Chapter Twenty-Four #3
Charlie was not a student but a teacher.
He’d recently graduated from Columbia and taught advanced math.
Lee had met Charlie by chance at the park, where she had been walking Athena, the bad-tempered beagle from next door.
As Lee often did in such interactions, she wondered whether Charlie found her attractive or repellent; these were the two modes she seemed to occupy as a seventeen-year-old.
When it might be the former, it became a challenge to see how far she could take it—could she get him to say she was pretty?
To touch her? Their first few meetings, they did not speak of their personal lives.
When they finally did, it was in short, direct statements: Lee told Charlie her father had died.
He told her his brother was dead. She asked if he thought it was worse to lose a sibling than a parent.
“Yes,” Charlie said bluntly. He added: “He was my twin.”
This level of loss impressed Lee. As did the fact that Charlie did not bring up his brother again.
He did not use it as a topic in poetry, as the only other student Lee knew at JJS with a dead parent, Lawrence Kelley, did repeatedly in AP English.
Charlie did not reference his brother in the late hours of a house party in which earlier he’d poured endless shots of cheap vodka, proclaiming Lee a cocktease when his ridiculously long tongue came at her ear and she shoved him away (Lawrence Kelley again).
Charlie had dimples and spoke with genuine affection for his family dog (a full-size poodle).
He gifted her copies of his favorite comic ( Transmetropolitan ) and poured Lee her first glass of Sauternes.
When they slept together, he had a way of reaching his right hand behind his neck and yanking off his shirt in one smooth motion.
For the rest of her life, Lee would be a sucker for small masculine acts done well: the loosening of a tie, a one-handed reverse parking job.
The sight of a man putting on cuff links could leave her out of breath.
Charlie served as the yearbook adviser, and his working quarters were the small office behind the journalism room, which was where Lee met him that morning.
Who could have known Gwen Stein had been coming in early Tuesdays and Thursdays to use the school’s desktop editing software in her furtive attempts to pad her college applications by launching JJS’s first “literary magazine” ( Waves We Break: Voices from JJS )?
That Gwen had a slight crush on Charlie, Lee was sure, was part of why Gwen narced—but she was also a do-gooder.
In her written complaint, Gwen noted the power imbalance of the relationship, which Lee knew Gwen considered modern thinking, some real hot feminist stuff, and which Lee believed truly dumb.
There were so many greater levers of power besides age: wealth, looks, instinct; there were certain people who would always hold the upper hand in relationships, no matter how old—they simply understood how to operate.
After that grim conversation with Cindy Watling, the head of the upper school, Lee followed her mother to the car.
Throughout the conversation with Cindy, Joan had sat mutely with her hands in her lap; she had not even objected when a suspension between five and seven days was proposed (Arnold Zimmer, the younger brother of Greg, had recently been sentenced three days for breaking a classmate’s arm).
At the end Joan had merely ducked her head toward the administrator as if half bowing in apology.
In the parking lot, Lee and Joan sat side by side in the car without the engine on, the way they had years earlier while waiting for Jamie to finish soccer.
“I hate it when you don’t talk,” Lee said. “You seriously don’t have anything to say?”
The panther on Joan’s finger stared at Lee with its even green eyes. Joan continued to look straight ahead, hands on the wheel.
Finally Lee broke. “I’m scared of you dying.” She was surprised as she said it to discover it was true. When Lee was little, she had asked Joan over and over to promise she would not die. Her mother had never acquiesced, not even right after Bill had gone.
Joan snorted. “Who says I’m dying?”
“Dad died.”
“Your dad was older.”
“But you’re going to die. One day. Right?”
“Everyone has a difficult life. Everyone has a tough time. Your dad died; I am sad about it. I know you are sad too. But it’s not an excuse. You don’t need to date teachers.”
“Charlie’s only twenty-three. He teaches calculus ,” Lee added, instantly regretting it. She herself had not qualified for Calculus BC; it would serve only to remind Joan of yet another failure.
“I hope you feel stupid. In the future, if you want to do something, you should ask yourself: Would I feel stupid? After all, you have a very nice life.”
A nice life. Lee thought it presumptuous to assume her life was nice—and she was tired of being nice too, she was sick of being considerate, and appreciative simply because her dad was gone, and she understood one day her mother would be too.
She knew enough of Bill’s history to infer how he’d indulged (though some of her classmates’ parents were divorced, no one she knew had a dad who’d been married four times); she also suspected Joan had in the past indulged in her own secretive ways.
“You must have done things you knew were stupid. How could you have had any fun otherwise?”
“Who said I’ve had fun ?” Joan asked.
Finally Joan started the car. When they approached the house, she didn’t park in the garage but pulled up alongside the driveway. “Go in,” she told Lee.
“Where are you going?” Lee asked.
“Macy’s,” Joan said. There was that sale she’d seen earlier—she could find sheets for Jamie. She reversed and didn’t say bye.
Lee went to her room. One of her windows faced their neighbor, Mrs. Kim, and Lee could hear Athena whining from the yard.
Given the unanticipated disruption to her schedule, Lee hadn’t taken out the dog yet today.
Joan wouldn’t let her accept payment for walking Athena, as she claimed Mrs. Kim had already endured enough bad karma, given that she had two children whom she’d worked long hours at the dry cleaner to support, including scrimping to buy a Honda Accord for their use in high school, only for them to grow up and move away and never visit.
At the moment Lee was angry enough that she could imagine never visiting Joan again—it’s because you were a terrible mother, was what she would say.
You were emotionally stunted. It’s a miracle I turned out so normal.
Lee had a phone in her room, a slim clear handset in which all the wires and inner workings were visible. She also had Charlie’s number, though she never used it. They always simply met at his apartment. Her fingers drummed the phone’s plastic.
“Oh!” Misty said when she heard Lee’s voice.
Misty and Lee didn’t talk much, though Misty always sounded pleased to hear from Lee.
Her mother spoke with Misty more often; on occasion Lee would return home from school and see Joan with the handset, her voice sounding disgusted as she insisted: “I don’t want to go on dates. ”
“How are you?” Misty asked Lee.
“I’m fine.” Lee twisted the phone cord between her fingers. “I, ah. Wanted your advice on something.”
“All right,” Misty said, clearly interested, and already Lee felt better.
Misty had always held a distinct, if faint, fascination for Lee.
She understood Misty was biologically her mother, but Misty seemed to live so differently—it wasn’t only her energy, her clothes and hair, but also the practical elements Lee observed.
What would it be like moving around all the time?
Or having a mom who was really fun for a stint but could abruptly descend into hysterics?
The boyfriends too, and there were so many, had always seemed suspect—Lee could not conceive of having her personal space constantly invaded by a rotating cast of construction managers and novelists.
Joan had told Lee about Misty when Lee was eight.
“People will talk” was how Joan explained things.
And over the years people did talk, but usually not to Lee—they assumed she was adopted, which they were sensitive enough not to refer to directly but alluded in circles around, waiting for Lee’s confirmation.
Sometimes when other mothers saw Joan with her at school, Joan’s face blank and back stiff, Lee’s hand and hers near but not touching, Lee could detect a hint of dismay, of nosiness shrouded in what the women might claim was concern—they did not think someone like Joan could truly have Lee’s best interests at heart.
It wasn’t that Joan didn’t have her best interests, Lee knew. It was only that she didn’t understand; she had come from an ocean away, from Taiwan. She’d never had casual boyfriends; she’d basically married the first guy she’d ever dated (Joan’s children didn’t know about Milton and never would).
Lee told Misty what had happened. She tried to be honest: she included even the details that made her look bad, like asking to see Charlie’s apartment. When she finished, there was a stretch of silence. “Why are you telling me this?” Misty asked.
“Just to get your perspective.”
“What did your mother say about the whole thing?”
Lee told her.
“Well,” Misty said, “she’s completely right.”
“Right,” Lee repeated. Her heart pounded; she had not considered that Misty might agree with Joan. “Right about what?”
“All of it. It’s some old dude you were with, right? Sounds like a wack job.”
“He’s not that old. And he’s been through a lot.” Lee paused. “His brother died.”
“Everyone has issues,” Misty said without sympathy. “Jesus, you and a teacher. Your mom must have been out of her mind when she heard.”
“No. She just sat in her car and then drove off to go shopping.”