The Nix(87)

Then it’s Henry’s turn. All the girls are waiting, watching, Margaret is watching, they all see him: Henry smacking his glove with his fist and getting into an approximation of an infielder’s crouch. Faye suddenly feels very protective of him. She senses that the class wants to be entertained, wants to hear more of Margaret’s intoxicating cruelty, like they’re rooting for Henry to fail. Faye can do nothing but watch and hope. And when she looks at Margaret again, she finds Margaret is looking right back at her, and Faye’s stomach does a loop, she blushes, her eyes grow wide, she feels somehow that she’s already lost at whatever kind of showdown this is, and Margaret’s cold scrutiny makes the hierarchy very clear: Margaret can say whatever she wants right now, and Faye cannot stop her.

So they’re all watching Henry as the coach hits the ball. It bounces across the dirt field and Henry bounds to his left to retrieve it and Faye is angry. Not at Margaret but at Henry. Angry at his imminent public failure, that he put her in this position, in this stupid rivalry with Margaret Schwingle. Angry that she feels responsible for him, accountable for his weaknesses as if they were her own. He seems to be waddling like a toddler, and Faye hates him right now. She’s attended enough weddings to know that essential line from the liturgy: And the two shall become one. Everyone seems to think this is really romantic, but Faye has always been appalled by the thought. And this moment, right now, this is why. It’s like taking all your fallibility and doubling down.

But this is Henry’s moment. He’s running to fetch a baseball.

And wouldn’t you know it, he does so flawlessly. Snares the ball, plants his feet, and throws directly and precisely and quickly to first base. Perfect. The archetype of ground-ball fielding technique. And the coach claps and the boys clap and Margaret says nothing at all.

Soon it’s their turn in the toilets, and Faye sits on the tile floor feeling miserable. Though the moment passed without incident, Faye was ready for an encounter with Margaret, and her body still registers that tenseness. She’s one big exposed nerve right now, her insides still squawking. She had been so ready for a fight that it seems as if she actually had the fight. And it does not help that Margaret is here with her, in the bathroom, is sitting in the neighboring toilet stall. Faye can feel her presence almost like an oven.

The toilet in front of her is spotless and white and shiny and smells like bleach—the work of home ec girls in here moments before. The teacher paces behind them explaining the perils of an unclean toilet: scabies, salmonella, gonorrhea, various resident microorganisms.

“There is no such thing as a too-clean toilet,” she says. She hands them new scrubbing brushes. They crouch on the floor—some of them sit—and they wash the bowl, jostling the water, foaming the water. They scour and cleanse and rinse.

“Remember the handle,” Mrs. Schwingle says. “The handle might be the dirtiest of all.”

The teacher shows them how much bleach to use, how to contort their arms to most effectively clean under the lip of the bowl. She tells the girls how to keep their inevitable future children healthy, how to stop colds from spreading by keeping a clean bathroom, how to prevent toilet germs from infecting the rest of the house.

“Germs,” she says, “can be propelled into the air when the toilet is flushed. So when you flush, close the cover and step away.”

Faye is scrubbing when, from the next stall over, Margaret speaks. “He looked cute out there,” she says.

And Faye doesn’t know who she’s talking to, finds it unlikely that Margaret would be talking to her, so she keeps scrubbing.

“Hello?” Margaret says, and she knocks lightly on the wall. “Anybody home?”

“What? Yes?” Faye says.

“Hello?”

“Are you talking to me?”

“Um, yeah?” Then Margaret’s face appears beneath the john wall—she’s leaning over, she’s almost upside down, her huge blond curls hang comically off the top of her head.

“I was telling you,” she says, “that he looked cute out there.”

“Who?”

“Henry. Duh.”

“Oh, right, sorry.”

“I saw you watching him. You must have thought he looked cute.”

“Of course,” Faye says. “Yes. That’s what I was thinking.”

Margaret looks at Faye’s necklace, on which she’s wearing Henry’s ring. His big opal-stoned class ring. She says, “Are you going to put that ring on your left hand?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you two were really serious, you’d wear it on your left hand. Or he could get another ring. And then you’d have one for your neck and one for your left hand. That’s what Jules did.”

“Yes, right.”

“Jules and I are very serious.”

Faye nods.

“We’ll be married soon. He has a lot of prospects.”

Faye keeps nodding.

“A lot.”

Their teacher notices the chattering and walks over, hands on hips, saying, “Margaret, why aren’t you cleaning?,” and Margaret gives Faye this look—conspiratorial, like We’re in this together, that sort of look—and disappears behind the wall.

“I’m cleaning it mentally, Mom,” Margaret says. “I’m visualizing it. I’ll remember it better that way.”