Still, she’s the only person—the only human—who might be able to help. Emphasis on “might.”
“Dr. James-Trelane’s office, Classics Department. This is Sandy speaking,” a woman’s voice trills cheerfully in my ear.
If it’s true about opposites attracting, then that is certainly the case with my mother and her longtime assistant. They’re contemporaries, but Sandy is a warm, bubbly woman who goes on vacations with her daughter and son-in-law, remembers my favorite cookies, and knits scarves for the mitten tree at holiday time.
“Hi Sandy, it’s Jo. Is my mother available?” I ask, turning thewater on in Carter’s bathroom sink. I don’t know if the sound will drown out my whole conversation, but hopefully enough.
“Oh, Jo! Hi, sweetie,” Sandy says, and I can feel the affection radiating from her, even via Carter’s phone. “How is school going this semester?”
“Great,” I manage, trying to sell it.
Then she laughs. “Honey, where are you calling from? The bottom of a well?”
That might have been a simpler call to make. “No, just a bad connection,” I lie, adjusting the water to maximum.
I’ve locked myself in the pristine bathroom at Carter’s apartment, while he waits outside—likely impatiently—for his phone back.
He hadn’t wanted to give it to me, clutching it protectively when I’d asked for it.
“Why?” he’d asked, wariness written across his face.
Realization struck with a sharp, bladed precision, like a knife from an expert thrower. He thought I was going to snoop through his phone; he thought I wasthatdesperate. Heat flooded my face. Excuse me, who just kissed who?
I’d gritted my teeth, working on regaining control over my emotions.
“I need to call my mother, let her know what’s going on. Before the cops do.” Another reason to make the call, if not the primary one.
He’d handed it over then, without another word, but I could tell he was reluctant. Because I might “accidentally” send a nip pic to Dr. Stephens? Or rage with jealousy over texts from the mysterious girl he’d stayed overnight with?
Well, fine, fuck him.I squashed the hurt and anger down tight into a little ball, taking the phone and closing myself in the bathroom. I had bigger problems at the moment.
“Is she available?” I ask Sandy now, trying to keep my voice a pleasant neutral.
“Oh, Kelly’s always available for you, hon.”
Uh-huh.
“One second.”
The phone clicks, then clicks again. “Dr. James-Trelane speaking,” my mother says in a brisk, even tone over the precise tap-tap-tap of her fingers on her computer.
I sigh. “It’s me.”
“Jocasta.” A beat of silence hangs for an extra-long moment. “Is everything all right?” Her voice holds grim determination, like someone facing a runaway car without room to dodge it.
“Not exactly.” I move closer to the running water.
“I can barely hear you. Please speak up.” The clatter of keyboard keys resumes but unevenly, betraying her anxiety. “Did something happen?”
Did you do something?is what she means. She hired the lawyer, stood by me through the incident when I was fourteen. But after that… it was as if I didn’t exist. I’d broken something in her. We drifted through our house together, like two semi-polite strangers who happened to share a kitchen and the same oval-shaped face. The two exceptions were when she saw the tattoos on my hands and when she learned I was applying out of state to Beecher.
This would probably be another.
I wince in anticipation but plow forward anyway. “Have you heard from…him?”
The question slips into the silence between us and explodes, spraying our pretend normalcy with decades of trauma shrapnel.
Her breath catches audibly before she clears her throat. “Jocasta,I’m in the middle of grading midterm papers, and this ridiculous AI detector doesn’t even—”
