The Headmaster's Wife(7)

There are two rules to alumni gatherings that are unspoken but understood in my line of work. The first is that you take it easy on the wine. The second is that you are never photographed with a drink in your hand. The second I follow this time by handing off my wine to Betsy, who is always there, like an eager assistant. I cannot help but imagine her drinking the ruby wine, see it staining her lips.

The first dictum (take it easy on the wine), I ignore this night. I drink far too much, and by the time things are winding down, I am not nearly as together as I should be.

As we ride the elevator down and then walk out onto the street, it is apparent to me that I am in no condition to drive. Lancaster is three hours away, and it is already nine o’clock at night. I do not say any of this to my young charge, of course. Instead I say to her, “Do you mind walking for a little bit? I like to stretch my legs before getting back into the car.”

If this confuses her, she says nothing. We begin to walk. It is a lovely night in Boston, with only the slightest of fall bites to the mild breeze. It is early, and the streets are full of people. I am tempted to offer her my arm, but it is a terribly old-fashioned thing to do.

Soon we make our way across the Common and through the wide avenues of the Back Bay. We do not talk, and Betsy seems smitten with the night. I watch as she takes it all in; the people, the homeless men on the benches, the glassy rise of the John Hancock, improbably tall next to buildings and churches from another time.

On Newbury Street we stroll past restaurants and stores. Immaculate brownstones. We are aimless, the two of us, and feeling the wine in my head, I know I should say something, that I am the leader here, but I cannot do it. We just walk and walk. At one point I am looking over at her, and she is gazing across the street at diners spilling out of a basement-level French restaurant. Fashionable people not much older than Betsy. A wry, knowing smile comes across her face, and when she turns back to meet my gaze, I am overcome.

I pull her toward me, awkwardly. It is so clumsy, this embrace, unannounced, and I have a sudden moment of clarity, that I am about to do something that will change my life forever. Something that will undo in a second all I have done. Nevertheless, she is in my arms, and against a waist-high wrought-iron fence, I kiss her forcefully on the mouth.





I am prepared to blame it on drunkenness. Another small blight of erratic behavior in a year of behaving oddly. I am prepared to be slapped. I am prepared to be repelled.

But Betsy Pappas does not recoil from me in the shadows of Newbury Street. She kisses me back. If anything, she is more passionate than I am. My hands are in her hair, at the back of her head. Our lips come together. Our teeth clash for a moment as we search for each other’s open mouths. Her tongue hot against my teeth. Warm breath intermingling. I run my hand along her back, and she moves into me.

A few passersby come within feet of us, but this is the city and they do not pay us any attention. Her back is to them, and there is something amazingly normal and romantic about two lovers kissing on a fall night. As for me, I am oblivious to all except what is in front of me, the firmness of my hand on her back, her mouth on mine, her smell, clean as baby powder.

It is an ancient lust that roils inside me. We make our way back toward the Common, and every ten feet or so, it seems, we stop in the shadows and fall once again in each other’s embrace. At one point I say in a hushed tone, “We can’t do this.”

“We can,” she says back, and they are the words I want to hear.

I am crazy with lust. My heart beats like a sparrow in a hand. We move quickly across the Common and to the great granite fa?ade of the Copley Hotel. Doormen whisk us into the stately lobby with its friezes and marble and ceiling painted a pale Michelangelo blue. At the counter we are a May-December romance, a sudden change of plans, no luggage. A place for the night, if you please.

Upstairs, Betsy ducks into the bathroom while I make a quick phone call to school. I am practically incoherent on the phone. I reach her dorm parent, a Mr. Crane. It is right before lights-out. In the background I hear girls scurrying. “Yes, of course, Mr. Winthrop,” he says, when I plead car trouble and say I will be finding a place for Betsy Pappas to stay for the night in Boston. He does not ask where, and I do not tell him.

I dim the lights. Betsy comes to me. I undress her from where I sit on the edge of the bed. She is magnificent. She turns her head away from me, toward the window that looks out on the Common, the orangeish light of the city and the sounds of traffic. I nuzzle my face in her belly. Her inexperienced skin is soft and pliant. She moans softly. She is greedy to know, though I believe this is not her first time. Some kid pushing into her inside a car in Northern Vermont. I try not to think of this, but instead am torn between the exclusive feelings of deep tenderness and a desire to own her.

I remind myself to be slow. This is not the furied and practiced act of the long married. I need to discover her. I want her to discover me.

Afterward, we lie spent on the bed. This is the hard part. The lust has left me, like air expelled from a balloon. Her head rests contentedly on my chest. I absentmindedly play with her hair. Outside, a siren wails, a sudden and harsh reminder of the rest of the world.

I reach for the phone and order a bottle of wine to be sent to the room. I felt better earlier, when my blood was full of alcohol.

I am the first to speak. I say, “You can’t fall in love with me.”

She surprises me by laughing. She rises off the bed and walks toward the window. I watch her full buttocks as she walks. “You have nothing to worry about from me,” she says.