Class

by Lucinda Rosenfeld

  On Monday morning, after dropping Ruby in her classroom, Karen once again let herself into the PTA office. She placed a chair in front of the door to prevent anyone from walking in and surprising her. Then she pulled out the PTA checkbook. The baby-blue background looked so anodyne compared to the rage and recklessness that simmered inside her. Fuck all of them, she thought. Karen’s anger had come to her late in life. But now that it had arrived, it showed no signs of abating. In her most elegant cursive, she wrote another check, this time for five grand. It was a slightly larger sum than she’d withdrawn before, yet, to her mind, it was still not large enough to provoke any raised eyebrows. Even so, this time it seemed safest to make no mention of it in the PTA ledger. If someone noticed the discrepancy, Karen figured she could always chalk it up to an accounting error. To give the check an air of officialdom, she took special care with her signature, producing a deeply slanted autograph worthy of the Declaration of Independence. She put the check in her wallet and the checkbook back in the drawer.

  On her way out of the office, her eyes momentarily locked with the school’s music teacher’s, who was known as Mr. Z. (Like many schoolteachers with long Greek or Polish last names, he’d shortened his to a single letter.) But if he harbored any suspicions about how frequently Karen had been visiting the PTA office, he didn’t show it. Instead, he smiled broadly, as if in recognition of her selfless contributions to the school. And Karen smiled back, for a brief moment entertaining the idea that her appropriation of Mather PTA funds was the most selfless act of her entire nonprofit career.

  Once again, her theft was met with silence. Little wonder that Karen had begun to feel as if she could get away with anything—even running off for the weekend with a man who wasn’t her husband.

  On Wednesday evening, she told Matt she had to travel again for work that weekend and would he mind covering on the home front?

  “Oh, wow—I wish you’d told me earlier,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she said, trying to sound blasé. “It’s this stupid donor conference in Miami. Molly can’t make it suddenly, and she wants me to fill in. I would have told you earlier, but I didn’t know I was going. Anyway, I need to leave on Friday afternoon. Oh, and I’m staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne if you need to reach me for any reason.” Karen marveled at how easily the lies spilled out of her these days…

  But Matt sounded less than convinced. Before he spoke, she saw him search her face. Karen’s heart began to beat so fast that she wondered if Matt could hear it too. “All right, well.” He paused, grimaced. “I was supposed to see Rick and those other guys on Friday night. But if your attendance is really necessary at this suddenly announced, urgently important conference,” he said mockingly, “I guess I’ll have to reschedule.” Rick was one of Matt’s friends from Tacoma.

  “Well, if I hadn’t been going, were you going to tell me about your weekend plans?” Karen snapped back. “Or was I just supposed to be there on the weekend to watch Ruby like I always am?” Despite the skein of lies she was in the process of weaving, she felt irritated again. It was the principle of it—the way Matt felt free to come and go without consulting her first and always with the assumption that she would be there. As if she were a sofa or some other heavy and immovable piece of furniture. Or maybe Karen was only picking a fight to create more distance between them so she could further justify her betrayal.

  “Karen—you’re getting mad at me and you’re the one announcing, with one day’s notice, that you’re leaving town?” Matt said incredulously.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” said Karen, trying to regain her composure. “I would have if I’d known.”

  Matt didn’t speak for a few moments. Then he said, pointedly, “So when exactly are you leaving again for your weekend away in Miami?”

  “Friday after lunch. So you’ll have to pick Rubes up from school, if you don’t mind. Or I can get in touch with Ashley and see if she can do it. Whatever you prefer. I should be home by Sunday night.”

  “Fine,” he said bitterly as he walked away.

  “I appreciate you covering,” Karen called after him.

  “It’s fine,” he muttered again. But it didn’t seem fine at all.

  On Thursday morning, thirty hours before Karen was due to jet off with Clay Phipps for a romantic weekend in an unknown location, Ruby woke up with a cold. It wasn’t a particularly dramatic cold, but Ruby made a big production out of being “ill,” as she called it, and she had a temperature of 99.9. Karen didn’t consider it a real fever, but Ruby did and begged to stay home from school. And Karen eventually relented, even though it meant her missing a day of work. But Karen figured she could make up for her absence by going into the office on Friday morning instead.

  Besides, a part of her welcomed the opportunity to play nursemaid. It was a role that, while mindless, was also clear-cut. And there was pleasure to be had in knowing what was expected and then fulfilling those expectations. There was also no denying that motherhood, even if it wasn’t necessarily enjoyable on a moment-by-moment basis, could make a woman feel necessary and therefore important and powerful in her own right. Plus, Karen and Ruby’s day together, with each in her assigned role, promised to absolve Karen of at least some of the guilt she felt about abandoning her sick child for the weekend so she could spend time with a man who wasn’t her daughter’s father.

  But it’s only a cold, Karen attempted to assure herself as she lay sleepless in her bed that night, wondering what to do. And didn’t she deserve the occasional respite from the grind? Earlier that evening, Clay had sent Karen another text saying that his driver would be waiting outside her office at two o’clock the following day—and that he couldn’t wait to see her, couldn’t wait to kiss her all over.

  She’d replied, Me 2, you dirty old man. As if it were all fun and games. But was she really prepared to play along?

  Glancing at Matt, who lay next to her, lightly snoring and oblivious, Karen tried to feel guilty about lying to him. Never mind cheating on him. Yet she found she couldn’t summon the appropriate emotion. Her resentment at what she perceived to be his fundamental selfishness overrode it. Or was she lying to herself?

  To Karen’s relief, the next morning, Ruby announced that she was feeling a little better. While she slurped away at a bowl of Cheerios and Matt slept, Karen went to pack. Staring into her closet in search of clothes for her tropical getaway, she again felt like Cinderella, only this time before the royal ball and as if thwarted in her destiny by her failure to own a ball gown and slippers—or, in Karen’s case, any halfway-decent-looking sundresses, sandals, tank tops, skirts, or shorts. Not having to obsess about her appearance had once seemed to Karen to be among the great perks of marriage. Now she wondered what she’d been missing. She also wondered if she’d have time on her lunch hour to sneak out and go clothes shopping. But then she risked Matt seeing the credit card bill and growing suspicious of the timing and peeved by the outlay. They were supposed to be saving for their own vacation.

  They were supposed to be a happy family too. And they were—sort of. At school drop-off that morning, Karen hugged Ruby extra tight.

  “When are you coming home?” Ruby asked her just inside the front doors.

  “I’ll be back in a few days—I promise,” said Karen.

  “Where are you going? I forget.”

  “Miami,” she heard herself lying yet again. “Will you be a good girl for Daddy while I’m away?”

  “Yes,” said Ruby. “But I don’t want you to go.”

  As Karen pulled her daughter toward her, her heart lurched. “Me too,” she said with a gulp and wet eyes. And a part of her meant it.

  Another part felt inexorably drawn to the abyss. Besides, it was only three days. “I’ll be back soon,” she told her again.

  “You promise?” asked Ruby.

  “I promise,” said Karen. “I love you so so so so so so so much.” After kissing Ruby a final time, she turned her around and sent
her down the hall toward her classroom.

  Karen was about to exit the building when a new idea popped into her head. Maybe she could take a short-term loan from the petty-cash box in the PTA office—just enough to buy a new pair of sandals and a cute top. Surely a working mother deserved a new outfit every now and then. And if there was some money left over for a new bathing suit whose nylon bottom wasn’t sagging nearly down to her knees, like her old black maillot’s was, so much the better. She didn’t even need five hundred dollars; four would probably do the trick. To her knowledge, no one even kept track of how much cash was in there.

  Karen turned around and, at a brisk clip, started back down the hall. With the key she now kept on her regular chain, she let herself into the PTA office and closed the door. The last she’d seen it, the petty-cash box was in the second drawer down. Karen pulled it open.

  At first, she saw nothing but the ledger, checkbook, and a few boxes of ballpoint pens. After ten seconds of rapid sifting, she found the petty-cash box obscured behind a couple of old announcements about a pie sale. She removed its dark wooden lid and quickly counted out three hundred and fifty dollars. It wasn’t as much as she’d hoped for. But it was still money. She was transferring the cash into her wallet and preparing to leave when a pair of brand-new taupe-and-white-snakeskin stilettos in an open white shoe box perched on top of the file cabinet caught her eye.

  Given the fact that the shoes were still attached to each other with a plastic string, Karen assumed they were unsold goods left over from the school auction. She wondered what would happen to them and who, if anyone, they belonged to. She also found herself wondering if they’d fit and if she could even walk in heels that high. She didn’t see the harm in trying. It wasn’t as if they were doing anyone any good sitting up there. Karen took the box down from the top of the file cabinet, removed the stilettos, and ran her hand across their rough stippled leather. Had they really been constructed from the remains of a snake—a python even? The thought both fascinated and repulsed her. After she noted the number 38 printed on the inside of one shoe—it was her size too; a happy coincidence?—it seemed like fate that she should have them.

  After slipping off her own shoes, Karen sank her feet into the new ones. They were a little snug around the toes, but otherwise fit perfectly. If she and Clay ended up at dinner somewhere fancy, it would be nice to have some equally elegant footwear to put on, she thought. At present, her only dress shoes were a pair of boring black pumps that were best described as “business attire.” Karen quickly stuffed the heels in her tote bag. Then she returned the box to the top of the file cabinet, this time with the lid on. If someone asked what happened to them, she figured she could feign ignorance.

  Once again, Karen prepared to leave the PTA office, but this time her mind returned to the Easter lunch she’d helped organize a few weekends before at the First Baptist Church of Christ Almighty. She pictured Jayyden in his baseball cap, then Aunt Carla in her sweatpants and shower shoes, both of them waiting patiently in line for their gravy and meat. Then she imagined Aunt Carla examining the charred remains of her apartment. On a whim, Karen reopened the second drawer of the desk, pulled out the checkbook, and wrote a check to herself for ten thousand dollars. She would send five thousand to the PTA of Betts, she decided, and five thousand to Carla Price, care of Fairview Gardens. Maybe Carla could use the money to replace some of the furnishings that had been damaged in the fire that Jayyden had or hadn’t set. Karen locked the door behind her and then walked back down the hall and out the front entrance of the school.

  It had been a long time since Karen had been in the Hungry Kids office on a Friday. She found it nearly empty. A good number of her colleagues must have petitioned to work from home on Fridays too, she thought. The exception to the rule was Molly herself. She immediately came over to Karen’s desk. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she began, “did you hear anything back from Clayton Phipps about joining the board?”

  “I’m planning to speak to him this afternoon,” Karen told her. “We’re actually meeting up.”

  “Oh!” said Molly. “Well, that sounds promising.”

  “Promising and possibly foolish, but we’ll see.” At least I’m not lying, Karen thought.

  The morning dragged on. Karen went through the motions of doing her job, but she was counting the minutes until two o’clock. At one o’clock, she went to the bank and cashed her latest check. She dropped two envelopes in the mailbox outside. Then she walked into a nearby department store. It had been so long since she’d gone clothes shopping for herself that she wasn’t even sure what department to look in. Women’s? Contemporary? Studio? Eventually settling on Contemporary—she suspected the prices there might be lower than in Women’s—she picked out a new skirt, top, and matching bra and underwear. The total came to three hundred and eighty-nine dollars. The bathing suit would have to wait. While paying, she checked her watch and discovered that Clay’s car was due to arrive in ten minutes. Karen hurried back to the office.

  His white Range Rover SUV was already out front, a driver at the wheel.

  “Hello, world traveler,” said Clay, kissing Karen hello as she slid into the seat next to him. He was wearing the same pilled fleece pullover he had on the day they first met for lunch.

  “I’m not talking to you until you tell me where we’re going,” she announced as the car sped off down the avenue.

  “Don’t you trust me?” he asked.

  “Why should I trust you?” said Karen.

  “Why shouldn’t you trust me?” said Clay.

  “Because,” said Karen, swallowing hard.

  “Because nothing,” said Clay, pulling her toward him and nuzzling her neck. That was when Karen noticed the bottle chillers, then the individual climate controls. It was amazing how quickly one grew accustomed to luxury and even began to find it normal. Indeed, within minutes of climbing into Clay’s SUV, Karen couldn’t imagine how she’d ever been content driving around in her beat-up old Honda Civic with its vinyl seats and plastic dashboard. And how was it that the seeming entitlement of the Embellished Tunic Moms at Mather should so irk Karen while Clay’s unfathomable wealth met no resistance from her conscience? “I’ve missed you,” he murmured in her ear. “Kiss me.”

  And she did. Wasn’t that why she was there? And then she did it some more. At Clay’s touch, Clay’s smell, Clay’s very proximity, Karen felt her insides growing soft and warm…

  They took a private plane to a five-star resort on the tiny Caribbean island of Mustique. Clay had reserved them a sprawling villa with a terra-cotta floor, a thatched roof, and its own pool, chef, butler, and white sand beach. The first night, while dining on a patio overlooking the sea and under the stars, Karen wore the snakeskin heels that hadn’t sold at the Mather PTA benefit auction, along with her new outfit. “I have an idea,” he said, taking her hand under the table. “What about you and I moving down here and starting our own pizza boat like Scooter. I’m serious.”

  “I’ll give it some thought,” Karen promised him. And for a second or two, she actually did…

  Later that night, they got incredibly drunk and had incredible sex—at least from what she remembered the next day.

  In the morning, they slept in, then went snorkeling and saw neon fish in shades of blue and orange. After lunch, they lounged around the pool. In the late afternoon, drunk on the sun, they collapsed on the bed. They’d just begun to make love again when Clay paused, crinkled up his eyes, and said, “Do you ever just think for a moment that the crazy people might actually be right, and the world is about to end or something? Like all that hokey stuff about the Messiah showing up and passing judgment is actually going to happen. And that God really is some old white guy with a long white beard. Wouldn’t that be hilarious?”

  “To be honest, I don’t spend that much time worrying about it,” said Karen, laughing. “But I do worry I’m one of the crazy people.”

  “Well, then, come here, Crazy Karen Kipple
from College,” said Clay, pulling her on top of him. He was laughing too.

  At that same moment Karen saw her phone vibrating across the room. In her attempt to block out real life, Karen had turned off the ringer before she’d even gotten on the plane. At first, she tried to ignore it. Then it happened again. It was clear that someone was trying to reach her. But whatever it was, couldn’t it wait?

  Clay was sliding down her bathing suit when, across the room, Karen saw her phone shimmying yet again. By then, she was deep in the throes of her own internal vibrations and able to block out the sight. Another ten minutes must have gone by. Or maybe it was twenty. Finally, she collapsed in a heap, and then so did Clay. Then she remembered again, slid off the bed. “Where are you going?” he murmured.

  “One second,” she said.

  It turned out there were seven missed calls from Matt’s cell, and he’d left four messages. Karen stood frozen as she listened to the first one, a constricted feeling in her chest. “Please call me,” he said. That message was followed by “Can you please call me, wherever you are?” And then “Jesus Karen, I don’t know where you are but please for the love of Mary, call home—it’s an emergency.” And finally, “This is fucking ridiculous. Where the fuck are you? I’m so sick of this bullshit. Do you even care that your daughter is in the emergency room? Yes, that’s right. She had an accident on the monkey bars this morning and got taken away in an ambulance, and you’re completely AWOL.”

  Karen felt as if her head had become detached from her body. “Oh my God—this can’t be happening,” she said.

  “What can’t be happening?” asked Clay from across the room, his eyes still mostly closed.

  “Ruby—my daughter—she’s had some kind of accident in the playground, and she’s in the ER.” Karen grabbed her clothes off the floor and began struggling frantically to fit her arms and legs into the appropriate holes.