Now it was Vicki’s turn to do the ignoring. She marched back to her desk and dropped the stub of the Snickers into her empty wastebasket, where it landed with an unexpectedly resonant thud. By now, everyone in the room was looking at her.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” she told them. “Food is not allowed in this room.”
That was it, the whole ridiculous, deeply forgettable incident. Vicki was more than willing to admit that it wasn’t her finest hour as an educator, but she hadn’t called anyone a fat pig and didn’t think she had anything to apologize for. If anyone was at fault it was Jessica, who’d knowingly broken a rule and then treated a teacher with blatant disrespect. So it was frustrating for Vicki — humiliating, even — to see herself portrayed in a public forum as a nasty woman in unflattering pants, nothing more than a joke to the kids she was trying to help.
Like a lot of people her age, Vicki had grown accustomed to taking the punishment life dished out. Most of the time she didn’t even bother to complain. But every once in a while she found it necessary to stand up and defend her dignity — her worth as a human being — and this was apparently one of those occasions, because after the bell rang, instead of sitting quietly at her desk and organizing her papers as the students filed out, she found herself moving toward the door with an unusual sense of purpose, arriving just in time to form a barrier between Jessica Grasso and the hallway. She couldn’t deny that she derived some pleasure from the look of confusion on the girl’s face, the slow-dawning knowledge that she’d been busted.
“Greensleeves,” Vicki told her. “You and I need to talk.”
THEY SHOULD have had it out there and then, when Vicki had a head of steam and the element of surprise working in her favor, but Jessica was rushing off to a big chem test; apparently Mr. Holquist took points off if you were late, even if you had a pass. She offered to come back right after school let out, but Vicki had to nix that due to a faculty meeting. Not keen on hanging around for an extra hour, Jessica suggested postponing their talk till the morning. Vicki was adamant that it couldn’t wait that long, and after a brief, somewhat hectic negotiation, they settled on Starbucks at four-thirty in the afternoon.
As soon as she sat down with her cup of green tea, Vicki began to suspect she’d made a mistake in agreeing to meet in the coffee shop, the atmosphere too mellow and unofficial — Joni Mitchell on the sound system, retired men playing chess, young hipsters tapping on their laptops — for the kind of chilly confrontation she’d been rehearsing in her mind. This conviction only deepened when Jessica arrived a few minutes later, waving to Vicki and miming the act of drinking as she took her place on the coffee line. The girl seemed perfectly happy to be there, as if the two of them were regular coffee buddies, and Vicki found herself momentarily disarmed, unable to muster any of the feelings of anger or shame that had made this rendezvous seem so urgent in the first place.
“Sorry I’m late.” Jessica smiled as she took her seat, her cheeks rosy from the damp April breeze. “My mom made me fold the laundry.”
“That’s okay. I just got here myself.”
“Mmmm.” Jessica sipped from her enormous drink, a clear, domed cup full of what looked like a milk shake with whipped cream on top. “This is awesome.”
“What is it?”
“Venti caramel Frappuccino.” She held out the cup. “Want some?”
Vicki was horrified — there must have been a thousand calories in there — but she just smiled politely and shook her head. What Jessica ate and drank outside of class was none of her business.
“I’m fine with my tea,” Vicki said. “How’d you do on your chemistry test?”
“Terrible.” Jessica gave a cheerful shrug, as if terrible were a synonym for pretty good. “I suck at science even worse than I suck at math, if you can believe that.”
“You don’t suck at math. I just don’t think you apply yourself.”
“That’s exactly what my dad says.”
“You should listen to him.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. They were honey-colored, and there was an appealing cluster of freckles spattered across the bridge of her nose that Vicki had never noticed before. It’s the makeup, Vicki thought. She’s not wearing that awful makeup. She wished she knew the girl well enough to tell her she was better off without it.
Something caught Jessica’s eye and she leaned to the left, a look of such longing on her face that Vicki couldn’t help turning to see what had caused it. At a table near the front window, a slender blond woman in a boldly patterned wraparound dress was flirting with a cop, a big-bellied, broad-shouldered man holding a coffee cup in each hand. He said something that made her laugh, then reluctantly took his leave, shuffling backward out the door so he could keep his eyes on her for as long as possible. When he was gone, the woman smiled to herself and reflexively checked the messages on her cell phone. Vicki felt a sharp stab of envy — something that happened to her several times a day — irrational hatred for the smug woman coupled with an intense desire to be her, or at least to be looked at the way the cop had looked at her.
“So you read it, huh?”
Vicki turned around, her mind a beat behind the question. She felt flustered, as if Jessica had caught her in a private moment.
“Excuse me?”
“That thing I wrote? That’s why you wanted to talk to me, right?”
“Yes.” Vicki straightened up, hoping to regain some of her teacherly authority. “I was hurt by it. You said some really awful things about me.”
Jessica nodded contritely. “I know.”
“You really need to be more considerate of other people’s feelings.”
“I didn’t think you’d read it.”
“Well, I did.” Vicki’s eyes locked on Jessica’s. “I cried myself to sleep last night.”
“Wow.” Jessica didn’t seem to know what to do with this information, and Vicki wondered if she’d made a mistake in revealing it. “I’m really sorry.”
“I’m only human,” Vicki continued, a slight tremor entering her voice. “You think I like reading about my big backside on the Internet? You think that makes me feel good about myself?”
“Well, how do you think I felt?” Jessica shot back. “You called me a fat pig.”
She said this with such conviction that Vicki couldn’t help wondering if it might actually be true, if she really could have said something so mean and then repressed the memory. But it didn’t make sense. If she’d called Jessica a horrible name like that, she would have remembered. She would have gotten down on her knees and begged for forgiveness.
“I never said that.” Vicki’s voice was calm but insistent. “You know I didn’t.”
“But you thought it.” Jessica was blushing fiercely. “I remember the way you were looking at me. Judging me. You don’t need that candy bar.”
“No,” Vicki murmured, but the certainty had drained from her voice. “I wasn’t judging you.”
Jessica took a long pull on her Frappuccino, squinting at Vicki the whole time.
“I didn’t ask to be fat, you know.”
“You’re a lovely girl,” Vicki told her. “You have a very pretty face.”
“My mother tells me that five times a day.”
“It’s true.”
“I used to be really cute.” Jessica laughed, but all Vicki heard was pain. “People used to tell me I looked just like my big sister.”
“How old’s your sister?”
“She’s a senior. Jenny Grasso? Cheerleader? Like the hottest girl in the whole school?”