Chapter Six
Chapter Six
After an urgent text from the Parents League the night before—and after losing a coin toss with Oliver—I pick up L’Wren for a meeting at the home of Lorraine Duncan.
To blatantly disregard an “emergency meeting” of the Parents League, held at the league president’s home, is like sending a townwide memo that you’d prefer to homeschool after all.
We arrive at her Preston Hollow mansion at exactly nine a.m. , each of us carrying a tray of freshly cut fruit.
At the arched doorway, Lorraine’s housekeeper takes our melon offering and ushers us through the great room and out into the backyard.
The rolling green lawn is already filling with mothers and a sprinkling of fathers.
To our right, several rows of folding chairs have been set out.
Beside me, L’Wren scans the crowd, larger than a typical Parents League meeting.
She’s usually so at ease in this crowd, but today L’Wren is obviously tense.
“I don’t get it. Nothing on the WhatsApp chat.
I don’t like it. They better not sneak something on to the agenda like trying to kill my Spring Pet Adoption Fair.
It took three years to get that approved. ”
“I’m sure they would have called you first.”
L’Wren stops suddenly. “Hat Lady, three o’clock.” I follow her gaze to Raleigh, a fellow school parent and the first woman Oliver dated after he moved out.
“You have to stop calling her that.”
L’Wren shrugs. “Do we say hello?”
The last time I spoke to Raleigh we were arguing in the parking lot of Oliver’s building.
She knew about Dirty Diana and she was warning me—threatening me—about what might happen if Oliver found out about it.
My mouth goes dry. “She seems busy.” And she does, deep in conversation with a group of well-dressed fifth-grade moms.
“She’s really worked her way back in,” L’Wren observes. “Think she’s still afraid of me?”
“Okay, easy. Let’s get you a snack.”
After a few pleasant hellos, we linger near the lavish spread of pastries and coffee. Our cut fruit has not made it onto the white-table-clothed buffet and L’Wren is back to worrying about why we’re really here. “If there are any surprises, I hope it’s just that someone is very ill. Or dying—”
“L’Wren!”
“What?” She presses a hand to her heart. “I mean someone really old, like Ms. Sheila, the music teacher? She’s lived a wonderful life. Her husband passed last year. I’d love to plan a goodbye ceremony for her.”
Our mutual friend Jenna bounds toward us, curls bouncing, vibrating with gossip to spill. She has made knowing everything that happens at school a full-time, unpaid job.
“I know why we’re here,” she says.
She pauses for effect until L’Wren rolls her eyes. “Jenna!”
“Remember Sarah Lamont? Rex’s mom? Well, Rex’s older sister, Harmony, is in fifth grade.
Do you know Harmony? Tall girl, cute, plays lacrosse?
Anyway, Sarah told me that apparently one of the fifth-grade girls”—Jenna stops to mouth Aubrey —“was giving lessons at the bike racks last Tuesday. On how to give a blow job.”
“What?” L’Wren half laughs, half shouts.
“Right? Lorraine had a fit when she found out. Her daughter, Savannah, told her everything. You know Lorraine’s the one who tried to get prayer back at chapel five days a week. Very into God.”
“It’s St. Mary’s. Everyone is into God.”
“But Lorraine is extra into God. She’s blaming the whole thing on the sex ed class the fifth graders just had.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I snort.
“Huh.” L’Wren’s eyes sweep the crowd. “So no one has died? Or is, like, seriously ill?”
“What? Died?” Jenna gives her a puzzled look. “Maybe Lorraine died a little that day.” Jenna clutches her heart and pretends to faint against me. We hear a spoon clanking an iced-tea glass, and she hurries us to our seats. “Don’t piss her off. Remember what Lorraine did to Adele?”
“Oh god,” L’Wren moans. “That was awful.”
“Who’s Adele?” I ask.
“Exactly,” Jenna says, meaningfully. Her eyes go big like her curls.
“Stop.” I laugh. I squeeze into a folding chair between L’Wren and Jenna.
“I’m serious. Stay out of her way. Whatever happens today, I fully intend to clutch my pearls and play along.”
I look to L’Wren for backup, but she only zips her fingers across her lips.
“Really? You too?”
She shrugs and whispers in my ear, “Not to be a complete a-hole, but you are already on unsteady ground here. Out of all of us, you especially need to stay quiet.”
“What does that mean?” Jenna asks, instantly curious.
I shake my head just as Lorraine steps in front of us all.
Lorraine is nearly six feet tall, with perfect posture and coral lipstick that matches her coral nails.
“Thank you, everyone, for being here on such short notice.” When she clasps her hands together, her diamond rings sparkle.
“I know we all have busy lives and busy schedules and busy kiddos. But as most of you know from our group chat…” She clears her throat as if to say, Can I get through this?
I will try. For all of you. “On Tuesday, a group of our fifth-grade girls loitered at the bike racks and discussed oral sex and how to perform it. Giving explicit instructions to impressionable ears. I was horrified to hear that my own sweet daughter had received some of this information. Thank god Savannah and I are close enough that she knows she can tell her mama anything.” A plane flies overhead and for a moment I’m distracted, wondering how much money Lorraine has spent trying to get the airport’s flight path changed.
How many letters has she written, how many meetings has she held, just like this one?
“As most of you know I was very vocal about the sex ed curriculum this year. And now…” She stares with a look that says, Ah well, a fait accompli you dummies could have avoided if you’d only listened to me.
“Now, parents, you know why. Our children deserve a chance to be children. This world wants them to grow up so fast. We can’t protect them from everything, but the least we can do is send them to school in a safe space. A space where they can be children.”
Everyone is silent and keeping very still.
“I’m here today because I need all of us parents to rally and do right by our kiddos and get sex ed removed from the fifth-grade curriculum.
Can I get everyone to raise a hand if you will support me in my petition to the administration?
” Lorraine raises an arm awkwardly over her head.
One by one, hands go up. Even those on either side of me.
“L’Wren!”
“What? I can teach Halston what she needs to know myself. I’ll get her a book and leave it open on the kitchen table like my mom did.”
“This is so dumb,” I whisper. “Sex ed is educational. It has nothing to do with robbing kids of their childhoods.”
Lorraine silently counts the hands in the air.
L’Wren whispers back, “Diana. I’m telling you, if ever there was a moment to swim with the salmon, this is it. It’s not worth the enemy.”
“Wonderful!” Lorraine smiles, and hands return to laps. “But I see a few hands were not raised.”
“Yikes…” Jenna murmurs.
“All right, I understand…” Lorraine smiles, but like a saltwater crocodile, all sharp teeth and ready to snatch.
“This isn’t a dictatorship, right, y’all?
I can be fair. For those of you who do want this kind of sex talk as part of the fifth-grade curriculum, would you please come forward and explain? ”
L’Wren squeezes my knee. “Do not go forward.”
“What am I supposed to do? She’s looking right at me.”
“Disappear. Fake a phone call. Faint. I don’t know.”
I raise my hand.
Lorraine points at me. “Yes…Um, remind me of your name?”
I have introduced myself to her during at least three different volunteer fairs. “Diana Wood.” I stand at my chair, all heads swivel in my direction. “My daughter, Emmy, is in second grade.”
“Okay,” she says slowly. “So you have a young daughter and you are not concerned?”
“Well. Yes. Of course. I’m always concerned about Emmy.
If there is a parenting thing to worry about, trust me, I’ve spent a sleepless night worrying about it.
Sugar, screentime, hepatitis from a salad bar, E.
coli from a lake.” I laugh, a little too nervously, and L’Wren backs me up with a polite chuckle.
“But I think sex education is valuable and needed in the curriculum and I can’t help but notice a different problem. ”
“Which is?”
“Leave it.” L’Wren coughs.
“I think we’re talking about eliminating the very thing that could help our girls. A safe space to learn about sex. For example, these fifth-grade girls are already so focused on figuring out how to please boys. I think this kind of programming is a problem.”
“Sorry?” Lorraine makes a meal out of looking confused.
My neck grows hot at her feigned confusion.
“Not teaching them and keeping them in the dark isn’t helping our girls.
I mean, all of us here probably learned about blue balls by the time we were in middle school and thought they were a real thing.
” This gets a snicker from the room. “Because we didn’t know better.
It seems important for everyone to learn about their own bodies before worrying so much about gaining experience. And pleasing boys.”
“Oh Jesus,” L’Wren mumbles.
“I’m so confused.” Lorraine shakes her chestnut bob. “Are y’all as confused as me? ‘Diana,’ is it?”
“Yes.”
“Diana, your problem isn’t that these young girls were discussing a sexual act that they are clearly too young to understand, but rather, that they were discussing the wrong sexual act. Am I getting this right?”
“Please sit down.” L’Wren tugs at my skirt as another loud plane passes overhead. I’m sure L’Wren is hoping it’ll land on us all. “I can’t save you from this one, Diana. Please…”
“This is all to say…” My confidence falters. “I vote no on removing sex ed from the curriculum. Thank you so much for hearing me out.”