“with your thumb along the side, it won’t do that.”
Beth Travis blushed, and changed her grip, and began to talk about state and federal law as it applied to the public school system. Chet found a pencil in his desk and held it like the woman had said to hold the chalk. He wondered why no one had ever showed him that in his school days.
The class took notes, and he sat in the back and listened. Beth Travis was a lawyer, it seemed. Chet’s father told jokes about lawyers, but the lawyers were never girls. The class was full of teachers, who asked things he’d never thought of, about students’ rights and parents’ rights. He’d never imagined a student had any rights. His mother had grown up in the mission school in St. Xavier, where the Indian kids were beaten for not speaking English, or for no reason. He’d been luckier. An English teacher had once struck him on the head with a dictionary, and a math teacher had splintered a yardstick on his desk. But in general they had been no trouble.
Once, Beth Travis seemed about to ask him something, but one of the teachers raised a hand, and he was saved.
At nine o’clock the class was over, and the teachers thanked Miss Travis and said she’d done well. They talked to each other about going someplace for a beer. He felt he should stay and explain himself, so he stayed in his desk. His hip was starting to stiffen from sitting so long.
Miss Travis packed up her briefcase and put on her puffy red coat, which made her look like a balloon. “Are you staying?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.” He levered himself out from behind the desk.
“Are you registered for the class?”
“No, ma’am. I just saw people coming in.”
“Are you interested in school law?”
He thought about how to answer that. “I wasn’t before tonight.”
She looked at her watch, which was thin and gold-colored. “Is there somewhere to get food?” she asked. “I have to drive back to Missoula.”
The interstate ran straight across Montana, from the edge of North Dakota, where they were, west through Billings and Bozeman and past Logan, where he had grown up, over the mountains to Missoula, near the Idaho border. “That’s an awful long drive,” he said.
She shook her head, not in disagreement but in amazement. “I took this job before I finished law school,” she said. “I wanted any job, I was so afraid of my loans coming due. I didn’t know where Glendive was. It looks like Belgrade, the word does I mean, which is closer to Missoula—I must have gotten them confused. Then I got a real job, and they’re letting me do this because they think it’s funny. But it took me nine and a half hours to get here. And now I have to drive nine and a half hours back, and I have to work in the morning. I’ve never done anything so stupid in my life.”
“I can show you where the café is,” he said.
She looked like she was wondering whether to fear him, and then she nodded. “Okay,” she said.
In the parking lot, he was self-conscious about his gait, but she didn’t seem to notice. She got into a yellow Datsun and followed his truck to the café on the main drag. He guessed she could have found it herself, but he wanted more time with her. He went in and sat opposite her in a booth. She ordered coffee and a turkey sandwich and a brownie sundae, and asked the waitress to bring it all at once. He didn’t want anything. The waitress left, and Beth Travis took off her glasses and set them on the table. She rubbed her eyes until they were red.
“Did you grow up here?” she asked. “Do you know those teachers?”
“No, ma’am.”
She put her glasses back on. “I’m only twenty-five,” she said. “Don’t call me that.”
He didn’t say anything. She was three years older than he was. Her hair in the overhead light was the color of honey. She wasn’t wearing any rings.
“Did you tell me how you ended up in that class?” she asked.
“I just saw people going in.”
She studied him and seemed to wonder again if she should be afraid. But the room was bright, and he tried to look harmless. He was harmless, he was pretty sure. Being with someone helped—he didn’t feel so wound up and restless.
“Did I make a fool of myself ?” she asked.
“No.”
“Are you going to come back?”
“When’s it next?”
“Thursday,” she said. “Every Tuesday and Thursday for nine weeks. Oh, God.” She put her hands over her eyes again. “What have I done?”
He tried to think how he could help her. He had to stay with the cows, and driving to pick her up in Missoula didn’t make any sense. It was so far away, and they’d just have to drive back again.
“I’m not signed up,” he finally said.
She shrugged. “They’re not going to check.”
Her food came, and she started on the sandwich.
“I don’t even know school law,” she said. “I’ll have to learn enough to teach every time.” She wiped a spot of mustard from her chin. “Where do you work?”
“Out on the Hayden ranch, feeding cattle. It’s just a winter job.”
“Do you want the other half of this sandwich?”
He shook his head, and she pushed the plate aside and took a bite of the melting sundae.
“I’d show you if you could stay longer,” he said.
“Show me what?”
“The ranch,” he said. “The cows.”
“I have to get back,” she said. “I have to work in the morning.”
“Sure,” he said.
She checked her watch. “Jesus, it’s quarter to ten.” She took a few quick bites of sundae and finished her coffee. “I have to go.”
He watched as the low lights of the Datsun disappeared out of town, then he drove home in the other direction. Thursday was not very far from Tuesday, and it was almost Wednesday now. He was suddenly starving, when sitting across from her he hadn’t been hungry. He wished he’d taken the other half of the sandwich, but he had been too shy.
THURSDAY NIGHT, he was at the school before anyone else, and he waited in the truck, watching. One of the teachers showed up with a key, unlocked the side door, and turned on the light. When more people had arrived, Chet went to his seat in the back of the classroom. Beth Travis came in looking tired, took off her coat, and pulled a sheaf of paper from her briefcase. She was wearing a green sweater with a turtleneck collar, jeans, and black snow boots. She walked around with the handouts and nodded to him. She looked good in jeans. “KEY SUPREME COURT DECISIONS AFFECTING SCHOOL LAW,” the handout said across the top.
The class started, and hands went up to ask questions. He sat in the back and watched, and tried to imagine his old teachers here, but he couldn’t. A man not much older than Chet asked about salary increases, and Beth Travis said she wasn’t a labor organizer, but he should talk to the union. The older women in the class laughed and teased the man about rabble-rousing. At nine o’clock the class left for beers, and he was alone again with Beth Travis.
“I have to lock up,” she said.
He had assumed, for forty-eight hours, that he would go to dinner with her, but now he didn’t know how to make that happen. He had never asked any girl anywhere. There had been girls in high school who had felt sorry for him, but he had been too shy or too proud to take advantage of it. He stood there for an awkward moment.
“Are you going to the café?” he finally asked.
“For about