Something New (19 page)

T
GIF.
Yeah, right. Today is the capper on my week. In the end, it turned out to be pretty great, but I’ll get to that later. First things first. The major downer. The end of my innocence. The disillusionment of a mother about her twelve-year-old son. Cue tragic music and grab a hankie.

“Mrs. Ivers?” comes the nasal voice through the phone line. “Ms. Rodriguez requests that you come to the school as soon as possible.”

My heart skips a beat but I manage to keep my words even. “Is Connor all right?”

“In terms of his physical well-being, your son is fine.”

“Then what is this about?” I demand. This is Connor we’re talking about. Straight-A student, terrific athlete, popular with peers and faculty, tells his mom he loves her, all-around great guy.

“I am not at liberty to say,” the voice drones.

I resist the urge to ask if my son needs a lawyer and merely
tell the woman I will be there shortly. On the drive to James Meriwether Middle School, I briefly consider calling Jonah but decide against it. I don’t want to bring our current marital discord into the principal’s office, where it will only pull focus from the matter at hand. Whatever that matter may be. For the life of me, I cannot imagine what Connor has done to warrant a visit from his mother. Maybe someone made a mistake. That must be it. Someone got the wrong kid. It happens all the time, right? By the time I pull into the parking lot, I am all but convinced that Connor is innocent.

Until I see his face.
Guilty guilty guilty
, it says when he looks up at me as I enter the office. He is seated in a blue plastic chair outside Ms. Rodriguez’s office, his hands folded in his lap. His face is covered with splotchy scarlet angst, his eyes pleading.

“Sorry, Mom,” he says immediately.

Mrs. Frawley, a gray-haired biddy with the mandatory pencil stuck behind her ear, stands on the other side of the counter giving me a harsh look. “Mrs. Ivers.”

“Mrs. Frawley,” I return, trying for pleasant but falling short of the mark. The sight of Connor has suddenly sideswiped me and I feel tension shoot up my spine.

“Ms. Rodriguez is waiting for you,” she says solemnly. Jesus, what the hell did he do?

“I’d like to talk to my son for a minute,” I tell her, but she briskly shakes her head.

“You’ll have plenty of time for that later, since Mr. Ivers will not be returning to school today.”

“What?” I am instantly indignant. But my anger is cut off by the appearance of Herr Rodriguez, as the kids call her. She opens her door and stands in the doorway, narrowing her eyes first on Connor and then on me. She is tall, probably
six feet, with striking Latina features that she does her best to disguise. Her hair is bleached blond and perfectly coiffed, and her skin is like coffee with a hefty serving of half-and-half. Her eyes are the perfect shade of sky blue, clearly fake, as are her breasts. She wears a tailored black suit over a charcoal blouse and a pair of black, sensibly heeled pumps. I peg her for midthirties, but she may well be my age, just surgically enhanced.

“Thank you for coming, Mrs. Ivers.” Her voice is steel, her gaze cold and piercing, and I have no trouble understanding why her students are scared shitless of her. This is the first time I’ve had to deal with her on this level, and I can feel my underarms dampen as I withstand her unwavering stare.

However, I have been out of middle school for more years than I care to admit, and I am not some simpering mom who will wither and submit to Herr Rodriguez’s idea of intimidation. I throw my shoulders back and say, “I would like to know what’s going on. Right now.”

Ms. Rodriguez squints at me, perhaps wondering if I am really an alpha female or just putting on a show. I’m actually not sure of the answer to that one myself.

“Please come into my office,” she commands.

I give Connor’s shoulder a quick squeeze, then follow the principal into her lair.

She directs me to one of the two chairs facing her desk, and as I sit, I notice that her office is sparse and unadorned. None of the usual picture frames holding photos of a smiling family or grinning toothless children, no plants, no coffee mug with the legend
World’s Best Principal
or
Is It Five o’Clock Yet?
The walls are a drab shade of beige and the only color accents are from the school flyers tacked to a cork board on one side of the room. Her desk contains a stack of file
folders on the left, a notepad on the right, and an open file folder right in the middle, which she peers at as soon as she is seated.

She traces a long acrylic-nailed finger down the top page of the file, reading carefully, her face betraying nothing. After a full thirty seconds I start to get antsy, but I recognize this as another attempt to intimidate, so I merely sit there and continue to wait. Finally, she looks up and meets my eyes and all I can think about is how ridiculous her blue contact lenses look. Joanna Rodriguez, as her nameplate announces, could be a stunner if she weren’t trying so hard to stamp out all traces of her heritage. For some reason, this gives me a boost, and not in the “people are mean” kind of way. More in the “this woman must be as insecure as the rest of us” kind of way, which puts us on even footing.

“You may or may not know,” she begins slowly, “that here at James Meriwether Middle School we have a zero-tolerance policy.”

“I read the parent handbook,” I say, and although I say it casually, she reacts as if it is a challenge.

“Then you are aware that any form of contraband is strictly forbidden.”

Contraband? What the hell does that mean? I envision Connor in the big house, stuffing chewing gum and comic books under his mattress. This is no laughing matter, however, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning.

“We do random locker checks here, every week,” Rodriguez continues. “For the protection of our students.”

Okay, so I know that in this day and age, i.e., the era of Columbine and bully-provoked suicide, schools have to go overboard in order to cover their asses, but something about this edict strikes me as unfair. Yes, I want my kids to be safe, and I know we are talking about twelve-year-olds,
but shouldn’t they have some rights, too? Before I can go further with this train of thought, Joanna Rodriguez reaches into her drawer, withdraws a couple of magazines, and slaps them onto the desktop. Suddenly, I am staring at a set of triple-D breasts and a completely shaven twat.
Oh dear Jesus.

“These were found in Connor’s locker this morning,” Rodriguez informs me with just the barest hint of a feral smile.

I struggle to come up with a reply, but I cannot tear my eyes away from the naked woman on the desk. Her legs are splayed wide and her index finger is pointing to her promised land and her boobs are so large and high they almost obscure her face. I can just make out two cherry red lips and heavily made-up cat eyes behind the enormous manmade mounds of flesh.

“Mrs. Ivers?”

My head snaps up and I look at Rodriguez. She wears a knowing expression that says it all:
You’re not the first mom whose world I have totally shattered. God, I love my job!

I have the burning desire to smack that look off her face, but at the moment I am completely paralyzed.

“That’s not all, Mrs. Ivers,” she says, watching me as though I am a caged animal.

I feel my pulse quicken. Oh shit, there’s more? What the hell can it be? Condoms? A joint? A Sig Sauer?

Once again, Rodriguez opens her drawer and pulls something out. It is a single sheet of unlined paper. She peers at it distastefully, then holds it out to me and I feel myself flinch as though it has been tainted with anthrax. I force my hand not to shake as I reach up and take the sheet from Rodriguez’s clawlike grasp, then bring it to my lap and look down.

What I see unleashes a bastion of conflicting emotions: horror, disillusionment, maternal pride, art appreciation, disbelief.
It is a pencil drawing of a naked girl lying on a bed, the sheets around her rumpled and entwined with her bare legs, her arms stretched lazily over her head. She appears to be roughly Connor’s age; her face has that innocent and carefree look of youth and her body is thin, her curves as yet unrealized, her breasts mere buds. I recognize Connor’s style at once, although his usual subject matter until now has been superheroes, supervillains, and supermonsters. And while the sketch shocks me as much as the
Hustler
magazine on Rodriguez’s desk, I can’t help but admire the raw (or should I say
naked
) talent of the artist. I realize that Connor has a gift, and I will do everything in my power to nurture that gift. Right after I ground him for the rest of his life.

“In case you were wondering,” Rodriguez says, interrupting my thoughts, “this girl is also a student at Meriwether. This kind of thing is considered bullying.”

I give her an incredulous look. “Bullying?”

“What would you call it, Mrs. Ivers?”

“Art?” I say lightly, but she is not amused. I get the feeling that this woman wouldn’t appreciate the Venus de Milo if it fell on her head.

“Do you think this is a joke?” she asks pointedly.

“No, of course not!” I retort. “But I don’t think it’s bullying either. It’s not like Connor drew handcuffs or a mustache on her. It’s actually a very good rendering.”

“It’s
pornographic
!” The principal’s voice is contained, but her nostrils flare angrily. “That girl is twelve years old. Imagine the damage that ‘
rendering
’ would have done to her psyche had it been circulated throughout the student body.”

Personally, I think that if a drawing like that of me had circulated through
my
middle school, I wouldn’t have been lacking for dates to the school dance.

“I understand your point,” I say in a conciliatory tone,
knowing I have to be very diplomatic. Rodriguez could kick Connor out of school for this. The alternatives to James Meriwether Middle School are either a twenty-five-minute commute each way to the public school in the next district or a private school that costs about a zillion dollars a year.

“So what happens now?” I ask, all humble and beseeching.

She makes a steeple with her fingers, although the fiery red nail polish makes it look more like the roof of a brothel than the top of a church. She appears to be scrutinizing me, is probably considering the depth of my parental concern. I struggle to look appropriately contrite.

“Connor is an exemplary student,” she says, then unhinges the steeple and taps a fingernail against the top page of his file. “He has never been in any kind of trouble before today.”

I nod in agreement but remain silent for fear that anything I say might be misconstrued.

“I can’t overlook this infraction,
obviously
. But perhaps we can be lenient this one time. In view of his record.”

“If you think that’s fair,” I agree, then repeat her words. “In view of his record…”

“I will have to suspend him for the rest of the day, however. This will give him time to do some hard soul-searching”—is she kidding?—“about the kind of person he wants to grow up to become.”

I decide not to share with her that Connor wants to be a professional baseball player and if he succeeds he will no longer have to look at magazines or draw pictures of naked women because he’ll be swimming in the real thing after every game.

“And I trust we won’t be finding any more of
these
”—she gestures first to the magazines, then to the sketch—“among his possessions in the future.”

“Absolutely,” I say. “And I can assure you, his father and I will give him a stern talking-to.”

“I suggest that
more
than a stern talking-to is in order.”

What does she want me to do? Beat him senseless? Throw away his Wii? (That cost me over two hundred bucks, thank you very much. It is
not
going in the trash.) Humiliate him and force him to betray his prepubescent urges? At this moment I am confronted with the fact that I have absolutely no idea how I am going to handle this or what I am going to say to Connor. It’s one of those sticky parental situations that requires subtlety and levelheadedness. Fuck, why didn’t I call Jonah?

I realize that Ms. Rodriguez is glowering at me, and I give her my attention.

“I will be keeping an eye on your son from now on, Mrs. Ivers. One more infraction and the consequences will be severe.”

I get to my feet and, grasping the sketch in my right hand, I reach out for the magazines with my left. Before I can grab them, Rodriguez slaps her palm down on the
Hustler
, her bony fingers partially obscuring the money shot.

“
I
will see that these are disposed of properly.” As she scoops them back into her desk drawer, I swear I see a gleam in her fake blue eyes, and I can’t help but wonder if she might be planning to take the magazines home for an evening of
la vida loca
and a little self-love. Ah, well. Live and let live.

She slams the drawer, then flips Connor’s file folder shut with finality. This meeting is definitely over.

During the car ride home I am as silent as death. Connor sits beside me rather than in the back of the minivan because, by God, anyone who has (or had) porn magazines in his possession
is damn well old enough to sit in the front seat. I can feel his eyes dart to me every so often as though he is expecting me to strike at any moment. He is assuming my silence means I am furious, but he is wrong. To describe my state of mind, I must borrow a word I frequently heard spoken by the grandmother of my childhood best friend, Susan Stein:
verklempt
. The turbulent thoughts swirling around in my brain are making it impossible for me to form sentences. I give myself credit for remaining calm in Herr Rodriguez’s office, but now I am suffering from a kind of posttraumatic stress syndrome.

I have never harbored illusions that my children are perfect, or that they would somehow remain innocent until they were, say, twenty-five. But I honestly thought I had a few more years with Connor before he made that leap into pseudo-manhood. Although Jonah had
The Talk
with him when he turned eleven (and explained to Connor that, no,
vagina
is not a city in Italy), I didn’t expect to be confronted with his biologically fueled urges so soon. He’s twelve, for crying out loud.