Saxifrage & Starshine

by Megan Kempston

  She batted my hand away absently while her other hand kept poking me painfully.

  “Take your pants off,” she said.

  “Oh, are we trying out some Fifty Shades stuff?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light. “I suppose I’m up for—”

  “Jon,” she said. “Pants. Now.”

  Yep, she had caught me.

  I was doomed.

  Too bad, tiger, no hunting tonight.

  I sighed, stood up, and took off my pants.

  Amy looked at my leg, blinked, looked closer, and put one hand over her mouth.

  But she didn’t laugh. Reason 35,475.

  Down my thigh, rubbed into the skin from a few weeks of frequent biking in the same pair of embroidered bike shorts, was a reddish-pinkish-purplish area that read, “Smarty.”

  “Right,” she said. “I’m going to go grab some antiseptic and Neosporin.” She peered closer at the area. “I don’t think you’ll need oral antibiotics, but let’s see how it looks tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow!

  As soon as she left the room, I started thinking frantically. Wyatt and Davis and all their Tesla-driving friends were going to be at the bike race. There had to be some way I could get Amy to let me go.

  Maybe if I wrapped it in gauze—no, she would probably want me to keep it open so it would air out.

  Maybe if I just wore normal shorts instead of bike shorts—but then I was likely to get chafed in even more sensitive areas.

  Maybe—

  Amy came back into the room, and I had a sudden burst of inspiration.

  “Babe, what if I cut out the embroidery part of my bike shorts and showed this wound tomorrow? Just think, it’d probably get all kinds of media coverage. And I could call it part of my Cam-Pain—get it, P-A-I-N?”

  “Hrm,” she said, putting some antiseptic onto a gauze pad. “Well, that depends.”

  “On how it looks tomorrow?” I said hopefully.

  She gave me a look. “On whether you want me to have that particular mental image in my head whenever we have sex for the rest of our lives.”

  Yep, I was doomed.

  But maybe…

  I reached out and caught her fingers and brought them to my lips. “Our relationship is the most important thing in my life. If you don’t want me to go to the bike race tomorrow, I won’t.”

  “Good,” she said, nodding her head.

  Then she started to apply the antiseptic.

  It stung. I tried not to let it show in my voice as I asked, “So, after this…”

  She kept looking at my leg. “I think I’m going to shower and maybe watch some TV. I haven’t had a Friday night off for awhile.”

  “But what about…”

  She looked up at me. “Sorry, hon. I love you, but bacterial infections, even unusually shaped ones, just aren’t a turn-on for me.” She handed me the tube of Neosporin, gave me a very motherly kiss on the forehead, and said, “If you want to watch reruns of Grey’s Anatomy, though…”

  Have I mentioned I hate biking?

  ***

  On Tuesday, Amy had to work late, so Lindz and I ordered pizza.

  “So,” I said as she picked up a slice from the chicken and pineapple half. “How was school today?”

  She mumbled something, but I got the feeling her lack of enthusiasm wasn’t only because I’d caught her with her mouth full. Or even her involved text message conversation with Sal.

  “And the studying for your big vocab test?” I asked hesitantly.

  She didn’t dignify that with an answer—just with a glare.

  I made a mental note to talk to Amy about Lindz’s upcoming parent-teacher conference. Then, thinking to model good conversational behavior, I told Lindz, “My day was pretty good. I have my endorsement interview tomorrow at the paper, so I spent the day prepping—”

  She looked up then, her eyes wide, a string of mozzarella connecting the bite in her mouth to the half-slice in her hand. “Mmph?!”

  I paused, a slice from my side of the pizza—garlic, mushroom, and sausage—halfway to my mouth, and waited to be chastised for interrupting whatever critical flow of information she was enmeshed in.

  Instead she chewed, swallowed, and said, “Can I help you practice for your interview?”

  I raised my eyebrows and then hastily put them back down. “Sure? I mean, sure! I’d love your help, kiddo.”

  She put down the rest of her slice, turned her phone face down, and looked directly at me. She didn’t even roll her eyes when I called her “kiddo.”

  Suddenly worried, I set my pizza down as well.

  “I’ll ask you mock interview questions, like we did in history class a few weeks ago.”

  I frowned. “History class?”

  She waved a hand dismissively. “Something boring about Ben Franklin’s newspaper. But that’s not the point. The point is that Mr. Jones split us into pairs and we had to interview each other. So now I’ll ask you some questions. Okay?”

  Well, I thought to myself, journalism is a perfectly legitimate career path. And if she’s passionate about it, maybe it will strengthen her skills in language arts.

  “Okay,” I said. “Go for it.”

  She grinned and rummaged in her backpack, pulling out a sheet of loose-leaf paper and a sparkly purple pen. “Okay, first question. Why are you running for school board?”

  “I’m running for school board,” I dutifully answered, “because I believe that our students are not getting the education they deserve. If I were elected—”

  “I didn’t ask what you’d do if you were elected,” she said. “Just why you’re running.”

  I frowned. “But that’s connected to why—”

  “Just answer the question,” she said.

  I swallowed. “Um. I’m running for school board because I believe our students aren’t getting the education they deserve. I think our students are not being taught what they need to know to be a successful in today’s world, and that’s keeping them from reaching their full potential—”

  “So you’re calling me stupid?” Her tone was mild, but there was a hint of something dangerous in her eyes.

  “Of course I’m not calling you stupid, Lindz! I would never call you that!”

  She raised her eyebrows. “But you said students aren’t reaching their full potential, which obviously means you think they’re stupid. I’m a student. Ergo, you think I’m stupid.”

  I opened my mouth and closed it, not sure if this was an appropriate time to praise her use of the word “ergo.”

  “Next question,” she said before I could respond. “What do you plan to do if you are elected?”

  “Well, as I tried to tell you earlier—”

  She gave me a look that was frighteningly similar to one of Amy’s.

  “Um,” I said. “If I’m elected, I would like to increase the difficulty of the curricula used across the board—”

  “Because you think we’re stupid, right?”

  I forced my hands to unclench. “I didn’t say that. I just think that our community would be better served by a more rigorous curriculum, especially in the areas of math and language arts.”

  “Hrmmm,” she said skeptically as she wrote something down.

  I leaned over to try to read what she was writing.

  She spotted me, narrowed her eyes, and snatched the paper away.

  “Next question,” she said. “Why should anyone vote for you?”

  I thought her phrasing was more hostile than strictly necessary, but I didn’t think it would be wise to argue. “I would hope that people would vote for me because I’ve spent many years in the field of education—”

  “College education, right?” she interjected. “How does that make you qualified to be on the school board for elementary, middle, and high school?”

  “Well, it’s—”

  “Because they don’t seem that related.”

  “Well, actually—”

  “I’m bored, and I’m sure our rea
ders are too. Tell me something interesting. Like, who’s your favorite superhero and why? Or, no, what’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you, Mr. Cass?”

  Getting interrogated by my daughter, the Terror of the Tabloids.

  “Uh, well once I got kidnapped in Bolivia.”

  Lindz blinked. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I was out doing field work in Puerto Grande near the Brazilian border. I was going door-to-door with a survey about the most recent election to get people’s voting histories to compare them to other regions—” I caught her glazed look and cleared my throat. “Anyway, I was walking down the street—it was this really muggy, warm day in July and I was sweating like crazy—and this SUV drove up next to me. I sort of gave them a wave, because I was trying to keep my reputation as a nice, harmless kid from the US. This guy in the back seat rolled down the window and said something in Quechua. I shook my head, still smiling. He switched to Spanish and said ‘Americano?’ I said, ‘Si, soy un postgrado de la Universidad Harvard en—’ And just like that, the guy threw open the door, grabbed my shirt with both hands, and hauled me into the SUV.”

  Lindz’s eyes were like dinner plates. “What happened next?”

  “They yelled at me for awhile in a mixture of rapid Spanish and Quechua—which I didn’t understand as well as I should have, mostly because I was trying to woo your mom when I was taking that class—while the huge guy in the front seat drove in slow circles through town. I pretty much thought I was toast. And I had promised your mom that I’d take her out for a fancy dinner in New York City when I got back, so I was pretty sure she’d kill me if I got myself killed out in the field.”

  “And then?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Then the big driver’s cell phone rang, he answered it, he talked for a minute, and then he pulled the car over and said something to the guy next to me in the back seat. That guy’s eyes went wide and he reached for his pocket—”

  Lindz gave a tiny, gratifying shriek and covered her mouth with her hands.

  “And pulled out a Rolex watch that matched the one he was wearing. He started saying, ‘Le pido disculpa señor, ha sido un error grave’—apologizing and saying that there had been a huge mistake. I asked him what the mistake was, and I guess there was some other white guy that they were supposed to pick up who had been investigating the local drug trade, and I laughed and said, no, no, I was just a student, and he laughed and tried to give me the Rolex, and I said no, and he said okay but he was going to buy me a beer, and we all ended up having a round of drinks in the local bar, and then the guy insisted on giving me the Rolex anyway. So I gave him my best fountain pen as a trade, the one Grampa Joe had given me for my birthday a few years before and—” I paused, remembering my audience. “And you can never, ever tell him this story. Or tell Mom that I told you this story. Ever. On pain of… something awful.”

  Lindz waved a hand, dismissing the suggestion. “Do you still have the Rolex?”

  I grinned and pulled back my sleeve.

  “That’s the Rolex that you got when you were kidnapped in Bolivia?” she squeaked.

  “Yep. I’ve had to change the battery a few times, but it still runs just fine.”

  She dragged her gaze up from my wrist to look me straight in the eyes. “You have to tell this story at your interview tomorrow.”

  I frowned. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with the school board.”

  “That’s why you have to tell it,” she told me. “Everyone else is going to ramble on about curriculums—”

  “Curricula.”

  “Whatever. And they’re going to be super boring. And then you’re going to walk in with this story, like you’re right out of Indiana Jones—”

  “Wrong field,” I said. “He was an archaeologist, not a political scientist.”

  “The point,” she said, “is that it is a genuinely great story, and if you tell it tomorrow, it’ll make you sound like you might actually be an interesting person.”

  I frowned. “Are you sure? I think the idea of these endorsement interviews is to talk about our policy views and our qualifications.”

  “Like more math and language arts, blah-de-blah?”

  “Right.”

  “Yeah, I’m bored already, and you haven’t even started talking about it. But suit yourself. It’s your campaign.”

  My frown got deeper. “Even if you were right about it being more interesting to talk about my very brief kidnapping almost twenty years ago than my substantive and well-thought-out policy views—”

  Lindz gave a loud fake snore.

  “How does this even relate to my campaign?”

  She arched a brow. “Dad. Haven’t you ever heard of ‘spin?’ You just need to make it sound educational, or figure out a reason why it relates to why you want to make those curricula changes.”

  “Curriculum.”

  She glared at me.

  I hesitated, and then said, “I’ll think about it. Either way, thanks for helping me prep for my interview. You’re pretty good at interviewing, you know.”

  “Aww, Dad. Don’t get all mushy.”

  “I’m not getting mushy,” I said. “I just think you might have a career in journalism ahead of you, if that’s what you decide you’re interested in. You know, news coverage or political commentary, something like that. There are lots of interesting options.”

  “Hrmm,” she said. Then she grinned. “Well, I did get Kayla Hansen to admit she stuffs her bra. And then she cried. That was pretty great.”

  I blinked.

  Lindz picked up her phone and returned to her texts.

  ***

  I paused for a moment in front of the door to the newspaper, checking one side of my open shirt collar with a trembling hand. I was a full fifteen minutes early, and I’d agonized about my wardrobe choices for at least an hour that morning. I also regretted the garlic on my pizza the previous night, even though I’d brushed my teeth about twelve times.

  “Don’t worry, Jon,” I muttered to myself. “Just go in there, tell the simple truth, and leave. Nothing to it.”

  “Yeah, man! Right on!” said a passerby in a Google t-shirt.

  I flashed him a mortified, crooked smile, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door. Then I walked up the stairs, where a nice receptionist showed me to a waiting area and offered to bring me coffee. I told him no thanks, and tried for a confident smile.

  I could hear laughter drifting in from the next room over, and the rumble of low conversation.

  I pulled out the index card where I’d written down my talking points.

  * Give kids the education they deserve

  * More rigor in math and language arts

  * Overhaul faculty hiring and firing systems

  * Tortilla de patatas

  Wait, what? That wasn’t on the list.

  More threads of conversation from the next room drifted over. Patatas bravas, albóndigas, bacalao, pa amb tomàquet.

  My stomach rumbled. I shook myself and started over again from the top.

  * Give kids the education they deserve

  * More rigor in paella cooking techniques

  I sighed and gave up and settled for eavesdropping. A woman with a silky voice was comparing the relative merits of cojonuda from Madrid and Barcelona. Occasionally, another woman’s more nasal tones interjected with a question, or joined the first voice for a nice laugh.

  Food writer pitching stories to the editor, I thought to myself. Or travel writer. Or both. Some fluff pieces they have to put in around the election stories.

  They moved on to sangria and horchata recipes. I let my mind drift, imagining sending Lindz off to camp for a few weeks the following summer and sweeping Amy away to a little Spanish apartment, with a tiny terrace for two overlooking the Mediterranean where we could eat a late breakfast after having stayed out the night before sampling the local tapas.

  I was just resolving to research whether I could somehow roll the ide
a into a grant application, the phrase “comparative study of pedagogical techniques” floating seductively through my mind, when the conversation in the next room came to a close. There was a bit more laughter and chatter and some farewells, and then one set of footsteps came towards me.

  The woman who walked out of the editor’s office looked strangely familiar. She had cardamom-colored skin, dark hair in tight, short curls around her face, and a flattering grey suit.

  She caught my eye and smiled.

  “Jon Cass, right?”

  I blinked and shoved the index card I was still holding into my pocket and tried not to trip over myself getting up. It’s not every day that good-looking women flirt with me. Or know my name.

  I took her outstretched hand—as smooth as her voice—and tried my best to return her smile.

  “That’s right,” I said, wondering if she was a former student. No, I thought to myself. I don’t think I would have forgotten her.

  Her smile grew wider. “I thought I recognized you from your website. Here for your endorsement interview?”

  Her nose, I decided. That was the familiar part. Long and curved, with an upturned tip. Distinctive. Not at all unattractive.

  “Yes,” I said, forcing my attention back to the conversation. “Though after what I could hear you guys talking about, I sort of wish it were a food article.”

  That made no sense.

  But she just laughed.

  “Well, I have to run, Mr. Cass—”

  “Jon,” I said, “please.”

  “Jon,” she amended. “But good luck with your campaign.”

  “Thanks,” I told her, my cheeks starting to hurt from all the smiling. “And I hope you’ll consider voting for me.”

  “Sure,” she said, and walked down the hall.

  The receptionist, who seemed to have heard the last part of our conversation, gave me a quizzical look.

  “She’s one of my supporters,” I explained.

  He looked even more confused. “The editor is ready to see you.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and headed into the room.

  It was windowless, lit only by harsh fluorescent lights, and the woman sitting at the desk had her grey hair pulled into a stiff bun.

  “Mr. Cass,” she said. “I’m Patti Blake, the editor-in-chief. Please come on in, have a seat.”