Croft drove me to school the next morning, as always. Ralston Academy was located halfway between Marblehead and Swampscott, the next town down the Massachusetts coast. Housed in an ancient mansion whose better days had departed forever in the late nineteenth century, it was now a school for two hundred or so boys.
“Croft?” I asked.
“Jack?” he responded. I shook my head, smiling. Croft had taken care of me since I was a baby, my mother having passed away shortly before I turned two. He was an incorrigible joker, a manic cleaner, an incredible cook, and probably the sole reason I had grown up in a relatively sane environment, since my father managed to stay in Marblehead for only a month or two each year.
“Did you know Professor Schnabel’s wife?”
“Uh, huh. Nice woman.” I waited for more, but Croft was concentrating on keeping the Audi perfectly positioned in his lane of the winding road that ran along the coast.
“Did she have dark hair, maybe pulled back in a bun of some sort?”
Croft shook his head. “Nope. She was gray when I met her, but blond before.” He looked over at me. “Why do you ask, Jack?”
I shook my own head. “No reason. Just curious.”
He turned into the wide, semi-circular driveway that led to the academy’s main doors. “Fall Formal! Friday, November 22nd!” blared a gaudy red and yellow banner hung from a pretentious, crenellated tower. I rolled my eyes. School functions bit.
Croft pulled smoothly to a stop. “Three forty-five?”
“Check,” I responded, jumping out.
“Hey, Jack.”
“Yeah?” I leaned over.
“Was that why you turned yourself into an icicle yesterday? To ask the professor if his wife had dark hair?”
I stared at him. I’d told him I was going to Paulie’s; I hadn’t known he’d observed me sitting on the professor’s doorstep. “I…”
“Uh, uh,” he returned, grinning. “Think of a better one, tell me at three forty-five!” I closed the door as he drove off chuckling, and then I strode up a set of wide marble steps to suffer through another long day of educational purgatory.