Zach moved to her city, and thought it would be good to catch up. He called Lissa, hung up on her, called her back. They agreed to meet at the park, by the magnolia they used to talk philosophy and Saturday Night Live under. It had been so long that neither could remember what the quarrel that kept them apart had been. Besides, they weren’t only friends; they were cousins. Third or twice-removed or something; Zach wasn’t entirely clear, but anyway, it didn’t matter. They say blood is thicker than water and Zach, being not only a doctor but a supersitious one, was particularly prone to believing metaphors about blood.
When Zach got to the park he found the magnolia immediately. But something was wrong. It was bigger, to start with. It had thicker limbs. It cast a deeper, gloomier shadow than Zach remembered. It used to be such a delicate thing, just taking hold. Zach had always found that charming; he had felt a sense of solidarity with the tree and its youth and its insistance on beauty. Now it was it was so firmly established. Suddenly Zach felt old.
Lissa wasn’t there yet, so he thought he might take some flowers from the tree and give them to her. He broke off a branch but all of the blossoms were battered and most were bruised, covered in brown smudges the color a half-eaten apple goes when left too long unattended. He was going to drop the branch on the ground, but Lissa walked up just then, and, at a loss, he handed the flowers to her anyway.
“Zach!” she said. She raised the flowers to her nose but, as far as Zach could tell, did not bother to inhale their fragrance. “It’s been too long.”
This was not the right thing to say, but in all fairness Zach did not know what the right thing to say was, or if there even was a right thing to say at all. So he said, “Yes,” which was also not the right thing to say. He looked at the flowers in her hands and thought that that had not been the right thing to do, and also that even if it had been, those would not have been the right flowers to give.
“Why don’t we sit down?” Lissa asked, and that, Zach thought, was perfect.
So they sat and they talked and slowly the sun went down behind them. It was all very nice, but hopelessly stiff, and at times quite boring. After an hour or so Zach began to feel as if he were trying to discuss in detail how much he loved the finger sandwiches at party with the President. This was, obviously enough, not an experience Zach had ever had, but the image was so clear it felt real. He considered telling Lissa about it, then discarded that idea but toyed with the new idea of asking if she wanted to go somewhere with finger sandwiches, then as a joke asking if she wanted to go somewhere with the president. Finally he wound up staring blankly into the space behind her head.
“I do prattle on, though, don’t I?” Lissa asked.
Zach was supposed to say ‘No, not at all,’ and he knew it, but he didn’t. He gritted his teeth instead and waited for her to look offended but move on, which she did with admirable speed.
“You never told me what you’re doing back here, Zach,” she said.
Which was when Zach told her about the job, which really was the only thing he’d meant to tell her in the first place.
When Lissa first learned that Zach was teaching at the other school, she made an inventive noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh and asked, in all apparent sincerity, “Well that’s nice, Zachary. Are you sleeping with any of your students yet?”
Flabbergasted, Zach ran a hand through his thinning hair and said, “Of course not Lissa. Why would you even ask a horrible thing like that?”
Lissa shrugged. “I do know about those places, Zach. They’re like that there.”
“Like what, exactly? I don’t even know what you mean. But at any rate, they aren’t like that. And they certainly aren’t like that.”
“Maybe not all of them. But everyone heard about--”
“Manny? Manny was a snake. They fired him.”
“They hired you.”
“Exactly.”
Lissa raised an eyebrow, a taunting but oddly tender smile dancing briefly across her lips. “Yes,” she said softly, “Exactly.”
“That doesn’t mean I--” But now Zach was flustered. He had to stop. He put a hand on his forehead. The heat of his own blushing felt exactly like fever. Lissa was good at this. Too good. Perfect. An artist. He couldn’t decide if he hated her or loved her for it.
“Anyway,” Lissa said, “It would be easy. For you, I mean. You’re young, you’re handsome, you have good teeth, you hold doors open for women carrying babies.” She laughed a little, into her hands.
“You make that sound like a ploy.”
“I believe it is a ploy, more or less. Which isn’t a bad thing, per-say, just something to keep in mind.”
“You always were the cynic.”
“You always were the charmer.” She grinned, suddenly. Added: “You always were the cad.”
“I--”
“Well congratulations, at any rate. It’s hard to find a job these days. I mean not for you, I’m sure. You’re a doctor for a Christ's sake. In fact I’m not very clear on what you’re doing at the Grassman School if you didn’t just decide that the students were more attractive than your patients.”
“Lissa, you’re horrible.”
She was other things, too. Beautiful, for one. Today especially. All got up in an old-fashioned blue dress with a white apron. A few stray magnolia petals caught in her hair. She looked like some fantasy version of life on the Oregon Trail. Through most of college Zach had had to work very hard not to fall in love with her. Yet try as he might Zach could muster up neither affection nor attraction towards the woman before him, only a cringing kind of hatred that he didn’t know what to do with. It was a flash. Red and hot and ugly, but then--thank gone-- for the most, gone.
Without missing a beat, Lissa said, “But I see you didn’t answer the question. Anyway, what are you teaching? Biology?”
Slowly, Zach shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“Arithmetic? No, I’m not thinking about this the right way. Basket weaving, maybe? I mean it is the Grassman--”
“Jesus, Lissa, will you stop? I’ll tell you if you’ll just play nice for a moment.”
“O.k. What, then?”
“Blood letting. Bone setting. The basics.”
Lissa looked blank. “Those are doctor things,” she said after a long time. Then, “Do they really let you teach that there?”
“It’s required, actually. It’s a pilot curriculum. The idea is that there are basic mechanical methods of survival that every human being has a right and a responsibility to know.”
“You’re quoting something.”
“The mission statement, yes. But I think they’re right, you know. I think it’s a very good program. Besides, most schools already teach children CPR, why not how to stitch and disinfect as well? They may never have to use what they learn; in fact I very much hope that none of them ever will... but they might. It isn’t even entirely out of the realm of possibility that they’ll end up on a dessert island some day and...” he saw the way she was looking at him and stopped. Almost smiled. Said: “I’m still young, you admitted it yourself. From time to time I’m allowed to indulge in flights of fancy.”
“Oh Zachary,” Lissa sighed. (Zach did not know what to make of that.) She checked her watch, clucked her tongue. “I’m running late, actually,” she said; “Sorry.” She leaned forward and kissed his neck, very quickly and very lightly.
When she had stood and was in the process of smoothing out her skirts, she added, “We just never know what to do with you.”
That was the last Zach saw of Lissa for many days.
He sat alone in the park for several minutes, distractedly dissecting the sexual organs of a trampled magnolia flower with his thumbnail. It was dark, he realized. And he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. It would be a good idea to stop at the grocery store on the way home. Tomorrow was the first day of class so he felt he was allowed to treat himself. He could buy a midrange bottle of wine with a dusty label to calm his nerves. A carton of strawberries because it was starting to be the right season. Ingredients for finger sandwiches. Maybe a box of cookies to share with the kids. Or was that too much like bribery?
This, it turned out, was only first thing Zach did not know about teaching.
///as always, this is just a clip. if you are interested in reading the rest of this story, let me know.///
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