Nine Inches (12 page)

“Love you guys,” he said, inching toward the door.

HIS SPIRITS
li
ft
ed as he got into his car. It was a crisp March night with a faraway whi
ff
of spring sweetening the breeze, and he couldn’t help noticing what a relief it was to be out of the house, going somewhere — anywhere — in the dark on a weekend. He just wished his destination could have been a little more exciting.

When Ethan
fi
rst got hired at the Daniel Webster Middle School, teachers weren’t expected to babysit the kids at social functions. But that was back in a more innocent time, before the notorious Jamaican Beach Party of 2009, a high school dance that degenerated into a drunken brawl/gropefest and scandalized the entire community. Six kids were arrested for
fi
ghting, three for misdemeanor sexual assault, and two for pot; eight more were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. Cell-phone videos of some shockingly dirty dancing made their way onto the Internet, causing severe embarrassment for several senior girls-gone-wild who had stripped down to bikinis during the festivities and become the focus of unwanted attention from a rowdy group of varsity lacrosse and hockey players. Dances were canceled for an entire year, then reinstated under a host of strict new rules, including one that required the presence of faculty chaperones, who would presumably impose the kind of professional discipline that had been lacking in the past.

Ethan thought the new rules made sense for high school, where the kids were old enough and resourceful enough to get into real trouble, but it felt like overkill to extend it to the middle school, one more burden added to a job that already didn’t pay nearly enough, though he knew better than to complain to anyone who wasn’t a teacher. He was sick and tired of people reminding him that he got summers o
ff
and should therefore consider himself lucky.

Yeah, he didn’t have to teach in July and August, but so what? It wasn’t like he got to while away eight weeks at the beach or lounge in a hammock by the lake. He didn’t even get to sit home reading fat biographies of the founding fathers or take his kid to the playground. He was a thirty-two-year-old man with a master’s degree in history, and he still spent his summer vacations the same way he had when he was sixteen — standing behind the counter of his father’s auto parts store, ringing up wiper blades and air
fi
lters to make a little extra cash.

•••

FOR THE
second time in less than twelve hours, he parked in the faculty lot and made the familiar trudge around the side of the building to the main entrance, where a crowd of boisterous seventh- and eighth-graders had already begun to gather; there was no such thing as being fashionably late to a dance that went from seven to nine-thirty. Ethan was popular with the kids — he was, he knew, widely considered to be one of the cool teachers — and a number of them shouted out his name as he passed:
Mr. Weller! Hey, it’s Mr. Weller!
Oddly grati
fi
ed by the recognition, he acknowledged his fans with a quick wave as he approached the double doors, onto one of which someone had taped a single sheet of red paper, its message printed in big black letters:
THIS
IS
HOW
WE
PARTY
.

Th
e main hallway was deserted, faintly ominous despite — or maybe because of — the Mylar balloons taped to classroom doorknobs and the festive hand-lettered signs posted on the walls to mark the big occasion:
DREAM
BIG
!
THE
SKY
’
S
THE
LIMIT
!!
PREPARE
TO
MEET
YOUR
FUTURE
!!!
Ethan was a little puzzled by these phrases — they seemed o
ff
-message for a dance, more like motivational slogans than manifestos of fun — but he wasn’t all that surprised.
Th
e kids at Daniel Webster were products of their time and place, dogged little achievers who were already taking SAT prep courses and padding their résumés for college. Apparently they were ambitious even when they danced.

As far as he knew, the other chaperones on duty were Rudy Battista and Sam Spillman, so he wasn’t sure what to make of it when he spied Charlotte Murray checking her re
fl
ection in the glass of a vending machine outside the cafeteria. She turned at the sound of his footsteps, looking unusually pleased to see him. Her expression changed as he got closer, her mouth stretching into a comical grimace of despair.

“Help,” she cried,
fl
inging her arms around his neck as if he were a long-lost relative. “I’m trapped at an eighth-grade dance!”

Charlotte was an art teacher, a bit of a Bohemian, one of the more interesting women on the faculty. Ethan patted her cautiously on the upper arm, struck by how pretty her reddish-gold hair looked against the green of her sweater.
Th
ere was a nice clean smell coming o
ff
her, a humid aura of shampoo and something faintly lemony.

“I’m
fi
lling in for Sam,” she explained upon releasing him. “His father’s back in the hospital.”

Ethan nodded solemnly, trying to show the proper respect for his colleague’s ailing parent. Secretly, though, he was delighted. Sam was a social black hole, the kind of guy who could buttonhole you in the teachers’ lounge and kill your whole free period telling you about the problem he was having with his dishwasher. Trading him for Charlotte was a major upgrade.

“It’s your lucky day,” she said, as if reading his mind.

“No kidding.”

Th
ey smiled at each other, but Ethan couldn’t help noticing a slight awkwardness in the air. He and Charlotte had been good friends during his
fi
rst year at Daniel Webster. He was single back then, always up for a movie or a drink, and she was separated from her husband. For a little while there — this was
fi
ve years ago, ancient history — they seemed on the verge of maybe getting involved, but it didn’t happen. She went back to Rob, he met Donna, and their lives headed o
ff
on separate tracks.
Th
ese days they only saw each other at school and limited their conversation to polite small talk.

“So how are you?” she asked.

“Okay.”
Ethan pronounced the word with more emphasis than it usually received. He was suddenly conscious of his thinning hair, the weight he’d put on since knee surgery had ended his pickup-basketball career. He was three years younger than Charlotte, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from looking at them. “You know, not bad. How about you?”

“Great,” she replied, making a face that undercut the word. In the past year or so, she’d taken to wearing oval, black-framed eyeglasses that made her look like a college professor in a Van Halen video. “Nothing too exciting. How’s your little girl?”

“Adorable. When she’s not screaming.”

Charlotte took this as a joke; Ethan didn’t bother to correct her.

“And you’re having another?”

“Yeah,
fi
gured we should do it now, before we get used to sleeping through the night.”

She said she was happy for him, but he could see it took some e
ff
ort. Kids were a sore spot in her marriage. She wanted to start a family, but her husband — he was a struggling scrap-metal sculptor, deeply devoted to his art — refused to even consider the possibility.
Th
is had been the cause of their separation, and nothing seemed to have changed since they’d gotten back together.

Th
ey were saved from this tricky subject by the arrival of Rudy Battista, barely recognizable in khakis, a brown turtleneck, and a checkered blazer, a far cry from the crinkly nylon sweatsuits he wore to teach gym every day.

“Look at you,” Charlotte called out. “Got a date?”

Rudy adjusted his lapels, his face shining with health and good humor. “It’s a special occasion. I believe it calls for a certain elegance.”

“I wish you’d told me that an hour ago,” Charlotte complained, but Ethan thought she looked just
fi
ne in her simple skirt-and-sweater combo, the black tights and ankle-high boots adding a slightly funky touch to the ensemble. He was the slacker of the group in his relaxed-
fi
t jeans and suede Pumas. At least his shirt had buttons.

“I brought you guys a present.” Rudy reached into his pocket and produced two identical strips of so
ft
yellow measuring tape, the kind favored by tailors. He handed one to each of his colleagues. “Exactly nine inches long.”

“Are you serious?” Ethan asked.
Th
e vice principal had briefed him on the Nine-Inch Rule a couple of days ago — it stipulated that students had to keep their bodies at least that far apart while dancing — but it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that was meant to be taken literally. “We’re actually supposed to measure?”

“Just during the slow songs,” Rudy explained. “
Th
e kids think it’s funny.”

Charlotte shot a skeptical glance at Ethan, who shrugged and stu
ff
ed the measuring tape into his pocket. She pulled her own piece taut in front of her face and pondered it for a couple of seconds.

“If that’s nine inches,” she said, “someone’s got some explaining to do.”

•••

ETHAN SPENT
the
fi
rst half hour of the dance manning the table outside the cafeteria, taking tickets, checking IDs, and crossing names o
ff
a master list, while a uniformed cop hulked in the doorway behind him, scrutinizing the kids for signs of drug or alcohol abuse. Lieutenant Ritchie was an older guy — he had to be pushing sixty — with a brushy white mustache and none of the mellowness you might have expected from a small-town cop coasting toward retirement. He introduced himself as a special departmental liaison to the school board, appointed to oversee security at dances and sporting events. He said the position had been created specially for him.

“One of my nieces got caught up in that Jamaican mess,” he said, shaking his head as if the trauma were still fresh. “We let that thing get outta hand.”

Ethan had to turn away two kids at the door, but not because they’d been partying: Carlie Channing had forgotten her ID, and Mike Gruber hadn’t realized that the tickets had to be purchased in advance. Both of them begged for onetime indulgences that Ethan would have been happy to provide, but Lieutenant Ritchie made it clear that no exceptions would be permitted on his watch. He seemed to take it for granted that he was the
fi
nal arbiter, and Ethan had no reason to assume otherwise. Carlie le
ft
in tears, Mike in sullen bewilderment.

“It’s a good lesson for them,” the Lieutenant observed. “Follow the rules, you got nothing to worry about.”

Ethan nodded without enthusiasm, vaguely ashamed of himself for knuckling under so easily. Carlie returned ten minutes later with her ID, but he was haunted for the rest of the night by the thought of poor Mike wandering the empty streets, exiled from the fun on account of a technicality.

IT WAS
a relief to slip into the cafeteria, where the lights were low and the music was loud. Assuming an a
ff
able, don’t-mind-me expression, Ethan joined his colleagues at their observation post by the snack station. Every few songs one of them would venture out on a leisurely reconnaissance mission, but mostly they just nibbled on chips and Skittles while commenting on the action unfolding around them.

“Look at that.” Rudy directed their attention to Allie Farley, a leggy seventh-grader teetering past them in high heels and an alarmingly short skirt. “
Th
at can’t be legal.”

Charlotte craned her neck for a better look. She was the chaperone in charge of dress-code enforcement.

“It wasn’t that short when she came in. She must’ve hiked it up.”

Allie was chasing a
ft
er Ben Willis, a shaggy-haired, delicate-looking kid who was one of the alpha jocks of Daniel Webster. When she caught up, she spun him around and began lecturing him on what appeared to be a matter of extreme urgency, judging from the slightly deranged look on her face and the chopping gesture she kept making with her right hand. Similar conferences were taking place all over the cafeteria, agitated girls explaining to clueless boys the roles they’d been assigned in the evening’s dramas.

For his part, Ben just stared up at her — she had at least half a foot on him — and gave an occasional awestruck nod, as if she were some supernatural being, rather than a classmate he’d known since kindergarten. Ethan sympathized; Allie had gone a little crazy with the eyeliner and lipstick, and he was having trouble connecting the fearsome young woman on the dance
fl
oor with the giggly, fresh-faced girl he taught in fourth-period social studies. She seemed to have undergone some profound, irreversible transformation.

“I wish I could’ve worn something like that when I was her age,” Charlotte said. “I had scoliosis, and back then you had to wear this awful body brace. It looked like I was wearing a barrel.”

“I didn’t know that,” Ethan said.

“I never told you?” Charlotte seemed surprised. Back when they were pals, they’d stayed out late drinking and talking on numerous occasions and had covered a fair amount of personal history. “Junior high was a nightmare.”

“Must’ve been tough,” Rudy said.

“Long time ago,” Charlotte said with a shrug.

Allie turned away from Ben and began signaling to Amanda DiCarlo, a petite, dark-haired girl who was standing nearby. Eyes widening with horror, Amanda clapped one hand over her mouth and shook her head. Allie beckoned again, this time more emphatically, but Amanda wouldn’t move. She was wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope slung around her neck, an out
fi
t that marked her as a member of the Social Activities Committee, the group that organized the dances.
Th
e SAC apparently insisted on picking a theme for each event — tonight’s was Dress as Your Future, which at least explained the cryptic signs in the hallway — but no one seemed to know or care about the theme except the committee members themselves. In addition to the cute physician, a basketball player, a ballerina, a CEO, and a female astronaut were circulating throughout the cafeteria, looking a bit sheepish as they interacted with their uncostumed peers.