The temp tat caused Jessica’s eyes to wander, for maybe the five hundredth time in the last three days, to her own left wrist.
Despite having scrubbed the delicate skin nearly raw, she could still see the faint lines of the bartender’s phone number. He’d written it there after she finished her third glass of free shiraz the other night at Bar Vasquez.
“I’m Ryan, by the way,” he told her.
You don’t think about how many nerve endings there are on the inside of your wrist until someone who looks like him writes his number there. The sharp little point against her skin felt so intense that she had to bite her lower lip to keep from making an embarrassing sound.
“So, I met a guy,” said Scarlett Powers.
Jessica reentered the present seamlessly. Her ability to appear engaged at all times was her greatest skill as a therapist. “Oh? Well, that’s interesting. Let’s talk about it.”
Scarlett crossed her legs. “Okay.”
“Now, when you say met,” said Jessica, “do you mean—”
“Fucked?”
Jessica raised her eyebrows. Swearing, for some of her patients, was just part of the deal. Discouraging it would be like standing on I-95 and politely asking passing cars to maybe please slow down.
“We didn’t, actually,” said Scarlett.
“Oh?”
“We almost did. Because, you know, they always want to, right?”
“Let’s not—”
“Generalize,” said Scarlett. “Yeah, I know. But sometimes it’s easier. Like, generalities save time. That’s what they’re for. Anyway. Wanna know why we didn’t?”
“I don’t know, do I?” said Jessica.
“Yes, you do, because it’s probably gonna blow your mind.”
“Okay. Try me.”
Scarlett wiggled in her chair, straightening herself. “Get this. I decided to take your advice.”
“Wow,” said Jessica. She appeared flabbergasted for effect. “I should probably write this down so I know I’m not drunk or hallucinating. Scarlett Powers…took…my…advice…for once…in her…young life.”
“Very funny.”
“Well, among my friends, I am referred to as the funny one,” said Jessica. “Okay. So who is he? A guy from school?”
Scarlett made a face, like, Seriously?
“Okay. Older, then? How much older? Where are we on the scale of alarming behavior here, Scarlett? Inappropriately older or wildly inappropriate?”
Scarlett folded her arms. She’d come directly from school, and her uniform skirt was pop-star short. “Jeez. You have such little faith in me.”
“Do I?”
“He’s twenty-five, if you have to know. Which is totally legit. I’m eighteen now, remember? That’s the one advantage of being held back a year. My jailbait days are over. Twenty-five is, like, motherfucking wholesome.”
Jessica made a face, and Scarlett cocked her head with the confidence of a third-world dictator. “See, I can be funny, too,” she said.
“We’ll call it inappropriate-ish,” Jessica said. “Which is an improvement, I must say.”
“He’s got a job, too.”
“A bonus.”
“And he’s nice. At least he seems nice, so far.”
“A gainfully employed, nice person. This is good news. I’m happy.”
“I met him at Jiffy Lube.”
Annnnd…here we go, she thought.
Jessica pictured a future version of her daughter, Emily, as she almost always did during her sessions with Scarlett.
“Yeah, so, my dad had me take his Benz in for an oil change.” Scarlett stopped and laughed. “I don’t mean to sound all sexual. Lube. Oil change. Like a euphemism. Like I’m talking about—”
“I know what a euphemism is, Scarlett.”
“Right. Anyway, we were making out. Really good kisser, by the way. This thing with his tongue—like, twisty, but not creepy twisty. God, when they’re good kissers, it’s tough not to be super agreeable, you know. But I was strong.”
“Okay.”
“So, his hands started to…explore…as guys’ hands are wont to do. But then, guess what happened?”
Jessica nodded, easing her along. For a therapist, there’s a fine line between encouraging communication and rewarding colorful storytelling.
“You popped into my head,” said Scarlett. “That’s what.”
“Me?”
“Yep. You, my voice of boring reason. So, I grabbed his wrists, and I said, ‘You know, Darnell—’ That’s his name, by the way. Darnell.”
“Got it.”
“ ‘You know, Darnell, before this goes any further, let’s establish that my sexuality is only part of who I am. And I think we should save that part of me for another time.’ ”
Jessica bit the tip of her pen. “You paraphrased a little, but not bad.”
“See? And you say I don’t listen.”
“So, how’d he react?”
“Well, duh,” said Scarlett. “He bolted. Audi 5000. Mahatma Gandhi. Gonzo.”
“Oh. Well, that’s a shame.”
“No shit it’s a shame. You shoulda seen him. Like one of those shirtless models at Abercrombie. But then you were right there in my head again, per usual. ‘Scarlett, if a guy’s gonna reject your ass just because you won’t immediately get it on with him in a Jiffy Lube parking lot, then maybe he’s not as dope as you think he is.’ ”
“Again with the paraphrasing,” said Jessica. “It’s good advice, though.”
“Fuck that. Good advice? Whatever. I was pissed at you.”
“Why were you mad?”
“I said pissed.” She hit the word like one of the sharp keys at the end of a piano and retreated back to her nails.
“Come on, Scarlett. No shutting down. The clock’s ticking. I don’t want to lose this. Keep going.”
“You try to make everything so PG-13 all the time,” she said. “It’s annoying. Like, censorship. Pissed means pissed. It’s different than mad.”
“Okay. Why were you pissed? And why were you pissed at me?”
A chunk of Scarlett’s dark nail polish dislodged and fluttered to the floor. She was silent.
“Can I take a guess?” asked Jessica.
“Will it matter if I say no?”
“Not really.”
“Fine, then,” said Scarlett. “Go to town.”
“You’re pissed because your instinct is to have sex with every guy who happens to wander by, and going against your instincts is hard, and therefore frustrating. You’re not angry with me. You’re frustrated. Anger and frustration are very similar feelings—nearly one in the same. This sounds good, Scarlett. This…” She used her pen to point at Scarlett and then back at herself. “This feels like progress.”
Scarlett slumped in her chair. “This…feels like bullshit.”
“Do you have a better theory, then?” Jessica asked. “I’m certainly listening.”
“Yeah, I do. My theory is that all of this is bullshit.”
“What’s bullshit?”
“All of it. The entire premise of this conversation, for starters. Bull. Shit.”
“Okay, keep talking. Let’s try to be more specific.”
“Why should I feel bad because I wanted to have sex with Darnell? Darnell is fucking hot.”
“It’s not that you should feel bad per se,” said Jessica. “That’s not the point of this. You need to star—”
“That’s more bullshit right there,” said Scarlett.
“Is it?”
“Yeah,” said Scarlett. “All right, go with me here, okay? For the sake of argument, let’s say Darnell is in therapy right now, too. Let’s say he’s in some pleasant off-white little room like this one, right this very second, and h
e’s talking to someone like you about me. You think his therapist is trying to make him feel bad or unhealthy or crazy or whatever because he wanted to fuck me? I seriously, seriously doubt it. Total double standard.”
The smart ones are always the biggest pains in the ass, Jessica found.
Scarlett kept going. “I mean, like, I gotta come here, right? My parents and you and, like, society think my behavior is…what? Wrong? But why?”
“In our collective defense, Scarlett, you’ve been arrested for shoplifting four times.”
“Oh, whatever,” said Scarlett. “That’s not why I’m here, and you know it. Jacking slutty crop tops from Forever 21? Come on. If my parents hadn’t violated my privacy and hacked into my phone, I wouldn’t be here in the first place, and you know it.”
She was right, of course, although the word hacked was a little strong. Scarlett’s mom found her phone in the laundry room the previous year and just about face-planted onto the linoleum when she saw her daughter’s pictures and videos. Three days later, Scarlett and her parents were in Jessica’s office.
“Oh yeah, and breaking news,” said Scarlett. “Having sex is dope. It’s awesome. I mean, come on, Dr. Butler. Don’t you still like doing it with Mr. Butler?”
“Scarlett,” Jessica said.
“I mean, he’s my teacher and all, but he’s a decent-looking dude, like, if you’re into that high-functioning nerd thi—”
“Scarlett,” she said again: a second warning. “Do we need to have yet another discussion about our boundaries?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying, you’ve got a banging bod for a chick your age. A pretty killer rack, too. And Mr. Butler’s not so bad either.”
“That’s lovely of you to say, but you’re not here to talk about my bod—or my husband.”
“How Smalltimore is that, by the way?” said Scarlett. “You, my therapist, are married to my English teacher. This town is, like, ridiculous with that shit.”
She was right about this, too. For all its neighborhoods and spiraling suburbs and million-some people, Baltimore feels like a college campus where everyone knows everyone. “Let’s get back to you, if we can,” said Jessica.
“Right.” She pointed at herself with her thumbs. “This girl.”
Just then, Jessica’s iPhone lit up on the armrest of her chair. During sessions, she used the stopwatch app as a timer. She normally put it in airplane mode to avoid calls and texts while she was working, but she’d forgotten that day, and she glanced down just long enough to see a group text message from Amber to the rest of the Wives.
“All I’m getting at is,” said Scarlett, “as girls…no, as women, like, womankind here, can’t we just have sex because we wanna have sex? That’s what guys do. Proudly. All the fucking time. Just grab ’em by the pussy, right? Can’t it be our turn? Hashtag Me Too. Fuckin’-A, right? Did I mention that Darnell’s black and he’s got blue eyes? I mean, that’s a pretty sexy combo. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Again, Darnell sounds like quite a catch,” said Jessica. “I find this interesting, though, Scarlett. Is that how you’re interpreting the Me Too movement? As a license to now do whatever you want?”
“Why not? Nobody’s told those fuckers no for, like, thousands of years. They want something, they take it. But if we want something, we’re supposed to tell ourselves no? Like, deprive ourselves. Why? Who says that’s gotta be our job?”
Jessica thought of Ryan’s pen. The sensation against her skin. How casually brazen it was to let him mark her like that in the first place. How exhilarating it felt. “Well,” she said, “I wouldn’t write it on a protest sign and march on D.C., but you’re raising an interesting point.”
This caught the girl briefly off guard. “Really?” she said.
“Yes. But when you’re here, in this off-white little room, we’re talking about Scarlettkind, not womankind. Deal?”
Scarlett smiled and looked out the office window at the speck of a disappearing Southwest jet on its way out of Baltimore. “Scarlettkind,” she said. “I like that.”
Jessica’s phone screen lit up again, and this time, she looked at it long enough to read Amber’s text.
Do you guys have an opinion on chin lifts? Asking for a friend. (Me!)
“Besides,” she said. “Womankind has enough to deal with.”
15
Later that day, as Mitch stood at the front of his classroom, he thought about beating up his students.
He thought about this a lot, actually, which probably wasn’t good. He’d never beaten up anyone, of course, so the violence was just conceptual—borrowed from movies, mostly.
For example, he’d punch everyone in the front row right in the face. Simple, efficient jabs, like Rocky Balboa’s, complete with sound effects. The students’ heads would snap back, and they’d sprawl to the floor in an orderly fashion, instantly unconscious. He’d go Chuck Norris on row two, disposing of them with a series of vicious roundhouse kicks. He’d be more tactical with row three, delivering Bruce Lee–style beatings, with death chops and leg sweeps. And, finally, to finish things off, he’d throw desks at the back row. They were surprisingly light for such sturdy-looking pieces of furniture. Perfect for flinging.
The kids never fought back in these fantasies, which made it easier. Instead, they simply disappeared out of the screen like the bad guys in old-school Nintendo games.
With fifteen minutes left in class, the energy had drained from the room, and most of the kids were longingly looking either out the window or at the table at the front of the room, where they were required to leave their cellphones. Mitch referred to it as the “plywood table of distraction,” the official keeper of their texts and sexts and kiks and tweets and snaps and whatever else.
Mitch clapped his hands hard, and the students jolted upright.
“Okay,” he said. “Enough plot summary. We’ll leave that for Goodreads. Here’s the important question. The point of all this. What makes this play so special?”
The room, all wood filled and musty, became a sea of blank faces. It was sunny outside, which never helped. Some sparrows sat on the windowsill, flirting with their own reflections.
“Come on, you guys. Let’s talk it out. Since this play was scrawled out by hand and bound into book form, millions of other stories have been written. Novels. Nonfiction. Nonfiction novels. Plays. Memoirs. Fanfic. Chick lit. Lad lit. Celebrity tell-alls. Vampire romances. Werewolf romances. Why are we still discussing this play now, in Baltimore, Maryland, in the early twenty-first century?”
“ ’Cause you assigned it, Mr. B.?”
A smattering of laughter. Kenny Jecelin, a popular, funny lacrosse bro.
“Very true, Kenny. I did. And it wasn’t at random. I wrote it on my syllabus and forced you to read it. Why’d I do that?”
“Because you hate us?” said Kenny.
“No, that’s not true. I like several of you very much.” This got a few laughs, too.
A girl named Britney Christman spoke up in the front row. “I think it’d be a lot easier if it was written in, you know, today’s language.”
“Fair point, Ms. Christman. You’re not wrong. Did you all read it aloud, like I said? It’s a play. It’s meant to be spoken—performed, actually. Imagine the most fire rap lyrics you can think of, written on a white sheet of paper. Not quite as lit, huh?”
Mitch reveled in the groans that followed this. His students hated–slash–secretly loved when he said things like that.
“I felt like a tool talking to myself,” said a kid named Devon O’Leary, and half the class nodded.
“Also fair,” said Mitch. He held up his copy of the book. “Listen, I get it. The language is antiquated. Nobody talks like this anymore. They didn’t talk like this back then either, by the way. It’s a style thing. We’ll watch the movie next week. It’ll help w
ith some of the nuances.”
“The Leo and Claire Danes version?” asked a girl from the middle of the room. It was Scarlett Powers. This gave Mitch pause. Scarlett never spoke in class unless she was called on. Like most of the male teachers at the school, Mitch was a little terrified of Scarlett and her hiked-up skirts and dubious reputation.
“That’s the one,” said Mitch. “Before he froze to death in Titanic, poor Leo offed himself in Romeo and Juliet.”
“And he got shot in The Great Gatsby, too,” said Britney.
“Yeah, he did, didn’t he? The guy’s sacrificed a lot for the adaptation of great literature. He has our respect.”
Another collective glance at their marooned phones, and Mitch was pretty sure everyone had forgotten his original question.
“The Leo version is okay and all,” said Scarlett. “But the seventies movie version is waaaaay better. Juliet’s got huge boobs in that one. I mean, they’re seventies boobs, which are different-looking and all, but boobs are boobs, right?”
“Thanks for the insight, Scarlett,” said Mitch.
The girl giggled. “If you let me have my phone, I can YouTube it. There’s, like, a full-on nude scene.”
“That’s okay, Ms. Powers. We’ll save that for when we’re off school Wi-Fi.”
Scarlett made a pouty face and put her pen down, and Mitch imagined having sex with her.
Every boy in the class was thinking about this, too—he could tell. But for Mitch it was jarring, and he blinked it away immediately. He never thought of his students like that; he prided himself on it. Since the conversations, though—since their arrangement—sex had gone from something that lingered somewhere in the middle of his mind to something that blinked and buzzed and shook just above his forehead.
Stop it, he snapped at himself.
And then he realized that his students were looking at him. All of them. Even the space cadets in the back row.
“Wait,” he said. “What were we talking about?”
The kids laughed, then Devon said, “Why this book is important. I think.”
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