“And in Maine?”
“Not so much there, although I taught for three years in Wisconsin on a regular basis before quitting to work full-time on my book. Or as much full-time as my finances would allow.” Ididhave a reference from St. Vincent’s High School, in Madison. It was a good reference; I had written it myself. Of course, if anyone checked back, I’d be hung. Deke Simmons wouldn’t do it, but sharp-eyed Mimi with the leathery cowboy skin might.
“And what is your novel about?”
This might also hang me, but I decided to be honest. As honest as possible, anyway, given my peculiar circumstances. “A series of murders, and their effect on the community where they happen.”
“Oh my goodness,” Deke said.
She tapped his wrist. “Hush. Go on, Mr. Amberson.”
“My original setting was a fictional Maine city—I called it Dawson—but then I decided it might be more realistic if I set it in anactualcity. A bigger one. I thought Tampa, at first, but it was wrong, somehow—”
She waved Tampa away. “Too pastel. Too many tourists. You were looking for something a little more insular, I suspect.”
A very sharp lady. She knew more about my book than I did.
“That’s right. So I decided to try Dallas. I think it’s the right place, but…”
“But you wouldn’t want to live there?”
“Exactly.”
“I see.” She picked at her piece of deep-fried fish. Deke was looking at her with a mildly poleaxed expression. Whatever it was he wanted as he went cantering down the backstretch of life, she appeared to have it. Not so strange; everybody loves somebody sometime, as Dean Martin would so wisely point out. But not for another few years. “And when you’re not writing, what do you like to read, Mr. Amberson?”
“Oh, just about everything.”
“Have you readThe Catcher in the Rye?”
Uh-oh,I thought.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked impatient at this. “Oh, call me Mimi. Even the kids call me Mimi, although I insist they put a Miz with it for propriety’s sake. What do you think of Mr. Salinger’s cri de coeur?”
Lie, or tell the truth? But it wasn’t a serious question. This woman would read a lie the way I could read… well… an IMPEACH EARL WARREN billboard.
“I think it says a lot about how lousy the fifties were, and a lot about how good the sixties can be. If the Holden Caulfields of America don’t lose their outrage, that is. And their courage.”
“Um. Hum.” Picking plenty at her fish, but not eating any that I could see. No wonder she looked like you could staple a stringto the back of her dress and fly her like a kite. “Do you believe it should be in the school library?”
I sighed, thinking how much I would have enjoyed living and teaching part-time in the town of Jodie, Texas. “Actually, ma’am—Mimi—I do. Although I believe it should be checked out only to certain students, and at the librarian’s discretion.”
“The librarian’s? Not the parents’?”
“No, ma’am. That’s a slippery slope.”
Mimi Corcoran burst into a wide smile and turned to her beau. “Deke, this fellow doesn’t belong on the substitute list. He should be full-time.”
“Mimi—”
“I know, no vacancy in the English Department. But if he sticks around, maybe he can step in after that idiot Phil Bateman retires.”
“Meems, that is very indiscreet.”
“Yes,” she said, and actually dropped me a wink. “Also very true. Send Deke your references from Florida, Mr. Amberson. They should do nicely. Better yet, bring them in yourself, next week. The school year has started. No sense in losing time.”
“Call me George,” I said.
