Learning Lessons

by KT Morrison

  He wouldn’t lose his Jess. Not for real. He couldn’t bear it. But he was powerless, empty. His adversary twenty times the man he was.

  Right in front of him, like a beacon, a call to action. Two tall, long-legged girls, hair swishing behind them, tight jeans, expensive parkas.

  He jumped out of his chair and burst down the stairs, headed for the sales floor. He marched across the Save-Mart, his Hush Puppies squeaking on the polished floor. He found them, locked himself on them, their thin bodies jiggling unfocused in his determined but blurry high blood pressure vision.

  Then he was on them, fast and hard, ordering them what to do before his brain had time to stutter. He put a hand out and stopped them like a cop, he five-finger-pointed them to an abandoned sales desk. He was firm. When one rolled her eyes it just made him more mad.

  He got in her face. “Do you think we’re fucking stupid around here?”

  “What?” she said, surprised but indignant, thrusting her head forward and shrugging.

  “What? Don’t pull that shit with me. You don’t think we’ve got cameras all over this place? You don’t think we just watched you up in Control? Saw what you did?”

  “Saw what?” Her arms folded.

  “Please. How many times you going to rob this store? I’ve got video evidence of you, multiple times. Enough merchandise now you can consider this a goddamn felony. You like that?”

  The quiet one began to show a crack. Probably had a future to worry about. Stole to impress her bitchy friend here. He lit into her.

  “What’s your home number? The cops are on their way and I want to make sure your parents are here to talk with them. And you think we’re going to go light? No fucking way. I’ve had it with you and your kind. The store ain’t budging. Full charges. You get that? Guaranteed you’ll see a jail cell.”

  The more resilient of the two said, “Her dad’s a lawyer, he—”

  “Good. Fucking great. You’ll need one. You won’t have to pay to hear that you’ve got no leg to stand on. Your dad’ll tell you that shit for free. Listen, Alan fucking Dershowitz couldn’t save you, we got video of you, ten different angles, pulling your fucking games.”

  “Don’t call them...”

  “Too late.”

  Quiet one broke. She cried for real. Pretty like his Jess, even with a scrunched up miserable face. Her friend started to twist too, hearing her sobs. She thought she was tough but she wasn’t.

  “Look at you. You’re a couple of sob sisters now. All fucking high and mighty strutting around here but when the shit hits the fan you two are as worthless as they come. My favourite part? The part I’m looking forward to? Parking, watching you pick up trash at the highway in your boxy orange jumpers. I’ll take my lunch break every day, film it so the rest of us here can get a laugh. Pretty faces like yours are a target in there. You know that? Gang girls’ll take a box-cutter to—”

  She gasped through her tears, “Please. Please don’t...”

  “Too late...”

  The strong one chiming in now too. “Please, don’t—we’ll pay, we’ll—”

  “Seventy-five dollars.”

  “Seventy-five dollars?”

  “Four months ago you took five Maybellines.”

  “Four months ago?”

  “Seventy-five dollars plus tax. In cash. In my hand. You dump out the stuff you took today—”

  “We didn’t take anything today.”

  “Seventy-five dollars plus tax in my hand right now, you never show up here again, I’ll call the cops off.”

  They complied. Their hands shook uncontrollably taking the bills out of their leather purses and placing them in his eager held out hand.

  He felt like a million bucks. Couldn’t believe he’d done it. They laid the cash out on him and he escorted them to the doors, resisted every urge he had to kick the taller one in her skinny ass on the way out. Fucking cunts.

  He knew what he had to do.

  He stormed back up to admin, marched between the desks outside his office.

  “Tamicka, cancel the rest of my afternoon,” he said, passing by her, bustling into his office feeling ten feet tall.

  “I’m not your secretary, Pete.”

  He poked his head back out of his office, said, “I know, I just mean if anyone calls. Please?” He grabbed his coat off the coat rack and thrust his arms through the sleeves. He put his toque on storming for the doors.

  Tamicka said, “What you want me to tell em?”

  “Tell them I’m doing something I should have done a long time ago.”

  First day back to school and Jess felt surprisingly enervated. Like she might be coming down with something. It was the season and as many times as she washed her hands it didn’t stop her coming face to face with all sorts of bugs in this virus mosh pit. Of course, she hadn’t been here in two weeks.

  She was going through the admin, squirting green aloe vera hand sanitizer just in case, adding echinacea to a mental grocery list, when she saw a lone cherry-coloured envelope in her mailbox.

  She was alone in the small mail room across from the chest-high reception bank, unattended so early in the morning. All the mail slots were empty, except for hers with that strange single oddly-coloured envelope.

  In a gold sharpie someone had written her name across the front. Otherwise it was unaddressed. No postage mark, no stamp. It had been put here by hand.

  She opened it and read it.

  One sheet, a floral scented paper, folded once, and then written in a careful woman’s hand:

  Jess,

  Never in my life have I ever met someone who has inspired me more than you. I look up to you, and often, when troubled, ask myself-What would Jess do?

  I feel like now you might be the one that’s troubled, and I don’t know how to help a friend in need when her challenges are so great, so overwhelming, and perhaps, none of my business.

  I saw you kissing Tyler in your kitchen. I saw where his hand was. I saw what he was doing to you and I saw that you wanted it. I don’t blame you. You know all the things I’ve said about him.

  I also know it had to have been you with Tyler that day that he was fired.

  I’m not blind, Jess. Unfortunately, others aren’t as well. I will always stand up for you, but you need to know that there has been talk behind your back.

  What worries me—and is where I wonder that this may not be my business—is that you do this under your husband’s nose.

  How could you do that to another human being? How can you hurt someone so deeply? Don’t you love him? Or didn’t you at one time?

  You are plucking at heart strings that have been pulled far too tightly. From where I’m watching it looks like it’s so painful, so horrible, tragic—the kind of thing that ends badly, ends violently. Please be careful, baby.

  Where I think this may be my business—and the reason I felt strong enough to write this letter—is where your behaviour, your indiscretion, overlaps your children.

  Jess, people break up all the time. You know I know that. Children recover. Children can adapt to new fathers, new mothers. But they can’t see it unfold before them. They can’t witness the destruction of someone they love. They can’t witness you do this to their father.

  I won’t condemn your actions though I might like to. But you are irresponsible. Selfish.

  Maybe in some way I am happy for you. But right now you are not the Jess I know and love.

  Come back to us.

  You have to make up your mind. Whatever you decide to do I will support you.

  With tremendous love,

  Sara.

  Something terrible happened in her classroom.

  She’d welcomed all the kids back to class that morning, saying hi to them as they came in and hung up their coats and jackets on the hooks along the back of the wall. Her heart was heavy, her back felt sweaty and she was even sicker than she had been before she read the letter. Maybe if she’d felt better she would have seen it coming. Stopped
it from happening.

  Kevin was there, obviously back from a nice vacation. She said, ”Wow, nice tan, Kevin.” And as he was about to answer Cory Wilde punched him right in the face and knocked his tooth out with a bloody splash. There had been a commotion prior, a little heated exchange between Cory and Florencia Torres. There was a crush there, she knew that.

  Cory hit him from behind, a bit to the side of him. Kevin didn’t even see it coming. He was smiling when he was hit, his happy eyes on hers. Then he was down on his knees clutching his face and his blood spilled on her floor. His wailing broke her heart.

  She grabbed Cory by his shirt and held him in case he wasn’t done. His eyes were red and weepy too. Then Kevin changed within the time of one of his heartbeats. Crying gone, he jumped up in a rage and came at Cory swinging with both fists. Jess held Cory in an arm and put the other between him and Kevin, tried to cover him. Kevin came in swinging and jabbing. Cory didn’t want to be protected, he was swinging as well, even kicking his little legs out.

  “Boys, boys, boys!” she cried.

  She got herself between them, held them apart, but they kept at it, trying to tear at each other around her. Then Carol was there, maybe a little too excited, her voice high and shrill, making the energy a little worse. But Carol took Cory, and Jess told her to get him to the office. With Cory out of the room Kevin went back to crying. She felt so bad for him like that, breaking down, bawling and wailing, his face bloody—all his friends watching. She grabbed wads of the utility paper off the roll at the side of the room and she pressed it to his mouth. She soothed him, held him and hugged him.

  “Baby, it’s okay, Kevin. You’ll get a new tooth. It’s okay, don’t cry, buddy.”

  Over Kevin’s shoulder, was Florencia. Standing there, dumbfounded. Holding a plush shark that said, Greetings from Myrtle Beach. This was over a girl. What was going on? ...These kids are only eight.

  “Okay, okay, Kevin,” she said when Victoria got there from the front office to help him down to the First Aid. She went out to the hall with him, told him quietly that they’d call his mom for him, he’d be okay. He nodded into his bloody paper.

  Her heart was pounding, her neck swelling from the intense action as she stood and watched him being helped down the hall. God, it had all happened so fast she hadn’t the time to get upset. Now she was. She felt so much for him.

  She went back into the class, everyone in their desks now, so upset they didn’t now what to do, just sitting in their places watching her, looking for guidance. She flexed and opened her hands.

  “Class, class...” she whispered.

  Her shirt was open. Yanked by one of the boys, a button had popped off in the centre and her bra was showing.

  “Oh,” she whispered. Closed it.

  They all stared at her and she didn’t know what to say. Where to begin.

  “I...I’m sorry...”

  What did she look like to them standing up here? A woman who got a floral scented note of reprimand. Some advice from a friend on not being such a dirty beast in front of her husband and kids.

  When did she stop being Jess Mapplethorpe?

  Their eyes were on her, looking at her sweet and lovingly. She was a liar. She wasn’t who they thought she was. She was a woman who had a secret so terrible she could barely look into those sweet faces. She was ashamed of herself. She hadn’t realized it. She should be ashamed.

  It washed over her while she stood with thirty sets of eight-year-old eyes on her. Their innocence amplifying her filth, her deceit, her decrepitude.

  She had to sit down. Her legs would not comply. Her left arm tingled. Pins and needles. She clenched her hand and opened it. Did it again. It wasn’t even there. She held it out to look at it. She saw her small hand, her thin fingers, her engagement ring and wedding band. Wait—was that her hand?

  She stammered something. Wasn’t sure what she had tried to say, but it wasn’t words. She put a hand out to steady herself, one leg tripping over the other, legs didn’t know what they were doing. She pulled herself along the desk, dragged herself to her chair and fell in it sideways. The kids called her name. She could barely hear them over the siren. What was that siren and why was it so loud? The kids were concerned. Their faces worried, horrified—what was wrong with their favourite teacher? She held a hand up to them.

  Please kids, just give me a minute. The words in her head coming out nothing like that over her dead lips.

  Someone ran from the room, Karla Lopez, she thought, black hair bobbing. She struggled to get a grip, not lose it in front of these sweethearts that looked up to her, loved her. Then the school nurse was there, sitting with her and she realized she wasn’t sure how long she’d been out of it like this. Everything was blurry and she heard someone say to another that she was having a stroke.

  Pete was doing sixty-five in a thirty, tears in his eyes. He’d got to Jaden Van, went to admin, said, Page my wife. Principal was there, she came out of her office, said, They already took her to the hospital, Pete. Pete had said, Took who to the hospital?

  Sara was there then, bounding through the heavy metal double doors and running right to him with her arms out and she hugged him. Sara was crying; inconsolable. Pete had stuttered, What's going on? Sara said she didn't know, someone said Jess had a stroke, EMTs took her to the hospital.

  He ran to the car, left them all standing there calling after him, his vision was blurry and his ears weren't working. All he could hear was his own heart, his feet on the pavement. He ran into a parked car and fell to his knees. He looked back to the school. He should have asked more. What happened? How was she? Was she talking? Fuck—what hospital was she in?

  Now he was surfing through snowy traffic squeezing his vinyl steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. He had the 105.5 local station on, desperate to hear if there was any news about a young beautiful teacher taken to the hospital from the elementary school. They didn’t say a thing. Didn’t they know how important she was?

  “Come on, come on!” he screamed through the windshield. He swerved right through the intersection, through a red light on Tullyfield then punched it down that wide four lane road—right past the green Hydro box where Jess had arranged her dirty surprise party, down to the intersection at Waverley and he slowed and then rolled right through that one, wincing and pulling up his shoulders at the honking and screeching of rubber on wet winter pavement. But he didn't get hit and he went across the curb bouncing the old Buick into the hospital driveway, roaring all the way up and then stopping on an angle under the alcove of the ambulance bay at Emergency.

  He hustled in through the sliding glass doors, his slushy feet slipped on the polished floor and he grabbed the hand sanitizer stand to stop himself from falling. A dozen people and some nurses at Triage all stopped and watched him. He hated hospitals but he was no stranger to them. He beat a line straight to them. The crowd parted for him. Everything about him gave off a message of absolute terrible panic.

  “My wife!” he gasped, throwing his hands down on the countertop. “Mapplethorpe, Jess Mapplethorpe!”

  Tall nurse, dreads and a pink smock, she knew, said, “Three curtains down.” She pointed across the hall, down the centre of the room on the other side. Long fluorescent room, dimly lit, only half the lights on, a dozen curtains making tragic little spaces along either side. She said, “On the left.”

  He whipped around and stumbled across the hall and into the long room.

  “Hey!” The nurse called him.

  He turned and the nurse said, “She's going to be okay.”

  “She is?” He stared at her kind face. He started to cry. He turned back, continued down to the third curtain and pulled it back.

  “Jess?”

  “Hi, Pete,” she said weakly.

  She looked so small and fragile sitting in the hospital bed, her thin arms and body swimming in her big blue gown. Her hands were clasped together in her lap, her hair hung down straight across her collar, her little ears
peeking out the sides.

  “Daddy!” Andy shouted, and he hugged himself to Pete's leg, his tiny face red from crying.

  “What? How did you get—” Pete said wild-eyed looking around the small curtained space.

  Tyler was there already, Petey was too, sitting in the cushioned chair next to the bed. His face was red, he had both his little hands clenched around Tyler’s huge hand up in front of his face. Tyler had him huffing on his bronchodilator.

  “Petey?”

  “He's okay, Pete,” Tyler said. His face was somber.

  Petey pushed the inhaler away and nodded to his dad, swallowing and gulping, his skinny legs swinging off the edge of the chair. Pete ran his hand over Andy's blonde head and walked the two steps to be by Jess’s side with his youngest clinging to his leg.

  “Jess, what happened? Are you all right?”

  She nodded and grabbed a wadded up Kleenex from the bed sheet and pressed it to her eyes.

  She said, “Tyler, can you...”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Oh no, Jess,” he whispered, watching Tyler take Petey out past the curtain, his hand on his shoulder. He bent and scooped Andy up and held him over his hip. They left and the curtain closed softly behind them.

  He put his arms around her. “God, Jess, what happened?” His eyes were welling up.

  She patted his arm. She spoke, her voice quiet and hoarse, said, “Pete, I'm fine now. I'm okay.”

  “But what happened?”

  “I took a...spell today. Just...I...my ears were ringing, my heart was pounding and I...thought I was dying. I was sure I was dying.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I am. My blood pressure was through the roof and they were worried about my heart.”

  He squeezed her tight. No one worried about her heart more than he did. “How is your heart?” Worried about the answer.

  “I’m fine. They said it was a panic attack. They sedated—”

  “A panic attack?”

  “—me, calmed me down and then I was okay again. I didn't feel like I was dying anymore.”