Matt & Zoe (26 page)

My mouth runs ahead of me. “I’ll agree to no such thing.”

He raises an eyebrow. Naturally, I’d walked right into his trap. Technically I’m not authorized to make any changes to the curriculum. But the fact was, having Jasmine do the extra drawing didn’t constitute a change. We may not have much leeway, but we do have some. This is utter nonsense. It has nothing to do with the curriculum. It has everything to do with my representing the union during the contract negotiations.

“Mr. Barrington, rest assured I won’t be running around making changes to the school’s curriculum. I’m not going to agree to sign off on any kind of official or unofficial notes or memo or anything else going in my personnel file.” I plunge my index finger down against his desk. “This is nothing more than retaliation. It’s inexcusable.”

Barrington’s face jerks into the barest of smirks; then he wipes it away. He’s enjoying this. I should have realized… In the eighteen months or so since he became superintendent, Michael Barrington has already received a strong reputation for exacting personal retribution for even the slightest of offenses. It’s highly unlikely that the union would’ve gone on strike if it hadn’t been for that… but there is more to the process than dollars and cents and benefits and contracts. There is also the overall work environment, the tone of which has been extremely negative and is getting worse.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going.” I stand as I say the words.

“No, there will be nothing else.” Barrington looks mildly amused as he says the words.

I turn to walk to the door, feeling my skin crawl a little at his attitude. I open the door to the office, and start to step outside, when I hear his voice again.

“Mr. Paladino… please… watch yourself.”

Ass.

Secrets (Zoe)

“Are you going to burn dinner again?” I put my hands on my hips and turn around. Jasmine is in the doorway, surveying the scene. She’s been out riding Mono for the last hour. Now she’s in, presumably to get a bath and get ready for homework. The last couple of weeks have been very good for her, and I’m grateful that she has Matt as her teacher because he manages to draw her out in ways that I haven’t figured out how to do.

Despite that gratitude, it's hard for me to push away a tendril of… anxiety? Concern? Matt was very evasive about Saturday. It’s not that it’s any of my business—it’s not like we’re even really dating. Or are we? We don’t own each other. The opaqueness of his past, with his refusal to talk about his family, childhood, or anything prior to becoming a teacher in South Hadley, is disturbing. Who does that? People have lives. They have friends and family and experiences and just… life… that they talk about and share.

For Matt, that life appears to have begun three years ago when he arrived in South Hadley. Outside of that, I only know tidbits. He grew up somewhere in Central Florida. His father is dead. I don’t know where the rest of his family is, or why he doesn’t talk about them.

Right now I have other things to worry about. He’ll be here in another twenty minutes, and I need to get dinner on the table. I turn around, and for a second I see the kitchen through Jasmine’s eyes. To the left of the stove, the countertop is covered in a mess of flour and God only knows what else. I breaded chicken over there, and you can tell. It looks as if the Tasmanian Devil decided to fry the chicken, splattering salt and flour and chicken juices everywhere. I think the deep frying pan on the stove may be too hot, because the oil is giving off smoke. It’s no wonder Jasmine asked if I was going to set dinner on fire again. I refuse to let domestic life defeat me. I’m acting
in loco parentis
to Jasmine, and I’m going to do the best job I can.

To the right of the stove, an open calculus textbook sits in front of my laptop. A YouTube video titled Introduction to Calculus Lesson Six plays on the screen. The narrator has an interesting voice and does her best to make it both interesting and theatrical. Unfortunately, I’m clearly not the target audience for this topic.

Here goes nothing. One at a time, I pick up the chicken with my metal spatula and gently lower it into the hot oil. Oil splashes everywhere and it begins to sizzle loudly. I feel a couple of pinpricks of heat along my forearm, tiny splatters of oil that hit me. I drop two more pieces of chicken in and look on, satisfied, as they begin to fry.

While the chicken fries, I turn my attention to the mashed potatoes which I load with cream and garlic. This dinner won’t win any awards from the National Heart Association. Though it does have broccoli, so that’s something. I take the bowl of vegetables—swimming in cheese sauce—and put them on the table. Two long stemmed candles sit in the center of the table, not lit, and three place settings are arrayed around them. It’s almost ready.

The front door bell rings. “I’ll get it!” Jasmine shouts unnecessarily as she runs down the hallway. I shrug, and continue cooking.

A minute later, Matt walks in the door. He looks tired, a little strained. He stops in the doorway, smiles, and says “That smells delicious. Kind of like home.”

So fried chicken smells like home. Another tiny little factoid to place in my paltry Matt dossier. As he approaches he presents me with a bottle of wine—a Pinot Noir. I smile and point to one of the cabinets. “Glasses are up there. Do we need to chill it?”

“Already cold.” Matt busies himself with pouring glasses of wine, as I get the rest of the food on the table. A second later, Jasmine comes into the room clutching a rolled up sheet of yellow construction paper. Her eyes drop to the floor, then jerk back up.

“I made this for you,” she says, and hands it to Matt. I suck in a short breath, then catch myself and relax.

“Thank you very much,” Matt says, as he unrolls the paper.

I pour a glass of milk for Jasmine, and bring it over to the table.

It’s a crayon drawing, and a remarkably good one for a third grader. Mono, huge as ever, is on the left side of the paper. But there’s something unusual. Jasmine always draws herself riding the horse. In this picture, she’s not riding Mono. She’s standing between a woman and a man. At first it looks like Mom and Dad, but then I realize it can’t be. She’s drawn a black beard on the man—it's Matt. The woman on the other side is me—yellow shoulder length hair, and the shirt even says Army. Jasmine stands between us in the picture holding both of our hands.

I cover my mouth with my hand, and my eyes water until I blink the tears back. I meet Matt’s eyes—searching. Searching to know if he’s going to be around, or is he going to break Jasmine’s heart. I’m a big girl—I can fend for myself. Jasmine doesn’t need any more heartbreak.

He seems to understand what I’m thinking, because he doesn’t take his eyes off of me, even as he reaches for Jasmine’s hand and mine. Finally he looks away from me, and towards my little sister.

“I think that’s the most beautiful gift I’ve ever been given,” he says. His voice chokes up as he says the words. His reaction looks sincere, but I wonder why he reacts so emotionally.

I hate it that I’m so distrustful.

As we sit down to eat, I find myself once again thrown into an uncomfortable role. It was my mother who always said things like, “put your napkin in your lap,” and “don’t put your feet on the dinner table.” Now I’m the one in that role, and I find it more than a little bit strange when I tell Jasmine to please eat somewhere in the vicinity of her plate so it’s not such a mess to clean up. Jasmine may be a third grader, but she eats like a four-year-old.

Through the meal she tells a long meandering story about her friend Hannah who has a brother in the Navy. “Hannah says the Navy is better than the Army because they have spaceships. I told her that’s not true. Nobody has spaceships. Is that true Zoe? Does the Navy has spaceships?”

I shift in my seat a little, unsure what to say, but I finally land on, “Have, Jasmine. Not have. I don’t think any of them have spaceships Jasmine. Except maybe the Air Force.”

Jasmine huffs. “No.” She drags out the word no. As if it were spelled nooooo. Her tone is sharp. “None of them have spaceships. Spaceships aren’t real. That’s what Mrs. Bates told us.”

Matt raised his eyebrows.

“Who is Mrs. Bates?” I asked.

“She was the substitute this afternoon. When I got mad because Hannah said the Navy was better than the Army, Mrs. Bates made us sit in timeout for five minutes. I shouldn’t have been sent to sit timeout. Hannah was wrong. She shouldn’t say that.”

That’s a lot to take in. Why did they have a substitute this afternoon? And why did Jasmine care whether Hannah said anything about the Army versus the Navy… I didn’t even care about that. “Sweetie, you don’t have to worry about that. It doesn’t matter what she says about that.”

“It does! You were in the Army!”

I look at Matt in hopes of gleaning some clues from him about how to handle this—he’s got a lot more experience with kids than I do. He doesn’t offer any help. I look back to Jasmine. “Look at it like this. Who is better… Barbie? Or Dora the Explorer?”

I was taking a chance with that question. She looks at me with scorn on her face, and says, “Well, Dora, of course.”

“Well, would you fight with Hannah if she said Barbie was better?”

Jasmine is puzzled. “No. That would be stupid.”

“Well, this is kind of the same thing.”

She shakes her head violently. “No, it’s not! It’s not the same thing at all!”

I try to hide my exasperation. It’s never easy reasoning with a third-grader. “What would Dora do if Barbie stole her backpack?”

Jasmine looks at me as if I’ve gone stark raving mad. “Why would she do that?”

I close my eyes and count to ten thousand. Or ten. I’m not sure how much. “It doesn’t matter why.”

“Well
of course
it matters.”

I fall back to the least useful response ever. “Eat your chicken.”

Matt doesn’t even bother to try to hide his amusement. His eyes are raised slightly, his lips curled up, his eyes flashing a hint of mirth as he eats silently.

“So where were
you
?” I ask.

“This afternoon? I had a meeting at the superintendent’s office.” As soon as he says the words, the mirth disappears from his face.

“Is everything okay?”

He sets his chicken down, and takes a drink of wine. He holds it in his mouth for a moment, clearly thinking about the question. He’s silent long enough that I become uncomfortable. Eventually, he says, “I’m not sure. The whole situation was surreal. I got called in to meet with the superintendent, who wanted to talk about why we had modified the schedule for….” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead his eyes dart to Jasmine.

That’s weird. “Why did he do that?”

“That’s the thing. I’ve never had the superintendent get involved in anything like that before. For one thing, it just wasn’t that big of a deal. And for another it’s usually the principal or the counselors or special education. I don’t think it has anything to do with that… I think this was all about the strike.”

“What are you going to do?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know that there is anything to do,” he says. “It wasn’t an official reprimand—I think it was more an effort of intimidation.”

“Well, that’s bullshit.”

Jasmine giggles. “Zoe said a bad word.” Silence descends on the room for a few seconds… then Matt smirks, letting out a tiny snort.

“Whoops,” I say. “Sorry about that, Jasmine.”

At 8 o’clock, after a cutthroat game of Uno, I take Jasmine up to bed. As always, she gives me a halfhearted, “Please, Zoe?”

It really is halfhearted. I can tell that she needs the rest.

When I get back downstairs, Matt’s pouring us another glass of wine. I take the proffered glass and say, “How about we sit on the porch? We won’t have many more good nights for that.”

We sit down on the rocking chairs on the wraparound porch. The wood underneath creaks and groans—the house is old, and it’s settled a lot over the years. Despite the creaking, it is sound.

We sit quietly for a few minutes. Fall is coming… it’s already dark at eight o’clock. I find myself hoping for an Indian summer—the longer I can put off the snow the better. I grew up here and I’m no stranger to cold, but five years of being stationed in Kentucky, Iraq, and Tokyo have rendered me uninterested in snow. We’ll have plenty of it by January and February, so with any luck at least November and December won’t be so bad.

The deepest part of winter is always a bit of an ordeal around here. Horses can’t stay in their stalls, regardless of whether or not there is snow on the ground. Every winter as far back as I can remember, along with shoveling the walks and driveway, we shoveled a path from the stables to the paddock. The horses know the land well, and even in deep snow they’re generally okay. Before we send them out in the wintertime, extra care is required, when we change their blankets and harnesses and double the amount of times we have to clean and muck out the stalls.

On top of that, winter is just more expensive for horses. Up until the first frost, the horses live primarily on grazing, though we supplement that with hay. During the winter I’ll be buying several bales of hay for each horse each day. That adds up to a lot of food—and a lot of money—very quickly. I’ve got enough for the short term, but there’s this cold pit of anxiety when I think of that routine extra expense when I don’t have a job.

“You’ve gone off a long ways, haven’t you?” Matt’s words jerk me back to the present. I take a sip of my wine, stalling for time while I compose myself.

“I was. Worrying about money and the horses and winter and Jasmine.”

“That’s a lot of worry all at once.”

“Isn’t that what being an adult is all about? Worry and responsibility?”

Matt winces. “I don’t know about all that,” he says. “I feel like there ought to be a lot more to life than that.”

I shrug. “My parents seemed to have that… more… they knew what they loved and wanted to do. I’ve never had that… I’m seriously clueless about my future.”

“Maybe you don’t need to worry about all of that right now,” he says.