The Headmaster's Wife(44)
“Wake up,” Cherie said. “We’re home. And I’ve been thinking about Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“What?” Melissa stretched.
“I’ve been thinking about Sodom and Gomorrah,” Cheriesaid. “I was thinking about what we’d talked about the other night, do you remember? About how the scandal would get out eventually, and the school could be forced to close, and how everybody knew that but everybody was trying very hard not to notice it?”
Melissa opened her eyes. “Christ, Peter’s got that place lit up like he’s never heard of an energy crisis. What’s wrong with him?”
“Maybe it’s Alice. Maybe they’re both looking over their shoulders. I’d be scared as hell if I was either one of them.”
“That’s still no reason to waste electricity.”
Cherie sighed. “I was thinking about Sodom and Gomorrah,” she said again. “I was thinking about how this place could be shut down, and that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, that it was like Sodom and Gomorrah. That this place is so—filthy—that maybe shutting it down is the only thing that could clean it.”
“Filthy?” Now Melissa was thoroughly awake. She sat up straight in her seat and stared. “What’s this about? Are you going Midwest on me again? Are you having guilt feelings about not playing by the midwestern married lady book?”
“I don’t think so,” Cherie said. “I mean, I thought I might be at first, but then it occurred to me that I don’t think the place is filthy because it lets us get away with what we do. It isn’t about that. It’s about Mark moving back into his room.”
“The room where Michael Feyre died?”
“That’s the only room he’s got,” Cherie said. “We got the news this morning from administration. Well, from Peter, really, even though nobody ever said so. It’s incredible the way they hold tight to information around this place. But that’s the idea. The police are finished with the room. The staff is going to go in there and clean. They want Mark back in the room before the end of the week because there’s no place else for him to stay. It’s nonsense, really; he’s staying with Sheldon. Sheldon doesn’t want him around anymore. Nobody wants him around, but that doesn’t mean they should be sending the kid back to the room he found a dead body in.”
“Don’t suggest having him live with us,” Melissa said. “It wouldn’t work.”
“They wouldn’t allow it in any case. They wouldn’t allow it because we’re women and he’s a boy.”
“God, they’re impossible around here. Don’t you ever wish you could find some normal people? And why is it that practically everybody anywhere who’s ever had anything to do with a place like this is completely nuts?”
“I don’t think it’s true that they’re all completely nuts,” Cherie said. She popped open the door and was immediately cold. This was the coldest winter she could remember since she moved out east from Michigan. “Back to Sodom and Gomorrah. It wasn’t us I was thinking about; it was Alice. Don’t you think it’s incredible that Alice has gotten away with the things she’s gotten away with?”
Cherie got out of the car and slammed the door shut, locked. Melissa got out her side and began putting her jacket on. Melissa always took off her jacket in the car.
“Look,” she said, “I know I was the one who said Alice Makepeace was dangerous, but I think you’re taking this one too far. The verdict is in, last I heard. It really was a suicide. She didn’t kill him.”
“I know she didn’t kill him, at least not in the ordinary sense of the term ’kill.’ Oh, I don’t know. It’s not just the people she sleeps with. It’s the whole thing. The way she is. The way she insinuates herself into everything, every decision, every issue. And the longer this goes on without there being any fallout, the more I wonder if there’s going to be any fallout at all. We think it’s inevitable that the papers will get hold of it, but we’ve got board members who own newspapers or big chunks of them. This place has connections everywhere. Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe she’ll get away with it.”
“I don’t think so. I think that at the very least Peter will end up getting fired. The board will have to do that to cover its ass.”
“Maybe,” Cherie said. Then she looked up at President’s House. “Maybe they’re in there right now listening to everything we have to say. I’ve always thought Alice would do that if she could, spy on everybody, I mean. Not for any reason, but just because she likes to know things. But that’s what I mean, you see. It’s as if there’s something basically wrong, and I always knew it was there, but I never realized it mattered until Michael died.”