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TEN
Iwoke up the next morning cranky and bad-tempered. I had a headache and felt like I was coming down with the flu. I thought a hot shower would make me feel better but when I turned it on I found that there was nothing but ice cold water; the hot water heater, which the house inspector had certified as sound, must have been broken. Making a mental note to call Brock, I made a pot of coffee, only to discover that the milk had gone sour. When I tried to toast some leftover scones the toaster oven short-circuited, caught fire, and burned them to a crisp before I could put the fire out.
I decided to walk to campus hoping the air and exercise would heal my bad mood, but the minute I got outside I realized that the balmy Indian Summer weather had come to an abrupt end. It must have been under forty. I persevered, determined not to be a wuss about the cold, but ten minutes from the house it started to rain…or sleet, actually. The frozen rain needled my face and the back of my neck. I was soaked and frozen by the time I made it to the college center, where I stopped to buy a bagel and coffee. I was late for class and spent the first ten minutes complaining to a confused group of students about the inferiority of bagels outside the New York metropolitan area and the absurdity of sleet in October.
I’d planned to showRebeccain class but when I slid the DVD into the disk drive, my computer made a grinding noise and then spit the DVD out with a hiss. I swore—and heard a few students giggle at my use of the Anglo-Saxon invective—andpushed the DVD back in. A blue spark flew out of the disk drive and jolted me. My laptop moaned like a sick cat. I felt my eyes pricking with tears at the injustice of the world turning against me. I’m not sure what I would have done next if Nicky Ballard hadn’t appeared at my side and gently taken over.
“Here, let me. I’ve worked at campus tech support for a couple of years and can usually figure this stuff out.” Nicky tapped in a few commands on my laptop and within minutes my Mac was purring and playing the movie.
I thanked Nicky and she gave me a rare smile. It was then that I noticed that she had lost weight. Her round face had thinned out, revealing sculpted cheekbones. Her bangs were brushed to the side, showing off a high forehead and wide turquoise eyes. She looked pretty—but I felt a pang of concern. Although it was typical for freshmen to gain weight, I’d also seen some turn anorexic under the academic and social stresses of college. I made a note to talk to her after class and settled in to watch the movie.
The minute of thinking of someone other than myself had put my bad mood in perspective, but as I watched the movie I felt annoyance growing again. I liked to showRebeccabecause the novel was a classic reworking of Gothic themes and the Hitchcock film was beautiful and moody. But the truth was that the second Mrs. de Winter (the poor woman didn’t even rate a first name) was a ninny. It was painful to watch her quailing under the imperious Mrs. Danvers and hiding broken china away like a guilty child.
I dismissed the class after half the movie and told them they should finish reading the book before the next class. “Which ends differently than the movie so don’t think you can get away with not reading it.” Then, on a sudden impulse, I added: “Ask yourself this: What would you have done in the second Mrs. de Winter’s shoes—or in the shoes of any of the heroines we’ve seen so far this year? Do these women have to be so helpless?”
I caught Mara’s eyes on me as I gave this assignment. Insteadof her usual reverent gaze she looked puzzled and I realized that I’d asked the question angrily.Shit, I really must be losing it.
I had decided to put off talking to Nicky Ballard until another day, but as she walked by me she stopped and said:
“I’d fire Mrs. Danvers.”
“What?”
“If I was the second Mrs. de Winter. That’s the first thing I’d do. Then I’d give all Rebecca’s things to the Salvation Army—or whatever the British equivalent was—and redecorate. Then I’d tell Max that if he wanted to make our marriage work he’d better get over his dead wife and start paying attention to me.”
“Good girl,” I said.
“But what would you do when you found out how Rebecca died?” A voice came from the door. It was Mara, who’d been waiting in the doorway for her roommate.
“I’d say good riddance and make sure no one ever found that boat.” There was a sudden hardness in Nicky’s eyes that took me by surprise.
“Nicky, could you stay for a moment and show me how you fixed my computer?” I asked with a disingenuous smile, and then, turning to Mara: “You’d better go on to class. I don’t want to make you late.”
“But Nicky’s in the same class…”
“You can tell Phoenix she’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Mara left reluctantly, giving Nicky a worried glance over her shoulder. I wondered if she’d noticed the change in Nicky as well. While Nicky went though the steps she’d taken to fix my computer, I studied her more closely. I could see that in addition to the lost weight her eyes were feverish and her skin was pale.
“Thanks, Nicky. You were a real lifesaver. Can I call you if I have problems at home with it?”
“Sure. Like I said, I’ve worked in tech support for years…”
“But aren’t you a freshman?”
“Yeah, but I live here in town and I got the job the summer after my sophomore year in high school. One of my teachers recommended me because I was always fixing the high school’s computers. I got to know Dean Book…” Nicky smiled and lowered her voice. “For a smart lady she didn’t know the first thing about computers. She suggested I apply to college here. I’d been planning to go to the SUNY over in Oneonta, but Dean Book told me about the scholarship program and, well…here I am.”
“And you’re liking it so far?”
“Well, it’s a little strange. All my life I’ve watched the college teachers in town and they all seemed like they came from another world. Like that English teacher, Miss Eldritch. Have you ever watched how she walks? She kinda floats. And those creepy Russian professors…Do you know that they all live together in a scary old Victorian mansion on top of the hill? It’s all shuttered up during the day and you never see any of them except at night. Even their classes are at night. Kids in town say they’re part of some kinky sex triangle…” Nicky blushed. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful. It’s just weird to have spent all my life on one side and now I’m on the other—like Alice through the looking glass, you know?”
I nodded. I thought I knew what Nicky’s problem was now. She was trying to cope with a social class change on top of all the normal adjustments to college. Dean Book had said in my interview that the town and gown relations were cordial, but I bet those relations looked different to the kids who delivered the pizzas and their parents who fixed the plumbing and mopped the dormitory floors.
“How do your parents feel about you going to Fairwick?” I asked.
“Um…there’s just my mom and my grandmother, whom we live with. My grandmother was happy about it and my mom, well, she said as long as she didn’t have to pay for anything it was okay by her, but I’d better be sure to study somethingpractical and come out with a paying job and not waste my time with a lot of artsy-fartsy nonsense. Sorry…” Her voice cracked and I realized that this long breathless speech was a hedge against tears. “You don’t want to know all this.”
I put my hand on Nicky’s arm, which felt alarmingly thin. “Sure I do, Nicky. I lost my parents when I was little and was raised by my grandmother.” I guessed by the way her eyes flicked to mine that it must be Nicky’s grandmother who was doing most of theraisingat her home.
