to tell me to stop nagging him about his homework, because he’ll do it when he feels like it and not before. There are still moments when he relates, of his own volition, a heartwarming anecdote about his daily life — like that some girls got into a fight after school and five police cars came, or that one of his friends got drunk on malt liquor in the park, threw up, and caught the barf in his hands. But the sweet, sensitive mama’s boy I cherished seems to be slipping away.
Sylvia pulls down the visor and checks her lipstick in the mirror. “If all else fails, we can have some vicarious fun at this dance, relive a moment or two from our youth.”
I throw her a suspicious look. “Is Mr. Sutherland going to be there?” Mr. Sutherland is a tall, single, said-to-be-straight English and drama teacher at Westdale, a man toward whom Sylvia has on more than one occasion professed lustful feelings. He does nothing for me.
She flips up the visor. “Maybe.”
“And does Ed know you’ve gone out flirting for the night?”
“Ed’s home supervising Kira and a friend on their sleepover, while I put in some helpful volunteer hours at Westdale. And anyway, if it’s just a little flirting, what’s there to know?”
This is one of the many things I value Sylvia for: her ability to provide me with timely reminders about how pointless couplehood can be.
She says, “It wouldn’t hurt you to flirt now and then. Even better, you could actually try to meet someone new and consider dating. Say the word and I’ll find someone to set you up with.”
This is what I don’t value Sylvia for: her desire to pair me up, to convert me to her two-by-two ranks. Why can’t she accept that I’m content with my single lot in life, with the one-person dwelling I’ve built to my own particular and peculiar specifications? Why can’t the coupled-off leave us solo acts alone to live out our solitary, tea-soaked existences? I do not need to be saved.
I say, “You have me confused with someone who doesn’t want to die alone.”
“All I’m suggesting is that you open your eyes to the opportunities around you.” She laughs. “Except for the Mr. Sutherland opportunity. He’s mine.”
The vice-principal at Westdale in charge of discipline, a stocky, short-haired, tie-wearing, shirt-tucked-in man of about fifty-five named Mr. Harkness, refers to females as ladies, whether he’s talking about Sylvia and me, as in, “Thank you so much, ladies, for coming in tonight and helping out,” or addressing the girls attending the dance:“Would you ladies form an orderly line to the right, please?” He doesn’t leer or make suggestive comments to us or to the scantily clad girls, I’ll give him that. But the gleeful gleam in his eye when he picks out for ejection a grade nine boy who, from the smell of him, must have poured one bottle of beer over his head while drinking another, is the gleam of someone who gets off on exercising authority. A type I can’t stand.
“Zero tolerance is our policy here at Westdale,” he says, after the boy’s parents have been called to come pick him up, an incident report written, a suspension promised. Sylvia and I nudge each other at this, though our thoughts probably do not match. The “thank god that wasn’t my son” parts may, but I’m not sure she’d be as quick as I am to classify Harkness as a power-mad asshole.
I position myself at the other end of the ticket-taking table from him, at the hand-stamping station, and try to act cool. I do not display on my face the shock I feel when a boy I know from Jesse’s year, a thin, nerdy kid who always excelled at academics, shows up with his arm draped around a hot-bodied girl dressed like a debauched pop star. I do not tell the boys that they look cute but vulnerable in their pressed khakis and polo shirts or silly and poser-like in their gangster wear. I do not hold my nose at the strong smell of musk-noted aftershaves in the air.
Most of the kids I know seem to appreciate the impersonal treatment, to tacitly agree that, under the circumstances, better to disavow previous acquaintance and avoid acknowledgement of how often I’ve car-pooled them over the years. Except for Spencer McKay. Spencer sidles up to the table with a posse of two girls and three boys, looks me in the eye, and in the ringing voice he used to spellbinding effect in last year’s school production of Romeo and Juliet (he played Mercutio), says, “Hey, Emily. How you doing?”
I take his ticket, check his face, see no obvious signs of inebriation. Spencer is a year older than Jesse and has never been a close friend, but they worked on class projects together in the split grades in elementary school, played on the same teams, and attended each other’s birthday parties before they became too old for such things.
“I’m fine,” I say, evenly. “How are you?”
“Ready to party.” He shoots his crew a knowing grin and leads them into the gym.
At my elbow, Sylvia mutters, “There goes trouble.”
“You think? He looked sober to me.”
“Yeah, but you know Spencer. If he can’t find a ruckus, he’ll cause one.”
An hour later, the incoming traffic has slowed to a trickle. So when Mr. Harkness says, “Would either of you ladies like to take a break from ticket-taking and do a girls’ washroom check?” I say yes right away. I need to pop another painkiller: my arm ache is sharpening, the previous pill wearing off.
I’d also like to escape from the sight that is Sylvia’s crush-object Mr. Sutherland. His long hair is tied in a ponytail, his denim shirt is rolled up at the sleeves to expose his hairy forearms, and two buttons are undone to show off his hairy neck. He has emerged from his post inside the gym and sits perched on the edge of the admission table, ready to pontificate. Any minute now, he will start quoting Shakespeare, and I will gag.
I signal my departure to an oblivious Sylvia and set off down the hall for the women’s staff washroom, where I use the facilities, wash my hands, take a pill. When I emerge, I hear voices coming from the adjacent girls’ washroom. Does my chaperone role really require me to stick my head in there and act officious and supervisory? Maybe I could wait out in the hall and nod at the exiting girls when they appear, pretend not to notice the cloud of cigarette smoke that surrounds them or to see the telltale outline of miniature liquor bottles through the thin fabric of their tiny purses.
The loud voices have turned into low-volume murmurings in the short time I’ve stood there, but no one has come out. I’d better do my duty, get it over with. I push open the swinging door with my bad shoulder — ouch — and walk into a tableau in which Spencer, surrounded by four girls, enacts a drug deal. At the moment I open the door, Spencer’s right hand, holding a clear plastic bag of pot, is extended toward a girl I have also known since Jesse was little, a tough cookie named Jill. Spencer’s left hand grasps the bills she presses into his palm.
I stare for a second, a girl in a pink top says, “Oh, shit,” I step back out, and I let the door close on the scene. My impulse is to walk away, fast, and blink away the image. But when I turn to do so, I spot Harkness strolling toward me from the other end of the corridor. I turn back, open the door again, slip inside.
In a strained whisper, I say, “Harkness is coming. Girls, out now. Spencer, take cover. Hide. Go!”
A thought snail-paces its way across my tired, drugged brain that I’m not supposed to be abetting feckless youth, I’m supposed to be the responsible, policing parent here. But it’s too late to change my approach now.
I hold open the washroom door and half-push, half-follow the girls out. They run straight into Harkness, who holds out his hand like a policeman directing traffic. Jill is in front, at the point of the birds-in-flight V formation the girls have formed, her face hardened into a defiant but impassive expression that I wouldn’t have had the guts to wear when I was her age.
“Can I help you?” Jill says. Sounding in the air is a warning that if Harkness dares to harass Jill, her lawyer father will be all over the school administration the next day, weekend or not.
Harkness falters. “Where are you ladies coming from?”
Jill