The Dearly Departed. Elinor Lipman
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cup. Do you get so annoyed when someone kisses you?”
He didn’t look over and didn’t answer.
“What a grouch.”
He was tempted to say, It has cream in it, which I know you’d never let pass your lips unless you are before a convention of dairy farmers.
“Doesn’t coffee have a diuretic effect on you?” she asked.
Pissing, she meant: urological. Personal. He wasn’t going to discuss the properties of coffee with this annoying bag of bones. “I don’t like lipstick on my cup because it tastes like perfume,” he said. “If you want your own cup, you should say so at the appropriate juncture.”
Emily Ann turned away and studied the scenery.
“Let’s go over some questions, Em.” When she didn’t answer, he asked if she was sulking.
“No I am not. I’m meditating.”
“Here. Be a baby. Drink my cold coffee. I wouldn’t want you arriving at the meeting with a long face.”
“You work for me,” she said. “I’m the candidate and you’re the hired help.”
Emily Ann reached down to the giant turtle-green leather satchel at her feet for her water bottle.
“Are you really thirsty all day long, or is it just a prop?”
“Neither. Everyone needs eight glasses a day.” She took her usual swig, like punctuation. “I won’t always be running for Congress. The question of who’s the boss and who’s the employee won’t be an issue after Tuesday, November ninth.”
Fletcher turned on the radio.
“Because we’ll be equals when this is over,” she said. “Possibly even friends.”
“Not advisable,” said Fletcher. “Lines get blurred.”
“Not that I need any more friends,” she continued. “And not that I intend to lose. I was only thinking it would be an interesting experiment.”
“What would?”
“The occasional informal meeting over a glass of wine, post-campaign: candidate and manager minus the occupational constraints.”
Fletcher took a gulp of cold coffee from the clean half of the rim.
“I sense you’re uncomfortable parsing feelings and emotions,” Emily Ann said, trying again, her bottle nestled in the crook of her arm.
“Correct,” said Fletcher.
Every spring Nancy Mobilio, assistant headmaster of Harding Academy, found the school’s varsity golf coach at the center of the same tedious rumor: that he was having sexual relations with the school’s newest female hire. For compelling personal reasons—she was married to him—Mrs. Mobilio chose to ignore the latest groundless gossip, namely that Sunny Batten, who’d been recruited as j.v. golf coach, equipment-room overseer, and part-time health teacher, was this year’s crush.
Mrs. Mobilio was best known on campus for looking old enough to be her husband’s mother, a genetic swindle that fueled the legend of her husband’s roving eye. She was, in fact, only three years and eight months older than Mr. Mobilio, a difference barely worth noting, she felt; still, she dyed her once-dark hair and eyebrows an unbecoming gold and swam laps so religiously that her suits never dried. Truth or fiction, the rumors were humiliating. Real life and campus life blurred at boarding schools: Dorms were your home, colleagues were your neighbors, students were your baby-sitters. Alleged girlfriends emeritae were everywhere, rookies no longer, displaced by newer and fresher blood, untouchable job-wise thanks to rumors of romance.
So it was with well-disguised delight that Nancy Mobilio listened to a committee of three ninth-graders complain that Miss Batten couldn’t teach health to save her life.
“You should hear her,” said Ogden, who already wore the haughty look and out-of-season striped wool scarf of a future society hooligan.
“She calls us names,” said Hugh.
“Such as?”
“‘You little shits,’” Rufus provided. “That was today. Yesterday I think it was …”
“‘Jerk! You jerks,’” yelled Hugh.
“Tell her that other thing,” said Rufus.
Ogden unwound his scarf and cleared his throat. “The stuff we’re learning? In health? My father saw my notes over March break and he thought it was porno.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It was the handouts she gave us on female anatomy. It listed the words and then the definitions.”
“‘Clitoris: Female organ of pleasure!’” Ogden shouted gleefully.
“That’s quite enough,” said Mrs. Mobilio.
“My father called her up to ask what the hell she was teaching us, and she said it was science,” Rufus continued.
“Do you know if your father called the headmaster as well?”
“I think he changed his mind because Miss Batten gave me an eighty in health and it was my highest grade.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Mobilio.
“Is she gonna get fired?” asked Hugh.
“We don’t fire teachers because our students complain about them. What kind of due process would that be?”
“Huh?” said the boys.
“How fair would that be? We ascertain that there’s a basis for your charges. Then and only then would we discuss it with Miss Batten.”
“She sucks as a teacher,” said Rufus.
“For the record, I hate that word,” said Mrs. Mobilio.
“Can we go now?” asked Ogden.
“Let me ask you this: Are you speaking for the class? Are you three voices or fifteen?”
“Fifteen,” they said in unison.
“And why did you bring this to me as opposed to, for example, Dr. Lucey or Mr. Samuels?”
Hugh, who’d made the honor roll one term, spoke for the delegation. “We talked about who to go to, and we decided you’d be the most interested.” His friends nodded. “Also, we figured you’d want to help.”
“’Cause that’s your job, right?” added Ogden.
Mrs. Mobilio was not popular; she was visited by students infrequently and flattered even less. “It is one of the hats I wear,” she murmured.
“Are you going to do anything?” asked Hugh.
“The term is almost up. Do you think you can live with this situation for”—she turned several pages on her desk calendar—“three more weeks?”
“Then are you gonna fire her?”
“I don’t have any such powers, and furthermore, I explained to you about fairness and due process here at Harding.”
“His grandfather’s a trustee,” said Hugh, pointing to Ogden. “Plus, his father and all his uncles went here.”
“They could’ve named the new science building after him, but he likes to give money away anonymously,” Ogden said.
“You’re crazy if you don’t call him,” said Rufus. “I think he’d love to know that a teacher called you a shithead inside the building he paid for.”