Robyn reached over and put her hand on Ryan’s arm. Normally he hated that, but now he found it reassuring. He wanted her to take over, which she did, explaining that they were both incredibly busy and had not been as diligent with Michael’s homework as they should have been, and asked what they could do.
Miss Chang sighed. “Practice will remedy it; it’s just there are limits to what I can do in a class of thirty-two children, twelve of whom have learning and behavioral difficulties.”
“That’s just not right,” countered Ryan. “How can Michael study with disruptive influences around him?”
Miss Chang looked at her watch. The gesture was as devastating as what came next.
“Michael’s no angel.”
Ryan fell silent.
“Someone needs to do an hour’s reading with him every day.”
Robyn looked at Ryan; she didn’t get home until seven three nights a week, and Claudia the minder could hardly speak English. Ryan shrugged and folded his arms. Miss Chang looked at Robyn. Robyn knew the look was one of pity.
After this exchange Robyn sent Ryan in the direction of the coffee table, made an excuse, and headed for the disabled bathroom, bumping straight into Julia and Kristian, who had their arms wrapped around each other like young love’s dream and were kissing in front of everyone. Robyn was so upset that she didn’t even enjoy Kristian’s expression of terror when she muttered “hello.” She desperately needed to cry and, like a small woodland animal ready to lie down and die, she needed a private burrow to do it in. The bathroom was too obvious, so she made her way to the janitor’s storage cupboard, crawled into the corner, pulled a toilet roll from the shelves, and slumped onto the floor.
But she had been followed by a predator.
She looked up through sodden eyes to see Lucy Lovett peering in at her. Of course. Lucy often lurked in unexpected corridors with a faraway expression in her eyes. Sometimes she could be heard talking to herself. Not today. She said nothing, so Robyn felt she had to explain.
“Michael can’t read, and I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s because this school is a dump.”
Robyn was startled.
“You think so? Miss Chang says it’s because I don’t read to him.”
Lucy, who had felt unsettled about Robyn since the debacle of the horse course, sat down beside her next to the foul-smelling floor disinfectant.
“Fuck off. When the fuck are you meant to do that?”
Robyn winced a little. Despite profanity being delivered in what she imagined was an upper-crust English accent, the good girl from Carolina in her never felt comfortable around it. Lucy and Julia swore all the time. It was very off-putting. But she needed to hear what Lucy was going to say next. This is what it was.
“It’s all right for me. I have time. I bring them home and I teach them myself. I don’t know how long it’ll work, but for the moment it’s fine. But you . . .”
Lucy looked at Robyn now, right into her eyes.
“You work harder than any other mother I’ve ever met. I see you every morning, hurrying, always hurrying. But you never lose your temper with your kids. I admire you. You ought to see me with half the pressure you’re under, berating my two for ruining my life in front of Kmart. And passersby.”
Tears were spouting from Robyn’s eyes now like a clown’s rubber squirty flower. It was all too much.
“I can’t do it anymore. I’m exhausted all the time. The only recreation I have is the gym.” (This was not strictly true, of course. And sleeping with the occasional husband, she should have added.) “I stagger through the day and I watch bad TV every night. How can this be my life?”
Lucy nodded. She reached for another toilet roll and handed it over.
“Michael can’t read,” said Robyn again, marveling that this could possibly be true.
“No, he can’t,” said Lucy.
Robyn remembered that Lucy volunteered in the classroom twice a week. She knew. Lucy took her hand.
“Thank you,” Robyn said, smiling thinly. Lucy smiled back. Broadly.
“You know, if you ever need me to pick them up or you get stuck one evening, let me know. I could drill them with mine.”
Robyn stared at her in disbelief, and then the dreamlike quality of the scene continued when Julia and Christy appeared in the doorway.
“What are you two doing? Sniffing the fucking cleaning fluids?” said Julia. “The principal’s about to tell us the plans for the school summer clear-out. We have to choose a child to put on a bonfire. Or at least I think that’s what she said. . . . Oh, hi, Robyn.”
Julia spotted that Robyn’s face looked like a little rabbit’s with myxomatosis and decided to ignore it.
“Stop it,” laughed Christy.
“I’m coming,” replied Lucy, crawling out. “Can I nominate one of my own?”
Then she stopped in the doorway.
“Robyn, I’m always in the park with the kids on Saturday morning, around ten. Why not come? We’ll have coffee.”
Julia looked up. “I’ll come, too.”
And they left.
Robyn started crying again. For so long she had wanted nothing more than to sit with the cool girls at the back of the school bus, but she realized now that she could have all along. It was not them stopping her. It was her. She had radiated a mixture of fear and disdain and had created a drama about her own rejection that they were oblivious to. She should never have listened to herself. She should have silenced the long monologues inside her head born out of her exhaustion and desperation.
She was suffused with guilt. Now they had finally looked at her, listened to her, and seen her, it was too late. She had fondled the penises of two out of three of their husbands.
Thank God Michael was educationally challenged. She had an excuse to take her kids out of the school.
November
Robyn picked up the message on her phone and felt sick. Sitting in Principal Lorraine’s office, she felt sicker. She stared straight ahead at a poster listing the five requirements for the children in the school, focusing on number three: Always tell the truth. The letters seemed to dance around before her, like a visual disturbance preceding a migraine and, as the principal had made clear “it’s about where you live,” Robyn felt an enormous headache coming on.
Michael had been handed a form with his address written on it, had read it and put up his hand to say it was not correct. While Robyn’s heart leapt at the fact he could actually read something now, she was furious with herself for not thinking of a good enough reason to make him keep quiet on that subject. She was not creative enough, but that was the story of her life.
At that moment she understood why some criminals actually confess to crimes the moment they are arrested. She was possessed by a powerful urge to tell all. How she had informed Ryan of her plan in a matter-of-fact way, and how he was so terrified of her raising the Orange County issue again that he agreed. At first, that is. Then she told him he would have to persuade his colleague at the gallery, the winsome and utterly infatuated Catalina, who lived in a studio on West Eleventh, that they were going to use her address and that, in fact, Robyn had already told two utility companies to change the name on the bills to his.
“But it’s a lie,” spluttered Ryan.
She had ignored this, thinking, Yes and so was you telling me you would win the Pulitzer.
“Our school is good enough for everyone we know.”
“No, it isn’t. They’re just having fun slumming it at the moment, but there’s no way Julia Kirkland and Christy Armitage’s kids are going to a middle school that has metal detectors at the gates and where the mothers get arrested for dealing.” Robyn actually thought this was an urban myth and Weeds had a lot to answer for, but she said it anyway and, if that wasn’t enough, there was a killer blow coming. “And Lucy Lovett sa
ys she’ll move up the Hudson if she has to. We need to change and change now. If they get into that school in the West Village they’re a shoo-in for a decent middle school; maybe we can even get Madison to be gifted and talented?”
“Huh,” Ryan snorted. “That’s all about gifted and talented parents.”
Well, then, ours are f***ed, she had thought to herself, but what did it matter now? All her Machiavellian stratagems had been for nothing in the truest sense that Machiavelli’s only criterion for a successful plan was not whether it was right or wrong but whether it worked. She shrank into the chair and waited for the almighty reprimand that she was due (something she herself had avoided her entire school career). Actually, she had dreaded this moment for so many weeks that part of her was curious to see what was going to happen.
The door opened, and in came Principal Lorraine. She smiled, and Robyn noticed that she had done that weird thing with lipliner outside her mouth, which only heightened the tiny wrinkles around it and made it look like she had no lights in her bathroom.
“We have had experience of this before, Ms. Skinner. . . .” she began.
Oh, crap, thought Robyn, she’s going to be nice. She started sobbing immediately. She hated when people felt sorry for her.
“I’ve been so worried about the kids. . . .” she replied, her mind racing. Another plan was forming. She was going to beg. She wondered how abject she could be short of falling onto her knees. But maybe that would do it. . . .
Principal Lorraine held up her hand to stop her. She proffered a tissue.
“Separations, divorces, difficult custody arrangements.”
Robyn nodded noncommittally. She had no clue as to where this was going.
“How long have you and your husband been living apart?”
Eureka! The sudden euphoria made Robyn judder, which enhanced the overall effect of overwrought supplication she was going for. Slowly she lifted her trembling left hand and wiped her eyes. Thank goodness she had left her wedding ring by the sink this morning, something she had been doing with increasing regularity over the last couple of years. Everything was going to be fine.
She told Lorraine that she and Ryan had been in trouble for some time but they had only formally separated in the last few months. It was very confusing for the children, but they were doing their best to make them feel secure and she appreciated the wonderful atmosphere and opportunities offered by the new school.
She sniffed and grinned—oh, yes, why had she been so worried?—and finished by saying that she had not felt so relieved in years.
“It’s just facing up to the truth, isn’t it?” the older woman said, pointing to bullet point number three.
They even embraced as Robyn left.
So from that day separate letters from the school went to each of them at the two addresses. (Robyn had said that Ryan had moved out of the family home to the Loisaida.) They attended their first Parents’ Evening together, but they arrived at different times to school events, went to the holiday musical on different nights, and Ryan decided to leave work early on a Monday and Friday to collect his children and spend “quality time” with them. Robyn wondered if it was her imagination, but she was pretty sure he was enjoying the new arrangement. She had worried he would have some moral objection, but he told her she had been right and he was delighted that the days Madison would come home asking what a blow job was had become a distant, although still unpleasant, memory. Certainly he entered into the subterfuge with great gusto, and what with that, and the fact that Mrs. Hernandez downstairs finally died and they colonized all her storage space in the basement and got permission to put shelves and hooks up on the landing outside their apartment (which the old lady had voted against at ten consecutive coop board meetings, meaning they had carried buggies, babies, and shopping bags up three flights of stairs every day for seven years), their life suddenly did feel shinier and happier.
Ryan was asked by a couple of fluttering mothers on the PTA to run a creative writing workshop for the fifth-graders after school every week, and he did so, discovering a talent for teaching he had had no idea of. Then Michael chased after another child with a baseball bat, and at the ensuing, excruciating “making amends” dinner the victim’s understanding parents insisted on, it turned out that the father was one of the seven hundred people not related to Ryan who had read Residua and Fragments and loved it. He asked Ryan to contribute to his online magazine, and Ryan started writing a humorous column called “Fathergate,” which to Robyn’s delight meant he did more and more of the childcare, as it gave him material.
He was fulfilled, and he actually wrote more and Robyn had another insight that perhaps the reason creativity and depression go hand in hand is that if you are born with the desire to express yourself in that way, the grim reality of that life, and the incredible odds against getting your stories published, or your film made or, heaven help you, your poetry read, makes you depressed and the vicious circle goes on and on. Once again maybe she had been so wrapped up in her own private life drama that she had missed the fact that her husband was struggling. She forgave him for the past, she forgave herself for her erotic adventures in the playground, and, when he mentioned that he was beginning to consider moving to Brooklyn, she knew they could have a future. A two-bedroom with study in Brooklyn Heights! This had been Robyn’s wildest dream. Her kids could do a gardening class. Maybe she could have another baby? No, no . . . She pulled herself together. She had promised herself she would not let her thoughts run away with her anymore. Ryan would . . . Absolutely no, and anyway, how would she explain it away to Principal Lorraine without looking like a slut?
In short, at this point in their lives, divorce suited them better than marriage and it seemed they were about to live contentedly ever after, until Principal Lorraine put her cupid hat on, and sat Robyn next to Schuyler Robinson at the antibullying workshop.
• • •
THE FACT THAT ROBYN had not even noticed Schuyler was an indication of her newfound peace of mind. He was certainly attractive, despite a distressing fondness for a black leather jacket that should have been retired in 1989, and the fact that he really was newly single meant that, unlike Ryan, he was receptive to the female fluttering that surrounded him whenever he set foot in the school. Principal Lorraine had taken him under her wing and banished his ex-wife to the back row of the school hall. (Schuyler’s ex had committed various sins in Principal Lorraine’s eyes, including questioning whether global warming was scientifically proven in front of the third-graders on Save the Earth day, but the worst of which was not dyeing her hair, thereby threatening the expensive and time-consuming efforts Lorraine went to in order to turn back time.) She introduced Schuyler to Robyn with the line, “I’m sure you two will have a lot to talk about.” Once again, Robyn had no idea where this was going, but, when Schuyler took his cue and started talking about the frustrations of being a weekend parent, she had another “Eureka!” moment. She had been seated in the divorced section of the auditorium.
She knew she would have to gather herself, would have to assume her role for the ensuing conversation, but, thankfully, the lights went down quickly, the whiteboard came on, and Principal Lorraine took to the stage to outline school policy, scribbling up ten bullet points. Schuyler took out his iPad and made notes. Robyn was impressed. At events like this, Ryan inevitably performed, making humorous comments in an audible whisper until he got a reaction from the other parents, but Schuyler took it very seriously. In the break, he told her that he was concerned for the emotional health of his son, Quinn, who had been traumatized by his clearly not-at-all-amicable separation. He felt that Quinn being an only child was a problem, too, but another child had been out of the question, and he added, ruefully but somewhat unnecessarily, Robyn felt, how difficult it had been to have one. Robyn was sure she knew what that meant. Inadvertently, she flicked her hair, smoothed her hands over her luxuriant belly, and p
ractically felt her ovaries bounce triumphantly inside her.
Schuyler asked Robyn directly how her children had coped, so she blustered and muttered about putting them first and how she and Ryan had done mediation with a fantastic man in Queens, who had a beard that he plaited. She had practiced this to herself, the last vestige of her interior monologues, and the two times she had said it people had laughed. But Schuyler looked sad and told her she was an admirable person. Robyn was repulsed by herself. She decided that when she got home, she was putting her wedding ring back on. She would tell Principal Lorraine she and Ryan were reconciled and they would have to deal with the address issue.
And then Schuyler invited her to his farmhouse on the Jersey shore for the weekend. Just like that. He reached over and placed a hand on her thigh and whispered in her ear that he could tell she would look good naked. If it was her turn for the kids, there were permanent staff and a separate children’s wing. And he had a top-of-the-range Duxiana bed. Robyn knew better than most people how impressive that was.
When she said nothing, she was in shock, as this put the covert liaisons in the yoga cupboard to shame, he mistook her silence for some form of bohemian disapproval of wealth (he had heard that Ryan was a published writer and was impressed by it) and made a quip about it not being his fault he had a grandfather who discovered how to plastic-coat paper clips, but he did take his work for a nonprofit very seriously. He would send a car for her if that made it easier. Now Robyn felt furious. How could this man, this perfect-affair-material man, suddenly appear just when she had remembered how to be good?
She wanted to reassure him that she was absolutely not the sort of person who found indoor hot tubs or 3-D televisions or six-star vacations in the Maldives vulgar, but she sensed real danger for herself here. So she said it was very kind of him to invite her, but that she and Ryan had agreed they would never expose the children to any new relationship that wasn’t . . . serious.
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