18
Tuesday
(Fifteen Days Left)
I can’t wait to see you tonight.
That’s what Finn said to me at afternoon dismissal. I had just buckled Danny into his car seat when I felt a presence behind me. Finn was on his way to his car when he said it.
Flustered, I gave him a double thumbs-up and a smile so wide, I could feel a breeze on my gums.
“They might get married,” Danny said to his mom. “Once they get to know each other a little better.”
“Is that so?” Danny’s mom winked at me behind her Prada sunglasses.
I shrugged. “Anything’s possible.”
Once the words left my mouth, I found myself latching on to them.
Anything’s possible.
My new mantra.
I chanted it under my breath the entire drive home from work. I recounted it to my reflection as I applied my lip tint and changed into my most flattering black cotton dress and ballet flats. And now I repeat the phrase as I climb into the back seat of my Uber. Tonight, at Brentwood Friends Academy’s Sixteenth Annual Middle School Fall Ball, anything is possible.
I buckle myself in and begin to go over the details of tonight’s plan. Call an Uber. Check. Arrive. Wait for Finn. Mention that my car is in the shop.
Mention it again in case Finn misses it the first time. By this point, hopefully he will have offered to drive me home. If he hasn’t, I will be brave, and I will
ask him. When he pulls up to my apartment, I won’t open the passenger-side door immediately. I’ll turn toward him, reveling in the sexual tension that accompanies a nighttime drop-off….
My phone buzzes in my lap. A FaceTime from Ethan.
I answer on the first ring. “Is everything okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” He lifts the edge of a severed coconut to his lips and sips. I recognize the cabana in the reflection of his sunglasses from Jamie’s countless Instagram stories. “Can’t a brother FaceTime his sister as he pleases?”
I suppress a smile while rolling my eyes. “Not when you’re on your honeymoon. You’re supposed to unplug and spend time with your wife.
Speaking of, where is she?”
He pans over to the left, where Jamie, perfectly sun-kissed under her floppy straw hat, swipes at her phone screen with fierce determination.
“She’s plugged.”
She gives Ethan a glare. “I’m editing the photos of us from the luau last night. The flash made you look demonic. Aloha, Pheebs!”
Ethan flips the camera back to himself before I get the chance to offer an aloha back. “Listen, we need to talk,” he says, raising his glasses to reveal two bright red strips of sunburnt skin below his eyes.
“About?”
He holds up his tattered copy of Keep It in the Family: An
Unconventional Love Story.
“I finished.”
I gasp. “It’s about time!”
With all the wedding hullabaloo, Ethan’s been late to finish the August selection of our two-member book club. There used to be three of us, Jamie having been the third, but she quit only a few months after the club’s inception, claiming that the romance novels Ethan and I pick aren’t “real literature.” It’s just as well, since I would rather read my car manual twice over than have Jamie sic another one of the classics on us.
“Well?” I prod. “What did you think?”
He takes a giant gulp from his coconut. “I freakin’ loved it.”
“Right?” I beam. “The age gap between James and Mimi was risky, but I found it to be handled so tastefully.”
He nods. “So tastefully. And to be honest, I completely forgot it existed until we found out that James’s first wife was Mimi’s estranged mother.”
“Me too! And what a plot twist, by the way. I didn’t see it coming. What did you think about the scene in the outhouse?”
When Ethan and I get going, it can be hard to stop. Which is why Jamie cuts us off during my detailed recounting of James’s family tree.
“Let’s walk to the beach,” she nudges Ethan from off camera.
“Hold on.” I can see his brow furrow beneath his glasses. “So James’s daughter is actually Mimi’s half sister?”
“Yes. Which also makes Mimi her half sister’s stepmother,” I explain.
“Holy shit. How did I miss that?”
A freshly manicured hand reaches into the frame, grabbing the phone from Ethan. “I love you, Phoebe,” Jamie says with a sigh. “And I’m also hanging up on you.”
“Love y—” The call disconnects before I can finish. A blessing in disguise, considering I’ve just now looked out the window for the first time and we’re already pulling into the school parking lot.
I make my way to the teachers’ lounge, opening the door to find Cheryl in the midst of her punch preparations. Hunched over a bowl of pink liquid, she stirs intently while adding pieces of finely chopped fresh fruit to the mixture.
She looks up at the sound of the door opening. “Well, don’t you look sweet,” she says to me as I move forward to help her with the punch. She shoos me away. Anxious for a task, I busy myself by pacing across the room as, one by one, the rest of our colleagues begin to fill the small space. I find my heart rate increasing slightly each time the door opens.
“You okay?” Cheryl asks, a crease of worry lining her forehead.
“Yeah, totally. Why?”
“You’re going to burn a hole in the floor.” She chuckles, and then lowers her voice to a whisper. “Is Finn coming tonight?”
Unfortunately, to the prying ears of Sue, the seventh-grade teacher and notorious school gossip, no whisper will ever be quiet enough.
“I knew it!” From the other side of the room, I can see Sue’s eyes light up under her librarian-style glasses. “There’s something going on between the two of you, isn’t there? I’ve seen you on the playground. Gosh, I don’t think there’s been any teacher-on-teacher romance on these grounds since…” She pauses, deep in thought. “The nineties.”
Almost imperceptibly, her eyes flit over to the couch, where Teacher Rob mindlessly tunes his guitar in an attempt to hide his eavesdropping. She blushes. Cheryl and I share a brief, knowing look at the revelation. We’ll discuss this later, it says.
“Nothing is going on between anyone,” I say, loudly enough to make sure it falls on the ears of every busybody in this room.
“Why not?” Sue pouts. “You two would be so cute together.”
My curiosity gets the best of me. “What makes you so sure he would even be interested?”
At this, Teacher Rob, clad in the powder blue suit that he wears for every special occasion, chimes in. “He’s a guy. Guys are always interested.”
His point is one that I’ve heard countless times before. It’s what all the early 2000s rom-coms wanted me to believe. But after twenty-nine years of lived experience, and one brutal rejection in a janitor’s closet, I’ve gathered enough evidence to confidently say that guys are not, in fact, always
interested.
“That’s what I’ve been telling her.”
I glare at Cheryl. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. That’s why—”
The creak of the opening door cuts Cheryl off, and every pair of eyes in the room turns toward the entrance, where Finn stands, looking completely gorgeous in a blue button-down, khakis, and surprisingly fashion-forward loafers.
The room goes completely silent. Everyone looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to tell us that we’re busted. He heard everything. We’ve been caught red-handed.
“Uh.” Finn hesitates before stepping forward and closing the door behind
him. “Hi?”
“Hey!”
“Hi, Finn!”
“Lookin’ good, kid!
“Welcome!”
“Come on in, have some punch!”
Our high-pitched greetings come tumbling out all at once. Cheryl shoves a glass of punch into his hands.
“So,” he starts, taking a sip of his drink. “What are we all waiting here for, exactly?”
“Dan,” I tell him. “He usually makes a few announcements before the kids get here. And between you and me”—I lower my voice—“the last Fall Ball was a complete shit show. So Dan might really crack down on us this year.” Finn raises an eyebrow, an invitation for me to keep going. “You’ll see” is all I offer.
I fidget with my fingers anxiously, cracking my knuckles one by one as we wait. Tonight will be the first time I’ve seen Dan, our principal, since he asked me to interview for the assistant principal position last month. I wouldn’t say I’ve been avoiding him. Not at all. I’ve just been making a conscious effort to stay clear of spaces I know he’ll be in. And if I do happen to see him approaching, I’ll begin walking in the opposite direction.
It’s not that I don’t want the job. In fact, I think I’d be a good fit for the role. Shannon’s archaic filing system could use a massive overhaul, and the thought of reorganizing decades’ worth of paperwork makes my heart skip a beat. It’s just that it’s a big decision. A big change. And I don’t know if that’s what I need right now. Or even want.
Thankfully, the unease I was feeling about seeing Dan dissipates the second he walks through the door. He has the type of calming presence that reminds me of my dad, a slightly resigned air that comes from the desire to please everyone. “A few quick things to go over before we get the ball rolling tonight,” he announces. “First, no more than two glasses of punch per person.
Two and a half if you spread them out appropriately. We don’t want…well.”
Everyone goes out of their way to avoid looking at Jane, who, after finalizing her divorce just hours before, suffered a very public punch-induced breakdown at last year’s Fall Ball.
“You can’t trust anyone with your heart. Not even yourself,” she had ranted into the microphone as the kids slow danced to an Ed Sheeran song.
The lyrics about eternal love and longing seemed to set her off further. “This man is lying to you. Ed Sheehan is a liar” was the last thing she said before dropping the microphone on the floor and storming out of the gym, leaving behind a room full of emotionally scarred teenagers.
Dan continues. “Second, we have some new rules to enforce this year.
Specifically in relation to…”
We all know what’s coming next.
“Grinding.”
There it is.
A deep chuckle arises from behind me, and while I don’t have to turn around to know who it’s coming from, I do it anyway. Finn’s smiling at me, shaking his head slightly as he suppresses another laugh. I raise my eyebrows and nod in a playful “told ya so” sort of way.
The origins of the grinding epidemic are unknown. I know that it started sometime before my middle school years, but after Cheryl’s. According to her, back in the eighties, kids were more focused on perfecting their individual craft. Her school dances were full of teens breakdancing, practicing their running man, and writhing on the floor like a worm. The dances of the early 2000s were different.
“Who are you going to grind with tonight?” That was always the question on everybody’s lips the day of the dance. “Jacob B. told Jacob R. who told me that he wants to grind with you, Phoebe.”
I remember it vividly. The feeling of being on the dance floor, waiting for Jacob B. to approach me from behind, place his hands on my hips, and begin to sway. When we finally made contact, the movement of our bodies was almost imperceptible as we gyrated to Akon’s “Smack That.” And when the song was over, he was gone. There was never any eye contact. No words were exchanged. It was highly unromantic, and left me feeling slightly used.
My teachers turned a blind eye to it, and so that’s what I, along with the rest of my colleagues here, have continued to do. But I have a feeling Dan is about to instruct us otherwise.
“The PTA and I spoke extensively about protocols to put in place to avoid a repeat of last year’s…incident,” he says. “And we’ve decided to outlaw grinding altogether this year.” Everyone nods in understanding. After what happened, it really is the only logical thing to do.
“Lastly,” Dan adds, “whoever’s Volkswagen is parked by the curb outside the Brick building, we need you to move it. To make way for the PTA bake sale.”
I almost can’t believe my luck. A perfect setup for me to lay the necessary groundwork. “It’s not mine,” I pipe in, raising my voice slightly to ensure my message reaches the right ears. “I ubered here. My car is in the shop.”
—
Dan ushers us into the gym, where hundreds of blue streamers now hang from the rafters to reflect this year’s Under the Sea theme. Varying sizes of plastic orbs attached to fishing wire float in midair, creating the illusion of bubbles. Next to the snack table, which is lined with bowls of Swedish Fish and Goldfish, a kiddie pool filled with sand and lukewarm mini water bottles sits on the floor. I help myself to one.
The speakers come to life with an ad for a once-daily high blood pressure medication. “You promised there wouldn’t be ads this year,” a visibly frustrated Dan whispers to Teacher Rob. “I can’t keep defending him, Rob.”
“Take it easy,” Teacher Rob says to Dan, who responds with a facepalm.
“I’ll go talk to him.”
Teacher Rob walks over to the makeshift DJ stand, where his former bandmate and current best friend, DJ Spider, fiddles with the volume levels on his laptop. After a heated back-and-forth, Teacher Rob removes a lone
Bank of America debit card from his pocket and begins typing numbers into the computer.
“And you…” Dan turns to me with a smirk. “You’ve been awfully hard to track down.”
“I’m sorry.” I chuckle nervously. “But I have an answer for you.” He raises his eyebrows in anticipation. “I’ll do the interview.”
“Wonderful!” Dan claps.
“But I haven’t decided on anything further than that,” I tell him. “Is that okay?”
“Of course,” he assures me. “You have time.”
You have time. I replay his words in my head. I like the way they sound.
“But don’t lead me on for too long,” he adds. “The last thing I want is to have to scramble to find an outside hire. Last time that happened, I had to bring on Rob.”
Dan winks as he walks away, and I laugh and nod. It really does seem like the job is mine if I want it. It’s nice in theory, but in practice, I wish
someone would just tell me what to do.
I wish I could text Matthew.
Once the uninterrupted, ad-free streaming of today’s pop hits begins to fill the room, Dan walks over to the doors and props them open. The dance has officially begun.
“C’mon in, kids!” The first wave of arrivals trickles in, some strutting to the front of the room with unabashed confidence while their more timid counterparts linger toward the back. Among the confident is little Lucy Silverman, a member of my first ever class eight years ago. When she started pre-K, she was painfully shy, with a speech delay that kept her from interacting with the other kids. The few words she spoke were only to teachers, and only out of necessity. Bathroom. Hungry. Ouch. She spent the first few months of school as my shadow, glued to my leg, sitting next to me on the bench at recess, saving me a spot next to her at lunch. While all the other kids built block towers together or acted out dramatic scenes in the pretend play area, Lucy was at the art table making picture books by herself.
And then one day, after months of encouragement and intervention, Lucy
agreed to share one of her books with the class. Though she stumbled over her words, the kids were enraptured by her storytelling. They began to act out her stories while they played pretend. They called themselves the names of Lucy’s characters while they chased one another around on the playground.
And eventually, Lucy joined them. She stopped saving a seat for me at lunch so she could make room for her friends. She continued sharing her stories, reading them out loud with almost perfect fluency by the end of the year. On the last day of school, she gave everyone in the class a personalized storybook. I still have mine: The Adventures of Teacher Phoebe and Lucy.
My heart swells as she barrels toward me in her heels, sequined dress, and crimped hair. “Teacher Phoebe!” She knocks the wind out of me with the force of her hug, enveloping us both in an invisible force field of Bath & Body Works vanilla bean body spray.
“Lucy.” I squeeze her back tightly, my hair getting stuck to her glossy lips in the process. “You look gorgeous. How did you get your hair like that?”
“I kept my hair in braids for three days,” she tells me. “I came looking for you last week.” She squints. “You weren’t there. You’re never not there.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry I missed you. I had to go home to New York. My little sister got married.” I smile, feeling only unadulterated pride. “Is everything okay?”
“I need to tell you about theater camp!” Lucy speaks with her hands, and I find myself completely enthralled by the saga of how she and her camp nemesis, Cindy Chen, fought tooth and nail for the title role of Dolly in Hello, Dolly! Right when she gets to the climax of her story, the moment of the final callback, she freezes inexplicably.
“Well, what happened!” I prod, and Lucy casts her eyes downward.
Oh no. Poor Lucy.
“Did Cindy get the part?” I ask gently. When she looks back up, she’s blushing.
“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice interjects from behind me. I was so engrossed in her story, I must have missed the sound of Finn’s footsteps approaching. He smiles at Lucy, and her cheeks turn an even deeper shade of
red. The reason for her abrupt silence becomes crystal clear. “Hi, Lucy,” he says. “Cool dress.” She opens her mouth to speak, but instead ends up taking off in a sprint.
“You just made her year,” I tell him. He chuckles sheepishly.
“I was coming to see if you wanted to grab some punch with me.”
“Oh. Yes.” I nod. “I’d like that.”
I follow his lead, admiring the way he navigates the hall with an increased level of comfort. He opens the door to the teachers’ lounge and motions for me to enter first. I act on my initial impulse, which is to curtsy.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He shuts the door behind us. “I’ve always thought people
should curtsy more.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Maybe they should.”
He pours two glasses of punch, handing the first to me. “So,” he says before he takes his first sip. “Are you gonna tell me what the hell happened at
last year’s dance?”
I laugh. “There was a grind train.”
“I remember those,” he adds.
I shake my head. “This wasn’t your ordinary grind train. It was made up of the entire middle school student body. It was meticulously organized and planned out for weeks leading up to the dance. The second the opening notes of ‘Rush’ by Troye Sivan started blasting through the speakers, Danny Zimmerman screamed, ‘Now!’ It was like an expertly rehearsed flash mob, the way all the kids found their place in line immediately. And the train was so long, a few kids spilled out of the gym doors and were grinding in the driveway. All of us teachers were paralyzed. We just let it happen. For the entire song. Two minutes and thirty-six seconds.”
Finn throws his head back with a cackle. “You are lying to me.”
I shake my head. “I found the sketches in the recycling bin. There were at least twenty detailed, photocopied drawings of the grind train. Labeled and color coded. I imagine the same level of precision also went into the early blueprints of the atomic bomb.” I had brought one of the sketches home to show Jonathan, and we had dissolved into a fit of hysterics, the kind where
your ribs ache and it hurts to breathe. The memory sends a pang straight to my gut, putting a damper on the moment.
Finn clutches one hand to his chest as he laughs, while balancing his glass of punch in the other. “Cheers, to grind trains.” He clinks our drinks together, and Why am I thinking about Matthew raising his champagne glass into the air while I was stumbling through my speech?
“Cheers.” I smile, then sip my punch while doing my best to push away
thoughts of Jonathan and Matthew.
I don’t get it.
Things are going so well with Finn. Why am I thinking of the other two right now? Sandy’s voice echoes through my head in response: You’re having issues with two people who I know mean a lot to you, and yet you spent almost the entirety of today’s session talking about Finn, someone you’ve only known for a few weeks.
“By the way,” Finn starts, saving me from having to dig any deeper. I shift all my attention back to him. “Noah seems to really like your friend Meg. He’s been smiling at his phone nonstop.”
“That’s so sweet.”
I am, of course, thrilled for Meg. But at the same time, I’m acutely aware that I gave Finn my number over a week ago, and he hasn’t made use of it. “I think she really likes him, too,” I continue. “I know she’s looking forward to seeing him at the party.”
His eyes widen, like he’s suddenly remembered something. “You’re coming to that, right? I totally forgot to text you the invite.”
I take a sip of my punch, making him wait for my answer. “Yeah, I think I can make it.” As if I don’t already have my outfit picked out down to my underwear.
“Awesome.” He looks down at his empty cup. “I guess we should get back out there. Wouldn’t want any grinding to take place on our watch.”
“No, we wouldn’t.” I follow him back to the gym, where I can feel the wide-eyed gazes of Lucy and her friends burning into me. I walk over to their huddle.
“Well?” I place my hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “Did you get the part?”
She flashes me a smile full of metal. “I did.”
—
Thanks to DJ Spider’s insistence on playing the music at a near deafening volume, I haven’t been able to speak with Finn since we got punch. That was two hours ago. The dance is almost over, I’ve broken up three grinding attempts, and he hasn’t offered me a ride. It’s time to take matters into my own hands. It’s time to ask him.
“Let’s slow things down,” DJ Spider says into the mic, and I’m all too relieved when he lowers the volume slightly to match the vibe shift. I can finally hear myself think. With less than five minutes to take advantage of the quiet, I begin my trek across the dance floor to Finn.
“Excuse me.” I make my way through a sea of teens scrambling to pair up, stepping on a few toes in the process. “Sorry! So sorry.” I’m just about to break free of the crowd when I’m pulled into an open space, in the opposite direction I was heading in.
“You looked like you could use some help!” Teacher Rob.
“Oh, I’m okay, actually. I was heading over—”
“You’re just the person I’ve been looking for,” he says, leaning in close enough for me to smell the BO fighting through the top notes of his cologne.
“I am?”
“I have to drop Spider off at the bus stop. I know you said your car is in the shop. I’d be more than happy to drive you home since I’ll already be in the car and all.”
My stomach drops. I begin shaking my head. Frantically. “No, thank you.
That’s a very kind offer, but—”
“I insist! It’s really no problem, Phoebe.” He grins softly. “In fact, it would be my greatest pleasure.” I am instantly overwhelmed by a tidal wave of guilt. Despite the occasional company of his old bandmate and a possible fling with Sue three decades ago, Teacher Rob is lonely. He has to be, if the idea of a car ride thirty minutes out of his way, just to have some company,
fills him with this much joy. Which is why I find myself incapable of saying no.
“Okay.” I do my best to return his smile. “Thank you. That would be great.”
This is fine, I tell myself. I’ll have plenty of time to flirt with Finn at Noah’s party.
“Yes!” He pumps his fist in the air. “I have some tunes to play for you.
Spider and I have been messing around with a new sound that I think you’ll really like. It’s a mix of the heavy metal we used to do back in the day when we were the Krimson Kings, fused with some techno. Kids these days are starting to appreciate good music again, Phoebe.”
The lights turn on, saving me from having to respond. A minor victory overshadowed by a much larger loss. The dance is over, and I am not getting into Finn’s car.
I wave goodbye to the kids as they file outside to find their parents among a sea of identical luxury SUVs, and to Finn, who follows closely behind them. He doesn’t wave back. Instead, he curtsies.
“Ready, Phoebe?” asks Teacher Rob, and I nod, then lower my head in defeat as I follow him and DJ Spider out into the night.
