The Gifted School

by Bruce Holsinger

A few plays later Zeke, dribbling up the middle, came right at Charlie and juked him badly, throwing him so far off-balance Charlie fell to the turf. Cheers from the opposing parents, even Charlie’s teammates oohing and aahing at the sneaky move.

  Beck palmed his face. When he looked through his fingers, Charlie was still on the ground. Not hurt but angry, like when Beck whipped him at Ping-Pong or Aidan changed the TV channel without asking.

  Charlie stood and brushed off his shorts. He took a hard pass from Bucky but received it with a poor first touch. The ball caromed off his foot into Zeke’s stomach. The big kid gutted it to the turf and spun away, dribbling up the field.

  This time Charlie didn’t even try to defend. Instead he left his position and sprinted up behind Zeke, taking a slight off angle. As Zeke neared the goal Charlie slid into his ankles from behind with both cleats up. Zeke’s right knee buckled and he sprawled forward, landing on his stomach in the middle of the pitch, five feet from the goal line.

  Someone screamed. The whistle blew. Grand Junction parents and teammates leapt from their chairs, hollered for blood.

  “Referee!”

  “PK!”

  “Sir!”

  “Red card!”

  “What’s wrong with that kid?”

  “PK!”

  The whistle blew again, three swift shrills as the ref ran over and pulled out a red card, separating Charlie from Zeke’s advancing teammates. He held the card stiffly aloft as Charlie marched off the pitch, kicking up turf beads as he went.

  Through all of this Beck had watched, stunned, horrified at the sight of his son running so far just to take out an opposing player in such a gratuitous way. It was the dirtiest thing Charlie had ever done on a soccer field.

  The trainer and the coach jogged on to help Zeke, but the kid popped right up, uninjured, and took the crowd’s raucous applause with casual cool. His teammates pushed him toward the spot. Zeke sank the penalty kick and Grand Junction went up 2–1.

  As the CSOC kids trudged up to midfield for kickoff Beck stood bleak and helpless, watching his son getting chewed out by his coach on the opposite sideline. When Charlie collapsed on the bench, a big Grand Junction mom standing just down from Beck stepped onto the field and let out an approving holler.

  “Now keep that little thug off the pitch!”

  The world went red. Beck took three giant steps until he was in the woman’s face. “What the fuck did you just say?”

  He pushed her shoulder. She staggered back a step.

  “Whoa, now.” Her husband stood with his hands apart.

  But Beck kept going at her. “You do not talk about my son that way, you fucking sow, you white trash—”

  “Whoa now.” Another Junction dad came forward. Two other men jumped up, and things were about to get really bad when someone grabbed him from behind.

  “Hey hey hey hey hey.”

  Huge arms pinned Beck’s elbows to his ribs, lifting and spinning him away. Wade Meltzer had Beck off his feet in a bear hug and crushed out his breath. The man turned him aside and wrestle-dragged him away from the pitch as the opposing parents taunted him.

  “Freak.”

  “Chubby hippie.”

  “Snowflake.”

  Wade spoke gruffly in his ear while backing him off. “Hey now, Beck, hey now hey now, big fella, let’s just step over here for a minute and calm down, shall we? Come on now, Beck. Deep breath.”

  His heart was beating wildly, his breaths coming ragged and short. Finally he managed a deeper inhale. Wade loosened his grip.

  “Christ,” Beck said. Palming his cheeks, covering his eyes. “I don’t know—goddamn, I don’t know what that was—what came over me.”

  Wade was in his face. “Yeah, well, that lady could charge you with assault, you know that?”

  “Assault? I just pushed her.”

  “Which is a class one misdemeanor in Colorado, you dumbass, even if she ain’t hurt.” Wade squatted down like an angry coach, so he could see Beck’s face. “Now listen the fuck up. Words are one thing. But you can’t go at somebody like that, you hear? You could be in deep shit.”

  “I know, I know.”

  Wade put up a warning finger. “You stay over here. You don’t go back to the sideline, you don’t come within a fuckin’ mile of that game, you hear? You stay right here by the cars.”

  Beck nodded.

  “I’m going to walk over there and talk to that nice lady, see if I can get her in a nonlitigious frame of mind. Capiche?”

  Beck nodded again.

  Wade barreled back toward the field. A Grand Junction dad tried to block his way, but Wade held his palms open, then shook the guy’s hand. Beck heard him speaking with the offended woman and the men who’d stood up for her, calming everyone with his charm and cheer. Soon there were even some relieved chuckles from the opposing parents as the game resumed.

  Easy for them to laugh, Beck thought grimly. They’re winning the goddamn game.

  He looked over at the far sideline. Charlie was slouched on the end of the bench. A wide gap separated him from his teammates. Even from the edge of the parking lot Beck could see the misery on his son’s reddened face. Humiliated on the pitch, mortified by his father’s behavior.

  Down along the near sideline some CSOC parents whispered and sneered. Amy Susskin stood at the center of the group, arms folded, penciled eyebrows working the other moms. Beck knew what they were thinking. Wasn’t my kid who flattened the other team’s star. Wasn’t my kid who got a red card and forced the team to play out the rest of the game one man down. Wasn’t my psycho husband who went after another parent like that.

  Soon the final whistle blew. The opponents and their parents erupted in cheers, hard-edged and righteous. Reveling in the win over CSOC, that dirty striker, and his batshit dad.

  * * *

  —

  After the game Charlie made a beeline for the Audi, but Aidan wouldn’t even glance Beck’s way. A text dinged in from Wade offering to take Aidan to the team lunch and bring him home later. Beck looked up and gave the man a nod and a weak wave.

  Charlie took shotgun, complaining of a stomachache. In the car, creeping along, snaking from the crowded parking lot to the road, Beck reached over to squeeze his son’s knee. Charlie flinched at his touch and pulled away, huddling against the door.

  “Look,” said Beck. “The whole thing was tough. It was really intense and I overreacted. And everybody makes mistakes. I mean, don’t get me wrong. That was a big one, to take out a kid like that. But you’re an amazing player and I’m really proud of you.”

  The words felt pale and mealy coming from his mouth. Charlie didn’t respond, and the truth was, Beck wasn’t proud of his son, and he was even less proud of himself. He had never felt more ashamed.

  * * *

  —

  Hours later they topped the final rise of highway. Bear Mesa, an elevated butte with a panoramic view down over springtime in the valley, everything in bloom. Easy to feel like you owned a wedge of heaven living in Crystal, they said, but Beck was starting to hate the place. Monochrome suburbs, sprawling trailer parks tucked away on side roads and hidden from the gleam, sad old Birkenstocked potheads and self-publishing poets longing for the days when the town was dodgy and weird. To Beck, now, the place seemed almost bleak, the sun too harsh and close. He wondered sometimes if a wetter city might better suit the next, gloomier phase of his midlife. Tacoma, maybe. Or Portland, Maine. Someplace less intense, less soul sucking. A city closer to the sea.

  A boyish grunt to his right. He glanced over at Charlie. His son’s eyes were just fluttering open after a long postgame snooze. “Bounced check for your thoughts.”

  Charlie frowned. “Huh?”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  His son stayed silent. The kid was growing so fast, but Christ he looke
d young right now, more seven than eleven.

  “You can say it, man. You can say anything to your old dad. That was messed up back there, what I did. Let me have it.” Beck set a wrist on the wheel, shepherding them down from the butte.

  “Okay, I have a question.”

  “Shoot.” Beck sat up in his seat, hoping for a heart-to-heart.

  “You won’t like it.”

  “Try me,” Beck said, feeling on the verge of something.

  Charlie uncrossed his arms. He turned to watch Beck’s face. “Are we getting a divorce again?”

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  ROSE

  On Thursday Rose left the lab at six, reluctantly, and stopped off to pick up a pizza on the way home. Emma Q’s violin lesson had been rescheduled, Gareth hadn’t had time to run to the store, and though Rose would have preferred a healthier alternative, the truth was, she needed comfort food right now. She still hadn’t told her lab staff that the dean had pulled support for the grant. Without the infusion of new funding, half of her postdocs were facing the prospect of unemployment in the not-so-distant future.

  At the Sarnelli counter she put in her order, and after the clerk rang her up, she stepped aside to wait, glancing idly outside. The windows faced the wide patio beneath a yellow awning curved to match the mounded hills to the west. She looked more closely. Azra and Glen were eating at one of the larger round tables. Rose hadn’t noticed them on her way in.

  She waved but Azra didn’t see her through the rippled glare on the window. Rose tilted her head to look around the back of a sign taped to the glass and saw Xander, sitting next to Aidan and across from his sister. Tessa was talking animatedly with another girl about her age, a young black woman Rose didn’t recognize; Glen’s daughter, she guessed. There was no sign of Lauren.

  When Rose went outside to wait for the pizza Azra’s face lit up, and she moved over to make room on her chair. Glen looked up from a deck of cards he’d been using to show magic tricks to the boys. For a few minutes they traded med center news. Rose got to confirm a rumor she’d heard about his elevation to the chairmanship of the department of radiology, a major promotion. He asked about her lab. She complained about some minor personnel issues, saying nothing about her lost opportunity for the NIH grant. Glen and Azra exchanged fond looks as the three of them chatted, the couple’s fingers flitting back and forth to touch across the table.

  The girl talking to Tessa was Glen’s daughter, Kiana, a round-faced beauty with a ring around every finger, including her thumbs.

  “You’re a junior too?” Rose asked her.

  “Senior, at St. Bridget’s,” said Kiana.

  “She’s heading to Oberlin in the fall.” Azra sounded sweetly proud of her boyfriend’s daughter. “I thought those two might hit it off, so I asked these guys to come along. Lauren had a little crisis at work, so.”

  As Glen and the boys went back to their cards, Rose looked around at the happy intertwinement of kids, young adults, grown-ups out for pizza; members of three families, a fresh combination. As she listened to the babbling around the table an unwelcome possessiveness reminded her of another recent moment of friend envy: Azra’s surprise appearance with Glen and the Zellars at the dean’s party. Things were already difficult with Samantha; now alternative friendships were sprouting everywhere, none of them including Rose, let alone Gareth.

  “Where’s Charlie?” Rose asked foolishly. A wounding thing to say, and she instantly regretted it.

  “He’s at a friend’s in Denver for a sleepover,” Azra said softly, “this kid from St. Bridget’s. It’s a three-day weekend and we’re shaking things up, trying to separate them some, give them more one-on-one?” Her eyes started to water. “Dr. Dan’s suggestion.”

  “Oh god, right,” said Rose, feeling small. “That makes sense.”

  “Therapy. It’s good, actually. Not just for the boys.”

  “Tell me.”

  Azra was staring at her wineglass. “I’m having a hard time, Rose. I swear I’ve never been this worried about Charlie, and so I haven’t even been thinking about myself, just them. And Dr. Dan asked me some questions the other day that really . . .” Her eyes came up and the golden haloes around their middles contracted.

  “What were they?” said Rose. “Can you say?”

  Azra, rotating away from the kids, told her about Beck. His worsening money troubles, his unkempt appearance and erratic behavior, the chaotic state of his household. Sonja, she said, was on the verge of leaving him just as Azra had, and what would that do to the twins?

  Their exchange was hurried and hushed beneath the din, but Rose hadn’t talked to Azra like this in weeks, and despite the subject she was almost giddy to feel their familiar closeness. Azra was talking about an unpaid tuition bill she’d received a few days before when the girls laughed loudly about something.

  “No, but seriously?” Kiana said. “I could totally see you there. I mean yeah, it’s, like, Ohio, but you should visit me in the fall.”

  Tessa glowed with the compliment. “I doubt I could get in,” she said.

  “Of course you could, sweetie.” Azra turned away from Rose and reached out to pat Tessa’s arm. “With your crazy designs, those clothes you make?” She looked back at Rose. “Tessa’s putting together her own clothing line at BloomAgain. She’s the next Coco Chanel. Plus, did you hear what she got on the CogPro?”

  “You took the CogPro?” Rose asked Tessa. “I thought your mom—”

  “Oh, she had no idea,” Tessa said with a light and careless laugh. “She does now, though, thanks to my little brother.”

  Xander turned and gave Rose one of his weird smiles.

  “And you know my mom,” Tessa said. “As soon as she found out I kicked ass on an IQ test, she took all the credit. Now we’re best buds, at least for now.”

  “Well, I think you’re the bomb, girlfriend,” Azra said, trying too hard to sound young and coming across, to Rose’s ear, as goofy and insincere. But Kiana laughed and said, “To TessaRacks!”—whatever that meant—raised her bottle of cream soda, and clanked it against Azra’s wineglass and her father’s Peroni and Tessa’s lemonade, and then the boys joined in with their lemonades, and Rose, unbeveraged, had to watch all of them toast while she sat simmering in her dark thoughts.

  * * *

  —

  When she walked into the kitchen with the pizza box she could feel it instantly. See it in the set of her husband’s weak chin, in the red rims around Q’s little eyes. Something off.

  “What’s the matter, you guys?”

  Her husband and daughter exchanged looks.

  “Mommy—I saw something,” Emma said.

  Rose set the pizza down on the kitchen table and sat between them. “What did you see, sweetheart?”

  “Z sent it to me. She got it from a group text that I wasn’t on. Rich kids from St. Bridget’s.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s—about Mr. Unsworth.”

  “About Beck?” She recalled Azra’s worry just now. What could the kids at the twins’ school possibly be saying about Beck? Had there been an incident, some erratic behavior on his part? An accident?

  “Q, why don’t you go on up to your room,” Gareth said. “I’ll show your mom what you saw.”

  “Okay.” Q slid off her chair and scuttled upstairs.

  Gareth opened his laptop.

  * * *

  —

  Beck told me all about this when we were having a drink,” he said five minutes later. He explained Beck’s version of what had happened in the Jacuzzi: hot-tubbing nude and alone, Tessa coming out topless, the two of them sharing a joint.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” Rose demanded. “It’s really alarming.” By now she was busily panic-scrolling through Tessa’s vlogs, dozens of them, watching short fragments as her mind detonated with the implications. S
ome of the videos had been shot in Tessa’s bedroom, but others took place at Azra’s store, at Azra’s house, at Beck and Sonja’s, at Twenty Birch, some of them in this very kitchen. God knew what was in them, what words and moments they exposed. Views were accumulating on Tessa’s videos even as Rose scrolled up and down.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she repeated.

  He shrugged helplessly. “So what’s the right call here? Do we talk to Lauren? Because she hates Beck. The first thing she’d probably do is call the damn police. And from what I can tell Beck didn’t really do anything wrong.”

  “Of course he did,” Rose snapped. “He smoked pot with a teenage girl and sat in that hot tub naked with her. It’s disgusting. Anything could have happened.”

  “But that was just Beck being Beck, moronic and bro. I mean, come on, there’s no major crime on that video.”

  She wanted to disagree, but Gareth’s predictably rational assessment rang true. Rose had known Beck for more than ten years, saw him as much an ersatz father to Tessa as any of the men in their group. Despite his slobby cluelessness at times, she couldn’t see him making an actual move in such a situation.

  Still, the contents of the video needed to be thought through. What would Rose want to happen if Gareth ever acted as Beck had? Would she want to hear about it from a third party, with all the sticky suspicion this might provoke? Or—if nothing untoward had happened—would she want it to disappear without her knowledge?

  Either way they couldn’t keep this to themselves. If a bunch of fifth graders were already sharing Tessa’s vlogs in texts and social media, it was only a matter of time before Azra and Beck saw them too—if they hadn’t already.

  She picked up her cell and called Azra. Her phone went to voice mail. Rose saw again the happy group at Sarnelli’s, babbling around the table. For a painful moment after the beep she hesitated, then said, “Sweetie, call me, okay? There’s something you need to see.”