“Yes,” he said.
“Oh I see,” she said, excited. “You were Skip Stevens?” She eyed him minutely, comparing him with the picture. “It’s true,” she said. “I remember you. You were the boy the janitor caught downstairs at the nurse’s, trying to peep in and see the girls in their underwear.”
Coloring, he said, “Yes, that’s right.”
Her eyes grew large and then tiny. “Why didn’t you say?”
He said, “Why should I have said?”
“Skip Stevens,” she said. “You were a headache. You were Mrs. Jaffey’s special pet; she let you do anything you wanted. I soon put a stop to that. Why—” She gasped with indignation and drew away from him, growing more and more outraged. “You were running riot, all of you. You started a fire in the cloakroom; wasn’t that you?”
He nodded.
Her hand reached up toward his face. “I feel like grabbing you by the ear,” she said. “And just twisting. You were a bully! Weren’t you? Yes, you bullied the little boys; you were overweight.”
With a certain amount of bitterness he said, “You can see why I didn’t tell you. I waited until I was sure enough of our relationship. I don’t see why any of this should be brought into it.”
Her attention had returned to the class picture. Jabbing at it she said, “But you were very good in arithmetic. And you made a fine speech in assembly. I was so proud of you that day. But that business about peeping at the girls down at the nurse’s. Why did you do that? That was a disgrace. There you were, sneaking around trying to see through the keyhole.”
He said, “And you never forgot it.”
“No,” she agreed.
“You made a lot out of it every time you were sore, after that.”
“This is weird,” she said. Suddenly she closed the scrapbook. “I agree; we better forget about this. But I want to know one thing. You didn’t identify me when you first met me, did you? It was some time.”
“Not until after I left Peg’s,” he said.
“You weren’t attracted to me because—” She considered. “Your reaction wasn’t predicated on recognizing me. No, I know it wasn’t. At least not consciously.”
“I don’t think subconsciously either,” he said.
“Nobody knows what goes on in their subconscious.”
He said, “Well, there’s no use debating that.”
“You’re right,” she said. She put the scrapbook away. “Let’s think about something else. Did I tell you I got the key back from Zoe?”
“No,” he said. She had been gone for an hour or so, and she hadn’t told him what she had been up to.
“She won’t be in tomorrow. We won’t give her the money until the end of the month, but I explained to her that you and I were married and we would both be there, and she doesn’t really want to come in. So we’ve seen the last of her. She gets to draw until the end of the month, of course.”
“She’s still legally part owner?”
“I suppose so. Fancourt would know.”
That was a name new to him. “Who’s he?” he said.
“My attorney.”
“You’ve had auditors go over the books and make sure of the actual worth of the business?”
At once she became vague. “He had someone come in. They looked at everything. They made an inventory. And I believe they looked at the books and the accounts.”
“Weren’t you there?” He wondered why he hadn’t seen it.
“It was while we were in Reno,” she said. “Zoe was there, of course. He’s my attorney, not hers. So it’s all right. No, I wouldn’t let them audit the books while I wasn’t there unless it was my attorney doing it. He’s a good attorney. I met him when I was doing some political work back in ‘48. He’s a very astute man. As a matter of fact, I met Walt through him.”
“What about Zoe? Didn’t she have a separate audit made?”
“Yes,” Susan said. “I’m sure she must have.”
He gave up. In one sense it was none of his concern. But in another it was very much his concern. “I hope you’re not overpaying her,” he said, “just to get rid of her.”
“Oh no,” Susan said.
“Let me ask you one thing,” he said. “The accounts receivable file. Did you buy it at the full tally?”
“I believe so,” she said, hesitating.
“Suppose some of those people never pay. You assume all the risk. Do you remember about how much it came to?” Those were the customers who were billed each month for past purchases or services that they had charged.
“A couple hundred dollars, not much; not enough to worry about.”
“How much of this was done since I met you?” he asked. He had an idea that a great deal had been arranged months ago.
Susan, with a smile, said, “Remember, you met me years ago. When you were—” She calculated. “Eleven.”
“You know what I mean,” he said.
She said, “We worked out most of it last March. We had a terrible scrap. We were going to split up then. But my marriage was breaking up, and frankly I just couldn’t endure having everything fall to pieces around me. I patched it up with Zoe, and at least it lasted for a little while. But I knew it couldn’t go on much longer. When I came back from Mexico I knew I wanted to buy her out; I told you that. Didn’t I? When you first asked me.”
She had told him something along those lines; he could not recall the exact words.
“Bruce,” she said. “Or should I call you ‘Skip’?”
“Not Skip,” he said vehemently.
“When you were a little boy in grammar school, in my class, did you have any sex fantasies about me? It’s common.”
“No,” he said.
“How did you feel about me?” She had gotten her dead-serious tone. “Old Mrs. Jaffey was so lenient on all of you … did it seem to you as if I was too strict?”
The question could not easily be answered. “Do you want me to say what I thought then?” he said. “Or how it seems to me now? It’s not the same.”
She leaped up and paced about the room, her arms folded beneath her breasts, pushing them up and forward as if she were carefully carrying them. Lines of worry once more appeared on her forehead, and her lips pinched together. “How did you feel then?”
He said, “I was scared of you.”
“Did you feel guilty and you were afraid you’d be—discovered?”
“No,” he said with firmness. “I was simply scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of what you might do or say. You had complete power over us.”
Snorting, she said, “Oh come now. You know that’s not true; what about the parents? They terrorize teachers. They get them fired every day—one angry parent in the principal’s office throws around more weight than all the teachers’ unions in the world. Do you know why I left teaching?” She stopped pacing and intently smoothed and straightened her blouse. “I was asked to quit. I had to. Because of my politics. It was in 1948. During the election. I joined the Progressive Party; I was extremely active for Henry Wallace. So the next time when my contract came up, they didn’t renew it. And they asked me to quietly leave and not make a fuss. I naturally asked why.” She gestured. “And they told me. So I didn’t make a fuss. It was my own fault. And I signed that damn Stockholm Peace Proposal petition, later on. Walt got me to do that. He was very active in the Progressive Party, too. Of course that’s all in the past.”
“I never knew that,” he said.
“Some parents complained because I was teaching what they called ‘one-worldism’ in the classroom. I had material from the U.N. And then when they did research into me they discovered I had joined the I.P.P. So that was that. It seems like another era, like talking about Hoover and the W.P.A. I was resentful for a while, but anyhow it’s over with. I suppose I could teach again. Maybe not in Idaho, but in some other state like California. Now that they’re crying for teachers. They destroyed the school system with their witch hunts … they made teachers so timid it’s no wonder nothing gets taught. A teacher who opened her mouth about sex education or birth control or atomic war got fired. So I didn’t have so much power,” she wound up, remembering what she had asked. “How do you feel about me now?” She dropped down beside him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “I want you to give me an honest answer.”