Tom Perrotta - The Abstinence Teacher

TOM PERROTTA

The Abstinence Teacher

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition first published in Australia in 2008

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Fourth Estate

First published in USA in 2007 by St. Martins Press

Copyright © Tom Perrotta 2007

The right of Tom Perrotta to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007261000

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2009 ISBN: 9780007319473

Version: 2017-03-29

For Joe Gordon

And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

—THE GOSPEL OF MARK

Title Page TOM PERROTTA The Abstinence Teacher

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Part One - Some People Enjoy It

Chapter 1 - Miss Morality

Chapter 2 - Let's Find Out

Chapter 3 - Who Do We Appreciate?

Part Two - Hot Christian Sex

Chapter 4 - Three-Legged Race

Chapter 5 - Praise Team

Part Three - Coach Tim's God

Chapter 6 - So Be It

Chapter 7 - Yusuf Islam

Chapter 8 - God's Warrior

Chapter 9 - A Big Day for the Lord

Chapter 10 - Refresher

Chapter 11 - Two Tims

Part Four - Presentation of Fears

Chapter 12 - Go Home to Your Wife

Chapter 13 - Faith Keepers

Chapter 14 - Good Morning

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

Also by Tom Perrotta

About the Publisher

ON THE FIRST DAY OF HUMAN SEXUALITY, RUTH RAMSEY WORE A short lime green skirt, a clingy black top, and strappy high-heeled sandals, the kind of attention-getting outfit she normally wouldn't have worn on a date—not that she was going on a lot of dates these days—let alone to work. It was a small act of rebellion on her part, a note to self— and anyone else who cared—that she was not a willing participant in the farce that would unfold later that morning in second-period Health & Family Life.

On the way to homeroom, Ruth stopped by the library to deliver the grande nonfat latte she regularly picked up for Randall, the Reference Librarian, a fellow caffeine junkie who returned the favor by making the midday Starbucks run. The two of them had bonded several years earlier over their shared revulsion for what Randall charmingly called the “warmed-over Maxwell Piss” in the Teacher's Lounge, and their willingness to spend outlandish sums of money to avoid it.

Randall kept his eyes glued to the computer screen as she approached. A stranger might have mistaken him for a dedicated Information Sciences professional getting an early start on some important research, but Ruth knew that he was actually scouring eBay for vintage Hasbro action figures, a task he performed several times a day. Randall's partner, Gregory, was a successful real-estate broker and part-time artist who built elaborate dioramas featuring the French Resistance Fighter GI Joe, an increasingly hard-to-find doll whose moody Gallic good looks were dashingly accentuated by a black turtleneck sweater and beret. In his most recent work, Gregory had painstakingly re-created a Parisian café circa 1946, with a dozen identical GI Jeans staring soulfully at each other across red-checkered tablecloths, tiny hand made Gauloises glued to their plastic fingers.

“Thank God,” he muttered, as Ruth placed the paper cup on his desk. “I was lapsing into a coma.”

“Any luck?”

“Just a few Russian infantrymen. Mint condition, my ass.” Randall turned away from the screen and did a bug-eyed double take at the sight of Ruth's outfit. “I'm surprised your mother let you out of the house like that.”

“My new image.” Ruth struck a pose, jutting out one hip and sucking in her cheeks like a model. “Like it?”

He gave her a thorough top-to-bottom appraisal, taking full advantage of the gay man's license to stare.

“I do. Very Mary Kay Letourneau, if you don't mind my saying so.”

“My daughters said the same thing. Only they didn't mean it as a compliment.”

Randall reached for his coffee cup, raising it to his lips and blowing three times into the aperture on the plastic lid, as though it were some sort of wind instrument.

“They should be proud to have a mom who can carry off a skirt like that at…” Randall's voice trailed off diplomatically.

“… at my age? ” Ruth inquired.

“You're not that old,” Randall assured her. “And you look great.”

“Lotta good it does me.”

Randall sipped his latte and gave a philosophical shrug. He was a little older than Ruth, but you wouldn't have known it from his dark curly hair and eternally boyish face. Sometimes she felt sorry for him—he was a cultured gay man, an opera-loving dandy with a fetish for Italian designer eyewear, trapped all day in a suburban high school—but Randall rarely complained about the life he'd made for himself in Stonewood Heights, even when he had good reason to.

“You never know when opportunity will knock,” he reminded her. “And when it does, you don't want to answer the door in a ratty old bathrobe.”

“It better knock soon,” Ruth said, “or it won't matter what I'm wearing.”

Randall set his cup down on the Wonder Woman coaster he kept on his desk, next to an autographed picture of Maria Callas. The serious expression on his face was only slightly compromised by his milk-foam mustache.

“So how are you feeling?” he asked. “You okay about all this?”

Ruth shifted her gaze to the window behind the circulation desk, taking a moment to admire the autumnal image contained within its frame: a school bus parked beneath a blazing orange maple, a bright blue sky crowning the world. She felt a sudden urge to be far away, tramping through the woods or wandering around a strange city without a map.