XXIII

A week after school resumed, Jonathan’s principal summoned Mrs. March to her office. “I’m afraid there’s been an incident,” the principal said. “It’s a little . . . delicate to discuss over the phone.”

And so Mrs. March prepped for the role of stylish, charismatic mother, one who would be concerned for her child but also intimidating to staff; enigmatic yet warm. She took a cab to the Upper West Side in high spirits, wearing her best clip-on earrings, but grew somewhat carsick from the driver’s repeated abrupt braking all the way up Central Park West.

As a child she had been driven to school by her father’s chauffeur. He ferried her back and forth for ten years yet she rarely ever saw his face. She remembered the nape of his neck, though—square and prickle-haired—visible through the gap in the headrest. On days when her father went into work a little later, he would be in the car with her, dressed in his tailored suit and reading the business sections of the morning papers, which would be waiting for him in the backseat, fanned out. The gasoline-like smell of the newspaper ink never failed to nauseate her. Once she’d vomited all over the leather interior and the door’s wood trim (she’d been aiming for the window). The chauffeur had been comforting and discreet, as always, and she’d felt bad for him—but at least she’d had the good sense to wait until after her father’s stop. The following morning the car arrived clean and fresh-smelling, as if nothing had ever happened.

Fanning herself to abate her current wooziness, she exited the cab in front of Jonathan’s school, where the second graders were playing in the adjacent basketball court amidst cheers and the occasional shriek. They were all wearing the school’s mandatory uniform.

She spotted a man hovering near the fence. She knew well what kind of men loitered around schools and parks. Her mother had warned her, very early on—when sending her off to confession for the first time, aged nine—from ever fully trusting a man. “What about Daddy?” Mrs. March asked, expecting some kind of exception to the rule, especially as her mother had only ever spoken words of praise about her father.

“Never let your guard down,” her mother answered.

Inside the school, the air carried a scent of metal and damp wood. It didn’t smell of children, which Mrs. March was grateful for. The walls, penitentiary green and treacle-colored, were disrupted here and there by colorful artwork on corkboards. It was reverently quiet, like a church, except for the low, monotone drone of a teacher that loudened as she made her way across the liver-spotted terrazzo flooring of the hallway.

The principal, whom she remembered vaguely from an initial tour of the grounds, was a woman with a tower of teased maroon hair, a thin smile, and a small sharp nose, like a sparrow’s. She welcomed Mrs. March into her office—a cramped space adorned with colorful rugs and mismatched furniture. They sat, at the principal’s suggestion, opposite each other in a pair of fat armchairs, one paisley, the other plaid.

“Thank you so much for coming in, Mrs. March,” said the principal as Mrs. March sank into the bulbous chair. “Sorry for the inconvenience—I just felt that this discussion should be had in person.”

There was silence. The principal smiled reassuringly, crow’s-feet branching from her squinting eyes.

“Of course,” said Mrs. March.

“As you know, I have never called you up here before, and I’m hopeful I won’t have to again.” She took a deep breath. “Is Jonathan under some sort of pressure at home? Did something—emotionally straining, perhaps—occur over the holidays?”

Mrs. March blinked. “No,” she said.

“It could just be pure curiosity, you know, sometimes they’re confused at this age, they want to . . . explore. They don’t know that they can . . . hurt others.” The principal sighed, folding her hands on her lap. “I’m afraid that Jonathan has acted out. Everything seemed fine when he returned from winter break—he seemed to be settling in all right, but then, well . . .”

As the principal talked, Mrs. March took in the tattered rug, upturned in one corner; the framed photographs of skiing trips on the desk; the child psychology books on the shelves. She had been sent to the principal’s office only once as a child, after writing a nasty note to another little girl in her class. “Dear Jessica”—Mrs. March had hated the name ever since—“everyone hates you, and you shall soon die. It is God’s will,” the note read. “Signed, a fourth grader.” It made no sense to her now why she had zeroed in on Jessica, an objectively unremarkable child. She used to observe Jessica in the playground, noticing with rage the way her socks slid down her calves, exposing her pink legs in the stark winter months, when all the other girls were layered in corduroy and woolly tights. She watched an unsuspecting Jessica play—dancing goofily, arms akimbo, as she laughed in a high-pitched squeal, her blond tresses bouncing on her chest. She studied Jessica in class—how she bit her nails, head bent over her notebook, her slightly parted lips revealing slightly parted teeth. How she’d overdo it when she raised her hand, her whole body swelling as she emitted little whines and me, me, me’s. She sat in the audience when Jessica performed at the school ballet recital. Watching Jessica dance, her white blond hair swept into a sweet bun, her tiny nipples poking through her pink leotard, had charged her with a searing envy that ran through her like a pulse. An envy that continued to thrive in her bloodstream when she sat down after math class and wrote that note, and without a second thought, slipped it into Jessica’s book bag.

There had been a whole thing, of course, once the note was discovered. The concerned teacher photocopied it and passed it around to all the fourth-grade teachers. Mrs. March chided herself for identifying her grade level so smugly in the note, but then again, she hadn’t expected Jessica to show it to anyone, the rat.

“I know Jonathan,” the principal was saying, “and he’s never done anything like this before, but you must understand that I can’t have him corrupting my other students . . .”

Mrs. March quivered. She often felt nauseated when she was hungry, and she’d had very little breakfast. Why had she had so little breakfast? She struggled to remember.

“And so, you see,” the principal continued, “we simply can’t have this sort of behavior at the school. You do understand.”

“Of course.”

“Good, I’m glad. Of course Jonathan will be welcomed back as soon as his suspension is over—”

“Suspension?”

The principal frowned. “Well, yes, Mrs. March. As I was just saying, his behavior must not go unpunished. It wouldn’t reflect well on the school. Or, frankly, me. It would also be unfair to the parents of the little girl involved. We must set an example.”

“Yes, I understand,” said Mrs. March, not understanding at all. She was sweating in her heavy coat, which she had not removed, and to do so after all this time indoors would be awkward, and she no doubt had patches of sweat on her shirt.

“As I said, Jonathan can finish the rest of the school day. We’ll welcome him back next week.”

The principal rose, which Mrs. March took to mean that the meeting was over, and stood up as well. Both women thanked each other, so repeatedly that Mrs. March wondered what they had each done for the other to be so thankful. The principal escorted her to the door and smiled her out.

In the act of hailing a cab on Columbus Avenue, a homeless man accosted her. “You’re unfuckable!” he yelled as she scurried into a cab and slammed the door behind her.