“So how are you feeling?” he asked. “You okay about all this?”
Ruth shifted her gaze to the window behind the circulation desk, taking a moment to admire the autumnal image contained within its frame: a school bus parked beneath a blazing orange maple, a bright blue sky crowning the world. She felt a sudden urge to be far away, tramping through the woods or wandering around a strange city without a map.
“I just work here,” she said. “I don’t make the rules.”
RUTH SPENT
most of first period in the lounge, chatting with Donna DiNardo, a Biology teacher and field hockey coach in her late thirties. Over the summer, after years of being miserably single, Donna had met her soulmate—an overbearing optometrist named Bruce DeMastro—through an internet matchmaking service, and they’d gotten engaged after two magical dates.
Ruth had been thrilled when she heard the news, partly because of the fairy-tale aspect of the story, and partly because she’d gotten tired of Donna’s endless whining about how hard it was to meet a man once you’d reached a certain age, which had only served to make Ruth that
much more pessimistic about her own prospects. Oddly, though, finding love hadn’t done much to improve Donna’s mood; she was a worrier by nature, and the prospect of sharing her life with another person provided a mother lode of thorny new issues to fret about. Today, for example, she was wondering whether it would be a hardship for her students if, after the big day, she asked them to address her as Ms. DiNardo-DeMastro.
Although Ruth felt strongly that women should keep their names when they married—she hadn’t done so, and now she was stuck with her ex-husband’s last name—she kept this opinion to herself, having learned the hard way that you could only lose by taking sides in matters as basic as this. She had once offended a pregnant friend by admitting—after persistent demands for her
honest opinion
—to disliking the name “Claudia,” which, unbeknownst to her, the friend had already decided to bestow upon her firstborn child. Little Claudia was eight now, and Ruth still hadn’t been completely forgiven.
“Do whatever you want,” Ruth said. “The students won’t care.”
“But DiNardo-DeMastro?” Donna was standing by the snack table, peering into a box of Dunkin’ Munchkins with an expression of naked longing. She was a heavyset woman whose body image anxieties had reached a new level of obsession now that she’d been fitted for a wedding gown. “It’s kind of a mouthful, isn’t it?”
“You’re fine either way,” Ruth assured her.
“It’s driving me crazy.” Donna lifted a chocolate Munchkin from the box, pondered it for a moment, then put it back. “I really don’t know what to do.”
With an air of melancholy determination, Donna backed away from the donut holes and helped herself to a styrofoam cup of vile coffee, into which she dumped two heaping spoonfuls of nondairy creamer and three packets of carcinogenic sweetener.
“Bruce hates hyphenated names,” she continued. “He just wants me to be Donna DeMastro.”
Ruth glanced plaintively around the room, hoping for a little backup from her colleagues, but the two other teachers present—Pete Fontana (Industrial Arts) and Sylvia DeLacruz (Spanish)—were ostentatiously immersed in their reading, none too eager to embroil themselves in the newest installment of Donna’s prenuptial tribulations. Ruth didn’t blame them; she would’ve done the same if not for her guilty conscience. Donna had been a kind and supportive friend last spring, when Ruth was the one with the problem, and Ruth still felt like she owed her.
“I’m sure you’ll work something out,” she said.
“If my name was Susan it wouldn’t be such a big deal,” Donna pointed out, drifting back toward the Munchkins as if drawn by an invisible force. “But Donna DiNardo-DeMastro? That’s too many D’s.”
“Alliteration,” agreed Ruth. “I’m a fellow sufferer.”
“I don’t want to turn into a joke,” Donna said, with surprising vehemence. “It’s hard enough to be a woman teaching science.”
Ruth sympathized with her on this particular point. Jim Wallenski, the man Donna had replaced, had been known as “Mr. Wizard” to three decades’ worth of Stonewood Heights students. He was a gray-haired, elfin man who wandered the halls in a lab coat and bow tie, smiling enigmatically as he tugged on his right earlobe, the Science Geek from central casting. Despite her master’s degree in Molecular Biology, Donna just didn’t look the part in her tailored bell-bottom pantsuits and tasteful gold jewelry. She was too earthbound, too well organized, too attentive to other people, more credible as a highly efficient office manager than as Ms. Wizard.
“I don’t know, Ruth.” Donna peered into the Munchkins box. “I’m just feeling overwhelmed by all these decisions.”
“Eat it,” said Ruth.
“What?” Donna seemed startled. “What did you say?”
“Go ahead. One Munchkin’s not gonna kill you.”
Donna looked scandalized. “You know I’m trying to be good.”
“Treat yourself.” Ruth stood up from the couch. “I gotta look over some notes. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”
After a very brief hesitation, Donna plucked a powdered Munchkin out of the box and popped it into her mouth, smiling at Ruth as she did so, as if the two of them were partners in crime. Ruth gave a little wave as she slipped out the door. Donna waved back, chewing slowly, her fingertips and lips dusted with sugar.
THE SUPERINTENDENT
and the Virginity Consultant were waiting outside Room 23, both of them smiling as if they were happy to see Ruth come clackety-clacking down the long brown corridor, as if the three of them were old friends who made it a point to get together whenever possible.
“Well, well,” said Dr. Farmer, in the jaunty tone he only trotted out for awkward situations. “If it isn’t the estimable Ms. Ramsey. Right on time.”
Glancing at Ruth’s outfit with badly concealed disapproval, he thrust out his damp, meaty paw. She shook it, disconcerted as always by the change that came over the Superintendent when she found herself face-to-face with him. From a distance he looked like himself—the handsome, vigorous, middle-aged man Ruth had met fifteen years earlier—but up close he morphed into a bewildered senior citizen with rheumy eyes, liver spots, and unruly tufts of salt-and-pepper ear hair.
“Punctuality is one of my many virtues,” Ruth said. “Even my ex-husband would agree.”
Ruth’s former husband—the father of her two children—had taught for a few years in Stonewood Heights before taking a job in nearby Gifford Township. He’d recently been promoted to Curriculum Supervisor for seventh- and eighth-grade Social Studies, and was rumored to be next in line for an Assistant Principalship at the middle school.
“Frank’s a good man.” The Superintendent spoke gravely, as if defending Frank’s honor. “Very dependable.”
“Unless you’re married to him,” Ruth said, doing her best to make this sound like a lighthearted quip.
“How long were you together?” asked the consultant, JoAnn Marlow, addressing Ruth in that disarmingly cordial way she had, as if the two of them were colleagues and not each other’s worst nightmare.
“Eleven years.” Ruth shook her head, the way she always did when contemplating the folly of her marriage. “I don’t know
what
I was thinking.”
JoAnn laid a cool, consoling hand on Ruth’s arm. As usual, she was done up like a contestant in a beauty pageant—elaborate hairdo, gobs of makeup, everything but the one-piece swimsuit and the sash that said “Miss Morality”—though Ruth didn’t understand why she bothered. If you were determined to live like a nun—and determined to broadcast this fact to the world—why waste all that time making yourself pretty?
“Must be so awful,” JoAnn whispered, as if Ruth had just lost a close relative under tragic circumstances.
“Felt like a ton of bricks off my chest, if you want the truth. And Frank and I actually get along much better now that we don’t have to see each other every day.”
“I meant for the children,” JoAnn explained. “It’s always so hard on the children.”
“The girls are fine,” Ruth told her, resisting the urge to add,
not that it’s any of
your
business
.
“Cute kids,” said Dr. Farmer. “I remember when the oldest was just a baby.”
“She’s fourteen now,” said Ruth. “Just as tall as I am.”
“This is where the fun starts.” He shook his head, speaking from experience. His middle child, Andrea, had been wild, a teenage runaway
and drug addict who’d been in and out of rehab numerous times before finally straightening out. “The boys start calling, you have to worry about where they are, who they’re with, what time they’re coming home—”
The bell rang, signaling the end of first period. Within seconds, the hallways were filled with platoons of sleepy-looking teenagers, nodding and muttering to one another as they passed. Some of them looked like little kids, Ruth thought, others like grown-ups, sixteen-and seventeen-year-old adults. According to surveys, at least a third of them were having sex, though Ruth knew all too well that you couldn’t always guess which ones just from looking at them.
“Girls have to protect themselves,” JoAnn said. “They’re living in a dangerous world.”
“Eliza took two years of karate,” Ruth reported. “She made it up to her green belt. Or maybe orange, I can’t remember. But Maggie, my younger one, she’s the jock. She’s going to test for her blue belt next month. She does soccer and swimming, too.”
“Impressive,” noted Dr. Farmer. “My wife just started taking Tai Chi. She does it with some Chinese ladies in the park, first thing in the morning. But that’s not really a martial art. It’s more of a movement thing.”
The adults vacated the doorway, making way for the students who began drifting into the classroom. Several of them smiled at Ruth, and a few said hello. She’d felt okay right up to that point, more or less at peace with the decision she’d made. But now, quite suddenly, she became aware of the cold sweat pooling in her armpits, the queasy feeling spreading out from her belly.
“I was talking about spiritual self-defense,” said JoAnn. “We’re living in a toxic culture. The messages these girls get from the media are just so relentlessly degrading. No wonder they hate themselves.”
Dr. Farmer nodded distractedly as he scanned the nearly empty hallway. His face relaxed as Principal Venuti rounded the corner by
the gym and began moving toward them at high speed, hunched in his usual bowlegged wrestler’s crouch, as if he were looking for someone to take down.
“Here’s our fourth,” said Dr. Farmer. “So we’re good to go.”
“Looks like it,” agreed Ruth. “Be a relief just to get it over with.”
“Oh, come
on,”
JoAnn said, smiling at Ruth to conceal her annoyance. “It’s not gonna be
that
bad.”
“Not for you,” Ruth said, smiling right back at her. “It’s gonna be just great for you.”
SOME PEOPLE
enjoy it
.
That was all Ruth had said. Even now, when she’d had months to come to terms with the fallout from this remark, she still marveled at the power of those four words, which she’d uttered without premeditation and without any sense of treading on forbidden ground.
The incident had occurred the previous spring, during a contraception lecture Ruth delivered to a class of ninth graders. She had just completed a fairly detailed explanation of how an IUD works when she paused and asked if anyone had any questions. After a moment, a pale, normally quiet girl named Theresa McBride raised her hand.
“Oral sex is disgusting,” Theresa declared, apropos of nothing. “You might as well French-kiss a toilet seat. You can get all sorts of nasty diseases, right?”
Theresa stared straight at Ruth, as if daring her to challenge this incontrovertible fact. In retrospect, Ruth thought she should have been able to discern the hostile intent in the girl’s unwavering gaze—most of the ninth graders kept their eyes trained firmly on their desks during the more substantive parts of Sex Ed—but Ruth wasn’t in the habit of thinking of her students as potential adversaries. If anything, she was grateful to the girl for creating what her grad school professors used to call “a teachable moment.”
“Well,” Ruth began, “from what I hear about oral sex, some people enjoy it.”
The boys in the back of the room laughed knowingly, an attitude Ruth chalked up more to bravado than experience, despite all the rumors about blowjobs being as common as hand-holding in the middle school. Theresa reddened slightly, but she didn’t avert her eyes as Ruth continued with the more serious part of her answer, in which she discussed a few basic points of sexual hygiene, and described the body’s ingenious strategies for separating the urinary and reproductive systems, even though they shared a lot of the same real estate. She finished by enumerating the various STD’s that could and could not be transmitted through oral-to-genital contact, and recommending the use of condoms and dental dams to make oral sex safer for both partners.
“Done properly,” she said, “cunnilingus and fellatio should be a lot more pleasant, and a lot cleaner, than kissing a toilet seat. I hope that answers your question.”
Theresa nodded without enthusiasm. Ruth returned to her lecture, removing a diaphragm from its plastic case and whizzing it like a miniature Frisbee at Mark Royalton, the alpha male in the back row. Acting on reflex, Mark snatched the device from the air, and then let out a melodramatic groan of disgust when he realized what he was holding.
“Don’t be scared,” Ruth told him. “It’s brand-new. For display purposes only.”
IT WAS
her own fault, she thought, for not having seen the trouble brewing. The atmosphere in the school, and around town, had changed a lot in the past couple of years. A small evangelical church—The Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth—led by a fiery young preacher known as Pastor Dennis, had begun a crusade to cleanse Stonewood Heights of all manner of godlessness and moral decay, as if this
sleepy bedroom community was an abomination unto the Lord, Sodom with good schools and a twenty-four-hour supermarket.
Pastor Dennis and a small band of the faithful had held a successful series of demonstrations outside of Mike’s World of Video, convincing the owner—Mike’s son, Jerry—to close down a small “Adults Only” section in the back of the store; the church had also protested the town’s use of banners that said “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” Tabernacle members had spoken out against the teaching of evolution at school board meetings, and initiated a drive to ban several Judy Blume novels from the middle-school library, including
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
, one of Ruth’s all-time favorites. Randall had spoken out against censorship at the meeting, and had been personally attacked in the
Stonewood Bulletin-Chronicle
by Pastor Dennis, who said that it should come as no surprise to find immoral books in the school library when the school system placed “immoral people” in positions of authority.