by Claire Adams
“Uh, let’s see: I told her she could be my sex toy.”
He laughed. “Ha ha, that’s a good one. What’d you really tell her?”
“That’s what I really told her. It’s not something I’d been planning or anything, but it just seemed like the thing I was supposed to say.”
His eyes widened. “You’re not kidding?”
“Afraid not.”
“Are you trying to get fired?”
I shrugged. “Maybe not actively trying, but if I were canned, I can’t say I’d be heartbroken.”
He looked truly horrified. “You could get into a lot of trouble, Leo,” Jack said. “It would end your career if something like that got out. Why would you do it? What did she say?”
“Listen, don’t get too upset. I might have said it, but it’s not like I’d actually go through with it. And she just sort of left, anyway. I don’t think she was expecting it.”
“Of course she wasn’t! A student doesn’t go to her teacher asking for extra credit, expecting to get propositioned!”
“Well, I guess it’s good that I was completely joking about it,” I said. “I was just saying it to get a reaction. It was actually mildly disappointing.”
“You’ve got to apologize to her,” Jack said.
“Apologize? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You propositioned a student! That’s completely wrong. Maybe if you apologize, she won’t tell Shannon. Even if she doesn’t go to Shannon, she might tell Carla, and if she tells Carla, she’s all but told Shannon.”
“Are you worried this is going to reflect poorly upon you?” I asked. “Because if that’s the case, I’ll make sure that everyone knows that you had nothing to do with this.”
“It’s not just that,” Jack said. He looked at me closely. “I don’t want to see your career go down the toilet just because of some dumb thing you said to a student.”
“Career?” I snorted. “That’s hilarious.” But I could see how seriously Jack was taking this whole thing. Like it meant something to him. He actually cared that I could very well get fired over something like this. “Fine,” I said, relenting. “I’ll apologize for my faux pas. Okay? Does that make you happy?”
“That’s a start,” Jack said. He looked past me, toward the door, a smile lighting up his face. “Hey, look who it is!” he said, though I already knew who it was, without needing to turn and look. It was my ex-girlfriend, Colette, who had somehow not broken up with me after I came clean to her about sleeping with my former boss’s wife.
“Hey you two!” she said, looking surprised to see us here. Which I knew was a big act; she’d come here specifically hoping to run into us.
“Hey, Colette.” Jack had that ridiculous smile on his face; he was always happy to see her. Why they didn’t get together was a complete mystery.
Colette slid onto the empty bar stool next to me. “How are you, Leo?” she asked. “I’ve texted you a few times, and you haven’t gotten back to me.”
“Sorry. I’ve been really busy,” I said. The truth was, I’d deleted the texts as soon as they’d come in, not bothering to read them. I knew they’d go something along the lines of: Want to meet up for coffee? I’ve been thinking about you. I miss you. “Was it anything important?”
“No, not really. I was just wondering about you and thought that maybe we could go out for coffee or something.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Jack said. “The two of you need to check out that new coffee shop that opened on Mason and Pine. They’ve got a great cold brew.”
“I’ve been meaning to check that place out!” Colette said. She duffed me on the arm. “What do you say? All three of us could go this weekend.”
“Uh no, I’m pretty busy,” I said. I looked at her. “Colette, what are you doing here?”
A quizzical expression crossed her face. “What do you mean? Am I not allowed to come out to a bar?”
“Of course you are, but I find it a little strange that you’re here, considering you never would have known about this place if you hadn’t come here with me, and there are about 20 better bars to go to in your own neighborhood.”
“Hey now,” Jack said. “I think people are allowed to go to whatever bar it is they want.”
I picked up my glass and downed the rest of my beer. “I’m not disputing that,” I said. I pulled my wallet out of my pocket and left some cash on the bar. “Anyway. I’ve got to get going. Papers to grade, all that sort of shit,” I said. “See you guys.”
I left them, thinking that tonight would be as good a night as any for them to realize they were actually a better match together than Colette and I ever were, but I had only made it a few steps down the sidewalk when I heard Colette yelling my name.
I stopped and turned. “You really should go back in there with Jack,” I said. “Don’t leave him all alone like that.”
“You’re the one that got up and left so abruptly.” She tucked a strand of her short blonde hair behind her ear. “Listen, though. You’re right. I didn’t just come down here because this bar is so great or anything. I know you and Jack usually come here a couple times a week, and I was hoping to run into you.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why would you be hoping to run into me? We’re not together anymore, and I think the last conversation we had, we decided that we weren’t going to try to do the friends thing because we both know that doesn’t work.”
“Well . . . I wanted to know how you would feel about giving it another shot. The two of us. I know we didn’t see eye to eye on everything in the past, but I really just don’t want to think about living the rest of my life and not have you a part of it. I don’t care if you’re traveling the globe or living in the same apartment, working at the same job, year after year.”
I shuddered.
“None of that matters to me,” she said.
She took a step closer; I took a step back. I wasn’t going to be fool enough to go down this path again.
“Listen, Colette,” I said, “even if I wanted to get back together with you, I’m just too busy right now. I’ve got some other stuff going on, and now just wouldn’t be the right time to get into a relationship. Why don’t you go back to the bar and talk to Jack? He was literally just asking me about you before you showed up—I think it might be a sign.”
To my surprise, she was nodding. “Sure,” she said. “I can do that. And yeah, I can give you all the time you need, to sort whatever out that you’ve got going on. But I mean it, Leo. I wasn’t just with you because we got to travel to a bunch of neat places. That’s not what this was about.”
I couldn’t stand to hear her make another reference to working the same job, living in the same place, so I just waved her off and started jogging in the other direction. I glanced back over my shoulder, though, right before I turned the corner, just in time to see her step back inside the bar.
5.
Tessa
My parents lived in Palo Alto, in a two-story house that combined modern and traditional features, with lots of glass, wood, and marble. I parked in the driveway, behind my mother’s Range Rover, and got out and walked up the winding brick pathway that threaded its way through the perfectly manicured lawn.
The house was gorgeous but huge, way too big for two people to live in. We’d moved to this house when I’d been in middle school, and even though a part of me had been excited to get a new bedroom that was twice the size of my old one and overlooked the backyard with the in-ground pool, another part of me knew that our family of three could have been just as happy living in a house a third this size. Well, I could have, anyway. But my father had been doing very well as a property developer, and in the past decade, he’d done exceedingly well. And though I did benefit greatly from his success, it also made him adamant that I be as successful as he was.
I found my mother in the kitchen, standing at the marble-topped island, arranging flowers into a big square vase. My mother didn’t work and was always trying out new
hobbies; the latest being flower arranging. These hobbies sometimes last a year, sometimes a month, but nothing ever really seemed to captivate her.
“Tessa!” she said, looking up as I walked into the kitchen. She put down the flowers she was holding and came over to give me a hug. She always acted as though it had been months since we’d last seen each other, not weeks, or sometimes, even, days.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, returning the hug. “What are you up to?”
“Oh, I’m just trying out some new arrangements,” she said. “We weren’t expecting a visit from you today! Not that we’re complaining. Does your father know you’re here?”
“No, I just walked in; I haven’t seen Dad yet.”
“Well, you came at the perfect time, because he’s going to play golf soon with his friends. Then it’ll just be me here, so maybe you’d like to go out to lunch?”
“Um, sure, maybe, but first there’s—”
“Tessa! I thought that was you.” I turned as my father walked into the kitchen. He was wearing a navy blue polo shirt with a lightweight argyle sweater vest over it, and khaki shorts. Definitely ready to head out to the golf course. He gave me a quick hug and kissed my cheek. He was always in a good mood before he went golfing, so maybe that would help with what I was about to tell them.
“Oh, Tessa, do you know who I was just talking with?” Mom said.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”
“Marjorie! And she was asking about you. She said Brynn’s doing so well at Brown. She’s really loving it. We all knew she would.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. Marjorie was my mother’s best friend, they’d been best friends forever, and they often liked to say how they had planned their whole lives out when they’d been younger and that it had mostly come to fruition. Especially the part about marrying handsome men and being rich and having successful daughters. Except lately, I was feeling less and less like a successful daughter and more and more like a complete failure.
“There’s something I need to talk to you guys about,” I said.
“Oh?” my mother asked. “What is it? Is everything okay?”
“Yes. Well, yes and no.” I could feel both of them watching me; I could sense my mother’s nervousness rising. She was not the sort of person that you would confess bad news to; she couldn’t deal with it. It would make her anxiety shoot through the roof. She was the sort of person who liked to hear happy news, who wanted things—especially in her own life—to always be going right. In other words, she certainly wasn’t going to be thrilled to hear that my grades weren’t what they thought they were.
“I haven’t been doing so well in school,” I said. I said it in a rush, just wanting to get the hard part over with. There. I’d put it out there. I looked at their faces and could immediately tell that neither were very happy with what I’d said.
“What do you mean?” my father asked. “I thought your studies were going quite well. That’s what you’ve been telling us when we’ve asked. Were you being dishonest?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I thought . . . I thought that things were going better than they were, actually. I thought that I was doing pretty well in most of my classes, but there were a couple tests that I didn’t do perfectly on, and a few assignments that I got a lower grade than I’d anticipated. So all those factors have combined to bring my GPA down. And I’m telling you now because I wanted you to be aware, and also, I want you to know that I’m going to do everything in my power to bring them back up.”
My father was frowning. “We have an agreement, Tessa,” he said.
“I know.”
“And that agreement says that you will maintain your A average if you expect us to support you financially. We’ve been very generous with our support, in fact, and we have no problem doing so, so long as you keep up your end of the bargain. But it doesn’t sound like that’s happening.”
“Things aren’t going to stay like this,” I said. “I promise. I mean, I didn’t even have to tell you guys this, because I’m going to get my grades back up, I just wanted to be forthcoming with you, and—”
“Oh, Tessa,” my mom said. It sounded like she was about to cry. “This is terrible news. Is something going on with you? Something that would cause your grades to plummet? I mean, I just got off the phone with Marjorie and I was telling her how well you were doing!”
“No, no, nothing bad happened,” I said. “Nothing like that at all. I just told you guys what was going on, and I’m going to get my grades back up.”
“You’re damn right you are,” my father said. He had a bit of a temper, my dad, and the littlest thing could set him off. I should have known not to bring this up; I should have just gotten my grades up and not said a word about it. But I’d been afraid that they’d somehow find out and be upset that I hadn’t told them to begin with.
“This is not acceptable, Tessa,” my mom said. “Things are getting more competitive these days—not less. You can’t get by on B’s like you used to be able to. Don’t you want to succeed in life? Don’t you want to go out and get a good job—have a real career—when you’re done with school? We’re supporting you now so you don’t have the stress of having to work a job while going to class, or take out a huge student loan that you’re going to be stuck paying off once you graduate. Not every student is as lucky as you are.”
“I know,” I said. “And I appreciate everything that you guys are doing, I really do. And of course I want a career, and it would be really hard to be working a job and going to school.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” my father said.
“I’m going to get my grades back up.”
He nodded. “Good. And I hope you’re serious about it, because if your grades end up being anything less than what they’ve been in the past, that’s it, Tessa. We’re cutting you off.”
My jaw dropped. “Really? Just like that?”
“That’s what we agreed upon, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“So I don’t think you should act surprised that we wouldn’t continue to support you if you weren’t doing what you were supposed to. And what you’re supposed to be doing right now is getting A’s. Not B’s. That was not part of the arrangement. And I believe I told you that if you did start getting grades that weren’t A’s, we would no longer be financially supporting you.”
I nodded. “You did.”
“Did you think I was joking?”
“No.”
“I know there are plenty of parents out there who make idle threats, who would be willing to look the other way for something like this,” my father continued, “but I meant what I said, Tessa. A B is not an A.”
“I’ll get my grades back up,” I said, feeling my chin shake, which was a sure sign that I was about to start crying. Except I didn’t want to start crying, because there was nothing to really be crying about—I just had to get my grades back up. Plain and simple.
“What happened?” my mother asked. “I don’t believe you when you tell me that nothing happened. That doesn’t make sense, Tessa, because you’ve always been a good student. Something must have happened.”
She was looking at me imploringly, her eyes begging me to confess some awful thing that had occurred that would explain why my grades weren’t what she thought they should be. My father just stood there, arms folded across his chest, looking pissed.
Nick had broken up with me before I’d mentioned anything about him to my parents. So they really had no idea that I’d ever been involved with anyone. I’d gone on a few dates in high school, had gone to prom, but I’d never had a serious boyfriend. Not that Nick was a serious boyfriend or anything, but at one point, I had hoped he would be.
“I was seeing someone,” I said.
“Oh?” my mother asked. “Seeing someone? Like a boyfriend?”
“Yes. Well, no, not exactly like a boyfriend.” I realized how this made it sound, though—like I was just hooking up with some guy for sex. �
��I mean, we were together, and we liked each other, and I guess I just thought it was more serious than it actually was. He broke up with me before I could really tell you guys about him. And I wasn’t expecting it, and it sort of got in the way of my schoolwork. Which I realize was stupid, and I shouldn’t have let happen.”
“Tessa,” my mother said. “Why didn’t you tell us? We could’ve helped you. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Breakups can be really hard.”
“Mom, I don’t think you could have helped me.”
“Well, we would have at least known what was going on with you.”
“I didn’t want to make a big deal.”
My father looked far less sympathetic, though. “So you’re telling me that this is all about some guy?” He shook his head. “That’s not acceptable, Tessa. You can’t let yourself get sidetracked like that, especially over some boy.”
“It’s done and over with!” I exclaimed. “I’m not involved with him, I’ve accepted that he doesn’t like me like that, and I’ve moved on. I’m not letting it distract me anymore. You guys were asking if something had happened, and I’m telling you.”
“I’m not too interested in hearing about your relationship woes, Tessa,” my father said. “Are you trying to tell us you need to see a psychologist? Some sort of mental health professional? Is that what this is?”
“What? No!” I shook my head. “I don’t need to see someone! I was just telling you what had happened.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to make excuses.”
“I’m not.”
My father nodded. “Good. And now I need to get going; I’m going to be late.” He went over and dropped a quick kiss on my mother’s cheek, nodded briskly at me, and then was gone.
“Well,” I said, looking at my mother. “That went great.”
She sighed. “Tessa, you know how you father is. You shouldn’t act surprised. Daddy and I have been generous with you, too, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect you to uphold your end of things. But I also don’t want you to think that we don’t care about the other stuff that’s happening in your life. Who was this person? Why didn’t you tell me about him?”