The Headmaster's Wife(10)
“Three to five pages,” I say. “Due next Monday.”
The students all stand up. “Betsy,” I say. “Wait.”
She stops and turns to face me. I point at the departing students, and she honors me by waiting until we are alone to say, “What do you want?”
Still, she says it a bit loudly for my taste, and for a moment I do not say anything. “When I can see you?”
“In class three times a week,” she says.
I smile. “I am sorry about that,” I say, referring to my earlier grilling of her. “Been a long few days.”
“Wasn’t very nice.”
“I know. My apologies. You are absolutely right.”
She softens a bit. I can see it in her green eyes, the anger receding. She is a tricky one, this Betsy. Different from any other girl I have known, and yet I feel somehow that I have known her forever.
“This isn’t a good idea, you know,” she says.
“Oh, it’s a perfectly good idea,” I say. “We need to be … discreet.”
“I’m late for history,” she says.
“Let me give you my personal e-mail,” I tell her. “You can let me know. We’ll sneak out or something.” It embarrasses me to say this last part, but I am just another schoolboy here, searching for the right language.
“Later, okay?” she says, and just like that she is gone.
That night I drink way too much. Lancaster has always given me the freedom to live my life, you see, but suddenly it feels like a prison. My heart is open to all possibilities, but not all possibilities are available to me. I seal myself from Elizabeth, who now and again I hear in her room readying herself for bed. And Betsy I cannot reach.
That Wednesday is an away day for sports, all the teams at Groton. This is normally a day when I take advantage of a campus largely devoid of students to catch up on development work and many of the other duties that fall on a head of school. But today I decide to make the trip and I drive myself down to Massachusetts. I cut off any surprise Mrs. LaForge may feel about this impulsive decision by explaining that I have just gotten word that a parent I want to meet is planning to attend the boys’ soccer game. Old Boston money, Mrs. LaForge, I say, and there is nothing else I need to tell her. In truth, this is entirely plausible and why I have traveled in the past.
I have no interest in boys’ soccer. It is girls’ field hockey I come to watch. The game itself is rather silly—girls with sticks trying to give this hard ball some direction but mostly flailing at it, and now and again a semblance of something that looks orchestrated emerges—but on this warm Wednesday in the fall, with the backdrop of the brick buildings and the woods beyond them, it is a pleasure to watch. Girls in their black skirts and high socks and tight white shirts moving effortlessly on a field so richly green it looks painted.
And there, of course, is my girl. She is an okay player, and what she lacks in natural talent or speed she makes up in enthusiasm. She is quick to the ball. She is not afraid of contact. She swings with might and verve.
Mostly, though, it is wonderful to be able to stare at her unfettered. I do not care about the game itself or the other players. They might as well all be props for the one who has my undivided attention. I like the way she runs. You can tell a lot about a girl by how she runs. It is not that she is pure grace in motion, for she is not, but there is something about the flap of her skirt against her strong legs, her ponytailed hair bouncing against her neck, the slight heave of her breasts underneath the cotton of her jersey, the grimace on her face when she is exerting herself completely, that speaks to me.
She knows I am here. At the half, I catch her in the huddle staring over at where I stand making small talk with some of the Groton parents. Word must have gotten out that I am on campus, for after a time my counterpart shows up, and we trade shop talk and pleasantries. We have known each other for a long time. We are not friends. When he departs with an excuse of boys’ soccer calling, I both understand and am grateful, for I can turn my attention back to Betsy.
When the game ends, I pull Betsy from the line of girls shaking hands. She looks annoyed at me, and for a moment we just stand on the green grass, and her teammates look back at me curiously as they begin to walk toward the gymnasium and their showers. Ms. Locke, the field hockey coach, gives me a puzzled if deferential look, and I say to her over Betsy’s shoulder, “It’ll be just a minute, Ms. Locke.”
I am taking risks. The once-crowded field is empty, and it is just the two of us. Some fifty yards away is the stately administrative building, with its brick and broad pillars and the golden dome on top. The windows look like they might have eyes. I take Betsy by the arm, and she says, “They’re waiting for me.”
We walk briskly toward the woods at the edge of the field. Betsy wants to bolt. I slide my arm around her as we enter the trees, and it is like trying to hold a wild rabbit to get her to come with me.
Oh, I want you to know that I do not force her to do anything she does not want to do. When it comes right down to it, she is more than willing, and is even enjoying the brazen nature of this adventure. She is not like other students, you see. Her eyes are more open to the world, and perhaps this is why I am so taken with her. She has a sense of who she is that is usually earned over decades and decades of having your heart broken by the ceaseless beat of time.
In the soft piney woods I find a bare spot of forest floor, and on a bed of needles I lay my trench coat down and her on top of it. Her sweat smells sweet, and there is a hint of salt when my lips touch the soft hollow of her throat. We do not undress. We are as furtive as animals. When it is over, I want to hold her, but there is no time. She picks herself up and untangles a twig from her hair.