A Hole in Juan Read Free Page B

define videotaping a poetry reading for the school’s closed-circuit system as a TV show.
    “Bet you’re excited,” she said. “Mrs. Producer herself.”
    Nobody was the producer. Derek Ludo was one of the school techies helping the juniors broadcast their poetry to those schoolmates who wanted to see it.
    “I hope it’s not out of line for me to compliment you, my not being a teacher and all,” she said, “but you do come up with such creative ideas, like a TV show!” She nodded emphatically and pushed her horn-rimmed glasses up her nose again.
    “It’s not really all that—”
    “It’s a quality I value in people.”
    The muscles of my back twitched. I knew where she was headed—where all Harriet conversations headed. We were en route to Erroll Davine, her fiancé.
    Harriet had been engaged to Erroll Davine since she graduated from high school. By using my sleuthing powers—Pip would be proud of me—and by virtue of her incessant chatter about Erroll, I had figured the engagement to be twelve and one half years old. “Erroll’s had a hard time finding himself,” she’d said by way of explanation.
    Erroll’s lost self had once seemed to be hiding in long-distance trucking school, later in a course on how to become a supersalesman, followed by a year’s worth of acting lessons, two semesters of computer repair instruction, preparation for a real estate license, and now, in taxidermy school. Harriet had—“Of 17
    A HOLE IN JUAN
    course!” she said brightly—assumed the burden of supporting the two of them as Erroll slogged up and down the learning curve.
    I was tempted to shake the blinkers off her eyes, but the woman was so happy with her freeloader, it would have been cruel.
    “Erroll’s like you that way,” she was now saying. “Maybe all real achievers are creative visionaries. Just yesterday, he was so concerned about getting a groundhog’s tongue right he was in torment. He’s such a perfectionist, and tongues are really difficult, you know. All kinds of tongues, not just a groundhog’s.”
    I nodded, smiled, tried not to think about groundhog tongues, and turned to check my mailbox. I found a lighter than usual deposit of detritus. “This all?” I asked.
    She nodded sagely. “The headmaster didn’t have any messages today.” Although she chortled at most everything, she was always solemn about Maurice Havermeyer, who emphatically deserved to be laughed at. Harriet dropped her voice to a reverent hush when she said even his title. Judging by her tone, “the headmaster” was almost in a league with Erroll the would-be taxidermist.
    “As I was saying,” she went on, “this groundhog caused him so much trouble—”
    She was put on hold, and my question of who wanted a stuffed groundhog in the first place remained unasked, when Juan Angel Reyes entered the office.
    The new science teacher was a dapper man who looked as if he slept in a clothes press, rigid in dress and deed, from what I’d gathered. He’d been quickly nicknamed “Dr. Jar” by the students, a put-down that made fun both of his obsession with monogramming his clothing and possessions and with what I’d been told was his repeated reminders to his classes that he was about to receive his doctorate and that as soon as he had it, he would have no more to do with this school and its dim students who were unworthy of him. He was here for the money, pathetic GILLIAN ROBERTS
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    as that amount was, and the flexible schedule he’d been offered.
    But once his monogram becomes J.A.R. Ph.D., he’d be in a high-paying research job in a heartbeat.
    I’m sure he never put it that way, but that was the message the students heard, larded with contempt for the lot of us.
    “Good morning!” Harriet all but trilled.
    Reyes nodded—almost a bow. He didn’t seem one for small talk, particularly if it was taxidermy-based, and to Harriet’s credit, she understood that. Reyes made the nod-and-bow gesture to me as well as he