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V: You are very little help. Ok, gotta go get the kid. ttyl.
So. I try to just go through my day, going through the physical motions while my brain races and my stomach twists itself into knots. I dress Maeve in a flowered dress with matching striped leggings. The fabric is this soft European cotton that makes it clear this scrap of fabric probably cost more than any clothes I’ve ever owned.
We play on the floor for a while and I’m hyper aware of the camera. It’s like I’m on the world’s most boring reality show. Maeve keeps rocking up onto her hands and knees. I wonder if Corbin will see her start to crawl in person, on a security feed, or not at all.
I’m in the kitchen, barely tasting my sandwich, watching Maeve slowly and deliberately pinch bites of scrambled egg and transfer them to her mouth, when my phone buzzes with a message from Asia:
A: Whatchoo gonna do?
V: Dunno.
A: Git it guuuurl… (dancing girl emoji)
V: What if “talk” means “I’m firing you”?
A: Okay, he said he’d pay you anyway.
V: What if he doesn’t?
A: What if he actually decides to give you the house and move back to Boston? You don’t know, so stop worrying. He probably just wants to say “wtf was that last night” and clear the air and move on. So all you really need to do is decide whether you want to move forward.
A: Hint: You do.
She follows it with the banana and donut emoji.
V: Stay classy.
A: :)
We wait an hour after lunch–because who are you going to believe, scientists or your Grandma?–and go out to the pool. Maeve splashes and paddles until she’s ready for a nap. Once she’s down for an hour or so, I check my email. I see the name of our school principal and click it.
She wants to let all of the teachers know that there’s going to be a meeting of the board of directors that run the charter school. She suggests that as many of us as possible should be there, so that they see some of the lives affected if the school closes. She’s going to pull in as many kids as she can, too. The meeting is next Tuesday at one p.m. I’ll need to ask for time off.
That letter was followed by a chain of emails from my fellow teachers. “Will you be there?” “Will you?” “I’m out of town” “What do you think will happen?” and so on. They had that slightly panicked tone that you get when you think you might lose your job with little notice. Those in the union will get placed somewhere, but the rest of us will be scrambling. And of course there’s the kids…They’ll just have to go to their districted schools, often woefully under-equipped to handle kids with a very limited grasp on English. If they could stay put, they’d pick it up fast. Kids are amazingly resilient, but many of these families are on the move, following the harvest. The time that they can get at Excellence Academy is like a life raft, breathing space where they can learn without having to first overcome the language barrier. And we’ve got a pared-down curriculum–we can skip the luxuries like California state history or learning cursive or even music and art (although it pains me) and cram in as much math, science, and English lessons as we can. I feel like we really make a difference.
And just like that? I’m done worrying about Corbin. I realize I’ve just been spinning myself up, letting it seem like this looming drama, almost just to kill time. If the school year was on, I’d have just said, “Hey, what’s the deal with the baby, pal? Why are you so weird with her?” and either moved on or dated him because in the school year, I do not have time for drama.
Right. Well that’s settled then.
A calm settles over me and I finish the novel I’ve been reading (spoiler alert: they end up together, happily ever after) and I even doze off for a bit until Maeve wakes up. We play a bit more, go for a walk before dinner.
Marta has made fish tacos and Maeve happily mashes avocado onto her tray and into her hair as we eat. By the time I have given her a bath and put her to bed, it’s nearly time to meet Corbin. I hop in the shower to wash off the scum of the day and change into a loose summer dress. I even put on earrings–which I never wear around the grabby Maeve–and a necklace. It feels good to dress up a little.
I step out into the kitchen garden at exactly eight and Corbin is there already, popping a cherry tomato into his mouth.
Chapter Seven
“Hi,” he says, “You look beautiful. Thanks for meeting me.”
“Thanks,” I say, feeling that calm I’d managed starting to slip a little. He looks great, of course, loose tan linen pants, blue linen shirt the same sky blue as his eyes. “So it’s not a business meeting?”
He smiles that cute crooked smile. "No. But I’m going to need your help to know what it is." He reaches out a hand and I hesitate a moment before I take it. But I do. “Let’s walk,” he says, “That always makes words flow better.”
We walk down a path that seems to be headed toward the vineyard. “So,” he says after a few moments of silence, “Do I need to apologize for kissing you last night? I hope not, but I will if that’s what is needed.”
I thought that taking his hand kind of answered that, but said, “No, you don’t” anyway. “I’m sorry for just running off, though. Especially if it was as weird and confusing for you as it was for me.”
“I was pretty confused, but thought maybe I’d just gone too quickly for you. Had I?” I can feel that he’s looking at me, but I keep watching the path.
“No. It was what I wanted, too. At first.”
“What changed?”
“I wasn’t sure at first. But now I know–I need some things cleared up.” I look at him now and stop walking. I take a deep breath. “Something has happened to you that closes you off. You don’t let your guard down. Even with your own baby, it’s like you’re watching from a distance. If this felt like you just wanted a romp in the hay…or the grapes or whatever, I’d just say sure, let’s do it.”
“You would?”
“Yeah, why not, we’re both hot and single.” I laugh and he joins in. “But I feel like that’s not what you’re after.” He shakes his head. “Right. And if I’m going to go any further with this, I need to know what I’m up against. I need to read the warning label. I need a bit of backstory.”
Corbin sighs and his shoulders slump a bit. But he squares them back up and smiles at me. “Fair enough. I hope you have on comfortable shoes, this may take a while.”
“I only have comfortable shoes,” I say, smiling, “I’m a teacher.”
We start walking again, the little solar lights along the path coming on as the sun sets.
He blows his breath out and says, “Where to start? Um, I married Elise way too young. I thought I’d make my parents proud, finally getting my act together after being kind of a stoner screwup in high school and college.”
“Really?” That stuns me, he seems so…adorably square. I had him pegged as Student Council president.
“Oh yeah. I did just enough to barely get by and mostly skated through on charm. And family money of course. My dad had a bad heart attack when I was a junior and that was a wake up call. I cut way back on the partying, did my work, got the grades. But I felt like they didn’t really notice–fourth kid with a history of screwing around, it takes a while, I guess. So when Elise started saying we should move in together after college, I said we should just get married.”
“Did your family not approve of living together?” I asked. Heaven knows Grandma had given me the old “free milk” speech before.
"Oh, I doubt they would have noticed. Which is why I went with the wedding. No way to ignore that, right? I was young and stupid. I thought Elise and I would be a good match because we were from similar backgrounds. Both from Boston, our families had friends in common…We looked really good together." He chuckles, but it’s dry, like he knows it’s not funny.
“I mean, I’d never even really met her family. It wasn’t until we started planning the wedding…‘we’, that’s rich. ‘She.’ Well, ‘she and her mom
.’ It was like I’d gotten on an express train. After graduation, I started work in the Boston office of Yankee Cotton,” he sees my startled expression and adds, "yeah, not the best name, but that’s my family’s textile mill. Anyway. Elise was crazed with wedding planning. It was way too easy to take a wrong step, express the wrong opinion, so I started working longer hours, keeping out of her hair. When we did see one another we fought. Once, in a quiet moment, I said to her that maybe it wasn’t normal to be screaming all the time. She said, ‘That’s because your parents are the Cosbys. Normal people fight.’"
“Well, I’m glad your parents are not the Cosbys,” I say, “but it’s nice that she thought they were perfect.”
“Another sign of how little attention she paid. My parents are normal people who disagree sometimes, but they don’t scream and slam doors and storm out of the house.” He trails off, and we walk a bit longer, getting deeper into the vineyard. The only light now is the moon, but it’s a cloudless night, so it’s enough to see by in the wide spaces between the rows of grapes.
