Tom Perrotta - Nine Inches

“I’m filling in for Sam,” she explained upon releasing him. “His father’s back in the hospital.”

Ethan nodded solemnly, trying to show the proper respect for his colleague’s ailing parent. Secretly, though, he was delighted. Sam was a social black hole, the kind of guy who could buttonhole you in the teachers’ lounge and kill your whole free period telling you about the problem he was having with his dishwasher. Trading him for Charlotte was a major upgrade.

“It’s your lucky day,” she said, as if reading his mind.

“No kidding.”

They smiled at each other, but Ethan couldn’t help noticing a slight awkwardness in the air. He and Charlotte had been good friends during his first year at Daniel Webster. He was single back then, always up for a movie or a drink, and she was separated from her husband. For a little while there — this was five years ago, ancient history — they seemed on the verge of maybe getting involved, but it didn’t happen. She went back to Rob, he met Donna, and their lives headed off on separate tracks. These days they only saw each other at school and limited their conversation to polite small talk.

“So how are you?” she asked.

“Okay.” Ethan pronounced the word with more emphasis than it usually received. He was suddenly conscious of his thinning hair, the weight he’d put on since knee surgery had ended his pickup-basketball career. He was three years younger than Charlotte, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from looking at them. “You know, not bad. How about you?”

“Great,” she replied, making a face that undercut the word. In the past year or so, she’d taken to wearing oval, black-framed eyeglasses that made her look like a college professor in a Van Halen video. “Nothing too exciting. How’s your little girl?”

“Adorable. When she’s not screaming.”

Charlotte took this as a joke; Ethan didn’t bother to correct her.

“And you’re having another?”

“Yeah, figured we should do it now, before we get used to sleeping through the night.”

She said she was happy for him, but he could see it took some effort. Kids were a sore spot in her marriage. She wanted to start a family, but her husband — he was a struggling scrap-metal sculptor, deeply devoted to his art — refused to even consider the possibility. This had been the cause of their separation, and nothing seemed to have changed since they’d gotten back together.

They were saved from this tricky subject by the arrival of Rudy Battista, barely recognizable in khakis, a brown turtleneck, and a checkered blazer, a far cry from the crinkly nylon sweatsuits he wore to teach gym every day.

“Look at you,” Charlotte called out. “Got a date?”

Rudy adjusted his lapels, his face shining with health and good humor. “It’s a special occasion. I believe it calls for a certain elegance.”

“I wish you’d told me that an hour ago,” Charlotte complained, but Ethan thought she looked just fine in her simple skirt-and-sweater combo, the black tights and ankle-high boots adding a slightly funky touch to the ensemble. He was the slacker of the group in his relaxed-fit jeans and suede Pumas. At least his shirt had buttons.

“I brought you guys a present.” Rudy reached into his pocket and produced two identical strips of soft yellow measuring tape, the kind favored by tailors. He handed one to each of his colleagues. “Exactly nine inches long.”

“Are you serious?” Ethan asked. The vice principal had briefed him on the Nine-Inch Rule a couple of days ago — it stipulated that students had to keep their bodies at least that far apart while dancing — but it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that was meant to be taken literally. “We’re actually supposed to measure?”

“Just during the slow songs,” Rudy explained. “The kids think it’s funny.”

Charlotte shot a skeptical glance at Ethan, who shrugged and stuffed the measuring tape into his pocket. She pulled her own piece taut in front of her face and pondered it for a couple of seconds.

“If that’s nine inches,” she said, “someone’s got some explaining to do.”

ETHAN SPENT the first half hour of the dance manning the table outside the cafeteria, taking tickets, checking IDs, and crossing names off a master list, while a uniformed cop hulked in the doorway behind him, scrutinizing the kids for signs of drug or alcohol abuse. Lieutenant Ritchie was an older guy — he had to be pushing sixty — with a brushy white mustache and none of the mellowness you might have expected from a small-town cop coasting toward retirement. He introduced himself as a special departmental liaison to the school board, appointed to oversee security at dances and sporting events. He said the position had been created specially for him.

“One of my nieces got caught up in that Jamaican mess,” he said, shaking his head as if the trauma were still fresh. “We let that thing get outta hand.”

Ethan had to turn away two kids at the door, but not because they’d been partying: Carlie Channing had forgotten her ID, and Mike Gruber hadn’t realized that the tickets had to be purchased in advance. Both of them begged for onetime indulgences that Ethan would have been happy to provide, but Lieutenant Ritchie made it clear that no exceptions would be permitted on his watch. He seemed to take it for granted that he was the final arbiter, and Ethan had no reason to assume otherwise. Carlie left in tears, Mike in sullen bewilderment.

“It’s a good lesson for them,” the Lieutenant observed. “Follow the rules, you got nothing to worry about.”

Ethan nodded without enthusiasm, vaguely ashamed of himself for knuckling under so easily. Carlie returned ten minutes later with her ID, but he was haunted for the rest of the night by the thought of poor Mike wandering the empty streets, exiled from the fun on account of a technicality.

IT WAS a relief to slip into the cafeteria, where the lights were low and the music was loud. Assuming an affable, don’t-mind-me expression, Ethan joined his colleagues at their observation post by the snack station. Every few songs one of them would venture out on a leisurely reconnaissance mission, but mostly they just nibbled on chips and Skittles while commenting on the action unfolding around them.

“Look at that.” Rudy directed their attention to Allie Farley, a leggy seventh-grader teetering past them in high heels and an alarmingly short skirt. “That can’t be legal.”

Charlotte craned her neck for a better look. She was the chaperone in charge of dress-code enforcement.

“It wasn’t that short when she came in. She must’ve hiked it up.”

Allie was chasing after Ben Willis, a shaggy-haired, delicate-looking kid who was one of the alpha jocks of Daniel Webster. When she caught up, she spun him around and began lecturing him on what appeared to be a matter of extreme urgency, judging from the slightly deranged look on her face and the chopping gesture she kept making with her right hand. Similar conferences were taking place all over the cafeteria, agitated girls explaining to clueless boys the roles they’d been assigned in the evening’s dramas.

For his part, Ben just stared up at her — she had at least half a foot on him — and gave an occasional awestruck nod, as if she were some supernatural being, rather than a classmate he’d known since kindergarten. Ethan sympathized; Allie had gone a little crazy with the eyeliner and lipstick, and he was having trouble connecting the fearsome young woman on the dance floor with the giggly, fresh-faced girl he taught in fourth-period social studies. She seemed to have undergone some profound, irreversible transformation.

“I wish I could’ve worn something like that when I was her age,” Charlotte said. “I had scoliosis, and back then you had to wear this awful body brace. It looked like I was wearing a barrel.”