The Fires Excerpt
2—The Dogs
I awoke at first light, basking in the luxurious silence that enveloped the room, the floor, the entire hotel, the street, the town, perhaps even the state and the entire eastern seaboard, the nation, the hemisphere, the world. The headache hit me just as I lay my head back onto the pillow, hoping for more sleep. I had clocked only about three hours, and I was suffering, and my compassion for the couple in the next room had evaporated in the night.
I knew my room number and from that subtracted two, and picked up the telephone and punched out that new number. Through the wall I could hear their telephone ring once, twice, and then I broke off the call. Three more times I did this before either of them could pick up receiver. I could hear faint mumblings. I punched the number again. I got up, took a shower, and called the number again. Twice more, and then I got dressed. Twice more. And then I left the room.
The lobby was deserted, except for the young college boy behind the desk. He looked up at me as I passed by, but didn't speak. It was cool outside, and the hot coffee I found at a little doughnut shop on the main street filled me with warm cheer. After a while I returned to the hotel, called the room next to mine several more times, and by then it was almost time to meet Ceely for breakfast.
She was waiting on the porch, smoking and staring into space, in a dark sweater and baggy jeans looking beautiful and fresh, which made me, in my nearly sleepless condition, feel as bad as I had ever felt. But Rashid wasn't there, and so I sighed a father's sigh of relief.
Ceely flicked away the cigarette and picked up a bag and carried it to the car.
"What about the rest of your stuff?" I asked.
"Rashid is going to put it in the storage room for me," she said, settling in to her seat.
"That's awfully nice of him," I said. "That means you plan on coming back?"
"Father," she said, as if that were an answer.
"Father," she said again when I reproved her for ducking out of the breakfast place for a quick cigarette.
"You'll have to direct me to the dean's office," I said when it got near the time for our appointment.
Silence for a while as Ceely sipped at her coffee. "I'm not going," she said.
"Hey," I said, "Charmaine is fixing up your old room—"
"I mean I'm not going to this meeting," she said. "I don't want to talk to that lame bitch. She's the one needs psychiatric care. Lonely old dyke."
I sighed and wiped my mouth with my napkin, looking around the room as if there might be something the waitress could do for me. That was when I caught a glimpse of Rashid standing outside the restaurant, leaning against a parking meter, smoking casually. "Okay," I said, "you wait here. I'll find the dean and come back to get you."
Ceely looked a little unnerved because I wasn't applying any pressure on her to attend, and it gave me a secret pleasure to have outfoxed her even on this tiny point as I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek—she took it stoically, without blinking—and left the restaurant. Outside I asked Rashid for directions and went on my way.
This dean, I forgive her, was not what I expected.
Probably not even thirty, she was a lovely freckle-faced strawberry blonde dressed in a white blouse unbuttoned down to her sternum where a Star of David dangled between her rather fulsome breasts. Before she even opened her mouth, I was confused.
"You're the dean?"
"This happens to me a lot," she said, extending her hand toward me across her desk. It was surprisingly cold to the touch.
"You understand why?"
She laughed, and I felt a splash of painfully pleasant body chemicals wash up and down my chest.
"Mr. Swanson," she said.
"Tom," I said.
She cleared her throat.
"Tom," she said, and just the way she said it made her voice seem so familiar. "We all love Ceely here, you understand."
"She's very lovable," I said, wondering about where I might have heard her voice, and then letting go of the thought.
"She's suffered, that we know, too."
"She has," I said.
"Her mother was terribly gifted."
"One of the rising young stars of jazz," I said.
The dean smiled, cleared her throat again. "Not my favorite music. And rather esoteric these days, what with hip-hop and all that."
"Do you like hip-hop?" I asked her.
She unfolded her ample lips in a smile.
"Would you believe that I've written about hip-hop? My field is psychology, and I did my dissertation on the effect of hip-hop on learning-disabled inner-city children."
"That is extraordinary," I said.
"But, now, Ceely..."
"Not a learning-disabled inner city kid," I said.
"But in her own way disabled," she said.
The telephone rang. She looked at me, and I looked at her and nodded. She picked up the telephone.
"Hello?...Uh-huh. Oh...Oh..." She looked over at me, and I looked away. "Oh..." I looked back at her.
"Oh...yes...yes...Okay...Bye..."
She looked back at me as she set the telephone on her desk. I looked over at her, wondering if I was going mad.
"Sorry."
"I'm the one who's sorry," I said, "I didn't get much sleep last night. Worrying about this, you know."
"Certainly," she said. The look she gave me made me believe she understood. "Where did you stay?"
I told her.
"Such a lovely place," she said. "A little shabby these days, but lovely. I stayed there when I first moved to town, before I found a house. Sometimes, I like to put people up there. When I have an overflow of house guests."
I cleared my throat. "I'd like you to send me a bill for the piano," I said.
"We may be covered by insurance," the dean said.
I shook my head.
"I doubt it. I know a little about that sort of business, musicians willfully destroying instruments and such. Unless you have a specific clause..."
"I'll check into it," she said. "Meanwhile I don't want you to worry about it. I want you to think about Ceely."
"You've suspended her," I said.
"Pro forma," the Dean said, raising a hand to her mouth to mask a rather large yawn. "Oh, excuse me."
"Think nothing of it," I said. "Late night, huh?"
She stared at me, a tiny smile on her large attractive lips.
"A friend of mine came to town," she said. "A...a girl I went to college with."
"Oh," I said, "and you stayed out late. Where do you stay out late in this little town, anyway?"
"You're showing your big-city chauvinism," she said.
"You're the one who writes about inner-city kids and hip-hop," I said, not sure what I meant. "So where did you go?"
"You really want to know?"
"Sure," I said.
She stared at me, and stared a little more. She didn't know what was going on, I didn't know what was going on, but it was going on.
"We went roller-skating," she said.
"Roller-skating?"
"That's right."
"Isn't that amazing?" I said.
"It's just a small town diversion," she said. "A small college town diversion."
"What's your friend's name?" I said.
"What?"
"Just curious," I said.
"Mr. Swanson, I don't think my friend's name matters much in our current discussion."
"You just want to keep your personal life out of this matter, right?"
"Yes, of course. Why shouldn't it be? Mr. Swanson?"
"Of course, of course," I said. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm pretty exhausted myself. Forgive me. Forgive me?"
The first real wave of fatigue—and there would be many that day—washed over me, and I suddenly wanted out of there. I told the dean that Ceely and I would talk on our drive home about intensifying her therapy.
"Tell her to call me if she needs to talk," the dean said. "I'll give you my home number in case she needs to call me there."
"I will," I said. "And don't forget to send me that bill."
"I'll be in touch," she said, again offering me her hand, still cold as ice.
An hour later, and Ceely and I were rolling out of town.