A symbol of strength and permanence. A symbol of Belmont.
At the bottom, a small plaque says belmont forever. Beneath that is the name of the headmaster who killed himself, along with the year he died.
“It’s lovely,” someone says.
Zach nods. He’s afraid to open his mouth, because he might laugh. It’s taken Belmont years to come up with a rock.
Mrs. Ross waits for any further comments. There are none. “The statue will be unveiled by the headmaster at the end of the ceremony, followed by the official pictures.” She smiles at the group, teeth on full display. “It looks like we’ve finally done it. Thank you all for your hard work on this. I know this has been a very long road.”
A smattering of applause ripples through the room.
Next up is the pedestal for the rock, which was only slightly less controversial than the statue. The final design is very plain, and no one should have a problem with it. Zach certainly doesn’t.
When the meeting is over, he fantasizes about getting out of there before anyone corners him into a conversation. Of course he won’t. He never leaves without saying goodbye to everyone. It’s part of the protocol.
And now, Ingrid Ross is standing right in front of him.
“Hello, Mrs. Ross,” he says.
“Good evening, Zach. Am I remembering this right, or did you miss the last meeting?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry. I had an assignment to finish.” He stops, waiting for her to say something. When she doesn’t, he keeps talking, to fill the air. “This is going to be quite an event. It’s great to be a part of it.”
She smiles, the skin crinkling around her eyes. “No doubt it will look good on your college applications as well.”
It sounds like an accusation. He nods, unsure of the proper response.
“Still planning on Princeton?” she asks.
“Hope so. It’s my top choice.”
“Courtney’s applying for Early Action to Yale. I’m sure you know she’s always wanted to go there.”
Nothing about that statement is true. Courtney wants to go out West, far away from her mother. Doesn’t matter if it’s Stanford or Berkeley or even UC Santa Cruz, just as long as she’s on the opposite coast. “She’s mentioned it a few times,” Zach says.
“I’m sure she has.”
“It’s been nice to see you, Mrs. Ross. Next meeting is in a week?”
“That’s right.”
Zach smiles and walks away, forcing himself to nod and smile and say goodbye to everyone. When he finally gets out of that room, he feels like collapsing. It’s hard to pretend to like people you hate. Well, maybe not hate. But something close.
By the time he gets home, Courtney has texted.
My mom said she saw you. Princeton??
Why not, he says. It’s an Ivy.
Last week you said Cornell.
Who cares? Any of them will do.
Did she talk about Yale again? Courtney asks.
Oh yes. It’s your dream school.
I swear, she’s driving me insane.
That’s what parents do, Zach says. Must be in the manual.
Is there a manual?
Has to be.
13
EARLY FRIDAY MORNING, before Sonia is even at school, she starts getting messages from Courtney. Deadline day for the Bugle is always stressful, especially for its editor.
I’m afraid the article on the new library wing will be way too LONG!
Still worried about the sports roundup, we won’t have everything until after the weekend.
I think we may have to redo the layout.
Sonia answers that last one: We don’t have to redo the layout. We just have to make the articles fit the layout we have.
Courtney is always stressed about deadlines, but today it’s even worse. The memorial issue is the one she wants to use for her college applications next year. Her anxiety is at a ten, which means Sonia’s stress is at fifty-seven. Especially after a flood of emails last night about the school’s test scores. The school had stellar scores last year, so of course they have to beat them this year.
“You okay?”
Sonia’s husband wanders into the kitchen, fresh from his run on the treadmill. Mark is a lovely, sweet man whom she has been with since her own high school days, and she can’t imagine being with anyone else. Even if he does tell her she has snits.
“Everything’s fine,” she says. “Why?”
“Because you’re gripping your phone so hard, it might break.”
So she is. Sonia puts her coffee cup down in the sink and takes a deep breath. “It’s deadline day,” she says.
“Ah. You’ll be working late?”
“Absolutely.”
Mark leans over and kisses her on the forehead. “I’ll leave dinner in the fridge for you.”
He runs off to the shower while she heads to the garage. Her phone pings several more times on the drive to school. Before getting out of her car, she closes her eyes and repeats her daily mantra.
Today will be a good day.
Today will be a good day.
Today will be a good day.
Ten times, and then she opens her eyes, puts a smile on her face, and gets out of the car. Three steps later, Courtney appears. Physically, she looks perfect, as always. Pressed clothes, shiny shoes, brown hair pulled back into a neat, if tight, ponytail. Just like her mom.
Panic is in her eyes. “The library article is definitely too long.”
“It’s fine. It’s all fine,” Sonia says, patting her on the arm.
“But it’s long by a lot.”
“Let’s go see where we can cut it, shall we?”
She and Courtney manage to squeeze in a quick editing session before first period begins. When the bell rings, Sonia is happy to get away from her and feels a tiny bit guilty about it.
That’s the part no one had told her about being a teacher. The guilt. So much guilt.
Sonia feels guilty about what she’s done, what she hasn’t done, whom she has helped, and whom she hasn’t. She feels guilty about the hours she works and the hours she doesn’t. She feels guilty when her students don’t achieve what they want to achieve or get into the college of their choice.
That kind of guilt is enough to drive anyone to drink. Not Sonia—she doesn’t touch alcohol. But she knows a lot of teachers who overindulge. Parents, too.
And then there are parents who really should have a drink. Courtney’s mother, for instance. If anyone needs to relax, it’s Ingrid Ross.
Not that it’s any of her business, except as it relates to Courtney. It’s amazing the girl’s head hasn’t exploded from all the pressure.
During the morning break, Sonia gets her usual cup of coffee from the teachers’ lounge—with sweetener, no sugar—and checks in with Courtney. A flood of messages came in after class, when Courtney was able to use her phone again. One by one, Sonia answers them. She is patient. She is kind. Today is going to be a good day.
And it is, until about an hour later, when she starts to feel a bit nauseous.
Please not today.
Any other day but deadline day. Sonia tries to will herself back to good health, convince her body that it’s fine, it’s all fine. Perhaps she’s just nervous about deadline day.
Between classes, she goes to the vending machine and gets a Diet Sprite to soothe her stomach. Coffee doesn’t even sound good anymore. The thought of all that bitterness makes her feel worse.
Sonia takes a few small sips of Sprite before her next class begins. It doesn’t help.
During class, the nausea gets worse. She starts to feel a bit feverish, almost like she’s coming down with the flu. Or food poisoning. It’s okay, she tells herself. I’ll be fine, just fine. Sonia assigns everyone to read a few pages of their current book, Fahrenheit 451, so t
hey can discuss it for the remainder of the class.
She takes another sip of her Sprite and draws in her breath, steadying herself against her desk. With the back of a hand, she wipes her forehead, hoping the students don’t see her perspire.
The one thing she won’t do is walk out in the middle of class, no matter how bad she feels. A lot of teachers would, but not her. She is here to do her job, and do it to the best of her ability.
A few minutes later, she’s unable to control it. Sonia tries to make it to the wastebasket but doesn’t. She vomits all over her desk.
14
BY THE TIME Zach gets out of third period, his phone is exploding with messages about Mrs. B. They range from concern to graphic descriptions of projectile vomiting all over the classroom. Someone even posts a picture of the aftermath.
Could be the ’rona, Lucas says. Or she’s pregnant.
You’re an idiot. It’s probably the stomach flu, Zach texts back.
He also makes a note to get Mrs. B a get-well-soon card. It’s one of the reasons the teachers love him so much—he always remembers their birthdays, he gives them all Christmas gifts, and if they get sick, he sends a card. So easy, so simple, and so many benefits.
Well, except with Crutcher. Zach emailed his Bleak House paper first thing this morning, earlier than necessary, and hasn’t heard a word back. Certainly not a thank-you. Not that Zach had expected one.
From the first day, Crutcher had it out for him. Zach had no idea why, or what he had done, but he knew. All he did was walk into class, shelve his phone, and sit down. That was it.
“Excuse me,” Mr. Crutcher had said. “What’s your name?”
“Zach Ward, sir.”
“Well, Zach Ward, before you get too comfortable, perhaps you would like to check the seating chart. I’ve left copies of it at the front of the room, but it seems you’ve ignored them, because the person who is supposed to be in that seat is Siobhan Drexler.”
Zach glanced up at the front, where a stack of papers sat on top of a chair. “I’m sorry,” he said, standing up.
As it turned out, the seating chart was only for the first week of class, until Crutcher learned their names. After that, they were allowed to sit wherever they wanted. Zach took his original seat, in the center of class.
Ever since then, Crutcher has hated him. Okay, maybe because of what had happened on the first day, it was wrong of Zach to take the same seat again, but he likes sitting in the middle of the room. Not too close, not too far, a view of the window and of the door. It’s perfect, and so that’s where he sat. Crutcher didn’t have to punish him for it.
Never underestimate the power of a good first impression.
Maybe that Ward-ism is right. Maybe Zach had screwed up from the beginning.
* * *
TEDDY DOESN’T HEAR about Sonia until lunchtime. His students may or may not have been talking about it after his last class, but he wasn’t really listening. He was too busy reading Zach’s paper. It had arrived in his inbox first thing this morning.
To prepare for the paper, Teddy had watched the entire Bleak House TV series. Two episodes a night, every night, for the past week. Just in case Zach’s paper was based on that instead of the book. There are far more characters in the novel than there are in the series, and he thought it would be interesting to see if Zach mentions anyone who didn’t make the TV cut.
Given this preoccupation, he doesn’t know what’s going on when he walks into the teachers’ lounge at lunch. The conversation is animated and loud, words like vomit and upchuck are being thrown around, like it’s fine to talk about such things while people are eating.
Frank is the one who finally explains the whole story, starting in Sonia’s classroom and ending in the ladies’ room on the first floor.
“And, no, it’s not COVID,” he says to Teddy. “Contrary to the rumors.”
“COVID? Good God.”
Frank purses his lips, but at least he doesn’t mention taking the Lord’s name in vain. “And don’t believe what they’re saying about an ambulance, either,” he says. “Her husband picked her up.”
No, there was definitely no ambulance. Teddy would have heard the sirens if an emergency vehicle had come to the school.
“So she just got sick in class?” he says.
“Yes,” Frank says. “All over her desk.”
“How horrible.”
“Horrible for Joe,” Frank says. “He’s the one who has to clean it up.”
Teddy nods, but he’s not thinking about the school custodian. He’s thinking about Sonia becoming so ill. “I wonder if it’s food poisoning,” he says.
“That or the stomach flu, I bet.”
Teddy doesn’t get a cup of coffee. Instead, he goes back downstairs and walks by Sonia’s classroom. The door is shut, but he peeks in. Everything has been cleaned, the window on the far side of the room is open, and he can smell the bleach.
He goes back to his own classroom to eat his usual lunch: bologna on white bread and an apple. While eating, he returns to Zach’s paper. The topic Zach chose is about the legal system, which isn’t a surprise. His mother, Pamela, is a lawyer. Teddy learned that when he looked her up online.
But he didn’t just get a paper. Zach also sent along a letter, thanking him profusely for giving him a chance to improve his grade. A lesser teacher would’ve bought into it.
Not Teddy. Sucking up is desperate, and he has no respect for students who try it.
He continues reading the paper until lunch ends. Sonia and the events of the morning are long gone. He doesn’t think about them again until Frank pops his head in at the end of the day.
“Sonia’s husband called,” he says. “Looks like she’s got a bug. Probably the stomach flu.”
“Good to know,” Teddy says.
* * *
IN THE EVENING, when he’s alone at home, he heads into the basement. Three test tubes are on his worktable, each one half-filled and capped. He picks up the first, which has a sticker with an S on it. For Sonia.
The substance he put in Sonia’s coffee was a new formula, something he’s been researching and playing around with for a while. Having never tested it before, he wasn’t sure if the amount was correct or what it would do, but he had to find out sometime. With a green pen, he marks the tube with a plus sign.
That done, he goes upstairs to pour himself an ice-cold glass of milk.
15
WRAPPED IN BLANKETS, her head sunken into the pillows, Sonia feels like she wants to die. In the moments when she doesn’t want to die, she is very pissed off.
Sick is one thing, bedridden is another. And at the worst time possible.
For the rest of the day, she feels nauseous every time she moves. She feels nauseous when she reads Courtney’s texts. She feels nauseous when she looks at her computer or the TV. All she can do is lie in bed, with the shades drawn, and take a tiny sip of water every hour or so. Late Friday night, she finally drifts off to sleep, cursing her body, the day, and her whole life.
She wakes up covered in sweat, the sheet wrapped around her legs and the blankets kicked off the bed. It’s light outside, so she made it through the night without dying. After remaining still for a few minutes, she reaches for her phone. Her stomach starts to roll when she sees twenty-four messages from Courtney.
As Sonia curls up into a tight ball, she realizes there is a silver lining to being so sick. Everything has a silver lining if you look hard enough. That’s what her mother used to say. Turns out she was right. Again.
Another day or two of this flu, and Sonia will be able to fit back into her red dress. Just in time for her ten-year anniversary at Belmont.
* * *
TEDDY HAS READ Zach’s paper three times. First, for the overall flow. Second, to check characters and story details. Third, for grammar.
It’s a damn
good paper.
Too good, perhaps. Teddy wonders if Zach did read the book and write the paper—with a little legal help from his mother—or if he paid someone to do it.
Given the one-week deadline, Teddy would bet it’s the latter.
During the weekend, he spends a lot of time online, checking on Zach and what he’s saying.
Teddy does find a conversation about a movie night. It seems a few kids from his class are planning to watch Moby Dick together. Not surprising. Also not surprising that Zach isn’t on the list of students attending. If he wants to watch Moby Dick, he’ll do it in his own theater room.
Teddy looked at the aerial view of Zach’s house on Google: A place that big must have a theater room.
By Sunday night, Teddy is sure Zach paid someone to write the paper. His social media posts show someone who is too active, too available, for him to have read such a long book and written a paper over the course of the week. Teddy just can’t prove it.
If his wife were around, Teddy would discuss it with her. Allison is one of the most ethical people he has ever met. She would understand his disgust toward Zach.
Instead, he goes to the basement.
* * *
AT ONE TIME, Allison had planned to build the basement out into a rec room for the kids. But they never had kids.
Now it’s used for storage, with the exception of one corner. Teddy has set up a workstation that looks a bit like a laboratory. Beakers, test tubes, and even a Bunsen burner are lined up on the table. The shelves behind it hold coffee pods.
It’s been years since Teddy tried his first pod. The pods were terrible at first, and he much preferred his French press coffee.
For Your Own Good Page 5