The Most Dangerous Place on Earth(78)
Tristan’s mother had walked away and Emma stood like an island in the middle of the store, shifting from foot to foot. Kids clustered up, cut lines, held hands, shared sips of soda, knocked into one another, play-fought, but around her they carved a wide circle.
From the cover of a magazine a pink headline blared: KIM KARDASHIAN SEX TAPE SHOCKER. Kim herself, airbrushed to a poreless sheen, gazed sadly out. It seemed to Emma that the star’s humiliation had been perfectly arranged: she was sexy and pretty and perfectly pitiable and you wanted to be her. You hated her and yet you wanted to be her. You thought her life was constricted and her sex tape degrading and yet you saw, behind her tragic eyes, a small, triumphant smile.
Emma’s humiliation had no glamour. No one wanted it. There was nothing desirable about standing there among her former peers, scraped of makeup, hobbled and hunched and wincing in pain, as eyes darted away from her or lingered too long. It was too painful to move, so she slumped against the magazine rack and waited for her dad to appear or her strength to revive.
In her body the knives awakened, fierce and fast, rhythmic stabbing at her pelvis and hips and legs, a musical fury that halted her breath. A black curtain dropped over her eyes and lifted. She blinked at the scuffed floor and forced herself to stand upright, to lift her head. Her stomach started churning; acid tickled at the bottom of her throat. She longed to collapse on the linoleum, to drop into oblivion. She did not. She stood on her crutches and breathed in and out. She knew how to control her breath, and she had always commanded her body; she would command it now. She would hold herself up. Who will do it if you will not do it yourself? Miss Celeste had always told her. She held herself up until the black curtain dangled at the edge of her eyes, threatening to fall and take her under, held herself until, at the very last second, mercifully, her dad appeared and scooped her up, his strong arms underneath her, and looped her arms around his neck and she crumpled against him, crying into his flannel with embarrassment and hurting and relief, and yes, she thought, as her world set once more to spinning, she would let her father hold her, for a little while more.
MISS NICOLL
As Molly stood outside the principal’s office in her Fresno State sweatshirt and skinny jeans, it was impossible not to feel like a teenager in trouble.
As a high school freshman, she’d been sent to the office of the humorless Principal Boyd for the sin of reading in class—worse still, reading books unapproved by the Fresno Unified School District. Her father had been called, and had seethed through the meeting, waiting till they were alone to unleash: Jesus, Moll, why can’t you just do what they tell you? Molly had apologized, though she didn’t believe she’d done anything wrong. Wasn’t reading the whole aim of school? Oh, how adults missed the point—how they seemed to do it on purpose, to delight in their obtuseness—over and over again!
She knew she’d been summoned now because of Elisabeth Avarine’s party. She was sick about it; since seeing the posts online Sunday morning, she’d hardly eaten or slept. She’d spent the day refreshing her browser, hoping for new information that would somehow make the previous night’s stories untrue, so that she would not have to believe that the funny, friendly, utterly human kids she talked to in class each day were the same as the heartless avatars she’d seen online. Nick hadn’t called back; the kids hadn’t answered her Facebook posts. She guessed they were embarrassed to face her. She was embarrassed to face them too. But this all felt like her own private horror. What did Katie Norton want?
Molly knocked on the office door. “Come in!” came the call in response, and she stepped inside.
The office was overstuffed, cluttered, and forcedly cheerful: among the too-large furniture and stacks of files were globes of pink and purple roses placed in what seemed like strategic disarray around the room. Katie Norton sat behind the desk smiling tightly. Across from her, straightening a sheaf of papers, was Beth Firestein.
“Molly, thanks so much for coming.” Katie shifted the roses on her desk. There was a royal blue awareness ribbon pinned to her lapel. What was it for? It seemed not the time to ask.
“Of course. Why did you want to see me?”
Katie gestured toward the seat beside Beth’s. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
Molly sat, wondering why Beth was even there. Beth looked straight ahead, holding her papers to her chest.
“First of all,” Katie said, leaning forward to clasp her hands upon the desk, “we want you to know that we recognize your deep engagement with and investment in your students. We appreciate that. We really do.”
What did this have to do with the party, the accident? And who was we? The administration? Katie Norton and Beth Firestein? Molly forced a smile. “That’s nice to hear. Thanks.”
“So, we’re coming up on the end of the semester, and I believe constructive feedback is always valuable, even if it isn’t always appreciated at first…” Katie trailed off. She glanced at Beth, then nodded. “Here’s the thing. There have been some questions raised by certain members of the staff, questions about your pattern of behavior. It seems the tone that has been set in your classroom, I mean as far as student learning objectives are concerned, has not been especially productive. It has been suggested, and unfortunately I can’t disagree, that in fact it has not seemed entirely appropriate. And now it has come to our attention that there has been some activity on your part that has been found to be, for lack of a better word, untoward. Isn’t that so, Beth?”