Read Online Murder in the English Department by Valerie Miner - Free Book Online
Authors: Valerie Miner
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Nan. Then, in a lighter voice, she teased, âAnd if you tear out your hair, Iâll buy you a wig. Remember we always wondered what youâd look like as a brunette.â
âOh, Nan,â laughed Lisa.
Nan listened to her nieceâs clear, young laugh and could think of nothing to say. Tests, butterflies, arthritis, heart, kill, remit, wig, Lisa. Desperately she tried to fit it all together.
âNan?â
Someone was calling her name.
âYes?â she answered foggily.
âWe still have New Yearâs Day together, donât we?â asked Lisa.
âWell, love, I donât know about that,â said Nan. âI think we should listen to the doctorâs â¦â
âThe damn doctor has no idea what itâs like in this house on New Yearâs.â Lisa lowered her voice, âwith the Rose Bowl Parade and the game and the after-game replays and the boys and Daddy hollering and Debbie and Lynda yammering on about their macramé and â¦â
âEnough said,â Nan answered, pleased at the energy in Lisaâs fury. âWeâll have our day.â
Nan said goodbye. She stood up with deliberation, wiping away her selfish tears.
The friendship with Lisa had begun only a couple of years ago, when Shirley finally admitted her daughter was old enough to take the BART train out to see her aunt. Berkeley was eleven stops from South Hayward, eleven chances for murder, rape, battery. Crime was getting worse and worse in the Bay Area, despite, or perhaps because of, its Utopian reputation. And Berkeley, for heavenâs sake, was the end of the earth.
Lisa had prepared for that trip by reading two Willa Cather novels and buying a funky tie-dyed T-shirt like the ones everyone wore on Telegraph Avenue.
Nan searched now for her books and her ever-lost keys. It would be too simple to cast Shirley as the provincial mother. Nan and Lisa had an unspoken agreement not to scapegoat Shirley. But they would lobby for Lisaâs freedom.
Nan had started the lobby years ago. Lisa was just a little girl. With postcards from Holland and Morocco and the Soviet Union after she left Charles. With that birthday present atlas. With fantasies about hiking through Alaska together. Nan was conscious of being the Exotic Aunt, a strange and benevolent lady who travelled in faraway places and spoke grand ideas. She enjoyed this image, as if she were showing little Nan Weaver herself that indeed you could grow up and out of Hayward. And how she loved Lisa, more than any other person in her life.
Sometimes they would go for walks together, just the two of them. There wasnât anywhere to walk really, except the little park down by the reservoir where the Chicano boys hung out, playing their transistors and smoking thin black cigars. But Liberty Parkâfor all the dreams hatched thereâcould have been the Tuilleries or Tivoli Gardens. Perhaps they would go farther afield on New Yearâs, to Joaquin Miller Park or Crow Canyon. Yes, the two of them would go somewhere marvellous on New Yearâs Day.
Chapter Five
NEW YEARâS EVE ARRIVED with the kind of weather that would freeze your bonesâblack, windy and wet, dead cold. Nan was glad she had driven to campus rather than cycled. She locked up her snug little car and walked briskly to Wheeler Hall. Would Mr Johnson be on duty this evening? For his sake, she hoped not. But if he were, perhaps they could share a toast at midnight.
No, she wasnât going to get sentimental. This was just another night. The Chinese didnât celebrate new year until February for godâs sake and the Jews did it in the fall. The commercial New Yearâs Eve televised from Times Square was a perfect load of rubbish. Nan always had a terrible time on New Yearâs. First, the obligatory examination of conscience, then the list of resolutions to salve the conscience, then the drinking to swallow the resolutions. The next morning
âOh, Nan,â laughed Lisa.
Nan listened to her nieceâs clear, young laugh and could think of nothing to say. Tests, butterflies, arthritis, heart, kill, remit, wig, Lisa. Desperately she tried to fit it all together.
âNan?â
Someone was calling her name.
âYes?â she answered foggily.
âWe still have New Yearâs Day together, donât we?â asked Lisa.
âWell, love, I donât know about that,â said Nan. âI think we should listen to the doctorâs â¦â
âThe damn doctor has no idea what itâs like in this house on New Yearâs.â Lisa lowered her voice, âwith the Rose Bowl Parade and the game and the after-game replays and the boys and Daddy hollering and Debbie and Lynda yammering on about their macramé and â¦â
âEnough said,â Nan answered, pleased at the energy in Lisaâs fury. âWeâll have our day.â
Nan said goodbye. She stood up with deliberation, wiping away her selfish tears.
The friendship with Lisa had begun only a couple of years ago, when Shirley finally admitted her daughter was old enough to take the BART train out to see her aunt. Berkeley was eleven stops from South Hayward, eleven chances for murder, rape, battery. Crime was getting worse and worse in the Bay Area, despite, or perhaps because of, its Utopian reputation. And Berkeley, for heavenâs sake, was the end of the earth.
Lisa had prepared for that trip by reading two Willa Cather novels and buying a funky tie-dyed T-shirt like the ones everyone wore on Telegraph Avenue.
Nan searched now for her books and her ever-lost keys. It would be too simple to cast Shirley as the provincial mother. Nan and Lisa had an unspoken agreement not to scapegoat Shirley. But they would lobby for Lisaâs freedom.
Nan had started the lobby years ago. Lisa was just a little girl. With postcards from Holland and Morocco and the Soviet Union after she left Charles. With that birthday present atlas. With fantasies about hiking through Alaska together. Nan was conscious of being the Exotic Aunt, a strange and benevolent lady who travelled in faraway places and spoke grand ideas. She enjoyed this image, as if she were showing little Nan Weaver herself that indeed you could grow up and out of Hayward. And how she loved Lisa, more than any other person in her life.
Sometimes they would go for walks together, just the two of them. There wasnât anywhere to walk really, except the little park down by the reservoir where the Chicano boys hung out, playing their transistors and smoking thin black cigars. But Liberty Parkâfor all the dreams hatched thereâcould have been the Tuilleries or Tivoli Gardens. Perhaps they would go farther afield on New Yearâs, to Joaquin Miller Park or Crow Canyon. Yes, the two of them would go somewhere marvellous on New Yearâs Day.
Chapter Five
NEW YEARâS EVE ARRIVED with the kind of weather that would freeze your bonesâblack, windy and wet, dead cold. Nan was glad she had driven to campus rather than cycled. She locked up her snug little car and walked briskly to Wheeler Hall. Would Mr Johnson be on duty this evening? For his sake, she hoped not. But if he were, perhaps they could share a toast at midnight.
No, she wasnât going to get sentimental. This was just another night. The Chinese didnât celebrate new year until February for godâs sake and the Jews did it in the fall. The commercial New Yearâs Eve televised from Times Square was a perfect load of rubbish. Nan always had a terrible time on New Yearâs. First, the obligatory examination of conscience, then the list of resolutions to salve the conscience, then the drinking to swallow the resolutions. The next morning
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