Chapter 9
chapter nine
Audrey
Today's vocabulary word: pure
"I know it's only nine thirty," Jamie Rouselle sang as she swept into my classroom, "but I need you to feed me."
I dropped my phone, pushed up from my desk, and clasped my hands behind my back in the most suspicious manner possible. Honestly, it would've raised less notice if I'd dumped a bucket of live lobsters on the floor.
She pointed at me. "Okay, that was weird."
I shrugged and tried to look innocent. "I didn't bake last night but I have leftover molasses cookies."
I didn't bake every night. Sometimes, but not always.
Not anymore. Not since washing the blood from the worst of the wounds left behind by my time married to my ex-husband.
But there'd been an era when kneading dough until my arms gave out was the only remedy for the stress that'd taken up residence inside my body.
Looking back on it now, I couldn't believe I'd found the strength to put any of it into a blog.
I'd been so…small in my marriage. So hollow.
Because sharing thoughts and photos and detailed instructions onto the internet for others to consume required a level of confidence I'd left in my teens.
That was probably why I'd started with a blog like it was the olden days of the internet.
I didn't expect anyone would notice me there.
I started The Ballerina Bakes about a year before leaving Christopher.
The first recipe I posted was a gluten-free pumpkin cranberry bread.
The flavors because they reminded me of autumn in New England.
The lack of gluten because life with my ex made my body shut down to the point that I couldn't digest much of anything.
I added videos of my baking process not long after but I stayed off camera. My hands made appearances but nothing else. I preferred it that way. I didn't have to be myself when I baked. I could be The Ballerina. I found that I liked her better.
These days, I posted a new recipe once a week, down from four or five when my mental health had been at its worst. I had them planned out and edited months in advance, which meant I baked molasses cookies in June for a holiday series that would publish in late November.
My friends—the ones who taste-tested all my recipes—didn't mind. One universal truth about teachers was that they were always hungry. Jamie in particular.
"I will take those molasses cookies," she said as she crossed the room, "and I'll sit right here and eat them while you tell me what the hell's going on with you."
I went to the closet behind my desk and grabbed the Pyrex container of cookies. "I think I did something bad," I said.
"I don't think you know how to do anything truly bad," the first-grade teacher replied. "But prove me wrong."
I met Jamie when I started teaching here, right after my divorce was finalized.
She was about five years younger than me but that didn't get in the way of her taking me on like a mangy foster dog in need of serious socialization.
She wormed her way into my life whether I wanted her there or not.
Considering that all I'd wanted to do back then was walk through my days like a ghost and I'd perfected the art of disappearing into myself, it was a noteworthy accomplishment.
She taught me how to have fun again, how to laugh at life—and myself. She'd cornered me into eating lunch with the other elementary teachers and folded me into a group of friends that were now my favorite people in the world.
She'd taught me how to open up without worrying about anyone using those vulnerabilities against me, but I still had something to learn in that area.
My friends knew about my divorce though I hadn't gotten around to sharing anything about Jude.
Talking about a bad marriage to a pathologically narcissistic man was relatively simple when the alternative was admitting I hurt someone who'd deserved better.
As far as Jamie and the others were concerned, the divorce and the blog were the cornerstones of my lore.
I didn't hint toward others and no one went digging into that story any deeper.
But here I was now, days away from a whole summer vacation with the guy who'd wanted to stop my wedding, and I had some explaining to do.
Busy week for getting bitten in the ass by my own bad decisions.
"I can see you being benignly bad," Jamie mused, half-eaten cookie in hand.
"Not offering to let someone cut in front of you at the grocery store when they only have a few items and you have your usual forty pounds of flour and all the butter on the shelves.
Or cutting across three lanes of traffic to make an exit but not waving at the people who let you in. "
"Why do all of your examples involve cutting?"
"Because cutting is a capital offense in first grade," she said, her mouth full. "So, what did you do? What's so bad that it looks like you've been waiting to sneeze for the past six hours?"
I glanced at my phone before turning it facedown.
Nothing new there anyway. "I went to that reunion, like I told you about," I started, hedging and wobbling my way through, "and I ran into someone.
Who I used to be close with. Very close, actually.
We'd—well, there was a time when we'd made big plans together.
For life after school. And beyond that. For our whole lives, really.
But I ruined it all because my parents said— It doesn't matter what they said anymore. "
"It probably matters a whole lot." I found her staring at me, eyes wide and cheeks crammed full with cookies. "What did they say?"
I grabbed a pen off my desk and let my thumb trace the edge of the cap. "My parents, they aren't like most people."
"Honeychild, my father didn't know I existed until I was thirteen and was deposited on his doorstep by social services. You will find no judgment from me."
I didn't know how to let myself believe that.
I didn't know what it meant to exist without judgment stacked up on my shoulders.
"They—well, when I was a kid, they gradually took up some new religious views.
But it wasn't actually religious, which probably doesn't make any sense.
I guess I'm trying to say there was no faith to it, no traditions or spirituality.
Just…shame and intense vibes and obsessing over how everything looked.
It didn't matter what it was, just how it looked. "
Jamie murmured in agreement. "We're talking about the purity culture, the institutionalized gender roles, the unhinged hatred of anyone considered other? Generally shitty and morally corrupt from the inside out?"
"All of it," I said, relieved that I didn't have to elaborate.
"Then I take it they didn't approve of this young man in your life," she said.
"They didn't approve for so many reasons.
" I started ticking off on my fingers. "He grew up with a single mom who cleaned houses for a living.
One of his jobs was working at my father's country club, repairing the golf carts and equipment.
He went to my school on a full-ride scholarship.
He rode a motorcycle, James. They didn't like him at all.
No part of this was acceptable and they made it very, very clear that I had no say in the matter. "
"But sweet little Audrey was defiant," Jamie drawled. "She kept secrets and did what she wanted, didn't she?"
I ran a thumb over my fingernails. "No one was paying much attention to me in high school.
My sister was always being bullied or targeted by a teacher, or so she said, and my parents focused more on her.
And we'd moved to a new house in a different neighborhood and my dad finished his second term as Connecticut attorney general—"
"Oh, so, your dad basically had the state police at his disposal? And the boy still deflowered you? Must be tough on him, carrying around those titanium balls. Requires a lot of core strength."
"I can't believe you said deflowered and—I won't repeat the other part. Oh my god. Someone is going to walk in here and we'll never be able to explain this."
"I'm just saying the boy knew the stakes were high and he chose to dive into your hedgerow anyway." She pressed her palms together in prayer, closed her eyes. "Bless us, Dolly, and the boy's big, shiny balls too."
I choked on a laugh. Leave it to Jamie to take an emotionally grueling situation and boil it down to its wackiest parts. "We're not talking about"—I dropped my voice to a whisper—"balls anymore."
"Fine, fine, fine," she said. "The parents must've caught up on your extracurriculars and they didn't like what they found."
"They threatened and issued ultimatums and they scared the hell out of me."
"Nouveau religious father who also has the police on speed dial? Yeah, I believe those threats packed a punch."
For a minute, I couldn't claw my way out of the memory of when my father called me into his office, locked the door, and informed me I'd be leaving home that day.
Either I'd go with the bags that'd been packed for me with fresh, new, modest clothing and supplies, or I'd be leaving with all the things I owned—which was nothing. Not even the clothes on my back.
And it just kept getting worse after that. So much worse. The restrictions, the requirements. The punishment that'd last until they decided it was over.
I'd never figured out how to breathe inside that memory. There'd been a time when I wished it would just suffocate me already.
"I—I didn't really have any options," I said eventually. "Not any that felt real to me. I had to do what they wanted. And it was awful. They made me leave and wouldn't let me talk to him. Wouldn't let me explain. And they were so furious, so disgusted with me."
"Oh, baby girl."
I shook my head. The last thing I wanted was sympathy. "No, it's fine—"