by Lea Geller
“Sir, we really didn’t mean to get her. It was an accident.” Art looked at Gavin pleadingly.
“Sure. An accident,” Gavin sneered.
“Really, sir,” Caleb added, nervously running his hands through his hair. “We didn’t know she was here. We were just playing around.”
“You can tell me more about this little accident of yours,” he said, looking at Caleb and Art, “when you’re in my office, which is where you’ll be spending some time.” He stood right in front of us, his feet spread wide, his arms crossed against his chest.
“Really, Gavin,” I said, smiling as sweetly as I could. “It was an accident. I kind of snuck up on them.” I laughed nervously, shuffling toward the boys.
Gavin looked me up and down. “Agnes, remember,” he said, “don’t be fooled. Fools don’t last here.” He raised his eyebrows. “Got it?”
I thought about my days of off-brand cereal. I thought about marking down all my expenses in a little notebook, just to make sure I had enough money each month. I thought about Don’s instructions—“Stay there and do your job.” I thought about Grace. I had to do this for her. Gavin stared at me, waiting for a response.
“Got it, Gavin,” I said, my stomach sinking.
“I thought so,” he said. Then he altered his tone and spoke loud enough for all the boys in the hall to hear.
“You are not their friend, Agnes,” he said. “Friends can’t take away recess. For a week.” The boys groaned.
I nodded dumbly, unable to look at the boys. I should have stood up for them, but all I could do was nod at Gavin.
“It’s good to have you on the team, on my team,” he said. “Right?”
“Right,” I mumbled, giving him the best conspiratorial smile I could muster. I needed this job and this place to live. I just wished I could have needed them out of earshot of the boys.
-13-
October began much the way September ended. The air was crisper, less sticky. The bugs had migrated somewhere else. I turned off the air-conditioning units and opened some windows. When I saw a mouse under the dining room table, I closed the windows again. I heard Stacey Figg’s words in my head: mouse population. This mouse was tiny, too small to be anything other than a baby. Some mother mouse’s baby. I shuddered when I thought of the mouse mother, with whom I was presumably sharing the town house. If I was going to get rid of these mice, I needed something stronger than Windex. The local supermarket, which still seemed to only carry one of everything, had a solitary glue trap on its sad shelf. I ran into Ella, an eighth-grade social studies teacher and a day-care mom, who had given me the gum on my second day, and whose son, Jake, was in Grace’s group.
“Please tell me there are other shopping options,” I said, hoping she didn’t spot the trap in my cart.
“Sadly, this is it,” she said. “Sometimes we make a group trip to Costco, if you’re interested.” For a moment I thought about all the veggie puffs one could get at Costco. “I’ve gotta run, though,” she continued. “My nine-year-old has lice, and I came here for the mayonnaise.” I was too afraid to ask questions, but my head started to itch uncontrollably. Ella walked off, and I realized it had been weeks since I’d had a real conversation with another adult, let alone another mom.
While Grace and I were standing at the checkout, I heard someone call my name. A woman.
“Agnes?”
I turned around and saw Ruth Moore. She was wearing makeup and a navy skirt suit with matching heels. She looked like a flight attendant.
“Hi,” I said, trying to stand in front of the mousetrap. She looked over my head and scanned the conveyor belt.
“Oh no! You have mice?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, I have a mouse. I’d like to think she’s living alone.”
“They never are.” Ruth smiled. “I’ll send someone to have a look around.”
“Thanks,” I said. “That would be great.”
“How are you settling in?” she asked, putting some chicken cutlets on the belt.
I thought about Jack’s instructions and wondered if I should be asking Ruth questions, but I had no idea what to ask. I couldn’t turn to Jack, because I’d been checking daily and both he and his voice mail were still unavailable. I also didn’t know how much Ruth knew about my situation, and I didn’t want to talk about it. I moved quickly to the cashier and handed her money for the trap.
“Oh, fine,” I said.
“Really?” she asked, reaching into her own cart but still looking at me.
“Yes,” I said, not convincing anyone.
“Well, if you need anything at all, you can come to me. Jack and I are old friends. I’ve been cleaning up after his messes since before you were born.”
My face flushed, and the metallic taste in my mouth returned. “It’s late,” I stuttered, quickly bagging the trap and waiting for change. “I have to get Grace home for dinner, but it was good seeing you.” I forced a smile, praying this was the end of the conversation.
“You too, Agnes. And I’ll see what I can do about your rodent friend.”
That night, I put the trap under the table when Grace went to sleep. She was about to start crawling, I was sure of it. I’d lie on the floor, watching her push up to her hands and knees and rock back and forth, preparing to launch. I didn’t need her launching straight into the glue trap.
As I took the trap out of its plastic wrapping, I thought about seeing Ruth in the supermarket. Instead of getting information or answers from her, I only seemed to have more questions. How much did she know about Jack? What other messes were there, and why would Ruth be involved with Jack if she knew about them? Why didn’t I know about them? Just thinking about it all was exhausting, and I was bone tired. I shrugged off my questions and set the trap.
Stacey Figg showed up one morning with some bait boxes.
“These are the best,” she said. “They wander into the box and can’t get out.”
“How did you know I saw a mouse?” I asked.
“Oh, I heard you yelling,” she said. I wondered what else she’d heard. I prayed I hadn’t also been shouting in my sleep.
“What happens to them inside the box?”
“Same as the glue traps. You just wait for them to die, but with the box you don’t have to see it happening,” she said. “Or you call me and I can help you drown them.”
It took all I had not to throw up on poor Stacey Figg and her bait boxes.
“Want me to make breakfast?” she asked. “I’m already dressed and ready.” She held out her arms to show me. She was wearing another wrap dress. This one was purple.
“Sure,” I said hesitantly. As much as I relished the mornings with Grace, because she was the easiest right when she woke up, it was good to have help with her while I got myself ready. It would be even better to eat something for breakfast that was not in bar form or mixed with rice cereal.
“Why don’t you go up and get dressed and I’ll take over down here,” she said, walking in and heading back to the kitchen. “Looks like you’ve unpacked,” she said. “Does this mean your husband is coming?”
I pretended not to hear and walked up to my room. When I came down, Stacey Figg had proudly scrambled some eggs. She slid a plate toward me.
“So what was breakfast like in California?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“Oh, I dunno. What did you eat for breakfast?” I did not want to talk about California. I especially did not want to talk about California with Stacey Figg.
“My mother was a great cook,” she said, not waiting for an answer. “Breakfast was her specialty, and she taught me everything she knew. My eggs are pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. But back to you, Aggie. I want to know about your life before you got here.”
“There’s nothing to know.” It sounded like Stacey Figg didn’t have a mother anymore, either. I could have asked her about it, but she didn’t want to talk about herself, and neither did I. I put my head down and ate quickly,
only stopping to chatter to Grace, then hustled the three of us out the door.
Stacey’s eggs were good. Later that day, I realized that she must have come over with the eggs in her pocket, because I didn’t remember buying any.
I was starting to feel a little safer. I still locked and unlocked the door and checked the windows every night, but it was more out of habit. Perhaps after Don’s one hundredth text telling me You’re safe, it was finally sinking in.
I wanted to talk to Don about my encounter in the supermarket with Ruth earlier that week, so I sat on the brown couch and called him.
“I saw Ruth in the supermarket,” I said, not bothering with pleasantries I knew mattered nothing to Don.
“OK . . .”
“And she told me she’s been cleaning up Jack’s messes for years.” I waited for him to say something. He didn’t. “What did she mean by that?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Don said. “Besides, you’re the one supposed to be gathering information. Remember?”
“Well, there’s not much to gather. Sure, this place is kind of old, maybe even a little run-down, but I don’t have much more than that. It’s not like I can ask Ruth Moore how the school is doing financially or why she pulled her money out of Jack’s fund.”
“Listen, Agnes, you’re more helpful than you think. Sometimes you hear something that seems unimportant, but it isn’t at all. Just keep your ears open.”
For old times’ sake, I had to ask him. “And I’m safe, right . . . ?”
“Yes, you’re safe.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
I actually had a more immediate problem than my safety: I was having real trouble figuring out what to wear. On a sunny, crisp Sunday morning, I bagged up all my beach couture, all my high-end Santa Monica boutique wear, and took it into a consignment store in the neighborhood. I was terrified to drive in the Bronx. Cars seemed to drive on top of each other, right up against each other, swallowing up all personal space and honking in protest if some unspoken rules were broken. So instead of driving, I loaded up Grace’s stroller, put her in a carrier, and walked fifteen blocks.
I entertained Grace while the women behind the counter pawed through my clothes, chattering to each other in Spanish. I played peekaboo with her (I’d just googled “how to play with an almost nine-month-old”) as I watched the women hold up and assess dresses I remembered wearing to romantic dinners with Jack, and jeans I was embarrassed to buy at first, shocked by their price. Those jeans were the uniform of my former life. I thought about Jack and how I’d explain selling all these clothes.
Whatever. I was alone. I needed the money. And why the hell am I explaining why I had to sell clothes for money when you disappeared?
I walked out with a little bit of cash and the promise of more to come. I got home, went online, and ordered some cheap, sensible clothes—button-down shirts and pencil skirts that were snug but not too tight. I also ordered sweaters. Not gauzy, flimsy, beach-at-night sweaters, but chunky woolen things that I’d seen on some of the other teachers. I guess every life has its uniform.
-14-
In mid-October, I finally discovered the teachers’ lounge. One morning, I wrote on the whiteboard, Memoir: Tell me, in five sentences, something about yourself that nobody knows. The boys were going to read a memoir, The Red Scarf Girl, but before they did, I wanted to see if they could write their own short histories, or at least five sentences about themselves. As the boys shuffled into the room, I sat at my desk, watching them throw down their backpacks and reluctantly get into their seats. After I’d let Gavin take away their recess for a week, they had stopped chatting with me when they came in and just ignored me until I called them to attention.
I waited for the last one to settle in. The last one was usually Davey, who jiggled his way into class without a single supply and often shoeless.
“Davey,” I asked, “where are your shoes today?”
He shrugged. “Josh Tapper needed them for gym, so I lent them to him.” Josh was a student in one of my other classes.
“Where are Josh’s shoes?” I asked.
“Dunno,” Davey replied. “It’s cool, though, Ms. Parsons. I like being barefoot.” He put out his hands, palms down, as if to calm me. I wasn’t worried. I saved worrying for the days when he came in wearing only one shoe. Davey made his way to his seat and began the long process of negotiating himself into it. Some of the boys sat right down, but many of them simply couldn’t. Davey was one of the latter. He pulled his chair out, moved it around a bit, scraped it along the floor, positioned it several ways, and finally turned it backward. He sat in the chair, leaned against the back with his stomach, and began rocking. If Davey wasn’t rocking, he was bouncing, shaking, or standing in the back of the class doing something that looked like a jig.
I directed their attention to the whiteboard and gave them a few minutes to write five sentences.
“Go on,” I prodded them. “At least one thing about you that nobody knows.” I leaned back in my seat and watched them all start working. “When you’re done,” I said, “we can put your work up on the smart board.” The boys looked down at their keyboards and then looked at each other. I could sense silent communication passing between them. Caleb nodded at Guy and looked down. Art nodded at Davey. And so on. I heard a few snickers from behind screens. I knew something was coming, and I braced myself.
Five minutes later, I called time and asked who wanted to go first. Art raised his hand, grinning, looking around for approval. Once he got what he needed, some silent affirmation from the other boys, he hit a key and flashed his work up on the smart board. I stood up and walked over.
My name is Gavin Burke and there is something nobody knows. This is the thing nobody knows. I was born without a penis. I just pretend I have one. That’s why I yell a lot.
The class erupted in laughter before I even finished reading. I rushed over to my keyboard, frantically hit some keys, and removed the sentences from the smart board. I crossed my arms, looked down at the boys, and stared. Realizing that I was in prime Gavin stance, I shook my arms down by my sides.
“Really, Art?” I said.
“Fart,” Guy corrected me.
Art shrugged. My God, these boys did a lot of shrugging. Was he trying to tell me that it wasn’t his fault, that he couldn’t do any better, or that he just couldn’t help himself?
“Fine.” I sighed. “Guy. Why don’t you show us what you’ve got?” I knew full well I wasn’t going to like it. I turned to face the smart board.
My name is Gavin Burke and there is something that nobody knows about me. I like fluffy ponies. All kinds of fluffy ponies. The best ones are the pink and sparkly ones. I keep one in my pants all day in case I want to pet it.
By then, Davey had reached the point in the class where he had fallen out of his chair and was lying on the floor, shaking with glee.
“Guy?” I asked. “Fluffy ponies? What is that?”
“Hey, you said five sentences, so you got ’em.”
“Actually,” I said, taking down the sentences, “I said five sentences about you. Last time I checked, you are not Gavin Burke.”
“Sad but true, Ms. Parsons,” Guy said wisely, looking over at Davey, who was still writhing on the floor.
“Davey,” I said, “I think this means it’s your turn.” By now, I knew exactly where these were going. In hindsight, I probably should have stopped it. In hindsight, I probably should not have agreed to teach at a school for wayward adolescents, so who was I to blame hindsight? I just inhaled and prepared myself for whatever was coming next.
Davey peeled himself off the floor and got up on his knees. His rugby shirt was hiked up over his belly and he yanked it down, although he didn’t get the full coverage he wanted. At some point he gave up on the shirt and climbed back into his seat. He fumbled with the keyboard and eventually flashed his words up.
My name is Gavin Burke and I have a secret. This is something I haven’t told
anyone. Last night I dreamed about Stacey Figg. She’s so hot. I love girls who wear tight stuff and smell like popcorn and BO.
He barely got to the end before he exploded into more laughter. “Ooh, Stacey,” he mock groaned, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. “You’re so hot.” Guy threw a shoe at him, and they all screamed with approval. Davey didn’t have a shoe to throw back, so he grabbed a bottle of water from his neighbor’s backpack and threw that. It missed, hitting the wall and cracking open. I spent the next ten minutes alternating between pretending I didn’t care what they were doing and yelling from various parts of the classroom. At some point they must have tired themselves out, because the noise dimmed. I began to talk but was interrupted by music coming from Caleb’s laptop. We all looked over at him as Queen sang out the chorus from “We Are the Champions.” Before I knew it, the boys were singing along, swaying in their seats, waving their hands above their heads.
“So what you’re saying, Caleb,” I began, shouting over the music, “is that you’d like to go next?”
He looked at me, his face blank. “I don’t think you want me to go next.”
“I think I can handle it,” I replied, leaning against a wall. “Go for it,” I said, almost daring him.
“Fine,” he replied, flashing his words on the smart board.
My name is Agnes Parsons and I have a secret nobody knows.
I froze, looking down at my shoes and squeezing my eyes shut, trying to unsee what he had written. What was I thinking, daring this kid? This kid had probably hacked his way into my phone. I’d overheard the science teachers saying that Caleb had broken through the school’s firewall and sent emails from teachers’ accounts. How could I be so stupid? Now everyone was going to know that not only was I not in possession of a traveling husband, but that I had basically been abandoned. They would know I was a liar. I looked back at the smart board.
