Mrs. Fletcher(59)

And then Amber punched me in the nuts.

*

It was no accident. She hammered me in the scrotum—a short, brutal uppercut—when I was about ten seconds away from the finish line.

My knees buckled and I hit the floor, curling into the fetal position, waiting for the agony to subside.

“What the fuck?” I said, when I was finally able to talk. “Are you crazy?”

Amber was standing now, hugging herself so I couldn’t see her chest.

“You were choking me,” she said.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“I couldn’t breathe, Brendan. I couldn’t even move my head.”

The pain had faded a little, but it returned in a sickening wave. I looked around for a wastebasket in case I had to puke.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And don’t you ever call me a slut.” She lifted her foot like she was gonna kick me, but then she put it back on the floor. “I don’t know who you think you are.”

“I was just talking dirty. I thought you liked it.”

“Why would you think that?” Her face was really pink. “You have no idea what I like.”

I forced myself to sit up.

“I’m sorry. I just got carried away.”

“Get the fuck out,” she told me.

“Come on, Amber. Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?” She grabbed my pants off the floor and threw them at me. “Like a person with self-respect?”

She’d been pretty calm up to that point, but then her mouth stretched out and she started to cry. I could tell she didn’t want to do it—didn’t want to show that weakness in front of me—and she just kind of sniffled really hard and pulled herself together. The tears just stopped. I’d never seen anyone do that before.

“Can’t we talk about this?” I said.

But Amber was done talking. She stood there in her black-and-white panties, hugging herself and shaking her head no, like there was no point in discussing anything with me, like I wasn’t worth the effort.





One Woman’s Story


Amanda waited by the main entrance, doing her best to tune out the usual lecture day jitters and focus instead on her own sense of personal accomplishment, a feeling she rarely got to enjoy in her post-college life.

I did this! she reminded herself. I made this happen!

Technically, this was the third monthly lecture she’d overseen, but she’d felt no ownership stake in the September or October offerings—dry-as-dust tributes to the Queen of England and the Versatile Soybean, respectively—both of which she’d inherited from her predecessor. They’d been such demoralizing experiences that Amanda had seriously considered quitting her job after each of them, or at least writing a heartfelt letter of apology to everyone who’d attended, herself included.

But instead of quitting, or poisoning her work life with bitterness and negativity, she’d behaved like an adult. She’d gathered her courage and discussed the situation with her boss, and together they’d found a way to effect constructive change. Eve deserved a lot of the credit, of course. She was the one who’d floated the possibility of inviting her professor to deliver the November lecture, but she’d only done so in response to Amanda’s pitch for a more edgy, out-of-the-box approach.

Bringing a transgender guest speaker to the Senior Center was exactly the sort of bold move Amanda had been advocating, an announcement to the entire town (and beyond) that the monthly lecture series was under exciting new management, and people might want to start paying attention.

Eve was excited, too, and their shared sense of anticipation had brought them closer together, helping them to get past any lingering awkwardness related to the surprise kiss outside the restaurant. It was a relief to Amanda, and not just for professional reasons. She’d been feeling bad about the way she’d reacted that night, flinching as though Eve had been attacking her, rather than making a slightly clumsy but not completely unwelcome overture. It wasn’t that Amanda wished she’d gone to bed with her, or even kissed her back, because she knew it was a terrible idea to get involved with your boss. She just wished she’d been a little nicer about saying no, because she really liked Eve, and had actually been flattered, and even a little turned on, at least in retrospect—at the time she’d simply been flustered—because she sometimes found herself replaying the kiss in her mind when she was bored, and occasionally using it as fuel for more fully developed fantasy encounters that totally got her off, not that Eve needed to know about that.

“Excuse me,” said an elderly woman in a dark green tracksuit with pale green piping. Amanda had met her a couple of times, but couldn’t remember her name. Bev or Dot or Nat, something truncated and nearly extinct. She wore her hair in a cap of tight white curls and had a Halloween-themed Band-Aid pasted on her cheek. “What is this?”

Bev or Dot or Nat jabbed her finger at the hardback poster resting on an easel near the front desk. It featured a blown-up head shot of Margo Fairchild, smiling blandly, like an upscale realtor.

NOVEMBER MONTHLY LECTURE

WEDNESDAY, 7 PM

MARGO FAIRCHILD, Ph.D.

ONE WOMAN’S STORY

“She’s a local professor,” Amanda explained. “A very inspiring person.”