All Adults Here(73)

Chapter 32





Friendship Loveship



Porter hugged Cecelia first, quickly enveloping her niece in her arms, and then asked what had happened.

“This is my homeroom teacher, Ms. Skolnick,” Cecelia said, now casually stepping out of Porter’s arms. “I guess you two know each other?” A few strands of hair were plastered to her forehead; she looked a bit wild-eyed. Porter stroked Cecelia’s cheek with her thumb and waited for Rachel to get out of the car. The driver’s door swung open, and Rachel planted her feet on the gravel and then pulled herself up to standing.

“Hi, Rach,” Porter said.

“Rachel Skolnick, look at you! Must be a boy, you’re all belly!” Astrid said. She pointed, as if Rachel might be confused as to which belly she was talking about.

“You never say that to me,” Porter said.

“You’re having a girl!” Astrid said.

“I meant about being ‘all belly,’ what am I? All hips? All arm fat?” Porter rolled her eyes.

“Hi, Porter; hi, Astrid,” Rachel said. It was true; she looked wonderful, which was not how Porter felt except in fleeting moments when she caught sight of her current silhouette in the mirror or a shop window. Porter wanted to hug her but Rachel stayed on her side of the car. “Nice to see you both,” Rachel lied politely. “Cecelia is a wonderful student.”

“I am?” Cecelia asked.

“Of course you are!” Rachel said. “And it’s been great to have her in Parade Crew too.”

“You’re doing Parade Crew?” Porter asked. “Like, building a float? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Such a joiner!” Astrid said. “Porter was Harvest Queen.” She squeezed her daughter’s arm. It was a fact that sounded almost like a compliment.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Cecelia said.

“Would you like to come in, Rachel?” Astrid asked. “Let me pull the car in, you can park in the driveway.” She didn’t give Rachel a chance to respond before jumping back into the car and zipping back up the drive.

“I’m so sorry, we didn’t have any cell service,” Porter said. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Rachel gestured for Cecelia to answer.

“The short version is that my hand collided with someone’s face.” Cecelia immediately covered her own face with her hands.

“What?!” Porter grabbed Cecelia’s forearms and moved them aside, like curtains.

“Now tell her the longer version,” Rachel said.

Astrid honked the horn and then slammed her car door shut. “Come on, let’s go inside, I don’t want to miss anything, and there’s no reason that everyone else should hear,” she said from the front door, as if there were more foot traffic than her dog-owning neighbors jogging by twice a day. Rachel dutifully maneuvered herself back behind the wheel of her car to pull up the driveway, and Porter and Cecelia walked behind it up to the house.



* * *



—

Cecelia sat down at the kitchen table, and the other women filled in around her. Astrid quickly grabbed a bowl of blueberries from the fridge and shoved it in front of her, then thought better of it, took back the bowl of blueberries, and replaced it with a pint of ice cream and a spoon.

“I should punch people more often,” Cecelia said.

“You punched someone?! They didn’t say that on the message! They just said that you’d been in a fight and needed to be picked up!” Astrid put her hands to her cheeks. She turned toward Porter. “Do I take away the ice cream?”

Porter waved her hand. “No, don’t be ridiculous. What happened, Cece?”

Cecelia picked up the spoon and dug into the hard surface of ice cream, scraping off a quenelle of chocolate. “There is a very mean girl in my math class, and we had a disagreement. She thought that it was okay to try to shame and humiliate someone, and I disagreed.” She put the spoon into her mouth and pulled it out clean.

“Who is this girl?” Astrid asked. “What did she say? This is shocking, Cecelia! It sounds like you held the moral position, at least until you hit her. You can’t hit people, you understand. I’m sure your father will be horrified. Hitting! He never killed a bug.” She turned to Rachel. “Nicky’s a Buddhist.”

“I didn’t kill anyone, Gammy. It was one punch.” Cecelia dug out some more ice cream and then offered her spoon to Porter, who slid into the chair next to her.

“So who is this cow, anyway?” Porter asked. “I am fully prepared to hate her with you, I don’t care if she’s a child.”

“Get ready,” Rachel said. “This is actually the best part.” She looked at Cecelia—“I’m here as a family friend, not as your teacher.”

Cecelia rolled her eyes. “Her name is Sidney Fogelman. And I think she might have a broken nose. But probably not. It probably takes a lot to actually break a nose, right?”

Porter coughed up some ice cream. Astrid looked at her, eyes wide. “Fogelman? Is that Jeremy Fogelman’s daughter?” She put her hands flat on the table. “Oh dear.”

“Is he sort of good-looking, for a dad, and smells like a wet dog? That’s who picked her up. Strangely, he didn’t introduce himself.” Cecelia held out her hand for the spoon. Porter was still coughing into her napkin. Rachel sat back, put her hands on her belly, and laughed.