Page 71 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
“But also, are you going to be okay for another month? I won’t be back until Thanksgiving!”
I reach the stairs going down to the floor my office is on, hearing the distant whoops and chants of students somewhere in the building. Loud-ass kids. “I’ve got help, Sara. Maddie has been fabulous, and she won’t mind being kept on until Thanksgiving, I’m sure—”
Sara’s voice is suddenly mischievous when she says, “Oh, I bet she won’t.”
I pause on the stairs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” she hums.
I narrow my eyes, even though Sara’s not here and it’s a poster for a creek-bed cleanup getting the brunt of my suspicion instead. “The other Andromedas aren’t gossiping behind my back, are they? This isn’t like a back-channel text thread thing?”
“Does this mean there would be a valid reason for a back-channel text thread?”
I groan. “I’m saying goodbye, Sara. We’ll tell the girls about your extension on your call tomorrow.”
“For what it’s worth, I really like Maddie!” Sara gets in before I end the call. I blow out a long breath, still glaring at the cleanup poster, and gather my thoughts. It’s fine, it’s fine, if Maddie and I were actually together, likehave to disclose it to HRtogether, then I’d tell everyone. But since we’re just fooling around, since it’s our secret bad idea, it’s not anyone else’s business.
And... I don’t think I can talk about it with anyone else. I don’t think I can explain. Because then I’d have to explain that it’s going nowhere, that it means nothing, and whenever I eventhinkabout how it’s going nowhere, my chest hurts and my ulnar nerves thrum and the nape of my neck prickles with a prescient kind of fear. It’s going to end at some point. It’s going to end, and I’m going to be left segmented and starving, like a ringbarked tree.
Why would I want to share that with the class? Some things just aren’t meant for show-and-tell.
Feeling steadier now, I finish descending the stairs and stride toward my office, the sound of whooping and chanting growing louder and louder as I do. Sounding more and moreadultrather thanyoung adultand sounding more and more like it’s coming from my office.
And then I reach my office door and, with a deep sense of foreboding, open it to find Joey Fucking Kemp squatting on my floor with a pile of diapers, a creepy fake baby, and a stuffed ermine that has been passed around from building to building since I was in undergrad.*Leo and Alessandro hover above him with their phones out, recording the scene like they’re camerapeople and this isSunday Night Football.
The three of them turn to look at me like guilty children.
When I swing the door all the way open, I see Sloane standing on the love seat with a stopwatch in her hand.
“Et tu?” I ask, wounded.
She has the grace to look a little abashed, at least.
“Why,” I ask as I drop my satchel onto the floor, “are we all in my office today?”
The men turn and look to Sloane, who somehow still exudes tasteful dignity while standing barefoot on my love seat. “Joey needs to practice changing diapers,” she says reasonably. “So he can convince Riley that he’ll help when the baby comes.”
“Okay,” I say, also reasonably, “and why are we doing that in my office again?”
“Well, we couldn’t possibly do it in Sloane’s office,” Leo points out.
“It’s at the bottom of the hill,” adds Alessandro.
“The vibes are wrong,” says Leo.
“She did let us borrow one of the babies from her student health building, though,” says Alessandro. “It’s even got a rubber fontanel and everything. But she only had the one, which is why we had to grab the ermine from the staff room.”
I rub my hand over my face. My house is never quiet. My classrooms are filled to the brim with hormones, anxiety, and unsubtle texting while I’m talking. Is it so much to ask that my office is a place of peace? On occasion? On the very rare occasion?
Alessandro and Leo pout at me.
“Sloane’s office is closer to the big parking lot,” I say, not because I think they’ll listen to reason, but because I need to at least log the argument. “Again, at the bottom of the hill. Youdon’t have to walk up a hillto get there.”
Alessandro’s eyes go wide. “But the big parking lot has students parking in it.”
“The faculty parking lot is much better—and on the gentle side of the hill,” Leo agrees.
“You’re not faculty!”
