The Headmaster's Wife(155)

He had just settled himself on the deep) ledge of the window in the air lock just inside the doors to the faculty wingof the library and begun contemplating the arguments he could use to convince his mother that he’d be just fine taking a practical filmmaking course nights at NYU and living on his own at Jimmy’s place in the city, when the door from the inside of the wing slammed open and Alice Makepeace came in. For a moment he was simply surprised to see her. He had seen her going through in the other direction just a little while ago, and he had assumed that she was on her way back to President’s House. Now she was here again, and he almost said, “I’m beginning to think you’re following me around.”

He stopped himself just in time. The woman had no sense of humor. She’d think he meant it seriously. And although he might not be attracted to her in the way she wanted him to be, and he was sure she wanted him to be, he couldn’t ignore the force of her personality. He sank back a little onto the window ledge. She looked him up and down as if he were some kind of garbage she’d found, inexplicably, on her bedroom floor.

“Jesus Christ,” she said, “I can’t get away from any of you.”

“I was sitting here when you came in,” Mark said.

“I just had to duck out the backdoor of my own house to avoid my own husband,” she said. “It’s intolerable what’s going on here. It’s entirely your fault.”

Mark thought of that evening in the cafeteria, the one that had ended with his nearly dying. He could still feel the pain in his stomach and the even worse pain in his esophagus and chest as everything came up in racking spasms. Coffee, ice cream, chicken soup from Gregor Demarkian’s room service order: it had all come flying out of him. He might not remember it hitting the ceiling of Sheldon’s apartment’s bathroom, but he did remember what it felt like. He remembered being scared to death.

Suddenly, he was as angry at this woman as he had been at God when his father died, and that was in the days when he had believed, with perfect trust, that God not only could do everything but would do everything, if you asked Him. He didn’t know where he’d gotten that idea. His parentswere not religious. He did know that it was lodged in his head as firmly as the knowledge that his name was Mark, and that when his father had died in spite of his prayers it had become dislodged and what had followed it was fury so cold and all-encompassing that he had come very close to killing the funeral director who had been responsible for cremating his father’s body.

His anger at Alice was like that, but this time he didn’t even want to stop it coming out.

“I thought they would have arrested you by now,” he said. “I’m surprised you haven’t taken off in a Ford Bronco.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“You gave me the coffee,” Mark said, “twice. I was going to get it for myself, and you wouldn’t let me. You went and got it by yourself. There was enough sugar in it to give me diabetes.”

“You asked for enough sugar in it to give you diabetes.”

“You did something to make Michael commit suicide,” Mark said. “You did it because he was going to screw you over, and you tried to kill me because you knew I knew it. He’d been talking about it for two weeks. He said you were old and you disgusted him. He said you fucked like an animal, and it was gross in a hag like you. He said you’d never dare do anything about it because he could screw you over for real if you tried.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alice said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do know what I’m talking about, and when I get finished telling them, they’ll have everything they need.”

Alice looked him up and down like garbage yet again. Mark thought she had the most amazing ability to make people feel like garbage.

“Have you decided yet why I should kill an old fool like Edith Braxner?”

“Because she knew, too,” Mark said quickly. “Or she knew that you’d tried to poison me. She knew too much and you killed her.”

Alice smiled slightly, and when she did Mark realizedthat he hadn’t gotten through to her before. She was a magnificent woman, but her magnificence resided in her egotism, and it was only by overcoming that that he could have had some kind of victory over her. He had no idea what victory he wanted. He only knew that he hadn’t made a dent.

She gave him one last sweeping look of contempt and then headed back outside to the hill, her long curtain of red hair swaying like a perfect swathe of scarlet silk in the wind let in by the opening of the door.