Back Home for Christmas (Cont.)
Screen 3 of 4My pace back to our 57th Street apartment was faster and more resolute than when I came to the park. Upon entering the building, I went to the landlady's apartment and asked if I could use her phone to make a collect call to Kentucky. She agreed, and in a few minutes I was telling my mother with much excitement that I would be home for Christmas.
She was very happy with that news but interrupted me early in our conversation to say Mr. C. B. Green, Superintendent of Schools in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, had been trying to reach me by long distance telephone. "He wants you to come back there to begin teaching immediately after the holidays," she added.
After a moment of silent shock, I slowly repeated aloud what she had told me. "Begin teaching immediately after the holidays!" Then after a break, I added, "Dr. Fosdick must have been right, after all." "What did you say, Chester?" she asked. I said I would explain when I came home.
Things happened fast after that. Using some of the $15.00 weekly salary I had received the day before, I went to a nearby pay telephone and placed a call to Mr. Green in Chase City, Virginia. (He was the same superintendent I had worked under two years earlier when I taught at Oaks School.) When he said there was an opening to teach a combined fifth and sixth grade class in a consolidated school in South Hill, I said without hesitation I would take the position, not even bothering him to ask what the salary would be. He ended our short conversation by saying he would send the contract to my home in Kentucky and that I should report for duty early in January.
With all this settled, I could relax some, but not for long. I began to think again about Carol, wondering if I could find her and take her with me to Virginia. Since I had not heard from her father, I decided to call him. When I asked about Carol, his voice seemed to quiver. Then he told me almost in a whisper that he had learned something but not very much. She had registered at Curtis, he said, but that for some reason unknown to the school officials there she had simply disappeared a few days later. After that, no one had heard anything from her -- absolutely no information for more than three months. I was stunned by what he had told me, but neither of us knew anything else we could do then. I thanked Dr. Williams and hung up.
I could scarcely believe what I had just heard. It was not at all like Carol to change her plans so suddenly - without good reason. And if she had good reason for dropping out of Curtis, why had she not called her father or me and told us what she was going to do and where she was going. This line of thinking soon led me to the probability that she had been kidnapped or perhaps even murdered; but since neither the authorities at Curtis nor the Philadelphia Police had indicated to Dr. Williams that they had any evidence a crime had been committed, I soon dropped that theory. But still I worried.
The next day when I called Dr. Williams again, he mentioned that much earlier in Carol's life she had been troubled on two or three occasions with extreme amnesia, at those times remembering nothing about herself, her family, her home, or friends for extended periods. But he went on to assure me she had completely recovered from this illness and had had no recurrence of it for almost ten years. And yet we both wondered if she might have been struck again with amnesia soon after going to Philadelphia.
All this has remained a mystery ever since. As I said earlier in this story, I never again saw or heard from Carol. If her father did, I don't know. At least, he never revealed any news about her to me.
When I knew for sure I would leave New York soon, I called Mr. Carroll Sax and thanked him again for what he had done for me and asked him to convey the same message of appreciation to Mrs. McKee when he next saw her. He said he was very glad I had called, and he wished for me success in whatever I chose to do. Then he added he was sorry I was not planning to continue my career on stage. I remember well his last words, "Bob Porterfield says you have great potential as an actor."
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