelor party. Claire believes I’ve revived an affair with Kent’s mother, which I haven’t. Nevertheless, she left me.”
It said a lot about the walloping punch packed by this revelation that Lynn gave away a hint of astonishment upon hearing it.
“Oh, Tom, no! You were the last two I ever thought this would happen to!”
He spread his hands and let them fall. “Me too.” Neither of them spoke for a while. Finally, he said, “I love her so damned much. I don’t want this separation at all.”
“Do you think she’ll relent?”
“I don’t know. It’s brought out a side of her I’ve never seen before. She acts almost fearless, almost ... I don’t know what to call it but aggressive, and absolutely convinced that she has to get away from me for a while.”
“The key words here are for a while."
“I hope so. God, Lynn, I hope so.”
Lynn Roxbury continued to look stunned by the news. “Tom, I’m sorry I can’t talk any longer, but I’ve got another appointment. We can talk more after school though. I’m free around four-thirty today.”
Tom rose to his feet. “I’ve got meetings at the district office right after school, so I’ll be busy, but thanks for listening now. It helped.”
He went around his desk and she squeezed his sleeve. “You going to be okay?”
He gave her a weak smile. “Sure.”
But it had been a difficult day for Tom. His attention span was short. His mind wandered—most often, to Claire.
He looked up once and saw her through his open doorway, in the outer office, speaking to Dora Mae. His response was as swift and consuming as passion, a desperate yearning for her to turn and look his way, to offer him that much. She knew his door was open, that he was probably sitting at his desk.
But she moved on without offering him a crumb, and her rebuff hurt worse than anything he could remember.
At lunchtime he saw her again, walking through the cafeteria on her way to the teachers’ lunchroom. She was with Nancy Halliday, listening to Nancy talk, and she glanced over at Tom, who stood in the center of the room beneath the round skylight watching over the kids.
His heart damn near knocked him off his feet. But she glanced away indifferently and continued through a door that closed on a pneumatic hinge, whisking her out of sight.
He forced himself to stay away from her until the break between the last two periods of the day. Then he went to her room, waiting in the hall while the sixth-period kids spilled out, unconsciously checking the knot in his tie before stepping into the room. She was seated at her desk, which faced the door, searching for something in a lower drawer. Catching sight of her, he felt his skin go hot—his neck, cheeks, forehead—felt the whole chain reaction begin again, combined with a rush that was unquestionably sexual. He grew angry with her for putting him through this. He didn’t want this separation, damn it!
“Claire?” he said, and she looked up, leaving a hand between the file folders.
“Hello, Tom.”
“I ah ... He cleared his throat. “I told Vince Conti he could come over and pick up our canoe some night this week. He wants to use it for duck hunting. Do you know where the paddles are?”
“Yes.”
“Would you give them to Vince when he comes?”
“Sure.”
“He’ll probably talk to you about when.”
“All right.”
“It was a few weeks ago I told him he could borrow it. I didn’t think he’d have to be bothering you to ... well ... you know. You’ve got play practice most nights.”
“It’s okay, Tom. We’ll work it out.”
When he remained where he was, pink-faced and humble, she said, “Is there anything else, Tom?”
It suddenly angered him, being treated like some vassal at the foot of a feudal princess. “Yes, there’s plenty more!” He strode toward her, piqued. “Claire, how can you be so damned cold? I don’t deserve to be treated this way!” Once again she bent to the files in the drawer. “Nothing personal in the schoolroom, Tom. Have you forgotten?” He reached her desk and braced his hands on it, thrusting his head toward her. “Claire, I don’t want this separation!” She withdrew a file and slammed the metal drawer. Two students came in, talking and laughing, as she rolled her desk chair backward.
“Not here, Tom,” she admonished quietly. “Not now.” He straightened slowly, colored by anger, realizing he should not have come in here. No man needed this in the middle of his workday. In the middle of his life!
“I want to come back home.” He kept his voice quiet so the students could not hear.
“I’ll make sure Vince gets the canoe paddles,” she said, dismissing him as surely as if she’d picked up a bell and rung it, like the teachers of old.
He had no choice but to turn and push his way through the incoming students.
Thirteen
The word spread through the locker room at football practice that day: Mr. Gardner is getting a divorce.
Kent Arens heard it from a kid named Bruce Abernathy, who—as far as
Kent knew—wasn’t even a friend of Robby’s, so how would he know? Kent went to Jeff Morehouse and asked if he knew anything about it.
“Yeah, Robby’s dad moved out.”
“Are they getting a divorce?”
“Robby doesn’t know. He says his mom threw his dad out because he had an affair with somebody.”
No! Kent wanted to shout. No, not them! Not the family who had it all!
When he had time to recover from the first bolt of news, another bomb exploded in his mind. Suppose it was true, and the other woman was his mother. The thought made him sick.
In that muddled moment he realized he had come to hold up the Gardner family as an ideal: somewhere in this world of half families and screwed-up values, there was one unit of four who’d survived all the treacheries of modern times to hang together and love each other. They had seemed inviolable, and even though he, Kent, had envied Chelsea her father, he had never wanted to take him from her. And if his mother was a party to it, how could he respect her anymore?
He dropped to a bench, half dressed and shaken, gripping his knees and struggling with a whole new crop of emotions. The locker room thrummed with conversation, and when it suddenly ceased, he looked up to find that Robby Gardner had walked in. Nobody said a word. Nobody moved. The silence was awesome and filled with the echoes of gossip that had been whispered and wondered about all day.
Gardner looked at Arens. Arens looked back, steadily.
Then Gardner continued toward his locker.
But. something had changed in his stride. Its brazenness was gone, its spunk. As he passed among his silent teammates, their knowing eyes followed him. Some held pity, some questions. Some were embarrassed for him as he opened his locker door, hung up his letter jacket, and began dressing without the usual joshing.
Kent suppressed the urge to rise and go to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and say, “I’m sorry.” Somehow this was his fault, Kent’s, though reason told him perfectly well that his conception was the act of two others, nothing he had willed or wanted or wrought. Still, he’d been born, hadn’t he? And it appeared his mother and Mr. Gardner had started up again, and all this had driven a wedge between Robby and Chelsea’s parents.