The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(9)

And after that she’ll still have to get through seven more days before summer vacation begins.

Well—two more full ones after this. Beginning on Monday, they have a week of half days before the school year trudges to an end at last.

It’s not that her current students are such a bad bunch of kids. For the most part they’ve been spirited, avid learners. Over her decade of teaching in this small Massachusetts town, Elena has only had one—maybe two—groups where the challenging kids outnumbered the pleasures. But the long Memorial Day weekend—a cruel teaser of a break, she has often thought—always marks the beginning of the end. Everyone is fidgety and no one feels like being in school for almost another month. Especially when the gray chill of New England spring gives way to warm, sunny days that create restlessness in the kids and a greenhouse effect in the un-air-conditioned classroom.

Elena’s computer, on the carrel by the window, sounds another alert. Darn. Someone is trying to instant-message her. That’s not unusual—just distracting. She usually keeps the volume muted while she’s teaching, but she turned it on this morning before the students arrived and forgot to turn it off again. Her friend had sent her one of those funny YouTube videos in an e-mail—one that was totally inappropriate to watch in an elementary school classroom, with or without the kids present—but it’s June. Everyone at Northmeadow Elementary School is slacking off. Even the teachers.

“Ms. Ferreira! Your computer just—”

“Thank you, Michael. Right now we are not worrying about my computer. We are worrying about the stegosaurus. Or are we? Does anyone know whether the stegosaurus would want to eat us if we ran into one? Would we have to worry about that? Raise your hand if you know.”

“We can’t run into one,” Michael blurts as several others raise their hands, “because humans and dinosaurs can’t be alive at the same time! Dinosaurs have been dead for sixty-five million years!”

The kid is smart as a whip. If he weren’t so darned disruptive, she’d be more willing to appreciate his intelligence.

With a sigh, she agrees that humans and dinosaurs did not coexist. “But if they did,” she adds patiently, “humans would have nothing to fear from stegosauruses because they’re herbivores. Raise your hands, please . . . who knows what an herbivore is?”

Naturally, Michael does. After defining herbivore—without raising his hand—he asks if she’s going to check her computer.

“Not right now,” Elena tells him, the patient smile straining her cheek muscles.

Just six hours and forty-four minutes . . .

And then just seven more days . . .

The moment Kay Collier sees the message pop up on her computer screen, she knows what it must be about.

Meredith.

She’s been sitting here thinking about Meredith in her small home office off the kitchen ever since she got back from her rainy morning walk a little while ago. That’s when she got online and spotted the blog entry written by Meredith’s daughter.

A china teacup filled with jasmine tea has long since grown cold beside her keyboard as she struggled with how—and whether—to post a comment in response. No words of comfort she’s conjured so far seem even remotely appropriate for such an overwhelming tragedy.

But BamaBelle’s brief query demands nothing more than a simple, Yes, I’m here.

After Kay types the three words and hits Send, there’s a long pause, as if Bama is trying to figure out how to word the tragic message she needs to deliver.

Sparing her the ordeal, Kay writes, Terrible news. You saw?

This time, the answer is instantaneous. Yes. So upset.

Me too. What the hell happened?

Then, realizing she might have just offended BamaBelle, one of the more ladylike members of the blogger network, she adds, Sorry. Pardon my French. I just—

Bama’s response pops up before she can finish. I didn’t know she was sick again. Did you?

No clue. Guess she didn’t want anyone to know.

Feel so helpless.

Me too. Have you talked to anyone else?

No. You?

No.

Kay stares glumly into space, trying to think of something else to say.

Grandmotherly Meredith was everybody’s friend, the heart and soul of their online group. She was always there when you needed her, the first to pop up with a comforting word or a virtual hug—indicated by multiple parentheses around a person’s name.

((((((((((((Kay))))))))))))) was the last thing Meredith ever wrote to her, in final response to a heartfelt private message exchange just last week.

She sounded normal in the post she wrote Saturday about gardening, she writes now to BamaBelle. Did you read that?

Yes. That’s why I’m so freaked out.

Me too.

Kay pauses. Waits.

BamaBelle, too, seems to have run out of things to say.

Kay types, GTG.

Shorthand for got to go.

NP is the response; shorthand for no problem.

That’s the nice thing about these online friendships. You pop in and out of each other’s lives with much less ado than in real life. There’s no obligation to provide detailed explanations about why you’re coming and going.

IM me if you find out anything, Bama writes. Or call if you want to talk. I’ll give you my number.

Kay responds to Bama’s offering with her own cell number, but she’s not sure how she feels about that, because . . . because . . .