“I’m so sorry, Elena,” Dr. Williams says, putting Malcolm’s letter to one side and turning to the computer on her desk. She sounds as if she means it. As she types letters and numbers and codes, she talks to me. “There’s been a change. A few minutes ago, I was sorry as hell to have to send you to a green school.”
I feign complete ignorance.
She sighs, and her entire body, usually stiff and erect and full of presence, seems to sigh with her. “I can’t do that now.”
“So I’m staying here?”
“Um, no.”
Careful, El. Don’t ham it up too much or she’ll get suspicious. “I don’t get it. Silver school, green school. It’s not like there’s anywhere else to go, right?”
The printer on my left spits out two copies of a form. Dr. Williams pushes herself up, rubs at eyes that look as if they don’t want to read anything ever again—directives, forms, exam booklets of normally high-functioning faculty—and takes the pages. She keeps one and hands the other to me.
“Wrong,” she says, picking up Malcolm’s letter. “New policy. You’re being moved to State School”—she glances down at the number on the page—“forty-six. It’s in Kansas. Your new identification and instructions should arrive sometime this evening by courier.”
In the years I’ve been working under Marjorie Williams, I’ve never seen her waffle. Never heard a tremor in her voice or found her at a loss for words. She’s a hard woman. Fair, but hard. I guess it’s built into the high school principal template. So when she puts a hand on mine and says how sorry she is, I’m not sure how to react.
“I’ll need your silver card, Elena.”
So I give it to her before I turn to go.
I don’t know what will happen over the next forty-eight hours. Not exactly. But I can predict with all the clarity of a genuine medium what will happen tonight when my new yellow identification card is delivered to our house.
Malcolm will hit the roof.
And I’m okay with that. I’m so okay with that, I laugh all the way to my car.
From a distance, it must look as if I’m crying.
THIRTY-TWO
Once, a boy named Joe kissed me and said I was beautiful.
I don’t know. Maybe I was. Am. Was.
There’s a little swell now where a flat belly used to be, a few more laugh lines or frown lines or stretch marks, some spider’s-web strands of gray curling around my ears. Malcolm has never mentioned any of these.
Tonight I feel neither beautiful nor brilliant, only tired. For the first evening, we’re a table of three instead of four. Only Anne and I seem to notice the vacant seat to my left. I wonder if my husband will notice when there’s another empty seat tomorrow.
Malcolm talks about work, addressing the air between us; Anne mouths “Can I be excused?” to me. I nod yes, and she leaves the table for her room.
“Where are you going, Anne?” Malcolm says. “You’ve hardly touched your food.”
“Homework, Dad.” It’s the one answer he can’t argue with.
“Let’s all go play some tennis this weekend,” he says.
“Sure,” I lie. Might as well keep playing the game until I can’t anymore.
Our clock chimes out three times. Seven forty-five. Malcolm says something about the vinaigrette I made being my best ever. I’ve been teleported into a weird alternate universe, some twin world full of domestic intimacy and marital bliss and weekend tennis plans, absent the threats of divorce and custody battles. I go to check on Anne, wondering if Malcolm will even realize I’ve left the room.
“I miss Freddie,” she says.
Anne has always been casual about the system, and I understand why. She’s like one of those kids today who can’t imagine a world where everybody smoked, where crystal ashtrays and silver table lighters were considered appropriate wedding presents. Her entire school history has been filled with tests and transfers and broken friendships. Caitlin’s in math class on Friday but not on Monday. Barbara won’t be coming over anymore