Driver's Ed (18 page)

Morgan got up from a lap he had not sat in for a long, long time. Helped his father up. Stood there unable to think clearly about anything, much less his father.

“Tell me everything,” said his father. “I love you, Morgan. Just level with me. We'll need it all.”

“W
ho drove?” said Remy's father abruptly.

Remy pressed her lips together.

“Nickie Budie,” said Mom. “I looked out the window and saw that little scum and I almost told Remy she couldn't go and then I thought—well, you have to trust them sometime. You have to give them independence eventually. And here we've bought her a car and we're going to trust her with driving her brothers all over the city, so of course I can trust her to …” Mom gave Remy a hard, terrible smile.

Dad said, “It was an accident, Jeanie.”

Her name was Imogene; he called her Jeanie when he was in love with her. How can Dad be in love with her when she's so angry? thought Mac.

“It was not an accident!” shouted Mom. “You don't spend fifteen minutes with a hacksaw and call that an accident! Is this why you quit the basketball team, Remy? Is this why you didn't want Henry in the pageant? Are you trying to hide out? Blame others? Crawl under a rock? Where you belong?”

“Jeanie, that won't help.”

Mom looked at the man who was her husband. “And what will help? Tell me that. What will bring Denise Thompson back?”

H
enry chose this time to refuse bed, hate the cookies offered as bribes, and generally outdo himself at being cranky and obnoxious. Along with everything else they had to tolerate the baby, because they couldn't take out their rage on him. The desire to smack Henry became the major desire in the household.

Because that we could do, thought Mac. The one thing we could really do now is shut Henry up. We all want to hit something and he's making the most noise.

Remy went through Kleenex after Kleenex. “I'm sorry, Mommy.” She was speaking to their mother, and not their father. Mac wondered if Dad saw, and was hurt by that. Why did Mom's opinion matter more to Remy than Dad's?

Mac saw, confusedly, that he, too, would worry more about Mom's opinion. In some way he had not previously noticed, this was her household, her family, her rules.

“I was worried about the basketball team,” said
Dad. He gave a funny little laugh. “I was upset because I'd sort of built my winter plans on going to all the girls' games.” He said, “Did you do the mailbox baseball, too, Remy?”

“Dad! I'd never do a thing like that.”

“Oh, good, she has standards,” said Mom, rage like venom pouring out of her mouth.

“Jeanie, sarcasm won't help either.”

Mac wanted Dad not to be scolding Mom. It wasn't helping. Mom's right, he thought. Nothing can help.

“I want not to have done it,” Remy said. “I've been trying to think it undone. Praying it unhappened.” His pretty sister was unraveling, pulling at her hair and touching her face as if placing Band-Aids on hurts. “But I did do it!” she said, and the sobs burst out in terrible jagged hiccups. “Oh, Mom! I can't bear it.”

Mom's anger left as swiftly as it had come, leaving her wilted, like an old flower, ready for discard.

Mac saw how his mother would look in old age.

T
he last thing that Mac expected was for the Campbells' BMW to arrive in front of the house, and for the two lawyer parents of Morgan to get out, on each side of their son, escorting him up the Marlands' front walk as if into court.

It
is
court, thought Mac. We're going to try Morgan and Remy. If they present a good enough case, we'll stand by them. And if they don't … they're on their own.

What a contrast Remy's kitchen was to Morgan's. Nothing sleek, nothing trendy. A harvest-gold refrigerator was taped over with school stuff. A wooden lazy Susan on a fake early-American table was littered with Elvis salt and pepper shakers, a moo-cow coffee creamer, paper napkins falling out of a bent metal holder, a jelly jar filled with colored drinking straws, and a much-chewed pacifier. They all crowded around the table and Morgan had to rest his sweaty hands on yesterday's newspapers, which got newsprint all over them.

Morgan didn't know why they sat in the kitchen. It seemed to him this was a living-room type situation. After a while he realized that Mr. and Mrs. Marland were so shocky, they could not even change rooms. It had happened to them here, and they were stuck here.

He and Remy kept giving the explanations their parents wanted to hear, but the explanations were not, after all, what they wanted to hear.

“Nickie picked the sign,” said Remy. “We had the
THICKLY SETTLED
that Lark needed, and
MORGAN ROAD
for me, and we didn't need anything more, but Nickie stopped again and … well …”

“And you needed that,” said Remy's mother. “Tell me, Remy, in what way you and Morgan needed a stop sign.”

Morgan's mother said nothing. Nothing at all. Here was Mrs. Marland exploding with words. Words flung out like daggers, like archery, every word sharp tipped and poison dipped. But Morgan's mother, the lawyer who made a living talking, said nothing.

Dad reached for the big fat gold wall phone, which still had a dial—Morgan hadn't known people had dial phones anymore—and he telephoned Mr. and Mrs. Budie. Morgan's heart and soul hit each other, like the two-person piano piece “Heart and Soul.” His guilt-thick fingers slammed against the keys of his fear, playing the same melody over and over.

No! screamed Morgan. You can't talk to Nickie. Don't let them be home. Please, God, no, don't let Nickie talk to Dad.

Morgan was hoping for an accident, that's the kind of person your son is, he enjoyed himself when Denise Thompson bought it, stayed to watch the fun
.

He tried looking at Mrs. Marland, but this was a mistake. If Imogene Marland had a microwave big enough, she'd nuke him on high.

He tried looking at Mr. Marland, but Remy's father was rocking the baby, who was almost asleep, but never quite, eyes lifting like a drugged person, more afraid of sleep than life. The sadness on Mr. Marland's face seemed to be for the baby, as if something had happened to Henry and Mr. Marland could not protect him.

As for Remy, he could not quite recognize her. This girl he had known most of his life did not look familiar.
He could not remember kissing that mouth, touching that hair, hearing that voice.

Mr. and Mrs. Budie were home.

His father mostly listened. After a while he disconnected. “Mr. and Mrs. Budie,” said Dad in a measured voice, “have explained that their son would never participate in any sort of crime. Would never dream of vandalism. In any event, Nicholas was home that night. They can prove it. They don't know what kind of little liar my son is, but their son, Nicholas, is a fine, upstanding young man.”

Nickie's threat was gone. Maybe there was a God. Nickie would hide behind the curtain of his parents and never speak at all.

Morgan didn't even care that the blame was on two now, and not three. That he was the only one now who had chosen the stop sign and cut it off. He would never have to look in his mother's eyes and see that she believed a son of hers could get his kicks that way.

The worst had not happened.

“The question,” said Remy's father, “is whether to bring in the police.”

R
emy had no gods on whom to call. The room was filled with hostile aliens. People who used to be her parents. People who used to be the parents of a friend. They were gritted teeth now, glittering eyes, grating voices.

Her very own father would bring in the police.

“I,” said her mother, “am feeling very biblical. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

You mean Mr. Thompson ought to be able to kill us back?

Remy, flanked by Morgan's lawyer parents, had the weird thought that she would like to have her own lawyer here right now. She could not speak. She could not argue. Police. Jail. Toilets out in the open and horrible stinking street people and bare mattresses and roaches.

Remy began to sob, and her mother screamed, “How dare you cry? Denise Thompson doesn't get to cry again. She doesn't get to bring up her own baby, and you're the one crying?
Stop crying!
”

Remy stopped crying on the outside, but on the inside she was now screaming.
It was just a sign!
Why can't we all admit that it was just a sign! Everybody does it.

Mr. Fielding arrived just as Mr. Campbell said he was hoping to handle it privately.

T
he Campbells' BMW shone as if coated with clear nail polish, while Mr. Fielding's old Pontiac had no finish left, and not much color. It was just there, and it had wheels.

Morgan felt his parents' distaste for Mr. Fielding. The man was dressed badly even when dressed well. Every jelly doughnut and coffee with cream lay in rolls around his belly.

Morgan's father commented smoothly on the disturbing fact that Mr. Fielding could not tell Kierstin from Cristin from Lark from Remy. That Mr. Fielding had known all along his class chose sign-stealing for its activity. That as the adult responsible for Driver's Education, Mr. Fielding had neglected both responsibility and education.

Mr. Fielding flinched. “You're right. I was no teacher.” He fidgeted with the keys hanging off his belt. “But I didn't cut the sign down. They did. And I think
Remy and Morgan should pay for it somehow. No matter what my problems are and no matter what the legal situation is, the woman is dead.”

I respect him, thought Morgan. Dad is basically threatening Mr. Fielding's job, and he's a guy who won't find much else. And still he's hanging in there.

“I haven't called Mr. Thompson yet,” said Mr. Fielding, “because when I thought it was Kierstin, Remy had the decency to admit the truth. At least she wasn't going to let somebody be wrongly accused. I give her that much credit. She asked me to wait until she had a chance to talk to her parents. So I did, and now I want to know where we go from here. Because we have to go somewhere.”

M
ac Marland felt like a video camera. His focus was everywhere, capturing the elusive moments on his mental film.

The two fathers were less angry than the two mothers. The mothers had been personally betrayed; the fathers, momentarily shell-shocked, moved right along.

He knew why, because he was the same.

The fathers were less angry because vandalism, that violent form of showing off, was something they might have done.

Or
had
done.

It was a boy kind of thing. Wherever Morgan Campbell had been, not thinking, not stopping, Morgan's father and Mac's father had been there too.

“Where we go from here?” repeated Mr. Campbell, sounding much too tired to be heading anywhere. “Defacing or removing an official traffic control device is vandalism, a fine of not more than one hundred dollars. Criminal mischief, which is a possible charge, is
slightly worse. This covers things like throwing stones at cars or defacing tombstones. A misdemeanor. Fine of no more than two hundred fifty dollars. More serious is malicious mischief. That's a charge usually involving fire alarms, hydrants, railroad crossings, where there's intent to hurt the public. The kids had no intent to hurt. If committed through ‘sport' it isn't malicious mischief. All they actually did was steal a sign. Taking signs is almost a suburban hobby. Legally it might even be considered sport.”

“So if we go to the police,” said Mr. Fielding, “the maximum punishment would be a fine that's only a fraction of your car payment on that BMW.”

Mac read a flicker in Mr. Campbell's eyes and knew right away that the Campbells didn't have car payments. They were way out of that league.

“How about negligent homicide?” said Mr. Fielding.

Mr. Campbell shook his head. “The state couldn't really bring a charge, because the kids are removed from the actual cause of death, which was another driver in a truck. Manslaughter has to include a gross deviation from reasonable conduct and an extreme indifference to human life.” Mr. Campbell was looking at his son. “Thoughtlessness, which is what happened here, is not manslaughter.”

“You mean, nothing will happen to your kids. A woman is dead and nothing will happen.”

Mr. Campbell did a strange thing. He rested one hand on Morgan's head and the other on Remy's, like a minister giving a benediction. In the morning, said Morgan's father, he would go see Mr. Thompson. He would find out what it was that Mr. Thompson wanted done.

Mac sucked in his breath. A guy that paid for television
time:
Tell me who murdered my wife
. This did not seem like the kind of guy who was going to let it pass.

If I were a parent, thought Mac, I'd do what Nickie Budie's parents did. Slam the door. I'd never do what Mr. Campbell is doing—put my own kid's fingers in the door and then slam it!

For the first time in his life Mac Marland was glad to be a kid. No way would he be the parent knocking on the door of dead Denise Thompson's husband.

“T
urn onto Warren,” said his mother to Dad, who was driving them home. Morgan felt like he was coming down with the flu.

“Nance, I don't want to go to the site of the accident,” said Dad.

“Turn onto Warren, Rafe.”

Was she going to shove her son out of the car and rub his nose at the base of the stop sign, like a bad puppy who'd messed the floor?

His father turned down Warren. Morgan had a sense that Dad was actually afraid of her; afraid of what she would do; afraid of those words not being said. If Dad was afraid …

“And left on Macey,” said Mom.

“Nance, please,” said Dad.

“Please?”
repeated his mother. “Is pleasing me part of this equation? My son, does he care about pleasing me? Or pleasing anybody?
He killed somebody
. Where does
please
enter into it?”