“No,” Caroline said.
“I can pack them for you if you like. You’re going to need the compass. That can be tricky. And you’re going to need the plane. I hope you don’t have trouble carrying it.”
Normally, of course, nobody would have trouble carrying a compass and a plane, but Caroline’s weren’t the ordinary kind. Specifically, they weren’t the ordinary size. Back when the show had started, Caroline had tried using standard-size equipment. It had made demonstrations difficult, on the air and off, because the equipment had been much too small for the audience to see properly. Now Caroline had her equipment custom-made. Her plane was the size, and the weight, of a brick. Her compass was a good two feet along the pivot. Her protractor could have been used as a fan in the Plaza Hotel’s Palm Court. Carting this stuff from one end of the mid-Atlantic states to the other was exhausting.
At the bottom of Sandy’s sheaf of papers was a copy of the poster Caroline took with her everywhere she was to speak. Sitting as she was, Caroline could look right down at the part in her own black hair.
She got out of her chair and went to the window. It wasn’t much of a window. It looked out on the low roof of the building next door, which was about to collapse from neglect.
“Sandy, did you see my sister come in, or leave? My sister Alyssa?”
“Yes, Miss Hazzard, of course I did. She stopped by on her way in and her way out.”
“Stopped by where?”
“At my desk, of course.”
“Alyssa stopped at your desk?”
“Yes, Miss Hazzard, she almost always does. If she has the time.”
“How extraordinary,” Caroline said, completely at sea. “Well, that’s very nice of her, I suppose. Did you talk about anything?”
“Not anything in particular. She had some cookies.”
“Alyssa always has cookies.”
“It must be nice to be able to eat like that and stay so thin,” Sandy said. “I gain weight if I so much as look at fudge.”
“It’s a kind of addiction,” Caroline said. “Alyssa is addicted to food. She can just kid herself that she’s not because she never gains weight.”
“Oh,” Sandy said.
“We’re an addiction-prone family. We all are. Even my brother James. Did Alyssa tell you what she’d come here to talk to me about?”
“No, of course not.”
“Did you know I used to have a stepmother? A woman named Jacqueline Isherwood.”
“Isherwood?”
“Jacqueline Isherwood Hazzard.”
Sandy looked surprised. “The one who was murdered? Really? I’m very sorry. That must have been awful for you.”
Caroline shrugged. “I suppose so. A lot of things have been awful for me. I was very damaged as a child.”
“I should have made the connection,” Sandy said slowly. “I always knew your father was the psychologist. And it was in the papers at the time.”
“What was?”
“That she was married to the psychologist. That her husband—”
“Yes,” Caroline interrupted hastily. “Yes, I see. Well, it was four years ago, for goodness’ sake. There’s no reason it should have stuck in your mind. You weren’t working here then.”
“I was in high school then.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t expect someone in high school to pay much attention to the papers, or even to the six o’clock news. I was just wondering, you know, about Alyssa. About anything she might have said.”
“I really don’t know what you mean, Miss Hazzard. Your sister didn’t say anything in particular. Hello. How are you. Would you like one of these cookies. That kind of thing.”
“She didn’t say anything about my stepmother?”
“No.”
“Or about my father?”
“Oh, no.”
“Or about me?”
“She asked me if you were in your office when she first arrived, Miss Hazzard. I’m afraid I don’t quite understand—”
“No, no,” Caroline said, talking too fast again. “Of course you don’t. Why should you? I’m sorry, Sandy. Would you pack up for me, the way you offered to? And as soon as that’s done, we can both go home. You’ll probably be glad to get away from this place.”
“I won’t mind.”
“No, no, of course you won’t. Of course you won’t. Here, let me get the compass for you, I had it to work on the ell plans with, I lost my regular one this morning—oh, damn.”
“Miss Hazzard?”
“Never mind.” Caroline had dropped the compass on the floor. She picked it up and put it back on her desk. She was trying to avoid looking at her shoe, which had a stripe of white leather across the toe. The stripe of white leather was now marred by a splotch of black, where the point of the oversize pencil the compass held had hit it.