McKay, the principal of Andrew Country Day lower school, was a hypocrite, a social climber, a control freak and a very bad dresser. He also had a knack of using words no one else had used for several decades.
‘A ruckus?’ Elliot asked.
‘We were just testing out a new therapy,’ Kate extemporized. ‘Did it disturb you?’ she asked innocently.
‘Well, it was certainly loud,’ George McKay complained.
‘From the little I know of it, AAT – Airborne Animal Therapy – can frequently be noisy,’ Elliot said, po-faced, ‘although it’s having significant measurable success in schools for the gifted where it’s being pioneered. Of course,’ he added, ‘it might not be right for this setting.’ He nodded at Kate. ‘I’m not the expert,’ he said as if he were deferring to Kate’s professional judgment. She smothered a laugh with a cough.
‘We’ll put this off until after three o’clock, Mr McKay,’ she promised.
‘All right then,’ he said primly. He left as suddenly as he had arrived, shutting the door with a firm but controlled click. Kate and Elliot looked at one another, waited for a count of ten, then burst into giggles that they had to stifle.
‘AAT?’ Kate gurgled.
‘Hey, straight men love acronyms. Think of the army. He’ll be on the internet in less than ten minutes searching for Airborne Animal Therapy,’ Elliot predicted. He stood up and began collecting the stuffed animals. Kate got up to help him. The irony of the situation was that Elliot had helped Kate get hired and since then George McKay had told several teachers that he suspected them of having an affair. Ridiculous as that idea was, the sight of the two of them in the chair was not one to instill confidence in George McKay, who had frequently announced at teachers’ meetings that he ‘discouraged fraternizing among professional educational co-workers’.
When Kate and her ‘professional educational co-worker’ finished laughing she smoothed her skirt and put her hair back up, this time with a barrette she found in her drawer. Elliot was standing still, looking down at the chair. He heaved a dramatic sigh.
‘Oh shit!’ he told her. ‘You crushed my banana.’ He held up the mangled fruit from his lunch bag which had slipped under them during the battle.
Kate turned, struck the pose of a femme fatale and rasped, ‘How times have changed. You used to like it when I did that.’
Elliot laughed. ‘I’ll leave all banana handling to you and Michael.’
Kate’s new boyfriend, Dr Michael Atwood, was going with her to dinner at Elliot’s place. Kate felt a little flurry in her stomach at the thought. She hoped they’d like each other.
‘If I don’t leave now, I’ll be late tonight,’ Kate told him.
‘Okay, okay.’
She picked up her purse to prepare for leaving.
‘So you like your work so far,’ Elliot said. Kate nodded. She loved it. ‘But even though I helped you get the job, you’re still not going to let me know where you’re going.’
Kate didn’t bother to answer. Elliot was what people in Brooklyn called ‘a noodge’.
In all the years Kate had known Elliot – over ten now – he’d always managed to cheer her up when she was sad and support her in her successes. Now, as they walked down the corridor to his classroom, she glanced at him affectionately. The stretched-out orange T-shirt, the ugly green over-shirt decorated with mustard, the slight love handles and the wrinkled chinos didn’t make him look like much but he had a keen mind and was a loving and generous friend. She felt a swell of gratitude toward him. As always, he had cheered her up and helped her make the break from school. Kate was proud of the work she did with the kids. She had learned a lot from them, too. For one thing, the school catered to the children of the rich and successful but Kate saw that money, privilege, and education brought as much misery as had her own deprived childhood. She had lost her resentment of those with money and she was grateful for that. She had not picked her calling for the money it earned; in fact, she regarded her work as a kind of vocation. It was one thing she never made light of, and she often found it hard to leave it behind at the end of the day. But tonight she had to, to help Bina prepare for her big night, and then, later, to introduce Michael to Elliot and his partner Brice at dinner.
She waited just inside Elliot’s classroom as he chucked the offending lunch sack in a bin and started messing about in his untidy desk.
‘You know, it’s very hard not to keep thinking about Brian. He’s so adorable, and has had a really difficult time. And I think the disappointment when his magic doesn’t work, which of course it won’t, could cause real problems later.’ Kate sighed. ‘Boys are just so much more fragile than girls.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Elliot sighed deeply too. ‘I’m still getting over the time Phyllis Bellusico told me I smelled.’
‘Did you?’ Kate asked, ready to be either his straight man or his audience. She was used to Elliot’s shticks. Since college they had been amusing one another with dark humor from their childhoods.
‘Well, yes,’ Elliot admitted reluctantly, ‘but I smelled good. I should have. I’d dumped an entire bottle of my mother’s White Shoulders into my underpants.’
‘Pee-yuw.’ Kate imitated any one of her lower school ‘clients’. ‘Maybe Brian has a point. I’d have to agree with Phyllis,’ she said. ‘And this happened …?’
‘… In third grade, but with a little more therapy and Brice’s love and support I expect to get over it in the next decade.’
Kate loved it when Elliot got going. She had to laugh.
Elliot had been tormented by kids in school. After a moment he said, ‘I have to go to Dean & Deluca to get rice for our dinner tonight. Brice is making his world-famous risotto. You can tell Michael it’s your recipe. The way to a man’s heart …’
Kate looked up with a suspicious glance. ‘Yeah, and please be on your best behavior. Elliot,’ she began, ‘can’t you just …’
‘No,’ Elliot retorted, ‘I can’t just anything.’ He walked over to her and gave her a quick hug. ‘I don’t want to discourage or criticize you. I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing.’
‘Oh, God, Elliot! Who knows what they’re doing when they try to find a soul mate?’
‘Well, you have a point there. But I don’t want you to be hurt again, Kate.’ He paused. Kate knew where he was going and she didn’t want him to. Her last entanglement had ended so badly that she didn’t know how she would have gotten through it without Elliot. She had invested a lot of time and emotion in Steven Kaplan, all of it worse than wasted. It had left her more suspicious and distrusting of men than she liked to admit. One of the good things about Michael was that she could trust him completely. He might not have Steven’s banter and easy charm but he had substance and achievement and sincerity. At least she thought so.
‘That’s why you’re meeting
