by Nancy Star
around the lawn like Frankenstein’s monster and walked
into a tree.
“You okay?” Lane called to him.
The jacket nodded.
“May I give it one more try?” Nathan asked. The
jacket nodded again. As Nathan worked on the zipper he
ran through the voices of his characters: Evil queen. Evil warlord. Evil jacket manufacturer. “I will make zippers that no one can remove.”
The jacket laughed hard and continued laughing right
up until the moment the zipper budged and then caught.
Henry howled. Lane ran over and saw the zipper was grip-
ping a tiny bit of the skin on Henry’s neck. He howled
again as Lane tried to move it.
“Stop that!”
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She turned and saw her neighbor, Karin, standing at
the edge of her lawn.
“What are you doing to him?”
“Trying to get his coat off,” Lane said. “His zipper’s
jammed. I think we need to cut it off, buddy.” She turned
to Karin. “Do you have a pair of scissors I could borrow?”
Karin raced into her house and didn’t come back out.
Nathan asked Lane where she kept her scissors and
then ran into her house and found them. By the time she
was finished releasing Henry, remnants of his coat were
scattered across the lawn, strips of fleece, pieces of hood, two sides of a defanged zipper.
“What is wrong with her?” Lane said, eyeing her
neighbor’s house while she gathered the torn pieces of
Henry’s coat.
“She’s not crazy about me,” Nathan said.
“Right. So I heard. Because she’s friends with your ex.”
“Correct. You know how divorces go. Maybe you
don’t. Let’s just say it didn’t end well. Karin was not
thrilled when I moved in next door. Probably popped
open a bottle of champagne when I moved out.” He
shrugged. “Life.”
Lane shrugged. “People.”
Nathan smiled and turned to Henry. “Methinks,”
he said, and turned his voice into a growl, “the lady next door gives off the stench of anger something fierce. Do you not smell it, my liege?”
Henry smiled while he rubbed his throat.
“We better go in,” Lane told him and then watched
in astonishment as he ran over to Nathan and gave him
a hug.
They both watched Henry run inside.
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“He’s not just shy, right?” Nathan asked. “He doesn’t
talk.”
“Only to me,” Lane admitted. “Only when we’re
alone. Just since my husband died. January. According to
the professionals I’m not supposed to worry. It’s usually
self-resolving. Grieving takes time.”
“Sounds hard. If there’s anything I can do—”
“Thanks,” Lane said. “We’re good. Totally good.” She
hurried inside in case Nathan could tell from the expres-
sion on her face that she wasn’t as sure as she sounded.
h h
h h
As soon as Lane got back from the bus stop the next
morning, she sent an email to the resource room teacher
requesting a conference. After she pressed Send, she glanced at her phone and saw that she’d missed a call. She listened to the message.
“See?” It was Shelley. “This is why I don’t call you at a
normal time. You don’t pick up. We need to talk. Call me.”
Her sister must have called during the hubbub of bus
stop goodbyes, the parents herding their children onto the bus with last-minute instructions, Have fun. Don’t forget to hand in your permission slip. Tell your teacher she needs to help you find your hat.
She quickly dialed her sister’s number but the call went
directly to voice mail. Did Shelley do this on purpose?
Tell her to call right back and then not pick up? She left her a message. “Sorry I missed your call. I was getting
Henry off to school. I’m here now. Call me.” She took a
breath, switched her focus to her laptop and opened the
folder of curated Ask Roxie letters that had just arrived from Summer. She scrolled down the list.
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Dear Roxie, This country is going down the toilet.
Dear Roxie, My neighbor says I’m praying to the wrong god.
Dear Roxie, My mother never asks me what I want for dinner.
It was amazing how thoroughly Summer had ignored
her directions. Lane had only requested a few things, hav-
ing sensed early on that Summer was one of those people
who was allergic to negativity and terrified of screwing
up. In the end all she’d asked was for her to remember
the three kinds of letters Roxie would not answer: let-
ters about politics, letters about religion, letters that were boring. Yet that’s exactly what Summer had sent. Lane
deleted them all.
And why had Summer bothered to ask her for a list of
pet topics? Lane didn’t have pet topics, at least not that she was aware of, but she had dutifully given it some thought
and sent Summer a short list: marginalized children, dif-
ficult parents, toxic gossip. Yet Summer had not sent her
a single letter that addressed any of that.
An email floated by the top of her screen. Summer
again. A second folder of vetted letters. Lane opened the
folder and skimmed the contents. Again, she deleted them
all. She trashed the next email too, from the media trainer Bert hired to help her with the podcast she wasn’t going
to do. The email after that one was from Bert. She noted
the all-caps subject line: WHY AREN’T YOU ON EEZE?
She skimmed the email and forwarded it to Sam along
with a note: Can we speak? Today if possible? Seconds after sending it, her email bounced back with a delivery failure notice in the subject line. Was the rumor Hugo told her
true? Was it possible that Sam left the Guild? If he had,
what did it mean for her?
What it meant was she needed to get better at man-
aging Bert and she needed to get better at mentoring
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Summer. Most of all she needed to keep her job. The
realization hit her like a punch to the gut. She would
have had options, if she were a different person, the kind of person who’d kept up with the editors who used to
give her work, the kind of person who’d meet them for
lunch or drinks, who’d email now and then to see how
they were, who’d post birthday wishes on Facebook and
like their Instagram feeds, who’d send over flowers for
promotions and weddings and funerals. But she did none
of those things. She’d let all her precious contacts drift away, even those who’d made a deliberate effort to reach
out and keep in touch.
Now what? There were not many places for someone
like her, an advice columnist with a well-earned reputation for being uncomfortable in person. She couldn’t afford to
add to that a reputation for being difficult at work.
Her phone rang and she relaxed immediately. She
always felt better talking to Shelley. But it wasn’t Shelley.
“This is Arlene,” the voice said. “Principal’s Oppido’s
assistant. Don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong. But Miss O
ppido
would like to talk to you. Can you come in?”
Lane looked at her calendar. “Sure. Next week is
pretty open. What day is good?”
“Today,” Arlene said. “Today is good. Can you come
in now?”
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lane had just finished reading the secretary’s desk plate, no need to repeat yourself. I ignored you fine the
first time, and moved on to reading the sign framed on
the wall behind the desk, i can only help one person a
day. today is not your day. tomorrow doesn’t look
good either, when a short heavyset woman walked out
of a large supply cabinet, dropped a pile of folders on the desk and plopped into the chair. Her cheeks dimpled as
she smiled. “You are?”
“Lane. Lane Meckler. Arlene?”
“Yes. Great. Please.” She gestured toward the three
metal folding chairs that sat against the pale-green wall.
“Have a seat.”
The door to the principal’s office swung open. A set
of parents gushed out. “Thank you,” the man said and
the woman echoed, “Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me,” Miss Oppido replied. She was tall
and spindly with thin gray hair pulled tight off her face.
“You are the heroes who made her.”
Lane hadn’t realized her shoulders had lifted toward
her ears until she felt them drop. Apparently not every
meeting with the principal was about a problem. Maybe
today the principal wanted to share good news about
Henry.
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But when Arlene called out Lane’s name, Miss Oppido’s
expression turned businesslike. Two teachers peeled away
from a group that had been chatting in a huddle near the
mailboxes. None of them looked happy to be here.
Okay. The news was not going to be good.
Miss Oppido’s desk chair appeared to have been ad-
justed so that she was perched at a higher elevation than
everyone else. Lane was wondering whether that was
intentional—or could the chair’s instruction booklet have
been poorly translated from another language?—when
she realized introductions had begun.
She tried to catch up. She’d missed the name of the
teacher from the district child study team but she rec-
ognized the other teacher, Mrs. Abramowitz, the school
counselor who’d been at Francesca’s the night of the
book group fiasco. Lane wondered if anyone had told
Mrs. Abramowitz that what happened that night was
not her fault.
“Miss Lindsey couldn’t join us today,” Mrs. Oppido
told Lane. “She’s filling in over at the high school. She’s very fond of Henry, you know. We all are,” she quickly
added. “We’re sympathetic to what he’s been through.
That being said, things have progressed—”
Lane sat up straighter. Progress was a good thing, but
Miss Oppido was not pleased.
“To more troubling behavior,” she concluded.
The door opened and Miss Fiske hurried in. “Sorry.
Couldn’t find anyone to cover for me. I asked Madam,”
she told the principal. “She got all huffy. She said language teachers don’t cover but she’d make an exception this one
time. I mean … really?”
Miss Oppido scribbled on a pad. “I’ll have a word
with her.”
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“What do you mean by troubling behavior?” Lane
asked.
Miss Fiske raised her hand. Miss Oppido seemed happy
to cede the floor. “Touching behavior,” Miss Fiske said
and then quickly added, “Not that way. I mean hugging.
Lots of hugging. Tight hugging. Mostly Francesca. Who
doesn’t like it.” Lane heard the rest as if through a scrim.
“…to make sure there’s nothing happening at home that
we don’t … We have many resources we can offer once
we’re sure that…”
The door opened again. This time, the nurse. Henry
didn’t like the nurse and the nurse didn’t like him back.
Her main complaint—she’d said those words to Lane, my
main complaint—was that Henry refused to tell her what was hurting when he came to see her.
Lane had met with the nurse the week Henry started
school. She’d given her suggestions for how to handle
Henry’s silence, even though they were things she thought
the nurse should already know. Instead of asking open-
ended questions like how do you feel, ask questions
that could be answered with a nod or a shake of the
head. “Or you could ask Henry to draw how he feels,”
she’d said.
The nurse had bristled. “I don’t go for that kind of
tomfoolery.”
Miss Oppido was saying something again. Lane was
having a hard time staying focused.
“…mind telling Henry’s mom what you saw?”
“Of course.” The nurse turned to Lane. “This morn-
ing I saw a bruise.” She put two fingers on a spot between her collarbones. “On Henry’s jugular notch.”
It took a moment for Lane to figure out what the nurse
was referring to. “That? Oh, that’s from his zipper. Last
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night it got stuck. And then it got caught on his skin.
Pinched his throat. I had to cut his coat off.”
“That’s from a zipper?” The nurse’s fingers hadn’t
moved from her throat.
“Yes?” Was this an intervention? “What did you think
it was from?”
“I asked Henry,” the nurse reported. “He wouldn’t say.”
“Well now we know,” Miss Oppido said. “It’s from
his zipper.” She thanked the nurse, who left, looking
skeptical. “Zipper aside, we have concerns about Henry’s
behavior.”
“It’s because the hugging is something new,” Mrs.
Abramowitz added. “New behaviors can be a sign of a
new problem. Maybe something at home?”
“He’s fine at home,” Lane said. “It’s at school that
he’s anxious.”
The child study consultant nodded. “Exactly. That’s
the problem. Anxiety.”
“I’ve gotten calls,” Miss Oppido said.
Calls. Plural. “What kind of calls?”
“Complaints.” She took off her glasses. “From
Francesca’s mom. Multiple complaints.”
Suddenly the room felt hot. Lane turned to Miss Fiske.
“You realize Claudine is the person responsible for the
mix-up after book group. I don’t know who called the
police that night but I know that Claudine forgot that
she asked me to take Francesca with us. She asked me.”
Miss Fiske nodded. “I see that you’re upset. Maybe
that’s the problem. You’re still upset about something that happened weeks ago. Maybe Henry’s picking up on that.”
Lane shook her head. “What Henry’s picking up on
is that Francesca keeps telling people I kidnapped her.
Look, I’m not saying anything against Francesca. She’s a
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child. But I think she has some issues. She’s the one who
needs the intervention. Not punishment. Help.” All eyes
were on her now, none of them friendly.
The principal spoke first. “Francesca’s issues are not
why we asked you to come in. We’re here to talk about
Henry.”
“Okay.” Lane leaned back in her chair. “What do
you recommend?”
What they recommended came in a packet that Miss
Abramowitz presented to her. There were pamphlets to
read, assessment forms to fill out and instructions for how to set up a follow-up meeting using the parent portal.
Miss Oppido stood up. “I’m confident this can be
resolved. So long as we work together.” She reached out
her hand and Lane shook it.
As she walked out of the principal’s office she riffled
through the packets. Children and Personal Space.
Strategies for Managing Anger. Who Does Stress
Hurt Most? When she passed Arlene, she met her eyes.
“I don’t make the problems,” Arlene said. “I just make
the appointments.”
Lane felt her throat tighten and a strange sensation
came to her eyes. No. She was not someone who cried,
but even if she was, she most certainly would not cry
here, in front of Arlene, who’d just taped up a new sign:
no coffee, no workee.
A bell rang. Lane looked up at the large clock. The
minute hand jigged to the next number. It was ten min-
utes till dismissal.
“I’m going to get Henry,” Lane said.
Arlene shrugged. “I’m not stopping you.”
h h
h h
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When Lane got to Henry’s classroom, she saw Madam,
the covering teacher, sitting at the desk reading a novel.
The title was in French. She had no idea how long Madam
had been reading—or how she managed to concentrate
on her book—while the class devolved into a Lord of the Flies situation. To Lane’s relief, Henry did not appear to be a character in this particular drama. He was in the
back of the room, in the small free-play area, building a
fort of blocks.
The main event, as far as Lane could tell, involved
Francesca and a girl who was teasing her. Francesca, Lane
saw, was crying. The girl teasing her, small, with delicate features and a shrill voice, was surrounded by a troop of
what looked like eager and obedient sidekicks.
“You’re not allowed to play with us,” the shrill girl