I have to keep reminding myself that she’s twelve. Twelve. Outside my classroom, there’s a little girl, her hand probably shaking as she completes her quiz. Not because she’s cold, or the test hard. Because of what I’ve got in my hand.
I thought she was going to cheat. The paper was stuffed inside her palm, but I could see it. I’d given her a few chances to get rid of the note before finally taking it from her. The previous year, a skinny girl with tired eyes had stuffed her cheat notes in her mouth, chewing furiously before I made her spit it in the garbage. This one acted dumb. You only need a pencil, I told her. Oh, she said, and hurried to her desk and back to me, but the paper was still there. Deanna, I said, give me what you have in your hand. Confused, she looked around, hoping something would come to mind. I shot my hand out and waited. Gently, she placed the paper in my hand before I sent her to the hall to write her quiz.
The rest of the students were waiting. They’d watched me and watched her, and were hoping I’d reveal the contents of the confiscated note. (Some teachers do that—read the notes out loud to the class to embarrass the students engaged in the elicit classroom communication.)
They know that’s not my style, but they called out read it anyways. I frowned and shook my head disapprovingly and told them to get back to work.
I unfolded the clammy note behind my desk and the evidence of a two-sided correspondence was evident. The bubbly cursive writing in the blue pen was Deanna’s, but the sharp, light pencil strokes were unfamiliar. Certain words started to leap from the page: pleasure, cock, orgasm, with diagrams to support. They were commenting on the size of their boyfriend’s genitalia and its affect, or lack of, on them, complete with more rich description than I thought Deanna was capable of.
At first, I’m feeling sick at the thought of a pre-pubescent penis, erect or otherwise, being surveyed by Deanna. Then my stomach turns because she’s twelve. And having sex.
When I was twelve, it would still be five years before my first kiss, and I was daydreaming about the ultimate first love. None of the boys around me looked anything like the man in my dreams. They were skinny, for the most part, and had less hair on their arms than I did. Their idea of romance was sticking their head out of a yellow bus window and yelling, Wanna go to the dance with me? In that case, I reluctantly yelled back, without turning back, yes. My first foray into the land of junior-high love was a dangerous one, bloody, in fact, and one I wouldn’t soon forget.
My date’s name was Greg Smith and he had red hair—his first fault. As I walked to the school through the mid-evening haze, I asked myself again and again what I was doing. I didn’t like red hair, I didn’t like spending more time at school than I had to, and I didn’t like to dance. Then, like now, I couldn’t dance. The only part of me that could keep a beat was my toe. Or shoulder. Throwing my feet into the mix was disastrous. But I’d decided that it was about time I take part in a school social. After all, worse come to worse, Greg would want to slow-dance and I’d have to say yes. In that case, I knew what to do: stick my arms out to his shoulders, locking my elbows zombie-style and rock from one foot to the other, careful to make eye contact with everyone except Greg.
As fate would have it, I wouldn’t be so lucky. I’d gotten my first period earlier that year, and now it was my fifth “time of the month.” I was still trying to convince my mom to let me use tampons, so I’d walked to school with an extra pad in my back pocket and what felt like a PB&J between my legs. It wasn’t long before I couldn’t tell the difference between my anxious sweat and the blood trickling from my uterus. Partway through the dance, when I went to survey the situation, I found that I’d leaked right through my dad’s jeans and spotted my limited edition Beatles t-shirt with blood. Needless to say, I left the dance without bothering to explain to Greg. So, the next day, and until I set him straight in grade eleven, Greg told everyone I left the dance because I was angry that he danced with Janice Lam.
Now, twelve years later, I have to supervise the junior high dances. And I’m still reticent. Not because I can’t dance, because I can’t stand watching them dance. Gone are the days of zombie-like swaying and the chicken dance. They still play the odd YMCA, but more often than not, our small gym is pulsing with R&B and hip-hop. I spend my time shaking my head at the pelvic thrusting and the not-so-subtle grinding. Of course, I do what I can to break up the action, but there’s something arresting about catching two girls pawing each other to the pounding beat while a dozen boys stand around, mouths gaping, and their hands hiding their crotch.
I’m sure I could find a dark corner somewhere, away from the prying teacher eyes, where a young girl takes to her knees for the pleasure of a boy. He thinks he’s entitled, she thinks she’s the lucky one.
And it makes me want to scream, because they still giggle at the word hormone, their mommies make their lunch, and they ask me what a coincidence is. Meanwhile, the boys are sticking things in places they can’t name, let alone spell, and the girls are giving fallacio and spitting it out so they don’t get pregnant. And they’re only twelve.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Saturday, October 6, 2007
The Lock-Down
Over the intercom, we heard the voice of our assistant principle. Why was she interrupting us again? We’d just had a fire drill, a ridiculous circus of teens jumping into each others’ sweaters and running around the school grounds. After all, they were missing class. They were thrilled.
Now she told us, Teachers, please commence lock-down mode. Lock-down? I didn’t remember getting the memo. We still hadn’t gone over the procedure for a lock-down. I realized that I didn’t really know what to do. Lock down. Then I remembered that I had an emergency folder hanging from my closet door and ideas came to me one by one—things I’d read or heard about. First, I told my small class to go sit with their backs against the wall and be quiet. I chose the green card from my emergency pack that said, ALL ACCOUNTED FOR – NO INJURIES, and slid it under the door after locking it.
We turned the lights off and I joined my students against the wall. We sat there quietly for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes my students were happy to lose. They’d been doing crossword puzzles about the Renaissance, our Social Studies topic, and were tired of figuring out what 2,down meant and how to spell feudal. So they sat tight beside me in a row along the back wall.
One was straining to read the words in his anime graphic novel. I still smiled at seeing the book in his hand. I hate to read, he’d yelled at me the year before. With tears in his eyes, he lowered his voice and, lips quivering, I heard the words I can’t do it. So I set to work, finding high-interest books about sky-diving and SWAT teams that he’d throw back at me. I tried short stories from the elementary school across the street. There were a lot of pictures, but he told me they were for babies. And then I’d found a graphic novel series and he couldn’t put the books down. He was like a glutton. The book was so close to his eyes it became his face for a week, and then he asked me for another, and another, and another. He started reading in Math and in Science, and I laughed a little when I asked him to please put the book down. Just one more page, he pleaded. What could I say? I let him do it, and the rest of us went on to sentence structure—capitals and periods. I smiled at him now as he read the book, back to front, page after page, absorbed in the black and white world of text and image.
Another was counting the pieces of chewed gum stuck to the desk he was hiding under. His lips moved silently—one, two, three, four…Sandro, I named him a few weeks before. I’d given them all new names. He was no longer the boy with FASD, with a record, already at thirteen, with fuzzy memories of a forgetting family, lost across a field, toward the mountain—a bear waiting to devour him. That’s how he described it. Now he was Alessandro Botticelli, famous Renaissance artist. I painted that? he’d asked, when I’d shown the class a print of Primavera, then the Venus. Hey, he’d called out, I did that! I smiled then as I did now.
The rest of them gloated the same way when we learned about their lives in Renaissance Italy and France. We had Mona Lisa and Catherine de Medici and Niccolo Machiavelli and King Francis I and Leonardo Fibonacci who, when he learned about his famous math skills, laughed. Who’d have thought, he mused, and I thought I sucked at math. We all laughed and he winked at no one in particular. It was something he’d been practicing. It’s to impress the ladies, he’d said. Now he asked me if he was allowed to climb out the window. I told him, no. Why not? he asked. Because there might be bad guys waiting outside. He puffed up his little chest and told me he could take them. Of course you could, Fibonacci.
He hangs his head and let’s me know that he’s disappointed. Fibonacci would sacrifice himself for us. I know he would. Like Dally Winston incarnate, he defends his friends with his fists one minute and graciously gives his blessing to a friend who wants to date his crush.
One hundred pounds with a ton of confidence. At twelve, he’s a gentleman of sorts. A little Clarke Gable with pants hanging below his butt and with black hair like curtains across his face.
I could hear Mona and Catherine whispering to each other in the darkness. I often wondered what they talked about. Sometimes I would catch them giggling behind their hands, fingers painted purple and pink and blue. Eyes lit up. They were best friends—inseparable. They started out and should’ve stayed in the special employability school. At thirteen, neither could read or write or do math beyond the second-grade level. Sometimes, they would stand at my desk and smile, but wouldn’t or couldn’t say anything. They didn’t know how to start the dance of conversation. That was my job. I’d look up from my work and fold my hands. Looking her in the eyes, I’d ask, How are you, today, Mona? I’m good, she’d say. And that was as far as she’d get, but she’d keep smiling and waiting for her mind to send something to her lips, something to say, to express her ideas. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to smile back at the vacancy without wanting to cry.
The buzzer goes and breaks through our stuffy, sleepy silence. The period’s over. I get up slowly, my knees ache and I wonder if I’m getting old. I turn the lights on and am about to tell my lovelies to get their things together when my phone rings. It’s the secretary. Mrs. Goodkey, she says, do not dismiss your students. This is not a drill. And she hangs up. I look at my kids. They’re all watching me, their eyes glued to mine. I make myself breathe and force the muscles in my face to soften. It’s okay, I tell them. Just a little longer. But I need to use the washroom! It’s Catherine de Medici. I tell her I’m sorry, but she can’t go. She’s afraid—I can see her eyes glaze over and she pinches her lips closed. She would never argue with me, but I can see in her face, in the way she sits back down, that she’s worried what might happen. It’s happened before. I shut the lights off again and as I do, someone tries the door. Not a sound. Not a sigh. Not a blink from my children who usually can’t stop themselves from moving. And I’m holding my breath, then hear heavy footsteps walk away.
All of a sudden, they’re mine and I’m theirs—especially for those who have no one. And melting away are my plans for the next class and my work piled high on my desk and the weekend only hours away. I walk slowly and quietly to the wall where they’re waiting for me, watching me. I make sure I breathe.
The air is heavy and I’m not sure it’s getting to my lungs. I lean against the wall and slide to the floor between them. They’re watching me and waiting. I look around at them and tell them that we’re going to be fine and I tell myself that they can’t tell I’m bluffing.
I hear a whimper farther down the wall. It’s Mona. Her words tremble as she asks if she can come sit by me. Of course, I tell her, and she crawls over on quivering hands and knees with Catherine close behind.
We’re all beside each other now, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee and no one moves and I hope they know I love them. I’d laughed with them over my embarrassing moments so they can know they aren’t alone. I shared my memories of failure and success so they can feel good too. I tell them they’re my favorites and that my day wouldn’t be complete without them. I whisper now that I’m glad to be there with them. Fibonacci puts his arm around my shoulder. Sandro smiles, slowly. Mona puts her hand in mine. And we wait.
Now she told us, Teachers, please commence lock-down mode. Lock-down? I didn’t remember getting the memo. We still hadn’t gone over the procedure for a lock-down. I realized that I didn’t really know what to do. Lock down. Then I remembered that I had an emergency folder hanging from my closet door and ideas came to me one by one—things I’d read or heard about. First, I told my small class to go sit with their backs against the wall and be quiet. I chose the green card from my emergency pack that said, ALL ACCOUNTED FOR – NO INJURIES, and slid it under the door after locking it.
We turned the lights off and I joined my students against the wall. We sat there quietly for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes my students were happy to lose. They’d been doing crossword puzzles about the Renaissance, our Social Studies topic, and were tired of figuring out what 2,down meant and how to spell feudal. So they sat tight beside me in a row along the back wall.
One was straining to read the words in his anime graphic novel. I still smiled at seeing the book in his hand. I hate to read, he’d yelled at me the year before. With tears in his eyes, he lowered his voice and, lips quivering, I heard the words I can’t do it. So I set to work, finding high-interest books about sky-diving and SWAT teams that he’d throw back at me. I tried short stories from the elementary school across the street. There were a lot of pictures, but he told me they were for babies. And then I’d found a graphic novel series and he couldn’t put the books down. He was like a glutton. The book was so close to his eyes it became his face for a week, and then he asked me for another, and another, and another. He started reading in Math and in Science, and I laughed a little when I asked him to please put the book down. Just one more page, he pleaded. What could I say? I let him do it, and the rest of us went on to sentence structure—capitals and periods. I smiled at him now as he read the book, back to front, page after page, absorbed in the black and white world of text and image.
Another was counting the pieces of chewed gum stuck to the desk he was hiding under. His lips moved silently—one, two, three, four…Sandro, I named him a few weeks before. I’d given them all new names. He was no longer the boy with FASD, with a record, already at thirteen, with fuzzy memories of a forgetting family, lost across a field, toward the mountain—a bear waiting to devour him. That’s how he described it. Now he was Alessandro Botticelli, famous Renaissance artist. I painted that? he’d asked, when I’d shown the class a print of Primavera, then the Venus. Hey, he’d called out, I did that! I smiled then as I did now.
The rest of them gloated the same way when we learned about their lives in Renaissance Italy and France. We had Mona Lisa and Catherine de Medici and Niccolo Machiavelli and King Francis I and Leonardo Fibonacci who, when he learned about his famous math skills, laughed. Who’d have thought, he mused, and I thought I sucked at math. We all laughed and he winked at no one in particular. It was something he’d been practicing. It’s to impress the ladies, he’d said. Now he asked me if he was allowed to climb out the window. I told him, no. Why not? he asked. Because there might be bad guys waiting outside. He puffed up his little chest and told me he could take them. Of course you could, Fibonacci.
He hangs his head and let’s me know that he’s disappointed. Fibonacci would sacrifice himself for us. I know he would. Like Dally Winston incarnate, he defends his friends with his fists one minute and graciously gives his blessing to a friend who wants to date his crush.
One hundred pounds with a ton of confidence. At twelve, he’s a gentleman of sorts. A little Clarke Gable with pants hanging below his butt and with black hair like curtains across his face.
I could hear Mona and Catherine whispering to each other in the darkness. I often wondered what they talked about. Sometimes I would catch them giggling behind their hands, fingers painted purple and pink and blue. Eyes lit up. They were best friends—inseparable. They started out and should’ve stayed in the special employability school. At thirteen, neither could read or write or do math beyond the second-grade level. Sometimes, they would stand at my desk and smile, but wouldn’t or couldn’t say anything. They didn’t know how to start the dance of conversation. That was my job. I’d look up from my work and fold my hands. Looking her in the eyes, I’d ask, How are you, today, Mona? I’m good, she’d say. And that was as far as she’d get, but she’d keep smiling and waiting for her mind to send something to her lips, something to say, to express her ideas. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to smile back at the vacancy without wanting to cry.
The buzzer goes and breaks through our stuffy, sleepy silence. The period’s over. I get up slowly, my knees ache and I wonder if I’m getting old. I turn the lights on and am about to tell my lovelies to get their things together when my phone rings. It’s the secretary. Mrs. Goodkey, she says, do not dismiss your students. This is not a drill. And she hangs up. I look at my kids. They’re all watching me, their eyes glued to mine. I make myself breathe and force the muscles in my face to soften. It’s okay, I tell them. Just a little longer. But I need to use the washroom! It’s Catherine de Medici. I tell her I’m sorry, but she can’t go. She’s afraid—I can see her eyes glaze over and she pinches her lips closed. She would never argue with me, but I can see in her face, in the way she sits back down, that she’s worried what might happen. It’s happened before. I shut the lights off again and as I do, someone tries the door. Not a sound. Not a sigh. Not a blink from my children who usually can’t stop themselves from moving. And I’m holding my breath, then hear heavy footsteps walk away.
All of a sudden, they’re mine and I’m theirs—especially for those who have no one. And melting away are my plans for the next class and my work piled high on my desk and the weekend only hours away. I walk slowly and quietly to the wall where they’re waiting for me, watching me. I make sure I breathe.
The air is heavy and I’m not sure it’s getting to my lungs. I lean against the wall and slide to the floor between them. They’re watching me and waiting. I look around at them and tell them that we’re going to be fine and I tell myself that they can’t tell I’m bluffing.
I hear a whimper farther down the wall. It’s Mona. Her words tremble as she asks if she can come sit by me. Of course, I tell her, and she crawls over on quivering hands and knees with Catherine close behind.
We’re all beside each other now, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee and no one moves and I hope they know I love them. I’d laughed with them over my embarrassing moments so they can know they aren’t alone. I shared my memories of failure and success so they can feel good too. I tell them they’re my favorites and that my day wouldn’t be complete without them. I whisper now that I’m glad to be there with them. Fibonacci puts his arm around my shoulder. Sandro smiles, slowly. Mona puts her hand in mine. And we wait.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Money's Worth
My hands were disgusting. Teacher hands usually are. There were scabs on my knuckles from faulty binder rings, paper-cuts between my fingers, and fine black dust from the whiteboard around my nails that no amount of scrubbing could clean away. Time for a manicure.
It was late on a Friday night when I made the decision. I knew I had little chance of booking an appointment on such late notice, but I was determined to try. Before I went to bed that night, I’d called and left messages at half a dozen salons. My filthy fingers were crossed.
The next morning, as I wiped the sleep from my eyes, my phone rang. Hem hem. I cleared my throat to make sure my voice worked before answering. It was a woman from one of the salons I’d called the night before. They wanted me in at ten. Excuse me? Ten. I had twenty minutes to get there—my morning pee would have to wait.
When I finally found the salon, after snaking my way through an industrial neighborhood, I was one minute late. I pushed open the front door and was greeted by the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Then a woman in her fifties rounded the corner, You made it. I nodded. How about a mani/pedi, it’s only thirty dollars. I remembered breaking a toe-nail earlier in the week. Sure, I answered. She handed me a questionnaire to fill out and left the room. Meanwhile, I answered the questions and kept reminding myself how lucky I was to get an appointment.
A few minutes later, a woman in white scrubs introduced herself as Merinder and led me down a long hallway. The décor wasn’t quite what I expected. (As I had pulled into the parking lot, I learned that the salon was actually a hair and esthetics academy called Beauty-Tech. I’d been to academies before, so I prepared myself to suffer a close-cut cuticle or some rough filing, but I hadn’t prepared myself for this.)
Merinder led me to a large room with high ceilings and concrete floors. The fluorescent lights hadn’t been turned on yet, and the light from the windows illuminated billions of tiny specs of dust flying in the air. Merinder pointed to a raised white chair with a footstool that reminded me of an old-fashioned foot-polishing chair. Across the room, there was a long bench covered with purple vinyl and bejeweled around the edges. In some spots, the vinyl had torn and, like the seats in my little brother’s beater, the foam was spilling out. I crinkled my nose, but reminded myself again that I was about to be treated to a manicure and a pedicure—for cheap!
Merinder gently placed my feet in a tub of warm soapy water then turned the lights on. They flickered then shone with a steady buzz. Then the older woman, who had greeted me when I’d first arrived, entered the room and announced she’d be giving me my manicure. She introduced herself as Betty and proudly announced that she was the founder of the academy. At that, I was somewhat relieved; any thoughts of suffering a Paula Abdul-esque thumb-fungus incident flew out the window. So, while Merinder worked away on my feet, Betty brought me two trays of warm water for my hands and placed them on a table to my right. There you go, dear, she said, soak away, and walked away. I had to twist around to reach the trays, and it wasn’t long before my already bad back was screaming. A few minutes later, Betty returned to press play on the CD-player in the corner of the room. An instrumental of Pachelbel’s Canon drifted toward me then halted abruptly—the silence was followed by a brief screeching sound. Merinder looked up at me, Betty always plays that CD, and it always does the same thing—I apologize. I told her it was alright. Really, all I could think about was my back and the fact that the water my fingers were in was tepid and sending chills up my bare arms.
Finally, Betty returned. She dried my hands and started to file my nails. I sighed and finally relaxed. So, Betty started, have I got a story for you. I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to listen, but it didn’t seem like I had much of a choice in the matter. As she filed away, Betty told me how she’d been married and divorced three times, but had recently re-connected with her second husband. I never should have let him go, she said, sighing. She stopped filing and looked at me, This time I won’t let him go. Apparently their kids, whom they’d had in previous marriages, didn’t get along and that put stress on their marriage. But now, she said, his kids are grown, and so are mine, so thing are perfect. That’s nice, I replied. I wasn’t trying to hide my disinterest, but Betty didn’t catch on. Sure, he’s still got a girlfriend, but you know how men are, he doesn’t want to hurt her. Oh my. He’s assured me he’ll leave her in June after he makes her a shelf—he’s promised her the shelf, and he’s not the type to break his promises. June, I thought, wow. It was only September.
I started to shift in my seat. My legs were falling asleep, so I knew that if I made a break for it, I wouldn’t make it far. But I was thinking about it, because Betty hadn’t stopped talking.
Sure, she stays over at his place on weekends, but he’s promised me they don’t sleep together. I rolled my eyes. It didn’t take long for this fifty-something motherly-type to start looking like my twenty-something girlfriend who’s always explaining away her slimy boyfriends extra-curricular activities. Needless to say, I was ready to go. And finally, after hearing about her ten thousand dollar wedding ring, the one he’d asked her to wear again, and the way he makes her feel, just, so special, I found myself at the cashier’s desk, vibrating, as I wrestled the fight and flight response that had been building for the last forty-five minutes. I paid, gave Merinder an exorbitant tip—somehow, I felt guilty that she had to sit through that as well—and skipped out the door.
As I turned the corner out of the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of my fingers. I screeched to a halt. There it was, the dirt that had been there an hour ago, a day ago, all week. And my cuticles shone with poorly applied clear polish. And my thumb and pinky were filed square, while the rest were curved. I frowned and planned to stop at a drug-store for a new file and some nail polish remover. Needless to say, I got more than I paid for, and paid far too much.
It was late on a Friday night when I made the decision. I knew I had little chance of booking an appointment on such late notice, but I was determined to try. Before I went to bed that night, I’d called and left messages at half a dozen salons. My filthy fingers were crossed.
The next morning, as I wiped the sleep from my eyes, my phone rang. Hem hem. I cleared my throat to make sure my voice worked before answering. It was a woman from one of the salons I’d called the night before. They wanted me in at ten. Excuse me? Ten. I had twenty minutes to get there—my morning pee would have to wait.
When I finally found the salon, after snaking my way through an industrial neighborhood, I was one minute late. I pushed open the front door and was greeted by the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Then a woman in her fifties rounded the corner, You made it. I nodded. How about a mani/pedi, it’s only thirty dollars. I remembered breaking a toe-nail earlier in the week. Sure, I answered. She handed me a questionnaire to fill out and left the room. Meanwhile, I answered the questions and kept reminding myself how lucky I was to get an appointment.
A few minutes later, a woman in white scrubs introduced herself as Merinder and led me down a long hallway. The décor wasn’t quite what I expected. (As I had pulled into the parking lot, I learned that the salon was actually a hair and esthetics academy called Beauty-Tech. I’d been to academies before, so I prepared myself to suffer a close-cut cuticle or some rough filing, but I hadn’t prepared myself for this.)
Merinder led me to a large room with high ceilings and concrete floors. The fluorescent lights hadn’t been turned on yet, and the light from the windows illuminated billions of tiny specs of dust flying in the air. Merinder pointed to a raised white chair with a footstool that reminded me of an old-fashioned foot-polishing chair. Across the room, there was a long bench covered with purple vinyl and bejeweled around the edges. In some spots, the vinyl had torn and, like the seats in my little brother’s beater, the foam was spilling out. I crinkled my nose, but reminded myself again that I was about to be treated to a manicure and a pedicure—for cheap!
Merinder gently placed my feet in a tub of warm soapy water then turned the lights on. They flickered then shone with a steady buzz. Then the older woman, who had greeted me when I’d first arrived, entered the room and announced she’d be giving me my manicure. She introduced herself as Betty and proudly announced that she was the founder of the academy. At that, I was somewhat relieved; any thoughts of suffering a Paula Abdul-esque thumb-fungus incident flew out the window. So, while Merinder worked away on my feet, Betty brought me two trays of warm water for my hands and placed them on a table to my right. There you go, dear, she said, soak away, and walked away. I had to twist around to reach the trays, and it wasn’t long before my already bad back was screaming. A few minutes later, Betty returned to press play on the CD-player in the corner of the room. An instrumental of Pachelbel’s Canon drifted toward me then halted abruptly—the silence was followed by a brief screeching sound. Merinder looked up at me, Betty always plays that CD, and it always does the same thing—I apologize. I told her it was alright. Really, all I could think about was my back and the fact that the water my fingers were in was tepid and sending chills up my bare arms.
Finally, Betty returned. She dried my hands and started to file my nails. I sighed and finally relaxed. So, Betty started, have I got a story for you. I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to listen, but it didn’t seem like I had much of a choice in the matter. As she filed away, Betty told me how she’d been married and divorced three times, but had recently re-connected with her second husband. I never should have let him go, she said, sighing. She stopped filing and looked at me, This time I won’t let him go. Apparently their kids, whom they’d had in previous marriages, didn’t get along and that put stress on their marriage. But now, she said, his kids are grown, and so are mine, so thing are perfect. That’s nice, I replied. I wasn’t trying to hide my disinterest, but Betty didn’t catch on. Sure, he’s still got a girlfriend, but you know how men are, he doesn’t want to hurt her. Oh my. He’s assured me he’ll leave her in June after he makes her a shelf—he’s promised her the shelf, and he’s not the type to break his promises. June, I thought, wow. It was only September.
I started to shift in my seat. My legs were falling asleep, so I knew that if I made a break for it, I wouldn’t make it far. But I was thinking about it, because Betty hadn’t stopped talking.
Sure, she stays over at his place on weekends, but he’s promised me they don’t sleep together. I rolled my eyes. It didn’t take long for this fifty-something motherly-type to start looking like my twenty-something girlfriend who’s always explaining away her slimy boyfriends extra-curricular activities. Needless to say, I was ready to go. And finally, after hearing about her ten thousand dollar wedding ring, the one he’d asked her to wear again, and the way he makes her feel, just, so special, I found myself at the cashier’s desk, vibrating, as I wrestled the fight and flight response that had been building for the last forty-five minutes. I paid, gave Merinder an exorbitant tip—somehow, I felt guilty that she had to sit through that as well—and skipped out the door.
As I turned the corner out of the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of my fingers. I screeched to a halt. There it was, the dirt that had been there an hour ago, a day ago, all week. And my cuticles shone with poorly applied clear polish. And my thumb and pinky were filed square, while the rest were curved. I frowned and planned to stop at a drug-store for a new file and some nail polish remover. Needless to say, I got more than I paid for, and paid far too much.
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