All Adults Here(34)
“Teacher’s pet,” Sidney said under her breath.
“Whatever,” Cecelia said. “I’ve just read it before.”
Ms. Skolnick clapped her hands. “Okay! Now let’s do a little Getting to Know You Freewrite! Everyone take out a piece of paper! And a pen! Five minutes! Write anything you want, I will never look! No one will ever know! You are free little birds, free!”
Sidney rolled her eyes. “I bet you love this, witch. Be free! Cast spells!”
Cecelia raised her hand. “May I go to the bathroom?” Ms. Skolnick nodded and pointed toward the door.
“You’re doing great,” she shout-whispered as Cecelia walked past the big desk. “Great first day so far, right?”
“Right,” Cecelia said. “Just peachy.” She stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind her. The linoleum floor was spotless and shiny, an Olympic ice-skating rink. Cecelia dragged her sneakers until they squeaked. She was in no hurry. The hall was wide and empty, with lockers on either side. The bathroom was fifty feet ahead, and she ambled, peeking into the small classroom door windows as she went. Children were differently bored in every room. Bored in math class, bored in French class. Heavy eyelids; it was still so early in the morning. After a whole summer of sloth, the students weren’t used to filling their brains at such an hour. Television, yes. Irregular verbs, no. They would all adjust, in time.
On the wall beside the bathroom door was a large bulletin board, filled with printed-out computer paper advertisements for extracurriculars, athletic team tryouts, fall musical auditions, and clubs. At her old school, Cecelia had done debate, but that didn’t seem to be on offer. She scanned past the comedy and tragedy masks—the play was The Music Man, which seemed awfully on the nose for a small town. She had no interest in soccer or volleyball, inane exercises in futility. Dance, at least, offered artistic expression and beauty, but that wasn’t for her, either. No, the only thing that caught Cecelia’s eye was the sheet of paper in the lower-right corner of the board, clearly the loser’s spot: PARADE CREW! HELP DESIGN AND BUILD THE FLOAT FOR THIS YEAR’S HARVEST FESTIVAL! NO SKILLS REQUIRED, and below that, Ms. Skolnick’s name and homeroom, which Cecelia already knew how to find. Building a float for a parade was something no New York City school could offer. Take that, cosmopolitan elite! Cecelia pictured herself with a hammer and some bunting and buckets of glitter. Why not.
Chapter 15
Strick Brick
When Astrid felt unsatisfied about the time she was spending with her children, she would just show up and pay for a meal. It had worked when they were in college and subsisting on packaged Ramen noodles and peanut butter, and it worked now, at least on Porter, who could always be swayed by the promise of risotto and a glass of wine in the middle of the day. Because she did it when she had nothing in particular to say, Astrid thought it might also work when she did. Astrid did not like to apologize. She did not like to admit that she’d done anything wrong. It had gotten easier to forget about apologizing after Russell died—without a spouse to bicker with, Astrid was down to apologizing for accidental toe-steps and bumping into people with her shopping cart.
Elliot’s construction company, Strick Brick, was housed in a building of their design, which was just outside downtown, and therefore out of the landmarked zone. The building was bright blue and hideous, with the upside-down proportions of a North Carolina beach house, spindly stilts lifting the structure twenty feet in the air, with an open-air carport underneath. A small house had been there for decades, but Elliot had bought it, torn it down, and replaced it with a gleaming new building, built to the very edges of the property line. Some people had complained, and Astrid admitted, in unguarded moments, that if it had been someone else’s son, she would have been very put off by the building’s incongruousness to its neighbors, but because Elliot was her son, and the project meant so much to him, she was proud, or at least said so in public.
After college, Elliot had badly wanted to go to law school, but his LSAT scores had been low, and he hadn’t gotten in anywhere he wanted to go, and it had taken him a while to figure out what he wanted to do. Russell had been a lawyer, and that was part of it, of course—Astrid could see it, the direct line that Elliot had always imagined, and that line breaking into pieces. He’d worked construction during summers in college; all his Clapham friends did. It was outdoors and sweaty and they got paid in cash and their muscles got bigger, everyone won. And when he took a job in construction after graduation, it was supposed to be temporary, until it wasn’t. Seven years later, Elliot had his own company. Most people would see that as success, but not Elliot.
Astrid parked her car outside his building. “I’m here,” she said. “Come out, it’s lunchtime.” Five minutes later, Elliot jerked open the front door of the office and barreled out onto the flagstone sidewalk.
“I don’t have much time,” he said.
“Good,” said Astrid. “Neither do I. Just give me directions, anywhere is fine.”
He pointed to the right, and they walked quickly up the sidewalk, occasionally ducking under low branches. Elliot was half a foot taller than she was, but Astrid moved double time and kept up.
“Lunch with the boss!” Astrid said as she hurried alongside him. It was warm and sticky out, the air nearly humid enough to see. Her voice always got a little bit higher around Elliot, compensating for his often sour baseline mood. Perkiness was not her natural habitat, and she could hear how odd she sounded, but she could never quite figure out how to fix it.