Frustration mounting, I make an unnecessarily hard right turn onto Davenport and then see that the pick-up line outside Avery’s school is already snaking through the parking lot and out to the street.
Dammit.
I’m later than I planned to be.
“I gotta go. I’m pulling into Ave’s school, and I need to pay attention to what I’m doing.”
“Oh . . . yeah, sure, okay. Do you, um . . . do you think—”
I sigh. “I’ll put some money in your account.”
“Really?”
I glare at the Bluetooth image of Julie’s name on the dashboard screen while biting back a frustrated scream. “Yes, really.”
“Oh, thanks, Janie. You’re the best! I’d be lost without you guys.”
I shake my head. Yeah, I know.
“And the bank thing for Mom?”
“I said I’d do it.”
“Right. Okay. Thanks again. Tell Avery I’ll see her tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I grumble, then disconnect from the call, mumbling, “Why? Why can’t you just take care of yourself? Just once. Just one time.”
I come to a slow stop at the entrance of the parking lot, just behind a minivan with those stick-figure family stickers on the back window—two parents, three girls, and two cats—while Dr. Deedee’s soothing instructions once again waft through the speakers. But before they have the opportunity to do me any good, I see Mrs. Garcia, the assistant principal, hustling down the school’s front steps and through the parking lot, arms flailing over her head like she’s trying to land an airplane . . . or capture someone’s attention.
Our eyes lock.
Dread slithers up my spine.
Dammit.
What now?
Breath shallowing, I wave back to her, a forced smile slowly stretching across my cheeks.
No.
No, no, no.
Not today.
I mute Dr. Deedee and press the button, rolling down the passenger window just as Mrs. Garcia approaches.
“Hi there,” I say as hopefully as possible.
“Hi, Mrs. Osborne.” She lays her arms down on the open window frame and leans inside, her shoulder-length black hair framing her round face. “I’m sorry to track you down out here, but I wanted to make sure I talked to you before you saw Avery.”
Her somber tone is enough to make my chest tighten, but it’s that heartsick–puppy dog look in her brown eyes that makes me want to ball up in the fetal position.
I swallow hard, hands slowly falling away from the wheel. “Oh-kay. What’s going on?”
She sighs. “Well, I caught her and that Caden Rodgers screwing around by the baseball field during fifth period.”
“During fifth period?”
She nods and my stomach sinks.
Fifth period is Spanish class.
Dammit, Avery.
“What, um—what were they doing?”
“Well, I didn’t see any plumes of smoke this time,” she assures me with a raise of her hand, referring to the incident last week when she stumbled upon them smoking a strawberry shortcake–flavored puff bar, whatever the heck that is. “But they did leave behind a can of neon-green spray paint—at least, I think it was theirs,” she quickly adds. “I’m not positive, because they heard me coming before I was able to round the backstop, but it was lying just a few feet from where they were hiding out, and there was fresh graffiti on the back of the dugout wall.”
Graffiti?!
I wince, pained by the mere thought of my sweet little girl being so destructive. She’s not that kind of kid—and I’m not that kind of parent! I didn’t raise her to do things like that!
“Since there’s no way to prove anything for sure, the most I could do is give them in-school suspension for cutting class, which would go on their permanent records,” she goes on, brows furrowing compassionately above her eyes. “But I’m not inclined to do that, at least not with Avery. I thought you’d probably prefer to handle things yourself.”
It’s not the first time in recent memory that Mrs. Garcia has extended an offering like this, and given her motivation for doing so, I doubt it will be the last. After suffering a severe heart attack last year, Mrs. Garcia’s husband was rushed to the hospital, where Dan performed a very complicated, life-saving procedure on him. (Something very tricky that has to do with restoring the size of the ventricles.) Since then, she’s felt indebted to my husband—and by proxy, the rest of the family: a phenomenon that happens frequently in this affluent, smallish town. While my friends may have found a savior in Dr. Jill, countless others have found that same thing in Dan.
Dan.
A burst of hot breath suddenly tickles my lip as my jaw muscle instinctively starts to twitch.
Dr. Dan Osborne.
Cardiothoracic savior.
Everybody’s hero—
“So, what do you think?” she asks, stealing me back to the moment.
“Um . . . y-yes.” I’m nodding before a complete response even comes to my lips. “I think that dealing with it ourselves is probably for the best. Thanks so much for telling me. I’m—um, I’m not sure what’s gotten into her lately . . .”
“She’s in seventh grade, and that Caden Rodgers is pretty cute,” she says with an easy flip of her hand. “It’s a tough age to navigate. But she’ll be okay.” She gives the window frame a little pat, as if it were my arm. “She’s a good kid, with a stable family life. She’s got everything working in her favor. She’s just hit a rough patch the last couple months—”
A stable family life.
A rough patch. For the last couple of months.
Oh god.
A terrifying thought suddenly explodes through my mind.
She doesn’t know, does she?
The timing lines up with her acting out, but . . .
No.
No!
There’s no way she knows.
She can’t know!
Dear god, please don’t let her know . . .
“—try not to worry,” she goes on, oblivious to the true source of my pained expression. “She’ll get through this just fine. Now, you have yourself a good weekend.”
Despite my brimming fear, I manage a smile and say, “Thanks. You too.”
Tears prick the backs of my eyes as I close the window and sink into the seat, chest tightening over every breath like my lungs are bound by a corset.
Shit.
Shit.shit.shit.
If Avery knows, she’ll tell someone.
Just one slip of the tongue will ruin us. Will jeopardize Mom’s care. Will destroy the very foundation of our lives!
My hands start to tremble against the steering wheel, prompting me to bolt upright in the seat, a desperate need to find calm suddenly stealing my thoughts. I unmute Dr. Deedee, hopeful that her words will bring me the same kind of resolve they usually do, but they don’t. Not at all.
What is happening to me?!
I pinch my eyes tight, heart now thundering against my sternum as my hands instinctively start to strangle the steering wheel.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe—
Panic attack!
The realization sucker punches me straight in the gut. My eyes splay wide, and I snatch my purse from the passenger seat. Zoloft! Zoloft will calm me down—no! No, Jane! Despite my brain’s scrambly state, I’m still aware that taking a mood-altering pill for the first time when I’m driving, and surrounded by kids, is not a good idea. There’s got to be another way—a safer way to calm my nerves—
A tutorial!
I grab my phone from the center console, open a browser, and thump out the words, How to stop a panic attack.
Finger shaking, I scroll to the bottom of the results page. Of course, the first few sites are always ads or straight out of a medical textbook—I need practical application! I stop at the last entry. I tap the link, swipe past the stock images of terrified-looking people, and go down to the list of strategies.
Come on, give me something. Give me something . . .
I scan it with desperate eyes:
Breathe.
UGH! That’s what I’m trying to do!
Relax.
Screw you!
Take a series of deep breaths into a paper bag.
A paper bag?
I know darn well that there isn’t a paper bag in my car, but desperation still prompts me to check the floor, and the back seat. No. No paper bags!
I don’t have a paper bag!
Redirect your thoughts by using the rubber band snap technique.
The rubber band—huh?
I quickly skim the instructions: Place a rubber band around your wrist. Whenever unwanted thoughts enter your mind, pull the rubber band and let it snap against your wrist. This action will snap you back from your scary thought and to the present moment.
A rubber band? Again, I turn my attention to the floor, then over my shoulder into the back seat in search of the—aaagh! I don’t have one. I don’t have a rubber ban—wait!
I pull open the ashtray and start pawing through the mountains of loose change and random trinkets and—yes! There it is. The extra hair tie I keep for Avery just in case hers breaks during practice or a game. It’s thicker than a regular rubber band and still tight, as she’s never used it, but it should work just the same. I slide it over my wrist and give it a tug. Snap. The elastic slaps the tender skin of my inner wrist but does little to pacify my budding anxiety.
Harder!
Pull it harder.
This time, I slide my pointer and middle fingers under the band and pull back as far as I can.
SNAP!
“Ouch!” I wince while inhaling a deep breath over gritted teeth.
This is stupid. It can’t be helping—
Holy crap!
I got a deep breath.
That was a deep breath!
Do it again!
Eyes blinking in disbelief, I do it again.
SNAP!
OUCH!
Another pained—but deep—breath.
YES!
Again.
SNAP!
Again!
SNAP!
AGAIN!
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP—
The school bell suddenly blares, reclaiming my attention. Attention that for the last thirty seconds has not been focused on Avery and what she knows but instead on snapping the stupid hair band.
Relief swells in my chest, and I collapse against the seat, oxygen once again flooding my lungs.
It worked.
It actually worked . . .
The sound of middle schoolers permeates my surroundings—laughter, yelps, indecipherable chatter—as kids pour out of the building, streaming down the school’s front steps like ants escaping a rainstorm. The line of pick-up parents slowly inches forward as kids climb into the waiting cars, while others head for home by foot or on bicycle, all of them loaded down with packs so heavy the kids look like they might topple over.
I keep my eyes fixed on the flagpole, Avery’s designated waiting spot, as I creep through the lot. Since it’s a private school and all the kids wear uniforms, picking her out of the crowd isn’t always easy, but—yes, there she is. There’s my girl.
An even deeper sense of relief settles inside me as I take in the beautiful sight of my daughter: blue eyes wide with childhood enthusiasm, dirty-blonde hair falling in wisps around her face, the french braid woven into her head ragged from the day’s activities. As always, her red polo is untucked and hanging over the waistband of her plaid skirt. My little tomboy. And there’s that smile. That wide, joyful smile that doesn’t suggest anything in her homelife has been disrupted or unsteadied, rather that she is just trying to survive the seventh grade, like Mrs. Garcia said.
Avery suddenly turns in my direction, her gaze locking onto mine, her smile instantly morphing into that disgusted sneer I’m becoming all too familiar with.
My breath cinches up again.
Shit.
She knows.
She knows!
Panic floods my chest again, and I quickly reach down and give my band another hearty snap—ouch!—then another—ouch!—and another—OUCH! I’m still wincing when she opens the car door and climbs inside.
“Hi, honey,” I manage.
She makes a grunting sound that could possibly pass as a greeting while slamming the door shut. She latches the seat belt into place and immediately turns her back to me, attention focused outside the passenger window.
Despite the fact that I’ve got nearly thirty years and as many pounds on her, I’m suddenly feeling really intimidated. Mrs. Garcia was wrong; this isn’t just preteen angst.
Damn you, Dan!
She knows!
Nerves rattling, I heave the deepest breath I can manage and say, “How was your day?”
My question comes out wobbly and sort of thick, like I’ve been gargling mud. But she doesn’t acknowledge the oddity, or even respond to it, so I clear my throat and ask again: “Ave, honey, how was your day—”
“Just go.”
“Wh-what?”
“Just go!” She whips her head toward me, eyes unsettlingly wide. “I just want to get out of here!”
I jerk back, startled by her outburst. “Oh—okay. Yeah.”
I shift the car into drive and slowly make my way through the parking lot toward the exit, hands cemented to the wheel, one eye cautiously fixed on her.
My nerves wrench when I take in her very loud body language. Her arms are folded tight across her chest—the same posture she carried as a two-year-old when I nixed her demands for more ice cream—and her jaw is clenched in that way she gets when she’s really mad or—
I blink hard.
Or when she’s bracing for something.
Like a punishment.
A relieved sigh feathers against my ribs, and my shoulders start to sag.
Oh, thank god.
This isn’t about Dan.
She doesn’t know!
This is about Mrs. Garcia. She knows she talked to me, and now she’s posturing for that painful conversation we’ve had before. The one where I lecture her about the importance of making good choices and being responsible. The conversation that’s delivered solely with the intent of helping her learn from her mistakes but only ends up driving her further away from me—
She’s just trying to determine where she fits in the world.
She’s searching to find her own truth.
The Dr. Jill wisdom my friends imparted on me starts wafting through my mind like an unfamiliar melody I desperately want to sing. Maybe a different approach is the key to getting through to Avery. Maybe if I allow her the freedom to discover who she is, without disapproval and judgment, she won’t feel the need to act out so much.
I inhale a deep, hopeful breath and gingerly say, “Is this about what happened with Mrs. Garcia?”
The question no sooner leaves my lips than she turns toward me, screaming, “She’s lying, Mom! We weren’t even doing anything. Whatever she told you is a lie—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Honey, relax,” I say in my best Dr. Deedee voice. “I’m not mad; I just want to know what happened.”
Now it’s her turn to blink hard. Clearly, she wasn’t prepared for that response. “Well . . . we were just eating lunch back there. That’s all. We weren’t doing anything bad.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding. “Are you supposed to be eating your lunch back there?”
She shrugs, the tension in her jaw slowly releasing. “I don’t know. Nobody’s ever said we can’t.”
“Okay. So, why did you guys decide to eat out there today?”
“We just felt like it.”
I keep nodding. Not the most convincing explanation, but she’s twelve . . . and I’m trying something new here.
Just go with it, Jane.
She’s finding her own truth.
You need stability in this relationship.
Just go w
ith it . . .
“And why didn’t you go to class when the lunch period was over?”
“We didn’t hear the bell. You can’t hear it from all the way back there on the baseball field.”
My gut is eager to point out the obviousness of why the ball field then wouldn’t be a wise place to eat, but I refrain, committed to trying Dr. Jill’s approach.
I need to get back onto solid ground with Avery . . . or at least some semblance of it.
“And you weren’t doing anything you shouldn’t have been—”
“No.”
“You weren’t spray-painting anything—”
“I said no!”
“Okay, sorry.” I peel my right hand off the wheel and raise it up in a calming gesture. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened, that’s all.”
“She’s got it out for Caden,” she goes on, relaxing her posture as she turns to look at me. “Just because his older brother used to get in trouble all the time, she thinks he’s going to be the same way. She practically stalks him, trying to catch him doing something—”
Something like vaping with you last week?
I quickly force the thought away.
That won’t help anything.
“—there’s no way she could’ve known we were out there unless she was following us. And she’s not supposed to be out on the field, anyway. She’s supposed to be in the office doing principal stuff—”
Again, I’d like to argue an obvious point—that being a vice principal involves a heck of a lot more than just sitting behind a desk—but the fact that Avery is even having this conversation with me right now stops me from doing so. This is the most we’ve talked in a month; there’s no way I’m blowing that just to correct her.
“She’s got it out for him, Mom. It’s not fair. Somebody needs to report her to the police or something.”
“Sweetie, Mrs. Garcia is a really nice lady. I don’t think she’s got it out for anybody—”
“Yes, she does! She’s going to get him expelled because she doesn’t want him there. She hates him! And she hates me, too, because I’m friends with him!”
“No, honey, she doesn’t hate you. She’s just trying to help—”
“I knew you’d take her side over mine.” She flops back against the seat, scowling. “You never believe me.”
See Jane Snap Page 3
