The Lesson of Her Death

he had to steer her there. “Is this for Gilchrist’s class?”
    “Leon’s? No, it’s my own idea. He’s out in San Francisco. Won’t be back for a couple days.” Gilchrist had in fact called Okun the night before to tell him that he would be arriving in three days and had ordered Okun to prepare a draft of a final exam. Okun noted that the son of a bitch called at exactly the moment a substitute professor was delivering Gilchrist’s lecture; he wanted to make certain that Okun hadn’t been standing before
his
class.
    “What’s he doing out there?” she asked.
    “Healing the wounds, I guess.”
    “How’s that?” she asked.
    “You know. The girl.”
    “The girl?”
    He looked confused.
“You
told me, didn’t you?”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “What was her name? The first one who was killed. Jennie something. I thought you told me. About the two of them?”
    She asked in astonishment, “Gilchrist and Jennie Gebben, they were fucking?”
    “It wasn’t you who told me?”
    “No.”
    “Who was it?” He looked at the ceiling. “Don’t recall. Well, anyway, I heard they were a unit.”
    “Poor girl,” Victoria said, frowning. “Gilchrist, huh? I wouldn’t have guessed Jennie and him. I heard he was an S and M pup.”
    Okun nodded knowingly, quelling resentment that this was the second person who seemed to know for a fact something about his own professor that he had not been aware of.
    She continued, “I’m surprised at the leather. My opinion was that Gilchrist would be more of your classicpostwar British pederast. You know, I think they should castrate rapists.”
    Okun thought for a moment. “That might make another seminar. ‘Mutilation and Castration as Metaphor in Western Literature.’”
    Victoria’s eyes brightened. “Now there’s an idea for you.”

S he wasn’t sure what the vibration was. Alignment maybe. Or a soft tire.
    Driving home from Auden University, Diane Corde noticed that the steering wheel seemed to shake; her engagement ring bobbled noisily on tan G.M. plastic. Then she realized the station wagon was fine; it was her hand that shook so fiercely—the first time in her life that a reference to money had made her fingers tremble.
    Diane was returning from a meeting with the admissions director at the Auden lab school. The woman, who looked sharp and professional (no sultry pink, no clattering bracelets, no hussy makeup), had explained the procedures. Sarah’s file, which Dr. Parker had already forwarded to the school, would be reviewed by the school’s special education admissions board. They would make a recommendation about placing Sarah in one of the classes or arranging for private tutoring.
    “I’m sure,” the woman said, “your daughter will be accepted.”
    Diane was grateful to tears at this news.
    Then the director had consulted a sheet of paper. “Let’s see.… Tuition for a special education class at Sarah’s level is eight thousand four hundred. Now we—”
    “A year?” Diane had interrupted breathlessly.
    The woman had smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. That’s not per semester. That’s for the entire year.”
    Oh don’t worry
.
    Eight thousand four hundred.
    Which exceeded Diane’s annual salary when she’d been receptionist for Dr. Bullen the oldest living gynecologist in New Lebanon. “Does insurance ever cover it?”
    “Medical insurance? No.”
    “That’s a little steep.”
    “Auden’s lab school is one of the best in the country.”
    “We just bought a new Frigidaire.”
    “Well.”
    Diane broke the silence. “Dr. Parker mentioned a private tutor is an option. Three times a week, she said. How much would that be?”
    The woman had cheerfully parried that the total fee for a tutor would be two hundred seventy dollars a week.
    Oh don’t worry
.
    Diane had smoothed her navy blue skirt and studied a cleft of wrinkle in the cloth. She felt totally numb; maybe bad news was an anesthetic.
    “So you see,” the admissions director had said, smiling, “the school is in fact the better bargain.”
    Well, Diane Corde didn’t see that at all. Bargain? What she saw was everybody taking advantage of her little girl’s problem—all of them, Dr. Parker the harlot and this pert
L.A. Law
admissions director and the prissy tutors who weren’t going to do anything but getSarah’s brain back up to the level where God intended it to be all along.
    “Well, I’ll have to talk to my husband about it.”
    “Just let me