was, Discuss American foreign policy from the Civil War to the present.” Her eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses. “It was the question I myself had had on a preparatory school American history exam. But several Elk Park Prep students complained. Not to me, mind you,” she said bitterly, “to Headmaster Perkins. Perkins gave me hell, said he hadn’t had such a challenging question in a test until graduate school.”
I said, “Uh-oh.” “I said, ‘Where’d you go to graduate school, the University of the South Sandwich Islands?’ And oh, that wasn’t the worst of it,” she continued sourly. “It was soccer season, don’t you know. The weekend before exams, Brad Marensky performed brilliantly as goalie down in Colorado Springs. But he hadn’t studied for his history exam, and on this essay question he unfortunately left out both World Wars.”
Julian said, “Oops.”
Pamela Samuelson turned a face contorted with sudden fury toward Julian. “Oops? Oops?” she cried. When Julian drew back in shock, she seemed to will herself to be calm. “Well. So I flunked him. Flat F.”
No one said oops.
“When the honor roll came out at the end of the year,” Pamela went on, “there was Brad Marensky. He could not have gotten there with an F, I can assure you.” She spread her hands in a gesture of incomprehension. “Impossible. I demanded a meeting with Perkins. His secretary told me the Marenskys had protested Brad’s grade. Before the meeting I checked the master transcript kept in a file in Perkins’ office along with old grade books. The F history grade had been changed to a B. When I confronted Perkins, he wasn’t even defensive. Smooth as silk, he says he gave Brad Marensky credit for the soccer game. I said, ‘You have a pretty screwed up idea of academic integrity.’ “
Not to mention American foreign policy.
“Perkins told me I was welcome to seek employment elsewhere, in fact, that he already had a superb replacement for me in mind. I know it was some young German man that a friend of his at C.U. was pressuring him to hire. I’d heard that from the secretary too.” Pamela hissed in disgust. “The article in the Post about the lower SAT scores at Elk Park Prep made me feel better for a little while, but it didn’t make me happy. I’m still trying to sell five-thousand-square-foot homes during the worst real estate recession in a decade.”
I murmured sympathetically. Marla rolled her eyes at me.
“Suzanne Ferrell was my friend,” Pamela said with a large, unhappy exhalation of air. “My first thought was, She wouldn’t cave in to them.”
“Them who?” demanded Marla.
“The ones who think education is just grades, class rank, where you go to college.” Pamela Samuelson’s voice thin with anger. “It’s so destructive!”
The high peal of the doorbell cut through her fury. Marla started to lift her cast from the ottoman, but Julian red her.
“I’ll get it,” he said. When he returned, Marla smiled handed the goodies she had ordered all around. Pamela Samuelson announced hesitantly that she couldn’t , and left, still radiating resentment. Clearly, the disgruntled teacher had said all she was going to on the subject of the headmaster, Egon Schlichtmaier, and the altered grades. Marla sweetly asked Julian to retrieve a miniature Sara Lee chocolate cake from one of her capacious freezers. I sliced and we each delved into large, cold pieces.
“Let me tell you what I think the problem is,” Marla matter-of-factly, delicately licking her fingers of chocolate crumbs. “It’s like a family thing.”
“How?” I asked. She shifted her cast on the ottoman to make herself more comfortable and eyed the last piece of cake. “Who are the people you most resent? The people closest to you. My sister got an MG from my parents when she graduated from college. I thought, If I don’t get a car of equal or better value, I’m going to hate my sister forever and my parents too. Did I resent all the other girls my age who might have been out in Oshkosh or Seattle or Miami getting new cars? No. I resented the people close to me. They had the power to give me the car or deny it, I figured, reasonably or unreasonably.” She reached for the piece of cake and bit into it with a contented mmm-mmm. I nodded and conjured up Elk Park Prep. “There could be seven thousand people out there applying for a thousand places in the freshman class at Yale. If you’d kill to get into Yale, do you stalk all seven thousand? No, The killer doesn’t worry about all those people out there who’ might be better than he is. He thinks, I have to remove the people right here who are standing in my way. Then I’ll be guaranteed of getting what I want, Fallacious reasoning, but psychologically sound.”
“You just better be careful,” Marla told me, “Somebody out there is vicious, Goldy. And I have the broken bone to prove it.”
When Julian and I arrived back on our street, I was relieved to see a cop sitting in a regular squad car right outside my house. Schulz had called and left a message that the investigators were working all day Sunday, and that the school would have counselors on Monday to deal with the kids’ reactions to the latest murder. I should not worry, he added. Not worry. Sure, Sleep came with difficulty, and Sunday morning brought weak sunshine and a return of the headache.
Overnight, we’d received ten inches of snow. Not even the brilliant white world outside raised my spirits.
I brought the newspaper in from my icy deck and scanned it for news of Suzanne Ferrell. There was a small article on the front page: PREP SCHOOL SCENE OF SECOND DEATH. I started to tremble as I read of Suzanne Joan Ferrell, 43, native of North Carolina, graduate of Middlebury College, teacher at Elk Park Prep for fifteen years, whose body was found while seniors took their Scholastic Aptitude Tests, . . parents in Chapel Hill notified … her father an architect, mother the chairman of the French Department at the University of North Carolina … police have no explanation, no suspects… death by strangulation… .
I took out a sheet of notepaper and performed that most difficult of tasks, writing to Suzanne’s parents. My note to Keith’s parents had been short, since I had not really been acquainted with the boy. This was different. I knew her. I wrote to the unknown architect and professor, she was a wonderful teacher. She cared deeply about her students … and then the tears came, profusely, unapologetically, so many, many tears for this unexplained loss. I allowed myself to cry until I could not cry anymore. Finally, painfully, I penned a closing. I signed my name, and addressed the note to the Ferrells in care of the French Department at U.N.C. Perversely, I found the university’s address inside one of Julian’s college advisory books. I slammed the book closed and heaved it across the kitchen, where it hit a cabinet with a loud crack.
With shaking hands I measured out espresso. While it brewed, I stared out the kitchen window and watched Stellar’s jays fight for supremacy at my bird feeder.
I turned away. One thing was clear. Suzanne Ferrell had not killed herself. My espresso machine hissed; a fragrant strand of coffee streamed into the small cup. Had Suzanne Ferrell preferred cafe au lait? Had she been enthusiastic about French food? Did she leave a lover? I would never know.
Let go of it. I wiped a few fresh tears from my face and sipped the espresso. Julian appeared and thankfully said nothing about my appearance or the college; advisory book lying facedown on the floor. When he finished his coffee, he reminded me that we had another Bronco half-time meal to cater for the Dawsons. An Italian feast. I had specified on the appointments calendar. I groaned.
“Let me fix the food,” he offered. When I was about to object, he added, “It’ll help me get my mind off of everything.” I knew how cooking could help with that particular emotional task, so I agreed. Julian rattled around, collecting ingredients. As I watched, he deftly grated Fontina and mozzarella, beat these with eggs, ricotta, Parmesan, and softened butter before blending in chopped fresh basil and pressed garlic. I felt a burst of pride in him as he sizzled onion and garlic in olive oil and added ingredients for a tomato sauce. The rich scents of Italian cooking filled the room. After he had cooked the manicotti noodles, he stuffed in the Fontina-ricotta mixture and ladled thick tomato sauce over it all.
“After it heats, I’m going to garnish it with more Parmesan and some chopped cilantro,” he informed me. “I’ll make it look good, don’t worry.”
Julian?s Cheese Manicotti
Sauce:
1 large onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, pressed (preferable) or chopped
