I didn’t reply. I was speechless.
“What you did with Mike Coslaw—what you didforMike Coslaw—was the most amazing and wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Mimi, it wasn’t me. He’s just naturally tal—”
“Iknowhe’s naturally talented, that was obvious from themoment he walked onstage and opened his mouth, but I’ll tell you something, my friend. Something forty years in high schools and sixty years of living has taught me and taught me well. Artistic talent is far more common than the talent tonurtureartistic talent. Any parent with a hard hand can crush it, but to nurture it is much more difficult. That’s a talent you have, and in much greater supply than the one that drove this.” She tapped the sheaf of pages on the coffee table in front of her.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say thank you, and compliment me on my acute judgment.”
“Thanks. And your insight is only exceeded by your good looks.”
That brought the smile back, dryer than ever. “Don’t exceed your brief, George.”
“Yes, Miz Mimi.”
The smile disappeared. She leaned forward. The blue eyes behind her glasses were too big, swimming in her face. The skin under her tan was yellowish, and her formerly taut cheeks were hollow. When had this happened? Had Deke noticed? But that was ridic, as the kids said. Deke wouldn’t notice that his socks were mismatched until he took them off at night. Probably not even then.
She said, “Phil Bateman is no longer just threatening to retire, he’s done pulled the pin and tossed the grenade, as our delightful Coach Borman would say. Which means there’s a vacancy on the English faculty. Come and teach full-time at DCHS, George. The kids like you, and after the junior-senior play, the community thinks you’re the second coming of Alfred Hitchcock. Deke is just waiting to see your application—he told me so just last night. Please. Publish this under a pseudonym, if you have to, but come and teach. That’s what you were meant to do.”
I wanted badly to say yes, because she was right. My job wasn’t writing books, and it certainly wasn’t killing people, no matter how much they deserved killing. And there was Jodie. I’d come to it as a stranger who had been displaced from his home era as well as his hometown, and the first words spoken to me here—by AlStevens, at the diner—had been friendly words. If you’ve ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you’ll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be. Jodie was the anti-Dallas, and now one of its leading citizens was asking me to be a resident instead of a visitor. But the watershed moment was approaching. Only it wasn’t here yet. Maybe…
“George? You have the mostpeculiarlook on your face.”
“That’s called thinking. Will you let me do it, please?”
She put her hands to her cheeks and rounded her mouth in a comicOof apology. “Well braid my hair and call me Buckwheat.”
I paid no attention, because I was busy flicking through Al’s notes. I no longer had to look at them to do that. When the new school year started in September, Oswald was still going to be in Russia, although he had already started what would be a lengthy paperwork battle to get back to America with his wife and daughter, June, with whom Marina would be pregnant any day now. It was a battle Oswald would eventually win, playing one superpower bureaucracy off against the other with instinctive (if rudimentary) cleverness, but they wouldn’t step off the SSMaasdamand onto American soil until the middle of next year. And as for Texas…
“Meems, the school year usually ends the first week in June, doesn’t it?”
“Always. The kids who need summer jobs have to nail them down.”
… as for Texas, the Oswalds were going to arrive on the fourteenth of June, 1962.
“And any teaching contract I signed would be probationary, right? As in one year?”
“With an option to renew if all parties are satisfied, yes.”
“Then you’ve got yourself a probationary English teacher.”
She laughed, clapped her hands, got to her feet, and held her arms out. “Marvelous! Huggies for Miz Mimi!”
I hugged her, then released her quickly when I heard her gasp. “What the hell is wrong with you, ma’am?”
She went back to the couch, picked up her iced coffee, and sipped. “Let me give you two pieces of advice, George. The first is never call a Texas woman ma’am if you come from the northern climes. It sounds sarcastic. The second is never askanywoman what the hell is wrong with her. Try something slightly more delicate, like ‘Are you feeling quite all right?’?”
“Are you?”
“Why wouldn’t I? I’m getting married.”
At first I couldn’t match this particular zig with a corresponding zag. Except the grave look in her eyes suggested she wasn’t zigging at all. She was circling something. Probably not a nice something, either.
“Say ‘Congratulations, Miz Mimi.’?”
“Congratulations, Miz Mimi.”
