"Today I found a piece of garlic on my door handle," I said. I didn't tell him I had left it there after I had found it.
"I'll talk to her, but she'll do things like that from time to time. Just ignore it if you can, unless she starts putting garlic in your makeup," he added, and we both laughed. "There it is," he said, nodding.
The Dickinson School was directly ahead on the right. The tan brick one-story building was sprawled over acres of beautiful land, with a large, beautiful fountain in front. The three steps that led up to the en-trance were long and coffee-tinted, with wide pilasters on both sides. There was a flagpole with a flag snap-ping in the breeze. To the right was a parking lot with dozens of late-model cars. Some had just pulled into parking spaces, and students emerged, many moving in slow, reluctant steps toward the side entrance.
"There are only a hundred or so students here, if that many," Wade said. "It's just a high school, grades nine through twelve."
"Really? My class at my public school had nearly eighty students alone."
"Well, this is special. I think the teacher-student ratio is something like nine to one. My father never understood how that sort of situation allows for more personal attention. I suppose it has its pros and cons. If you burp, the whole student body hears about it," he added, laughing.
We pulled into an empty parking space and stepped out.
"Despite its size, or because of it, this really is an impressive school. They don't have much of a basketball team, and they're too small for football, but they do have winning golf and tennis teams."
"I never played either," I said.
"Oh? Well, we have our own tennis court, so I'll break you into the game, not that I'm much of an athlete. My father is actually quite the tennis player, even now. He loves playing against me to prove he hasn't lost his youthful vigor," Wade said as we walked up to the front steps. "I attended a play here once, so I know they have a good drama club. The daughter of a friend was the lead. That was two years ago. She's graduated and attends Vassar. They usually get their graduates into top schools," he said.
He opened the front door. I took a deep breath and stepped into the small but plush school lobby. The gold-tiled floors glimmered as did the three black marble columns. There were dark wood and glass display cases filled with trophies, and paintings of beautiful rustic scenes on all the walls. Etched on the far wall was THE DICKINSON SCHOOL. Underneath that was a bust on a black marble pedestal. Wade quickly pointed out that the bust was of Zachary Dickinson, the founder of the school and its original benefactor. He told me Zachary Dickinson was a businessman who had made a fortune in the furniture industry. When we drew closer and I could look at the bust better, I thought he looked like Bob Hope.
There were two hallways, one on the far left and one on the far right. The one on the left had a plaque indicating that the administrative offices were there. I was quite struck by the silence in the building. Unlike any school I had attended, this seemed deserted. Even when classes were in session at my former high school, there were students moving about, making noises, shouting to each other, going to bathrooms, or simply wandering without permission.
At the beginning of the hallway was a door on the left; a gold plaque beside it read "Central Office." I gazed down the remainder of the hallway. All the classroom doors and other office doors were closed. There was no one in the hallway, and it was just as quiet as it was in the lobby. The walls were clean, without any posters or signs, and the hallway looked as if it had just been washed and polished. A series of tubular neon bulbs down the center of the hallway ceil-ing cast a yellowish white light over the walls and floor.
Before Wade reached for the office doorknob, we heard another door open and some voices echoing up from the rear of the building. Two boys walked in from the parking lot. I could see that one had hair close in color to mine, though in the yellowish light it looked somewhat redder. In fact, for a moment it looked to me like his head was on fire. The other boy had dark hair and was a few inches shorter. They laughed at something, paused to look our way, and then entered a room.
I entered the office after Wade opened the door. Unlike the offices at my ol
d school, this was like stepping into a library. The two women working at their desks behind the counter were speaking softly to each other. Everything was neat and orderly; even the bulletin board on the immediate left had
announcements perfectly pinned in straight, even columns. There was none of the turmoil and frantic activity I was used to seeing in a central school office.
One of the women appeared about sixty, the other more like thirty. They both looked at us, and then the older woman , stayed at her desk while the younger woman approached the counter.
"May I help you?" she asked, and smiled at me.
"I'm Wade Emerson. My wife and I spoke with Mrs. Brentwood about Celeste's enrollment this morning," he said.
It didn't occur to me until then that Ami would have wanted to tell them I was her cousin. After all, she and I had gone through the fabrication of my history just the evening before. But wouldn't the office personnel know the truth anyway? I wondered.
"Oh. Just one moment," the woman said, and returned to her desk to use the phone. She spoke as softly into it as she had been speaking with her associate.
Almost immediately, the principal's office door opened, and Mrs. Brentwood appeared. Dressed in a charcoal skirt suit and white blouse, she looked as elegant and as pretty as she had when I saw her in the restaurant.
"Mr. Emerson, how nice to see you. Please, come in," she said, stepping back.
"Thank you," Wade said. He waited for me to go first.
"Hi," Mrs. Brentwood said, smiling. "You must be Celeste." She offered me her hand.
"Hi," I said, shaking it, and we walked into her office.
If she had seen Ami, me, and Wade at the restaurant the night before, she didn't care to mention it.
"I was under the impression your wife was bringing her around," she told Wade when she noticed Ami wasn't behind us.
"So was I," he said drily. "Actually, this works out well for me. It's on the way to work."