Are We There Yet?

by Kathleen West

  Alice started speaking, nervous. “We had a great meeting with a therapist this morning. We’ve spent some time reflecting on the incident, and Teddy has texted Tane to apologize—”

  Whittaker interrupted. “Usually, these meetings go one way.” He ran a hand down his cheek, pulling his lower eyelid so Alice could see the pink flesh on the inside. “But I got a disturbing email this morning about something Teddy posted on social media.”

  Alice shook her head slightly, as if shooing away a fly. “Impossible,” she said. “I’ve had Teddy’s phone the whole time he’s been suspended. He’s had no access to social media.”

  “Mr. Sullivan?” Whittaker looked at him, his mouth slightly open. Alice swiveled toward her son and was stunned to register an admission in Teddy’s features. She almost reached over to wipe a speck of chocolate from the corner of his mouth but stopped herself. Teddy said nothing.

  “What?” Alice could hear her panic and wished for what seemed like the thousandth time that week that Patrick were next to her.

  Whittaker clicked his mouse and his eyes ran over his screen. Alice craned her neck to see what he was looking at. Email, she thought.

  “Mr. Whittaker?” she prompted after several more seconds.

  He folded his hands. Alice could hear her heartbeat in her ears.

  “Can you tell me anything about some Instagram messages you sent to Sadie Yoshida this week?”

  Teddy’s chin fell. His breath heaved out in a giant sigh.

  “Instagram?” Alice nervously swiped the chocolate on Teddy’s lip. As she did it, Teddy lifted his hand and batted hers away. The first of his tears fell then, and Whittaker reached across the philodendron on his desk—definitely artificial, Alice decided—and offered him a tissue.

  * * *

  “I DID IT because of the video,” Teddy said after Mr. Whittaker showed them the DMs on his monitor. Alice reached into her purse to retrieve his phone from the zippered pouch where she’d kept it, but Teddy stopped her.

  “I haven’t had time to sneak it back in.” He bent over his backpack and pulled out the iPhone. Alice’s jaw dropped. She had clearly failed his suspension. That was definitely what Whittaker was thinking.

  That and also that Teddy was the kind of boy who tried to keep women in line with insults like “slut.”

  Alice shuddered. “How did you even know that word?”

  “I’m in seventh grade.” Teddy said it as if that explained everything.

  Whittaker pointed at the phone in Teddy’s hand. “Can I see what made you so angry that you decided to send that message?”

  In a few clicks, Teddy had it. He held the phone out to the side so both Alice and Whittaker could see the Instagram Live video from opposite sides of the assistant principal’s desk. Alice closed her eyes when Tane mentioned Gigi. Not by name at least, Alice thought, as she pictured the raggedy stuffed otter. She put a hand on Teddy’s shoulder when Tane talked about the Pull-Ups. Teddy had cried so many times about them, humiliated each morning for years. Alice and Patrick had held their breath the first week Teddy had gone without them, just days after the start of sixth grade. And then, when nearly a month had gone by without an accident, Alice had slipped into his room while Teddy had been at soccer practice and taken the leftover briefs in their plastic package. They’d never talked about the transition.

  “What does this have to do with Sadie?” Whittaker asked when the video ended.

  Teddy sniffed, and Alice handed him another tissue. “She’s the one who told him. She’s the only one who knew.”

  Alice’s heart broke a little then. “How did she know about the Pull-Ups?”

  Teddy shrugged. “Camping, probably. Anyway, she told him, and he told everyone.”

  “We can’t be sure about that,” Whittaker said. He looked stern, but also sad. “You know, Teddy, when I first saw Mrs. Yoshida’s email about your DMs, I’d planned to send you back home with your mom to continue your suspension. But now? I think it might be better to keep you here on campus while I investigate. I’m going to send you to the Quiet Room until lunch.”

  Teddy rolled his eyes. “The Quiet Room?” Alice had never heard of it.

  “It’ll be better than having to answer people’s questions,” Whittaker said. “You’ll have a little privacy as this blows over.”

  Alice thought about arguing. Tane was certainly equally at fault. He should also see the inside of the so-called Quiet Room. But before she could speak up, she noticed the relief in her son’s face.

  “Why don’t I plan on calling you by the end of the day?” Whittaker suggested to Alice.

  She nodded and held her hand out to Teddy. “Give me your phone.”

  * * *

  ALICE HELD IT together in the school office, focused on Teddy’s emotion instead of her own, but in the parking lot after she’d said good-bye, she bent over her steering wheel and sobbed. Tears dripped onto the black leather interior as the engine idled. She called Patrick on speaker but got his voice mail, which was probably for the best since she wasn’t sure she could form words, or even explain the train of events that had gotten her to this level of despondency. And, she remembered, she hadn’t even divulged the appointment with Julienne. Obviously he’d disapprove. It was the stupidest of her ideas since her own adolescence.

  But Patrick wasn’t available anyway. He was never available. Alice cried harder. She usually pictured their healthy savings account statements when she missed him this intensely, but this time it didn’t help. At the rate she was going on her own, it didn’t matter if they had money saved for college—she wouldn’t be able to get the children there. They’d be in jail before their eighteenth birthdays. Alice bent in half, letting her hair cover the sides of her face as she bumped her forehead against the heated steering wheel.

  Eventually, she sat up and took several shaky breaths. She flipped open the sun visor and checked her face in the mirror. She was a mess, as she’d predicted—all blotchy with raccoon eyes. She grabbed a McDonald’s napkin from the center console, a remnant from one of their ice cream runs, and stemmed the carnage with spit. If she weren’t already hours late for work, she’d go home and touch up. But she had to get into the studio. She pulled out of the lot, scanning quickly for witnesses to her breakdown. None, thank God.

  When she got to Ramona Design, against all odds, she managed the most fruitful session she and her boss had had in months. They lost themselves in the newest fabric memos from Schumacher. They’d chosen an “unparalleled”—Ramona’s favorite word—russet performance velvet upholstery for the Kerrigans’ living room settee, both having the same inspiration at the same moment. They’d then pored over Osborne and Little floral linens and also mahogany antiques. The space would be spectacular, Alice knew. Given the ample budget, it would be their most striking work to date.

  By the time Alice excused herself to head back to the car pool line just after three, she felt hungover, whiplashed back into Teddy’s drama. It wasn’t actually her day to do the driving, but Alice had gotten just one spare text from Meredith that morning, a terse proclamation that, given the circumstances, she didn’t think they should share pickups. “For the time being,” Meredith had added.

  Alice wondered if there was any way back to their friendship from an all-caps “SLUT.” She thought of Adrian and worried there wasn’t. As the mother of a daughter, she knew that no matter the provocation, Teddy had crossed a line. She started crying again thinking about it. She couldn’t call either Meredith or Nadia, she realized, after telling the latter that Donovan was worse than Teddy. Maybe she could at least apologize for that.

  As she settled, sniffling, into the car pool line, Alice scanned the assembled cars for Meredith. She didn’t see the Jeep and turned her engine off as the school preferred. No need to contribute to greenhouse gases on school property, at least not while the weather was still temperate. Just as
she’d closed her eyes beneath her sunglasses, her phone rang. Elm Creek Junior High appeared in the caller ID, and even though Alice expected to hear an update from Jason Whittaker, her stomach lurched. The sour remnants of the squash soup she’d had for lunch stung the back of her throat.

  Alice imagined Whittaker on the other end of the call, his unlined face pale under the LEDs. “Alice Sullivan,” she said, anticipating his voice.

  “Mrs. Sullivan, it’s Jason Whittaker. I have some updates.” Alice appreciated at least one thing about Whittaker: He didn’t beat around the bush. Before she could even acknowledge him, he rushed on. “I’ve finished an investigation, and I’ve determined that though Teddy was completely out of line with those DMs, he was definitely provoked. In addition to the video we saw this morning, there’s been some conflict around hashtags.”

  “Hashtags?”

  “A power struggle between Teddy and Tane. Other kids took sides online.”

  Alice flashed to Nadia’s warning about the hashtags at coffee before Aidy’s conference and then to the mysterious text she’d received about Teddy laying off. She hadn’t heeded the warnings because her son wasn’t “that” kind of kid. She’d never once talked to a school administrator about anything but fund-raising. And now here she was just a week later, on close personal terms with the assistant principal. Alice’s whole body felt heavy. The RAV4 in front of her began its trek around the circle. Alice started the car and inched up as well. She caught sight of Teddy’s blond mop just outside the school’s main entrance and felt a slow sadness radiate from her belly. “Okay,” Alice said. “Where do we go from here? I’m in the car pool line. Teddy’s about to get in.” She watched him spot the car and lift his chin in a grown-up acknowledgment.

  “He can come back to school tomorrow, but I’m going to have all three of them—Teddy, Tane, and Sadie—meet with the social worker individually.”

  Alice watched Teddy wave over his shoulder to McCoy Blumenfeld. Maybe, she thought, he hadn’t lost all of his friends in the bedwetting scandal. “Sounds reasonable,” she said. “And you’ll keep me posted?”

  Teddy opened the passenger door and sat beside her, not making eye contact as he shoved his backpack down by his feet.

  As she hung up with Whittaker, another call came in. Ramona, she read on the Volvo’s display unit. Though she knew she should take it, she pressed the button next to her steering wheel that sent her boss to voice mail. She’d already broken the car pool rules by being on the phone at all. The last thing they needed was another infraction. Plus, Teddy’s hangdog expression compelled her to try to talk to him.

  “Are you okay?”

  He shrugged. “I spent the day in the Quiet Room. They made me go to the cafeteria early before the lunch bell rang, so I didn’t see anyone.”

  Alice wasn’t sure what to say. It seemed the wrong tack to remind him about the Pull-Ups, the potential need for privacy.

  “Do I have practice?” Teddy asked.

  Alice envisioned the calendar. She kept a whiteboard in their mudroom, a marker color for each of their responsibilities. She pictured Teddy’s green. She’d printed the name of the field where the premier team would meet on today’s date. “At seven, I’m pretty sure.” And then she imagined going through the car pool line all over again at the elementary school to retrieve Aidy. She imagined dragging her daughter to Teddy’s soccer practice. Maybe her mom would come over with takeout, Alice thought, even though she’d just been there on Tuesday. She’d text her. She hated to ask for extra help, especially now with Julienne, and yet facing her exhaustion on her own seemed impossible.

  Evelyn Brown

  Evelyn eased her Camry into park in front of Julienne’s house. Her heart thudded against her seat belt, and she tried a cognitive behavioral approach to calming down. What’s the worst that could happen? she asked herself. The kids don’t like me? She knew, rationally, that her track record with teens was pretty strong. She’d routinely cracked hard cases in her clinic. You genuinely like kids, Evelyn told herself. And you’ll especially like these kids. They’re your grandchildren. She felt her spine straighten and a smile overtake her face. More grandchildren! She’d hardly allowed herself to contemplate the possibility when she first learned Julienne’s identity.

  Evelyn’s secondary infertility had been a terrible shock when she and Frank had started trying for a baby. She had been rigid about birth control after her premature pregnancy with Julienne. Never once had she considered that she’d have difficulty conceiving again, and by then, four years after relinquishing her newborn, her desire for another child nearly doubled her over. After Alice, her grandchildren had been the great miracles of her life. She’d loved feeling their little hands in her hair as she had rocked them to sleep, and delighted again in their morning faces when they stayed over at her place.

  She’d missed so many childhood moments with Julienne’s kids, of course. It was hard for her to accept that they were teenagers already. Though she’d thought of Julienne incessantly, she hadn’t allowed herself to picture her firstborn as an actual grown-up. Evelyn unlatched her seat belt and checked her hair, a no-nonsense bob, in the rearview mirror. She felt inside her bag for the gifts she’d brought, a gift card to a movie theater for Laura, and an equally valued one to the sporting goods store for Miguel. Julienne opened the front door then and stepped onto the porch. Her blond hair hung to her shoulders, and she raised a hand to her brow, blocking the late-afternoon sunlight.

  “Hi!” Evelyn called. Her hand shook as she pressed the lock button on the key fob and dropped it into her canvas tote.

  “We’re so excited!” Julienne said. Just then a man appeared at her shoulder. Rafael, Evelyn presumed, as he put an arm around her daughter. They were nearly the same height with similar builds. Evelyn wondered for a moment what it was like not to be dwarfed, physically or emotionally, by a partner. She shook the memory of Frank away as she navigated the Martíns’ front steps. Her breath came shallow as she stuck a hand out to Rafael. Her heart had begun its pounding again, and she imagined this man in a tux, her daughter in a white gown. She pictured Julienne’s adoptive mother watching them marry from the front row of a church. If there had been a chair to sit in just then, amid the pain of this phantom memory, Evelyn would have fallen back into it.

  “It’s so nice to meet you,” Rafael said.

  Evelyn smiled and willed herself steady.

  “Are you okay?” Julienne asked.

  “Just overwhelmed,” Evelyn managed. “This is such a joy.”

  She hugged Julienne and breathed in her citrus perfume. She should ask for its name and buy a bottle for herself. It made sense that she’d like it, as she shared so much of her daughter’s chemistry.

  “Come in.” Rafael gestured toward the door. “The kids are in the kitchen.”

  In fact, the kids were not in the kitchen, but rather crowded inside the door frame.

  “Hi.” The boy, Miguel, stepped backward, taking a seat on the stairs just beyond the entryway.

  Evelyn’s therapy instincts kicked right in. This was her grandchild, yes, but also just another teenager. “I’m Evelyn,” she said. “I’m so excited to meet you.” She walked forward, her legs suddenly sure, with her hand outstretched. As he smiled at her, she could see glimpses of her own smile, the left side slightly off-kilter. “And you’re Laura.” The girl stood close to her shoulder, and Evelyn thought she might want to hug. She opened her arms just slightly, offering, and Laura latched on, gripping Evelyn’s rib cage with a surprising ferocity.

  “She’s a hugger.” Julienne laughed. “Let’s head into the kitchen. Rafael made some treats.”

  Julienne’s kitchen couldn’t have been more different from Alice’s. Alice had just replaced her dark wood cabinets with sleek gray ones. Alice’s sharp-edge countertop sat free from clutter except for a stainless-steel soap dispenser next to the tall faucet. At Juli
enne’s, Evelyn noticed a pile of papers at one end of the counter, opened envelopes sticking out at odd angles. In the center sat a hand-painted serving dish piled with thick chocolate brownies. Evelyn tried to imagine Patrick arranging brownies on a decorative platter and almost laughed aloud. Neither Alice nor Patrick had time (took time?) to bake.

  “Tea, Evelyn?” Julienne grabbed a mug.

  Evelyn nodded and opened her bag. “I brought something for each of you,” she said to the kids.

  She pulled out the cards she’d chosen, blank in bright colors that she’d found at the Walgreens near her condo. She’d written short, nearly identical notes in each of them, versions of “I can’t wait to get to know you.”

  “Should I open it now?” Miguel asked. His eyes were dark like his father’s.

  “Sure.” Evelyn grabbed a brownie from the tray. “Your mom says you’re a big soccer player.”

  Miguel smiled. “He scored three goals in two games last week,” Rafael said.

  “Dad,” Miguel chided. “We don’t need to brag.” He held the gift card and grinned. “Thanks. This is my favorite store.”

  Evelyn winked at him. “I may have heard that from someone.”

  “Is this so weird?” Laura asked suddenly, grabbing her arm again. “Like, to meet us after all this time? Can you even believe we’re related?”

  Evelyn put her hand against Laura’s as she slid onto a kitchen stool. “What do you think?” she asked, employing a therapy technique. “Does it feel weird to you?”

  “Totally.” Laura’s eyes bugged.