“Let’s talk business.” Julia hoped to distract her friend. She couldn’t let a minor misunderstanding get in the way of the most exciting day in Andrew’s life. And all of her behind-the-scenes work—schedules, parties, and obviously the increased costume budget—would support his first lead role. “I’m thinking about the rehearsal-treat schedule,” she said, “and I’ve decided I’ll just let people sign up for as many slots as they want.” Robin opened her mouth to respond, but Julia wasn’t ready yet. “I mean, as long as they’re committed to keeping things peanut-free. We all know there are those families that won’t contribute anything. Ever.” It was true that some people were happy to rely on the generosity of others.
That had never been her.
Robin shook her head. “Julia,” she said.
“Oh!” Julia soldiered on, determined. “Right! The five-K! Do you want me to see if I can get you on the planning team this year?” She smiled puckishly. “The women on that committee can get a little wild.”
“Um,” Robin began, “I mean, I’m happy to help, Julia, but can we talk again about the cast list?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Julia pursed her lips.
“It’s just this thing with Melissa Young,” Robin ventured. “Anika texted me again.” She glanced at her phone. “It seems that Tryg Ogilvie has some kind of video?”
Julia’s phone buzzed. She slid it off the table. The screen read, LHHS Office. She’d have to answer. “Hmm. Hang on a sec.” She pressed the green button and raised the phone to her ear.
ANDREW ABBOTT
Students streamed quickly toward the exits after Wednesday’s dismissal bell, but Andrew shuffled to his locker, staring at the seams between the floor tiles. His stomach felt unsettled, and he regretted the chicken patty he’d scarfed down for lunch—that and the seven-layer bar he’d gone back for at the last minute. Most especially, he lamented the tepid jalapeño poppers he’d sampled from a friend’s tray. He shoved his hands in his pockets, picturing Melissa Young, her eyes red and cheeks flushed. He saw the way she’d bent at the waist when Wally had come into view in front of the drama board, heard again Dittmer’s low command for him to get back to class.
What could have happened to Melissa? Andrew wondered. She couldn’t have been disappointed in her lead role, which she’d basically predicted in that morning’s Humans of LHHS Instagram profile. Was she ill? And how could Dittmer be angry with him just minutes after casting him in a big part?
Andrew felt a little better as he turned the corner into the English wing and noticed Sarah Smith standing next to his locker. She stared at her phone, but Andrew thought he’d caught a glimpse of her looking for him. He straightened a little, tugging his Deathly Hallows T-shirt, the one he’d been wearing when she’d asked him to the Sadie’s a few weeks ago. Since then, he’d viewed the shirt as sort of a lucky charm. He’d picked it purposely for cast-list day.
“Hey,” he said when he was close enough. He grabbed his combination lock with his free hand. “What’s up?”
“Well?” She leaned against the adjacent locker and smiled up at him.
“Well, what?”
“The cast list, obviously.” Sarah laughed.
Andrew grinned. “I’m in!” He popped the lock open and yanked the door.
“That’s awesome,” Sarah said. “What part?”
“Immigration Inspector Adams.” He clicked his heels together as he imagined an Ellis Island official might, and then immediately wished he hadn’t done that. It probably looked dumb.
Sarah’s smile widened, though. “Inspector,” she said. “Sounds fancy! Hey, what are you doing now? Do you want to—” Her phone buzzed. “It’s Erin.” She squinted, tilting her head to the side as she looked at the text. “Hang on.” She turned away from him, her back against the lockers. After several seconds, she flinched and tapped at the screen. Andrew grabbed his copy of Gatsby and shoved it into his backpack, waiting. He watched her as he added his Spanish workbook and a torn green folder containing his readings for American History.
All the while, Sarah kept her eyes on the screen. “What is it?” he asked finally. He leaned toward her, trying to see.
Sarah pulled the phone away and stepped back. Her smile had disappeared, and her mouth hung open. A sourness rose in Andrew’s throat, remnant of the jalapeño poppers.
“What?” he said again.
“Um,” Sarah hedged. “It’s just this thing from Erin. She got it in a group text from someone in her math class.”
“What is it? Is it serious?”
“I don’t really know,” she said. “But . . .” She looked as sick as he suddenly felt.
“But what?”
“Maybe it’s not that big of a deal. In any case, I’m not sure I should be the one to tell you.” She took another step away.
“Please.” He reached his hand out to her, feeling suddenly desperate, remembering Melissa’s scorn at the drama board, the sweat on Mr. Dittmer’s upper lip.
“It’s just . . .” She placed her phone reluctantly into his palm. “You probably haven’t seen this video?”
HENRY ABBOTT
Henry Abbott toggled the volume switch on his phone to silent as he sat opposite his business partner, Brenda Sutherland.
“How quickly can we vacate the current tenants at Tuolomee Square?” Brenda asked, scrolling over a spreadsheet and straightening her black-framed glasses. The two sat on high-backed leather chairs and leaned over an imposing table in the offices of Sutherland and Abbott, one of the premiere real estate development firms in Minneapolis.
“Within six months,” Henry replied with confidence. “I’ve got Jean on the lease contracts, and we should be ready to demo the existing structures by October if all goes well.”
“And which architect will draft the initial plans?” Brenda asked.
Several quick vibrations distracted Henry from his notes. He pulled his phone from his breast pocket and glanced down to see that Julia had fired off a spate of messages.
Andrew is the inspector!!!! ♥♥, read the first.
“Everything okay?” asked Brenda.
“Looks like Andrew got a meaty role in the Liston Heights High School musical.”
“That’s wonderful!” Brenda said. “You’ll have to let me know the dates. I’d love to see him in action.”
“That’s nice of you.” Henry smiled. “I’m sure Andrew would appreciate that.” His phone vibrated again. “Julia,” he explained, frowning. “She’s excited.”
Some silly call from Wayne Wallace, began the most recent text.
At the same time, Tracy, his daughter, buzzed in with Dad, SOS.
“I’m so sorry, Brenda.” Henry shifted uncomfortably. “It seems there’s more to this musical thing.”
She nodded. “Go ahead. I’ve got e-mails to review.”
Henry had just opened his texting app when William, his assistant, peeked in. “So sorry to interrupt, Mr. Abbott,” William said. “It’s just”—the young man looked nervous—“I have an urgent call for you from Martin Young.”
“Martin Young?” Brenda looked up from her keyboard.
Henry’s stomach dropped. Martin Young was the swing vote on the Liston Heights city council, which set zoning regulations for virtually all of Sutherland and Abbott’s local projects.
“That’s odd,” Henry said. “I haven’t even contacted the council about Tuolomee Square yet. But,” he continued, “these school musical texts . . . I’m just wondering. Martin does have a daughter, Melissa, who’s always a star in the shows.”
“Take the call,” Brenda said, signaling toward the door. Henry told William he’d pick it up in his office.
ISOBEL JOHNSON
Isobel had just unzipped the top of her backpack and slid in a bulging manila folder when Jamie Preston peeked around the doorframe.
“Hey,” Jamie sa
id. “How was your day?”
“It’s over!” Isobel surveyed her cluttered desk. “How was yours?” She’d turned off half of the banks of fluorescent lights, and the room felt leaden, like the late-afternoon sky outside the windows.
“Nothing special except for that crazy video.”
“Melissa Young and Julia Abbott?” Isobel asked.
“Yeah. My whole seventh period was watching the clip. Apparently Tryg Ogilvie has been texting it widely. Have you seen it?”
“Not yet.” Isobel grabbed Gatsby from the chalk ledge and shoved it in her tote behind a half-empty bag of Chex Mix. “You did?”
“Yeah.” Jamie wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. It’s ugly.” She perched on the edge of a student desk. “The mom stages a full-on attack.”
Isobel shook her head. “No,” she said, remembering. “Melissa just sort of got in the way of Julia’s”—she paused—“victory dance?” She recalled Tracy’s embarrassment, watching helplessly as her mom made such a public misstep.
“I guess, but it doesn’t look good,” Jamie continued. “If I were Melissa’s parents, I might have a few questions for Mrs. Abbott. What was she even doing at school?” Isobel dropped into her desk chair, the well-worn upholstery smooth against the back of her skirt. “Have you met the Youngs?” Jamie asked.
Isobel frowned. She had, in fact, met the Youngs at last trimester’s conferences, and then again at another meeting they’d requested. “I have,” she allowed. She recalled Annabelle and Martin Young’s itemized rundown of Melissa’s grade report in AP Lit, how they’d asked pointedly about each deduction. Isobel had attempted to quash her resentment about their entitlement and their obvious lack of respect for her systems. “They’re intense about grades,” she said.
Both women looked suddenly toward the open door, beyond which they heard a girl’s laughing shriek. “Anyway,” Jamie said, turning back, “Mrs. Abbott needs to get a flipping grip. You should have heard the voice mails that woman left for me last trimester.” She affected a nasal tone. “Have you considered, Ms. Preston, the implications of a B plus on a college application?” The imitation was spot-on, Isobel thought. Did the voice match the one on her machine? Isobel forced a laugh for Jamie’s benefit.
“Did you stick with a B plus for Andrew?” she asked.
“No,” Jamie said, “I rounded up. He had an eighty-nine. The fight wasn’t worth it.”
Isobel looked at her e-mail, annoyed. Was she the only one who ever held a line? Jamie relentlessly rounded up, and Lyle never challenged any of the kids’ essentialist assumptions. “Hey,” she said, pushing past her irritation, “have any parents ever tried to call you at home? Are you getting a lot of voice mails?”
“Some voice mails,” said Jamie, “but no, never at home.” Jamie picked a piece of lint off her ankle-length blue trousers, pale pink socks poking out beneath. “You told me to set limits with parents, remember? After Peter’s thing?”
Isobel did remember the pep talk she’d delivered after Peter Harrington’s sudden firing the previous school year. “You’re not Peter,” she’d said as Jamie, then only in her first months in the classroom, sat shaking in the very same desk on which she now lounged. “You’re prepared, and you’re careful. Don’t let them see any weakness,” she’d said. “You’re the one with the teaching license. You know what you’re doing. You know what? Rehearse every communication first. Write notes before you make calls. Never answer the phone—always call back when you’re ready. And, for goodness’ sake, don’t friend any kids or parents on social media.”
Jamie had walked out that day steady on her feet. She’d grown in confidence each month since, and Isobel felt proud of her transformation even though Lyle asked her over lunch one day why she was putting so much effort into the new teacher’s success. “She’s not even that smart,” Lyle had whispered over the cafeteria’s dried-out pot stickers.
“She is, too,” Isobel had said. And in fact, shoring up a potential career teacher felt as important to her as molding teenagers directly. A good teacher could change the way kids interacted with the world going forward forever, could inspire them to take action for justice. And hopefully, in their second years of teaching, as Jamie was now, give students the grades they’d actually earned, rather than rounding up. She’d tackle that with her this spring.
“Julia might be the kind of stay-at-home mom who gets a little too involved,” Isobel said now. “Maybe now that the kids are older, she needs a diversion. Maybe a nice full-time job?”
“Okay.” Jamie rolled her eyes. “Or maybe she needs a nice new vial of Xanax.” She kicked her legs out over a Jolly Rancher wrapper someone had dropped on the floor.
ANDREW ABBOTT
Back at his locker, Andrew stared at Sarah’s phone in his outstretched hand. “What is it?” he asked. He tried to meet her eyes, but she looked at the floor between them.
“Um,” Sarah mumbled, “was your mom at school when the cast list was posted?”
“Not that I saw,” said Andrew.
“Maybe just watch it?”
When Andrew focused on the screen, he saw his mother’s profile in the still frame, her upturned nose, the yellow “DRAMA” lettering at the top of the bulletin board looming above her head. Her outstretched finger touched the pink paper. Andrew frowned and hit the play button. The twenty-second video was jumpy, but there was no question of his mother’s identity, her hair in its usual low ponytail, black leggings beneath her winter coat. She stood before the cast list, lots of kids crowded in behind her. Andrew could see Maeve Hollister, Allen Song, and Melissa Young. After a few seconds, he watched his mom take her finger from the cast list and raise her fist in the air. The silver bracelet she wore most days slid from her wrist to her forearm. She giggled a little—her whole body shook with it—and then she brought her fist down hard, past her waist. Her elbow crashed into Melissa Young. He could hear the person holding the phone half gasp and half laugh, and then Melissa—God, she was his friend—bent at the waist, her black hair swinging out in front of her chin to block her face. Next to her, Maeve Hollister crouched down and rubbed her back.
Andrew willed his mother to apologize to Melissa, to check on her. The seconds seemed to lengthen. An excruciating moment passed before she turned around to see what she’d hit. “Jesus,” Andrew muttered.
He hit the replay button, hoping to see something different the second time through. What had she been doing at school, anyway? He knew she’d been counting the minutes to two thirty. He’d gotten her texts. But none of the other theater parents stalked the drama board. Sarah’s phone grew heavier in his palm. Andrew handed it back to her after he’d watched the video a second time. Nothing had been different. Sarah winced as they finally made eye contact.
“Wait.” Andrew shook his head, realizing something. “How’d you say you got that video?”
“From Erin Warner,” Sarah said, apologetic. “She got it in a group text from someone in her math class.”
Andrew held the door of his locker with one hand and looked up at the ceiling. “Can I come over to your house?” he blurted.
“Um, yeah,” she said, surprised. “You mean today?” He nodded. He noticed when she dipped her head that a flush had appeared on her cheeks. She said, “I’ll text my mom.”
ISOBEL JOHNSON
Isobel climbed behind the wheel of her minivan and brushed a stray hair off her cheek. She waved amiably at several kids and successfully avoided a student driver—the poor kid was stuck in the sedan with Mr. Glover, the stinkiest of the behind-the-wheel instructors.
She cruised out of Liston Heights toward home. Most houses in Mills Park, where Isobel lived, featured regular two-car garages, rather than the three-to-five-stall structures attached to her students’ places. Mills Park was nice enough, a first-ring suburb just west of Minneapolis. She’d agreed to move out of the city when Mark got promoted to senio
r counsel, but drew the line at Liston Heights. “It doesn’t reflect our values,” Isobel told Mark. She’d already mentally allocated the remainder of Mark’s pay raise to charitable contributions and to Riley’s and Callie’s college funds.
“But you work at the high school,” Mark reminded her.
“That’s different,” Isobel said. “Someone has to make sure those kids are prepared for the difficult choices they’ll face, having everything they’ve ever wanted. It’s easy, as we well know, to become corrupted.” She’d made this speech many times in the last eight years since she first applied for her LHHS teaching position the summer after Riley was born.
“It’s actually not that easy,” Mark said. “How many people do you know, besides your father, who’ve defrauded their friends and neighbors?” Isobel hadn’t replied. The answer was none, obviously, but she’d resolutely refused to look at any homes over the Liston Heights city line. Somewhere near that line on this particular afternoon, she mentally ran through that evening’s checklist. There was Callie’s homework and Riley’s travel soccer practice. After she picked Riley up in the carpool line, she’d have about forty minutes to get frozen pizza into both kids before she had to hustle them out the door again.
Isobel rubbed her neck with her free hand. Her cell phone rang. Mark, she saw, with a quick glance at the console. She punched the answer button on the steering wheel.
“Hi, hon.”
“Just checking in,” he said. “Remember tonight’s that squash thing?”
“Yep.” Isobel mustered enthusiasm for Mark’s midlife friend-making endeavors.
“And Riley’s got practice at six?”
“Yep, I’m on it.”
“Great.” And after a pause: “How was your day?”
Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes Page 5