Holding Up the Universe(19)

Principal Wasserman is a wiry jumping bean of a woman. A plaque behind her desk says she’s been a principal for twenty-five years. I sit across from her, next to the boy and a woman who must be his mother.

Principal Wasserman says to me, “Your dad should be here any minute.”

Suddenly I feel like I’m going to throw up because I’ve just gone reeling back in time to the worst moment of my life. I was in fifth grade, in the middle of a school assembly, when the principal found me and led me out of the auditorium in front of everyone. She took me to the office, where my dad was waiting along with a school counselor. A big box of Kleenex sat on the corner of the principal’s desk, and that was what I focused on. It was such a big box, as if they’d created it especially for that moment.

“Your mom is in the hospital and we have to leave now.”

“What do you mean?”

He had to repeat it three times before I could understand, and even then I thought it was a terrible joke, that they’d all conspired for some reason to play this really cruel trick on me.

“Libbs?”

I look up as my dad walks in. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

Someone brings in a chair for him, and then the principal tells everyone what happened in the cafeteria.

The boy’s mom is staring at her son like he’s Rosemary’s baby. She says, “There’s got to be some sort of explanation as to why on earth you would do such a thing.”

My dad says to her, “I’d like to hear the explanation that could make me understand this.”

The principal speaks over them. “I want to hear from Jack and Libby.”

Everyone looks at us.

“He grabbed me.”

“How did he grab you?”

“He launched himself at me and held on like I was a flotation device and he was the last man off the Titanic.”

This boy, Jack, clears his throat. “That’s not exactly how it happened.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Really?”

But he’s not looking at me. He’s too focused on trying to seduce Principal Wasserman. He leans forward in his chair and talks in this low, drawling voice like he’s conspiring with her. “It was stupid. The whole thing was stupid. Is stupid. I’ve just …” He glances at his mom. “The past couple of years haven’t been so easy.” He looks at Principal Wasserman in this superintense way, like he’s trying to hypnotize her. “I’m not saying there’s any excuse for what I did, because I doubt there’s anything I can say to you to justify what happened out there …”

He’s a snake charmer, this one, but lucky for me, Principal Wasserman isn’t a fool. She cuts him off and turns to me. “I’d like to hear what precipitated the punch in the mouth.”

My dad goes, “You punched him?”

As evidence, Jack points to his face.

I say, “He grabbed me.”

“Technically, I hugged her.”

“It wasn’t a hug. It was a grab.”

Principal Wasserman goes, “Why did you grab her, Jack?”

“Because I was being an idiot. I didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t trying to scare her. Wasn’t trying to bully her. I wish I had a better reason, believe me.” His eyes are going, You will forgive me. You will forget this ever happened. You will love me as all the others do.

“Did you feel threatened, Libby?”

“I didn’t feel great, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But did you feel threatened? Sexually?”

Oh my God.

“No. Just humiliated.”

Even more so now, thanks.

“Because we don’t take sexual assault lightly.”

Jack’s mother leans forward in her chair. “Principal Wasserman, I’m an attorney, and I’m as concerned as you are—if not more so—about what’s transpired here today, but until we—”

Principal Wasserman says again, “I want to hear from Jack and Libby.”

Next to me, I can feel the life go out of this boy. I glance over at him, and he looks like a shell, like someone came along and sucked away every ounce of his blood. For whatever moronic reason he grabbed me, I know he didn’t mean it like that.

So I say, “It wasn’t sexual. At all. I never felt threatened in that way.”

“But you hit him.”

“Not because I felt assaulted.”

“Why did you hit him, then?”

“Because he grabbed me in a totally nonsexual but still really annoying and humiliating way.”

The principal folds her hands on her desk. Her eyes are fixed on us like she’d turn us to stone, if only she could. “Fighting on school property is a serious charge. So is vandalism.” And it takes me a minute. She holds up a scan of a photograph, which I don’t need to look at because I already know what’s there. She says to Jack, “Do you know anything about this?”

He leans forward to study the picture. Sits back again, shaking his head. “No, ma’am, I do not.” Ma’am.

My dad leans in. “Let me see that, please.”

As he takes the piece of paper, Principal Wasserman says, “I’m afraid someone has defaced one of our school bathrooms with derogatory comments about your daughter. I assure you it is going to be dealt with. I don’t take something like this lightly either.” She looks at Jack again. His mom looks at him. My dad looks at him, his jaw tensing so much I’m worried it will crack in half.