16. Veronica
Veronica
After a weekend of pure pleasure, I should not have been surprised that I walked back into school to a total shitshow.
I arrived early Tuesday morning, my body sore and my heart heavy. Hawk had dropped me off at home the day before, and I didn’t know what to say.
I shoved every temptation to text him into a dark, tiny place and locked it away.
I put off my sister Millie’s calls and texts, telling her I was too tired and would fill her in after work on Tuesday.
I needed to be up early, stop and check on my dad, and get back to normal.
But I didn’t know how I was ever going to get my head back on straight.
But Tuesday brought me back to reality all too quickly. I got to school and was greeted by hundreds of emails, phone calls from angry parents, and messages from the local media.
“Oh my God.” I could feel my mouth go dry as I read email after email, story after story. The news wasn’t dire, thank goodness, but it was bad.
Four students from Palm High and a student from a local private school had overdosed at a party over the weekend.
The kid who hosted the party is a sophomore at Palm High. Two senior guys had crashed the party and brought drugs—those students also from my school.
That meant I had three kids who’d taken drugs at a party and two seniors who allegedly had supplied those drugs.
The day passed in a blur of meetings, phone calls to and from law enforcement, the hospital, concerned parents.
Thankfully, all involved will make full recoveries, but there will be ramifications from this that will color the entire school year going forward.
Dances, parties, pep rallies… We’re always on the alert for drinking, but drugs are so much harder to monitor.
We can’t search kids’ pockets for pills or powders, and because there is no clear way to track who bought what, who gave what to whom…
We do the best we can, but it’s never, ever enough.
I don’t think I left school until after six and only then because I had to leave since I was feeling sick from not eating all day.
As soon as I get into my condo, I finally answer a call from my sister.
“Oh my God, V.” Millie’s on speaker, and even though I can’t see her, I can hear every ounce of enthusiasm in her voice. “What happened? Tell me every detail. How the hell did this go from a date for drinks to a weekend?”
“I’m going to make a salad while we talk, so ignore the chopping,” I tell her, rinsing some lettuce. Then I launch into the details, starting with the bar, Hawk’s aunt and uncle.
“You went back to his place in a cab… Did you know the address where you were? You could’ve been killed.”
I chuckle. “Millie, you’re being ridiculous, but…” I don’t know how to explain this to her. I threw caution to the wind when I got on the back of a motorcycle with a man I hardly knew and let him take me someplace—someplace I also hadn’t known about beforehand.
That wasn’t like me. Trusting people. Taking risks. Retelling it now, I’m not sure whether I’m proud of myself for living a little or worried about how easily I could have been led into a really unsafe situation.
“Fine. Tell me it was so, so great.” Millie reminds me why I did what I did. Why I trusted a man like Hawk.
“It was so, so great,” I assure her—and myself at the same time.
“I can’t explain it, Mil. He fits me. We have this chemistry that’s physical and, like, completely off the charts.
But it’s more than just that. I feel so at ease with him.
Content and so in the moment. As if being with him is where I’m supposed to be.
Yeah, I got into a cab with him and I rode on the back of his bike, but somehow, none of that felt unsafe or stupid. I trust him.”
Millie doesn’t say anything for a long minute while I cut up an avocado.
“You still with me?” I ask. “You’re not mad, are you?”
My sister sucks in a breath I can hear across the line.
When she speaks again, her voice is more serious than I can ever remember hearing her sound.
“V, I never thought you’d find someone you could actually open up to.
Someone you’d say you trusted. I’m blown away.
I’m surprised in the best ways, though. Like, this feels special.
I want to know all about the sex too, because you did sleep with him, right?
This wasn’t just like a platonic stay at his remote fishing cottage? ”
I laugh, and the stresses of the day seep away for the first time since I walked into work this morning. “There was nothing platonic about this weekend,” I say, a flush heating my cheeks. “It was filthy and intense.”
I take a deep breath, and it’s as if my body remembers his touch.
“Okay, that…” My sister sounds thoughtful. “Freaking amazing. Are you going to see him again?”
I’ve got a spoon in one hand and the guts of an avocado in the other when a furious knock sounds at my door. I drop the spoon in surprise.
“V?” Millie asks. “You okay?”
I set the avocado down and wipe my hands on a kitchen towel. “Someone’s at the door,” I tell her.
But no one should be at my door. I live in a secure building, so unless it’s a neighbor, no one should be able to get in.
“Leave me on speaker,” my sis says.
“All right. I’m going to go look.” I walk to the door and look through the peephole. “Yes?” I call loudly. “Can I help you?”
“Miss Hollifield?” The man at my door is tall, so tall that I have a skewed perspective on his features. He’s wearing khakis and a golf shirt, a baseball cap on his head. “I’m so sorry to bother you like this. My daughter goes to Palm High. I wonder if I could talk to you a minute?”
Something in my gut doesn’t feel settled about this. This man isn’t a neighbor. He had to do some serious digging to find my address. How do I know he’s a parent at all?
I grab my phone off the counter and whisper into the speaker. “Millie, I’m going to open the door for him. If you hear anything weird, call the cops.”
“Miss Hollifield? I don’t even need to come in. I’m so sorry to interrupt your night. I’ll just stay here in the hallway and talk.”
I set my phone in the basket by the front door that holds my keys, making sure the little speaker isn’t obstructed.
Then I unlock the door and open it a crack.
“What’s your name?” I demand, immediately going into teacher mode.
“This is highly inappropriate, contacting me at home. If you have a concern, you can make an appointment and see me in my office.”
The minute my tone changes, his rises to meet mine. He shoves the door open but makes no attempt to come in. He lowers his brows and points at me. “You’re not in charge in this situation, Veronica.”
The way he says my first name, when before he called me by my last name, makes my skin crawl.
“I’m not going to make an appointment and come into your office because what I want to discuss is not a school matter.” His voice is low, but I hope it’s not so quiet that my sister can’t hear him. “My daughter’s Marina Wilson.”
Oh God. The sophomore who hosted the party. The sophomore who overdosed on drugs.
“I spoke to Marina’s mother this morning, so you should be aware that the legal trouble your daughter is in is, in fact, a school matter.”
He shakes his head, a sneer on his face.
“I think you’re mistaken. There’s no legal trouble related to my daughter.
She had a bad bout of stomach flu and will be out of school for a few days.
There’s just been an unfortunate misunderstanding.
I’m going to have to ask you to reverse any punishment you’re thinking about when it comes to Marina and remove all information about drugs. ”
I shake my head. “I can’t do that. It’s been entered into the record—”
He slams a fist against my door. Not hard enough to damage it, but enough to let me know he’s not at all above using violence to get his point across. Knowing who he is and why he’s here does nothing to alter my responsibility, though.
I point a finger in his face. “You can throw a tantrum like a child until you hurt yourself for all I care, Mr. Wilson,” I say, making sure my sister can hear exactly who’s at my door. “I spoke with law enforcement and your ex-wife. Marina threw a party that had alcohol and drugs present.”
“Marina did nothing wrong.” His voice is so harsh, his stare so vicious, I feel my blood run cold. “She was an innocent victim in all of this. You can’t hold her responsible for what other kids decided to do.”
“Can I ask where you were, Mr. Wilson, when your daughter, who is fifteen, decided to let two young men, seniors, into your house? Where were you when your daughter took drugs from those boys and put them into her mouth? Whether she knew what it was or not, this entire situation—”
“You’re judging my parenting now? You’re judging me?
” He looks around me at my condo and barks a condescending laugh.
“What do you make as principal of the high school? Eighty, ninety thousand a year? Whatever you think you’re worth, I promise you, I have more power and, quite frankly, more money than you’ll ever have.
I could spend your annual salary paying someone whose full-time job it would be to make your life miserable, and I wouldn’t even miss it. ”
He takes a deep breath and smiles like the very idea of making my life miserable brings him pleasure. He leans one hand on the doorframe but keeps his feet planted firmly in the hallway. It doesn’t make his presence any less threatening.
My heart starts beating hard now because I can see his anger amping up. He’s threatening me. Toying with me.
“My daughter is a good kid. She made a mistake trusting boys that you—” he points a finger at me “—are teaching. So, if anyone should be looking at their bad choices, I’d take a look in the mirror, Veronica.” He gives me a grim smile. “I expect her school record to be wiped tomorrow.”
“That’s not how it works,” I tell him. I move to grab my doorknob. I’m done with this conversation. “I wish Marina a speedy recovery. But you, Mr. Wilson—if you have something to say to me, you can contact me at my office or via the school board.”
I go to close my door, but he’s strong. He stops me without ever entering my place.
He’s still standing in the hallway, my door braced against his palm.
“You have no idea how small you are in this world,” he tells me.
“I know all about you, Veronica. Your stupid little condo, your shit job. Do better. Take care of my daughter. If you try to ruin her future, I’ll have no choice but to ruin yours. ”
He steps back, and the force of my trying to close my door results in an ear-shattering slam as the door rockets into the frame. I step back, shaken from the bang, but also shaking. Just a little.
“Is he gone?” I hear my sister’s voice coming from the phone in the basket.
Rather than talk through the speaker, I pick it up and hold it to my face.
“Call the police,” Millie insists. “V, do it now. If that parent had the audacity to track you down at your home and threaten you…”
“I’ll make a complaint tomorrow with the union and see if they’ll assign an attorney or an advocate to help me.”
I’ve had run-ins with parents before, but never at my home, and I’ve never been threatened in such a calculating, personal way.
“V, he stalked you. Trespassed on private property. Doesn’t your place have cameras? You can show the police the video.”
“They’re outdated, and the audio has never worked right.”
“But he threatened you, V,” she insists. “He showed up at your place. You can’t tell me you’re just going to show up to school tomorrow like nothing happened?”
The panic in my sister’s voice is making me more anxious. He technically didn’t do anything wrong or illegal that I’m aware of.
And that’s what makes his threat feel so much more terrifying.
If you try to ruin her future, I’ll have no choice but to ruin yours.
I double-check that my door is locked and head to my couch. I drop down and think about my options. I worked so late, it’s not like I can call anyone at the union and get an answer at this hour.
“Your new boyfriend,” Millie says, as though she’s just come up with a brilliant plan.
“He’s not my—” I try to deny that Hawk is anything to me right now because, in truth, I don’t know what he is. But Millie isn’t listening.
“He’s huge, tattooed, and scary-looking, right? And if he’s in some kind of motorcycle gang, he might know what to do.”
“I don’t need anyone to protect me, Millie,” I say. “I can handle ignorant parents. I’ve done it before.”
This is true, but I’ve never had to handle a direct threat from a parent before.
Millie is pleading with me to call someone. “Go stay at Dad’s,” she says, but her words have the opposite effect. “Promise me, V. Call someone. Go to Dad’s. Do something. Please.”
“I will, Millie. I promise.”