“That’ll last until your next date,” said Richard.
Thomas had tried to call Hesta last night and again this morning, and each time they told him that she wasn’t on dorm. He was beginning to fear that he would never talk with her again. He had killed all the affection she had once had for him.
“I’m not anticipating any more dates,” he said.
“How touching,” said Richard. “You and Robert Staines had your last dates on the same night.”
They talked about how Farnham had been taken to the jail in Charlottesville, how he was denying any wrongdoing, how they didn’t blame him for trying to lie his way out of it.
“I heard they found all these souvenirs,” said Richard. “There’s probably a scrapbook with pieces of hair and pictures of all the victims.”
The other two said that was disgusting.
“I feel right rotten inside for not wanting to kiss her that time,” said Greg. “Do you think it hurt her feelings? I’d do it if I had the chance again.”
“It didn’t hurt her feelings,” said Richard. “She just thought you were crazy. Boatwright’s the man in the hurt feelings department.”
“Shut up, Richard.”
Richard said Farnham had been madly in love with Mrs. Warden. “I heard him try to put the moves on her before rehearsal one day. Back before I got fired from the play. It was a crime of passion.”
“How come we never heard that story before?” asked Thomas.
“Okay, so I didn’t exactly hear it myself. But Landon Hopkins was telling everybody about it today.”
Thomas felt pity for Farnham unexpectedly overwhelm him. It was so easy to talk macho, to say that you never let a woman get to you, that it was a sign of weakness. He figured people like that had never been in love.
“He’s just like Othello,” said Greg. “He killed the thing he loved.”
“Jealous because she was married to somebody else,” said Richard.
Thomas said he seemed more like Roderigo than Othello.
“That’s because you play Roderigo, dork,” said Richard.
“No,” said Thomas. “He just seems more like the dumb guy with the crush than the man with the great love. If it’s going to be like Othello, then Mr. Warden would be the one to kill her.”
“It’s not like Othello, then,” said Richard.
Horace Somerville, who sat with his back to them at the adjacent table, was fascinated by every word.
SCENE 15
Although it had only been a couple of hours since lunch, it seemed to Thomas Boatwright like two decades. Today’s English class had been unbearably boring, even with McPhee teaching, but in just a few more seconds the class would end. It would be 3:00, and Thomas could get the hell out of there.
Three . . . two . . . one . . . the bell rang. Thomas already had his books packed and was up and out of his seat when Mr. McPhee stopped him.
“Hold it, Boatwright,” he said. “Get the homework first.”
The rest of the English class laughed. Mr. McPhee had been their substitute only one day, but they were already comfortable with him. He was so much more relaxed than Mr. Farnham had been, and he was still a good teacher. By this last period of the day, everybody was talked out about Mr. Farnham and Angus Farrier and Mrs. Warden, so Mr. McPhee had gone over the way Aristotle defined a tragic hero: a noble character who was brought down by one fatal flaw.
“Adam was the first tragic hero,” McPhee had said. “He was a good man who let his passion to please Eve get the best of his reason.”
Talk about tedium. Aristotle and the Bible in one day.
“A tragic hero is a good man,” McPhee had said over and over. That was all Thomas could remember of the whole class period. Nobody had mentioned Farnham’s coverage of all that tragic hero stuff during their unit on Oedipus Rex.
Now they were free as soon as they got the homework assignment.
“Read Act V,” said Mr. McPhee.
“The whole thing?” asked Richard.
“The whole thing,” said Mr. McPhee. “That’s the final act. Then you’ll be all finished. Goodbye.”
Thomas practically screeched out of the room. He was headed to the dorm and to the telephone; he was going to get all his problems straightened out. After lunch he had checked his mail. There had been a letter from Hesta. At first, when he’d seen the envelope, his heart had beat like a fire bell. Then he had read the letter.
Please stop calling me on the dormitory. Didn’t you hear what I told you on Saturday night? You hurt me. You are not the person I thought I knew. I don’t want to see you any more. We are all sad that so many people at your school have died. I am particularly sad that, as far as I am concerned, you are one of them.
He wondered how long it had taken her to come up with that last line. She’d probably been practicing it for days. He tried to work himself into indignation, but he couldn’t get it to stay. He was building it on a shaky, soggy bog of guilt and self-disgust, and his anger was only an illusion. He felt sick and ashamed and very lonely.
On the dormitory he called the familiar number for Mason, only this time he asked for his sister’s dormitory.
“Thomas!” Barbara said. “How are you? What is going on down there? I hear you had some mad slasher on the loose.”
“They caught him. He was my English teacher.”
“Gross!” she said. “Does it make you feel weird?”
Thomas said he supposed so. It was so comforting just to hear Barbara’s voice. She talked like a damn airhead but was only about the smartest person in the eastern United States. She was going to be valedictorian of her class and was going to hear any day from Amherst about her early application. Ever since he’d been a little kid, Barbara had been there as
