I explained that I asked around, and the information came from another instructor at the university. I couldn’t say who it was because I’d made a promise.
“Well, that’s the rumor mill for you. People start to believe things that aren’t true. Felicity Wild must have a grudge against me because otherwise why would she betray me?”
“Wait, wait. Let’s start over. I never said her name, but you do know her name? If you’ve never met her, how could she betray you?”
“I’m not going to dignify this,” the guy said, and the phone went dead.
Call back, I told myself.Call back if you have even one teaspoonful of guts.I called back.
“Don’t call here again!” he yelled. “This is considered harassment! I could sue you for this!”
“Just settle down a moment. We can speak off the record.”
“Listen, you dumb bitch! If you call back again, the next call you get will be from my lawyer.”
“I know this is upsetting. I’m not going to necessarily writeabout you in specific. I won’t say anything you don’t want me to say. I’m just trying to understand what people are saying about this. People you know.”
“If I hear about this from any people I know, there will be consequences!”
He hung up.
Did I need permission to recount this exchange? Would it be nasty to do that, for no good reason? On the other hand, one way to avoid being asked about patronizing an escort would be to not do it. Why did people think that it was not their own fault that what they did caused their public humiliation but was the fault of the press for reporting it?
Needing a palate cleanser, I called Felicity’s fifth-grade teacher, who’d also been my fifth-grade teacher.
“She was very sweet and very smart, always the little helper,” said Fatima Sharma, who promptly reminded me that I no longer needed to call her “Ms. Sharma.” She said, “I had to push her out the door to go home after school.” To Ms. Sharma, this fact probably went to Felicity’s avid and giving nature, but I made a note to myself: What did it really mean when a ten-year-old little girl didn’t want to go home? Her track coach told me that there might have been athletes who had more natural ability, but Felicity anchored her team all the way to state in the two-hundred-meter relay because of her zeal to win. Her coach from the National Science Bee, who was out of the country until March, wrote in an email,I got this news in Turkey! We are so very shocked and concerned. Did you know that Ruth Wild has resigned? Have you spoken to her?
I was almost grateful that I couldn’t find Ruth to ask her about the supernova created by the collapse of her shining-star child.
Six
Mute Swan
Cygnus olor.The mute swan, which, unlike the trumpeter swan, has no voice, is a large and very strong bird, five feet long, weighing twenty-five pounds or more, with a wingspread of seven feet. The swan’s elegant appearance has inspired ballets and fairy tales, but their voracious appetite for grasses, insects, and tadpoles can disrupt local ecosystems, and they can be very aggressive, even dangerous, to other animals, including humans. The mute swan is often seen as a symbol of love and commitment because they mate for life.
My phone rang at 4:49 a.m. It was still so dark that I couldn’t even see the window. My first panicked thought went to my parents or grandparents. But then I remembered that I was in my parents’ house.
“Reenie?”
It was my editor.
“Ivy?”
“Yes, hi.”
“Are you okay?” I said. The air seemed too thin to breathe.
“Why?”
“Because it’s not quite five in the morning, Ivy. Are you taking this extreme-lark thing too seriously?”
“No, I was just lounging here making some notes and I gotto thinking...” She was lounging among the clouds, or at this hour, the stars, in her apartment-mansion. Even though theFuchsiabuilding was not tall, it was tall enough, and so beautifully situated on the shore that it felt open to the heavens. It would never have occurred to Ivy that this was not quite the right time to call me. After all, she’d thought of it, and whatever was on Ivy’s mind came straight out of her mouth—in part because she’d been thinking about it for days and assumed that she had telepathed it to whomever she would eventually tell. “Do you think we should start a sex column?”
“You want to discuss this now, at this moment?”
“I don’t really want to discuss it in depth, but what’s your quick take?”
“My quick take is that it’s five in the morning, Ivy! I was lying here too, but sleeping.”
