by Lea Geller
The secret is that I’m in love. It’s a secret love. I love Gavin Burke even though I pretend not to. I love him because he’s strong and manly and makes me feel tingly. I love him even though he’s a total tool. I guess that makes me a tool, too.
I collapsed against the wall in relief, relief that was short-lived. Nobody knew about Jack. But since the Axe-in-the-face incident, when I’d failed to stand up to Gavin in front of the boys, I was just another one of his lackeys. I was no better than Stacey Figg, who quivered with delight at the mention of his name.
“You said five sentences, and I gave you seven. I think that makes me an overachiever,” he said.
No, Caleb. That just makes you mean.
He stared at me. I could read right through his stare: I dare you not to like me.
I didn’t have a response for him. So I just looked past him at the rest of the boys.
“It’s that time again, boys,” I said. “Do whatever you want.” I slumped down into my chair and put my head down on the desk. I sat like that until the bell rang. After class I wandered through the halls, asking for directions to the teachers’ lounge. Jack, I thought as I stumbled through the halls. Where the hell are you? Why am I still here? I walked down to the basement, which I had not known existed, and arrived at the room marked TEACHERS’ LOUNGE (NO STUDENTS). Before I went inside, I pulled out my phone and texted Don: Long morning. Please tell me you have some news. I can’t do this much longer.
Seconds later I got a response.
Just stay where you are, Agnes. Do your job. Ears open.
Really?
I squeezed my eyes shut and saw the word Jack in my head. I breathed slowly and concentrated on his name. If I couldn’t have him, or even call him, at the very least I could think about him. I conjured up one of the best memories I could think of—the long weekend we’d spent in Cabo when I found out I was pregnant, the look on his face when I emerged from the hotel bathroom, pregnancy test in hand. I leaned against the door to the teachers’ lounge and kept breathing. I didn’t need to mark my first entrance by crumbling into a heap of tears.
Eventually, I pushed open the heavy wooden door and was immediately struck by the darkness. The room was void of all natural light. Once inside, I breathed in what smelled like a thousand TV dinners and old, stale coffee. The smell was salty and processed, and it reminded me briefly of the smell of my second foster family’s kitchen. In the center of the dimly lit room was a round table and a few chairs that looked remarkably like the institutional chairs around the table in my town house. I identified two larger versions of my lumpy brown couch pushed up against the walls. In the back left corner stood the fridge, in the back right corner, the microwave, and on a dirty counter between the two, a coffeepot.
While I was taking it all in, Stacey Figg made her beeline.
“Agnes!” she shrieked. “Welcome!” All the other teachers awoke from their malaise and looked over at me. I smiled nervously and grasped at my shoulder bag.
“Hi,” I blurted back. “I can’t believe it took me so long to find this place.”
“Yeah, well, we like to be where they can’t find us,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Let me introduce you around.” She grabbed my arm and began ushering me around the room, introducing me to teachers whose names I knew I would never remember. I recognized a few faces from day care. I smiled at Ella, who held out a bag of rice cakes. I took one.
“Are you here for the staff meeting?” Stacey asked, ushering me around.
“What meeting?”
“Gavin sent out an email.”
“Oh,” I said. “I haven’t checked email since last night.” Stacey looked surprised and pulled out her phone. She showed me the email from Gavin. In the subject line were the words Middle School Behavior Meeting—Mandatory!
“Sit here,” she said, pointing to the round table. “You can eat with us.”
I looked at the table. There was an open bag of desiccated baby carrots that were more white than orange, several packets of soy sauce, one of which had oozed and crusted all over the top of the table, a couple of used chopsticks, and two empty cans of Diet Coke. Jack had banned baby carrots from the house. Something about bleach. I could not even remember anymore. What am I doing in here?
“I think I’ll grab a cup of coffee,” I lied, making my way to the back of the room. Clearly I was not one to be picky. Yesterday I had eaten an expired yogurt for lunch. But this was too much, even for me. I could only be expected to swallow so much grim. I leaned on the counter and watched more teachers file into the room. Finally, Gavin entered, wheeling in a mobile smart board. He scanned the room and stood in the front, arms crossed, legs in a wide stance. He nodded at Stacey, and she passed out handouts entitled BEHAVIOR LOG: NEW ONLINE SYSTEM FOR INPUTTING CLASS DISRUPTIONS AND OTHER INCIDENTS.
“You’ll be receiving log-in information this week,” Gavin announced. “I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the new format. I think you’ll see it’s much better than the old, and you’ll understand why I spent so much time installing it.”
“Tell us, Gavin,” muttered a voice next to me, “how much time did you actually spend installing it?”
I hesitated at first, then slowly turned and saw a guy who didn’t look much older than the students. He had the shock of dark hair that almost seemed to be a dress code around here. He turned to look at me. “I stand in the back on purpose,” he whispered. “It affords me the luxury of making snarky comments.”
“Funny,” I whispered back. “Some of us stand in the back just so we can hear snarky comments.”
“Adam,” he said, leaning slightly toward me. “Tech. Which means I spent hours installing this stupid log.”
“Agnes,” I said. “English.” I wanted to say something witty back, but I’d already used up my one witty line. “I don’t get it,” I said. “What is this, exactly?”
“It’s a place for teachers to log behavioral incidents, you know, like classroom disruptions.”
I didn’t want to tell this guy that on some days, my class felt like one long disruption. If I had to start logging disruptions, I wouldn’t even know where to start.
“Teachers have to fill out an online form for each incident. Sometime in the middle of seventh grade, Gavin prints up all the reports for each kid. Some of them are reams long. In the spring, for effect, he walks around to each homeroom class and personally delivers the pile of papers. The kids totally lose their shit.” He paused, making sure nobody saw us talking. “Claims he does it to put them on notice—you know, let them know they won’t get into high school if they don’t see the error of their ways. Problem is, his stunt just makes the kids worse. It’s a complete shit show around here come high school application time.”
High school application was still a foreign concept to me. “Ugh,” I groaned. “Poor kids.”
He looked surprised. “You don’t hear that a lot around here.”
“Maybe not,” I replied. “But if he knows this freaks them out, why do it?”
“That,” he muttered back, “is the big question.”
I sensed he was going to say more, but Gavin stared and smiled right at me. He seemed to be speaking directly to me. “All you have to do now is enter the following,” he said, clicking a remote in his hand. On the screen of the smart board were the words Date/Time Teacher on Duty Behavior Observed Action Taken.
It looked pretty simple to me, and pretty harmless. What I couldn’t figure out was how I would know when something amounted to an infraction. Was flying a paper airplane an infraction? Was sitting on the floor under your desk an infraction? Was playing music in the middle of class an infraction? How about playing catch with a shoe?
“This system has some cool features,” said Gavin. “Now you can pull up a student’s entire file and see what other classes aren’t working for him. It also sends you a weekly summary of the infractions you’ve logged.” Why did it sound like it was a game show and there was a prize for most in
fractions logged? Gavin did a few demonstrations on the screen, but I couldn’t really follow. I must have closed my eyes for a second, because my head dropped down and I quickly snapped it back up again. Not surprisingly, Gavin was looking right at me.
“For those of us who are having a hard time paying attention,” he said, forcing a smile in my direction, “I’ll wrap this up. Please see me with any questions, and don’t forget to download the mobile app.” I could have sworn he winked at me.
The meeting ended, and teachers began to file out. Adam held the door for me. Because we’d been standing side by side, staring straight ahead to avoid getting caught chatting in the back, I hadn’t really looked at him straight on before. His face was asymmetrical and his nose bent a little to the side. It wasn’t an ugly face, necessarily; it was sweet, comfortable, friendly. I needed a friend on campus, besides Stacey Figg, and this seemed like the face of a friend.
“Give me a holler if you have any questions about the log,” he said. “Tech support is down here in the basement. You know, underground, where we belong.”
“I will,” I promised. “Thank you.” I smiled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stacey and the teachers’ lounge crew gathering around Gavin but eyeing me. Adam turned his head and followed my gaze.
“Gavin’s minions,” he said. “For some people”—he grinned impishly—“getting to redo middle school every year is a dream come true.”
There was a note under my door when I got home. An exterminator had come but I wasn’t around, so he left me a number to call. The very thought of an exterminator creeped me out, but a mouse population creeped me out even more. I took the number and made a mental note to thank Ruth if I saw her again, but given her comment to me at the supermarket, I was hoping not to see her again. I’ve been cleaning up Jack’s messes since before you were born.
Beeks called me that night. We’d exchanged texts but hadn’t really spoken since she took stock of my kitchen and found it severely lacking.
“How are the meat sticks?” she asked.
“Beeks!”
“I’m kidding! And I’m sorry, Aggie. The absolute last thing I want to do is bitch snack you.”
“Huh? What’s bitch snack?”
“Come on, it’s gotta happen in LA, too. It’s when another mom points out that you’ve provided your kids with inadequately nutritious food in an incredibly passive way. You know, like, ‘Oh, I see Kyle loves those little power bars. Who doesn’t love a sugary cookie?’”
“Ouch.”
“Or, ‘My little Hunter just wishes I’d give him processed cheese crackers like you send with Alec.’”
“That’s rough,” I said.
“Tell me about it. Seriously, I just can’t keep up. Last month I learned that agave syrup is officially bad. I finally remember to buy it, so I can stop using sugar in the cookies I bake for snack day and getting the stink eye from the teachers, and some shitty mom tells me that nobody’s using agave anymore. Some crap about glycemic whatever.”
I knew all about the agave backlash. I was married to Jack.
“Beeks, I forgive you for bitch snacking me,” I said. “I’ve forgotten about it, anyway. I’m too busy dealing with these kids who hate me.”
“I thought they liked you.”
“Not anymore. Apparently I’m just as bad as all the other people who let them down.”
“I find that hard to believe. Buck up, Aggie. Maybe wear some more of those see-through sundresses. That should totally help your cause.”
“I’m not so sure. Thanks to the veggie puff–meat stick diet and the fact that I haven’t exercised since July, I’m pretty sure nobody wants to see what’s underneath my dress.”
“Oh, Aggie, you’ve clearly never been a middle school boy.”
-15-
At the end of each day, I picked up Grace. Once a week, on our way home, we’d dart off campus to the supermarket. As I walked up to the store, I noticed the sign outside had changed. My heart leaped momentarily. Maybe the supermarket was under new management and would now be an organic wonderland. I probably wouldn’t be able to afford much, but maybe, just maybe going to the supermarket would be something other than depressing. I ran through the automatic doors, pushing Grace ahead of me.
The minute I got inside, I knew I’d been wrong to hope. Nothing had changed. The lighting was still bright but grim, a layer of dust still covered everything in here, and the shelves were just as barren. Honestly, it looked like the fruit and vegetables had been grown in a Bronx toilet bowl. I guess that makes them local. I grabbed the last avocado on the shelf, a shriveled, black, sad thing, and some bananas and apples for Grace. I found something claiming to be chicken breast in the meat section along the back wall and then walked several aisles over to the middle of the store.
Jack had always warned me about the middle of the supermarket. Even at the best stores, the middle is where the processed crap lives. Stick to the perimeters, he said, and you’ll be fine. I walked into the middle curiously, almost defiantly. Other than the baby aisle, the middle was unknown to me.
“Nobody has to know we were here,” I said to Grace.
We walked past soda and stacks of disposable plates and silverware, and then I saw it: plastic wrap. Not just one type of plastic wrap, but colored plastic wrap in blue, yellow, and purple. I grabbed the boxes and threw them onto the top of the stroller and headed to check out.
We went home and ate a chicken dish I’d watched Sondra make a thousand times. She never tried showing me how. According to the old plan, I would never really need to know how to make it. But I was hungry. Hungrier than yogurt. Hungrier than rice cakes. Certainly hungrier than toddler fingers and veggie puffs. I heard Beeks’s voice in my head and made enough chicken for a few more meals. I put the leftover chicken breast on a plate and pulled out the yellow plastic wrap. I tore off a sheet and spread it across the plate. The chicken suddenly looked jaundiced and wan, and I wondered if there was any food out there that looked better under a sheet of yellow plastic.
The next night, as Grace and I were walking home, I thought smugly about the dinner that waited for us in the fridge. Last night’s leftovers were the closest I had come to meal planning, and while I wasn’t exactly on top of my evenings yet, I was beginning to feel like at some point soon I might be. I threw open the front door and pulled Grace and her stroller backward up into the foyer. This was a New York trick I’d learned for navigating narrow doorways. I felt pleased with myself for the second time in five minutes. Leftovers for dinner and stroller tricks might be small things, but small things got me through the day.
The second I got inside the foyer and pulled the door shut, I knew that someone else was in the house. I froze, my heart thumping, my skin prickly with panic. I quickly yanked Grace out of her stroller and held her close to my chest. She whimpered.
“Hello?” I called, my voice quaking. Had I really been foolish to start feeling safer?
“You know,” she said from the living room, “living with a deviant adolescent comes in handy.” Beeks walked into the foyer and stood right in front of me. “You see, before kids I never knew how to pick a lock.” With one hand she showed me a stretched-out bobby pin. With the other she reached for Grace, scooping her right out of my arms.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I said, handing over Grace.
“Apologies,” Beeks said as she took a step back to fully assess me. “Well”—she sniffed—“it certainly didn’t take you long.” She held a confused but surprisingly quiet Grace in her arms.
“Huh?”
“Your outfit. What did you do? Rob Ann Taylor? You look like the poster child for middle school teaching.”
“I kind of had to. I couldn’t keep wearing yoga gear to class.”
“And your hair . . .”
“Yup,” I said proudly. “Here it is.” I pulled my hair out of its perma-bun and let it fall past my shoulders.
“Zees,” she said, breaking into her first real, f
ull-faced Beeks grin. She walked behind and picked up the back of my hair with her fingertips. “Zees is good, Anyes.” Anyes was how she pronounced my name when she spoke, as she was doing now, in the voice of Madame LaFolle, a character she’d created in college to assess our outfits before we left our dorm room. She continued to paw my hair, pulling strands closer to her face for examination. “What is zees, though? Zees color, it is . . . um, how you say it . . . a mouse?”
“Oui, madame,” I said, taking her other hand in mine. “This is not just any old mouse. This is New York mouse. I thought you might like it.” I looked at Beeks, my Beeks, and could not understand how I could ever be mad at her.
We both stood there staring at each other. Beeks turned, and she and Grace started walking into the living room. We all sat on the little brown couch, with Grace in between us, looking at each of us, like she was following a tennis match.
“You know,” Beeks began, “you look healthy.”
“Just say it, Beeks,” I said. “By ‘healthy,’ you mean fat.” I never thought I’d miss exercise, but I had forgotten what it felt like to want to move just for movement’s sake. Everything I did now had a purpose.
“No. By healthy, I mean healthy. Besides, I like you better this way. This is how I remember you. This is the old you.”
“Beeks, the old me is long gone. This is the New York me, the temporary me. This is the me that is waiting.”
“What are you waiting for?” Beeks turned her full body to me, tucking her right leg underneath her.
“Jack.” I sat up straight, determined not to be ashamed.
“Aggie, don’t you think that there’s a tiny bit of this version of you that’s the authentic you?”
“The authentic me? Whoa, that’s very LA of you.” I smiled at Beeks. I needed to keep this conversation light, and accusing each other of being LA was an old, favorite pastime of ours. “The old me is . . . old. I’m not going back to that. I look like this because I have to. I don’t have money to look any different, and honestly, I just want to fit in. But I am waiting for Jack. The authentic me is still married to Jack.”