Are We There Yet?

by Kathleen West

  “What?” Patrick asked. “Why? She didn’t like that organic dark meat?” Alice could hear the laughter in his voice, and she held on to that warmth. His reaction would be less affable when she told him what she’d done.

  “Was the turkey really that bad?” Alice stared at the ceiling. Their bedroom ceiling was the first she’d scraped of that dreaded popcorn. It had taken a full weekend, and by Sunday dinner Patrick had been ragged from entertaining four-year-old Teddy.

  “How often do we even look at the ceiling?” he’d said, exasperated. But Alice knew that was the secret of a well-designed space. She thought out every detail, even elements people didn’t realize they were seeing.

  “The turkey was fine,” he said now. “Great. You know I love dark meat. I was kidding. Why is your mom hosting Thanksgiving?”

  Alice put her left hand on her forehead. She could feel the cool platinum of her wedding band against her skin. “Okay,” Alice said. “I did something really stupid.”

  “What?” Patrick sounded distracted. “Does this have to do with the holiday?”

  “Sort of, or at least I think it does.” She’d just have to spit it out. “You know how Julienne is a therapist?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, she’s Donovan Reddy’s therapist, so Nadia had already recommended her to me when I found out who she was.”

  “That’s a funny coincidence,” Patrick said.

  “So that’s where I took Teddy,” Alice blurted.

  “What?” Alice felt impatient now for him to understand what she’d done and to forgive her for it.

  “I’d already made an appointment with Dr. Martín when Mom told me who she was. I thought about canceling it, but I didn’t. We went.” Alice moaned. “Without telling her who we were.”

  Patrick laughed.

  Alice blinked. “Why are you laughing?”

  “Because that’s so stupid, Al.” He kept laughing. “I mean, what did you think would happen?”

  Alice chuckled herself, so relieved by his response that it didn’t even occur to her to be offended that he’d called her stupid. “I just wanted to see her.” Alice laughed harder, imagining the scenario from Patrick’s point of view.

  “Did you, like, consider going in disguise? Like a spy? So when you met her later in real life, she wouldn’t know it was you?” His guffaws came faster, and Alice heard him snort, which elicited a squeal on her part. She rolled onto her side and curled into a ball, her whole body shaking with giggles.

  “I’m so dumb,” she said finally, when they’d each caught their breath.

  Patrick sighed. “So, because you did this ridiculous spying, your mom feels like she can move Thanksgiving to her house?”

  Alice pushed her hair off her face. “I guess,” she said. And then, when Patrick didn’t say anything right away, she added, “I guess that’s fair?”

  “Yep.” Patrick started laughing again. “I’m just imagining you with one of those glasses-and-nose disguises, like with the big fuzzy eyebrows.”

  Alice’s stomach hurt. “Stop!”

  “Okay,” Patrick said, “but now what? Is there a new therapist, or what?”

  “Yeah. Miss Perfect recommended her partner. A guy. And a nature therapy group.” Alice imagined Patrick barefoot in the forest, his blond hair ruffling in the breeze. She snorted again, on the verge of losing it.

  “Fine.” Patrick chuckled one last time. “So,” he said, mischievous, “what are you wearing?”

  “Are you for real right now?” Alice sat up and rolled her eyes. Her teeth felt fuzzy, and she still had garlic on her breath from the risotto. “I’m wearing dirty flannel pants and your Twins T-shirt with the holes in the armpits.”

  “Mmm,” Patrick said. “Sexy.”

  Alice laughed. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Sadie Yoshida

  Normally, Sadie’s mom didn’t pick her outfits for school. “Comb your hair,” she’d sometimes yell toward the bathroom while Sadie brushed her teeth and washed her face.

  Before this whole thing had started, Sadie used to hide her eye shadow and mascara in her backpack. There’d be no point in doing that today, she knew. Her mom planned to get to school seconds before the bell, so Sadie wouldn’t have time to touch up in the bathroom. The late arrival was just one way in which Sadie was supposed to become a totally different person. They’d covered the others in the awkward meeting with Whittaker and Officer Larson the day before. The meeting passed in ten minutes, thank goodness. The adults said stuff about appropriate boundaries and self-respect, a phrase that made Sadie squirm.

  Officer Larson had been especially aggressive and cringey. “Listen,” she’d said, leaning uncomfortably close to Sadie, so close that Sadie could smell her mint gum, “besides the fact that underaged nudes are illegal, you’ve got to own your power. Don’t let boys’ stupidity bring you down. You got it?” Sadie wondered whether Officer Larson knew about the new radical feminism group. Maybe she had one of those pink T-shirts like Alexandra Hunt’s.

  Sadie’s mother had contributed comments in the reinstatement meeting about remembering where Sadie came from, about “auditing her decisions,” about being “purposeful as she got older regarding the people with whom she associated.” That was what Sadie’s mom had said—“with whom.” She’d rehearsed that line for sure, Sadie thought. She’d probably written it out after reading tons of articles about how to coach your daughter through “a difficult time.” Sadie had found multiple back issues of Thinking Mother around the house during her suspension.

  Her mother had read other articles in the past about how it was bad to focus on appearances. She regularly corrected her grandmothers when they complimented Sadie’s looks. (“June,” she’d say to her dad’s mom, “we’re putting our emphasis on Sadie’s intrinsic qualities.”) Nevertheless, the night before Sadie went back to school after the suspension, her mom had flicked through the shirts in Sadie’s closet.

  “Don’t you think it’ll be weird if I don’t look normal?” Sadie had asked as she sat on her bed. She’d pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. Her boobs squished against her thighs. They felt bigger than they had before. They were bigger, she knew. She pictured the way the skin poked out of the bras she and her mom had bought that summer, little soft pouches escaping next to her armpits. At some point, Sadie thought, Meredith would notice that she’d grown out of them and a new set would appear in her underwear drawer. That was always the way she moved up sizes. New skating tights or a bigger leotard just magically appeared in her bag.

  And with the bras, her mom had seen that stupid photo anyway, Sadie thought. She should know Sadie had gotten bigger. It was obvious.

  “I think you should aim for a good impression,” Meredith said, her back to Sadie as she pawed through the closet. “Make a clean break from the person who would take that picture. Show that you’re moving on.”

  Sadie lowered her nose into the crack between her knees, feeling her leggings against her cheeks.

  “And real pants,” her mother was saying, “Jeans. Not leggings.” She pulled jeans from Sadie’s drawer and threw them on the bed. “Just for tomorrow.”

  In the morning, Sadie put on the skinny jeans and pink cotton sweater. She’d layered a T-shirt underneath to smooth out the lines of her bra and tried to act normal when her mom pulled into the car pool circle.

  “Something else will have already happened,” Sadie said, mostly to herself. “People will be over it.”

  Meredith nodded. It wasn’t true, Sadie knew. None of them had ever sent a nude before. And with all three of them—her, Teddy, and Tane—suspended and, like, breaking laws? People would definitely still be talking about it.

  “Can I have my phone?” Sadie’s mom sighed as she reached for her purse. She lifted the flap on the front pocket and took out Sadie’s iPhone with the f
loral Moana case.

  “Texting and calling only,” her mom said.

  Sadie got out of the car without answering. She shoved the phone into her back pocket, rolled her shoulders, and headed straight to English without even stopping at her locker. None of her friends were in Mr. O’Connor’s class, so it’d be an easy start. She slid into her seat just as the bell rang.

  Mr. O’Connor looked up with narrowed eyes when he got to her name on the attendance list. “Welcome back.” He didn’t sound friendly.

  Do all the teachers know about the photo, too? Mr. O’Connor didn’t call on her once during their discussion about strength and perseverance in The Old Man and the Sea. When Sadie stopped at her locker before science, she was relieved to see Chloe waiting for her there.

  “Hi,” Sadie said. “Thanks for waiting.” Chloe had never once not waited for her, but Sadie wasn’t sure where they stood. Maybe Lacy and Walt, Chloe’s parents whom Sadie had known forever, had told her not to talk to Sadie. Maybe they thought she was a bad influence.

  “Duh.” Chloe smiled mildly. The two turned simultaneously toward the science labs, and Sadie felt her heart pound as they caught a glimpse of Tane in front of them. His head floated above most of the crowd. She wondered if he felt as weird about being back as she did. “Things are different for boys,” Sadie’s mom had said about two hundred times.

  “Are you nervous?” Chloe asked. She pointed at Tane.

  “Sort of.” Sadie caught McCoy Blumenfeld staring at her as they walked past his locker. He waggled his eyebrows, and Sadie realized he’d probably seen the picture, too. She winced, imagining him staring at her boob. “Do your parents want you to stop hanging out with me?” Sadie hadn’t planned to ask Chloe this, but the question bubbled out of her.

  “What?” Chloe bumped against her shoulder. “No!” Her voice sounded warm, but she seemed jumpy.

  “But?” Sadie remembered her mom on the phone with Walt, asking him what he would have done if the photo had been of Chloe. It would never be of Chloe, Sadie thought. Chloe had convinced her to spend recesses in fifth grade picking up sticks on the soccer field next to the playground. “To make sure kids don’t trip in PE,” she’d said. Chloe wasn’t about to take her top off. Her idea of risk taking was a slice of pepperoni pizza instead of plain cheese in the school cafeteria.

  “But nothing.” Sadie recognized a stubbornness in Chloe’s voice, the same tone she used to get her way about sleepover activities or hairstyles for synchro.

  Sadie felt woozy as they approached Mr. Robinson’s door. Inside, Tane was already in his assigned seat near the front window. Sadie couldn’t follow Mr. Robinson’s lesson during science. It was something about the food chain. Energy transfer, she thought he said. Chloe, whose seat was kitty-corner from Sadie’s, had two full pages of notes by the end of the period. Meanwhile, Sadie had spent the entire time staring at a red patch of skin on the back of Tane’s neck. It expanded a little bit as he scratched it, and Sadie wondered if maybe it was a bug bite.

  When it came time for lunch, the biggest land mine in her day, Sadie grabbed her insulated bag from her locker. Her mother had packed one of her favorite bentos, turkey roll-ups and apple slices with cinnamon sprinkled on them. There’d be some celery sticks, Sadie knew, in one of the other compartments. And maybe, if she was lucky, some chocolate chips. Chloe was getting hot lunch, so Sadie stood alone.

  She stared at the Quiz Bowl table. Gretchen and Yusef were there already. Gretchen animatedly talked with her hands. Probably, Sadie thought, they were discussing how Douglas Lim would come off the bench and help them to victory. Tane wasn’t there yet.

  “Stay away from him,” Sadie’s mother had said. “Just act like he’s not there.”

  She headed toward her old table once Chloe got out of the hot lunch line, a piece of cheese pizza and a bag of chips on her tray. Tane strode in front of them, passing so close to Sadie that she could feel the air move around her as he went by. He didn’t look back at her, though she knew he must have seen her. And, in a majorly shocking move, he veered away from Gretchen and Yusef’s table and went straight to McCoy and Landon’s. They high-fived him when he got there. Sadie watched as he pushed his hair out of his face and sat down. She thought for a millisecond that he might have glanced at her, but if he did, it was so quick it hardly counted.

  Chloe elbowed her. “Come on,” she said. And Sadie followed her to their old table. Mikaela and a few other girls raised their eyebrows at her, but Chloe kept talking.

  “I was watching a YouTube tutorial,” Chloe said, “about French braids that start from the bottom and go up.” She pointed at her hairline just below her right ear and then touched the back of her head. “And then, that’s where your ponytail goes. That would be cool for synchro, right?”

  Sadie nodded, but she realized she didn’t care. She took a deep breath and felt her bra tighten uncomfortably around her rib cage. She glanced over her shoulder at Tane, McCoy, and Landon. No Teddy. Her mother had told her he’d be homeschooled. She’d thought that was so unlucky, but now that the seventh grade seemed sort of ruined, she wasn’t so sure.

  Teddy Sullivan

  Teddy had known better than to ask his mom for his phone in the days after Officer Larson had made that speech about pornography and the district attorney. He waited a full week after that horrible meeting in Whittaker’s office, and then carefully planned his request.

  He’d been taking online homeschool lessons on persuasive speeches, and he was ready for real-life practice. “It’s Landon’s thirteenth birthday,” he said when his mom looked up from her computer.

  She’d stopped wearing makeup, mostly. When she had meetings, she at least combed her hair. A couple of times per day, he heard her on the phone with the office.

  “Oh?” she said now about Landon. She blinked at him, as if she were confused.

  “And I have just one special request.” Teddy planted his feet shoulder-width apart and puffed his chest. “I want to text him ‘happy birthday.’”

  His mom shook her head. “Teddy, we’ve discussed this.” They hadn’t, really, but that argument wasn’t part of his plan.

  “But, Mom, I have some reasons. Just listen.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he kept going. “Please!” he said, louder than he’d meant to.

  His mom pushed her computer away and frowned at him. “Okay,” she said, though she didn’t look enthusiastic. “I’m listening.”

  “I have three reasons.” Three, he’d learned in those online lessons, was a good number. He’d start with the weakest reason and end with the best. “First, I know I need supervision, so I’m asking you to turn the texting app on just for a few minutes, but you can sit next to me while I look at it. You can watch what I text to Landon. Nothing bad will happen.”

  Teddy’s mom nodded. Her eyes looked a little less flat. “Second, I totally get my punishments, right? But I don’t think you meant to make it so I could never have friends again. I’m not in school, I’m not in soccer, and I’m not allowed to have a phone. Is that kind of isolation really good for a kid? Do any of your books recommend that?”

  He knew he was right about this one. A day or two of lockdown seemed reasonable, but a lifetime ban from social interaction? That couldn’t be healthy. And it had been smart of him to mention her parenting books, to “cite the research,” as his online teacher had said.

  “One more,” he said before his mother had time to break in. “I’m going to reenter the world eventually, right? So if you sit by me—if you watch me—you can help me make good decisions.” Teddy sighed then; his arms relaxed. He hadn’t realized he’d been flexing.

  He locked eyes with his mom, and she looked at him for what seemed like a long time. Finally, he smiled at her. A big grin, the kind he remembered flashing from the back seat when he’d beg for a caramel sundae after soccer. It almost always worked.

  S
he laughed, and he kept smiling. “Come here,” she said. She stood from her computer and reached for him. A hug? Teddy didn’t particularly want one, but it seemed a small price to pay for some text messages with his friends.

  He laid his head against her shoulder and let her squeeze. She smelled like Tide and coffee. “Okay,” she said before she let go. “Okay. We’ll do it this evening when Landon’s likely to be home, so you can see his replies.”

  Alice Sullivan

  Alice left Teddy alone when she went to grab Aidy from the car pool line. Things had mostly been going better in the last week. Aidy had books labeled “G” in her bag these days. And though Teddy’s online school—his omnipresence in the house—served as a daily reminder of the trouble they’d all been through, Alice felt the tiniest bit relieved, panic quelled for several days. If Teddy couldn’t go to Elm Creek, he couldn’t make terrible choices there. If he didn’t have access to his phone, he couldn’t engage in toxic social media. He still had the Internet because he had to do his online school on the family laptop, but Alice supervised him. She really supervised him.

  Things were going reasonably well with the kids. And so, of course, work was a disaster. The line her mother always used was, “You can have it all; you just can’t have it all at the same time.” The truth of the adage had never stopped Alice from trying.

  Now, Ramona had told Alice she wouldn’t have access to the conference room going forward, as she wasn’t actually partnering with her on any projects. And there’d been another defaced Ramona Design lawn sign that appeared on NextDoor. “What’s this #TT?” Shirley MacIntosh had asked in her post. Ramona had started a conversation with Alice about it on Slack. “Could it be possible that your son is doing this?” she asked, without even a hint of sympathy. “That’s what my sister heard from her neighbors who go to Elm Creek Junior High.”