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It was the last day of school. The classrooms and hallways were empty. The overhead fans paddled air
that was already hot, although it was only the eighth of June. The Oswald family had left Russia; in
another five days, according to Al Templeton’s notes, the SS Maasdam would dock in Hoboken, where
they would walk down the gangplank and onto United States soil.
The teachers’ room was empty except for Danny Laverty. “Hey, champ. Understand you’re going off
to Dallas to finish that book of yours.”
“That’s the plan.” Fort Worth was actually the plan, at least to begin with. I began cleaning out
my pigeonhole, which was stuffed with end-of-school communiqués.
“If I was footloose and fancy-free instead of tied down to a wife, three rugrats, and a mortgage, I
might try a book myself,” Danny said. “I was in the war, you know.”
I knew. Everyone knew, usually within ten minutes of meeting him.
“Got enough to live on?”
“I’ll be okay.”
I had more than enough to take me through to next April, when I expected to conclude my
business with Lee Oswald. I wouldn’t need to make any more expeditions to Faith Financial on
Greenville Avenue. Going there even once had been incredibly stupid. If I wanted, I could try to tell
myself that what had happened to my place in Florida had just been the result of a prank gone bad,
but I’d also tried to tell myself that Sadie and I were doing fine, and look how that had turned out.
I tossed the wad of paperwork from my pigeonhole into the trash . . . and saw a small sealed
envelope I had somehow missed. I knew who used envelopes like that. There was no salutation on the
sheet of notepaper inside, and no signature except for the faint (perhaps even illusory) scent of her
perfume. The message was brief.
Thank you for showing me how good things can be. Please don’t say goodbye.
I held it for a minute, thinking, then stuck it in my back pocket and walked rapidly down to the
library. I don’t know what I planned to do or what I meant to tell her, but none of it mattered because
the library was dark and the chairs were up on the tables. I tried the knob anyway, but the door was
locked.
4
The only two cars left at the faculty end of the parking lot were Danny Laverty’s Plymouth sedan and
my Ford, the ragtop now looking rather raggedy. I could sympathize; I felt a bit raggedy myself.
“Mr. A! Wait up, Mr. A!”
It was Mike and Bobbi Jill, hurrying across the hot parking lot toward me. Mike was carrying a
small wrapped present, which he held out to me. “Bobbi n me got you something.”
“Bobbi and I. And you shouldn’t have, Mike.”
“We had to, man.”
I was moved to see that Bobbi Jill was crying, and pleased to see that the thick coating of Max
Factor had disappeared from her face. Now that she knew the disfiguring scar’s days were numbered,
she had stopped trying to conceal it. She kissed me on the cheek.
“Thank you so, so, so much, Mr. Amberson. I’ll never forget you.” She looked at Mike. “We’ll never
forget you.”
And they probably wouldn’t. That was a good thing. It didn’t make up for the locked and dark
library, but yes—it was a very good thing.