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Aleigha is there, repeating the same few words, “Are you all right? Should I call for help?” When I don’t answer, she places her cold fingers on my arm. Her dark eyes meet mine.
A nervous laugh escapes my lips and I shake my head. Color returns to my face as my heart resumes a less frantic pace. I pat her hand and pull away. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” She doesn’t believe me.
“Yeah,” offering a fake smile, I come up with a fast explanation that sounds possible. “There was a spider on my desk. I didn’t see it until it crawled onto the keyboard.” OK, the story doesn’t make sense, but it’s enough to explain why I threw my laptop across the floor. Maybe. If she was two-years-old.
Aleigha’s face scrunches up as she wrings her fingers. “I hate spiders.” She says the words like she wants to believe me.
The entire class is watching the exchange. Every set of eyes turned from their sketchbooks, watching their teacher go insane.
Act normal. Another high-pitched plastic laugh escapes my lips. I shiver again and rub my palms over my arms. “Me too. I was so enthralled in what I was doing that it crawled across my hand. I didn’t see it. When I jerked away, my laptop went flying.” I glance around the room and give a girlish shrug. A few male students laugh it off, but Aleigha knows I’m lying.
She doesn’t press me. Instead, she picks up my computer off the floor. The screen is intact, but it’s gone dark. “Let me see if I can reboot this for you. It’s possible the fall broke something. Do you have a solid state hard-drive?”
I shrug, unable to find my voice. As she begins reviving the computer, the bell rings.
I repress all emotion, shoot up my stone walls around my heart in a blink, and bark out reminders for their parents to check Facebook for the invite to their Spring art show. “End of year awards will be given. And food!”
“They’re already gone.” Vi Trinka rounds the door. I hear the clink of her heels before I see her face. She hurries over to me. She’s about my age and considers herself a catch. Plastic boobs, a trim waist, a bit of Botox in the right places, and silky black hair make it difficult to tell her exact age. But I know we’re both forty years old. Tight-fitting clothing hugs her thin Italian frame, an oxymoron since she loves to eat, but loves showing off that narrow waist.
We’re supposed to have lunch. The woman has a sixth sense and can tell something’s wrong. “What happened here? Nonni Spingoli is like screaming in my ear that something is batshit crazy right now.”
Nonni is her great grandmother who came over from Italy in the early 1900s. Vi never met her but swears the woman haunts her, tells her things. Nonni’s first appearance coincides with the accident. Vi was driving and Zara was on the passenger side. The right side of the car was decimated. Zara died instantly. Vi survived with a few stitches and a lot of heartaches which she combats with men and being haunted by Nonni.
Waving a hand at her, I say, “Nonni is off today. I’m just clumsy and dropped it.” I lie and offer a sheepish smile.
Vi glances at my student, but Aleigha says nothing. The girl continues trying to reboot the computer.
“Nonni is never wrong.” Vi arches a dark brow at me, but I offer nothing. Then she tips her head toward the door. “I’ll meet you downstairs in the cafeteria, then? I don’t have much time today. I need to finish grades and all the end of year shit—” she glances at student and corrects herself—“year-end assignments, and so on. Let’s go out tonight. Catch up.” Vi wanders out, talking over her shoulder in a thick Brooklyn accent, “I won’t take no for an answer.”
Aleigha has the computer half alive but it sounds like it ate rocks. She frowns. “I think you’re going to need a new hard drive. It wasn’t solid state so it didn’t survive the crash very well. This sounds bad, but you should be able to get your stuff off it before it totally croaks.”
Without realizing it, I’m rubbing my palms over my forearms, which are covered in goosebumps with every hair standing on end. “Well, thanks for trying. I’m too clumsy sometimes.”
My lips press together in a thin line. It’s all over my face. Please leave. Please don’t ask me. I think it so loudly that a wombat in Australia could hear me.
Aleigha notices the movement, the way my body language closed off suddenly. She tactfully ignores it. Shrugs. Accepts the way of the wombat. Tentative tip of the lips, and lies. “Yeah, me too.” Then sincerely, “Hey, if you ever need help with something technical, just ask.”
A nervous bark of a laugh tumbles out of my mouth. I sound like a man. Embarrassed, I find myself with my arms folded over my chest, half avoiding her gaze. “What makes you say that?”
She gives me a look that’s kind, soft. “Between the time of year, Facebook, and the look on your face, Ms. Abby, it doesn’t take a genius to realize something’s bothering you.”
I swat a hand at her as if it were nothing. All the students know my husband died suddenly on our second honeymoon and due to particularly poor form on my part, they knew we were racing towards a divorce when I flipped out on Zach at the art show that year. Then the unthinkable happened. We both left of vacation but only I came home. The students had a sub for six months. I haven’t personally said anything about it to them. Every time I tried, I couldn’t find it in me to explain how my high school sweetheart hated me at the end, how he died—why he didn’t come home—and how I got this scar across my face. Chee
k to the chin, a nefarious razor line, deep gash. I hear them say, “She was pretty once, before that happened.”
They speculate, say it was a huge fight—and that’s when I stop listening. Lies that contain a bit of truth are the hardest to hear.
“It didn’t bother me. There was a—” I’m about to say ‘spider’ but the girl’s face makes me tell the truth. I don’t want to lie to her. She’s been kind to me, never took advantage of my bereavement. Even when I stupidly showed up for work and couldn’t do more than sit there.
I change what I’m saying with a sigh, “Listen, I saw a picture of Zach that I don’t remember taking. That’s all. I wish I could remember.” I need to remember because that can’t be a new shot. That makes no sense.
“There’s a way to pull EXIF data from a picture, you know. If you can’t remember where it was taken or when.” She speaks like this is common knowledge. Maybe it is to her, but it’s not to me.
Jaw gaping, I smile politely. “Exit data?”
Aleigha shakes her head making her dark hair tumble over her shoulders. She shoves it away like it’s annoying. “EX-IF,” she over-enunciates the IF at the end of the word, “data is like metadata that’s stored in the photograph. Digital images have a file hidden in the actual picture. It tells you a bunch of information like what kind of camera took the picture, the exposure, lens, aperture, location, date, and a bunch of other stuff.”
“Oh,” I kind of want to ask her about it, but decide it’s inappropriate to ask her to help me figure out when and where the picture was taken. Okay, I’m lying. I’d totally ask her, but I don’t want her asking questions about Zach, about my scar, or what happened.
“I can pull it for you,” she offers.
“Thanks, but I’ll just Google how to do it. It’s personal, but thank you. I didn’t realize there was that much information in an image.” I sound like my mother. Technology passed me by and I didn’t even notice. Exit data. Geeze.
