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“Bitch!” Shelly grabbed Shawn and lifted him, turning on her heel and hurrying him from the room as though saving him from personal assault. Deborah gave Greg a long, cool look, daring him to take Shelly’s part.
“Jesus, Mom. Now look what you’ve done.” He shook his head, aggrieved, got up, and left the house.
For the next hour, Deborah could hear Shelly out in the bus, yelling and weeping. Accusations, recriminations. She leaned forward and laid her cheek on the cool surface of the kitchen table. Dear god, how would she get through the next four months?
4
Thursday, I woke at 6:00 A.M. and pulled on my ru
Home from my run, I showered, dressed, and grabbed an apple, which I ate in the car. I’d intended to hit the public library first thing, but I put that on hold until I made a visit to Climping Academy. At 10:13, I drove through the two stone pillars that mark the entrance to Horton Ravine. I took the first left, turning onto Via Beatriz, a narrow two-lane road that wound up the hill to the academy, which overlooked a spring-fed lake. The main building was the former residence of a wealthy Englishman named Albert Climping, who arrived in Santa Teresa on his retirement in 1901. Prior to immigrating, he was engaged in the manufacturing of inlet valves and flotation devices for toilets, and while he’d amassed a fortune, the source of his money ruled out acceptance in polite society. At a lawn party, really, how could one converse with a toilet valve magnate?
If he was aware that the nature of his livelihood forever barred him from hobnobbing with the Horton Ravine elite, he gave no sign of it. He purchased a hilly thirty-five-acre parcel, which had languished, undeveloped, near the Ravine’s front entrance. The property boasted a natural spring, but the general location was deemed undesirable because it was too far from the ocean and too close to town. Undismayed by these deficits, Climping brought in heavy equipment and excavated a crater-sized containment pond for the spring water that bubbled up out of the hillside. Having created Climping Lake, he set up an extensive network of water pipes that crisscrossed his land. He flattened the peak on the steepest of two hills and began construction on a fake English manor house, complete with stables, a phony chapel, a barn, and a massive glass conservatory. All the exteriors were clad in a golden sandstone that he had imported from his native Sussex. The interiors featured heavy ancient-looking beams, coffered ceilings, mullioned windows, and rich “twelfth-century” tapestries he had made in Japan. If there had been an architectural board of review in his day, he would never have been granted approval for this faux-medieval domicile, which was completely out of place in an area noted for its one-story, Spanish-style homes made of adobe and red tile.
Albert Climping had grown up in poverty with no education to speak of, but he was smart, he was an avid reader, and he had an unca
For the next twenty years, he went about his business, entertaining foreign dignitaries and Washington politicians, men who appreciated his financial acumen and his lively sense of humor. When he died, a charter school was established out of his estate. Climping Academy was richly endowed, and from the day the doors opened, the well-to-do parents in Horton Ravine clambered to enroll their kids. Over the years, with the blessings of the city, additional sandstone-clad buildings were erected, all in the same imposing architectural style, which set the school apart from, and above, its competitors.
I pulled into the gravel motor court and found a parking space in an area screened by boxwood hedges. I locked my car and walked around to the front entrance, where I climbed a flight of low stone steps and entered the main building. While the grand architectural elements were still in evidence, the interior had been updated and furnished with all the modern conveniences. I paused to read the school’s mission statement, which had been framed and hung just inside the doorway. In support of its claims of scholastic excellence, the school boasted that one hundred percent of Climping graduates went on to college. I had to read that line twice. One hundred percent? Well, shit. Maybe if I’d attended Climp, I wouldn’t have wasted my education smoking dope with a tatty bunch of ne’er-do-wells at the public high school.
A class bell rang and students began to spill out into the corridor. I stood and watched them passing in twos and threes. I did envy them, but I could feel an old prejudice rising to the surface. I wanted to believe the offspring of the rich were snooty and spoiled, but such was not the case. These kids were friendly, well behaved, and conservatively dressed, no flip-flops, no cutoffs, and no T-shirts imprinted with offensive expletives. Some actually smiled at me and a few said hi. They were disconcertingly nice.
On the other hand, why wouldn’t they be nice when they sailed through the world with all the advantages? Behind closed doors, they were probably subject to the same miseries as everyone else, parents whose alcoholism, financial scandals, divorces, and emotional shenanigans left them as vulnerable as the children of the middle class and the poor. Money couldn’t possibly protect them from all of life’s woes. On the other hand of my first other hand, whatever their problems, whether inherited or self-generated, their parents could at least afford the best doctors, the best lawyers, and the most exclusive rehabilitation facilities.
I beckoned to a passing student. “Excuse me. Can you tell me where I can find the library?”
She was a good-sized girl, built like an athlete with a sturdy set of bones. Her dark hair was straight and sleek, pulled into a complicated knot at the nape of her neck. When she smiled, her braces gleamed. “Sure. I’m headed in that direction anyway.”
“Thanks.”
We walked the length of the corridor and turned right. She left me in the hall outside the library while she continued to her next class.
The room I entered must have been the mansion’s original library. Shelves of books extended from floor to ceiling on all four walls with a movable platform ladder resting against a brass rail. The panes in the leaded-glass windows were marked by imperfections, lending a shimmering effect to all the outside views. Two groups of students sat in dark green leather chairs arranged around refectory tables. The students were quiet and there wasn’t much activity except for the turning of pages and the scribbling of pens.