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 relaxes — there’s no threat here. I wouldn’t put it past her to yawn. “Where do you think?” Understood: moron. “We were in the girls’ washroom. And I hope you’re not going to ask what we were doing in there, because it’s personal.”
The girl in pink emits a stoned-sounding giggle and earns a punishing over-the-shoulder glare from Jill for the eruption.
Harkness looks at me. I make a nonsensical thumbs-up sign from my post at the washroom door, rub my now-throbbing arm, and will Spencer not to choose this moment to come out of hiding.
“Carry on, then, ladies,” Harkness says. “Enjoy what remains of the dance. And stay sober, please.”
Jill grunts, flips her hair, and leads her friends down the hall with the swagger of a teen movie bad girl who bests the doofus vice-principal daily. Mocking bursts of laughter float our way from the now out-of-danger pack.
Harkness watches them go. “I don’t like that girl’s attitude,” he says.
“I don’t know. Seems to me like she’s got serious leadership potential.”
He turns to see if I too am lipping him off and notices my door-barring stance for the first time. “Is anyone else in there?”
“I’ll go check.” I slip through the door again and almost trip over Spencer, not hiding but sitting on the floor, his back to the wall. He flashes me a peace sign and a grin, I mime to him to wait three minutes then leave, and I return to the hall, where I escort Harkness back to the gym doors without blowing Spencer’s cover or angering Harkness further.
A new pair of volunteer moms are sitting at the admission table, and Sylvia stands, leaning, against the wall, ready to go. “You two were gone a while,” she says, when Harkness has entered the gym, probably in search of couples dancing too close that he can separate. “Did you have fun back there?”
“Don’t make me sick.” I grip my arm, which is aching in rhythmic pulses now. “What happened to Mr. Sutherland?”
“He’s back inside. And our shift has ended anyway. I’ll go to the washroom, then we’ll leave, okay? But I’ll be quick, unlike some people.”
I find my jacket, put it on, sling my purse over my shoulder, and am headed for outside and some fresh air, when Spencer saunters into the foyer, walks over to me, and stands too close.
“Hey, Emily. Thanks for covering my ass.” He fixes his hooded eyes on mine. He’s never suffered from a lack of confidence, this kid.
I already regret having saved him from Harkness, but I’ll never be old enough to betray my youthful self and play narc. I can’t be bothered to chide him now, to issue some Mother-Knows-Best admonition about what he should or shouldn’t be up to in his spare time. His own private spare time. “Good night, Spencer.”
I step away, but he comes after me and places a friendly hand on my back, as if we are familiars. “No really. I appreciate what you did. Props, man.” He tilts his head to one side and forms his hand into a fist, offers it to me. And in the same way that it’s impossible to refuse a handshake or a hello kiss without seeming rude, I raise my own fist and brush knuckles with him, though the movement hurts my arm and my hand.
Sylvia bustles out, Spencer melts off, and Sylvia says, “What’s he up to? I thought I saw him coming out of the girls’ washroom when I went down the hall.”
“He’s slippery, all right, but he’s not our concern. Let’s go home.”
When I go to bed on this fun night, the capper of my fun day, I lie awake longer than usual. I can find no reclining position that does not pain me, and there’s the racing mind to contend with, the recriminatory thoughts to air — I should have walked away; Jesse will not be happy when he hears about this; Spencer is a devil, why did I protect him? To distract myself, I try to visualize the design for a bed that would allow people with sore arms to sleep standing up. I almost have it worked out when I remember that Dr. Joan gave me a task to do when I came home from her office, a task I should have performed this morning.
I get up, shuffle into Jesse’s room, turn on the light, grab a pencil off his desk. On a wall in his bathroom, we’ve been charting
