Getting Warmer (29 page)

His eyes darted from side to side. “No way. I don’t like snakes.”

“
Pick it up
.”

He rose slowly from his chair and approached the snake. “What am I supposed to pick it up with?”

“The same thing you brought it in with. Your hands.”

“I don’t like snakes.” He was growing pale.

“You’re coming with me. And you’re bringing the snake.” Dawna screamed when we walked in the front office, her pudgy hand flying to her mouth.

“What the—” Nicolette began, catching herself just in time.

“I need to see Dr. White,” I said, my voice quavering. “Is she in?”

If not for Lars, Dr. White probably would have fired me. She was struggling to fill one position, though, and if she sacked two teachers in one month, the union would have her head (although, like Lars, I was untenured and thus officially expendable). She called my behavior rash, cruel and unprofessional, and she expressed fear that Jared’s parents might bring a lawsuit.

“But he did it!” I said. “He left a dead snake on my chair!”

“You have no proof.”

“I have the snake. You can bet it’s got Jared’s fingerprints all over it.”

“Of course it does. You made him carry it.”

“Oh.” I stopped short and blinked at my own stupidity. I really had to start watching
CSI.

At least there were no snakes at my house. Instead, there was a tanned, older couple sitting at the kitchen island with Marjorie Wamsley.

“Natalie! I hope we didn’t scare you.” They didn’t. I’d seen Marjorie’s white Lexus SUV out front but had assumed she had dropped by to check on the staging. Marjorie slid off her stool and straightened her black blazer. Today’s was hip-length. “Meet Rob and Betty Sandler.”

“Hi.” I forced a smile.

“Natalie is house-sitting until her parents sell the property.”

Rob and Betty Sandler blinked at me, then smiled. They wore matching periwinkle blue polo shirts. Mr. Sandler wore khaki shorts, while his wife sported a white golf skirt. I, meanwhile, was dressed for an entirely different season in a black turtleneck and a gray skirt.

Most likely, Marjorie hadn’t told the Sandlers that anyone was living in the house. As Kim the stager had explained, house sellers should remove all of their personal touches so that potential buyers can project their lives onto the home’s blank, stylish canvas. An inhabitant was the ultimate personal touch. Suddenly, I was embarrassed. I hadn’t made my bed this morning. Even worse, the Sandlers were going to think I stocked my bathrooms with champagne.

“The house isn’t on the market yet, is it?” I asked Marjorie, keeping my voice as casual as possible even as I wondered where I was going to live should Rob and Betty Sandler ask for a quick closing.

“No! Of course not!” Rob and Betty’s eyes dropped to the granite countertop. Marjorie tilted her head to the side. Her blond hair didn’t move. “Rob and Betty are active seniors looking for a home in North Scottsdale. I am committed to putting them in their dream house. Your parents said it would be all right to give them a sneak preview.” She smiled, holding my gaze. This was not my house, and we both knew it.

“The property won’t go on the MLS until January,” Marjorie continued. “Of course, if Mr. and Mrs. Sandler fall in love with the house . . .” She raised her eyebrows. I could practically see the numbers whirling in her head: both sides of the commission! On top of the sum she made last time around! “Wouldn’t a quick sale be a wonderful Christmas present for your parents?”

“Now, now!” Mr. Sandler laughed. “We haven’t even made an offer yet!”

“The great room is spectacular,” Mrs. Sandler murmured.

 

 

Once they left, I drank the champagne while soaking in my parents’ oversized bathtub. Vanilla-scented candles burned. Piano music flowed from my portable CD player. I pushed a button with my big toe, and the Jacuzzi jets began to whir. The water churned and swirled, foaming the bubble bath like a meringue. Internally, I chanted the home spa mantras.
Pamper yourself. Relax.
Jets pounded water between my shoulder blades and against my hips.
Breathe deeply. Let the tension fall away.

This was pathetic. But the champagne was surprisingly good. I poured another glass. And then another. The glass was tiny.

Jonathan answered his phone on the first ring. “I was just drinking champagne in the bathtub,” I blurted into the phone on my mother’s nightstand. “My parents are moving. They hired a stager, and she put champagne in the bathroom, and I just drank it. Do you know what a stager is? How are you?”

He paused for so long, I began to think he’d hung up. “I’m okay,” he said finally. “I don’t know what a stager is.”

“A stager is someone who makes a house look good so it will sell. But it’s more than that. She sets the house up so people can imagine themselves living there and having this perfect, make-believe life. Like, they’re going to squeeze fresh orange juice every morning and drink champagne in the bathtub. And they’re going to play backgammon in the living room instead of watching the big TV. Have you ever seen
CSI
?”

“What? Um, no.”

“Me, neither. I thought I was the only one.” Nervously, I rubbed my parents’ scratchy bedspread. Kim had covered my parents’ king-sized bed with some burlap-like fabric. I couldn’t imagine sleeping under something so rough. “I saw Krista last week. At a party. Except I wasn’t really at the party. I mean I
was
at the party, but I wasn’t
at
the party. I was just there to see how Robert was doing on his internship. He’s doing great. And I really appreciate that you set the whole thing up. Did Krista tell you she had seen me?”

“No.”

“It was good to see her. I mean, I enjoyed talking to her. She said—this is kind of funny—she said she thought I was a keeper. For you. I told her it was my fault things didn’t work out. But she said maybe they still would.”

I waited for Jonathan to say something. He didn’t.

“But I guess she didn’t tell you any of this,” I said.

“Krista left my father.”

Now it was my turn to be speechless. “What?” I finally gasped.

“Over the weekend.”

“But I just saw her!” I said, the way you do when someone dies suddenly. “But—why? They seemed happy.”

He sighed. “They always seem happy. My father and whoever he’s married to at any given time. Usually he does the leaving. Maybe Krista just beat him to the punch. Or maybe he’s just getting older.”

“Do you want to talk about it? I mean, maybe we could get together. And talk about it. You could come over. You should see my room. It’s all done up in cowboy stuff.”

“I don’t think so.”

“When I said you should see my room, I didn’t mean—what I meant was, I’d just like to see you. To talk to you. And, maybe, help you. With your father, I mean.”

“I don’t need help with my father. I’m not upset. I’m not even surprised. With my father, breakups aren’t a case of if, they’re a case of when.”

“Like father, like son?” I said before my inebriated internal censors had a chance to stop me.

“That’s one way to look at it.”

 

 

I didn’t make any more phone calls that weekend, nor did I drink any more champagne. I left the empty bottle in the ice bucket; no one would notice.

I resolved to stop thinking about Jonathan and simply concentrate on my work, but it wasn’t easy. On Sunday night, with my stack of student papers graded, my lesson plans prepared, I allowed myself a moment’s weakness and Googled Jonathan, even as I recognized that this was where all of my problems had started. Had they, though? All along, I had assumed that things would have been fine if, after our first meeting, I confessed to Jonathan that I’d been putting him on at Route 66. He would have laughed it off. Right? Then again, maybe not. Maybe if I had come clean at the beginning, our affair would have been cut that much shorter.

Online, there were no new mentions of Jonathan. I found the old picture of him and Krista at the benefit. How could I ever have thought they were married? She is all glamour, shining in the camera’s flash. He stands apart from her, shoulders angled slightly away, hands in his pockets: the lonely stepchild.

Once I’d exhausted all of the references to Jonathan Pomeroy, I indulged in a bit of cyber-narcissism. “Natalie Quackenbush,” I typed into the search line.

The first listing was for my neglected school Web page. There were a couple more mentions of me in relation to Agave: an old PTA newsletter introducing new faculty, a dated school e-newspaper (there was no print version) announcing audition details for
Romeo and Jules.
My name popped up on my college alumni site; I’d sent in a letter when I’d moved to Arizona on the off chance some of my old friends might want to get in touch with me (as yet, they hadn’t).

And then I saw it:
i hate ms quackenbush
. I blinked at the screen. Surely there was another Ms. Quackenbush. A sloppy accountant who caused an audit. A careless hairdresser who left the peroxide on too long.

I double-clicked.

There would be no hysteria this time. No name-calling. No reptiles.

Monday morning I put on my charcoal gray suit (with the pants) and stopped by the front office. After checking Dr. White’s schedule, I had Dawna assign an appointment slot during my free period.

There would be no unfounded accusations. No lawsuit fears. My behavior would be above reproach.

“I think we can catch him this time,” I said, clutching the sheet I had printed from my computer.

“Catch who?” Dr. White asked.

“Jared.” I passed her the paper and stood on the far side of her chrome desk, trying to read her expression. My heart was racing. My face felt warm.

Finally, she put the paper down. She looked up slowly. “Goodness.”

“If we can trace the computer—isn’t there some way to do that? If we can figure out where Jared’s blogging from, we can catch him.”

Dr. White held my gaze. “This is a very serious offense. You have every right to be frightened. And angry. But we don’t know that Jared did this.”

“Of course he did! He’s evil! Nobody else would write these things about me!” I burst into tears. So much for no hysteria.

She came around from the other side of her desk. She was at least six inches taller than me. I thought she was going to chastise me, tell me to get a grip, to be more professional.

Instead, she hugged me. I hugged her back, soaking her green silk jacket with my tears. She was softer than she looked, almost squishy. “This is so hard,” I blubbered. “Why is this so hard?”

Dr. White patted my back gently. “My first year of teaching, I used to go home from school every day and cry.”

“But this is my second year of teaching.”

“True. By my second year, I was down to only two or three good cries a week.”

“Does it ever get easy?”

“Easy? No. But it gets easier. And it gets to be joyful. And incredibly rewarding. Believe me, Natalie, you’ll never find a job half as fun as teaching.”

I nodded through my tears and pretended to believe her.

There were no computer geniuses on staff at Agave. There were, however, a few students who had been suspended for “illegal systems entry.” According to Dr. White, Tyler Farrell was the most talented hacker by far.

“How good can he be if you caught him?” I asked. By now Dr. White had retreated to the far side of her desk, while I sat on a chair opposite.

“A friend ratted him out after he bragged about changing his grades. Like all tragic heroes, Tyler had a fatal flaw—his ego.” She paused for a minute, tapping her pen on her desk. “Or maybe his fatal flaw would be his utter lack of conscience.”

“No,” I said, dabbing my nose. Dr. White kept a tissue box on her desk. I wasn’t the first person to fall apart in here. I cleared the phlegm from my throat. “A fatal flaw, by definition, is what destroys the hero. Tyler’s amorality didn’t get in the way of his computer hacking. In fact, it probably helped. What brought him down was the bragging. So, his ego’s the flaw.”

“You’re right,” she sighed, leaning back. “I’m rusty.” Dr. White had been an English teacher for fifteen years before going into administration.

Tyler Farrell was well over six feet tall, pear-shaped and slack-muscled. He wore gray nylon shorts that fell below his knees and a black T-shirt that read, BYTE ME. His hair was carrot orange, his skin luminescent white dotted here and there with bright red pimples. Stick this kid in the sun for ten minutes and he’d burn. No wonder he spent his time in shuttered rooms, preferring the cyber world to reality. The real world could give him melanoma. Had Tyler grown up in Seattle instead of Scottsdale, his whole life might have been different.

Ignoring the chair Dr. White offered, Tyler stood hunched over the computer behind her desk. If he wasn’t careful, he’d have serious back problems in twenty years. With fingers so fast they blurred, Tyler typed my name into a search engine and pulled up the awful entry. I held my breath, afraid that he would laugh.

Instead, he moaned in disgust. “Oh, man, this is pathetic.”

“It is.” I smiled cautiously, encouraged by the affirmation. Tyler understood that I was a nice teacher.

He grunted. “I mean—
Xanga
? Man. This kid’s on the boards with the girls eating laxatives and writing bad poetry about their boyfriends. You ever read that crap? Pathetic. He could’ve set up his own Web page, had a free-standing blog at least. It only takes a few minutes to get it going. Who’s gonna dig through Xanga?”