by Cook, Claire
I considered driving all the way in to the city, but once I got through the outrageous rush hour traffic, I'd have to face an even more absurd hunt to find somewhere to park near John's office. And then later on I'd have to find somewhere else to park near his condo. John's condo only had one underground parking spot, so we'd have to drive around the block forever looking for on-street parking, and in the end I'd probably end up at a public garage or a parking lot, which would cost a small fortune. Money had been tight since I'd bought Kevin's half of the house, and even though Michael was paying for groceries since he'd moved in, we were both pretending his stay was just temporary so it's not like it made sense for him to pay rent.
So, after some serious overthinking, I decided to have Michael drop me off at a subway station on his way to work on the other side of the city. And then I was free to turn my attention to the other thing that women who reside in suburbia, where you can live out most of your adult life in yoga pants, obsess about when they go to the big city. What the hell was I going to wear?
After Annie and Lainie and Michael were sound asleep and Mother Teresa had had her final pee of the night, I'd stood in front of my closet door mirror as I tried on outfit after outfit after outfit. The thing about being a preschool teacher is that in the beginning of the year you promise yourself that you're only going to wear certain clothes to school. But then a Sunday night comes along and everything's dirty and you're tired and just don't feel like doing laundry, so you add one more outfit to the rotation. And so it goes. By the end of the school year, pretty much everything you own is covered with finger paint. It's supposed to be washable, but don't believe it for a second.
The other thing about being a preschool teacher is that most of your clothes are, well, teachery. You have to be able to bend down to pick up a fallen picture book or whisper encouragement in a child's ear. You have to be able to kick a playground ball. And it's simply not okay to let your students see your underpants at circle time.
Finally, I called my sister Carol.
"What's wrong?" she said.
"Why does something have to be wrong?"
"Uh, because it's 10:03 on a Sunday night? Hold on, let me at least get out of bed so I don't wake up Dennis."
"Never mind," I heard myself whispering, as if I were the one in bed with someone. "Just go back to sleep. I'll talk to you some other time."
"I'm already up. What do you want?"
"How do you know I want something? Couldn't I just be calling to catch up? Okay, I was wondering if you have an outfit I could borrow tomorrow. It's my first day of that consulting job—"
"What? You woke me up from a sound sleep with an eleventh hour clothing request? And by the way, I haven't forgotten you got Play-Doh all over that last sweater you borrowed, Sarah. You promised me you wouldn't wear it to school."
"Forget I asked," I said. "Hey, will you stop by my place and check on Michael tomorrow night? I'm not going to be here and I just want to make sure he's not, you know, lonely. Or bothering Phoebe." I had to admit keeping Michael away from Phoebe was becoming a fulltime job, and as much as I loved him, I looked forward to a brief vacation.
"Of course I will. It's already on my calendar. And listen, I'll leave that turquoise jacket you like in a bag on my front steps. The color's better on you anyway."
I hated that jacket. "That's okay. Go back to bed. I just remembered I bought a new dress for graduation. I can wear that."
My purple wrap dress looked pretty good before my eyes were fully awake. I'd sprayed it within an inch of its life with stain remover, but a crucial day or two might have elapsed before I got around to doing it. Just to be sure, I layered on a funky silver necklace to distract from any residual pomegranate martini spots.
Lainie and Annie, my visiting fashion police, even approved.
Annie looked up from her Cheerios. "Wow, Aunt Sarah, you look awesome. Can I borrow that necklace sometime?"
Lainie jumped right in. "Can I borrow those earrings? Dad, when am I going to be old enough to wear dangly earrings again?"
Michael looked at me for the answer.
"Thirteen," I said definitively. I actually had no idea what Phoebe's dangly earring rule was, but firm, clear limits made kids feel safer, especially during major upheavals in their lives.
"Oh, that's so not fair," Lainie said.
"You can take turns wearing the necklace," I said.
We all piled into Michael's car, and it made me flash back to my own car trips as a kid, all six of us unbuckled in the back of my parents' wood-paneled station wagon, the boys rolling around like puppies in the way back. We'd pass the long drive to Worcester or Holyoke to visit one of our two sets of grandparents by playing the license plate game. "Why, begosh and begorrah, I do believe I see a Z," our father would yell when we finally got to the end of the alphabet.
"Where, Dad, where?" we'd all scream.
"Right there," he'd say as he pointed. "On Mazzachusetts."
All these years later, I pointed. "I see an A," I said in my cheeriest early morning voice.
"Boring," Annie said.
"Boring," Lainie said.
Once we'd dropped the girls off at school, Michael and I were quiet for most of the ride, lost in our thoughts. The thing about hanging out with your family is that you've given up trying to impress them and you don't have to entertain them. It kind of takes the pressure off.
Eventually we made it almost to Michael's office. He stopped at a red light half a block from the nearest subway station, so I jumped out. "Call me if you need anything," I said before I slammed the door.
"Thanks," he said. "Knock 'em dead, sis." He brushed a chunk of hair out of his eyes and I made a mental note to remind him about getting a haircut when I got back.
Michael worked downtown, which was far enough from Marshbury, but John's office was over the river and through the city and almost to the end of the red line, and by the time I got there it felt like I'd traveled all the way to another planet. It was a good thing I'd only have to make the trek once a week. The rest of the time I'd meet with the geeks where they lived—online.
I spent the subway ride standing up and fighting to keep my balance while I hung on to a metal bar, packed in with the other passengers like a bunch of dressed-up sardines. I passed the time by trying to decide whether or not it would be okay to stop by John's office before I reported for duty. On the one hand, it would be more professional to go right to the conference room where my students would be waiting and where John's boss would introduce me. On the other hand, John was the one who'd gotten me the job, so it would be only good manners to stop by first and thank him again. And after all, I was here in part to teach good manners, and modeling was one of the most effective methods of teaching. With luck John would be alone in his office and we'd have time to steal a quick kiss. Which was probably not all that professional, so maybe I should go straight to the conference room after all.
I got so caught up in my reverie that I almost missed my stop. I pushed my way past the briefcases and purses and messenger bags and made it out just before the doors swished closed again.
John was waiting for me on the sidewalk in front of the building, a soft khaki button-down shirt blending perfectly with his Heath Bar eyes. John's two-toned eyes were his best feature, a circle of chocolate surrounding a ring of toffee. He was wearing his contacts today and holding two cups of coffee. He held his arms out to the side and leaned in to kiss my cheek. He lingered for a moment and I took in the woodsy smell of his soap.
"Thanks," I said as he handed me my coffee.
"You look great," he said. "You could charm me in a second."
"You look great, too," I said. "And thank you again for setting this up."
"I had to. It was the only way I'd ever see you."
"That's not true and you know it." I took a sip of my coffee. "I have to admit there's a part of me still wondering why I let you talk me into saying yes to this. Right now I could be back at Bayberry wh
ere I actually know what I'm doing. Which is basically wiping noses and giving out hugs and time-outs."
He swung his non-coffee-bearing arm around my shoulder. "Who's to say that's not what you'll be doing here? And besides, aren't you the one who always says it's not about the subject matter? That a good teacher can teach anything?"
"What do I know." I took another careful sip of coffee, trying to minimize the spill chances. I endeavored to calm my nerves by reminding myself how much less time-consuming and more lucrative this consulting gig would be than another stint at Bayberry summer camp, where the teachers were even more underpaid than they were during the school year. Bottom line, even if it had been a bad call, I'd have money in the bank for a change and it would be over before I knew it.
But the truth was, it had been more than the money. When John first broached the idea, we were sitting at a trendy little tapas bar on Newbury Street, sipping glasses of sangria as we shared a plate of figs stuffed with warm goat cheese and wrapped in bacon.
John leaned toward me across the table. "Every time I so much as pass one of the Gamiacs in the hallway, it all comes back. I was just like that in high school. Geeky and isolated. I don't know what I would have done if my physics teacher hadn't started a model airplane club."
I smiled. "I bet that was a direct line to popularity."
"Popularity wasn't even on my radar—I was going for survival. And I didn't have the skills to get there on my own."
I flashed back to my brother Billy Jr., of all my siblings the one who'd struggled most socially when we were growing up. His nose was always buried in a book. He didn't appear to have any real friends. He was four years older than me, which should have made him an instant crush magnet for my teenybopper friends, but even they ignored him to flirt with Johnny, or my younger brother Michael.
One night I woke up to go to the bathroom, and as I passed the open stairway, I heard the sound of my parents' serious voices below. On the return trip, I tiptoed halfway down the staircase to eavesdrop.
"I'm worried," my mother was saying. "Sometimes I stand outside his bedroom door and listen, just to make sure he's still breathing in there."
Even without a name, I somehow knew she was talking about Billy Jr. I vowed to be nicer to him from now on, even if he didn't want me to.
"He'll be A-okay before we know it, hon," my father said. "Just give it time."
And then Billy Jr.'s high school English teacher talked him into trying out for a play. Before we knew it, the whole Hurlihy clan was stretched across an entire row in the high school auditorium. While a couple of lines in Arsenic and Old Lace might not have morphed him into Mr. Popularity, it was a turning point. When Billy took his bow, we gave him a standing ovation. All these years later, I could still picture my father wiping tears from his eyes with his handkerchief as the rest of us whistled and yelled his namesake's name.
Chapter
Seven
It would be an understatement to say that the company I'd be consulting for had a colorful history. Back in the day, a funeral home had expanded to include senior housing. This may have sounded like a good idea on paper, but in the end it turned out to be too much like one-stop shopping for anyone to actually want to live there. So it promptly went six feet under.
Around the same time, an electronic gaming start-up was in the process of merging with an Internet technology company. They bought the funeral home-slash-senior housing building at auction and renamed the new company Necrogamiac. The visitation rooms, and probably some of the other rooms I didn't want to think about, were turned into conference rooms. The rest of the building was renovated into office space as the company expanded, fueled by state tax incentives and worldwide video game addiction.
John took his arm back and we maintained a professional distance as we rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. The elevator walls were paneled in dark mahogany and tufted satin that made the elevator feel like a cross between a suite in a five-star hotel and a comfy casket. Shiny lengths of old brass crisscrossed like an accordion to make the elevator door. A wooden bench, topped with a heavy brocade cushion, stretched across the back of the elevator. I had to admit I'd always had a little bit of a fantasy about making mad passionate love on an elevator stopped between two floors, so I may have allowed the thought to drift briefly by.
I took another careful sip of my coffee. Our eyes met. I blushed. "Nice elevator, huh? Like some kind of den of iniquity throwback."
John glanced over his shoulder. "I've never really noticed."
"You're kidding. I would have thought everybody who sets foot in here has the same fantasy. Somebody could make a fortune renting pillows and blankets by the hour."
He took a long drink of coffee.
Clearly this was not pre-work conversation, but I couldn't seem to shut myself up. Maybe it was new job jitters. "Ooh, and they could put a coin-operated champagne station on one wall."
He shrugged. "I guess I'm just one of those turn around and look straight ahead elevator riders."
"Never mind," I said as the elevator rumbled to a stop and the see-through brass doors opened.
"Break a leg," John said when he finished walking me to the conference room. He opened the door for me and then disappeared down the hallway as I pulled the door closed behind me. A purple foam dart from a Nerf gun sailed by, barely missing my head. I raised one hand to shield my face from a yellow foam dart coming from the other direction. The good news was that I was fully awake now.
I stopped in my tracks, hoping against hope that John's boss would materialize at this very moment. That way he could play bad cop and do crowd control, and I could hang back and be the good cop until my students got to know me a little better. First impressions were important.
I scanned the long rectangular room, which looked a lot like what might happen if the Addams Family and Ikea got together and had a baby. Three rectangular frosted glass conference tables with square chrome legs abutted each other end-to-end, their opaque tops scribbled with notes and graffiti in a rainbow of fluorescent marker. Posters took up most of the available wall space: Morticia, Cousin Itt, Wednesday, Gomez. An Uncle Fester lamp stood next to a massive funereal urn-turned-ice bucket that held an assortment of bottled water and over-caffeinated drinks. The ceiling was painted black and dotted with the kind of stick-on yellow plastic stars that glowed in the dark. Fake spider webs draped down like Spanish moss. Maybe it was more like John Anderson's Addams Family pinball machine had come to life.
Clearly, I wasn't at Bayberry Preschool anymore.
See-through Lucite chairs, each one occupied, surrounded the table. A sleek iMac sat on the tabletop across from each seat. I didn't realize John's boss was already in the room until he put his Nerf crossbow down on the conference table and stood up. "There she is," he said. "Sarah, meet the Gamiacs. Everybody, meet Sarah."
"I'm delighted to meet you all," I said. I stood tall, shoulders back, making direct eye contact with every eye I could catch, an engaging smile on my face. An orange and black foam basketball whizzed by my left ear.
John's boss had picked up his crossbow again and was already headed for the door. "Sarah is here to . . . well, I'll let her tell you."
I started to ask him to wait, but then I wondered if this might be a test. Sink or swim. Trial by fire. Maybe even fight or flight. I had to admit right now flight was winning by a mile—every instinct I had was telling me to run back to my safe little preschool while I still could.
I took advantage of what appeared to be a temporary cease-fire and walked over to stand behind the Lucite chair John's boss had vacated. I stole another moment to assess the students before me. About half seemed to be deeply immersed in computer games. One was scratching his scalp. Another was picking his nose. I reached into my bag and handed him a tissue. This strategy worked remarkably well with preschool students. If you wordlessly handed them a tissue every time they reached an index finger up their noses, by the tenth or twelfth time they would automat
ically reach for their own tissue instead.
"So." I cleared my throat. "Let me cut to the chase. Your boss has hired me to ramp up your social skills."
Two of the students, one male and one female I was fairly sure, looked up with mild interest.
Another student leaned back, his clear Lucite chair bending with him. "Wait. This isn't computer camp? Whoa, radical bait and switch, dude."
"Seriously?" somebody else said.
"What do you do at computer camp?" I asked. I prided myself on being a responsive teacher. Maybe I could come up with an integrated lesson on the spot, combining something they liked with something they needed, the way preschool students sang their ABCs or counted cookies before they ate them.
A boy sitting diagonally across from me, who would have been adorable if he brushed his teeth occasionally, put his hand up. I nodded.
"Well," he said, "one thing we do is as soon as anybody gets up to, like, go get some more Red Bull or go to the bathroom or anything, we change the background on their computer."
"Yeah," another student said. He was wearing a flannel shirt, possibly since flannel shirt season. "Once, somebody put a picture of Donatello on mine. So not funny. He was totally like my least favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle."
"Ha, that was me," the student next to him said. "I so got you, dude."
So much for computer camp integration. I decided I'd go back to my original plan and start with a quick baseline assessment of their social skills and then we could set some group goals. And if that didn't hold their attention, we could always finger paint on the frosted glass tabletops.
"Okay," I said. "Let's start with a show of hands. Who's a member of a social or professional group that gets together on a regular basis? Maybe Toastmasters or a meet-up group or even a book club."
The ones who weren't ignoring me looked at me blankly.
Somebody farted. There was a moment of silence, then everyone pointed to someone at the table, in what I could only assume was an attempt to guess the perpetrator. After giving them all sufficient time to register their votes, the farter stood up and bowed. Everybody clapped.
