I forced the truth to the back of my mind and let my genuine grin take over. “Congratulations, Jack! This is fantastic for our business, and it will be fun to work on the account, too. We need to celebrate.”
“My thoughts exactly, Carty.” Jack said, calling me by the last-name nickname he had given me so many years earlier. It was a name he had christened me with as soon as Pete and I were married. “We want to start this relationship off right. Let’s book a team dinner next week at The Fifth. No time to waste, after all. They want to jump right into planning for next year’s fiscal.”
“Sounds great. I’ll let the team know.”
“Bring who you want from your team, but let’s keep it to about ten or so, including clients. These dinners become too impersonal if they’re bigger than that. And I want you sitting beside Chelsea.”
“No problem at all.” I smiled at Jack. His demanding ways always settled slightly whenever his stress was eased. And I knew this was going to make his bosses very happy. Which always made him happy.
“Is that all?” I asked.
“Yep. Wanted you to be the first to know. Go spread the news internally however you’d like. I’ll get the account team to write up an official press release.”
I nodded, and left for my office, one floor below. Jack had insisted I sit on the executive floor with him and the other C-level management team, but I had held my ground and told him I needed to sit on the same floor as the rest of the creative department.
I motioned for my assistant, Emily, to follow me. “We need to order a huge cake, Em. One that says ‘Congratulations AJ & Emerson!’ And get some beer and wine, too. And lots of food. We’ve definitely got reason to celebrate.”
Emily nodded her head, smiling as she realized exactly what celebration I was referring to. She wrote down all of my instructions for the party and left my office to start the planning.
I turned to my laptop and noted the ninety-seven emails that had come in since I’d started the Pepsi brainstorming session earlier that morning. Nine of them were from Jack.
Then, within one minute of sitting at my desk, another arrived.
Ashley:
I need you in New York the second week of November. You need to be there for a 9 a.m. meeting on Monday morning, so leave Sunday night. There are top-to-top planning meetings all week for the Amex account. Oh, and it needs to be you so don’t think about sending one of your associate creative directors.
~ Jack
I checked my calendar and felt my shoulders drop as I realized I would disappoint every member of my family by being away that week; in addition to missing more family dinners, I was going to miss Grace’s volleyball game and Nate’s hockey game.
I sighed before sending Emily an email asking her to cancel the majority of my meetings that week. I highlighted the meetings I couldn’t miss, which I would join by conference call.
“Too bad I can’t video conference into my kids’ games,” I mumbled under my breath, scanning my schedule. Grace’s after-school volleyball game was against the best team in the league, and she’d already asked me to go and cheer her on.
“Ashley? Do you have a minute?” asked Ben, one of my two associate creative directors. I bit my tongue, avoiding the temptation to ask if we could meet later. My growing list of emails was already over a hundred deep. But when I glanced up, I knew my emails would have to wait. The expression on Ben’s face told me it was important, and I suspected it was about the Starbucks account.
“Sure, Ben. What’s up?”
“Just wanted to show you some of the thought-starters we’ve designed for the meeting tomorrow. I think they’re great, but wanted you to sign off before we present.” Ben lay out the glossy 11x14 comps, and walked me through the thinking behind the ideas.
I nodded my head, absorbing the work. “This is great. You guys have done well. Good job on leading the team.”
“Thanks. Any changes?”
“Nope. They’re great.”
“Thanks, Ash.” Ben collected his work. He looked up and smiled, then hesitated slightly before leaving. “Hey, are you okay? You seem a bit tired.”
“Oh … what? Tired? No, I’m okay. Just coming down from the pitch presentation high, I guess. And things are hectic at home, too.”
Ben nodded as if to suggest he knew exactly what I was talking about, yet he didn’t really understand at all. As the typical urban bachelor living in a downtown loft, Ben had no idea about trying to balance a crazy advertising schedule alongside a family with kids’ schedules as nutty as your own.
I decided to change the subject. It was easier to just not talk about it. “Hey, great news: we won the business. The announcement hasn’t been released yet, but I wanted you to be among the first to know since you worked so hard on the pitch.”
“Wow. The verdict came quick! I remember we had to wait forever with the last big pitch … and it was small in comparison to this one.” Ben’s wide smile became even bigger with each word. I knew he shared my excitement. And rightly so. Ben had worked hard on the pitch, and had made things more reasonable for me as a result; he’d worked the majority of the late nights, including the three all-nighters, which were required to win the bid.
“You should be very proud, Ben. So much of this was you.”
“Thanks, Ash. It’s great to hear you say. And I won’t breathe a word until I know I’ve got the thumbs up.”
I shut the door behind him so I could dive into my email and sort through the priorities. But I couldn’t seem to focus. No matter how hard I tried to respond to the urgent emails that required instant attention, all I could see in front of me was an almost naked, trembling Nate. Repeatedly, the images of my youngest child looking frail and scared popped into my mind. I couldn’t seem to shake them.
I glanced at the clock on my laptop and noticed that I could be at Nate’s school just in time for lunch. I texted Pete to tell him that he didn’t need to pick him up, and sent an email to Emily asking her to reschedule my lunch meeting.
6
Nate
I like my teacher, but not today. Mrs. Brock is being mean to me. I don’t know why she is mean to me today. She is nice on other days. But today she doesn’t like me.
“Nate? Are you going to write in your journal?” Mrs. Brock asks. Her voice is quiet. She is tucked down beside me. She points to my empty page. She is smiling. Why is she smiling when she doesn’t like me?
I want to say yes, but it doesn’t come out. “No.”
“But, why not? You’re so good at it!” Mrs. Brock smiles again. Her teeth look different. I wonder if it’s really her or if the scary people have sent someone who only looks like her. I know the difference. You can tell by her teeth. They look funny.
“I just don’t wanna.”
“Why not?”
“Because I only like patterning. I don’t like writing in my journal. ”
“You wrote in your journal the other day. You did a great job. And today we’re writing in our journals again.”
I shake my head.
“Maybe you could write about pizza? Do you like pizza?”
“No.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s true. You told us in Show & Share last week that your dad made you, your friend Noah, and Grace pizza for dinner on Saturday night. And that you loved it.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“Yes, Nate, it was. You even made the pizza in our art time. Here, look …” Mrs. Brock walked to the sharing bulletin board. She pointed to something that looked like badly drawn pizza.
“It wasn’t me.”
Mrs. Brock gets a look I see on my mom’s face and I want to stop talking. She doesn’t get my talking. So I decide to make her laugh. I jump on my desk. I wiggle my bum. I make funny faces. But Mrs. Brock is not laughing.
“Nate? Get down! You’ll hurt yo
urself.”
I need to make her laugh. Then she will like me. So I jump up and down. Even harder. I try to look like a hyena. I watched hyenas in The Lion King with Dad and Noah. Dad showed us which ones were the hyenas. Noah and I danced around the kitchen and Dad said I looked like a hyena. And he was laughing. So jumping like a hyena will make Mrs. Brock laugh too.
I want Mrs. Brock to like me again. I want to like her. I want her to laugh. If she laughs, she will like me.
“Nate. Come down immediately.”
I dance harder. So she will laugh. She will laugh if I dance better.
“Loook, Mrs. Brock. I’m a hyeeena. Isn’t it funny?!”
“Nate, I am not kidding. Please, come down from there. You are scaring the other children.”
But I can’t come down. I need to make her laugh. I need to try harder to make her laugh.
And then I’m on the floor.
And my head hurts.
And all I see is darkness.
7
Ashley
I hailed a cab and made it to Nate’s school just before the bell rang. I was tempted to go in and surprise him, hoping he’d be happy to have an unexpected lunch with his mother, but opted to wait at the usual pick-up spot for fear of upsetting him. We’d learned over the years that our son was driven by routine and consistency. He was unpredictable when things fell outside of his normal routine.
I waited and waited by the slide, glancing at the clock on my iPhone in between email replies. The agreement between Pete and Nate was to meet at the twisty yellow slide at noon, because Nate didn’t like Pete going into the school to get him when he picked him up for lunch each day.
Even though all of the other kids at Nate’s school stayed for lunch, we’d been given special permission to pick up our son each day and take him home to eat. There was no alternative.
At first, we’d resisted our son’s requests. As big believers in social integration, we explained that it was important to stay with his friends and have fun at lunch.
“But I don’t have any friends at school. They all say I’m weird,” Nate had complained. “None of them like me …”
I thought he was being overly sensitive, and accused him of being dramatic, like his sister. But when he started coming home with scratches on his neck, and ravenous, I began to suspect he was minimizing the situation.
It was Nate’s first bruised cheek that tipped us off about what was going on, and we began to pay closer attention. It was the heightened silence at home that told us Nate’s repeated bruising wasn’t from tripping during gym class. And when he finally came home with a swollen black eye, we permanently dismissed all of the excuses he’d been feeding us at dinnertime.
Once we raised it with the school, and the parents of the bullies were brought in, we thought the problem had been dealt with. The kids were all disciplined, and one student was even expelled, which I suspected was done not only for punishment but also to set an example.
Everything seemed better. The principal moved Nate into a new classroom, which breathed life into our son, and he was suddenly begging us to stay for lunch instead of being the only one to go home. Over and over, Nate would tell us that he wanted to be just like the other kids. He was desperately scared of being different — even more so than he was of being bullied.
Once Nate was settled in his new class, I became obsessed with making sure he was okay. I begged Pete to go to the school at random times to check in on what was going on at the playground. I prayed every night that the bullies from the other class would leave our son alone, that they had become scared by the doled-out punishments, or were simply bored by Nate and had decided to move on to something else.
I was also frantic for Nate to make friends in his class, and made his teacher promise me she would do everything possible to encourage other kids to hang out with him. As his mother, I simply wanted him to be given the new start he deserved.
But no names of kids in his class were ever mentioned at home. No play dates were booked. And Nate’s dinnertime silence soon returned.
When the scratches reappeared, this time under his shirt, we dealt with the problem. Again. More kids were expelled. We moved Nate to a new school. But no matter how drastic our actions, or how many kids were punished, the bullying always returned, whether physical or emotional. The other kids didn’t seem to like Nate because he was different.
Ultimately, we had no other choice but to bring Nate home from school for lunch. Pete picked him up every day at the same yellow slide, and took our son home to eat. It gave Pete and Nate some needed one-on-one time, and the chance for Pete to find out how Nate’s morning had been. For our son’s safety, we needed to be involved in each increment of Nate’s day.
After lunch, Pete would bring him back exactly two minutes before the afternoon bell, and would watch from the parking lot to make sure he got into the school safely.
Lunch pick-up times weren’t as precise. Depending on how much Nate dawdled while getting ready at his locker, he would sometimes be late for Pete. Or me, on the rare occasion that I could fit in lunch. I began to suspect today was going to be a late day for my son.
Tired of emailing, I threw my iPhone back in my bag, and turned my face towards the warm October sun. The day was unseasonably balmy, and I let myself enjoy a few moments of escape, knowing cooler temperatures were expected to return the following day. I was excited for my lunch with Nate, and looked forward to eliminating some of the tension we’d been feeling in our family since we’d punished him. After everything that had happened recently, I needed to spend quality time with my son.
But Nate didn’t appear. He didn’t come and find me. I forced myself to give him the benefit of the doubt for ten minutes. When I couldn’t hold off any longer, I started walking towards the big red doors at the entrance of the school and tried to ignore the knots forming in my stomach.
8
I looked down at my hands, which were clenched together so hard there were sweaty red lines tracing my grip. Nate was sitting just outside the closed office door with an ice pack on his head, and my iPhone, still tucked into the side pocket of my bag, hadn’t stopped buzzing with work emails since I had sat down with Nate’s principal, Mrs. Spencer, to discuss Nate falling off the desk.
“We’re concerned, Mrs. Carter. Nate seems to be getting … well, more extreme. We don’t see behaviour this intense in our other students. To be honest, we don’t quite know what to make of it. And we’re worried about what has happened to Nate in the past —”
“Has Nate been bullied again?” I jumped in. My heart began to race at the thought of anyone hurting my little boy again.
“No, no. I’m sorry to alarm you. It isn’t that. And we’ve kept a close eye on Nate since he joined us. So far none of that has happened. But we’re wondering if other proactive solutions might help him. And perhaps mitigate any future bullying problems.”
I nodded, wondering what, exactly, she was referring to. Beside me, my phone kept buzzing.
“Have you taken him to see anyone?” Mrs. Spencer asked gently. Despite her attempt to ask the question with a smooth voice that she’d purposely quieted, something bugged me about the way she said it. Her curtness, perhaps. It was as though she was pretending to care.
“I’m sorry … see anyone?”
“Yes, like a psychologist. Or even a family doctor. You know, just in case …”
Just in case? Just in case of what?
I shook my head and forced a smile. “No, we haven’t taken him to see anyone. I know Nate is … well … he is sometimes more extreme, as you put it. But he’s also a nine-year-old boy with a ton of energy. Boys are like that … right?”
“They can be, certainly. And Nate can also be a sweet boy. But he gets into these hyper moods and no one can seem to calm him down. I’m no doctor, but I do know of cases where Ritalin helps. Seems to cal
m the nerves. The extreme jitters Nate tends to have every once in a while. Perhaps it would be worth talking to your doctor about?” Mrs. Spencer peered at me through thick glasses lined in dark red. Partnered with her dated short haircut, I couldn’t help but think of Sally Jesse Raphael.
“Well, Pete and I will certainly take your suggestions into consideration.” I strained to put another smile on my face. I knew Mrs. Spencer was hitting a nerve of truth, and I didn’t want to face it head-on. “For now, though, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get Nate to the doctor to get his head looked at. You know … just in case.” I rose from the uncomfortable faded pleather chair, and shook Mrs. Spencer’s hand.
“Of course. I understand. We hope he didn’t hit his head too hard.”
I nodded and followed Mrs. Spencer out of her office to greet Nate, who was slumped in his chair, the ice pack thrown aside.
Principal Spencer picked up the discarded ice pack and handed it to me. “Nate, it’s probably just a bump, but your mother will take you to get it looked at just to be sure.”
Nate blinked at her. He opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, and then shut it before he let go of the words. He blinked again.
“Nate, you gave us quite a scare today. You can’t be jumping on desks like that. Do you understand?” Mrs. Spencer pulled her red glasses down onto her nose and stared down at him.
More blinking.
“Nate, tell Mrs. Spencer that you understand,” I interjected. Internally, I begged Nate to respond. The awkward situation was growing in its prickly nature into something that felt more like all-out embarrassment.
“I’m waiting, Nate.” Mrs. Spencer’s voice was firm and unsympathetic. The room filled with silence as she waited, subconsciously picking at a hangnail on her thumb with her pointer finger.
Elephant in the Sky Page 3