Ari shrugs. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with my social life, I guess we can give it a shot.”
Not exactly the enthusiastic response I’d hoped for, but better than it could have been.
“I’m not watching any stupid cartoons,” Tommy squeaks, a telltale sign he isn’t going to be a child much longer. I inwardly cringe and wonder which one of the kids is going to pounce on that adolescent evidence that his voice is changing.
I don’t have to wait long to find out. Shawn laughs. “I’m not watching any stupid cartoons,” he mimics with fake squeaks.
Tommy slugs him in the arm before I can head it off. “You better shut up.”
“Mom!” Shawn’s big, blue eyes fill with tears.
“Mo-om.” Now it’s Tommy’s turn to mimic.
“Tommy! Don’t make me ground you.”
People are looking at us. I feel like an utter failure as a mother.
“He started it.”
“I did not.”
“What, are you crying now, you big baby?”
“Tommy! I mean it. Don’t say another word. You’re just getting yourself into deeper trouble.”
Tommy flops back and folds his arms across his chest. His eyes say what his mouth doesn’t dare.
My eyes scan the booth, taking in each of my less-than-enthusiastic children. Time for an executive decision. “All right. Here’s the deal. Monday nights will be family night. Tell your friends not to call or drop by. Homework will be done as soon as you get home so that it doesn’t interfere.”
“Mother!” Ari moans. “Monday nights, Trish and I watch 7th Heaven together.”
By “together” she means she and Trish sit on their respective couches while on the phone together and drool over the little blond-headed boy. I give her a pointed look that says in no uncertain terms, “I’m the boss.” “Do you want to make it Friday night?”
“No.” She scowls and flops back. Now my two oldest offspring are wearing identical expressions and have the same body language. For once they are unified in purpose. Like-minded. Both look like they’d give a kidney for the pleasure of punching my lights out.
My heart sinks. If we can’t get through one meal together without a major fight, how will we ever create our cherished memories?
The next day I’m standing in front of the mirror again. This time carefully, methodically applying makeup like I’m da Vinci and my face is the canvas.
I feel pretty good. Retaining a little water from the pizza yesterday, so my face is puffier than I’d like, but maybe Greg won’t notice. And anyway, a puffy face with makeup is still better than a skinny face with none.
Today is our parent/teacher conference. Shawn’s been acting a little nervous, but I’m attributing it to the natural effect of any kid realizing his mom is going to talk to his teacher. I certainly can’t imagine my perfect child having anything to worry about. I’ve reassured him at least a hundred times.
I blot my lipstick—plum-colored, from Mary Kay. I bought it six years ago and it’s hardly been used at all. Who needs makeup when they work inside all day? I move from the lighted bathroom mirror to the full-length mirror hanging on the inside of the door. I twist a little so I can view my behind. It is larger than life. It mocks me with its enormity. Shoot. Why did I have to look? What did you expect, I chide myself. A model’s derriere? Now I won’t be able to concentrate on making a good impression on Greg at all. I shrug at myself. At least I’ll be sitting.
I step into my bedroom, snatch a light jacket from the bed, and shrug into it as I walk toward the door. With one last glance at myself in the dresser mirror I give a sigh and wish I were fifty pounds lighter. Or at least thirty. Even ten would be an improvement. But that’s not going to happen in the next—I glance at my watch—forty minutes.
So maybe I won’t get any thinner before the meeting, but I don’t look that bad. The tailored suit I bought to wear to the Christian Booksellers Association’s mega convention this summer is definitely slimming on me. And unless I miss my guess, a little looser than it was two and a half months ago.
The kids are hanging out in the living room with the TV blasting when I walk through.
Ari takes one look at me and rolls her eyes. “Good Lord.”
I stare at my daughter in dumbfounded, jaw-dropping shock. Okay, first of all, I can’t believe she has the guts to take the Lord’s name in vain just like that, in front of me. That’s one of the commandments, and we take the commandments very seriously in this house. Second of all, I have to wonder if I really look so bad that she even has the guts to say it in the first place.
I take a mental inventory. My foundation matches my complexion. No dark jawline. I have on a little blue eye shadow—a color I wouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole while growing up in the eighties, but times are different now. Blue is back “in,” like bell bottoms—which I also wouldn’t have worn when I was a teenager.
Besides, Ari’s not looking at my eyes. Her gaze is fixed on my feet. I look down to see what she thinks is so terrible. Oh, for crying out loud! I’m wearing my leopard-spotted slippers.
“All you had to do was say so,” I mutter and head back to the steps. “And don’t ever let me hear you take the Lord’s name in vain again.” I toss her an I-mean-it-young-lady look.
“Take the Lord’s name in vain?” Her eyes are wide with innocence. So wide that I know I’m about to be lied to, and I will have no way to prove the truth. She sniffs. “I was praying for you.”
Sure she was.
I breeze into the elementary school building five minutes late for my appointment with Greg. All the way to school, I’ve imagined him, leaning against his desk, hands stuffed dejectedly in his pockets. He’s watching the clock as the minutes tick away. Poor man. He’s afraid I’m not coming. Oh, Greg, I inwardly cry, I’ll be there, my love. Wait for me. I’ll be there. I’m Deborah Kerr, he’s Cary Grant, and ours is An Affair to Remember. (Affair in the puritanical 1950s definition of the word, of course.)
My heart is racing—a result of more than physical effort—as I fly down the hallway, past the kindergarten, first-, second-, third-, and fourth-grade doors. I recognize Greg’s name on a whiteboard outside his classroom. I take a sec-ond to gulp in some oxygen. Then, pasting a smile on my plum-colored lips, I reach for the door. It is much lighter than I thought it would be, so by pushing on it, I’ve actually flung it open. I stumble inside. Greg and a gorgeous woman, who were leaning close over a folder only a split second before, are now practically whiplashed as they jerk around to look at the crazy lady standing, out of breath, in the doorway.
I feel utterly stupid, and a thought winds through my brain: at least I’m wearing regular shoes, and not those leopard-spotted slippers. A ridiculous thought that has no bearing on anything whatsoever. It’s just there. I walk to the middle of the room and stop. Because no one (and by no one I, of course, mean Greg—my Greg) has so much as said hello.
The woman next to Greg is frowning at me. At least I think she is; her nose is so high in the air, I can’t see much past her nostrils and chin. Greg is staring like a deer caught in headlights.
“Am I late?” I ask, my voice barely audible—a result of my barging-into-the-room embarrassment.
Greg stands and meets me in the center of the room. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Frank,” he says, cupping my elbow with his wonderful hand. Only one problem: he’s heading the wrong way, leading me back toward the door. “Ms. Clark was here early, and, since you were late, I switched you two. Can you come back in ten minutes?”
I glance over his shoulder at Ms. Clark. She raises her perfectly arched brow with smug assurance. I see nary a trace of a ring flashing on her wedding finger. My claws unsheathe like an alley cat about to defend its garbage can. This is war. I return my gaze to Greg. Or Mr. Lewis, rather. After all, he gave her the power of smugness by giving her my appointment. Five minutes late is barely late at all. He should have waited.
“Mrs. Frank?” he prods.
“Everett,” I correct. “And it’s Ms.”
This flusters him. I can tell it does by the way he clears his throat and looks down—but not fast enough to hide the quick spread of a blush. I feel vindicated for his defection. I toss my chin and pull my elbow from his two-timing fingers.
“I’ll be back,” I say and shut the door behind me. I beeline for the girls’ bathroom. Since school is not in session, I don’t have to wait my turn behind a line of giggling, hairbrushing, lip-gloss-applying tweenagers. While I wash my hands, I stare at the fool in the mirror. I wish I could run out the door and head for the nearest Burger King. But to do so would be an admission of embarrassment. And that will never do. I exit with dignity and with the intention of never letting Greg think I have a crush on him. Whether I do or not. And I’m not saying I do—not after the Ms. Clark incident of a few minutes ago.
I’m making my way back to the room when I see her heading toward me, her three-inch heels clicking on the shining, white tiles, and in all likelihood causing tons of black marks that the janitors will have to work to remove. She stares me down as she clicks past. I have to force myself not to look away or divulge the fact that I’m intimidated beyond belief by the curvaceous, tight-dress-wearing woman—especially when she is obviously setting her cap for the handsome teacher.
Something inside me dies a little. Something called hope. No man in his right mind would pass up a woman like her for someone like me. I guess in a way the knowledge eases my tension. There’s no reason to worry about whether or not he’s going to ask me out, because the answer is all too clear.
I tap on the door, just in case I’m thirty seconds late and Greg has given the next fourteen and a half minutes away to the next appointment on his list. We wouldn’t want a repeat of the situation with Ms. Clark, now would we?
I peep through the up-and-down rectangular window on the door and note that Greg is alone, sitting in a youth chair next to a round table. His head is down and he’s mulling over an open folder. He hasn’t moved, so I assume he didn’t hear my tap. I knock harder and open the door a crack just as he looks up. He smiles. “Come in, Claire.” He stands like a gentleman.
Oh, it’s Claire now, is it?
He must read my mind because he gives me a lopsided grin. “Sorry about earlier, but I can’t appear to give preferential treatment to friends.” He waves me toward a chair that was clearly built to fit the behinds of fifth graders. Nervously, I sit, hoping the lightness in my heart over the “treatment of friends” remark translates to a few less pounds so I don’t bend the legs of some ten-year-old’s chair.
Nothing creaks or groans (on me or the chair). So far so good. I let out the breath I’ve been holding and look up.
Greg slides a white sheet of paper out of the folder and lays it in front of me on the table. “As you can see, Shawn’s grades are very good. No complaint there. Straight A’s, except for gym.”
The C looks completely foreign. I’ve never seen one on Shawn’s report card before. I’m not comfortable with it, but as I get used to the idea, I figure it’s not that big a deal. Who cares about gym anyway? It’s not like he made a C in English, which I would definitely have to bring attention to.
“Coach Ryan says he refuses to dress out and that’s the only reason he’s got a C. Otherwise, he keeps up with the rest of the class physically.”
I gape. “You mean to tell me, he gets points taken away for not wearing shorts?” My son is chubby. There’s no getting around that fact. He came to me the first week of school and confided that other kids make fun of him, so I actually gave him my permission not to “dress out,” as they call it. Now I feel like a totally unfit parent. Because of me, my son has gotten his first blemished report card.
“Sorry, but that’s about the size of it. The kids are required to dress out once they get to fifth grade.”
“I think that’s cruel.”
He gives a sympathetic nod, but doesn’t comment. I suspect he disagrees but doesn’t want to further antagonize me.
“So, what else is in the folder?” I ask. I can only imagine. Knowing Shawn, and despite his unfortunate C in gym, there are probably literary works of masterpiece proportions lurking in that folder. Enough to make up for ten C’s in gym.
He hesitates. My suspicions shoot to the surface. Why is he hesitating?
Cough it up, choirboy.
He fingers something in the folder, then lifts it out slowly, as though straining against a gravitational pull. He doesn’t offer me the page right away, and I’m starting to worry. He clears his throat. “Just remember that all boys are becoming hormone-ravaged perverts at this age.”
“Not my boy.” I said that out loud, didn’t I? “Just hand it over.”
I cringe as he chuckles.
I take the sheet of notebook paper and read aloud:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I wish I could see
Ms. Clark nude.
I blink. I stare. The page is even illustrated. I know there is no way my son wrote this filth, and he certainly didn’t draw the artistically promising picture.
Only it’s signed—and dated. In sharp, bold strokes. The kid wrote this and isn’t one stinking bit sorry he did so.
“Well?” Greg’s voice is properly sober.
I know my face is flaming, so I keep my gaze on the page and look at it critically.
“I don’t know much about art, so I can’t really comment on the illustration, except he might have been a little generous in certain areas. But speaking from a purely literary standpoint, I’d have to say it’s obviously derivative. ‘Roses are red, violets are blue . . .’ is way overdone.” I point to the writing. “And ‘blue’ and ‘nude’ really don’t work as a rhyme. Although I guess it’s better than ‘Roses are red, green is the pear. I’d like to see Ms. Clark bare.’”
Greg snorts.
I send him a sheepish grin. But inwardly I feel like crying.
“Clark. The woman who left before me?”
He nods. “She started working in the office this year.”
“Did you tell her about the poem?”
“She’s the one who gave it to me. Apparently, Shawn hand-delivered it with a wildflower bouquet from the field behind the school. That’s actually what she was doing here. I figured I’d have a talk with her first. She thought he was making a peace offering for all the catcalls and whistles in the hall.”
That explains the stare-down in the hall. My Shawn? “He whistles at her?”
Greg nods grimly. “And the other boys think it’s hilarious. They join in. It can get pretty bad.”
“Why hasn’t this been brought to my attention before now?”
“It would have been except that we never see him do anything wrong. He’s sneaky about it and although we know it’s him, he’s not confessing and we can’t catch him at it. The poem was his escalation to the next level. And of course we can’t allow it. But this is his first offense, so we’re letting him off with a warning. The principal agrees.”
I stand and eye him with determination. “I’ll take care of this.”
No longer do I care if my behind jiggles as I walk away. No longer am I concerned that Greg hasn’t asked me to dinner. But the thought that my precious son is capable of writing such nasty things sends shards of disappointment to slice my heart to ribbons. I am a woman whose last pane has just shattered. With this proof that my Shawn isn’t the perfect child I’ve always believed him to be, I no longer live in a glass house.
7
I am just leaving Greg’s classroom when I see Rick and Darcy headed in my direction. My defenses are rising. I want to deal with Shawn my way before I tell Rick what the child’s become. “What are you two doing?”
Rick is dressed in his usual office attire—a pair of khaki slacks and a blue polo shirt. Boring, but neat and tidy. Darcy is dressed in a pair of brown slacks, with a cream-colored jacket thrown over a brown ribbed crewneck shirt. Her blonde
hair is swept up, showing a milky white throat, with just a few strategically placed tendrils of loose hair brushing her neck.
Why do I even try?
Darcy smiles warmly, if a little tentatively. I guess she’s remembering our last conversation. “Parent/teacher conference.”
“Oh? I just finished. Why are we wasting Greg’s time with two separate conferences?”
Darcy’s face goes red. “We… thought you—”
“For crying out loud, Claire.” Rick frowns at me. “You know darn good and well that the last time we suggested a joint meeting you had a cow, that’s why.” He looks past me. “Hi Greg, are we late?”
“Only about five minutes.”
I turn around and glare at Greg with pointed resentment. How come five minutes late is a crime when I do it? But suddenly it’s okay when Rick does it? My eyes must have relayed that very question, because Greg winks at me. “There’s no one else on the schedule until after lunch.”
I turn my attention back to my ex-husband. “Call me later so we can discuss your son.”
“Oh, boy. If Shawn, of all the kids, is suddenly my son, he must have flunked something.”
I refuse to dignify that comment with a reply. “See you around, Darcy. Don’t let him forget to call me.”
He calls forty-five minutes later, from his cell phone on his way back to the office. I hear a certain amount of outrage in his voice, and I know he’s blaming me for the whole situation. “What are we going to do as a punishment?” he asks.
First of all, Shawn has been laying low since I got home. I sent him down the street to help his grandmother pack and informed him I’d get back to him after I discussed his behavior with his father.
I’ve been thinking over appropriate punishments since I read the offensive note. “I think he should definitely have to write a letter of apology to Ms. Clark.”
“To say the least. What else?”
“What do you mean? Don’t you think a letter of apology is humiliation enough?”
Leave It to Claire Page 6