Turning Angel

“It’s all right, Mia. What’s the matter?”

“I’m not sure. But three people have called and told me something happened to Kate Townsend. They’re saying she drowned.”

I hesitate before confirming the rumor, but if the truth hasn’t already spread across town, it will in a matter of minutes. Our secretary learning the truth from an ER nurse was part of the first wave of rumor, one of many that will sweep across town tonight, turning back upon themselves and swelling until the facts are lost in a tide of hyperbole. “You heard right, Mia. Kate was found dead in St. Catherine’s Creek.”

“Oh God.”

“I know it’s upsetting, and I’m sure you want to be with your friends right now, but I need you to stay with Annie until I get there. I’ll be home in ten minutes.”

“Oh, I’d never leave Annie alone. I mean, I don’t even know what I should do. If Kate’s dead, I can’t really help her. And everyone is going to be acting so retarded about it. Take whatever time you need. I’d rather stay here with Annie than drive right now.”

I silently thank Jan Chancellor for recommending one of the few levelheaded girls in the school to me as a babysitter. “Thanks, Mia. How’s Annie doing?”

“She fell asleep watching a documentary about bird migration on the Discovery Channel.”

“Good.”

“Hey,” Mia says in an awkward voice. “Thanks for telling me the truth about Kate.”

“Thanks for not flipping out and leaving the house. I’ll see you in a few minutes, okay?”

“Okay. Bye.”

I hang up and look through the door at the boardroom. Drew Elliott is talking on his cell phone at the table, but the rest of the board members are filing out the main door. As I watch them go, an image from our promotional TV commercial featuring Kate rises into my mind. She’s walking onto the tennis court in classic whites, and her cool blue eyes burn right through the camera. She’s tall, probably five-ten, with Nordic blond hair that hangs halfway to her waist. More striking than beautiful, Kate looked like a college student rather than a high school kid, and that’s why we chose her for the promo spot. She was the perfect recruiting symbol for a college-prep school.

As I reach for the office doorknob, I freeze. Drew is staring at the table with tears pouring down his face. I hesitate, giving him time to collect himself. What does it take to make an M.D. cry? My father has watched his patients die for forty years, and now they’re dropping like cornstalks to a scythe. I know he grieves, but I can’t remember him crying. The one exception was my wife, but that’s another story. Maybe Drew thinks he’s alone here, that I slipped out with all the others. Since he shows no sign of stopping, I walk out and lay my hand on his thickly muscled shoulder.

“You okay, man?”

He doesn’t reply, but I feel him shudder.

“Drew? Hey.”

He dries his eyes with a swipe of his sleeve, then stands. “Guess we’d better let Theresa lock up.”

“Yeah. I’ll walk out with you.”

Side by side, we walk through the front atrium of St. Stephen’s, just as we did thousands of times when we attended this school in the sixties and seventies. A large trophy cabinet stands against the wall to my left. Inside it, behind a wooden Louisville Slugger with thirteen names signed on it in Magic Marker, hangs a large photograph of Drew Elliott during the defining moment of this institution. Just fourteen years old, he is standing at the plate under the lights of Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson, hitting what would be the winning home run of the 1977 AAAA state baseball championship. No matter how remarkable our academic accomplishments—and they were many—it was this prize that put our tiny “single A” school on the map. In Mississippi, as in the rest of the South, sport overshadows everything else.

“Long time ago,” he says. “Eternity.”

I’m standing on second base in the photo, waiting to sprint for the tying run. “Not so long.”

He gives me a lost look, and then we pass through the entrance and pause under the overhang, prepping for a quick dash through the rain to our cars.

“Kate babysat for you guys, didn’t she?” I comment, trying to get him to focus on the mundane.

“Yeah. The past two summers. Not anymore, though. She graduates—was supposed to graduate—in six weeks. She was too busy for babysitting.”

“She seemed like a great kid.”

Drew nods. “She was. Even these days, when so many students are overachievers, she stood out from the crowd.”

I could point out that it’s often the best and brightest who are taken while the rest of us are left to carry on, but Drew knows that. He’s watched more people die than I ever will.

His Volvo is parked about thirty yards away, behind my Saab. I pat him on the back as I did in high school, then assume a tight end’s stance. “Run for it?”

Instead of playing along with me, he looks me full in the face and speaks in a voice I haven’t heard from him in years. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

The emotion in his eyes is palpable. “Of course.”

“Let’s get in one of the cars.”

“Sure.”

He presses a button on his key chain, and his Volvo’s lights blink. As if triggered by a silent starter pistol, we race through the chilly rain and scramble onto the leather seats of the S80. He slams his door and cranks the engine, then shakes his head with a strange violence.

“I can’t fucking believe it, Penn. It’s literally beyond belief. Did you know her? Did you know Kate at all?”

“We spoke a few times. She asked about my books. But we never got beyond the surface. Mia talked about her a lot.”

His eyes search out mine in the shadows. “You and I haven’t got beneath the surface much either these past five years. It’s more my fault than yours, I know. I keep a lot inside.”

“We all do,” I say awkwardly, wondering where this is going.

“Who really knows anybody, right? Twelve years of school together, best friends when we were kids. You know a lot about me, but on the other hand you know nothing. The front, like everybody else.”

“I hope I see past that, Drew.”

“I don’t mean to insult you. If anyone sees beneath the surface, it’s you. That’s why I’m talking to you now.”

“Well, I’m here. Let’s talk.”

He nods as if confirming a private judgment. “I want to hire you.”

“Hire me?”

“As a lawyer.”

This is the last thing I expected to hear. “You know I don’t practice anymore.”

“You took the Payton case, that old civil rights bombing.”

“That was different. And that was five years ago.”

Drew stares at me in the glow of the dashboard lights. “This is different, too.”

It always is to the client. “I’m sure it is. The thing is, I’m not really a lawyer anymore. I’m a writer. If you need a lawyer, I can recommend several good ones. Is it malpractice?”