by Lea Geller
I say “walked in,” but there was no way to fit another human into that bathroom. Jack stood in the doorway, his hands by his sides, staring. He just stood there, silently, and looked at me, laughing and sitting on another man’s lap, our daughter in my arms.
“Jack!” I scrambled to get up, but I slipped, right off Adam’s lap and into the puddle on the floor. Adam saw me struggling. He reached down and took Grace. I leaned on the bath and stood, inches from Jack. Jack just stared, his jaw and fists clenched.
“Jack,” I gasped, trying to get air back in my lungs. “Adam works with me. At school. He’s the IT guy.” I glanced at Adam, who looked confused and terrified. I can’t say he was alone. He stood up, pushed his glasses in place, handed Grace to me, and nervously reached out a hand to Jack.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, his voice shaking.
Jack stared and then unclenched his jaw and smiled. It was a smile I did not recognize.
“Jack Parsons,” he said calmly. “Her husband.” He shook Adam’s hand and kept smiling that smile.
“Adam was just helping me,” I said. “With a situation at school.” I tried to slow my breathing down even more, but I felt like I had used up all the air in that muggy little bathroom.
“I think this is a good time for me to go,” said Adam, not looking at me. “I’ll let you know if I find more, Aggie.” I cringed when he said my name like that. Jack didn’t like other people calling me Aggie, especially other men. But Adam had no way of knowing that. I smiled weakly at him, but I did not want to. Not in front of Jack. Adam squeezed past Jack, then looked back and said, “Nice to meet you, sir.”
Crap.
Another man, a man much closer to my own age, a man on whose lap I had just been sitting, a man who had the nerve to call me “Aggie,” had just gone and called Jack “sir,” as though Jack were the father of his prom date. The front door slammed shut, and Jack moved. He moved so abruptly that it knocked me back. He came toward me, so close to me that I had to back up against the tile wall. Even when I had nowhere left to go, he kept moving, pressing into me.
“Sir?” he whispered, our faces almost touching.
“Jack,” I begged. “I was just . . . he was just trying to . . .” This was going nowhere. I took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. “It was nothing.”
“It didn’t look like nothing.” I could feel his breath on me.
“I promise.”
His eyes moved down my body. My clothes were wet and my shirt was clinging to me. He ran one hand along my hip and ran the other under my wet shirt. I could hear my own breathing rushing in my ears. I held Grace to my side, hoping she’d stay calm.
“Jack . . .” Before I could say anything else, he pushed me against the wall, and then his mouth was on mine, his body pressed hard against me. He leaned in and pressed harder, his hand moving up my body. A noise I hadn’t heard for a while escaped from the back of my throat. Jack stopped abruptly, pulled back, and looked at me, a small smile on his mouth.
“Can your IT guy do that, Aggie?” he breathed.
I desperately wanted someone to swoop in, grab Grace, and leave me alone in that room with Jack.
“I’m going,” he said, taking another step back.
“Please, Jack, don’t.” I reached and put my hand on his chest. He shrugged me off.
“I’ll leave you to bath time,” he said, raising an eyebrow and looking down at Grace.
“Stay,” I begged.
“Why?” he asked. “It looks like you’re doing just fine without me.”
“Jack, it’s nothing,” I said. “He’s helping me get information on the school. I promise. There’s absolutely nothing happening between us.”
He didn’t seem to hear me. “Funny,” he said, smiling but not smiling. “You really didn’t wait long, did you? And tech support, Aggie? You hook up with tech support?” He had backed up toward the bathroom door, but in two steps he was back on me, leaning in, his lips on my ear.
“Jack, I’m not hooking up—” I started again, but he cut me off.
“One more thing,” he breathed.
“Yes?” I asked. Anything.
“This place is filthy,” he whispered. “Get yourself together, Agnes.”
-11-
I spent the night curled in a ball on the brown couch. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Jack’s face as he stood in the doorway. I awoke to a rustling noise from under the couch. I leaned over and leaped. The mouse had returned and was burrowing in a bag of chips I had left open. My sudden movement scared her, and she ran into the corner of the room and disappeared through a crack in the molding.
For a brief moment, I was happy to see her. Maybe she knew I needed the company. Or maybe she just liked barbecue potato chips.
In the days that followed, I sent dozens of texts to Jack’s new number but got no response. I knew that I was not the one who should be feeling guilty, but I did. Jack’s silent treatments could do that. I felt terrible. I felt so terrible that I told Stacey Figg about it while we were drinking wine, this time in my house.
“No way!” she squealed, her hands making small, rapid-fire claps. “He just walked in?”
“Yup, and there I was, right on Adam’s lap. It could not have looked worse.”
“Well, it could have,” she said, laughing. “It could have looked a lot worse.”
I frowned, and she said, “No worries, Agnes. Your secret is safe with me.”
“What secret?”
“Your Adam secret.”
I jumped up off the brown couch. “There is no Adam secret. There’s no Adam. We’re just friends.” Stacey didn’t look convinced.
“Stacey,” I said, sitting back down, doing my best to look unruffled. “Adam was only here to talk about the boys, nothing else.”
She perked up, her ears twitching. “What about the boys?” she asked, putting down her empty wineglass.
I poured us both a second glass, sucked mine down, and stumbled. “There’s something going on. I met with Ruth to talk to her about it.”
“What?” She went to pour me a third glass, but I held my hand out to stop her.
“Oh,” I said, realizing that I’d slipped up. “Nothing.”
“No,” she pressed on. “What did you say to Ruth?”
I felt my face burn, with the wine and with the realization that I might have revealed too much.
“Oh, nothing,” I mumbled. “I’m just a little worried about the boys. I went to Ruth for some guidance, that’s all.”
I heard Grace’s voice on the monitor. I jumped and ran up the stairs. Grace didn’t need me. She often cried out in her sleep. But I hovered upstairs for a few minutes, finally walking down when I heard Stacey open the front door to leave.
“Getting late,” she said. “See you tomorrow. Same time, same place?”
“Sure,” I said. “This is my week to host.” I smiled at her. She gave me a very large, very toothy smile in return. It was yet another smile I could not read.
I woke up on what I thought was the first of March only to look at my phone and learn that it was still February. Beeks was right. This month was endless.
I dragged myself to school, still half-asleep. I walked into class a few minutes late and saw the boys sitting in their seats. They’d barely made eye contact with me since the behavior log incident. They sat complacently, almost languidly, in class while I read or lectured to them. It was like teaching a room of zombies.
“What’s up, guys?” I said, dropping my bag onto my desk chair. “What’s going on?”
Caleb hit a key and the Funeral March played from his laptop. “Today’s the day,” he said, speaking over the low, solemn music. “It’s happening.”
“What?”
The music kept playing, so he spoke over it. “Principal Burke’s handing out the behavior reports. Andrew Dyson already got his. So did Clay Miller.”
“You know what that means,” said Davey, fidgeting with a ball of yarn he’d presu
mably stolen from the arts and crafts room. “Our parents will be getting them this week.”
The music stopped. “I thought you said you were gonna fix this,” said Caleb, closing his laptop and staring at me. “You said you had this. You lied.”
“I didn’t lie, Caleb. I said I would help and I meant it. I just need more time.”
“We don’t have more time,” moaned Guy. “Our parents are gonna read these. You know what that means!” I did know. I knew exactly what that meant for him.
“And these reports,” said Caleb, “they’re just gonna prove to our parents that the Jerk was right about us all along. It also means if we want to get into high school, we have to do the stupid summer program.”
Art stood up and banged on his desk. “And if we don’t spend all summer in the Jerk’s reform school, we’re gonna have to go to public school!”
“Public school!” wailed the boys in the front row.
“Boys,” I begged. “Just give me a little time.”
“Why not today?” charged Caleb, his voice growing more agitated. “What’s wrong with today?”
“Because today is still February,” I said. “And around here, I’m not sure anything good ever happens in February.”
-12-
When March finally arrived, I woke up . . . tired. I had hoped to be able to spring out of bed, full of purpose. But I was still spending night after night playing out the bathroom scene in my mind. It was there whenever I closed my eyes, ready for a replay—the look in Jack’s eyes as he stood on the threshold, his breath on my ear, his hands on my skin. I ignored the nagging exhaustion and drank an extra few cups of coffee, sucking down the grainy sludge at the bottom of the French press. I needed all the strength I could muster if I was going to storm into Ruth’s office, unmask Gavin, and expose the summer program charade. Once Ruth knew why Gavin was faking the reports—that he’d been cashing in on the summer program—she’d have no choice but to shut it all down.
As I walked toward MacReady before first period, I saw Gavin near the entrance of the building. I was deciding whether to pretend I hadn’t seen him when he called out to me.
“Agnes,” he drawled, speaking to me without moving his lips. “You’re early. Ready for another day of complete uselessness?”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.” He smirked. “I always knew you were a complete waste of space, and after I schooled you in front of your boys, they know it, too.”
“Really?” I spat. “You schooled me?” I looked around for somewhere less public and walked into MacReady, leading Gavin to a dark corner under the stairs.
“What else would you call it? I made you sit down and write a behavior report, your first ever, for a class full of walking behavior problems. I forced you to do it, and they all watched.”
“Actually, Gavin, I didn’t do it. They did, and while they were writing themselves up, they discovered something interesting.”
“What’s that?” he asked, the shadow of the staircase falling across his face.
“Your faked reports,” I said, talking quickly, before I could change my mind. “Pages and pages of your faked discipline reports.”
His expression betrayed nothing. He just kept staring at me as if I’d told him I was thinking of buying a slipcover for the brown couch.
I pressed on. “I know you’ve been doing it to get kids to sign up for the summer program, the program that lines your pockets.” I crossed my arms over my chest and took a step back. I hadn’t planned on revealing all I knew to him, but it felt so good to unload it.
“You know nothing, Agnes,” he spat back at me. He leaned in, putting his hand on the wall behind me, cornering me. “You know nothing at all. You’re just a trophy wife from California whose husband needs to hide her for a while because he’s gotten himself into trouble.”
I gasped and immediately wished I hadn’t.
“That’s right. I know who you are. Ruth told me everything.”
“Ruth?” I asked, unable to say any more. My knees were starting to buckle. I leaned back on the wall and gripped it to steady myself.
“Yes. Ruth,” he said, raising the eyebrow over his brown eye.
I looked at his eyes, both of them, each seemingly operating in its own orbit. I closed my own eyes and said quickly, “Ruth knows, Gavin. She knows what you did.”
“Oh, does she now?” he asked, not missing a beat. “I’m so glad you mentioned her, because there’s something I’ve been wanting to share with you.” He slid his hand into the pocket of his Dockers and pulled out his phone. “I wasn’t sure I was going to need this so soon, but hey, I’m flexible.”
“What . . . ?”
“Oh, you’re quite the detective, aren’t you, Agnes? Did you think this was your big moment?” He waved his hands above his head, mocking me. Before I could say anything, he turned up the volume on his phone. Immediately, I recognized Ruth’s voice.
“Agnes is ambitious, Gavin. If what you say is correct, if she’s been meeting privately with students in her home—maybe she’s doing it to inflate her own importance. Maybe she’s doing it to make her seem indispensable to these boys. Let’s just assume it’s that and not something more sordid. At least for now.”
If my knees were buckling before, now they completely gave way and I began to slide down the wall. I gripped harder, but my palms were so sweaty that I got no traction. Gavin didn’t wait for me to compose myself. He pressed play again and came in for the kill. I heard his voice.
“Thank you, Ruth, and thanks for your support with the summer program and my creative recruitment. Our boys deserve a little summer school anyway, and I know the program is only going to keep bringing in students from other schools. Once they see what we can do with troubled boys, it’ll just be a matter of time before we’re turning them away from the high school. The extra cash doesn’t hurt, either.”
Creative recruitment? Ruth knew. She knew and she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind because the school made money and the program made the school look good. It made boys who couldn’t function in middle school seem completely reformed for high school, when all most of them really needed was a fresh start and time away from Gavin. I kept staring at him, unable to speak. Then I heard Ruth again.
“I agree and I appreciate all your work, especially your creativity. Remember, you can come to me whenever you like. I am here for you.”
Those were the words she’d used with me. A salty, rancid juice was working its way around my mouth. I let go of the wall, thrust my hands into my pockets, and willed myself not to throw up.
Gavin shut off the recording. If I had no words before, I had fewer now.
“You see, Nancy Drew, this is what you don’t know. Ruth Moore’s greatest gift, the secret of her success, is that she agrees with whoever she is talking to, with whoever is in the room. You never really know if she’s on your side.”
I could not breathe, let alone speak. He was right. It was like Ruth was reading from a script—the same script she had used with me.
Gavin went on. “Actually, if I’m being honest, the real thing you should know about Ruth Moore is that the only side she’s really on is hers. She’ll say whatever she has to say to keep her job. Hell, that’s how she got the job in the first place.”
“But how did she know? How did you know—about the boys, in my house?”
“Oh, that?” Gavin threw his head back and laughed. He pulled out his phone again, and I heard a different voice.
“I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, Gavin, but really, we’re friends, and I thought you’d want to know. It’s Agnes and those boys of hers. I’m sure it’s nothing, but some of the teachers are murmuring about how closely she is working with them.”
Stacey Figg.
She whispered the word closely as if it were cancer. “Gavin, I’ve also seen her let them in her house . . . at night. I could be wrong, but I’m worried. What if she’s
doing something in-a-pro-priate?” Stacey lingered over every syllable, like she could taste each one.
I stumbled forward, as if I’d been hit from behind. Because really, I had been. I’d been sucker punched—first by Gavin, then by Ruth, and finally by Stacey Figg.
“She can’t possibly think . . . ,” I mumbled at Gavin. I grabbed the banister and staggered up the stairs. Everything was starting to fall down around me, like a poorly constructed house of blocks. I thought I could help the boys, but I had made things worse, and in the process, I’d probably lost my job. This stupid job that I didn’t even want at first. This stupid job that I still needed. This stupid job that I had to keep until Jack got himself out of whatever mess he was in.
Then there were my boys—my poor, sweet, hapless boys. I’d wanted them to feel like someone here was on their side, but all I’d done was screw everything up. I was crying before I even got into class. The boys were walking in, and I raced to my seat and dropped my head to my desk. I help up my hand, motioning for them to stop barraging me with questions.
“Ms. Parsons, are you sick?” asked Guy. “What’s wrong?”
“Should we get the nurse?” asked Art.
I couldn’t pick up my head until I had composed myself. I shouldn’t have come here.
I raised my face so they could see my red, puffy, blotchy eyes. “I’m OK,” I said. “Rough morning.”
“What happened?” asked Caleb. “Did someone hurt you?” The boys all sat up as he said this, as if they were ready to line up behind him and fight for my honor. My heart melted, and I felt even worse.
“Boys,” I said. “I just can’t. Not now. Here’s your assignment. Each of you write one really funny thing. As funny as you can. When you’re done, just start reading. I need a good laugh this morning.”
-13-
I wasn’t looking for Stacey Figg, but she found me two days later, walking out of MacReady as I was pulling on my hat.
“Going to day care?” she asked, putting on her coat. Stacey knew exactly where I was going. She knew all my movements.
