Free How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Gillian Roberts Page B

was too short. Sigourney Weaver was the right size, but insufficiently wacky….
    There had to be something more profitable to do with my time than casting the film of my friend’s worst moments. I thought about Dunstan—or was it Edgar—and I checked the clock. It was early morning in Trueheart, Wisconsin, and most public schools, unlike their private cousins, were still in session.
    After several conversations with robots who knew phone numbers, I reached an actual human being, who identified herself, rather merrily, as “School office, Jean speaking.”
    I was immediately suspicious. Not only did she not sound computerized, she also did not sound angry, grudging, or particularly wary. My experience with the guardians of attendance records and supply cabinets had not prepared me for civility. Maybe it was true what they said about the Midwest’s friendliness.
    The unexpected cordiality made me stumble and stammer. “This is—I’m—This is so embarrassing!” I squealed. “I’m with Photos R Us here in New York. We’re a clearinghouse, you know, and—”
    “ Just one moment! With whom am I speaking?” So much for geographical differences. All school secretaries are sisters under the skin. They don’t burn out the way teachers do; they calcify.
    “My name?” I decided to tell the truth. “Mandy Pep—” But why tell the truth about that when I was lying about the rest of the call? “—salt.” I never claimed to have much imagination.
    “Mandy Pepsalt?”
    “Right. So this man sent us photographs of Trueheart. Absolutely brilliant , and we want to hire him and use them for syndication, you know? Except—this is the humiliating part. Someone who shall remain nameless spilled her coffee all over the cover page, and the man had written in ink, and his address just floated off in a mess of coffee. We are beside ourselves here.”
    “I’m quite busy, Miss Pepsalt, and I can’t really follow why you’re calling me from New York.”
    “Because he’s one of your graduates. Grew up out there. His pictures are a photo essay called ‘Hometown,’ and I’m hoping against hope that you keep up-to-date alumni records and that you’ll know how we can contact him. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what year he graduated because the, ah—”
    “Coffee?” Her tone was disdainful. She would never spill her coffee on an important document. She would never ingest anything spillable around an important document.
    Dunstan had looked in his forties. “I think I see a six in that blur,” I said. “So he graduated mid- to late sixties, I suspect. I must assure you this has never, ever happened before. I don’t want you thinking we are anything less than meticulous in our care for our clients’ portfolios.”
    “Miss Pepsalt! This is a small high school. I’m the entire clerical staff. If students contact me, fine. If they come in and visit me, fine. But this isn’t like a college that has a regular alumni news. If you knew his exact year—”
    “Oh, if I had only taken proper precautions with my coffee! There! Now you know who the clumsy culprit is. Can’t you help me?”
    “—and if that class had a reunion lately, the chairman of the event might have traced the man. That’s who does that kind of thing, calling parents and last known addresses and asking other people for information. I certainly can’t. I’m too busy with the current crop of students to bother with somebody who was here a quarter of a century ago!”
    Now she sounded like a school secretary. It simply took longer to get up to speed in the Midwest.
    “I know the ones who come say hello,” she said, “bring in their children and, a few times now, their grandchildren. But the others, no, so if that’s all you—”
    “It sounds as if you’ve been there awhile. Perhaps you’d remember this man.”
    “Only if he was exceptional. Good or bad. If I had to order engraved awards or trophies for him—or put him on the detention