Sofa
The week is off to a good start. Our to-do list for the wedding is almost all ticked off.
We just need to confirm the guests and book the band.
Saturday is the wedding dress fitting and I’m looking forward to it much more than I did my hen party.
At least there is no threat of Linda or Officer Harry Hung being there.
The doors at the end of the corridor fly open, and Dr Therone comes strutting towards me. She looks fired up like she is heading into battle. She points her finger at me.
‘My office, now.’
This can’t be good.
I sit on the chair at her desk, twisting my hands together in anticipation of Dr Therone’s arrival. The door slams.
‘Have you lost your mind?’ Dr Therone yells. I take a wild guess that this is about the science contest, but just in case, I play dumb.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The Pill, at a science contest for 15-year-old girls! Miss Elman, I specifically told you not to do it. I have never been so disrespected in my whole career. You have embarrassed the school, me, and most of all, you have humiliated yourself. Are you trying to sabotage your career? Is that what this is about? Because you didn’t get your promotion, so now you’re throwing your toys around like a pathetic child? ’
I swear it isn’t legal for a boss to talk to an employee like this.
‘No, I wasn’t doing anything purposefully controversial. The Pill is just science, and the girls were so passionate about it. Dr Therone, if you could have seen how well they did . . .’
‘Science? Wasn’t there a photo of the kid from Dune in the presentation?’
‘It’s not like that . . .’
‘And if they did so well, why didn’t they win the money?’
‘It shouldn’t be about winning . . .’
Dr Therone growls in the air, making me jump out of my skin. She catches her breath, leans over her desk and says, ‘Miss Elman, you are suspended with immediate effect.’
I shoot up.
‘You can’t be serious?’
‘When have I ever joked?’ she says, then points to the door. ‘You need to leave the premises now. George will show you out.’ I turn around and jerk at the sight of George, the 100-year-old school gardener, hunched by the door, ready to escort me.
‘This is a bit over the top, don’t you think?’ I say.
‘George can you . . .’ Dr Therone waves her hand at me like I’m a bag of rubbish that needs to be disposed of. George tries to usher me out, but I tell him I’ll do it myself, and I walk out of the building.
I get on my bike, my heart thumping. Suspended? I never do anything wrong. I would be crying if I wasn’t so angry about the injustice of it all. I look back at the school building, push down on the pedals and wonder how I will explain this to Josh.
*
‘Suspended?’ Josh says, standing over me. I’ve been a lump on the sofa since 10 a.m. ‘I told you not to listen to Nina.’ He still has his backpack on and looks more distressed than when I caught him masturbating in the bathroom. I frown at him.
‘That’s not helpful,’ I say. ‘Besides, Dr Therone is wrong. There is nothing taboo about—’
Josh butts in. ‘Fifteen-year-olds talking about birth control in a public competition? Amy . . .’ He says my name like I’m crazy. I pretend to watch Friends even though it’s been muted. Rachel, Monica and Phoebe are sitting in wedding dresses, eating popcorn.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Well. It’s not all that bad. At least I have time now to do the last bits for our wedding. This afternoon I booked Velvet Cats.’ It was Josh’s one and only job to book the wedding band and he knows it too. He looks away from me, feeling that back foot.
‘Oh, right. Yeah. Well. Thanks for doing that. I completely forgot,’ he mumbles.
‘They’re happy to play a general wedding playlist for us and do requests. I have also emailed The Chipping Barn and given them the final number, 55. Uncle Clarke and Aunt Margaret can’t come. Oh, and I’m uninviting Dr Therone, obviously.’
‘Okay, fine,’ Josh says. ‘But, wedding aside. What happens if you get fired?’
I bite my lip, contemplating if I should say it now or save it for when things are less heated. Josh reads my face like a book.
‘What is it?’ he says.
‘So, I may have another job . . .’ I thought if I said it quietly, it would make my revelation a little less shocking, but Josh’s eyes have bulged out of his face, so I don’t think my theory has worked.
‘Huh? How?’ He’s almost yelling.
‘Ealing Boys School want to interview me. They were at the science contest and thought I would be a good fit.’ It was a half truth – there’s no reason why he should know that I sent my application off beforehand.
The phone call came this afternoon. The man introduced himself as the one who was ‘spying on me at the science contest’.
His name is Alex, he’s the biology teacher at Ealing Boys, and he bumbled through how he saw my application before the competition and was observing me from afar.
Not that far, I thought to myself. He told me he was ‘blown away by my passion for the subject and the rapport I had with my pupils’.
They want to interview me in two weeks’ time.
Josh dumps himself onto the sofa next to me in a daze.
‘You can’t go . . .’ he says, suddenly sounding like a boy whose mother is leaving him.
‘I may not have a choice.’
‘How would that even work? You’ll have to commute to the other side of London. We’ll never see each other.’
‘We’ll have to commute from the countryside soon anyway, either that or find a local school to work at.’ Josh sulkily rolls his head. ‘What?’ I ask.
‘You’re obsessed with the countryside,’ he says, staring at the ceiling.
‘I thought we were both obsessed with the countryside. Isn’t that the whole point of everything?’
‘Yeah . . .’
‘Josh, if you don’t want to move out of London, say now . . .’
‘I do. I do,’ he mutters. He plays with the tatty pillow, pulling the zip back and forth.
‘It’s been the plan for years . . .’
‘Yeah, I know. It will be great. Don’t worry.’
There is a long silence as I watch him play with the zip. ‘Well, I may not get the job at Ealing,’ I say. I look back at Friends. Rachel has just opened the door to Joshua in her wedding dress. He looks terrified as he runs away.
‘I hope not. Who would I sit next to at lunch? And what about the fish? They will die without you,’ Josh says in a childlike tone. I laugh. ‘I don’t want you to go.’
‘Well, hopefully, it won’t come to that.’
I’m lying. That phone call from Alex made me realise just how desperate I am to move away from Clapham High, Dr Therone and even Josh to some extent. Even if I don’t get the job at Ealing, I know now I can’t go back.