by Knox, Abby
I take a seat and I get hit with the scent of peppermints. Specifically, those bright pink, chalky, discs my grandmother always had around when I was a kid. What are those called? Anyway, that’s what I smell like now.
All right. The elf lady is putting a spell on all my senses. We need to get this over with so I can slink out of here and go back to my miserable life. She comes around to my side of her desk and hops up onto it, her striped socks brushing against my knee while her feet dangle.
“And you can call me Jewel,” she says quietly. If I was a total perv, I would think she’d used a flirty tone.
“Interesting name.”
She chirps, “My mom always said I was quite a gem.”
I narrow my eyes at her because I don’t want to encourage these puns. I hate puns.
Jewel clears her throat. “So, I don’t see much in Max’s file except that he’s a scholarship student. What preschool did he attend?”
“He didn’t.”
She shifts her weight around but her face remains nonjudgmental. “I see. Well, did he attend Head Start? State pre-K somewhere? Did he ever go to childcare?”
“No, not that I know of.”
She cocks her head at me and looks curious.
“I see. And…may I ask about Max’s mom?”
I take a deep breath and prepare myself. I’m about to use a lot of words with this woman.
I’ve been trying to ignore the effect she’s having on me with her cute face and her petite-yet-curvy body and her ridiculous way of dressing that is both annoying and sexy in an “I dress solely to impress 5 year olds” kind of way.
She has a twinkle of mischief in her eye, combined with a joyful, sunshiny quality that I find disquieting. Her bright smile and raised eyebrows are unsettling. Her trendy space buns are trying to charm me but they’re making me mad. Mad because I want to pull the sparkly bobby pins out of her light brown hair and watch it fall around her shoulders. I’d like to know how long it is. See if she’d hold still long enough to let me thread my fingers through it and quiet her cheerful chirping with a rough, sloppy kiss.
Max’s teacher notices me staring at her mouth and licks her lips. The tiniest wisp of pink flushes her cheeks when she realizes what she’s done.
I’m full on glaring at her mouth now. I want that mouth. I gotta get out of here before I take it. I have to control the groan at the back of my throat when she chews on her lips, waiting for me to tell the whole story of Max.
Finally I spill it. “Up until last spring, I was a DSS investigator. I was interviewing a kid. Mom’s not in the picture. Grandma’s boyfriend had him locked up in a closet for three days with no food. I snapped. Punched the motherfucker right in his asshole face. Sorry.”
She rests one hand on her stomach in shock as she absorbs everything I said. After a moment, she leans forward. “Tell me more. Tell me everything. You clocked him straight in the face, didn’t you? He never saw it coming.”
I don’t understand what’s happening right now or what that tone is in her voice, but I go along with it.
“I…well…yeah. And I got fired. Charged with assault. DA dropped it because it was a first-time offense and I agreed to go to counseling.”
Jewel seems to be breathing more shallow than before and her eyes widen. Her knuckles grip the edge of the desk so hard they turn white. “Just a regular law-abiding citizen and then …boom. Tell me about the moment it happened.”
I don’t see what this has to do with anything but sure, what the hell.
I sit forward in my chair and rest my elbows on my knees.
“Well, I felt it building in my chest. After I got done talking with the kid, the grandma’s boyfriend was standing in the hallway, sneering like a filthy prick. I couldn’t hold the anger at bay anymore. I just…lost control. I grabbed him by the front of his stupid t-shirt and shoved him into the drinking fountain. It wasn’t the right thing to do but, fuck, it felt good.”
“Oh my,” Jewel breathes, chewing on her lip. “And then what happened?”
I’m not proud, but she seems very interested in the details. “I went over and grabbed him again, this time to hold him still while I wailed on him. Popped him. Just clocked him dead in the face.”
Jewel’s eyelids flutter and her jaw falls open. “That’s…incredible.”
“It’s not like the movies. I broke two of his teeth and there was blood everywhere. Got a hairline fracture in my hand, too.”
“No!” Her hand goes to her chest.
“Yeah. And so after I was fired…” I reply, while her hand reaches out to examine the hand that I broke. I show it to her as I continue. “I learned that Max was put in foster care. After the charges were dropped, I applied to get the kid placed with me. The state eventually agreed because they saw that I already had the training and…apparently Max wouldn’t talk to any other adult but me.”
She turns my hand over in hers and back again with her delicate fingers, as if she has X-ray vision or something.
“It’s uh…healed now.” Damn, I should have said it still hurts because I’m pretty sure this chick wants to kiss my boo boo. Instead I keep talking. “I’m hoping to adopt Max. I figured, if they won’t let me punch bad guys in the face then at least I can get one kid out of the system.”
Jewel looks up at my face and drops my hand. She clutches her chest like she’s overcome, and her eyes close.
“Uh, do you need some water…?” I offer.
She shakes her head. I don’t know what’s happening. Maybe she’s praying?
After a long moment, she leans in, her voice breaking and full of intensity, and whispers, “Are you serious? I mean, like, are you for real?”
When she leans in like that I get another hit of that pink peppermint scent, and I’m liking it. A lot. I don’t want to like it. It’s fucking with my head. What are we doing here?
I clear my throat and squirm in her chair because my cock needs adjusting in my drawers. I nod my head. “And he only came to me last week.”
Jewel looks at me like I’ve made her day. “Oh my god, I love you…what you did! I mean I love what you did! You’re a superhero. Jiminy Christmas, I have an actual superhero in my classroom!”
Her face turns totally pink and…is she fanning herself? Something is twinkling in the corners of her eyes…
“Are you doing that thing people do when they’re trying to fan tears away?”
“No!” she cries, laughing self-consciously as she reaches over to grab a tissue from her desk. She dabs her eyes.
“You OK?” God, please don’t let her cry.
She smiles and her tears fully spill over, and now she’s blowing her nose and swallowing thickly. “Allergies?” Her voice goes up at the end like it’s a question and the hitch in her voice is real.
She’s a mess and I made her that way.
I’m not a hugger, but I definitely want to hug her. Or, better yet, rewind the last three minutes and come up with a super boring lie about Max and my whole miserable life.
5
Jewel
And now it’s his turn to ask me questions.
“Vince, please change the subject.”
“Awesome, love to. I’m curious, where’s the whiteboard? And the Chromebooks?”
I cock my head.
“Greenbridge doesn’t use whiteboards because of the environment.”
He stares back at me.
“The plastic markers, for one. Basic chalkboards…the carbon footprint is smaller.”
“Oh.”
I can’t read his reaction. “And anyway…don’t you love the smell of chalk? And kids love to go outside and bang erasers together. They have to take turns or it’s quite a dust-up! Haha!”
“‘K.” He is expressionless. And now he’s playing with my bronze apple paperweight.
“And, Mr. Cole—”
“Vince.”
“Vince.” God, he totally looks like a jacked, well-fed Vincent Van Gogh, so this will be an ea
sy way to remember his name. Not that I could ever forget a single thing about him. “Greenbridge is screen free at the elementary level. Teachers and staff have laptops, of course, for administrative and lesson planning. But we delay screen time for children until middle school.”
Now he finally has an opinion. “Weird,” he mutters, setting down my apple and sitting back in his seat.
I’m surprised at this. Most parents want their kids enrolled here because of these things. I can’t help but smirk. He really is different from other parents. “Did you not get the handbook when you enrolled Max?”
“Uh, yeah it’s…somewhere.” He looks around and pats down the pockets of his shirt and jeans.
Anyone else, I would have seriously questioned whether they wanted to actually be at this school.
Him? Well, no way am I going to push out a scholarship kid. As far as I’m concerned, we need more of them.
“Let’s take a walk to the cafeteria and see what we can get Max to eat.”
“‘K,” Vince answers. “But I don’t know how much help I’ll be. If the kid won’t eat your basic chicken nuggets, I’m out.”
We make our way to the lunchroom and I correct him, gently. “Oh, I’m so sorry. We don’t serve chicken nuggets here.”
“Corn nuggets? Pizza?”
“Corn nuggets? I’m not sure what that is, but no. You are in for a treat! Here we are.”
6
Vince
No wonder Max won’t eat anything at the school. Jewel shows me the lineup. Three buffet stations line one wall of the dining hall: one for veggies and fruit, one for protein and one for grains.
The fruit and vegetable buffet is full of steamed broccoli, grapes, and orange slices.
“And over here is where they pick up their protein. Today it’s grilled chicken and baked tempeh,” Jewel says cheerily.
“The fuck is tempeh. Oh. Sorry.”
She laughs, but it doesn’t feel like she’s making fun of me. “I don’t actually know, but I’ll ask. It’s for the vegan kids.”
“‘K.”
“You say ‘K a lot.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
“And over here are the carbs. My favorite! Well, obviously,” she says, sweeping her hand across her abdomen, as if I should know what that means. My gaze drifts across her belly, but all I can see is a perfect little muffin top and a set of rounded hips built for grabbing and holding her still while I’m boning her. Yeah, I went there.
I can’t help it. Being anti-people doesn’t mean I don’t like to fuck. And on that note, her tits are the perfect size to fit in my hands, and they look like tons of fun to play with. So I don’t know what she means about carbs being obviously her favorite thing, but it sounds like she’s being self-deprecating.
I step in front of her to make eye contact while she’s eye-fucking a bunch of bread products that look brown and full of seeds. “I think you oughta go easy on yourself.”
She cuts her eyes away shyly and ignores my dark gaze and my comment. Instead, she shows me something that looks nothing related to King’s Hawaiian rolls, which are my bread product of choice. I read the signage. “What is naan bread?”
“Oh, one of our chefs makes it from scratch! It’s amazing! Try some,” she says, plying me with a piece. “It’s naan-tastic!”
Jewel doesn’t take a hint from my annoyed expression but takes a slice and hands it to me. “Here!” She’s so excited for me to try an oblong piece of flat bread that I can’t say no.
It’s chewy. Salty. Buttery. Not bad.
“Good,” I say.
She claps her hands. “It’s better with ghee—would you liked spiced or regular?”
“Neither.”
“Oh. OK,” she says. I hear a hint of disappointment but she’s not deterred. “Well, let’s look around and you can show me what Max would like to eat. I think maybe he was overwhelmed by the loud lunchroom.”
“He won’t eat any of this. I haven’t been able to get him to eat anything but hot dogs and mac and cheese since he came to live with me.”
“I see,” she says, placing her hands on her hips and blowing a stray lock of hair from her eyes.
“I have some burgers and fries in the car. I can bring those in for him,” I offer.
She shakes her head. “I’m afraid fast food is not allowed on campus.”
I’m incredulous. “Fast food is the new smoking?”
She cocks her head cutely. “I’m sorry?”
“Listen, you said yourself that you want the kid to eat. Everyone is somehow still outside having this ridiculously long recess period because I guess that’s what the rich pay for now. So I’ll go get the burgers, you call him inside and let him eat before anybody sees and calls the campus cops, and then tonight I’ll talk to him about how his hippie-dippy prep school only serves organic food and he’s going to have to suck it up.”
She smiles and bites her lip. And goddamn do I want to be the one to bite it for her.
“Come on,” I say, giving her a half smile and pointing a finger at her cleavage that’s peeking out of her standard-issue prep school cardigan, the only thing standard about her ensemble. “I see a rule breaker in there somewhere. Let’s do it.”
7
Jewel
Vince’s plan works, and Max scarfs down most of a bacon double cheeseburger and an entire helping of fries while Vince watches him.
I’m so happy to see the kid eat, I don’t care that it’s fast food. But I am curious.
“By coincidence, you had this in your car?”
“I had a double order for myself and I had already eaten half of it.”
I should be appalled. But I’m not at all.
“I think you should come back tomorrow. We need to ease him into the way we eat lunch here and it would help him if you were present.”
“‘K.”
Why do I not feel totally infuriated by his monosyllabic answers?
When Max finishes and Vince clears away the trash—at the bottom of my trash bin so nobody else sees the fast food logos—we walk Max back out to recess. Vince squats down in front of him and Max locks his arms around Vince’s neck. Vince murmurs something in his ear, and I see him nod solemnly before ambling away to sit under a tree on the playground.
I can’t help but feel heartwarmed. “That was my favorite tree ever since I was a girl. It’s a lot bigger now, but still my favorite.”
As Vince and I walk together back to the main entrance, down covered walkways and through limestone halls, he asks me questions about myself. “You went here as a kid?”
I nod. “Yes, it was very different back then. It used to be a Catholic school, but went through some tumultuous years in the late 1980s. By the time I arrived, it was still finding its footing as an independent prep school. Not quite as elite as it is now, but I still love its mission.”
“Why’d your parents want to spend so much money?”
I laugh. “I was disruptive and high energy, and Mom didn’t want to drug me to keep me still. So she searched all the options and Greenbridge had the best program and the best resources for a kid like me. After my mom died, I went to live with my aunt, and she made sure I could continue to go here.”
Talking about myself makes me self-conscious. Other people are much more fascinating, especially kids. Let’s amend that statement—kids and this man are fascinating creatures. He has a beautiful, touchable body, from his shiny hair to his beautiful beard to his slight beer belly, all of it. And god help me, I want to rub up against it and bite that most delightful, squeezable ass. I try not to picture him in my kitchen wearing only pajama pants and no shirt, drinking coffee, and glaring at me. I am finding it very difficult not to think of exactly that image.
“I’m sorry to hear you lost your mom so young,” he says, with a twinge of tenderness that I can tell does not come easy for him.
That’s it. He’s not getting out of my sight today without a hug. I must hug this big, scary man. I need to ma
sh my body against his body.
His reluctant acceptance of my embrace is warm, hard and soft at the same time. His body is a lot harder than I thought it would be. And he’s actually hugging me back, despite telling me he’s not much of a hugger. His hands awkwardly pat me on the back, but he ends it with a quick hard squeeze.
“Research,” I whisper.
“Huh?”
I pull back from the hug and give him my most winning smile. “The long recess, the toys, the delayed screen time. People pay for that now because child development research supports it.”
“‘K,” he says, nodding.
While I watch his tasty vintage Mustang disappear out of the lot, I scurry back to the playground for the remainder of recess, but not before stopping off at my desk to grab a dusty copy of the Greenbridge Teacher Code of Conduct.
It says nothing at all about teachers dating parents of students.
8
Vince
Alert the presses: I’m not much of a hugger.
But Jewel’s hug seals the deal; I’m into her. All in.
Dammit.
And now I have to check out where she lives and make sure it’s safe.
I’m in my car, parked downtown at the drive-in diner, eating my usual breakfast burrito—this time I told the carhop to put some extra jalapeños and lettuce on it—while I make a phone call to my buddy Barry at the police station.
He and I worked together on a lot of child endangerment cases before I got fired.
“Hey, Barry, I need you to look up an address for me.”
“Not exactly legal, but my senior detective skills tell me you’re not up to anything sinister.”
Don’t be too sure, I say to myself.
Barry clicks some keys and reads the address to me.
“Cool, thanks, man. How’re Shelley and the kids by the way?”
Barry rattles off a long list of after-school activities between his two teenage daughters, and how he recently got his numbers back from the doctor and managed to drop his triglycerides because of his new extreme diet.