“Gosh, Liz, it’s kind of embarrassing, but I don’t know who else to turn to.”
“Out with it.”
“I had a fight with Bob last night.”
“A serious one?”
“Yeah—we were at a party—”
“Oh, hang on.” Liz put her hand over the receiver. (No, you may not watch TV. Finish your drawing or go play outside with your sister. Hey, who said you could have a marshmallow? Those are for our project! Okay, just one more. Now get out of here while Mommy is on the phone.) “Sorry, a fight? With Bob?”
“Uh-huh. We were at a party, and a woman hit on Bob. Then—”
“A woman hit on Bob!”
“Well, sort of—she was all over him, stroking his arm and taking his jacket …”
“I’d say that’s hitting on. What did you do?”
“I confronted him with it, of course.”
“What did he say?” There was a wail on Liz’s end. “Wait, hold that thought.” (No more marshmallows. No TV. And you’re interrupting Mommy again. Go away!)
“Continue,” Liz said urgently.
“He said he was only being polite.”
“Yeah, right.”
“But that wasn’t the worst of it. When we were driving home, he just exploded.”
“Bob exploded?”
“Yes. He told me he was unhappy—how financially difficult it is for me to be at home. How upset he is that the house is always a mess … things like that …” Amanda stifled a sob, and groped around the kitchen counter for a tissue but saw she had forgotten to replace the last empty box.
“Is that so?”
“To be fair, I’m not keeping up with the housework,” Amanda conceded. “And I don’t cook dinner a lot of the time. I guess he wonders what it is exactly I’m doing around here all day, except being … overwhelmed.”
“So that entitles him to flirt with another woman?”
“No. Or he claims he wasn’t flirting, anyway.”
There was a pause, and Amanda heard Liz offering the baby another banana. (That’s good, sweetie. You’re a big, hungry girl! Shh, eat up.) Her voice came back to Amanda.
“The problem here is that Bob doesn’t value what you do.”
“Liz, I don’t value what I do.”
“So you’ve got an even bigger problem. How do you expect him to value what you don’t?”
“You’re right. You’re right.”
“If you don’t mind me saying so, hon, you sound in a bad way.”
“I am.” Amanda wiped her eyes with her fingers. “It was an awful fight. He barely spoke to me this morning. And he won’t be back until late tonight—probably after I’m asleep. This damn Megabyte business.”
“Okay, so you’re just going to have to pull yourself out of this hole,” Liz said firmly. “Get on top of things. What are you doing this week?”
Amanda glanced at the calendar taped to her fridge although she already knew what was on it: a series of blank days leading up to her children’s summer vacation.
“It’s almost the end of school! Good God, Liz, what am I going to do with the kids for two months? We can’t afford camp—”
“Listen to you!” Liz interrupted. “Instead of letting it all get you down, why don’t you use this bit of time to get the house organized, and then do some fun things with the kids? Do you want to know what my summer project is?”
Amanda hesitated to ask. Liz was capable of announcing that she was going to replumb the bathroom herself. She reminded Amanda of one of those unrattled hosts of a home-improvement program: “Coming up, we’ll retile a backsplash and apply crown moldings to an old ceiling, all in the next hour.”
“I’m going to redo my sunroom,” Liz continued. “I’ve been researching female artisans from the Arts and Crafts movement, and I came across some beautiful embroidery patterns by Candace Wheeler, who—naturally—everyone has forgotten about. I’m going to use the patterns to teach the older kids sewing. They can work on some throw pillows while I get started on the valances. It’s important to keep these crafts going—you know, recognize them as significant female contributions to the arts. Bastards like William Morris shouldn’t get all the credit.”
“You’re amazing, Liz.”
“No, I’m not. Just organized. You can be, too—but you’re just going to have to learn to respect what you’re doing. Own it, Amanda—own your time, your identity. It’s yours and nobody else’s.” A sharp shriek from the baby cut Liz off. “Gotta run,” she apologized.
Amanda hung up the phone. Well, she sure owned all this mess. Plates and crumbs on the table. A half-finished glass of orange juice and Bob’s empty coffee cup. The dishwasher full of clean dishes, waiting to be unloaded and restacked. Upstairs, the beds unmade, pajamas on the floor, and Lord knows what sort of toy disaster left over from last night. Amanda picked up a sponge. This time, it was her phone that rang. It was the secretary of the school.
“Ben’s here in the office. Ms. Phelps would like you to come pick him up.”
Amanda checked her watch. It was only ten-thirty. “Is he sick?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then why—”
“Ms. Phelps will explain,” the secretary said, cutting her off. “Can you come?”
“Yes—yes, of course. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Amanda found Ben sitting on a long bench, fidgeting with the zipper on his knapsack. The secretary, a young woman with spiky red hair and fashionably thick-soled shoes, was photocopying some papers and ignoring him. He did not run to greet his mother.
“Ben, sweetie?” Amanda said tentatively. “Are you okay?”
“I didn’t mean it!” he cried, bursting into tears. “I didn’t mean it!”
“Didn’t mean what, Ben?” Amanda asked worriedly. She knelt down beside him and wrapped her arms around his heaving body. “Tell me, honey, please.”
Sheila Phelps poked her head out her office door. “Amanda, can you come in please? Ben can stay there.” And to her secretary, “Please tell Ms. Burley and Dr. Koenig that Ben’s mother is here.”
The crispness of the director’s tone told Amanda that whatever Ben had done, it was serious indeed. She continued to hold him until the other two women arrived. They acknowledged her, but not Ben.
“Shall we begin, Amanda?” Phelps asked, popping her head out a second time.
“Don’t go, Mommy!”
“I’ll just be a minute, sweetie—”
“Gloria will keep an eye on him,” Phelps said, waving at the secretary. Gloria was speaking on the phone and nodded indifferently.
“Mommy!”
“—right back, Ben, I promise, darling—”
Amanda took a seat in Phelps’s office. The others had already positioned themselves in a semicircle around the director’s desk. Dr. Koenig was a gaunt woman in her sixties with freeze-dried, upswept hair; she drummed her knee impatiently with a pen. Amanda mistrusted the expressions on their faces: they appeared to have reached a predetermined judgment and, like some star chamber tribunal, were merely going through the formality of informing Amanda what that judgment was. There was no suggestion that Amanda would actually have a say in Ben’s defense. Amanda, who normally crumpled up before authority, felt a visceral surge of protectiveness toward her son, whose bawling could still be heard through the closed door.
“Ms. Burley, why don’t you begin,” said the director. “Explain what happened this morning.”
“There is no explanation for it,” Ms. Burley said tersely. “That’s why we’re here. Every child is well aware of the peanut rules.”
“The peanut rules?” Amanda asked.
“I’m sure you’re well aware of them too, Ms. Clarke—”
“—Bright,” Amanda corrected.
Ms. Burley ignored her and reached into a bulging purse at her feet. After some rustling around she pulled out a cookie wrapped in a paper napkin. The cookie had a bite taken out of it.
“Do yo
u recognize this?” said Ms. Burley, presenting the cookie to Amanda like an attorney for the prosecution. Amanda examined it.
“It looks like the cookie I put in Ben’s lunch bag this morning.”
“I see.” The teacher took back the evidence and placed it upon Ms. Burley’s desk. “So you are unaware of the peanut rules as well?” She said this with disbelief.
“Ms. Burley, I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand what you’re getting at.” Amanda looked to Sheila Phelps for help.
“You know that we have a strict policy about bringing peanuts—or any peanut by-product—to school because of the allergy risk,” Phelps explained. “We are a peanut-free school.”
“Oh yes—if that’s what you mean by the ‘peanut rules,’” Amanda said. “But—forgive me—I’m still confused. What does this have to do with Ben?”
“This cookie,” continued Ms. Burley, speaking slowly, as if to one of her five-year-old pupils, “is a peanut butter cookie. It is infested with peanut butter chips.”
“It can’t be,” Amanda replied, stunned. “I’d never send Ben to school with a peanut butter cookie. I don’t buy peanut butter cookies.” She looked to the other two women, imploring them to believe her. “Honestly, I can’t imagine how this happened!”
Could it have happened? Amanda asked herself. Did I grab the wrong package by mistake—when we were in the snack aisle at Fresh Farms, and Ben was demanding yogurt-covered pretzels, and Sophie was screaming for fruit leather, and it was supposed to be the truce bag, carob-chip cookies?
“Well it did happen,” Ms. Burley said coldly. “And as a result—”
“Wait, you can’t blame Ben for this,” Amanda interrupted. “Surely it’s not his fault if I, for whatever stupid reason, put the wrong cookie in his lunch bag …”
“There’s a behavioral dimension as well,” Dr. Koenig answered. “Please, let us move on to the behavioral dimension. Explain what Ben did with the cookie.”
Ms. Burley cleared her throat. “Thank you, Dr. Koenig. I was getting to that. Ben took this highly dangerous cookie and waved it under another boy’s nose.”
The teacher sat back in her chair with a satisfied look of having rested her case.
“You understand the seriousness of his actions?” Dr. Koenig asked Amanda.
“Seriousness?” Amanda could not believe she had been called to the school—that they had caused Ben so much misery—because of this. “You’re telling me all he did was wave a cookie?”
“It wasn’t just a cookie!” Ms. Burley retorted. “It was a peanut butter cookie!”
“Oh please—”
“It’s nothing to take lightly,” Dr. Koenig insisted. “What worries me here is the way Ben used the cookie—pointing it at another child like a loaded gun.”
“A loaded gun? Really, that’s a bit strong—”
“I don’t think so. To some children it can be as lethal as a loaded gun. Do you know how many peanut-related deaths occur every year? That’s why we have this rule. All the children know it. The ‘Just Say No to Nuts’ curriculum starts the first year—”
Amanda was growing more outraged by the second. “But who was this boy? Was he allergic to peanuts? Were there any children with peanut allergies nearby? Tell me, are there any allergic children in the class at all?”
“That’s not the point.” Phelps flashed Amanda a look of warning not to argue the point further. “What we have to decide now is the best way to deal with Ben’s behavior. And as we know, this is not Ben’s first incident. I believe Ms. Burley has already spoken with you about Ben’s tendencies to violence. He’s met a couple of times with Dr. Koenig, but apparently these sessions have not resulted in the progress we hoped for. Dr. Koenig—why don’t you continue.”
Amanda backed down, but her whole body was tense with fury. She bit her cheeks and picked at her cuticles while Dr. Koenig proceeded to outline the course of action. “What we’re thinking now is that Ben should go home for the rest of today. Then, with the weekend, he’ll have been away for nearly three days, which I think is an adequate period of suspension …”
Amanda could barely listen. Outside the door, Ben’s sobs had subsided. She heard the secretary say sharply, “Stay on the bench please!”
“… and as it’s nearly the end of the school year, we think Ben should seek further treatment over the summer. He may require medication. I have the names of therapists who specialize in these types of behavioral issues. I’ll write them down for you. I’m pretty sure they would be covered by your insurance.”
Amanda opened her mouth to protest, but Sheila Phelps cut her off. “I’d urge you to seek help for Ben,” she said. “We’d be very sorry if Ben was unable to return to the center next September.”
The three women forced smiles in her direction, and the meeting was over.
“Let’s go get your sister.”
Ben had tied his shoelaces into knots.
“Are we going home?” he asked. His face brightened. “Can I watch TV?”
Amanda gathered up his knapsack. “Oh, maybe. Sure. What the hell.”
Ben didn’t ask if he was in any more trouble. That was the great thing about being five, Amanda thought. Back at the house, the children raced upstairs, arguing about which program they were going to watch, while Amanda paused outside. From her front porch, she had a fine view into her neighbors’ adjoining one, uncluttered by tricycles, sand buckets, and strollers. Indeed, the only evidence of human occupation on the other side was a single flowerpot filled with dirt and the pointy brown stalks of a geranium that had died some months ago. Amanda rarely saw her neighbors. They were a young couple who left early in the morning and returned late at night. Amanda had gathered that he did something at the State Department, while she worked somewhere in Treasury. They wore government security passes but not wedding rings. The woman usually made a brief fuss over the children when she saw them; the young man seemed to regard them, when he noticed them at all, as weeds that needed pulling.
Upstairs, a fight had broken out. Amanda heard Sophie weeping piteously that it was her turn to pick a show. Ben insisted that “Mommy said I could watch TV—not you.”
“Mommy will choose,” Amanda said, striding into her bedroom and snatching the remote control away from Ben. “Oh look, it’s time for Herman.”
Herman was a friendly dragon on the public education channel who sang about safety rules and sharing.
“Not Herman!” groaned Ben. “He’s so stupid!”
“Shh, Ben, don’t use that word.”
“I like Herman,” Sophie sniffled, settling into the pyramid of pillows atop her parents’ bed.
Amanda found the station; another show was just ending.
“It’s on after this.”
A cheerful woman wearing striped overalls was displaying shoe boxes that she had spent the past half hour decorating. One box was covered with sandpaper and patterned with tiny seashells. “I thought this would make a fun container for those memories from the beach,” the woman explained. “And this one—” She held up another box elaborately pasted with cutout illustrations of Victorian dolls and trimmed with lace. “—is perfect for keeping a little girl’s treasures safe.” She waved her manicured hand across a group of boxes that, with construction paper, she had turned into a herd of wild animals. “These are terrific for storing all those little toys you never know what to do with. Kids love them.”
What woman has time for that nonsense? Amanda thought scathingly. Look at all the brainpower and creativity that went into conceiving such ridiculous objects! God, she would rather be dead than spend her afternoons glue-gunning shoe boxes!
“Oh, Mommy, can we make them?” Sophie squealed excitedly. “I want the zebra!”
“I want the lion!”
Amanda switched the channel. “Where’s Herman gone?”
On flashed a cartoon that Ben had only ever been allowed to watch at Christine’s house.
“Yay! Space Rangers!” yell
ed Ben.
Sophie popped her thumb out of her mouth. “Herman!” she wailed.
Amanda looked back and forth between them. She remembered Ben’s morning at school.
“Okay, Ben, just this once.”
Amanda picked up the bawling Sophie and carried her downstairs. “You can help Mommy make lunch—”
“No!”
Amanda deposited Sophie on the kitchen floor, where she flailed around, crying. Amanda opened the dishwasher and began to tidy up the breakfast mess. The phone rang.
“Darling, why don’t you put the knives and forks away for Mommy like a big girl,” she pleaded. Sophie buried her face in her hands. Amanda answered the phone.
“I tried calling you half an hour ago,” said Susie’s voice, rather imperiously. “You weren’t there.”
“I do go out sometimes, you know.”
“Guess who called me?” Susie did not want to waste time on Amanda’s whereabouts. “Jim Hochmayer.”
“Really?” Amanda’s eyes were following Sophie’s progress with the dishwasher. The little girl had pulled herself up and stomped over to the machine, but she wasn’t putting the cutlery away; she was playing dolls with the spoons and forks.
“He didn’t even wait the usual few days. He wants to see me right away—tonight, for dinner.”
“That’s not surprising. He did seem taken with you at the party.” Amanda waved at Sophie to get her attention. “The drawer!” she whispered. “Put them in the drawer!”
“Amanda,” said Susie impatiently, “do you know how much money he has?“
Amanda was taken aback. “No. I don’t even know what he does.”
“Jim Hochmayer? Hasn’t Bob ever mentioned him? He’s the founder of Texas CompSystems—he’s worth billions.”
“Oh,” said Amanda, absorbing the information. She took the spoons from Sophie and began putting them away herself. (“Those are my princetheth!” Sophie protested.) “What’s he doing in Washington?”
“He’s up here all the time to lobby Congress. This week he’s here to talk to Senator Benson about the Megabyte hearings. He’s on Justice’s side, for God’s sake, I thought you’d know all about him.”
Amanda Bright @ Home Page 9