Chapter 6 Nicola #2
The corner of Kemy’s mouth tics down into a frown.
She half closes her laptop and turns toward me.
“It’s really nice to meet you, Nicola. I’m not sure if you know, but we’re about to lose our electronic devices for the weekend, and one of my students requested a letter of recommendation that needs to be submitted by the end of today. ”
“It’s fine, really—” I start, but Zach apparently feels otherwise.
“And then after you press submit, it’ll be something else.”
“I’m a busy woman.”
“All those Heritage Foundation articles aren’t going to write themselves.”
Kemy appears ready to argue, but Zach’s already shepherding me to the next row of seats.
“This is Hannah.” A mousy girl wearing a jumper, like an elementary-schooler posing for her school portrait, shrinks farther back into her seat.
She’s much younger than the rest of us, in her early twenties maybe, with baby fat still clinging to her cheeks.
“Hannah doesn’t talk much. Say ‘hello,’ Hannah.
” She nods slightly, bobbed hair wobbling around her jawline.
“And this”—Zach holds out his hand toward the final club member, like she’s the pièce de résistance of his tour—“is Ros.” He pronounces her name like the Friends character: Ross.
“It’s so wonderful to meet you.” Ros’s blond hair has been spritzed into loose waves; when she shakes my hand, I catch a whiff of what I imagine those Herbal Essences commercials smelled like back in the nineties.
She speaks with a thick, husky drawl that feels practiced, like instead of being passed down from mother to daughter, it was inherited from reruns of Designing Women.
“We were all hoping you’d come this weekend, especially since I’m betting things have been a little tough at home. ”
“You could say that.”
“Honey, we’ve all been there.” She pats the seat across from her.
Zach heaves first my bag, then his own, into the overhead compartment and slides into the seat beside the window, leaving me to take the aisle.
“You’ll see when we get to the lodge. You’re going to love it there.
It’s like summer camp for grown-ups. We have bonfires, sing-alongs, booze. ”
“So much booze,” Zach adds.
“So much booze.” Ros glances at Connor, who’s ticking off items on his clipboard. “I need to show you some photos before our phones get confiscated.”
“Of the girls?”
She hums affirmatively, swiping through her photo album before settling on the one she wants.
She passes the phone to him. “That’s Lillie in her school’s production of Chicken Little.
She told us she’d be playing Chicken Little, and for weeks, she’d drag us all into the living room and make us watch while she practiced running around in circles, shouting, ‘The sky is falling! The sky is falling!’ The night of the show, we get to the auditorium, so excited to see our little girl in her first starring role, and it turns out, she’s playing a sheep who doesn’t even have any lines.
Afterward, we told her she was such a good sheep, she stole the whole damn show, but she cried all the way home.
” I peer over at the photo. A little girl, maybe in second or third grade, sulks with her arms crossed against her chest. Cotton balls have been glued to her long-sleeved shirt; her nose is painted black, and black mittens fit snugly over both her hands.
“She was the cutest little sheep, though, wasn’t she? ”
“The cutest.”
He returns the phone. Ros gives her daughter one last wistful glance before swiping to a new photo. “And Brooke went to the eighth-grade dance with her boyfriend.”
Zach does a mock double take. “Wait, what? Brooke has a boyfriend? When did that happen?”
“A few months ago.”
“Oh my god, tell me everything. How did they meet? Who declared their love first?”
Ros passes the phone back to him. Brooke, wearing a floor-length gown with dingy sneakers underneath, scowls at the camera, clearly embarrassed by her parents’ need to memorialize her first school dance.
Sitting between them, I assumed I’d be included in the conversation, yet they’re talking around me like I’m not even here.
It stings, even though I know these two may not have seen each other in a while, maybe not since the last retreat, and want to catch up.
Still, it pulls me right back to Ms. Landry’s classroom—to the teachers going about their business while I linger in the doorway like a lonely ghost.
“I wish I could tell you. Brooke’s entered that phase where every question only merits a one-word answer.
How was school? Fine. Do you want takeout for dinner?
Sure. Do you have any plans for the weekend?
Dunno. I feel like I have a thirteen-year-old stranger living under my roof.
My husband says she’ll grow out of it. I’m like, sweet Jesus, when? ”
“Nic could probably tell you,” Zach says, returning the phone. “She teaches elementary school.”
“Do you really? They didn’t say much about what you did on—”
Connor clears his throat at the front of the bus, and we fall silent.
A warning: Don’t disclose anything about our parents.
Zach and Ros share an annoyed look, but instead of feeling like an imposition, it reminds me that someone else on this bus is even more of an outsider than I am.
That, unlike the driver, I’m now a member of this club, now party to its secrets.
That I belong here.
“How long have you been teaching?” Ros asks.
“Almost fifteen years.”
“Bless you, because I could never.”
“It’s not as hard as you think.” A lie. It’s absolutely as hard as they think, probably much harder.
“I actually learn the most about my students when they’re not talking to me.
They’ll come into my classroom after school and gossip about who’s bullying who, who’s copying their homework assignments, who has a crush on a classmate.
You could try carpooling your daughter and some of her friends.
You might be surprised what you overhear. ”
“I don’t think they’re going to open up about anything important when I’m right there.”
“Believe me, they forget you even exist.”
“All right.” Connor claps his hands together. “Everyone’s here, so you know what time it is.”
Everyone’s here? I know there aren’t many serial killers out there, even fewer with children, but surely there must be more club members than just the five of us. What about Greer? I scan the parking garage, but all I see are strangers dragging their suitcases toward their vehicles.
Connor proceeds down the aisle with a tote bag, and, one by one, we drop our electronics inside. Kemy asks if he can come to her last. “I’m waiting on a confirmation email,” she says, clicking refresh like that might hurry it along.
I pull out my phone and, as Hannah deposits a set of headphones into the tote bag, hurriedly search for Greer’s most recent message.
Just arrived in Seattle. Where are you? I type, then press send.