“Resolve this myself? How do you expect me to do that?”
He leaned back on his heels. “From what I hear, that’s how Swithin works. Plenty of unsavory things are done on behalf of the school’s reputation. This isn’t the first time your family has had … issues. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to do a bit of reconnaissance on some assaults on your family’s character.”
She looked away. Your grandfather wasn’t the messiah you think he was, she heard her mother say. She wanted to smack Michael Tayson. She wanted to take his glasses off his squashed little face and smash them between her palms. “So people said things about my grandfather,” she spat through her teeth. “What you forget is what he did for Swithin. It wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. Nothing would be here—certainly not you. You wouldn’t have a job.”
Tayson cleared his throat. His cheeks bulged slightly, as if he’d swallowed something unpleasant. “No. I wasn’t talking about that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your husband,” he stated, uncertainly. “And … well, the things people said about the girl.”
She stared at him. The girl. In the other room someone let out a raucous laugh.
Michael Tayson paled. He placed a palm on his chest. “Oh dear, the board said you were aware of it. They said you knew that they struggled to keep it hushed up. It was a while ago, after all.”
Sylvie pressed her hands to the side of her face. “Of course I’m aware,” she sputtered, for she could never give him the satisfaction of knowing something she didn’t. Her mind scrambled for footing where there was none. What had the board kept from her? What didn’t she know? Who was the girl?
When she looked at Michael, there was a sickening smile on his face. He knew she didn’t know. He knew every inch of her ignorance.
People swam past, their smiles craggy and warped. A woman’s perfume smelled like sewage to Sylvie. Sylvie fought to remain on her feet. The girl. She was waiting for Michael Tayson to relax and touch her arm and tell her that, “Jesus, Mrs. Bates-McAllister, I’m kidding. I’m kidding about all of it, about Scott, about the hazing, about you having to leave. They would never do that to you, it’s you, your family is practically royalty, this has nothing to do with you, and it’s not even true, anyway. And goodness, the thing with the girl—I’m sorry. There was never a girl. It was a joke, but a mean one. Maybe too mean.”
It was coming, wasn’t it? It was coming. It had to be.
But Michael Tayson didn’t move. His lips were still small, his forehead was still creased, his face was still so serious. Sylvie’s throat felt stuffed with cotton. She thought of the pictures her grandfather had showed her of the school after the fire, the black scaffolding, the pile of rubble that remained. Please don’t let me go, Sylvie had imagined the school crying out, its face crumbling away. Please help me.
Michael Tayson’s eyes were now full of pity. “I really didn’t want to talk about this here. I didn’t want to ruin this night. But you should know what they’re saying. You would probably have the same concerns if you were in their position, don’t you think?” He patted her arm. “Maybe we won’t even have to face any of this. Let’s hope it just … goes away. We’re all on your side, Sylvie.”
Sylvie. How fast the power could shift. He hadn’t even asked, May I call you Sylvie, Mrs. Bates-McAllister? He just went ahead and called her whatever he wanted.
It took every ounce of self-control to smile. She took a deep breath and reached for her cocktail, which she’d set on a small table next to the new painting. Three-quarters of the drink was left; it burned her throat going down. She wanted more; her stomach felt like a vast, bottomless bowl.
Michael Tayson watched her, his eyes wide. He was looking at her in that wary way all men looked at unpredictable, emotional women. The same way her father looked at her mother before she said something brash and irrational, the same way James looked at Sylvie in this very house the night before he died, saying, Don’t turn this into an argument about that.
The girl. It had been a girl? A teacher? A student? The word meant too many things.
Tayson’s ice clinked in his empty glass. If it were her grandfather standing here in Sylvie’s place, Sylvie knew just what he would do. Even if someone had just told him all this, he’d take his guest’s glass and say, Can I refresh that for you? In her grandfather’s world, etiquette won the day. Manners were worth their weight in gold.
But Sylvie wasn’t her grandfather. She set her empty glass on the sideboard where it would leave a watermark. Then she turned around abruptly and walked out without even saying good-bye.