The Abstinence Teacher (40 page)

TIM DIDN’T
get home until after midnight. He’d thought about heading to a bar after Ruth sent him packing, but his conscience—or maybe just some instinct of self-preservation—had kicked in, and he drove to the Tabernacle instead. The building was locked, of course, so he knelt down by the door and prayed for strength and guidance until
a cop pulled up in a cruiser and told him he needed to take it somewhere else.

“I hate to bother you,” he said, “but no one’s allowed on the premises after eleven.”

“This is my church,” Tim told him.

“I understand.” The cop was an older guy with a mustache and a melancholy expression. “I don’t make the rules.”

Tim couldn’t help himself. “That’s what Pontius Pilate said.”

“Yeah.” The cop mustered a wan smile. “Right before he busted Jesus for loitering.”

Heaving an ostentatious sigh, Tim rose to his feet. His knees were stiff, but his head was a lot clearer than when he’d started.

“I guess I can finish up at home.”

“I appreciate it,” the cop told him. “Have a nice night.”

“You, too,” Tim replied.

He’d warned Carrie that he might be late and told her not to wait up—not wanting to mention the poker game, he’d told her he had an “important meeting” with a big developer—so he assumed, when he saw the light on in their bedroom, that she’d fallen asleep while reading. But she was awake and waiting for him, sitting up in bed in a flowered bra-and-panty set he’d never seen before.

“Whoa,” he said, raising both hands as if she’d pulled a gun on him.

“You’re lucky,” she told him. “Five more minutes, and I would’ve conked out.”

She looked good, he thought, giving her a furtive once-over. The new lingerie was sexy but reassuringly wholesome—a lot of the stuff he’d gotten her was too slutty for her to wear with any conviction—and there was a shy, eager smile on her face. Any man in his right mind should’ve been thrilled, but Tim felt unaccountably irritated, as if she’d spoiled his plan for a good night’s sleep.

“We don’t have to do anything if you’re tired,” he said. “I’m pretty bushed myself.”

Her smile didn’t go away, but he could see that her confidence was shaken. She glanced down at her lap, running a tentative hand over her belly.

“What’s the matter? You don’t like what I’m wearing?”

“No, it’s fine. Very nice.”

“You mean it?”

“I do,” he said, with a little more sincerity. “You look pretty.”

“Good.” She patted his side of the mattress. “Then why don’t you come over here and kiss me?”

Tim considered her request. It would’ve been so easy to lie down beside her and give her what she wanted, so pleasant and painless. But that was the problem. He’d been taking the easy way out for too long—this was one of the things he’d just been praying over—and he’d come to realize that it wasn’t fair to either of them.

“Carrie,” he said. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now. Something important.”

“What? Is something wrong?”

He heard the fear in her voice and knew that he should sit down beside her and take her hand. But all he could think about just then was the beer on his breath and how alarmed she’d be if she smelled it.

“I had a long talk with Pastor Dennis a couple of weeks ago, and, uh, and we came to the decision that I—well, that you and I need to take a break for a while. Sexually, I mean.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What does that mean,
take a break?”

“You know, take a break. Not have sex for a while.”

“But we just did. The other night.”

“That was my fault,” Tim explained. “I’ve been weak. I should’ve told you a long time ago.”

Her voice turned wary. “Is this some kind of punishment? Did I do something wrong?”

“This is my problem,” he assured her. “It has nothing to do with you. I was talking to the Pastor about my … spiritual condition, and he said that he didn’t think I should be physically intimate with you until I took care of some issues.”

She nodded, but her face expressed nothing but bewilderment.

“What issues?”

Tim found himself staring intently at the hot pink bottle of Sizzlin’ Strawberry lube on the nightstand. They’d ordered it a few months ago, tried it once without much success, and then promptly forgot about it. He wondered what had possessed her to rescue it from the drawer.

“About Allison,” he said. “I still have a lot of lustful feelings for her, and they’re interfering with my ability to be a good husband.”

Even as he said this, it occurred to him that he hadn’t been thinking about Allison anywhere near as much as he used to; in any case, she certainly wasn’t the worst demon he was grappling with at the moment. But the confession was out, and he couldn’t just take it back.

“You think I don’t know that?” Carrie asked. “You think I don’t see how depressed you get every time you go over there?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t think I ever really stopped loving her.”

Carrie pondered this for a moment, then shrugged.

“Fine,” she said. “Whatever. I don’t care.”

A small laugh escaped from Tim’s mouth.

“Right.”

“I’m serious,” she insisted. “You love your ex-wife, and we’re just gonna have to live with that. I mean, that’s what we’ve been doing, right?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It’s not really that complicated,” she replied. “It would be a problem if she still loved you, but she doesn’t. She married someone else and had a kid, and you said yourself that she seems pretty happy. So it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

What she said made a certain amount of sense, but Tim found himself reluctant to admit it.

“This thing we agreed to is totally biblical. A husband shouldn’t have sex with his wife if his heart isn’t pure. It’s in Corinthians. Ask Pastor Dennis if you don’t believe me.”

“I’m not married to Pastor Dennis,” she said.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“So who’s he to say what goes on in our bed?”

“It’s not just him, honey. It’s in the Scriptures.”

“Jerk!”

She snatched the lube off the table and threw it at him, harder than he expected. He barely managed to get his hand up in time to deflect it. “Hey,” he said. “Take it easy.”

“Go to hell, Tim.”

“I really don’t see why you’re so upset.”

She glared at him, her eyes full of pain.

“I can’t believe you’re such a baby. You think I don’t fantasize about other men?”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Sometimes. But I don’t go crying to Pastor Dennis about it. You know why?”

Tim shook his head.

“Because I love my husband,” she told him. “And all I ever wanted was for him to love me back. But he couldn’t do it.”

Tim didn’t dispute this.

“You never did, did you?” For some mysterious reason, she was smiling, as if this knowledge brought her some kind of sad pleasure. “You never loved me one bit.”

“I—” Tim began, but he faltered. “I’m trying, Carrie. I’m trying to be a good husband.”

“Trying to do your Christian duty?” she taunted.

“That’s not fair,” he told her. “I’m really working at this.”

She shook her head, slowly and for a long time. Tim felt as though some terrible judgment were being passed, and understood that there probably wouldn’t be an appeal.

“If you loved me,” she said, “it wouldn’t seem like such a chore.”

Faith Keepers

ARRIVING AT SCHOOL ON FRIDAY MORNING, RUTH FOUND AN OFFICIAL-
looking envelope tucked into her mail slot, buried beneath the usual blizzard of memos and announcements. The message it contained—a couple of lines scrawled on a piece of stationery “From the Desk of Principal Venuti”—was ominously terse.

Ruth
, it said.
Please report to my office at the beginning of first period—J.V
.

She showed the note to Randall when she brought him his latte. He made a sympathetic noise as he mulled it over, then lapsed into a childish singsong.

“Someone’s in trouble, someone’s in trouble.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“Sorry. Just trying to inject a little levity into the proceedings.”

She looked at him a little more closely. His mood seemed to have improved considerably since the previous evening, when he’d accused her of being a bad friend. Randall had cried himself to sleep on her couch for two nights in a row at that point, and hadn’t taken it well when she informed him that a third night was out of the question. She hated taking a hard line when he was in such a fragile emotional state, but she felt like she needed some time alone with Maggie and Eliza, a chance for the three of them to be a family without a weepy guest underfoot. Watching
the girls head off to church on Sunday with the Parks had been a wake-up call, a reminder of how easy it was for the people you love to slip away from you. It had happened with her sister, and with Frank, and with more friends than she cared to remember. She wasn’t going to let it happen with her daughters, not if she could help it.

“You seem awfully cheerful this morning,” she observed. “Did you get a good night’s rest?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Actually I was up pretty late. Greg and I had a long talk.”

“And?”

Randall smiled coyly. “Are you free for dinner tonight?”

“Why?”

“There’s something we want to tell you.”

“
We?
Does that mean what I think it means?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Come on,” she coaxed. “Are you back together?”

Randall’s expression grew stern.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss this right now. Greg made me promise we’d break the news together.”

“The suspense is killing me.”

“Seven o’clock at the Indian place,” he told her, handing back the summons. “Don’t be late.”

THIS TIME
around Ruth wasn’t surprised to find the Superintendent and JoAnn Marlow waiting for her in the Principal’s office—they were sitting on either side of the big desk, looking professionally somber—along with sour-faced Joe Venuti, who was anxiously caressing his abdomen, as if he’d already begun to regret his breakfast.

“Hey,” she said, “it’s the old gang!”

Only the Superintendent felt the need to respond. He rose and offered his hand.

“Good to see you, Ruth.” He jerked her arm up and down, as if congratulating her on a job well-done. “Thanks for stopping by.”

JoAnn and the Principal remained seated, watching coolly as she made her way to the bronze folding chair that had been placed in front of the desk. It had the words
BAND ROOM
stenciled on the backrest in faded black letters.

“What’s up?” Ruth asked. “Did I get Teacher of the Year?”

“Very funny,” muttered Venuti.

“Now, now,” cautioned Dr. Farmer, somewhat ambiguously. “No need for that.”

The conversation stalled for a moment. JoAnn looked expectantly at the Principal, who did the same to the Superintendent, who pretended to be engrossed in a thorough examination of a completely ordinary ballpoint pen he’d removed from a mug on Venuti’s desk.

“They want to tell you something,” JoAnn explained.

Venuti nodded in confirmation. He cleared his throat and drummed a few nervous beats on the edge of his desk.

“After some, ah, administrative soul-searching, we’ve, ahhh, come to a decision. Dr. Farmer, would you like to have the honors?”

The Superintendent didn’t look too happy to find the ball in his court.

“Right,” he said, smiling sadly at Ruth. “You know we hate to do this sort of thing, but we couldn’t see any alternative.”

“We’ve received numerous complaints,” Venuti added. “I can show you the file if you want.”

Dr. Farmer nodded. “It seems fair to say that you’re not really in synch with the new curriculum. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that.”

“We need team players,” JoAnn chimed in. “Otherwise, we’re at cross-purposes. And this pilot program is just too important for me to allow that to happen.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruth said. “I’m not really sure what you guys are talking about.”

“You’re being reassigned,” Dr. Farmer informed her. “You can finish up this semester, but starting in January you’re not going to be teaching Health anymore.”

“We were hoping that refresher course might straighten things out,” Venuti went on, “but according to the report we received, it seems like you were uncooperative at best and possibly even a bit disruptive.”

“We thought about sending you to a two-week training program in Philadelphia over the summer,” Dr. Farmer said, “but JoAnn sincerely feels like that would be a waste of everyone’s time and the school district’s resources. And in this era of across-the-board belt-tightening … well, I’m sure you understand.”

“You can’t teach something if you don’t believe in it,” JoAnn declared. “And clearly, you don’t believe in the mission you’ve been entrusted with.”

Ruth was stunned. She’d come here expecting a scolding, but not a three-way ambush.

“I’m being fired?” she asked meekly.

JoAnn nodded, but the Principal and Superintendent immediately took issue with this formulation.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Venuti. “No one’s talking about firing anyone.”

“You have tenure,” Dr. Farmer pointed out. “We couldn’t fire you if we wanted to.”

“Not unless you killed someone,” Venuti said, glaring at Ruth as if he wasn’t ruling out this possibility.

“Even then it’s dicey.” Dr. Farmer allowed himself a soft bureaucratic chuckle. “You’re just being reassigned, Ruth. It’s nothing personal.”

The fog in Ruth’s head began to dissipate.

“This is outrageous,” she said. “I’m going to the union.”

“That’s your right,” Dr. Farmer assured her. “But our lawyer tells us
we’re on solid ground here. You’re not being disciplined. You’re just being redeployed in accordance with our staffing needs. We have wide latitude over that sort of thing.”

“Okay,” Ruth said. “Maybe you do. But who’s gonna teach my classes?”

“The school board meeting’s next Tuesday,” Venuti said. “They’re going to vote on a waiver that would allow a qualified expert to teach within her subject area without going through the onerous process of state certification.”