The Abstinence Teacher

by Tom Perrotta

  “I was upset, honey. After what those nuts did to me last year, maybe you can understand why I’m not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. And I didn’t threaten to call the police, by the way.”

  “Whatever,” Maggie conceded. “But just so you know, I’m not quitting the team. I don’t care what you say, and Dad agrees with me. He’s the one who signed my permission slip.”

  Ruth had to make an effort not to say something nasty. It drove her crazy when Frank pulled the old Divide and Conquer. At the same time, she sincerely regretted suggesting to the coach that Maggie wouldn’t be allowed to play on the Stars anymore. She’d spoken out of anger, without thinking things through, and now she found herself in a no-win situation—either compromise herself publicly or turn her family life into a living hell.

  “I didn’t say you had to quit,” she explained, refining her position on the fly. “All I want is a guarantee that your coach will behave appropriately in the future. And if he can’t do that, then I think he’s the one who should quit.”

  “Coach Tim can’t quit,” Maggie said in a trembling voice. “He’s the best coach I ever had. All the girls would hate me.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ruth replied. “Some of them might be happy about it. But if it’s a choice between doing the right thing and being popular, we’ve gotta do the right thing.”

  “But we’re tied for first place. We need him.”

  “Mr. Roper could take over, couldn’t he?”

  “He’s part of the church, too.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s what Candace says.”

  Ruth was startled by this, though she realized that she shouldn’t have been. John had been part of the prayer circle that morning, even if he hadn’t been speaking. She’d just assumed that he’d gotten sucked in like everyone else. Back when she’d known him, he’d been a hard-charging, hard-drinking guy with some sort of high-powered financial job, not her idea of a born-again. It was like living in a horror movie, she thought, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something. You never knew who they were going to get to next.

  “I’m sure you’d find somebody,” Ruth said. “Your father would be happy to coach the last few games. He knows a lot about soccer.”

  “Please,” Maggie said softly. “Just mind your own business.”

  “This is my business,” Ruth said. “Your coach has no right to make you pray to a God you don’t believe in.”

  Eliza snickered. “You mean a God you don’t believe in.”

  “That’s right. I don’t believe in Coach Tim’s God, and I don’t think your sister does, either.” Ruth turned to Maggie, suddenly worried that Eliza knew something that she didn’t. “You don’t, do you?”

  “I dunno,” Maggie said. “Nobody ever taught me about it.”

  “Well, I do,” Eliza said. “I believe in Coach Tim’s God.”

  “No, you don’t,” Ruth snapped.

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?” Eliza shot back. There was a whitehead at the corner of her left nostril that Ruth had to restrain herself from popping.

  “No,” Ruth assured her. “And I don’t think you’re a born-again, fundamentalist, evangelical, nutjob Christian, either. Because that’s what he is.”

  “I believe in God.” Eliza spoke slowly and calmly, locking eyes with her mother. “And I believe that Jesus is His only son, and that He died on the cross for my sins.”

  Maggie was staring at her sister, clearly startled by this news. Ruth’s immediate impulse was to try to convince herself that Eliza wasn’t serious, that she was just crying out for attention, but it didn’t work. There was something in her face and voice—the eerie serenity of the believer—that couldn’t be denied.

  “Since when?” she asked.

  “A few months,” Eliza said. “I’ve been talking to this girl in my class.”

  “What girl? Do I know her?”

  “Grace Park. She just moved here last year. I met her in Homework Club.”

  “I’d like to meet her sometime.”

  “Her family wants me to come to church with them.”

  Ruth groaned. “Not the Tabernacle?”

  Eliza shook her head. “It’s called Living Waters Fellowship. In Gifford.”

  Ruth closed her eyes, trying to get her bearings, to react to this like a good parent, to not do anything that would open a bigger rift between herself and Eliza than there already was.

  “Do you really want to go?”

  Eliza nodded. “I was scared to tell you.”

  Ruth reached across the table and took her daughter’s hand. It was dry and rough—just like her father’s—despite Ruth’s frequent reminders to use lotion.

  “You shouldn’t be scared to tell me anything. I need to know what’s going on in your life.”

  Eliza seemed suspicious, but she didn’t withdraw her hand.

  “So I can go?”

  “I guess. If you really want to.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “I’m not mad,” Ruth told her. “I just don’t see what you need Jesus for.”

  Eliza smiled sadly and shook her head, like she pitied anyone who had to ask.

  “He loves me,” she said.

  THE STONEWOOD Medical Group had its offices on the third floor of the Healing Arts Complex, a squat four-story building with dark mirrored windows that seemed to have been plunked down by mistake on a grim stretch of Hawkins Road otherwise dominated by auto body shops and small manufacturing facilities with mysterious names: Diamond Catalysis, Universal Recoil, Northeastern SaniSys, Zip Global Force. Ruth had only been inside the H.A.C. once before, when Maggie had gotten a plantar’s wart dug out by an insensitive podiatrist she still referred to as Dr. Ouchenberg.

  The receptionist informed her that Dr. Kamal was running a little late. Ruth took a seat in the waiting area, picked up a People magazine, and pretended to be unperturbed by the elderly woman three seats away who appeared to be on the verge of coughing up a hairball. During a moment of inadvertent eye contact, the woman smiled gamely and assured Ruth that she wasn’t contagious. Ruth thanked her for the information and returned to her article detailing the collapse of Jessica Simpson’s storybook marriage. She found it hard to focus; her thoughts kept drifting to her mother, who had spent a lot of time alone in doctor’s waiting rooms during the last year of her life and was always happy to engage a total stranger in small talk. Ruth looked up from the magazine.

  “Nasty out today, isn’t it?”

  The woman held up her index finger while another fit of coughing ran its course. Grimacing an apology, she wiped at the corners of her mouth with a Kleenex and took a sip from a water bottle that she carried in a foam holster suspended from a strap around her neck.

  “I don’t mind the rain,” she said. “It’s the snow I hate.”

  “I hear you,” said Ruth. “It’s okay when it falls, but then it sticks around.”

  The woman pressed her fist against her mouth and cleared her throat for a long time, as if she were about to begin an oration. When her voice finally emerged, however, it was small and raspy, barely audible.

  “My daughter’s in California. I’m going there for Christmas.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “I have two grandchildren. A girl who’s eight and a boy who’s three.”

  “Three? I bet he’s a cutie.”

  “A holy terror. But I love him to death.”

  Ruth was about to ask the boy’s name when a violent bout of wheezing made the woman bend forward at the waist. She had just straightened up and taken a couple of deep ragged breaths when a nurse poked her head into the waiting area.

  “Mrs. Ramsey? We’re ready for you.”

  Ruth stood up, smiling regretfully at her companion.

  “It was good talking to you.”

  The woman squeezed out an uncomfortable smile as she massaged her collarbone.

  “Tomorrow’s going to be sunny,” she said. “Much nicer than t
oday.”

  THE NURSE led Ruth into an examination room, told her the doctor would be right with her, then promptly departed. After a moment’s hesitation—there was a chair by the computer, but it seemed presumptuous to sit in it—Ruth hoisted herself up on the exam table, wondering if Dr. Kamal had somehow misunderstood the purpose of her visit.

  Her first impulse was to be amused by this possibility, but it got less and less funny the longer she waited in that cramped, antiseptic space, with nothing to look at but a couple of badly illustrated pamphlets on managing diabetes and hypertension. Her own doctor at least kept a stack of ancient magazines lying around in case of emergency.

  The worst part of it was that Ruth hadn’t even wanted to talk to Dr. Kamal on the phone, let alone visit him here. He was clearly a very busy man—Ruth had somehow managed never to meet or even lay eyes on him, despite the fact that their daughters had been friends since first grade—and she would have been much happier just to work everything out with his wife.

  All she’d been doing on Sunday afternoon was calling the parents of Maggie’s teammates to discuss what had happened at the game and feel them out about the possibility of cosigning the letter of complaint she planned on drafting to Bill Derzarian, the Director of the Stonewood Heights Youth Soccer Association. Like the Zabels and the Friedmans, the Kamals seemed like natural allies in this particular fight.

  As she expected, Nafisa Kamal answered the phone. Ruth didn’t consider her a friend, exactly, but they were on good terms. They’d shared dozens of perfectly pleasant front-door chats while picking up or dropping off their daughters at each other’s houses over the years, as well as the occasional cup of tea, and Ruth had always found her to be excellent company—warm and friendly, with a sweet accent and a quick laugh. But something happened when Ruth mentioned the prayer at the soccer game.

  “I’m sorry.” Nafisa’s voice turned suddenly formal, a bit chilly. “On this matter, you must talk to my husband.”

  Ruth was startled. Nafisa was a sophisticated, highly educated woman—she’d come to America as a graduate student in Biology—who drove a Mercedes and always dressed like she’d just returned from a shopping spree in Paris. She drank wine, wore lots of makeup, and told funny stories at her husband’s expense. She’d never said anything to suggest that she was in the habit of deferring to him in any traditional way.

  “Uh, okay,” said Ruth. “Is he there?”

  “I’m afraid Hussein is working this weekend.”

  “Can you give me his number?”

  Nafisa hesitated. “I’ll let him know you called.”

  Ruth went for a run late in the day, and when she returned, there was a message on her machine from “Heidi at the Medical Associates,” telling her that Dr. Kamal would be happy to see her at his office at 4:30 on Monday afternoon.

  “MRS. RAMSEY.” The doctor’s smile was cool and guarded as he stepped into the examination room at five minutes to five. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  He was lanky and unexpectedly boyish, not at all what Ruth had expected from Maggie’s descriptions of Nadima’s strict father, the humorless taskmaster who drilled his children on their math and spelling homework at the dinner table and timed their piano practice with a stopwatch.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you.” Ruth slid off the table to shake his just washed and imperfectly dried hand. “I’m sorry to bother you at work.”

  “No need to apologize.” Dr. Kamal’s accent was less pronounced than his wife’s, but he spoke rapidly, running the phrase together as if it were a single word. “It was at my suggestion. Now tell me what I can do for you.”

  Ruth hesitated, uncertain how to proceed. She felt herself at a subtle disadvantage, and had to make a conscious effort not to assume the attitude of a supplicant, a patient, or a saleswoman who had only the most tenuous claim on the important man’s time. I’m a friend of the family, she reminded herself. I’m doing him a favor.

  “I’m very fond of Nadima,” she told him. “She’s such a lovely girl. I’m sure you’re very proud of her.”

  “We’re proud of both our daughters,” the doctor allowed.

  “She’s such a good athlete, too. All the girls are. I hadn’t seen them play this season, but I was at the game on Saturday, and I was amazed at how good they’ve gotten.”

  Dr. Kamal smiled uncomfortably. “So I’m told. Unfortunately, I have an unbreakable tennis date on Saturday mornings.” The doctor turned sideways—he had remarkably slender hips for a grown man—and performed a graceful forehand smash with an imaginary racquet in support of this assertion. “But I’m told that next year the girls will play in the afternoon, so I’ll finally get a chance to see if the hype is justified.”

  “It’s no hype,” Ruth assured him. “I really envy them. When I was growing up, girls didn’t play sports the way they do now.”

  Dr. Kamal pondered Ruth for a moment. He had the same bruised eyes and delicate features as Nadima, the same expression of gentle, slightly wary intelligence.

  “Where I grew up, girls couldn’t wear short pants.”

  Ruth nodded, doing her best to maintain a politely neutral expression. It wasn’t easy; very few things pissed her off more than the treatment of women in the Muslim world, the drapes and the veils, the pathological fear of their sexuality, the way they were considered property by their fathers, brothers, and husbands, who in certain places would prefer that they die rather than be examined and treated by a male doctor.

  “Did you come here for college?” she asked.

  “Twenty years ago,” he said. “The University of Pennsylvania. The coed bathrooms came as quite a shock. I still haven’t fully recovered.”

  Ruth laughed, though she had a feeling the doctor wasn’t really joking. An awkward silence followed, and she knew that the time had come to make her plea. Before she could formulate an opening statement, though, Dr. Kamal fixed her with a reproachful look.

  “I must tell you, Mrs. Ramsey, that you upset my wife a great deal with your phone call yesterday.”

  “Upset her? What do you mean?”

  “You have to understand. We come from a place where religion is taken very seriously. We made a choice to get away from that.”

  “That’s why I thought you’d want to know what happened at the game,” Ruth explained. “Fanatics are fanatics. It doesn’t matter what religion they follow.”

  Dr. Kamal shook his head. “If what I’m told is correct, all this man did was say a brief prayer. I don’t think it warrants a big hullabaloo.”

  “He’s a soccer coach. He has no right to force the girls to say a Christian prayer.”

  “Nadima assures me she wasn’t forced to say anything against her will.”

  “Maybe not directly,” Ruth conceded. “But Coach Tim’s an adult they respect, and he’s taking advantage of his position to proselytize these impressionable kids. I don’t think it’s right.”

  “I don’t like it, either,” Dr. Kamal told her. “But it seems like an isolated episode that didn’t do any harm.”

  “The one thing it’s not,” Ruth assured him, “is isolated. The Christian Right is taking over this entire country. Pretty soon our kids are going to be praying in school and reading the book of Genesis in Biology class.”

  Dr. Kamal didn’t argue with her. Instead, he turned and walked to the sink, where he washed his hands with a thoroughness that struck Ruth as excessive, and possibly even a bit ostentatious.

  “Do you know what my name is?” he inquired, pulling a paper towel from the dispenser. “My first name?”

  “It’s Hussein, isn’t it?”

  The doctor smiled sadly. “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Ramsey, I think my family and I will sit this one out.”

  THE SIGHT of the chicken breasts in the refrigerator made Ruth unexpectedly angry. Sometimes it seemed like that was all they ever ate anymore. Maggie hated fish and every vegetable except lettuce and frozen peas, Eliza objected to red meat on ethical grounds
(Ruth wasn’t sure why her moral qualms didn’t extend to poultry, and she didn’t plan on asking), and both girls objected bitterly if their mother tried to make a main course out of soup or chili. So aside from the occasional lasagna or take-out pizza, that pretty much left chicken. And since the girls didn’t like dark meat or any inconvenient reminders that their dinner had once been a living thing, “chicken” actually meant skinless, boneless breasts, which Ruth served with rice or potatoes or pasta on the side, followed by a green salad with Paul Newman dressing. Even Paul Newman was starting to get on her nerves, the smug way he grinned at her from the bottle, as if he knew all too well that he was the only man at the dinner table.

  Tonight was lemon-pepper marinade, a recipe she got from a book called 500 More Ways to Cook Chicken, which might more accurately have been entitled It Doesn’t Matter How You Dress It Up, It’s Still the Same Crap as Last Night, or Eat Chicken Till You Die. Because there were nights when that was what it felt like, like you were just some stupid animal, put on earth to eat a few hundred—a few thousand?—animals who were even stupider than you were, then disappear without a trace.

  If nothing else, she did enjoy pounding the chicken with a wooden mallet, taking some of her frustration with Dr. Kamal out on the innocent cutlets. And it wasn’t just the doctor who’d let her down. None of the other parents whose support she’d been banking on had stepped up and offered to sign her letter of protest, not even Hannah Friedman’s father, Matt, an environmental lawyer who had a Darwin Fish and a “Don’t Blame Me—I Voted for Kerry” sticker on his Audi. By way of an excuse, he told Ruth that he didn’t want to make any trouble for Tim Mason, whom he described, to her surprise, as a recovering addict who’d done an amazing job getting his life back together in the past couple of years.

  “I’m telling you, Ruth. You gotta give credit where credit’s due. These Christians turn a lot of lives around. From what I hear, Tim was a complete wreck before he found Jesus. His ex-wife wouldn’t even allow their daughter to get in the car with him.”