The Headmaster's Wife(17)

While Mr. Marx gleefully attacks the room, emptying clothes out of the bureau and leaving them piled on the floor, I walk around with a general’s bearing, lifting books and papers on the desks, turning around and pacing and studying the boys. They are suffering this indignity with measured exasperation and the look of young men with nothing to fear.

This is taking too long. Mr. Marx has his methods, but as any parent will tell you, under the bed is an obvious hiding spot, and I am losing patience. I move toward Russell’s bed, and because, I suppose, I want him to know, I look back at him before I go under there. He is unfazed. I reach under and, with my hand stretching, I feel for the fabric of the duffel bag.

I pull it out, and when I do, everyone in the room can hear the unmistakable clink of glass against glass. Mr. Marx stops what he is doing, and I say, “What do we have here?”

Russell Hurley looks positively puzzled. I unzip the bag. I pull out a bottle of flavored vodka.

“These yours, Russell?” Mr. Marx says.

“I’ve never seen those before,” Russell says.

“This your bed?” I say.

“Yes, but—”

“We’ll see you in Disciplinary Committee,” I say. “I am disappointed in you.”

“Sir,” he says.

I dismiss him with my hand. “Save it for the committee, Mr. Hurley.”

The next day, I receive two visitors in my office. The first is not a surprise. Mr. Peabody, the basketball coach, comes to see me. Tim Peabody was a few years ahead of me at Lancaster and was the Russell Hurley of his day. A middle-class kid with an ace jump shot. Went to college and returned as an assistant coach and a math teacher and never left. He has been our head coach for twentysomething years, and since basketball has never been the priority at Lancaster—trailing both soccer and lacrosse in import—I can honestly say he is someone I do not think of often.

I know why he is here, of course, though I let him say it.

“It’s about Russell Hurley,” he says.

“Yes?”

“He’s a good kid, Arthur. For what it’s worth, he swears the alcohol was not his.”

“It was under his bed.”

“I know. I don’t know why he would lie. It’s not like him. But either way, there are more important things at stake here.”

“Your team’s prospects?”

“No. Though we are favorites to win the league for the first time in a long time. A young man’s life. That’s what matters.”

“What about the values of the school? Don’t those supersede the needs of any one individual?”

“Oh, come on, Arthur. Respectfully, we know those get bent all the time. If you’re a Mellon or an Astor, you can do far worse than a few bottles of vodka and be okay.”

“And so you’re suggesting we ignore the handbook and our policies because Mr. Hurley is a basketball star?”

“Not because he’s a basketball star,” says Mr. Peabody. “But because he’s a good kid. A solid kid, Arthur. Good head on his shoulders. This is his one chance, and he knows it. He wants Dartmouth, and to come from his family, that’s saying something.”

I nod. I look away from Mr. Peabody and out the window to the bare trees on the quad. Another gray day in a string of them. Stick season in Vermont.

“Thank you, Tim” is all I am willing to give him at this point.

He stands to go. “Oh, Arthur,” he says, “one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“Just wanted to say that I admire how you are handling things. A lot of us are.”

I stand up and hike my pants a little. I am not sure what to say to this. While I appreciate the generosity of the statement, it always makes me uncomfortable when subordinates attempt to offer some sort of assessment of my performance. It is a breach of sorts, though I know the intention is good. In the end, I just give Tim a firm nod, as if to say I understand.





She is in the outer office when I return from lunch. Sitting in one of those wooden chairs with the Lancaster seal on them that line the wall across from Mrs. LaForge’s desk. Blue cardigan sweater buttoned smartly over a white blouse. Modest gray skirt and flats.

Mrs. LaForge looks up at me. “Ms. Pappas was hoping she could see you for a moment.”

I am pleased to see her, though I do not show this. I look over and flash her a quick smile, though it is not returned. “Of course,” I say. “Ms. Pappas.”

She follows me into my stately office, and I turn and close the door behind her. She takes a seat on the couch, and I sit across from her, in my leather wingback chair. It is so good just to have her across from me, so much nicer than the classroom, where I cannot give her my full attention. She is not happy, and I know why she is here, but before we get to the matter at hand, I want to drink her in. The thing that surprises me about this whole Russell business is that he could have any girl he wants, I suppose. Tall and handsome and a basketball star. Charming in an ingratiating way. Yet he has chosen my Betsy, whose charms always seemed subtler than those of some of the other girls. I know how lovely she is, having held her in my arms, having moved with her on beds as varied as those in a high-end Boston hotel and on the forest floor. It is one of the things that has given me the most pleasure in our relationship: the fact that it feels like I can see what others cannot. I feel that I alone know her true beauty, that intelligence that flows so easily out of her willing mouth. How could Russell, simple Russell dribbling a ball endlessly, possibly understand her? This is a folly. She and Russell. If I choose to be objective, I see why, why she needs this. For, despite her confidence, there is a part of her that still wants to fit in. She is straddling two worlds: the world of school, where Russell is a prime catch and awards her status on campus. Then there is the adult world she longs to be fully a part of, and all I can offer her there. The difference is that the former she can advertise, while the latter she must hold deep in her pocket like a set of keys.