down to the station.”
Jean looks surprised. “He asked Harmon down to the station?”
“Yes,” I say, sorry now I’ve brought it up. I had assumed she knew. “I imagine because he’s dean of Lila’s form. I’m sure he’ll be back by the faculty meeting.” I look at my watch. It’s almost noon.
Jean sighs. “I suppose we’d better go. How much do you want to bet that Brad Sorensen brings up cordoning off the woods again?”
“That would be a sucker’s bet,” I say, getting up and offering Jean my arm. She leans on it heavily and I notice how frail she’s grown this winter. She’s so sharp, so energetic, that I never think of her as old, but she must be getting close to seventy. Harmon, whose mother was on the board and still hears gossip from its members, says that there’s talk about her retiring, but it’s hard to imagine what she would do without the school. Since Tracy’s death she’s poured her whole life into it. Without the school, she would be like those Puritans I teach my students about: cast out into the wilderness.
AS WE’RE ENTERING the corridor that leads to the back room behind the stage, I hear the front door to the chapel open behind us, followed almost immediately by a long keening cry. Jean and I turn around.
The slight figure in the central aisle looks too small to have made that sound. Long black hair and layers of black cloth drip from her like seaweed. She could be Lila’s ghost risen from the sea to demand vengeance, but it’s only Rachel Lazar come early to the chapel to vent her grief. I feel Jean’s arm stiffen. She’s had a number of conflicts with Rachel the last three years over issues ranging from demands for trigger warnings on all reading assignments to complaints about “creative differences” with Lila’s direction of The Crucible.
“Let me handle her,” I whisper.
Jean gives me a grateful look and squeezes my hand. “If you’re not back in ten minutes I’ll send Martha to check up on you.”
I smile. As I walk toward Rachel, I can feel the waves of emotion radiating off her like blast waves from an explosion. I am trying to recall if she was particularly close to Lila but what I remember is them always arguing in class. They were two alpha girls—both smart, pretty, and vocal—who clashed on everything from literary interpretation to social activism. Rachel once accused Lila of playing a “social justice warrior”; Lila told Rachel she was “sexualizing” the role of Abigail Williams in The Crucible. But, I remind myself as I arrange my face into an expression of compassionate sympathy, their past conflict might make Lila’s death particularly hard on Rachel.
I raise my arms, meaning to take her hands, and am taken by surprise when Rachel suddenly rushes toward me. She slams into my chest with such force that I stumble back a step and have to wrap my arms around her to keep my balance. She’s hot and damp and shaking.
I pat Rachel’s back and actually say, “There, there,” but I doubt she hears me over her cries. I stand as straight as I can, trying to keep us both upright. Having a son who doesn’t like to be touched, I’m unaccustomed to this kind of physical display. Even Harmon, while generous in bed, isn’t physically demonstrative out of it. I’m a WASP, he’s fond of saying.
After a minute I shift one arm around Rachel’s shoulder and maneuver us both to a pew. I dig in my purse and hand her a tissue. Her face is streaked with kohl and so, I realize, is the white silk blouse I’m wearing.
“We’re all grief-stricken over Lila—” I begin.
Rachel shakes her head. “No, no, you don’t understand—” A fresh volley of sobs ripples through her body. It’s like there’s something in her chest trying to come out, like her body is at the mercy of some uncontrollable force. It reminds me of the convulsions that beset the girls in Salem—
In fact, it reminds me that Rachel has been playing one of those girls. I scoot a few inches away on the pew and examine her more closely. How much of this show of grief, I find myself wondering, is a performance?
“What don’t I understand?” I ask.
Rachel sniffles and wipes her nose. “This is all my fault.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “It was an accident.”
“It was not,” Rachel says, her voice an octave lower and steady as