Check it out and give me some feedback if you can.
Syl
Chapter Seven
The English Department at Capitol College is the leading sponsor of Field Day, an orientation day for new students to meet and talk with each other and to introduce them to the faculty and staff of the Humanities division. It meets the day before classes start in a charming, little city park just south of the campus called Turkey Trails. The city bought it years ago and it’s a bit rundown, but it’s a good place to introduce new freshmen to college life by having volunteer upper-class boys and girls hike them there. “We’re all getting beat up by the sciences and business departments. Well, you know that, don’t you,” Syl had said to Jon to make sure he came and participated. “We’ve got to be smart to stay competitive.”
“Yes,” John said. “I know, and I’ll be there. Don’t want to lose another job.”
Syl is the person most responsible for getting as many English faculty there as she can, especially the new ones like Jon, and the half dozen or so grad. students and part-timers, she’s just getting to know. She also gets as many old-timers there as she can. They’re harder, and the hardest thing of all is get them all there wearing name tags and the English department tee shirts, that are included in the newbies packet she gave or sent them with a reminder of when classes begin and where and when Field Day meets.
Well, that’s just one of her jobs. She shows up fairly early for Field Day and first helps food service set up both a breakfast and lunch spread, for a 10:00am start that ends at 2:30. Then, after helping food service set up, she puts together a little cheese, cracker and beer spread for faculty and staff to munch on or have a drink after the outside party is over. Most who stay are English folks because they make the most effort to get students and profs together.
Many years ago, there was a road back to the Field Day spot and before the road was closed the college or someone connected with Field Day brought in a dozen or so picnic tables for students and faculty to eat at and smooze, and a pretty nice Coleman Travel Trailer, kept in shape by staff people who go there and eat and swim when they want to. They have the keys!
They go swimming in one of the park’s main attractions, called Horseshoe Lake, though it’s really only a pond, that the road used to go on to when it was open for fishing. Now it has only a small beach and two rafts for swimming one inside and one outside the roped-in area. Earlier in the summer, Syl often comes here to swim (her favorite sport and exercise), but late in the summer, like now, it’s too full of algae and water lilies. The city takes away workers and lifeguards when their schools start which is nearly now a month earlier than the college’s. Some of the men on security have hidden a boat on the other side from the beach and they go there and fish early or late before any lifeguards show up Shoo! Don’t tell anyone!
Nancy, who babysits Syl’s little girl, Soosie, will bring her around 11:00ish, eat lunch, where she hopes she’ll be made over by the students and some profs. Soosie’s is a Korean girl who Syl adopted, and she feels she needs more attention than she can give her once school starts. Nancy will take her back to her apartment after they eat.
While all this is happening, Syl tries to find a way to eat with them but the upper-class team leaders, who’ve brought freshmen out in groups, bring some of their freshies over to meet her. “This is Ms. Syl. She’s the department secretary. If you need help, see her in the department offices she showed you this morning on our campus tour before hiking out here. Ms. Syl runs things!”
She’ll also be bothered by the newbies asking her hundreds of questions about the department. Jon came early and tracked her down as she put a sign with his name on his assigned table. She thought he’d come early to ask her his own set of annoying questions. But no, he asked her to show him the pond. Said he loved water; went fishing in Canada almost every summer and asked her if he could fish there. She told him no.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “Never saw a pond or lake where you can’t figure out a way to fish.”
“Well maybe, but ours is now covered with scum. Climate change, I think.”
“Well, I’d still like to see it.”
It was a perfect day. Still the smallest chill in the air. She’d done her work; Had food for the faculty and staff laid out in the trailer. Put signs all around the tables with faculty members names on them. At least eleven were coming. Good. A table or two for staff to sit, kick off their shoes, have a private lunch and, of course, gossip.
“Sure,” she said to Jon. “Let’s take a walk. If we’re lucky and quiet we’ll see a deer or two, and better yet, a flock of turkeys that will take off and sound like a what? I can’t describe what they sound like, but it’s better than Sandhill Cranes.”
“I’ve heard both,” Jon said, “and you’re right.”
The hike back is only four hundred yards, marked with signs on the trail, including, ‘No student allowed’ paper ones, that are sure to draw them there after they’ve eaten, until one of the security guys shoos them away when it’s time to hike back. Some will hike back soaking wet. That always amuses the staff members who are still around cleaning up.
Hiking back with Jon, they saw that some of the maples had begun to turn and sumac were already red. The trail has only one hill half-way back on it and when they got to the top, they flushed a deer they never saw, just heard, and never saw turkeys.
There are still picnic tables stacked on the back of the beach, but they kept walking and about half-way around the pond on a thin trail, she showed Jon a boat security hid over there that was padlocked to a stake.
“Cool,” Jon said. “You’re going to have to introduce me to some of the security fellows.”
“Maybe,” she told him, “but look at how scummy the lake is now. There is something nice though I’ll show you when we get back to the beach.”
They pulled a picnic table down to the edge of the beach, took off their shoes, sat down, then waded around in the shallows after they rolled their pants up to just below their knees. Wiggling their toes and laughing, they tried to kick and splash each other. They walked in the shallows over to the edge of the swimming area. The ropes were gone, and the algae and scum were starting to come into the beach, but a little farther out she pointed to large, no huge, water lilies all with beautiful white and pink flowers growing up from their centers. “That’s what I wanted to show you. They’re at their very best right now. I love them, but they’ll shrivel up and die soon.”
“Will the flowers stay alive in clean, not so cold water?”
“I think so.”
“Ok. Let’s go back to our table. You sit down and dry off and keep your back turned. I’ve got to take off my pants and wring them out.”
He walked her back. Sat her down.
“Don’t turn around.”
After a while, she heard him splashing back out in the water. Then lots more splashing back. He made a racket behind her and she turned and caught him putting on his pants half-way up.
“Oops,” she laughed.
She heard him buckle up and he came around the table holding an enormous flower from a lilly pad. “It’s beautiful,” she said. Then laughing, “What’d you do, jump in?”
“Dry pants. Wet underwear,” and he looked to her like a little kid who’s gotten caught with his pants down.
“Let’s get this back in wet newspaper, and out of the sun and see how it will do. I’ve got to get to work.”
And they did, and he did, until later, after the freshmen had hiked back to campus, when she saw him talking and drinking beer and laughing with the grad. students at the little soirée in the Travel Trailer. One of them had her arm around his waist.
Part Six
Halloween
Chapter Forty-Eight
Syl
I’m looking forwards to the Halloween dance. Jon was dressing up as Jay Gatsby and I was going to be Daisy Fay, his golden girl, if I could find a blonde wig I’d look cute in; anyway a 1920’s flapper. He wanted to introduce me to his friends at the party and show from our costumes that we were both literary people. We could also talk about how I was helping him with his project on Fitzgerald and Hemingway. “That’ll show my friends that you’re a part of my world.”
“And mine?” I asked him.
‘Ya, sure. You Practically run the English department. I want to tell everyone how you helped me get started; find a place for myself. That’s what I’ve told my kids. And I want everyone to understand why I’m moving to be close to you and Soosie.”
“Isn’t that an awful lot to be putting out there? Your friends know we’re seeing each other, don’t they?”
“A couple, but lots know I’m moving to Capitol. You put up a For Sale sign in this town after what’s happened with the college closing, and everyone knows. Knows how much you’re asking and where you’re going. Don’t worry it will be all right.”
Soosie and I had agreed to stay overnight with Jon for two days before the dance. Jon and I made up our costumes, using a sewing machine that had been his wife’s that he kept in a basement closet. I insisted we make a costume for Soosie because I had arranged for Nancy, her babysitter, to pick her up on Halloween and take her trick or treating back home and stay overnight there. Dressed as The Little Mermaid, off she went with her Mermaid tail tucked up under her costume and a bunch of candy she’d already trick or treated from Jon and me in her pumpkin pail. Jon had also made his spare bedroom into a kid’s room with wall-hangings of the Little Mermaid and other Disney characters and he had found and painted a little white dresser in it for her clothes that matched her bed. “We’ll move both when we find my new house,” he told us.
He’s not the type to just leave old friends behind, and the day we came from home, two days before the dance, he invited two of his best friends to go along with us to the party. Tom and Eve Houston. Tom is an accountant and a graduate of the college, and he’d done Jon’s taxes ‘for centuries’ to hear Jon talk and Eve had chaired the Education department.
Tom and Eve came to the door around eight o’clock. Tom was dressed as a Zombie business man wearing a ripped suit, carrying a beaten-up briefcase. He had fake blood all over his hands and face and he put in his fangs and did a ghoulish grin to impress us. Eve, who was my age with curves, was dressed as a naughty business executive in a sexy red dress with ruched pleats and a sheer floral lace top with a funny business style collar. She wore a black bra that showed under all that and black, lace top stockings with very visible garters holding them up.
“Tom made his up,” she told us. “I bought mine. I usually just wear it around the house. Just kidding.”
Jon and I were a bit deflated by how great they looked, but we wanted to show ourselves off too: Jon as Gatsby in a tuxedo he found in his storage unit with long tails, a white frilled shirt and a bow tie. A white Panama straw hat with a black band sat on top a Trump-like wig, more orange than blond, that seemed to seep out from under the hat like an orange soap bubble.
I was a twenties flapper, a party girl who might be Daisy, if I chose to play her because I found back stage at Capitol a great blond wig that I looked cute in. I wore several cheap gold chained necklaces and a black slinky dress with slits up the side and roll down black netted hose that looked sexy.
Jon introduced me as Daisy Buchanan, “the love of my life,” then as Syl, and we said our congratulations, jumping up and down, eager to get to the dance. “But first,” Jon said, “let’s start off with a cocktail to get us even more ready to ‘party hardy,’” as he called it, and from the time they came up the stairs into the house, the night turned into a total disaster.
Jon’s main floor is very open with a view of the living room, dining room and kitchen all around as you come up the seven stairs from the entryway. All of the changes Jon made to make Soosie and me a part of his home were visible all at once and I could tell Tom and Eve were taken aback. They didn’t say much; that was part of the problem. The picture of Soosie on the beach is the first one that they commented on. Eve said to Jon, “Who’s that little girl?”
“That’s Soosie, Syl’s daughter.”
Eve smiled at me, but before I could tell them more about Soosie, Eve nodded to Jon and Tom said, “Oh” and we moved on into the kitchen, Jon and I getting cocktail glasses out of the freezer and putting them down on the bar.
“Syl and I have made a shaker of martinis, and one of manhattans. Ok? What’s your poison?”
Eve sat down at the bar in front of us and pointed to the manhattan shaker. Tom did too, but he got up and continued to prowl. He pointed to the picture of me and my fish. “You’re going to have to tell us about this,” he said, but again looking more at Jon than at me. Then he said to Jon, “Where’s Maggie’s china cabinet with all those priceless German figurines of hers? Hummels? Right?”
Jon was caught off guard by that one, but handing Tom his drink, he said, “Oh, they’re in storage. I think I’m going to sell them for the kid’s savings accounts.”
“Well, you might want to give some of her friends first shot, or even give some away to them.”
“Like me,” said Eve laughing.
Jon and I poured martinis to balance things out and we talked about Jon’s new job. He talked about his classes and told them about my job there and how much I’d helped him get started. They nodded and talked about their long friendships and some vacations they’d all taken together. They being Tom and Eve and Jon and Maggie.
The only question to me was about Soosie.
“She’s oriental? Were you …?”
“No, no. I adopted her from a Korean orphanage. I was married a long-time ago but had no children.”
I thought Eve was going to ask me more, but she turned to Jon and said, “So, how long have you two known each other? How did you meet?
Before either of us could answer, Tom looking at his watch said, “Well drink up. We’ll miss the fancy Hor d’oeuvres we’ve paid a fortune for and time to show off before they give the costume awards. You two look great, but Eve and I hope to win it, so let’s get on the ball; excuse me, on to the ball.”
I put our empty glasses in the dishwasher and we were off.
It was a very dark, wet night, and our ride to the country club was quiet. Before we left Tom told Jon and me that there was sort of a change in plans: We were driving separately. “You haven’t been to one of these,” he said to Jon, “but we went last year, and we’ve booked ourselves a room there. We got pretty wild, and I know you two love birds will want to leave early and you’ll behave yourselves better than we will.”
At that Eve gave everyone a big hug and said they’d meet us there. I scooted over next to Jon and we held hands on the way; I was shaking a little about the way Tom and Eve had treated me but I didn’t say anything.
We followed Tom and Eve led the way, and it started to rain. There was valet parking and two of the car parkers walked both Eve and me into the club holding an umbrella to keep us dry. Inside, Tom checked on their room and left a small suitcase in the coat check room. We walked together into the ballroom which was decorated in reds and gold streamers, inflatable witches and ghosts, balloons, and, of course, skeletons to represent, I guess, the day of the dead.
A fog machine made the floor slippery and us girls didn’t like stepping out on it. “They’ll quit that before the dance,” Eve said to me then she twirled around on the fog covered floor showing off her costume. What was most impressive were several light shows that ran crazily and sometimes suggestively all over anyone in a costume that someone pointed to, making the victims squeal and hide their faces. In the middle of the foggy dance floor was a long buffet table and only a few tables set up to eat at. Some people were standing and eating around their masks and all were holding drinks and paper plates, trying not to drop anything and make a mess, but stuff was being dropped. When we got there, standing in line to get food, everyone seemed to me to be already drunk. I told Jon this and he said, “Well I guess that’s the Halloween dance for you. This is my first. Let’s try to have fun.”
It was much too loud for real introductions, though Jon tried, and I tried to play the part of Daisy, “his golden girl.” What it wasn’t too loud for was some of the younger men he introduced me to saying they couldn’t wait to dance with me. “Hi, party girl” and some brushed themselves against me while kissing me on the cheek. Jon was too distracted to notice, waving over other friends he wanted to introduce to me, and his older friends all did as Eve and Tom had and asked Jon things about me I should have been asked. A couple said to him in front of me that I didn’t remind them of Maggie at all.
When the dance began, the club brought out dozens of tables for parties of six or eight to sit at around the dance floor and Jon and I sat with Jon’s best friends; “none from the college. They’re too depressing.” The college crowd was mostly younger men – lecturers and assistant profs. They were charming, but when I danced with them they hit on me. “I need some air. Want to go outside?” or you know, “Let’s go get a drink together and you can tell me more about yourself.” Or they danced me across the floor from where we were sitting and grabbed my ass or worse felt me up. Pissed off, I shoved the last one to do this away and looked for Jon to take us home. I couldn’t find him. I found out later that he was in the men’s locker room with some smokers who had set up bridge games where he had gone with a lawyer who was managing his investments.
The costume contest began, which meant that the ten finalists who had already been chosen by some kind of committee, were to walk around and show their stuff. There were lots to choose from: traditional ones like a red queen and a princess who was in a paper bag. There was a batgirl and a batman, a knight in what looked like very heavy armor, a Roman whoever, and several pirates, of course. Then there were the sexy ones worn by women a bit too old to show them off provocatively. I saw a maid in a lace miniskirt and a silly little apron, a woman dressed from the Handmaid’s Tale with the white bonnet but a short red see-through red dress. They were sexy enough, but there were some younger girls, one dressed as a sexy cop, also a cheerleader and a naughty schoolgirl in a short plaid miniskirt as they are in porn. Yes, I’ve watched some porn, but this isn’t the time to pursue that. I liked one guy who was Beetlejuice and was revolted by a woman who was dressed as a stalk of broccoli, yuck.
Eve was one of the finalists and she was walking her sexiest to lots of hooting and whistling. When she saw me standing and watching, she gestured to me to come, then she smiled and stuck her tongue out. Evidently, I’d been chosen.
I was worn out and shaking from the ridiculous conduct of everyone who’d ridiculed or hit on me. I ignored her, went into the ladies’ room, sat down, took a long pee, and felt as lonely as I’d been in years. The bathroom was no comfort to me. Its mirror was splotched with blood and screaming was coming from a hidden speaker. As I started to leave, a character playing Jordan Baker from Gatsby came in. She was wearing an all-black golfing outfit and carrying a golf club, a wood, I think they’re called. She brushed up against me, as so many had done, “You’re Daisy. It’s me Jordan,” then she pulled down her wig to show she was really a young man like those who had rutted up against me. I was over the edge and I pushed him away and then out the door and called an Uber to take me to Jon’s house and to my car.
I walked through the ballroom, alone and unnoticed, went outside, and my Uber pulled up a few minutes later. Why didn’t I call Jon? We both had our phones ‘to stay in touch if we got lost in the crowd.’ I don’t know. I still don’t know.
Jon had given me a key to his house and I let myself in. I went into his bedroom, took off my ridiculous costume and blond wig that I had hated wearing, and packed my suitcase. I walked around all the rooms put all the pictures of us together or of me or of me with Soosie or of Jon and me, put them in a garbage bag and carried them into the garage to throw into the trash along with my costume. I must have been crying. I threw the costume in the trash and put the wig on the cover like a whipped cream whirl on top an ice cream sundae. That calmed me down and, maybe now more sad than angry, I put the pictures and my suitcase in my car and drove back to my apartment in Capitol. I don’t remember anything more after that until Nancy called me in the morning. I told her I was home and I wanted her to bring Soosie down to me.
Just as I was leaving Jon’s house, my phone rang. It was Jon. I didn’t answer, and I blocked his phone from calling me again. Later, I heard, he’d gone around the club asking himself and others he knew, “Anybody seen Syl?” or “Where’s Syl?”
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