to talk instead about her progress on the interpersonal front with Gerald Strait, her long-lost pharmacist, now widowed like herself, and back in the picture.
Flam returned to his studies on Monday morning with all of his previous sense of purpose and indefatigable thirst for knowledge. Although his in-class contacts with Lucy were, at first, still painful, he fought hard not to let himself be sent into tailspins of despondency and self-loathing at the very sight of her. Lucy made this easier by acting noticeably cooler towards Flam. Initially, he thought this had to do with him declaring his feelings for her. He soon realized she had become lackadaisical about her schoolwork in general, and was often visibly distracted with some weighty thoughts of her own during lectures. While she had never been stellar in her scholastic efforts, Lucy’s combination of raw practicality, strong will, and intuitive intelligence had previously allowed her to hold her own academically. She often needed help getting the gist of a topic, but she seized upon it like a pit bull once she understood, and never had to be shown twice. Now it seemed like she was sleepwalking through to the conclusion of the course.
Spring arrived, and the end of the school year was rapidly approaching. A spell of fair weather gave Flam an opportunity to take his books and join the migration of students outside into the fresh air. One day, he stumbled across a choice private spot at the back of the campus, right beside the student parking lot, where a square of hedges had been planted around a memorial to Prentice College’s World War I dead.
There was a small triangular strip between the original line of shrubbery and a new fence that had been built around the student parking lot. The grounds crew, at first unsure how to deal with the spatial oddity, had opted to cut a passage through the hedge at one end, just large enough for them to maintain a strip of grass inside the tiny secluded clearing. Flam found it hard to believe he was the only student who knew about the spot—certainly it was ideal for make-out sessions and dope smoking—but as he continued to frequent his secret enclave daily, he never once stumbled across another occupant, and was grateful for it. At that time of year, the sun penetrated into the little strip during most of the afternoon hours, and the now-venerable hedge was attended by a number of small birds who regularly serenaded Flam with their natural selection of songs.
So well-concealed was anyone sitting or lying down in the secret spot, that on many occasions Flam had been able to eavesdrop on private conversations emanating either from the lawn in front of him or from the parking lot behind the fence.
Most of the time, he made a concentrated effort to ignore the voices. He would roll over and focus doggedly on his studies or his newly resumed explorations into the history and philosophy of death. On one day, during the first week of exams, however, with the spring sunshine trying hard to persuade him to nap, and an exquisitely dull accounting textbook acting as co-conspirator, Flam was stirred from his semi-somnolent state by a loud, familiar voice coming from the parking lot.
“I don’t give a shit what he thinks,” the speaker protested loudly. Flam recognized him immediately as Nolan Paine . . . but the real shocker came a second later.
“I don’t want to start a fight between you and your father,” came a response, and Flam’s jaw dropped when he realized the voice was Lucy’s. He rolled over and stuck his eye to a seam in the fence boards to see if he could discern anything. There was just enough separation to allow him to make out a red BMW Boxster convertible with its top down. His two classmates were seated in the front with their foreheads almost touching. Lucy’s immaculate hair was backlit by the sun, and to Flam’s eyes she had never looked more stunning. They must have just parked here, he surmised, and his heart started to pound wildly when the pieces clicked into place, and he realized Nolan Paine must be the very boyfriend Lucy had talked about.
Flam was staggered. In his imagination, the man who had been able to steal away the heart of his precious Lucy would have to be, by definition, someone extraordinary—tall, muscular, a veritable demigod, but with charm, wit, intelligence, and sensitivity. Not that Paine was necessarily unattractive, and he was further blessed with all the benefits of the best grooming money could buy, but he was mean spirited, self-centred, not to mention a bully and a braggart. Surely Lucy, who could have practically any man she wanted, and like all the members of the class, had been subjected to daily doses of Paine, could not possibly be attracted to someone like that.
“The hell with my father,” Paine was saying. “I’m of age now, and if I want to get married, I’ll damned well get married. I say we do it right after exams.”
Lucy reached over and embraced Paine, pressing her lips against his in a prolonged kiss, then pulling his head down to allow him to explore the splendours of her neckline. As he did so, she looked right past her paramour and off into space. For a second, Flam was convinced she was staring right at him through the crack in the fence. He held his breath and contemplated bolting, but after a second or two, it became evident she was in fact lost somewhere in her own private thoughts.
“I love you so much, Lucy,” Paine was whimpering, “I don’t care if he cuts me off without a penny. You’re all I want.”
Lucy pulled up his chin and gazed into his eyes. “You know I love you too, Nolan. I’d marry you today, but let’s not be impulsive. Your father hasn’t even met me . . . I’m sure once he gets to know me he’ll see I’m perfect for you. Besides, we’ll have all summer to work on him.”
“Okay, but I’m going to buy you the biggest engagement ring Prentice College has ever seen,” Nolan asserted. “That way he’ll know we’re serious.”
That earned another passionate kiss from Lucy. “Oh, sweetheart,” she cooed, “how did I ever get so lucky?”
“Are you sure I’m the one you really want?” Nolan quipped, “I bet you Grub would walk on hot coals for you . . . and write your exam for you too.”
She feigned anger and punched him on the bicep. “Stop it,” she scolded. “I’ve told you we were just friends.”
“Are you kidding? You had him totally Flambéed. The poor guy couldn’t take his eyes off you. Of course, who can blame him?”
Her mood darkened. “I think I really hurt him, but I didn’t expect him to fall for me that hard.” She seemed to be pondering recent events for a bit, and then exclaimed, “My God! Can you imagine being called Mrs. Flam Grub?”
Paine exploded in a huge hyena laugh and Lucy, unable to resist, joined him with her own birdlike titters.
In his hidden spot, Flam was turning red with anger as their laughter seared him. He fantasized about leaping over the fence and pummelling the pair of them, but as always, he stayed meekly and mutely in hiding. He was still sitting there, shaking, after they’d raised the convertible’s top and headed off, hand in hand, into the college. It was the same old story, the same ridicule he’d always encountered, Flam fumed, and his reviled name, as always, at the core of it.
For a brief minute the old dark thoughts came flooding back: quit . . . run away . . . kill yourself! He closed his eyes and fought hard for control, and then a thought crossed his mind—a bittersweet musing with the weightless grace of a bird, and yet the crushing mass of inexorable truth.
Opening his eyes, he glanced at his watch to gauge the time left before his exam, then reached into his binder. Instead of pulling out his school notes, however, Flam tore out a blank sheet of paper. Angrily he jotted down a short, dark poem, which railed against the cruelty of the world to the misfortunate everyman. While not completely satisfying, the exercise had a sufficiently therapeutic effect to enable Flam to pick himself up and get on with life’s business.
Chapter 9
The optimism and bright certainty that had led Flam to Prentice College slowly began to dim as he wrote the last of his exams and faced graduation. Only a handful of funeral home positions found their way onto the college’s Placement Office job board, and competition for those proved fierce, especially for the outclassed Flam.
Despite his peerless book smarts, the introverted Flam was a veritable dunce when it came to dealings in the real world, from which he had spent so much of his life hiding. He certainly