Class(41)

“I was just kidding!”

“Sweetie, people call them private parts because they’re private. You can’t talk about other people’s. You know that, right? Or touch them.”

“We were just kidding around! I told her she had a penis, and she told me I had a vagina.”

Karen winced. She had never liked the word vagina and did her best to avoid all mention of it, especially with her husband and even, when possible, with her gynecologist. In college, the preferred term had been pussy. But now that word too seemed embarrassing and like a relic from the days when being a “bad girl” was considered a good thing, which had never made that much sense to Karen. “Well, even if it’s all just a joke, her mom doesn’t want you to do it anymore,” she said. “Mia feels embarrassed when you accuse her of having boy parts.”

“She didn’t seem embarrassed,” said Ruby.

“Well, her mom says she was.”

“I’m the one who should be embarrassed. I’m, like, the only person in my entire class who doesn’t have their own electronic device!”

“What?” said Karen.

“Yisabella and Destiny have their own iPhones. And a bunch of other kids have iPads. Even Mia has a Kindle. And I have nothing. It’s not fair.”

“Ruby—that can’t be true,” said Karen, mystified as to how the same children who received free lunch could possibly own expensive Apple products. What was she missing?

“It is true,” said Ruby.

“Well, I’m sorry, but those things cost a lot, and Daddy and I are not made of money,” said Karen, noting the irony of her making this argument when their family likely had sixteen times as much as the average Betts one. “Anyway,” she went on, keen to change the topic. “Tell me about school. Has the new visiting drama coach started?”

“We’re doing a play about slavery,” answered Ruby.

“Oh! Cool!” said Karen. “Who do you play?”

“I’m Sa’Ryah’s slave, but it’s so backward. Like, if this was the olden days, Sa’Ryah would be my slave and I would have been her master, ’cause I have light skin and she has dark. I told her that.”

“You told her that?” said Karen, aghast.

“Well, it’s true!” cried Ruby.

Not for the first time that day, Karen found herself at a loss for words.

She was clearing the plates when Matt came through the door. “Hey, stranger,” she said, struck by how handsome her husband looked in his royal-blue-and-white checked shirt. It was her favorite shirt on him, even if she preferred it tucked to untucked.

“Hey—what’s going on in Macaroni-Land?” said Matt. He came over and kissed Karen hello on the lips. Was it possible that, just as she’d become attracted to another man, they’d finally made up?

“Not much,” said Karen. He wasn’t just loyal, she thought. He was cute too.

And Ruby adored him. At the sight of him, she rushed into his arms, crying, “Daddddddyyyyyy.”

“Hello, Scooby Doobie the Ruby,” he said. Sometimes it seemed as if the less the fathers did, the more their offspring received them as heroes.

While Matt read Ruby a page from The Guinness Book of World Records—Ruby never tired of hearing about the tallest man, a record currently held by an eight-foot-three-inch Turk with prominent ears—Karen crafted a response to Michelle with the aim of respectfully addressing Michelle’s concerns while subtly pointing out that (a) Mia was not necessarily an innocent party in the whole thing, and (b) the whole kerfuffle was essentially over nothing.

Hi, Michelle. I’m very sorry if Ruby upset Mia and, by extension, you. I talked to her about it tonight, and she said it was just a joke between friends—and that Mia also sometimes teases her about having a vagina. That said, I’ve reminded Ruby that other people’s private parts are not to be discussed, not even as part of a game, and I think she understood. I hope we can get the girls together for a (G-rated) playdate soon! LOL, Karen



Ordinarily, Karen might have waited up to see if Michelle responded. But that night, she went to bed at the same hour as Ruby. She was unable to keep her eyes open a moment longer. She’d also reluctantly agreed to give up her Friday morning to chaperone Ruby’s class trip to a nearby botanical garden, and the school buses were leaving shortly after dawn.



As if the day ahead weren’t daunting enough, Karen woke to a bone-chilling drizzle falling from a charcoal sky. But a promise was a promise. And so, she caffeinated herself into compliance, dressed in four layers, then went to rouse Ruby.

Forty minutes later, as she headed up the bus’s narrow aisle, Karen found herself unexpectedly claustrophobic and eyeing the emergency exits. Her thoughts alighted on the field trips of her youth with their frantic scrambling for a willing but socially acceptable seatmate. To her recollection, the odd kid out (often Karen) always got paired with the teacher, bestowing on him or her instant pariah status. But that morning, Miss Tammy had already made arrangements to share her bench seat with Jayyden, no doubt with the motive of keeping a close eye on him. The two sat in the first row, just behind the driver and several rows ahead of the next student in the class.

To Karen’s surprise, Ruby wanted to share a seat with her mother. The two wound up in the third row from the back, across from Mia, who was perfectly turned out that morning in purple rain boots and a matching purple polka-dotted raincoat with a tie belt. At the sight of the girl, Karen experienced a twinge of hostility on her daughter’s behalf. It was Mia, after all, who had tattled to her mother about Ruby’s X-rated playground shenanigans. Then again, Mia was a child and Karen was an adult. “Hi, Mia!” she forced herself to say in a chirpy voice. “I like your raincoat!”