Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
MELISSA
After Luke left last night, I put the kids to bed and spent two hours preparing for my first day as a math teacher.
Now my first day has come and I’m standing in front of a class of twelfth graders, covered in flop sweat and cursing my decision to wear a white blouse.
I always sweat like a pig when I’m nervous, and if I don’t have pit stains already, I’m sure I will soon.
“Good morning, I’m Ms. Lawrence,” I try, but my voice is too quiet. A few of the girls raise their heads and look at me, but most of them keep staring at their phones or talking to their friends.
“Put away your phones, please. I’m about to start the class.” That was louder, but too shrill.
“You forgot your tie,” a girl calls from the back row.
“What?” I ask in confusion. Ironically, the room is silent now, and every eye has turned toward the girl in the back, who’s staring at me like she owns the room.
She’s a pretty girl, with glossy dark hair and clear skin, but it’s her confident smirk that tells me she’s the leader of the popular crowd.
“Your tie,” she drawls. “If you’re going to copy our uniform, you’ll need to buy a tie.”
I glance down and realize that my white blouse and navy skirt are remarkably similar to the Brookline Academy uniform. Minus, of course, the tie.
“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,” I say politely. “What’s your name?”
“Vanessa Abernathy.”
“Well, Vanessa, you’ve done a great job of getting everyone’s attention, so let’s get started.
” I turn to the whiteboard, resolutely ignoring the laughter from the back of the room.
If the students see I’m rattled, I might as well quit now.
High school kids are like predators: able to smell fear and ready to pounce on it.
I write out the first problem and talk the students through how to solve it, and slowly, it gets easier. A few kids are still staring at their phones, but most of them seem to be paying attention.
The class is almost over when I hear a ringtone from the back of the room. I turn from the board in time to see Vanessa answer her phone.
“Hi, Daddy,” she says, staring at me with an expression that dares me to challenge her. “Uh huh. Nope, still in math class, my spare period doesn’t start for ten minutes.” Another pause. “No, it’s a new teacher. She doesn’t care if we talk on the phone.”
“Vanessa,” I say, in a voice that tries to be stern but comes off as pleading.
“Really?” she continues, as though I haven’t spoken. “Thank you, Daddy. Okay. I’ll see you after school. Love you, Daddy.”
Vanessa sets down her phone and meets my eye with a smirk.
In a masterful display of disobedience, she’s just shown me that she’s close to her father, and he’s familiar enough with her schedule to know when she has her spare period (even if his timing is off by ten minutes).
Her father will never believe his little princess is a troublemaker, so any effort I make to discipline her will blow back and bite me in the ass.
So I turn back to the whiteboard and move on with the lesson, hoping no one can tell I’m trembling.
Things go a little better in the second class, eleventh grade vector algebra, but I still feel beaten as I pull out of the Brookline parking lot.
My afternoon isn’t much better. Liam’s in a fussy mood after preschool, and just as he’s launching a full-scale tantrum, my mother drops by unexpectedly.
“What’s wrong, my love?” Mom croons at Liam, who’s worked himself into a sweaty, snotty mess.
“It’s not fair!” Liam yells. “Not fair!”
“What’s not fair, sweetheart?”
“Mommy’s not fair!” Liam wraps his arms around my mother’s leg and buries his face in her thigh.
My mother bends down and gently rubs his back. “If you stop crying, Liam, I’m sure we can find a compromise. Do you know what a compromise is?”
Liam looks up at her, and by some miracle, he stops crying. “No.”
My mother’s clearly pleased that she’s been able to talk him out of a tantrum. “It’s when you and your mommy don’t agree, but you try to find a solution that will make you both happy.”
There’s a beat of silence while Liam thinks about that. “I want to watch TV, but Mommy said no.”
The change in my mother’s expression is comical. She’s convinced that screens are responsible for the decline of kids’ fitness, eyesight, attention spans, mental health, and probably a few other things I can’t remember.
“Liam, there are so many things we could do that are more fun than watching television,” she lectures. “We could play in the backyard, or go to the park—”
“That’s STUPID!” Liam yells.
“Liam, that’s not a nice thing to say to Grandma,” I tell him. “Come on. We’re going to the park.”
“I want a cookie!” Liam says.
“You can have one on the way to the park. Put on your jacket and shoes.”
Once he’s ready to go, I give him one of the peanut butter cookies we made last night (I couldn’t convince Luke to take the whole two dozen) and offer one to my mother. As expected, she declines, and it takes all my willpower to put the lid back on the tin without taking one for myself.
We set off down the sidewalk, with Liam skipping ahead. I often wonder where that kid gets his energy.
“How was teaching this morning?” my mother asks.
I was bullied by the twelfth-grade mean girl. I can’t believe anyone thought I was qualified to do this. I want to quit.
“It was great!” My voice is way too perky, and my mother looks skeptical.
“Did you have Pilates this morning?” I ask, in an effort to change the subject.
My mother brightens immediately. “Yeah. There’s a new instructor who just moved from Australia, and she runs a really challenging class. Fitbit says I burned six hundred and twenty calories.”
“Wow.”
“You should come to a class with me on the weekend, while the kids are in Toronto.”
“Oh. Thanks, but I’ve got a ton of stuff to do around the house this weekend, and Pilates isn’t really my thing.”
My mother frowns. “You should really make time for exercise, Melissa. You’ll feel better, and when you want to start dating again—”
“I’m not planning to date again, Mom. And I’ll get back to exercise, but not now, and not Pilates.”
I could tell her I’m going to a running group with Sophie on the weekend, but I don’t.
Probably for the same reason I don’t want to tell her that I’ve started a low carb diet—it feels like admitting she’s right.
I want to get in shape because I decided to, not because my mother pushed me to do it.
And definitely not because I’m trying to attract a man.
The rest of the week flies by, and before I know it, I’m loading the kids in the car to take them to Toronto for the weekend.
Troy and I agreed I’d drive them to Toronto on Fridays and he’d bring them back Sundays.
Troy gets the better end of the deal, since Toronto traffic is hellish on Friday afternoons, but since I was the one who wanted to move, I can’t really complain.
When we get to the house, there’s a Volkswagen Jetta parked in the driveway behind Troy’s BMW, and I realize Olivia’s probably there. This shouldn’t surprise me—after all, I knew she and Troy were still together—but somehow I didn’t expect her to be there for the kids’ first weekend with Troy.
Since there’s no room in the driveway, I find a parking spot on the street. I paste a smile on my face as I walk to the door with Claire and Liam.
Troy answers the door immediately, still dressed for work in a sharply tailored suit and tie.
He’s always looked good in a suit, and it used to be a huge turn-on for me.
It drove me crazy while we were divorcing; even when I hated his guts, the sight of him in a suit would occasionally spark a flutter of desire in my belly.
To my relief, the suit does nothing for me today. I’ve realized I prefer surgical scrubs.
As Troy hugs the children, Olivia emerges from the kitchen, wearing a frilly red apron over a fitted T-shirt and tight jeans. Her hair’s up in a sloppy bun, and she’s wearing glittery eye shadow that makes her look incredibly young.
“Hi Melissa,” she says brightly, before turning to the kids. “Hey guys. I’m making pizza for dinner. Wanna help?”
“Pizza!” Liam’s face lights up and he sprints toward the kitchen, and Claire follows almost as enthusiastically.
Well. I’d wondered if the kids would have a hard time saying goodbye to me, but apparently there’s no issue there.
“Thanks, babe,” Troy calls to Olivia, as she heads off to cook with my kids. “Claire can eat pizza now, right?”
“Yeah, no restrictions.” I hand him the bags I packed for the kids.
He nods. “You said the surgeon was happy with everything? When you took her for follow-up?”
“Yeah, he thinks she’s fully healed. But of course if she starts to feel sick, she should be checked out. Her surgeon said we could call him—”
“If she feels sick, I’ll take her to the hospital here,” Troy interrupts.
“Okay.” I pause. “But you’ll call me, right? If there are any problems?”
“Yes, Melissa,” he says, in a tone of voice I know well. He thinks I’m an overly anxious mother. “I’ll call you if there are problems. Anything else I should know?”
So many things. Don’t forget that Claire still likes a story before bed, and that Liam hates spicy food. And please don’t let them spend all weekend watching TV, or it’ll be impossible for me to limit their screen time back in Somerset.
“I don’t think so.” I can hear the kids chattering happily in the kitchen, and I resist the temptation to go inside and give them each a last hug and kiss. It’s only a two day separation, after all.
As I walk back to my car, I hear someone call my name. I turn and see my former next-door neighbor, Julie Schroeder, hurrying down her front steps. Julie’s a stay-at-home mom whose kids are close in age to mine, and before I moved away, we had a quasi-friendship.
I say quasi-friendship because spending time with Julie was never comfortable.
She was the mother who had everything together, and I was the mom who nearly gave her a heart attack by offering her kids grocery store popsicles on a hot summer afternoon.
After Julie recovered from the scare of refined sugar and artificial colors, she rushed back to her own house for some homemade organic fruit juice pops. You get the idea.
“Melissa!” she says effusively. “I thought it was you.” She pulls me into a hug, and I’m hit with a wave of floral perfume. “You’re looking really well.”
“Thanks, Julie,” I say politely. “You too.” Her highlights are flawless, her figure is trim, and she has the dewy skin of a woman who gets eight hours of sleep every night.
“You brought your kids for the weekend?”
“Yup.”
“I’ll have to text Troy, see if they want to have a playdate with mine.”
“Sounds good.” I move to step around her to get back to my car. “It was great seeing you, Julie, but I should hit the road—”
“You don’t want to come in for coffee or something?” she asks. “We’ve all been worried about you, after everything that happened . . .” She trails off, as though she doesn’t want to sully her mouth by speaking the words.
“The divorce,” I say bluntly. “Yeah, it was tough, but I’ve moved on.”
Julie arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Already? That’s great, Melissa. Anyone I know?”
A blush creeps up my cheeks. I meant I’d moved on to life as an independent woman and mother, but Julie thought I’d moved on to another relationship.
“Oh, I’m not dating anyone,” I say quickly. “I just meant I’d moved on from Troy.”
“Oh, right,” she says, giving me a sympathetic nod. “But I’m sure it won’t take you long to find someone. You’ve lost weight, haven’t you?”
“I haven’t noticed.” It’s a lie; I’ve definitely noticed that I’ve lost two pounds in the past week. I’ve tried hard to eat healthy and done the barre workout every day (I can now make it to sixteen minutes), so two pounds doesn’t seem like nearly enough.
Julie lowers her voice a little. “You know, Candice McLean found a doctor who’ll prescribe Ozempic, even if you don’t technically meet the BMI criteria. She’s lost, like, fifteen pounds in a month.”
“I wouldn’t have thought she’d need it.” Candice lives down the street, and she’s always been a little curvy, but nowhere near obese.
Julie shrugs. “She was worried Brad’s eyes were wandering.”
I wonder if Julie sees the irony here—Candice’s husband, Brad, has a much more significant weight problem than Candice does.
“Anyway, it’s a needle, but Candice says it really isn’t bad. I can get you the doctor’s name if you like, he might do virtual assessments.”
My eyes widen as Julie’s meaning sinks in. She’s suggesting I try Ozempic.
“No thanks, Julie,” I say, my voice falsely bright. “And I really do need to get going.”
I escape to my car and drive back through my old neighborhood, feeling lower than I have in a long time.
I should be happy to have a weekend to myself, but instead, I wonder how I’ll fill the time.
And I wonder if Troy will be able to unplug from work long enough to give the kids some attention, or if he’ll expect Olivia to entertain them for the whole weekend.
I’m almost at the highway when I spot a burger joint and decide my immediate problem is that I need a cheeseburger.
All I’ve had to eat today is a boiled egg for breakfast and a salad for lunch, so it’s hardly surprising I’m hungry.
And when the cashier asks if I want to make it a combo with fries, I can’t say no.
The Coke’s diet, of course, so at least there’s that.
I find a table in a corner, and since I’m eating alone, I can devote my entire attention to my dinner. The food’s delicious, and I savor every bite. And when I get back on the road to head back to Somerset, I feel significantly better.