When next Radix saw Judy Wiener Spring was rolling its portentous way down to
the end of the semester. She was sitting with another teacher in the cafeteria,
and attending to her face with lipstick and mirror. He waved and called to her;
she looked up and smiled; the other woman turned in her chair to see who it was.
Radix came over with his steaming coffee cup.
Judy Wiener's face looked white and drained, with a pre-coffee dry tension,
almost frightening in that bloodless way white faces sometimes turn in winter. He
hadn't seen her in weeks.
"How're you? Where have you been?" he asked.
"I'm okay."
"You're usually free this period?"
"Yes, but I've been hiding away. Which is why you haven't seen much of me
recently."
"So what have you been up to?"
At this point, bumbling over her lapsed manners, she introduced the other
teacher, Amanda Blitch, from the English Department, whose broad smile was set
ablaze by crimson lipstick.
She'd been listening to the exchange and staring at Radix, wondering what it was
about him that got Judy Wiener so animated. She looked Radix straight in the
face, much to his discomfort, and she informed him that she'd been on sabbatical
and had just come back; so she hadn't encountered the usual fresh faces of the
Fall term.
Her face had a scrubbed pink glow and her eyes sparkled behind her rimless
glasses.
Radix was struck by the hat she wore which looked like something he'd seen in
movies on the heads of officials in Shakespeare's England (she's probably teaching
"Romeo and Juliet", Judy Wiener explained); and the black puffy blouse which
completed the costume look. Radix was not much good at determining people's
age from their faces, but he thought Amanda Blitch looked fortyish. She spoke in
gushy bursts, her double chin quivering.
"Well, I will leave you two happy souls alone," she said, looking at her watch,
getting up, gathering her things. "I've been away so long I don't know if I
remember where everything is, so I think I'd better get reacquainted with the
school quickly."
She was rotund below the waist, looking like a stout lady of society as well as a
high school teacher. She gave Radix a last fresh smile and hurried off, light on
her feet despite heavy haunches; making the point she could handle her weight
and carry herself off with some elegance.
Judy Wiener leaned forward. "You'd better be careful…there's a gleam in
Amanda's eye."
"What are you talking about?" Radix looked at the door that had closed after her
exit.
"When you get to know Amanda you'll see what I mean. She has a roving eye for
new teachers. You're a new young teacher. You're going to hear about her
mentoring program. She likes to mentor, and she takes a special interest in her
mentorees." Judy Wiener opened her eyes wide.
"Well, thanks for the warning. You know, the other day I had a brush with the
lady in the payroll office?"
"With Gwen? You had a brush with Gwen?" Judy Weiner went back to touching up
her face, which seemed done though not entirely to her satisfaction.
"She sent me a note asking me to see her immediately. Turns out I'd forgotten
to sign my payroll card. No big deal, I told her. I promised it wouldn't happen
again. And she said to me, twenty lashes."
"Twenty lashes?"
"Twenty lashes! The thing is, she wasn't smiling when she said it. No, seriously,
she really felt that was what I deserved for my misdemeanor… twenty lashes
was just right for me."
"I don't think she meant it like that," Judy Wiener turned her head away.
"Everybody in that office likes cracking whips whenever you step out of line,
doesn't matter who you are. Gwen likes to think, because she controls the
distribution of paychecks, that she wields great power. By the way, have you
heard? Now they're considering docking our pay for showing up late?"
"Wait, you mean, someone's going to sit down… and go through all those time
cards… checking how many hours and minutes we actually work in this
building? That's ridiculous."
"That's how they see us sometimes. But Gwen's a nice person when you get
to know her."
"Well, that's one nice person I don't plan on getting to know."
(from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel! a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 