Box
He stood at the lectern and read aloud the standard exam procedure while Miranda Gilbert passed out blue books to the squirming, anxious Econ 10 students. Box was dreadfully old-fashioned, he knew; nearly everyone else at Harvard administered exams via the Internet, but Box refused. Next year, he would have to capitulate. Next year, he supposed, the company that made blue books would be out of business.
He yawned, more loudly than he meant to, into the microphone. One of the students in the back row called out, “Late night, Professor Beech?”
A muted chuckle rippled through the room. Miranda turned to offer him a sympathetic smile, and Box said, “You all fail,” which roused genuine laughter.
He had not been able to fall back asleep after the phone call from Dabney.
Tell me something real, she had said. Tell me how you really feel.
He had really felt annoyed, and unamused. Two o’clock in the morning! Had she been drinking? he wondered. The call was entirely out of character. Dabney had never, ever, not once in twenty-four years of marriage, done anything like that.
We’re not close anymore. We don’t have sex anymore. I want to know if you love me. If you desire me.
Normally, after the Econ 10 exam, Box took Miranda to lunch; it was the only time during the semester that he did so. He liked to keep their relationship professional; this was really the best way, especially since they spent so much time together. It was always Miranda who tried to forge something like a friendship. She occasionally coaxed Box out to see a movie, which he agreed to only when the solitude was getting to him. They dined together with colleagues, but never alone, except for this one lunch. Box didn’t want people to talk, although he assumed people talked anyway. Miranda was a very beautiful woman, smart as a wizard, and she’d worked for him for four years, demonstrating her loyalty, patience, and steadfastness. Box could recognize all her enticing qualities without feeling anything romantic. His only mistress was his work, his reputation, his career. But it was helpful to have boundaries.
The phone call from Dabney was bothering him so much that he decided it was best, all the way around, if he passed on lunch with Miranda.
“I’m afraid the chap in row thirty-five was correct,” Box said. “I didn’t sleep well last night. I have to forego our usual lunch, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.”
“No apology necessary,” Miranda said, though her rich, plummy voice was clipped. He had hurt her feelings, he supposed. It seemed that where the women in his life were concerned, he could do nothing right.
Dabney
Thursday morning, there was an e-mail in her in-box from Clendenin Hughes. Subject line: ?
Dabney clicked on it, thinking, ?!???!!
It said: Meet me tonight at 9:00, Quaker Cemetery.
“Oh my God!” Dabney said, then she clapped her hand over her mouth. Again, the Lord’s name in vain! All the virtue she felt after lighting the candles on Monday evaporated.
“What?” Nina said. She squinted at Dabney and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Is it Clen?”
Dabney nodded. It was a relief to have someone to tell. Keeping it bottled up inside wasn’t healthy. “He wants me to meet him at the Quaker Cemetery tonight,” she said.
“That’s spooky,” Nina said. “Will you go?”
“No,” Dabney said. “No way.”
On Thursday nights Dabney always stayed home for Sandwich and a Movie, and this Thursday, she decided, would be no different. She picked up a Cubano from Foood For Here & There, arranged it on a plate with some potato chips, fixed herself a glass of ice water with lemon, and switched on the TV in the den. She noticed that Love Story was playing on TMC, starting five minutes hence. Love Story was Dabney’s favorite movie of all time; that had been true even before she went to Harvard. One year, Dabney had dressed up as Jennifer Cavalleri for Halloween, which basically meant she wore what she usually wore-a red turtleneck, headband, and pearls-and carried a copy of Love Story, the novel, as a clue to her identity.
Dabney could have recited the script line-for-line: there was Jenny calling Oliver “Preppie,” there were Oliver and Jenny in Widener Library, there they were driving up to Ipswich to meet the coldhearted father, there were the hockey games and the scene where Jenny is beautifully tanned on the sailboat. Jenny wants to go to Paris, but there will be no Paris. The reason she can’t get pregnant is that she’s sick, she has leukemia, she is going to die.
Dabney sneaked into the kitchen during a commercial to put her plate into the dishwasher and get a bar of dark chocolate. She glanced at the clock. It was 8:45.
Dabney returned to the den to watch the end of the movie, but she couldn’t get comfortable. She had been taking antibiotics for three days, but she still felt lousy. And she was distracted. It was 8:48, then 8:50.
He would be there. She knew he would be there. They used to meet at the Quaker Cemetery all the time in high school. That’s spooky, Nina had said. What was spooky was that Agnes had been conceived in the Quaker Cemetery, Dabney was sure of it.
She put on her spring coat and left the house. She decided to take Box’s Wagoneer rather than the Impala. The Impala was the most recognizable car on the island.
She drove by the Quaker Cemetery at a few minutes after nine. She slowed down, her eyes scanning the southeast corner for the gravestone of Alice Booker Wright, Dabney’s great-great-grandmother, which had been their usual meeting place.
She saw the outline of him-a hulking, dark figure sitting on Alice’s grave.
He waved at her with his right arm.
She hit the gas.
She drove back through the streets of town thinking, Go back, go see him, kiss him again. Oh how she longed to kiss him again. She remembered the smell of the cut grass in that cemetery and the squish of mud under their feet and the rough-hewn edge of Alice’s headstone rubbing against Dabney’s back, the taste of Clen’s neck, his voice, his eyes, his knee bouncing up and down, his feet shod in Chuck Taylors, how he loved them, he was stubborn, he wouldn’t stop wearing them no matter how old he got. Desire presented in Dabney like mercury in her veins. Go back to him!
But no, she wouldn’t. She pulled into her driveway and hurried back into the house, short of breath. She had left the TV on, and the final scene of the movie was playing: Oliver sitting alone in the snow.
The phone rang, startling her. Would Clen be brazen enough to call the house? Then she realized that the phone call was from Agnes. Agnes called every Thursday night at nine thirty because she knew her mother would be home for Sandwich and a Movie. Thank God that Dabney had come back! If Dabney hadn’t answered, Agnes might have grown worried and called Box, and then there would have been some explaining to do.
“Darling!” Dabney said.
“Mommy?”
Dabney said, “Honey, are you okay?” Did she dare hope there was trouble in paradise, Agnes’s engagement to CJ on the rocks? Oh how Dabney would inwardly rejoice!
“It’s my job,” Agnes said. “I found out yesterday that we didn’t get funding from National for the summer. The club is shutting down until the school year starts back up.” With these words, she started to cry.
“Oh, honey,” Dabney said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I knew it was iffy,” Agnes said. “I should have mentally prepared myself.”
“So what will you do all summer?” Dabney asked. She had a dreary picture in her head of Agnes working as a temp in CJ’s office, fetching coffee, answering the phone.
“I’m coming home,” Agnes said.
“What?” Dabney said. “To Nantucket?”