Alissa Nutting - Tampa

“So I wanted to talk about this journal you wrote.” My oversized desk was a large gulf between us, so I rose from my chair and motioned for us to head out to the student desks. “Here, let’s have a chat for a minute.” When he sat, I scooted another desk directly next to his so we could each stare at his notebook at the same time.

Suddenly I was closer to him than I’d ever been before. I could smell the faint sporty body wash and deodorant he used. It was nearly cruel, the apathetic way his cotton T-shirt fell on his body, not seeming to care where it clung and where it sat loose. His clothing in general had a very inconsequential feel to it, like an afterthought, as though he’d been walking out the door to go to school in his underwear but then his mother had said, Wait, get dressed first , and he’d shrugged and obeyed.

“So I think you took the easy way out here,” I chided. “I don’t know that you used one single specific adjective.” I put my hand on top of his just for a moment, a reach of understanding and sympathy, then realized an opportunity to linger. “Look,” I said. “Hold out your hand. I think our hands are the same size.” He stretched out his palm and fingers, then gave a wide grin when mine, placed directly overtop, were indeed an exact match in length. It seemed like we’d just found a key that unlocked something.

I smiled as our hands pressed against one another in midair, as though we were pretending to touch through invisible glass. We managed a long stare before Jack finally blushed, retracting his hands. “How old are you, Jack Patrick?”

“I turned fourteen this summer,” he said. I gave an impressed nod, indicating this was no small accomplishment.

“Well you’re certainly old enough to know what you like.” Principal Deegan’s first-day speech came back to mind; I had to bite my lip not to jokingly add in, Am I right? “Here, let me give you some examples. Do you like it when girls wear lipstick?”

He blushed and nodded. “Yeah.” His voice had an embarrassed tone, like he’d just made a vile confession.

“Good—do you like lighter lipstick? Darker lipstick? Red?” I wanted to grab his hand again. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to slide my fingers beneath the desk and touch the bare skin of his leg.

“Um,” he said. His hand began to scratch at his scalp.

“Wait,” I said. “I have an idea.” I walked up to my desk and grabbed my purse and a box of Kleenex. “So what I’m wearing now is called fuchsia. Kind of a bright pink.” I sat and wiped it off, then took the fuchsia tube of lipstick out of my purse along with two others. “Okay, ready?” He nodded with sudden animation—we were about to play a game.

I locked eyes with him. “Watch my lips,” I instructed. I applied the red and rubbed my lips together. His hands left the desk and folded in his lap. “Do you like this more or less than the one I had on?”

He smiled and gave a small shrug. “I like them both.”

“Let’s try option three, then.” I winked at him and cleaned the red lipstick off with exaggerated strokes, using far more Kleenex than necessary, as though I’d just eaten a very sloppy meal. I loved having his full attention. “This last one is coral.” I applied it then rubbed my lips together and parted them with a playful smack. “Which one’s your favorite?”

“They all look good.” His stare didn’t break from my mouth; he spoke in a hypnotized monotone.

“Jack,” I said, leaning toward him, “you can’t go through life being shy with your opinion. Say that right now, you were making the decision as to whether I had to wear red lipstick every day of my life, or fuchsia, or coral. It’s your decision and you have to choose. Which one?”

He swallowed. “The red is pretty.”

“Perfect.” I smiled and grabbed the other two tubes of lipstick, then walked over to the trash and threw them in loudly, one at a time. “I value what you think.” I looked up and saw his lips parted, muted around the space of something unspeakable and subconscious lodged between his teeth. The lunch period bell rang in the distance. “Here,” I offered. “Let me write you a note for the cafeteria monitor.”

I sat back down behind my desk and scribbled onto a piece of paper, then pursed my lips and blew on the paper while fanning it back and forth to dry the ink. “Here you are,” I said. As he walked up to get it, each step of his sneaker was a magnified sound in the quiet classroom. I looked at him in a shameless way as he approached, wondering if he would turn his eyes or look away. He didn’t.

Before giving him the slip of paper, I held up my palm in the air again. “High-five, friend.” He placed his hand on top of mine once more. This time I pushed his fingers slightly apart with mine and slid them forward, entwined and clasping. His eyes wouldn’t stop questioning but he didn’t speak or pull away. “Have a good weekend,” I finally said. Then I gave a small squeeze and temporarily let him go.

Ford’s poker night provided a perfect cover for my first stakeout. Every Wednesday after work several of his fellow officers would come over to the house for cards. Even though this was now routine, returning home to the sight of eight squad cars parked in our driveway still caused me to feel an instant and roiling vertigo; a few months ago I’d nearly swerved off the road and clipped a fire hydrant when I saw them all there. My immediate thought was always that my Internet search history had been discovered, or a latent report had been filed—perhaps about one of the indiscreet hallway gropes I’d tried to pass off as accidental clumsiness during my student-teaching days. There was even the illogical panic that the police had somehow managed to read my mind.

The cigar smoke was reason enough to make myself scarce during the gathering. Through the sliding glass door, its grayish cloud nearly looked like a second mesh screen. Ford liked to joke that cigars keep away mosquitoes. I found the smell vulgar and fetid. It just made Ford seem even more ancient, as though he was smoking his very own future cremains. How opposite to the bouquet of smells on the mouths of adolescent boys, which is an honest mixture of good and bad: bubble gum, Red Hots, cola syrup, stale sleep, rubber bands for braces, the occasional cigarette that leaves a taste less like tobacco than something very damp and mossish.

I slid the patio door open theatrically, dressed to the nines in exercise gear. The more I did for Ford’s ego publicly, I’d found, the less I had to do to satisfy him privately. “Hello, boys,” I called. They all looked up with too-large approving smiles, the alcohol having given their facial muscles an increased range of movement. “I’m gonna hit the gym for a bit, Fordsie.”

“Take my wife with you, will ya?” Ford’s partner Bill called. At last year’s police fund-raiser he’d gotten blackout drunk and put his hand on my ass shortly before vomiting behind the DJ table. “Her idea of working out is putting new batteries in the remote control.” The men chuckled into their beers, the guns strapped around their waists and chests gleaming in the setting sun. “Get her working on that ab machine thing,” he specified. I shut the door and waved good-bye at Ford, who made a show of watching my ass as I walked away. This was the reason Ford married me, and why I could make the argument that I was a better wife for him than a woman who was actually smitten: love makes people feel accepted, and like Bill’s wife they then begin to break the rules. I had a far clearer picture of our marriage contract’s unspoken line items than most women: Ford wanted me to stay in shape, look good in front of his friends, and make him look good in return.