I'd Rather Be in Philadelphia Read online

  “You said we should pick what interests us,” Rita said. “No offense, but that junk doesn’t.”

  I mourned those innocent moments when I’d thought they’d stayed for Shakespeare’s sake. “What would you rather research?” I asked softly.

  They shook their heads. One looked like Woody Woodpecker in a snit, the other like an inverted skunk. Colleen had dyed her hair a while back and was in need of a touch-up, which made her the only person I knew with blonde roots.

  They were using standard senior strategy, dithering and dawdling until June happened and they won through erosion, battle fatigue, and the faculty’s desire to see them gone. But it was only February. There was still life and fight in me.

  “I have to leave.” I popped the rewound tape out of the VCR while I searched for a way to head them off at the pass. And suddenly I realized I held the solution in my palm. Literally. “But there is something that interests you!” They cringed at my cheery response, as well they might. “You said so yourself!”

  Their eyes slitted. They knew they’d wandered onto a mine field, one they themselves had planted. But they didn’t know how or where to get to safety.

  I waved the tape of The Taming of the Shrew. “We’ve been talking about what interests you. Uppity women. Abuse. Chattel. Marriage customs. Male Chauvinist Pigs. What it means to be a perfect wife. What it means to be pushed around.”

  “But—” Rita said.

  “No buts about it! You yourself told me you cared about those issues, so go to it!”

  They looked like doomed woodland creatures paralyzed by oncoming headlights.

  Which was fine with me. You get hard in this line of work. I pushed my advantage, and by the time the three of us left the classroom, one of us was researching the rights of married women, one of us was investigating spousal abuse, and one of us was as happy as an English teacher can be, given that she had a head cold and no idea what she just set in motion.

  Two

  I WALKED INTO THE AUDITORIUM, MY CONVERSATION WITH THE TWO GIRLS reverberating in my head. I convinced myself that Rita had been honestly upset by the sexism and abuse in The Taming of the Shrew and that her agitation hadn’t been pure performance art. I felt a little better psychologically, if not physically.

  “There’s Amanda now,” someone onstage said. I was late for my afternoon of so-called volunteer work for the annual flea market, called, since it was held inside the school, the Not-a-Garage Sale. The stage, serving as temporary storage space for donations, resembled a set for a play about the absurd meaninglessness—or messiness—of just about everything. Positioned between and on randomly placed and mismatched items—a lamp with a tiger-striped shade, a wicker bird cage, a wagon, a file cabinet with skis propped against it, misshapen chairs, and gawky clothing-strewn tables—other faculty volunteers slumped over, examined, and tagged castoffs.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said as I joined them onstage. “Some of my seniors stayed after class to talk about a film we saw.”

  My not exactly accurate announcement produced astonishment and envy, except from Caroline Finney, the ever-pleasant Latin and ancient history teacher, who behaved as if such after-school intellectual encounters were common. She smiled greetings as she sorted through a pile of clothes and pulled out a threadbare burgundy velvet cape I recognized as a longtime companion of my friend Sasha.

  I had encouraged Sasha to use the sale as an excuse for weeding through her eccentric wardrobe, but as soon as I saw the familiar cape, I decided to buy it and give it to her next Christmas, by which time she’d be missing it.

  Rachel Leary, the school counselor, held a clipboard and seemed to be in charge. “Could you do the books?” she asked me.

  “Bookkeeping? Me? Numbers are not my—”

  Rachel blinked. “It’s really not hard. All the hardbacks are a dollar. One zero-zero. Paperbacks twenty-five cents.”

  “Oh, the books!”

  She looked at me quizzically. “Sort them into categories and put them in separate cartons. When we move the stuff into the gym, we’ll shelve them that way. They sell better if they seem organized. But don’t go crazy or Dewey decimalize them.”

  I put Sasha’s cape on will-call, which is to say I took it and promised to pay ten dollars when the sale opened.

  I settled in the middle of several dozen cartons. On my left, Neil Quigley sorted board games, checking for missing parts. On my right, Edie Friedman glued price stickers to the underside of a bilious snack set with bubblegum-pink hearts on both the plates and cups.

  Edie sighed. “For romantic nibbles, I guess.”

  Edie was a congenital yearner. She was attractive and clever, but the only quality men seemed to notice—just before they ran away—was her desperation. Edie subscribed to Modern Bride and had a full hope chest and detailed wedding plans and an unshakable trust that soon, True Love would find her.

  I didn’t offer my opinion of the nauseating snack set. I sorted books instead, delegating cartons for general fiction, mysteries, science fiction, diet, and love-help. Men who couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Women who shouldn’t.

  Eventually, I was surrounded by half-full cartons. I put aside a few books for myself—an Agatha Christie, a tome on the no longer so new female psychology, a slender novel whose title, Trust, intrigued me. Hoarding was the volunteers’ perk. As long as we didn’t set the price of the object, we could have first dibs on whatever appealed to us.

  “Look.” Edie held up a small crystal lamp with a gathered, pouffy shade. Even in the gloom of the stage, its facets glittered. “It’s for the boudoir,” she said wistfully.

  I had an image of eighteenth-century ladies in wigs reclining on satin lounges, and I wondered how Edie, a gym teacher with Nikes and a whistle on a chain, fit herself into a picture that belonged on a Regency romance. “Boudoir originally meant a place for pouting,” I said. “Who needs a lamp for that? It’s more fun in the dark.”

  “A lamp like this is for grand seductions.” Sometimes she seemed like a mythical character under a spell. The next single male to turn the corner would be her destiny. And it was never too soon to stock up on the proper crystal love accessories. “Wish I could afford it.” Edie put the lamp down.

  Wish I could afford it could be every teacher’s motto. Maybe Caroline Finney could translate it into Latin, and we’d have a crest made. Crossed chalk and red pencil above, those words below. The subject of personal finances had occupied a lot of my thinking lately. February does that to a person. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can definitely lease a beach during winter break. A warm, adolescent-free zone with industrial-strength sunshine. Give me the beach; I’ll take care of the happiness part.

  After hallucinating about the tropical escape, I had finally decided to earn it by moonlighting. The next hurdle was finding a moon to light. I vetoed the idea of parties where I’d demonstrate makeup, plastic containers, or sexual aids, and that left doing overtime with the academically impaired. I therefore had an appointment tomorrow after school at the headquarters of TLC, which ran tutoring centers all over the city and suburbs.

  I continued sorting and discovered a cache of Little Golden Books. I suspected that my niece was too old for these, and I knew that my newborn nephew was definitely too young, but I nonetheless put them aside for somebody. Then I studied a nice edition of Fanny Hill and debated whether removing Victorian pornography from a high school sale constituted censorship. I decided to solve the issue by buying the book myself.

  Next to me, Neil Quigley stood and stretched his long frame. “They give me eight-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzles. How am I supposed to know whether or not they’re intact?”

  I smiled in sympathy, but his attention was elsewhere. He cracked his knuckles and sat back down.

  “I have an appointment at TLC headquarters tomorrow,” I told him. “I haven’t interviewed for anything in years. Any advice?”

  His expression became direct, surprised and unhappy. “Only to stay away from the
m. Don’t be stupid the way I was.” He picked up a game box and dropped it back down. “No timer,” he said. He looked at me again. “I’m serious. I’m sorry I ever got involved with TLC.”

  “Why? I thought you were doing so well. What’s wrong?”

  “Do whatever you want, okay?” Neil sounded almost angry.

  “I’m only interviewing for a tutoring position.” Neil, on the other hand, had become one of their franchisees, running a center in South Philadelphia.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s your life.” His voice was flat.

  Neil was a history teacher in love with his wife and Benjamin Franklin. He was writing a biography about the latter. He was also a great dancer, and he played the banjo, or had, until recently, when he stopped having much to sing or dance about. First, his wife Angie developed environmental allergies which forced her out of teaching and into specially designed and expensive new quarters. Now she was very pregnant with their first child and having a bedridden time of it. Given his burdens and bills, popular wisdom had it that he was lucky to have a second income from his franchise of one of the Teller-Schmidt Learning Centers, more commonly known as TLC.

  “I wish you’d explain,” I said.

  “If you had any idea what I’ve been through, what they—” Neil clamped his jaw so tightly the socket bone pressed against his skin. He was a long, thin man with a brand new tic at the side of his eye. He made me think of a stick of dynamite, counting down to detonation. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m tired. Angela had a bad night again. Forget it.”

  “How is dear Angela?” Caroline Finney asked. Everyone was dear to her and by and large the feeling was reciprocated, even if her heart belonged to Ovid, as she’d once confessed, blushing.

  She and Neil discussed, in properly vague terms, Angela’s tortuous progress toward delivery, and the many alterations to their home that had been necessary to alleviate her allergies.

  I once again returned to my chores and realized that Fanny Hill had been only a sample nugget. I’d hit the Mother Lode of erotica: slender volumes with plain white covers by Anonymous, and racy contemporary soft-core best-sellers, all hardcover first editions, and all the way back to Peyton Place.

  I furtively thumbed through the collection, sure that any minute the principal would find me out and haul me away. Consequently, I gasped when Neil tapped my shoulder.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry twice. Didn’t mean to scare you now or snap at you earlier. I only meant…I’m not the person to talk to about TLC. I’m sure Teller and Schmidt would agree. They’d be the first to say I’m biased—and a bad businessman.”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not supposed to talk about—Some other time,” he said firmly.

  It was true that Neil was not my idea of a tycoon. Ferreting out odd facts about Ben Franklin was one thing. He’d been really excited the day he’d discovered that old Ben developed the idea of street cleaning, for example. Research delighted Neil, not receipts and bills. However, it shouldn’t have mattered. TLC’s literature promised that the main office handled the paperwork for their franchises. I had lots more questions but, as he obviously didn’t want any further discussion of the subject, we returned to our tasks.

  I peeked into another racy number called M’lady’s Boudoir and put it in a carton with its X-rated brethren. Then, for all his determination to be silent, Neil spoke. “They send us those letters inviting us to be a part of their team. Probably every teacher in the Delaware Valley hears their pitch every year. But they never mention how much you won’t make. How much will go to advertising,” he said. “You know what television time costs? And brochures and the building and the furniture? Not a clue.”

  On my other side, Edie moaned. It appeared that the donor of the crystal lamp had shucked an entire boudoir’s worth of bibelots: a powder box, a mirrored tray with crystal handles, a bud vase, and a votive holder. I wondered what dreadful change of fate had made the crystal’s owner give her treasures away, and whether it was the same person who’d gotten rid of all the steamy literature. Edie, on the other hand, appeared to be wondering only about what would be possible in a room full of these objects.

  She blushed, as if I’d seen through the cut glass into her fantasies. She put down the candle holder.

  “They make it sound great,” Neil continued as he examined a flimsy-looking toy train set. “You should read the article Philadelphia Magazine did about the place.” He shook his head.

  “Oooh,” Edie said. “I meant to tell you I saw it—the article and the picture of you.” She turned to me. “Neil looks soooo handsome,” she said.

  Neil’s expression grew darker and more strained. “I didn’t notice. All I could see is how good they made Wynn Teller look.”

  “Neil!” Edie squealed. “You shouldn’t be jealous! The man’s adorable, true, but you’re cute, too.”

  “I didn’t mean that.” Neil looked ready to explode.

  Caroline Finney’s gentle voice intervened. “Wynn Teller,” she said. “His son Hugh was here, wasn’t he? Such an interesting child. He was in my ancient history class. A good mind, but then he left so abruptly. Has his father ever said where Hugh is now, Neil?”

  Neil shook his head. “We don’t talk about things like… Anyway, I never met Hugh, so I never asked.”

  Hugh Teller had been in my ninth grade class several years back, a bubble of a boy whose unfortunate name and shape prompted Baby Huey jokes. However, as if he were a character in one of the Broadway shows he adored, Huey Teller triumphed and became a star. The little boy had an enormous voice, an overwhelming, clear bellow designed for hard-of-hearing folk in the top balcony. He’d been the hit of our annual show and then, almost immediately, in midsemester, he’d transferred out. Whenever I saw an ad for a Broadway opening, I searched for Hugh Teller’s name.

  “I heard he went to boarding school,” Edie said. “Out of state. Several boarding schools, in fact.” She didn’t sound interested. Hugh was too far away, young, and unavailable to be her True Love at Last.

  I kept sorting, and discovered several accounts of exotic expeditions involving rough terrain, native guides, and derring-do. I envisioned the person who’d donated them, jettisoning their weight before setting off for the unknown again.

  However, as the sorting wore on, I wore out, tossing increasing numbers into the miscellaneous carton. In went a tattered Dr. Spock, a dictionary of firearms, an out-of-date Guide to American Antiques. I belatedly realized that I could create a reference category, but that seemed too much trouble. Tomorrow’s volunteer could do it. I wanted out of this dithering and commotion and into my sweatsuit and a pot of chicken soup.

  Reader’s Digest Condensed Books landed in the to-be-sorted carton along with the World Book, Volume 18, So-Sz; a collection of poems about unicorns; a zip-code directory; a photographic homage to fireplugs; and a paperback about battered women.

  I stared at this last one. Rita, much to her own surprise, was now researching spousal abuse. I picked up the book again. For twenty-five cents I could be a sport, jumpstart her project. If, of course, the book was worth anything in the first place. I opened it and scowled.

  It was underlined and there was graffiti in the margins. I detest hacking through thickets of other people’s markings, and I was sure Rita would be equally annoyed. Or worse, she’d use this stranger’s underlines as a study guide. I tossed the book back in the box.

  Still. For a quarter. I picked it up again, flipped through to see the extent of the damage, then paused at a notated passage.

  I all but stopped breathing. He put a gun to my head, the text quoted an abused wife. Terrible. But still worse was the margin note, in minuscule, fastidious printing: He did this and does this to me. I am so afraid.

  Tiny letters, tidily printed. A small voice, pitched low, deliberately insignificant, as if cowering. Plain language, making her message horribly clear.

  The noise and bustle around me, the slap o
f articles dropped, the thunk of pieces moved, the blur of talk, faded, and I was alone with the quiet voice, the hand that had underlined the passage in neat, true lines. She’d used a ruler. To be safe.

  I could see her trying not to move, not to breathe as he held a gun pointed at her head. He did this and does this to me. I am so afraid.

  I looked in front of the book for a name, but there was none there or at the back, or on any of the pages I flipped through. Then I went through the book again, slowly this time, stopping at her careful underlines that together told her life history and secrets.

  Battered women often survive by behaving in unusual manners that wind up misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, paranoia, or severe depression. They may even be institutionalized for the condition and undergo therapy, never revealing the real root of their problem.

  Yes, she’d printed in the margin next to this passage. But I am not crazy, only afraid, and even if I could dare to tell somebody, nobody really wants to hear the truth.

  Battering crosses all socioeconomic lines was underlined. Batterers are found in every profession and walk of life. Her note made it clear that her husband was a successful, respected man in his community. Nothing like the undershirt and bottle of beer stereotype I’d automatically summoned, but a financially comfortable, well-tailored man who battered his woman in a well-appointed house.

  Sometimes there was only a poignant this is true in the margin.

  Often the beatings and therefore any telltale marks stop before the wife is going to do business entertaining.

  This is true.

  Battered women often isolate themselves because the batterer perceives anyone who is kind to her as a threat.

  This is true.

  The batterer is often also violent with the children.

  This is true.

  Bit by bit, in a mosaic of sad fragments, a picture emerged from the underlined segments and marginalia.

  I looked around, almost surprised not to find her onstage with me, because I could hear her so clearly, calling for help. An hour ago, I had casually mentioned abuse to the girls, but now it had changed from an abstraction into one bright woman so terrorized and with so little hope, she’d sent an anonymous cry out into the world, like a marooned sailor floating a note in a bottle.