Looking for Laura, page 18
Todd smiled noncommittally and waved his father off. Wearing an eager grin, Eddie swooped down on Todd’s desk. The phrase “out of the frying pan, into the fire” scrolled across Todd’s mind.
“So,” Eddie said. His smile put the grate in ingratiating. “The piece I did on that homeless guy was good, huh?”
“It was very good.” Not Pulitzer Prize material. Not even a contender for above-the-fold. But Todd gave credit where due. It had been a solid piece of reporting.
“So, I was thinking on doing a follow-up. There are three other guys living under the railroad tracks, and—”
“No.”
“You just said the first piece was good. I was thinking, maybe a series—”
“What could you say about Homeless Man Number Two that you haven’t already said about Homeless Man Number One? He’s poor. He’s had some hard knocks. He wants to get his act together, but he’s got a thing for cheap liquor and drugs. He wishes he didn’t live in the shadow of the train trestle, but he can’t seem to bring himself to walk the three blocks to City Hall, where they’ve got a really nice Social Services Department that could find him a bed in a shelter. Writing about this once is great, Eddie. Writing about it twice is overkill. Three times is a crusade.”
“Well, someone’s got to help these men.” Eddie slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans, which were so loose the fabric seemed to swallow his knuckles.
“And if you want to be the one to help them, you have my blessings. After work today, you can fix them a nice pot of stew and take it down to the overpass for them. But I’m not devoting any more inches to them right now. Where are you on the Reddi-Mart expansion story?”
“It’s coming along,” Eddie said, nudging the worn carpet with a sneakered toe. “The zoning board hasn’t issued its approval yet.”
“That’s your story, Eddie. The expansion should be a no-brainer. Why don’t you find out why the zoning board is dragging their feet over this?”
“They’re just bureaucrats.”
“Maybe they’re just bureaucrats. Maybe they discovered that Reddi-Mart is dumping untreated sewage into the Connecticut River. Maybe they’re looking for a payoff. Go find out.”
“I’d really rather—”
“I don’t want to know what you’d really rather,” Todd warned him.
Eddie sighed forlornly, backed up toward the door, then hesitated. “I was wondering…”
Todd braced himself.
“Do you think there’s room for another reporter to cover Winfield College? I really hate covering the zoning board.”
“Winfield College doesn’t generate enough news for two reporters. It barely generates enough for one, and that’s Gloria’s beat. Why?”
“I don’t know. I just thought…” He gave Todd another beseeching smile. “All those cute female students up there…It seems like a waste, sending Gloria to cover them.”
“There are cute male students up there, too,” Todd pointed out.
“But they’re younger than Gloria.”
“Maybe she likes younger men. Or maybe—” he added a measure of steel to his voice “—she’s a professional, doing her job with objectivity rather than using it as an excuse to flirt, which, I shouldn’t have to tell you, is a good way to lose your job.”
Eddie’s smile grew sheepish. “Well, I thought it was worth a try,” he said, backing up another step. “I’ll go talk to someone on the zoning board.”
“Good boy.” Trying not to scowl, Todd swiveled back to his monitor, now filled with his favorite screen saver, which featured floating headlines. He’d programmed it to quote famous real headlines: Dewey Beats Truman. Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor. Ford to New York: Drop Dead.
He told himself he was better off reading the archaic headlines than doing an Internet search on thighs. He wasn’t really interested in thighs, anyway. Just one woman’s thighs—and he wasn’t interested in them, either.
He needed a social life. He and Eddie both. Maybe he ought to climb out from behind his desk and do a little investigative work up the hill on the Winfield College campus. Why not? All those pretty undergraduate girls—
Who were more too young for him than the undergraduate boys were too young for Gloria.
Five or six years ago, the Winfield undergraduates wouldn’t have been too young for him. Five or six years ago, Paul had married a Winfield undergrad—not by choice, but still. If he’d had his pick of the entire student body, he probably wouldn’t have selected Sally, but at that age, Todd certainly couldn’t have faulted his friend for checking out the campus action. A fresh, nubile young thing with a sparkle in her eyes and a touch of naiveté, glossy hair and a twinkly voice and plump, firm breasts, and free thighs….
He wondered how many undergraduates named Laura were enrolled at Winfield College.
He sat up so suddenly, the casters on the legs of his chair skidded on the smooth plastic that covered the carpet behind his desk. If Paul’s Laura hadn’t been a client, maybe she’d been a student. He’d screwed around with a student once. Why not twice?
Todd glanced through the glass wall at the newsroom. Gloria was at her desk, perusing a scholarly journal. Her oversize feet, shod in high-top canvas sneakers, were propped up on her desk beside her computer, and a wad of gum was receiving a violent working-over between her molars. Todd lifted the phone and punched in her extension. He watched Gloria glare at her ringing phone as if it were something evil. With a combination of reluctance and disgust, she reached across her desk and picked up the receiver.
“Gloria? Todd,” he identified himself.
Her disgust ebbed slightly. Gloria was arrogant and prickly, but she was a damn good reporter, so he put up with her. And he paid her a substantial salary, so she put up with him. “Yeah?”
“Have you got a Winfield College directory from last year? Or maybe the year before.”
“I’ve got them going back seventeen years,” she told Todd. She hadn’t been working for the Valley News for seventeen years—in fact, seventeen years ago the bulk of her writing would probably have been book reports for her eighth-grade English teacher—but her damn-good-reporter instincts made her hoard all sorts of useful references and resources.
“I don’t need them from seventeen years ago,” he said. “Just from last year and the year before.”
“I got ’em.”
In other words, if he wanted them, he could haul his butt out to her desk and fetch them himself. She wasn’t going to bring them to him. He couldn’t ask her to. If he did, she’d probably slap a sexism charge on him.
He needed to get away from his desk, anyway. Soviet Union Sends Cosmonaut Into Orbit was beaming across his monitor, and that reminded him of the way Sally Driver’s kiss had sent him into orbit last Saturday evening. He was back on earth now—a bumpy landing, but he was safely on terra firma—and he was going to find out who Laura was so he could put his two-faced best friend and that best friend’s aggravating widow, and her thighs, and her hair, and her steamy kiss, out of his mind forever.
Emerging from his office, he was blindsided by Stuart, the city editor, who yammered at him about the irate phone call he’d gotten from the school superintendent, responding to Todd’s editorial on tenuring inept teachers. Todd nodded, sighed sympathetically, told Stuart he was not going to devote more than a single page to Letters to the Editor on the subject of tenure and continued through the newsroom until he reached Gloria’s desk. She had resumed reading the scholarly journal; without looking up, she lifted her left hand, which held two Winfield College directories. He took them, thanked her, didn’t wait around for her to say he was welcome—it would be a long wait—and returned to his office.
Aaronson, Laura. Adams, Laura. Ahern, Laura. Aikman, Laura. Albano, Laura. Anderson, Laura. Asturvian, Laura. Babcock, Laura…
Jesus Christ. The school had three thousand students, and half of them were named Laura.
All right. He could eliminate the freshmen. They would have arrived in Winfield last September, and Paul had died in January, so he wouldn’t have had a chance to screw anyone in the freshman class long enough to present her with his wife’s hula-girl pocketknife. Even sophomores might be a bit too young. He’d focus on juniors and seniors—
And faculty. Of course. Paul had been a sucker for a pair of plump, firm undergraduate breasts once, but surely he’d learned his lesson after a few years of marriage to Sally. If he were going to have an affair, it would be with someone wiser, someone more mature, more dignified. Someone, judging from the tone of the letters, who was a bit too well read. A Lord Byron scholar, maybe. A Byron scholar with a Sartre sideline.
Todd flipped to the front of the directory, which contained a list of all the professors and their campus offices and extensions, as well as the school’s support staff. Laura Benson was on the physical education faculty…. No, Todd couldn’t see Paul lusting after a sweaty, muscular jock. Laurie Cantaggio of the theater department, seemed like a possibility—but she was clearly a Laurie, not a Laura. Laura Ellroy was the assistant dean in the financial-aid office. Maybe. Laura Hahn held the Strumbacher Chair in Molecular Biology. Nope.
Laura Lovelace—security department. Maybe she had a sexy gun. Maybe she looked hot in a uniform. Maybe Paul liked to play with handcuffs. Would someone from the security department be so well versed in existentialism?
Laura O’Connor—botany assistant. If Paul had wanted to hang around with someone into gardening, he’d have hung around with his own wife. Sally was one of those earthy, organic types.
Laura Ruzeka—classics. Maybe. Laura Stratton—mathematics. Maybe. Laura Titwell—chemistry department lab manager. On the strength of her last name alone, she belonged on the maybe list.
Laura Walden—French. Promising. She could have read Sartre in the original. She could have lived for a few years in Paris, smoked too many strong black cigarettes, drunk too much overpriced wine in second-rate bistros and learned to take herself far too seriously. Laura Walden looked like a strong possibility.
In fact, she looked like the best possibility, given that the English and philosophy departments seemed to have a bias against hiring anyone with the name Laura.
Todd jotted down Laura Walden’s name and office number on a memo pad. He added Laura Ellroy, Laura Lovelace, Laura Ruzeka and Laura Stratton—although he honestly couldn’t see Paul getting it on with a math teacher—and Laura Titwell. He tore the sheet of paper off the pad, folded it and stuffed it into the breast pocket of his shirt.
Nearly noon, and his mother hadn’t returned yet. Had she decided not to return because she’d discovered that life outside the Valley News was much more fun than life in her glass cage across the newsroom from him? Or had she and Sally sent each other into such extreme madness that they’d both wound up being strapped into straitjackets and trucked off to the nearest state hospital?
Either way, they weren’t bothering him at the moment. He had a lunch meeting at noon with the deputy mayor, who was going to feed Todd and ply him with stories favorable to the current administration, and after that he had a meeting scheduled with his business vice president and his circulation and advertising managers to review preliminary data on whether to launch a Sunday edition of the Valley News. After that, he, Stuart and Gail—who was his wire services manager—would be getting together to do a front-page mock-up for tomorrow’s paper.
But after all that, by around four o’clock, he could spare some time for a visit to the campus, where he could pay a friendly call on a couple of Lauras.
Maybe one of them would have an incriminating pocketknife lying on her desk. Maybe one of them would say, Oh, you were Paul Driver’s friend. You were the anchor in his storm-tossed life. You gave him a sense of family he never experienced growing up, a brotherly bond, the security of knowing who one is and where one belongs. Oh, yes, he talked about you all the time. He wanted to tell you about our relationship, and he was going to, if only he hadn’t skidded his car into a tree.
Maybe one of them would say, If you were Paul’s best friend, then you must know Paul’s wife, Sally. And if you know Sally, I’m sure you understand why Paul turned to me for sex and affection.
And Todd would nod and say, Of course I understand.
Even though he was no longer sure he did.
Twelve
Winfield College sat on a hill above downtown Winfield. A small hill, to be sure, and Sally ordinarily would have enjoyed a leisurely stroll up Main Street’s gentle incline, observing how the shops lining the sidewalk evolved from practical to whimsical. The boutique specializing in candles and incense would have gone bust in a week if it had been located down near the railroad tracks. It was half a block from campus, though, and it was flourishing. The hardware store, on the other hand, was thriving where it was, a full block downhill from the New Day Café, which was located in the no-man’s-land between town and gown.
She didn’t have time to browse in the college-oriented boutiques today, however. She’d picked Rosie up at her school an hour ago, brought her home, and then Tina had phoned.
Fortunately, Trevor’s mother, Marcia, had said Rosie could come to their house and play while Sally raced off to see Tina. Leaving Rosie and Trevor armed with make-believe bazookas and engaged in guerrilla warfare with a couple of imaginary giant squids in Trevor’s backyard, Sally had driven as far as the café, where she’d abandoned her car in the employee lot behind the building. The college was only a short hike up the hill, and finding a parking place close to the campus was as difficult as getting e-mail from Mars, so it was easier to leave her car at the café and walk.
She couldn’t help but think Tina was overreacting. Just because Howard had made up his mind to transfer to Dartmouth didn’t mean Tina’s life was at an end. She had lots of options. She could visit him at Dartmouth on weekends. Or she herself could arrange to transfer to Dartmouth. Or she could see a plastic surgeon about getting her tattoo removed. Or, if she broke up with Howard and didn’t want to go the plastic surgery route, she could find another boyfriend named Howard. She could advertise in some singles chat room on the Web: “Attractive eugenics scholar, self-supporting, five-four, brown-brown, looking for brilliant, sexy, independently wealthy and kindhearted dude. Must be named Howard.”
Sally wasn’t sure why Tina had called on her. She had friends at the school, dorm mates, classmates she could turn to for comfort. It was probably the mommy–surrogate thing again, Sally brimming with wisdom, competent to guide her through this dreadful romantic crisis. Or perhaps she wanted to talk to someone whose romantic crisis half a dozen years ago had wrecked her own college career.
As Sally neared the baroque wrought-iron gates that marked the main entry to the campus, she thought about that wrecked college career. Coming to Winfield had been for her as transporting an experience as arriving over the rainbow had been for Dorothy Gale. She’d gone from being a smart-mouthed, earthy, ambitious straight-A student in her mediocre regional high school to a freshman at a genuine private college. She had figured she would attend a community college or a state university, but her English teacher had been a Winfield alumnus, and he’d known more about colleges than Sally or her mother. So when he’d urged Sally to apply to Winfield, Sally had applied. She’d been accepted and offered a scholarship, and that had seemed reason enough for her to go.
She’d liked Winfield, even though she’d felt out of place there. So many of the students had come from comfortable suburbs near cultural hubs—the bedroom communities of Boston, the ritzy villages along the commuter rail line in southern Connecticut, the pampered punks of northern New Jersey, a hefty handful of students from the towns surrounding Washington, D.C., a few exotic imports from Ohio and the Chicago area, even some long-distance immigrants from Texas and California. Sally hadn’t been intimidated by her fellow students, but she hadn’t exactly fit in with them, either. They’d all seemed savvier than her, cooler…richer.
Unlike her, most of them hadn’t had to hold down real jobs. The scholarship students generally filled campus jobs—shelving books in the library, scraping and rinsing dishes in the dining-hall kitchen—but those were minimum-wage jobs, and the students who took them did so mostly because if they didn’t, the college might reduce their financial-aid packages.
Sally had truly needed the money, not just to pay for the occasional pizza or movie but to cover the cost of her textbooks, bus trips home for the holidays, crew socks for gym class and towels for showering. “What do you mean, they don’t have towels?” her mother had raged over the phone. “What kind of place is that? They always have towels hanging in the bathroom and spare towels piled up on a shelf somewhere.”
“You’re thinking of hotels, Mom. This is a dormitory. We’re supposed to bring our own towels. Can you mail me some?”
“It would cost me more to mail you towels than it would cost you to buy them. Just get cheap ones, honey. Don’t get bath sheets. When they call them bath sheets, they charge you twice as much.”
Sally had needed towels, soap, a fluorescent lamp for her desk, highlighter pens and Post-its, a bulletin board and a radio. Once she’d landed the job at the New Day Café, earning a real wage supplemented by the loose change people tossed into the tip jar, she’d been able to buy all the gear she needed. She’d read the newspaper in the library’s periodicals room so she wouldn’t have to pay for it, and she’d hoarded single-portion boxes of cereal and extra fruit when she’d run her tray along the cafeteria counter, so she wouldn’t have to buy late-night snacks. Monica Penn down the hall had given haircuts that weren’t half bad for five dollars a pop, and the used clothes Sally had purchased at the Salvation Army store on the corner of East Street and Clancy had carried a kind of retro cachet, so she’d looked almost stylish in her recycled ensembles.
And in truth, she’d loved working at the New Day. She’d liked it more than she’d liked most of her classes. Greta was shy and terse, but Sally could relate to her more easily than she could relate to all those affluent, mollycoddled girls in her dorm, graduates of Miss Prissy’s Prep, with adenoidal voices and perfectly streaked blond hair and an understanding of the nuances of field hockey. Sally had liked waking up before dawn and watching the sun rise as she ground and brewed coffee and bantered with the early-shift cops who started their day with a cuppa-joe and one of Greta’s oversize muffins. She’d liked chatting with the laborers who stopped in, the shopkeepers who ran neighboring establishments, the city hall hacks and the UPS delivery guy and the handsome young lawyer who flirted with her.
