Bloodline (28 page)

“But she's dead.”

“Doesn't matter.”

“Matters to me. I could go away for a very long time.”

“Promises, promises,” she said.

“Come on.”

Genest pondered. Ran her fingers across her forehead and through her thick dark hair. I noticed her makeup, which was subtle but nicely done. Her nails were carefully manicured. Hers was a calculated casualness.

“Shut the door,” she said grudgingly. “You ask some hypothetical questions. Maybe I'll be able to help you. Maybe I won't.”

I sighed inwardly. How many times had I played this game over the years, and never liked it?

“Okay. A student gets pregnant. Would she tell you? Do you have that kind of relationship with these kids?”

“Some of them. A lot of them.”

“That's good.”

“Sometimes.”

“So let's say this student isn't sure what to do. Have the baby? Abortion? Keep it? Give it up? What would you say?”

“This isn't family planning,” Genest said.

“But you have to say something. Give some guidance, right?”

“I try.”

“So what would you say?”

She gave a short annoyed sigh. She was attractive when she was irritated, I thought. I decided not to tell her.

“It just depends. On the student and the situation.”

“This is the hypothetical student.”

“I know. Okay, I might tell them about the options. Where to go if they choose one. There's a family planning clinic in Belfast where
they can get advice. I mean, specific advice. There's an adoption agency in Waterville. A good one. But you know they aren't usually coming to me all rational and calm and considering their options.”

“Why not?”

“God, men are so … They're kids. They're upset. Petrified. Bowled over by this thing that's happened to them. They can't talk to their parents a lot of the time. I'm just this shoulder to cry on. I mean, God, they're going to have a baby, and they're just kids. Children having babies. Unless they do something to change it, I mean.”

“Are they all upset?” I asked. “Don't some just take it in stride?”

“Some do. Unfortunately. Those are the ones who never expected to finish high school anyway. Who just fall into this because it's the path of least resistance. It's what they know, you know? It's easy and familiar.”

“And keeps the cycle going and all that.”

“And going and going and going. One wasted life begets another. It's a goddamn tragedy, really. But it's women's lives, so nobody cares much. Not in this society. Don't kid yourself. American women are still held down. It may not be as blatant as it was fifty years ago, but it's very much there. It's insidious now.”

I looked at her, surprised. There was a well of anger in there, and it was full.

“I suppose not,” I said. “But what about kids who don't want to do that? Who might want to go the adoption route. What can you tell them?”

Genest reached to the bookshelf on her right and pulled out a booklet. It was green and thin. She tossed it across the desk.

“I give them this. It's all about adoption. The laws. Some advice on the emotional side of the whole thing. Where they can go around here. More people to talk to. Counselors who do this kind of thing.”

“And this hypothetical kid. Where might she have gone?”

“I don't know. Some kids come to me for support. Then once they're all shored up, they go off and do it without me. It's just as well. By that time, I can't be propping them up. I mean, God. It's a big decision, and they have to be able to stand on their own.”

“But, hypothetically, don't they keep checking in?”

Out in the hall, a bell rang. Immediately, a low rumble could be heard, like something that would precede a volcanic interruption.

“You have to go?”

“In a minute.”

“Just a couple more,” I said. “If this person didn't tell anyone, what might the reason be for that?”

“This hypothetical person?”

“Right.”

“Shame. Not as much for getting pregnant as for giving up the baby. Fear that family members might not approve. Some parents, I mean parents of my kids, don't want to let go of that grandchild.”

“Can't really blame them.”

“Yeah, but they should be able to see past that. If that's what the girl wants to do, I mean, then it's time to support her. But for this hypothetical kid, there might be another reason to do it sub rosa, so to speak.”

“And what might that reason be?”

“She might be afraid of the dad,” Genest said.

“What? That he might want to keep the baby?”

“Hypothetically. And he might want to stop her from going through with an adoption. It's a power thing. Men like to be in control. Almost all men, even if they don't know it. God, my father used to … Anyway the girl is just property to these kids. You know. A car. A truck. A snowmobile. A girlfriend.”

“And a baby.”

“By extension. And this is a girl taking control of her life. I mean, some of these guys just freak. It threatens their very dominating, bullying existence. They can't handle it.”

There was real anger in her voice.

“And if they're threatened they might lash out?”

“Hypothetically they might.”

“So the mother might choose to go elsewhere. Get out of reach.”

“Sometimes it's the prudent thing to do. The whole thing is hard enough without having some jerk telling you what you should do with your life. Where does he get off? No pun intended. All he did was cajole or bully some young girl into taking her pants off. In my book, that earns you nothing. Nothing.”

Genest said it with conviction. Or was it hatred?

“You have a very romantic view of love,” I said.

“God almighty, McMorrow. It's called being realistic. Romance isn't the part of these kids' lives that I have to deal with. I deal with the aftermath.”

“And it isn't pretty?”

“Never. Never, never, never.”

I looked at her curiously. Outside the rumble was getting louder. Genest got up from her seat, apparently to throw herself into the maelstrom. We walked out into the office. The secretary, sitting at a computer terminal, looked at us suspiciously. A sullen-looking boy
in big basketball shoes and dungaree jacket looked up from a table of catalogs he wasn't reading. Genest and I stood at the edge of the hall, on the edge of the roaring torrent of adolescents. I saw kids. She probably saw something very different.

“So a girl might go to Portland to escape a violent teenage daddy?” I said, standing beside her.

“Hypothetically,” Genest said. “Remember that. I don't want to get caught in some libel or slander thing. We're not talking about Missy Hewett.”

“No, but you don't have to worry about her,” I said.

“Why's that?” Genest asked, looking straight ahead.

“Because you can't libel the dead.”

“It isn't the dead I'm worried about,” she said, and then stepped into the stream of boots and backpacks and jostling, shouting bodies and, like someone falling into the River Lethe, was swept away.

25

S
o maybe it was the daddy. But who was the daddy? Did he brag to somebody about bagging Missy Hewett? In this incestuous world of small-town kids, how could she, and he, manage to keep their liaison such a secret? And if it was such a secret, why would he kill her when she was going to put a lid on it forever? Or did he kill her because she wanted to take the lid back off?

I sat there for a minute in the Toyota until a car, a new Volvo sedan, pulled up and the guy driving glared at me. I figured it was the principal or somebody, so I sat some more. He came around a second time and glared again. The third time, he stopped his car and walked over. He was fifty and chubby and his bad suit was too small. I rolled down my window.

“Sir, this is faculty parking,” the guy said.

“Why's that?” I asked.

“Because the sign is right there.”

Ah, yes. A literalist.

“No,” I said. “I mean, why is this particular area reserved for teachers?”

“Because we need parking convenient to the school.”

“And the kids don't?”

“Sir,” he said, puffing himself up so his chin went from double to triple, “I'm going to have to ask you to move this vehicle.”

“What do they do? Pay you extra to be campus security?”

“That's none of your concern.”

He stood there, arms folded, full of cheap pin-striped importance. I sighed and started the truck.

“You're right,” I said. “I'm very sorry.”

“Rules are rules,” he said, conciliatory.

I put the truck in gear and pulled forward so I was right next to him.

“Besides,” I said, “I'm taking up your time. And something tells me you've got a very important appointment.”

“Well, I do have—”

“With a jelly doughnut,” I said. “Have a good day.”

It had felt good, but only for a moment, and by the time I was a mile down the road, I felt like a cheap bully, one of Janice Genest's stereotypical domineering, insecure men.

“Whaddya mean, bully?” I said aloud to myself as I drove, easing the little truck up to speed. “I oughta kick your ass.”

I drove through the hayfields, past the dairy farms, where manure-spattered equipment was parked haphazardly around manure-spattered barnyards. This time of year, the last of the corn was being cut for silage, and I drove alongside a field where a corn chopper was working beside a big red farm truck. Above the truck, the ground corn was pumping from a chute in a continuous stream. A tanned arm, thick and heavy, hung from the cab of the truck. It
was a big arm, a man's arm, and as I drove, it made me wonder what experience had so soured Genest on men. Was she married? Had she been married? Had the creep played around? Was her father a brute and her mother battered? Did she know who the father of Missy's baby was? If so, was it fear or ethics that kept her from telling me? What was her problem?

“Damn,” I said. Was that Kenny's truck ahead of me?

The tailgate was blue, and when the truck leaned into a curve, I could see the blue doors. I shook myself awake, shifted down to fourth, and sped up. The black-and-blue Ford was doing about fifty, rumbling along with a sort of quiet arrogance, patrolling its turf like a troop carrier cruising the narrow streets of some potentially rebellious slum.

I pulled close and saw that it was, in fact, Kenny, and, unless a girl was stretched out on the seat with her head in his lap, he was alone. Him and me. Me and him. The road climbed a ridge and the heaving hills of Waldo County rose to the west, yellow and orange, and the burnished color of oaks mixed with the permanent spruce green. I pictured our two trucks from high in the air, his black and mine red, following the black ribbon like those cars you see in the movies, tracing the winding Pacific Coast Highway. I wasn't sure where this scene was headed until Kenny suddenly looked in his rearview and waved. I gave him the finger. He slammed on the truck's brakes and pulled off onto the gravel shoulder, sliding the truck to a stop in a billow of dust. I did the same.

“Whaddya mean, bully?” I said to myself again. “I oughta kick your ass.”

Kenny popped out of his cab and slammed the door behind him. I did the same, and we walked toward each other, stopping about five
feet apart, midway between our respective bumpers. He was about my height, maybe a little shorter. Densely built, with thin legs and knotty arms and shoulders, the build you see in guys who like to lift motors but never ran track.

“Hey, man,” Kenny said, tugging on his hat. It said
BUILT FORD TOUGH
.

He grinned. I smiled.

“Long time, no see,” Kenny said.

“I don't know about that. I think I've been seeing you a lot. You just don't stop to say hello.”

“Well, you know how it is. Places to go. People to see.”

“Windows to shoot out,” I said. “Trucks to burn.”

“Don't know why I'd want to do that. Hey, where'd you get this little pussy truck? Feels like you're driving a little toy, don't it?”

“It's fine. Nice to be able to pass a gas station once in a while.”

“Frig that. A man's gotta have something under him with some balls, you know?”

“Would you care to rephrase that?” I said.

“Huh? Oh, I get you. Goddamn, if you aren't good with words. Mr. Article Writer, right? You're good at twisting little words around, right?”

I didn't say anything.

“Hey, I remember when you first come to the pit. With the girls. Are they babes or what? I mean, man, you get your piece yet or what? Hey, I bet they'd even do you, Mr. Article Writer. I thought that was something girls did, you know? All that typing and secretary stuff. That pussy stuff.”