The Nix(86)

She laughs and shakes her head like someone patiently tolerating a fool.

“I had a plan,” she says. “I knew since I was a girl that I wanted to marry someone in the medical field. I knew I needed to expand my mind so that I could attract someone in the medical field. If all I could talk about was typing and filing, who in the medical field would be interested in me?”

She looks at the girls solemnly and profoundly like she is delivering some awful adult truth.

“Nobody,” Mrs. Schwingle says. “That’s the answer. Nobody. And when I met Harold, I knew my science electives really paid off.”

She smoothes her dress.

“What I’m trying to say is, set big goals. You do not have to settle for marrying a farmer or plumber. You might not be able to marry someone in the medical field, like me, but someone in the accounting field is not out of the question for any of you young ladies. Or perhaps business, banking, or finance. Figure out the kind of man you want to marry, and arrange your life to make it happen.”

She asks the girls to think about the kind of husband they want. I want a man who can take me on trips to Acapulco, they say. I want a man who can buy me a convertible. I want a man who is a boss, so I never have to worry about impressing the boss when he drops in because I’m married to him! Mrs. Schwingle teaches them to dream in these terms. You can have a life that includes cruises in the Mediterranean, she says, or you can have a life of bass fishing on the Mississippi.

“It’s your choice, girls. But if you want a better life, you’ve got to work for it. Do you think your husband will want to talk about stenography?” The girls gravely shake their heads no.

“Faye, this is especially important for you,” she says. “Chicago will be full of sophisticated men.”

Faye feels the collective gaze of the class land on her, and she sinks into her chair.

They move on to the day’s primary lesson: toilets. As in, where are the germs? (They are everywhere.) And how is it cleaned? (Thoroughly, with bleach and ammonia, on our hands and knees.) In groups of five they practice toilet-scrubbing in the bathroom. Faye waits her turn with the other girls, who stare out the classroom windows at the boys, who are currently in gym class.

Today it’s baseball, the boys fielding grounders at shortstop—the thud of the bat, the ball skipping over the dirt as they charge and scoop it up and snap it to first base with that gratifying thwack. This is pleasing to watch. The boys—who act so aloof and nonchalant in real life, who try to be so cool in class, sitting slumped in their chairs, defiant—they perk up like puppies on the baseball field, their movements exaggerated and eager: Charge. Stop. Catch. Pivot. Throw.

Henry is out there with them. He’s not quite quick enough for shortstop, a bit of a lumberer, but he tries nonetheless. He slaps his fist into his mitt, shouts encouraging things. The boys know the girls watch them during practice. They know, and they like it.

Faye sits on a stool at one of the cooking stations, her elbows on the dark brown metal stovetop. Beneath her is a generation of culinary disasters—burned tomato sauces, burned pancake batters, roasted eggs and puddings, fossils now on the burners, black and carbonized. An old scorching that not even their teacher’s most penetrating potions can remedy. Faye runs her hand across the char, feels the roughness on her fingertips. She watches the boys. Watches the girls watch the boys. Watches, for example, Margaret Schwingle—the teacher’s daughter, with her fair, slightly plump face, expensive wool sweater, nylons, shiny black shoes, blond hair extravagantly curled—and the assembly that clings to Margaret, her disciples, who all wear the same silver clique bands on their fingers, who help arrange Margaret’s hairdo in the morning, fetch her Cokes and candy in the cafeteria, and spread hateful rumors about her enemies. Faye and Margaret don’t talk, not since elementary school. They’re not unfriendly; Faye has simply receded from her view. Faye has always been intimidated by Margaret and usually avoids making eye contact. She knows the Schwingles are wealthy, that their huge house sits on a bluff overlooking the river. Margaret is wearing a boy’s class ring around her neck, another on her right hand. On her left hand, a gold promise ring. (This on a girl who yawns during English-class discussions on symbolism.) Margaret’s quasi-fiancé—her steady since freshman year—is one of those impossible, intolerable boys who’s a star at everything: baseball, football, track and field. He pins his medals to his school jacket, then gives his jacket to Margaret, who walks around school clinking like a wind chime. His name is Jules, and Margaret has stripped him of all his tokens. She’s remarkably proud of him. She’s watching him right now, in fact, while he waits his turn on the baseball diamond. Meanwhile, she makes fun of the other boys, the clumsy ones, the ones who are not Jules. “Oops!” she says when a ball squirts under a glove and into the outfield. “You forgot something!” The few friends around her laugh. “It’s behind you, fella!” She’s speaking loud enough for the rest of the room to hear her but quiet enough that they’re not part of the conversation. This is a typical Margaret pose: extroverted, yet also exclusive.

“A little faster next time, big boy!” she says when poor John Novotny—overweight, thickish ankles, a bumbling hippopotamus among the faster boys—doesn’t reach a ground ball to his right. “Really. Why is he even out there?” she says. Or when it’s Pauly Mellick’s turn—little Pauly Mellick, all of maybe five feet tall and a hundred pounds—she says, “Noodles! Go, Noodles!” because of how his arms look. She preys on the fat, the skinny, the short. She preys on the weak. She’s a carnivore, Faye thinks. A fangy wolf pup.