Tom Perrotta - The Abstinence Teacher

“You can't brood,” he told her. “You gotta go out and do something positive.”

It was the best advice he ever gave her. She started small, half-walking, half-jogging a few laps around the middle-school track, but her body responded right away. In July, she was running three miles a day at a slow, steady clip; by mid-August, a brisk five-miler no longer made her feel like she was going to throw up or die of heatstroke. She ran a 10k race on Labor Day, finishing ninth in the Women Forty and Over category. In six months, she lost twenty pounds, streamlined her entire lower body, and realized, to her delight and amazement, that she looked thinner and healthier than she had in college, where she'd majored in Psychology and minored in Doritos. The only downside to this midlife physical transformation was that it made her that much more conscious of the absence of a man in her life—it seemed like such a waste, having a nice body again, and no one to appreciate it.

What the running mainly did, though—she could see it more clearly in retrospect than she'd been able to at the time—was provide her with a way of working through her anger and coming to some level of acceptance of the new regime. Because as much as she would have liked to stand up for what she believed in and resign in protest, where would she have been then? She was a divorced mother with two daughters who would soon be going to college, a tenured teacher with six years to go before she qualified for a full pension. It wouldn't be easy to find another district in the area willing to hire someone with her baggage. And besides, as Randall frequently reminded her, if she quit then they would win, the forces of shame and denial, the people who'd praise the Lord if they forced her out of the classroom and replaced her with someone more compliant. Wouldn't it be better to stay put and see what happened? The Abstinence curriculum was a pilot program, part of a two-year study funded by a federal grant. When it ended, who knew what would take its place?

All of these arguments had seemed perfectly plausible to Ruth as she'd jogged around Stonewood Lake at dusk, or huffed and puffed down the bike path at the first light of dawn. But right now, looking out on a classful of ninth graders, she wondered if she'd been betrayed by the endorphins, because all she wanted to do was apologize to her students for letting them down, for allowing it to come to this.

She knew it was past time to get started, but she couldn't seem to locate her voice. The kids were watching her closely, their faces alert and curious, paying the kind of attention she would have killed for on any other day. In the back row, the minders were growing restless, exchanging glances of puzzlement and concern. JoAnn leaned in close to Dr. Farmer and whispered something in his ear. Principal Venuti cleared his throat at high volume and made a spinning motion with his index finger, signaling that it was time to get rolling. Ruth felt a disgustingly fake smile—an adolescent reaction to social panic that she'd never fully conquered—tugging at the corners of her mouth. It took an effort of will for her to rein it in.

“Well,” she finally managed to croak, in a voice she didn't recognize as her own. “Here we are.”

IT WAS A LITTLE AFTER SIX ON FRIDAY EVENING, BUT ALREADY Bombay Palace was packed, the entrance overrun with cranky families who'd just been informed that they'd have to wait half an hour for a table at the town's only half-decent alternative to Applebee's. Tearing off a piece of alu paratha, Ruth registered a flicker of pleasure at her own free agent status. It was one of the few compensations of divorce, she thought, the one night a week when Frank took the girls and she was able to do what she wanted, no babysitter to pay, no one to report to when she got home. A perfect opportunity to be bad, if she'd had anyone to be bad with.

“Look on the bright side,” Gregory told her. “At least you're practicing what you preach.”

“I don't think it qualifies as abstinence if it's involuntary,” Ruth told him. “It's just pathetic.”

“And it's definitely not abstinence if a vibrator's involved,” Randall added.

“You're right about that,” she said. “The new curriculum clearly states that masturbation of any kind is strictly verboten. Apparently it's habit-forming and interferes with your schoolwork.”

“Damn,” said Gregory. “So that's why I didn't get into Harvard.”

“Frankly,” said Randall, “it's a miracle you got your real-estate license.”

Gregory nodded. “I'm just glad I didn't have to take the test when I was fifteen.”

“Believe me,” said Ruth. “The kids didn't look too happy when I broke the news.”

“I bet Homo Joe was pretty devastated, too,” Randall observed. “What's he gonna do with that economy-size jar of Vaseline he carries around in his coat pocket?”

“Or that Burt Reynolds centerfold in his wallet?” said Gregory.

It was a running joke between Randall and Gregory that Principal Venuti was actually a closeted gay man—aka “Homo Joe”— who took extralong showers in the boys’ locker room, kept a stash of pilfered jockstraps in his “Confidential” file cabinet, and was frequently seen dancing at The Manhole in tight jeans, a fishnet shirt, and a Prince Valiant wig. Whenever possible, a new perversion was added to the list.

“I really don't get the logic behind the whole abstinence thing,” said Gregory. “I mean, I grew up being taught that premarital sex was wrong, and gay people were going straight to hell, and playing with yourself was a sin. And look how I turned out.”

“Greg was wearing leather hot pants and a studded dog collar on the night we met,” Randall told Ruth.

“I know,” said Ruth. “You showed me the pictures.”

“It was a Halloween party,” Gregory explained. “And I'd just left the seminary. I was trying to make up for lost time.”

“I'm not complaining.” Randall reached across the table and gave his boyfriend's hand a furtive squeeze. “And I wouldn't say no to a reenactment later on.”

“We can try,” Gregory said skeptically. “But you'll need a crowbar to get my fat ass into those shorts.”

“The collar will suffice,” Randall assured him.

As she often did in their company, Ruth wondered how much of this banter was serious and how much was manufactured for her entertainment. Either way, dinner with Randall and Gregory was a lot livelier than the occasional girls’ night out she shared with Donna DiNardo and Ellen Michaels, a longtime colleague who taught History Defying the Sex and the City stereotype of randy, uninhibited single gals dishing colorful secrets to their friends, the three women rarely spoke about anything but work and movies. Ruth and Donna made a special effort to steer clear of the problematic realms of sex and romance, lest they trigger one of Ellen's weepy, chardonnay-fueled tirades against her ex-husband, Marty, a lawyer who'd run off with a much younger colleague and started a new family, leaving her all alone in a big empty house, her kids grown up and gone, nothing but the goddam TV for company, probably for the rest of her life.

Tonight, especially, Ruth was grateful to have such diverting companions. It had been a rough week, a sustained attack on her dignity and self-esteem. Here she was—a woman who had always prided herself on being a fighter—standing up day after day in her own classroom and, under the watchful eyes of her three “guest observers,” betraying everything she'd ever stood for as a teacher, the values on which she'd built her entire career. She'd done what she could to let the kids know she wasn't buying what she was selling—grimacing, talking in a robotic voice, stressing as often as she could that the curriculum didn't necessarily reflect her personal opinion—but it didn't matter much. She still felt dirty at the end of each class, unable to meet her students’ eyes as they filed out of the room.