Danny's Mom (11 page)

“That's it? You don't think you're screwing up? End of story?”

I didn't answer, just looked out the window and thought about the tennis team. Noah hadn't called in a while. Who was his doubles partner now? The dream I'd had three weeks after the accident came back to me.

Hey, Noah! Where's Dan
?

Don't know. Can't help you.

Joe stopped for me to get out before he pulled into the garage, a routine we'd established when we moved into the house. I went in through the kitchen door and saw the blink of the answering machine. Joe walked in as Dad's voice boomed, “Hi, honey. I was worried about you this afternoon. You sounded so down. And even though that's to be expected, well … anyhow, I'm just calling to tell you I'm here if you want to talk. But I guess you and Joe are out for the evening. So I hope you're okay. Love to you both. I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

I picked up the phone. “Jesus, Beth! You're calling him back?” Joe asked. “Once a day isn't enough?”

I slammed the phone down before it rang on my father's end. “Why do I have to explain everything I do? Wouldn't you want to talk to
your
father if he were alive?”

“My
father? Nobody talked to
my
father about
anything.
And what difference does that make? You're a grown woman. You shouldn't have to talk to your father every day. There's something wrong with that— how often you see him, how much you talk to him.”

I rinsed the N
OT A
M
ORNING
P
ERSON
mug I'd left on the counter. “You know what, Joe? What's wrong has nothing to do with my father. What's wrong is being married to a man who makes me explain everything I do.”

I threw the sponge in the sink and went upstairs, where I snuggled next to Moose, asleep in Danny's room. I craved the dog's stillness, the rhythm of his breathing. “Hey, Moose-Moose,” I whispered. “I love you, old boy.”

Tears flowed with the image of a picture Danny had made when he was in first grade. It still hung on the basement wall, stuck with yellowed masking tape. A fat smiley face with green-and-orange-striped legs sits on a red brick wall. And at the top of the paper, in labored, little boy print:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

And all the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Chapter Twelve

I
n the morning, I pulled Bob's message from my school mail–box—one line written under the notepaper imprint W
HAT PART OF
N
O DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND
?—
Beth, Please see me ASAP.

I stopped by the cafeteria on my way to his office. Hilda poured the coffee when she saw me coming. “Mary Grant's kid's been around again. Asking everyone if they saw you yet.”

As I headed toward the counseling center, Meadow Brook unfolded like a movie set, a replica of a place I used to love. Lockers banged. A hat flew by my nose. Backpacks skidded, like shuffleboard disks, across the floor. And teen voices rankled me:
Outta my way, loser. Anyone goin’ to Taco Bell later? I'll pay five bucks for the bio. lab. Fuck you!
Almost eleven years at the high school, and I had never before been bothered by this blast of teen anger and the pumped up volume as the weather warmed, as if students rehearsed for noisy summer days.

I welcomed the silence of the center, where Sue picked at a muffin in the Dunkin’ Donuts box by her computer. “Beth, thank goodness you're here.”

“What's going on?”

Sue lowered her voice. “She's waiting in your office.”

“Liz?”

Sue nodded. “She insisted on waiting for you, and I didn't know what to do because of what happened with Mr. Stone yesterday.
So I figured I'd let her wait in there before anyone saw her hanging around.”

“Thanks. That's fine.”

Sue gave me a thin smile and held out the box of muffins. “Look, Beth. No one saw her. Just thought you should know. Steve's over at the middle school. He won't be here till about ten. And Debra's not in yet.” Sue looked at the clock. “But she'll probably be around any second.”

Liz didn't turn when I entered my office. She sat as if a steel rod were stapled to her back, so different from her curled posture the day before. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Maller.” Sadness clung to her measured words. “I shouldn't have come to you yesterday. I should have worked it out myself.”

“Don't be silly, sweetie. Why would you say that?”

She avoided my eyes. “My mother said I really shouldn't talk to you ’cause it gets you in trouble. So, I'm sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about. You can come to the counseling center anytime.” I moved behind her and tried to ease her shoulders. Protruding bones interfered.

Liz shifted in the chair. “But I told you not to tell my mother. And I know you talked to her.”

I sat at my desk. “I'll be honest with you, Liz. I wanted to get your gym class changed without telling anyone what happened. And I couldn't. So I did see your mom, though I wasn't going to tell her the whole story. I just wanted her to ask Mr. Andrews to make the change for you. But we didn't even have a chance to talk. Your mother said Mr. Stone had already told her you were having a rough day.” I paused for a reaction, which didn't come. “So what did
you
tell your mother?”

Liz spoke into her lap. “I said some kids were stealing stuff from lockers. That they took my clothes, but I got them back. No big deal.”

“Didn't she ask who did it?”

Liz poked at a snag in her jeans and shook her head. “No. She just said trouble finds you if you go looking for it, and that I must have bothered those kids or they wouldn't have picked on me.”

“But you didn't do anything wrong, Liz. None of this is your fault.”

Liz pulled her backpack from the floor and stood. “And then my mother told me about getting you in trouble. So, I can't talk to you anymore.” She turned to the door. “But I just wanted to say thanks, Mrs. Maller. Thanks for trying to help.”

I brought what was left of my coffee into Bob's office, where he sat alone. Peter's absence made me smile. “Good morning, Bob. Is this a good time?”

He put his orange juice on the conference table and motioned to a chair. “Have a seat.”

I noticed his tie: a girl with huge eyes, fractured in kaleidoscopic image, floats on sparkling clouds. Before I could say “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” Bob spoke. “Listen, Beth. Peter will be coming by in a minute, and I just want—”

I let out a long breath, then cleared my throat.

“Are you all right?” Bob's gentle voice tricked me into thinking we were on the same team.

“Sure. Fine.”

“Good. Then as you know, we've all been pleased with your work in the past. You've done a great job with the kids, always going above and beyond. And I don't think you've missed a performance or an evening event since you started in Meadow Brook. I believe I've indicated that in your year-end evaluations. Haven't I?”

“Yes. I've appreciated that.”

“So, do you know that Peter reads the evaluations of every faculty member? We work on them together in fact. I write a draft, then Peter looks it over and tells me if he thinks anything should
be changed before Mary puts it into the computer. And not once, not even once, has Peter asked me to change anything I wrote about you. He's a good guy, Beth. Does a good job for this school.”

I prickled at Bob's words. How could he praise the man who tormented Liz, the man who tormented me?

“Yet it's no secret,” Bob went on, “that you and Peter have been at odds since day one. But even so, I have never, ever heard him say a bad word about your work until you got involved in this mess with Ann Richardson. So, I think you should know this isn't personal. Peter's just trying to do his job. And you're getting in his way. First, getting Mrs. Roland riled up, then not doing what you're told. You're making Peter's life difficult when all he wants is order and safety in Meadow Brook. And isn't that what we all want?” Bob didn't wait for my answer. “So we're really all on the same page, aren't we?”

I glanced at Bob's credenza and saw he had replaced the photo of his twins in their soccer uniforms with a family shot. As I looked at the picture of Bob and his wife, their boys in the middle, Peter walked in, bagel in hand. He shut the door and nodded at me. “Mrs. Maller,” he announced, as if labeling an item in a stamp collection.

Bob spoke first. “I told Steve we'd be meeting this morning, but he's tied up with the middle school counselors. And this afternoon, Peter and I'll be in a staffing meeting with Dr. Sullivan. So, because we're all anxious to get this resolved, Steve said to go ahead without him.”

Peter put down his breakfast. “Mrs. Maller, let's cut to the chase. Didn't I remind you that Liz Grant is not your student and that you are not to see her under any circumstance?”

I waited for Bob to jump in, but he simply focused on shooting his juice container into the wastebasket.

“Mrs. Maller, I asked you a question, and I'd like an answer.” Peter's words dripped with arrogance. “Didn't I tell you not to see Liz Grant?”

As I glanced again at Bob's family photo, anger couldn't cut through my sadness. “Yes, you did,” I answered.

“That's it? That's all you're gonna say?” Peter looked at Bob.

“What is it you want me to say?” I asked.

“Well, for starters,” Peter said, “how ’bout explaining your behavior? I'd like to hear why you chose to blatantly disregard what I told you.” He balled a napkin in his fist. “Is it that you think you're so much better than everyone else around here that you can just do whatever you want?”

Bob pulled at his mustache. “I think you should answer Peter's question, Beth. I want to know why you assumed it was okay to ignore what he said.”

“Bob, if this is an interrogation, then maybe I ought to ask my union rep to be here.”

“Jesus Christ!” Peter stood up and leaned against the table, bracing himself with beefy fingers. His eyes bulged. “I can't believe you said that! You're gonna bring the union into this? Well, you go right ahead, and we'll just see what Dr. Sullivan has to say when he hears you're turning our little problem into a union issue. First you want some stupid sensitivity program to get all the kids talking about our lesbian gym teacher, and now you're threatening to bring the union in. I don't believe what's going on here. We're nice enough to meet with you when we could just bring you up on charges of insubordination and get this over with. And now you're threatening to call the union in. Ha! Dr. Sullivan will sure love that all right.”

I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. It took all my energy to fight the tears that flooded my eyes. Bob must have seen them. “Okay, that's enough, Pete. Sit down now. We're gonna work this out. And Beth, you don't need a union rep. Nobody's bringing anyone up on charges. We're not gonna make this bigger than it already is. So let's just calm down and talk about what's going on here.”

“Right,” I said. “Then I have a question for Peter.”

Peter drummed the table. “Go ahead,” Bob said. “As long as we're all civil, I'm sure Peter will be happy to answer.”

“Okay, what would you do, Peter, if a student had a serious problem and came to you saying she couldn't talk to anyone else? Would you turn her away?”

“Oh, don't be stupid, Mrs. Maller. Of course I wouldn't. But that's not the point. The point is Liz Grant shouldn't have been in your office in the first place. How many times do you have to be told not to encourage a relationship with her? Did it ever occur to you that maybe she doesn't go to her own counselor because you've never given her a chance to work with Debra?”

“Maybe the reason she comes to me is I know what I'm doing.”

“Now you hold on there.” Peter raised his voice. “You're saying Debra Greene doesn't know what she's doing?”

Bob's hands flew from his mustache. “Enough! Both of you, just listen now. I'm pulling rank here, Pete, and I'm not gonna let either of you drag anyone else into this. Why can't you just talk to each other like colleagues, for God's sake?”

“See, that's the problem,” Peter said. “We
are
colleagues, but that doesn't mean we're equals. There's a pecking order here that Mrs. Maller forgets. She thinks she can make whatever rules she wants. But you know what, Mrs. Maller? You don't run Meadow Brook. Bob and I do. And we're telling you not to see Liz Grant. You want to help her? Then let her get comfortable with Ms. Greene so Liz
does
have someone to talk to.

“And stop trying to take over, because you're just making things harder for Liz and harder for me. Because Bob and I run a damn good school where kids learn and get the support they need. And you undermine us when you let Liz stay out of class, because all she learns from you is that she can avoid anything she wants by crying in your office.

“So I'm warning you, for the last time: Stay away from the Grant kid. And if you're not busy enough with the students assigned to you,
then Bob and I can find plenty of other things for you to do. Can't we, Bob?”

“Look, Beth,” Bob answered. “We all know you've got enough to do. Especially now, with what you've been through and with all that must be on your mind. So I want to make sure we understand each other. You'll just go back to doing your job the way you used to. Listen to what Peter tells you from now on, okay? And we'll forget we ever had this meeting.”

I heard Joe's voice, the words he had fired at me the night before:
You've had such a good career. Why are you intentionally ruining it?
Anger rolled through me.

“No, Bob. That's not okay.” I forced myself to breathe. “Aren't you at all concerned about Liz? We're accomplishing nothing here when we should be talking about how we can help her. For instance, how about changing her gym section? She's traumatized in that second period class, and isn't helping students what we're about?”

“Of course that's what we're about,” Bob answered, his voice slow with exasperation. “But you know, Peter and I run a tight ship. It's the rules that keep us afloat. We've established a good safety record here, and Dr. Sullivan expects that to continue—especially now, with Columbine still cropping up in the news from time to time. So even if you don't understand why we do things a certain way, and even if you don't always agree with our rules, it's still your job to follow them.”