“They might.”
“I’ve never heard it, and I hear kids all day long. Patty, you can still meet a man. You’re lovely. You really are.”
“Charlie Macauley is the only man who interests me,” Patty said. This was the wine.
“He’s old, Patty! You know, he’s a mess.”
“In what way is he a mess?”
“I just mean he was in the Vietnam war years ago and he’s— You know, he’s got terrible PTSD.”
“He does?”
Angelina gave a tiny shrug. “I heard that. I don’t know who from. But years ago I heard it. I don’t know, really. His wife is— Well, you’ve got a chance, Patty.”
Patty laughed. “His wife always seemed nice.”
“Oh, come on, she’s an anxious old thing. I’m telling you, go for a spin with Charlie.”
And then Patty wished she hadn’t said anything.
But Angelina didn’t seem to notice. It was herself—and her husband—she wanted to talk about. “I asked him right out the other night on the phone, are you going to start divorce proceedings, and he said no, he didn’t want to do that. So I let it drop. I don’t know why he’d leave but not want a divorce. Oh, Patty!”
In the parking lot, Angelina put her arms around Patty and they hugged, squeezed each other tight, for a moment. “I love you,” Angelina called out as she got into her car, and Patty said, “Back at you.”
—
Patty drove carefully. The wine had made her feel things, although she was not supposed to drink with her antidepressants. But her mind felt large now, and through it went many things. She thought of Sebastian, and wondered if anyone knew what she had not known until he told her—the unspeakable things that had happened to him. She wondered now if it had showed. Something showed, certainly. She remembered how she’d heard in the clothing store one day, as she’d left with Sebastian, the young clerk saying to another clerk, “It’s like she has a dog.”
In Lucy Barton’s memoir, Lucy wrote how people were always looking to feel superior to someone else, and Patty thought this was true.
Tonight the moon was behind Patty, almost, and she saw it in the rearview mirror and winked at it. Her sister Linda came into her mind. Linda saying she didn’t know how Patty could work with adolescents. Patty, driving, shook her head; well, that’s because Linda never knew. No one except Sebastian ever knew. After Sibby’s death, Patty had gone to a therapist. She had planned on telling this woman. But the woman wore a navy blue blazer and sat behind a big desk, and she asked Patty how she felt about her parents’ divorce. Bad, Patty had said. Patty couldn’t figure out how to stop going to this therapist, until she lied and said she couldn’t afford it anymore.
Now, as Patty drove into her driveway and saw the lights she’d left on, she realized that Lucy Barton’s book had understood her. That was it—the book had understood her. There remained that sweetness of a yellow-colored candy in her mouth. Lucy Barton had her own shame; oh boy did she have her own shame. And she had risen right straight out of it. “Huh,” said Patty, as she turned the car engine off. She sat in the car for a few moments before she finally got out and went inside.
On Monday morning Patty left a note with the homeroom teacher asking Lila Lane to come to her office, but she was surprised nevertheless when the girl showed up the next period. “Lila,” said Patty. “Come in.”
The girl walked into Patty’s office, and Patty said, “Have a seat.” The girl looked at her warily, but she spoke right away and said, “I bet you want me to apologize.”
“No,” Patty said. “Nope. I asked you to come here today because the last time you were here I called you a piece of filth.”
The girl looked confused.
Patty said, “When you were in here last week, I called you a piece of filth.”
“You did?” the girl asked. She sat down slowly.
“I did.”
“I don’t remember.” The girl was not belligerent.
“After you asked why I had no children and said I was a virgin and called me Fatty Patty, I called you a piece of filth.”
The girl watched her with suspicion.
“You are not a piece of filth.” Patty waited, and the girl waited, and then Patty said, “When I was growing up in Hanston, my father was a manager of a feed corn farm and we had plenty of money. We were comfortable, you’d call it. We had enough money. I have no business calling you—calling anyone—a piece of filth.”