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“Listen, you said yourself that you want the kid to eat. Everyone is somehow still outside having this ridiculously long recess period because I guess that’s what the rich pay for now. So I’ll go get the burgers, you call him inside and let him eat before anybody sees and calls the campus cops, and then tonight I’ll talk to him about how his hippie-dippy prep school only serves organic food and he’s going to have to suck it up.”
She smiles and bites her lip. And goddamn do I want to be the one to bite it for her.
“Come on,” I say, giving her a half smile and pointing a finger at her cleavage that’s peeking out of her standard-issue prep school cardigan, the only thing standard about her ensemble. “I see a rule breaker in there somewhere. Let’s do it.”
7
Jewel
Vince’s plan works, and Max scarfs down most of a bacon double cheeseburger and an entire helping of fries while Vince watches him.
I’m so happy to see the kid eat, I don’t care that it’s fast food. But I am curious.
“By coincidence, you had this in your car?”
“I had a double order for myself and I had already eaten half of it.”
I should be appalled. But I’m not at all.
“I think you should come back tomorrow. We need to ease him into the way we eat lunch here and it would help him if you were present.”
“‘K.”
Why do I not feel totally infuriated by his monosyllabic answers?
When Max finishes and Vince clears away the trash—at the bottom of my trash bin so nobody else sees the fast food logos—we walk Max back out to recess. Vince squats down in front of him and Max locks his arms around Vince’s neck. Vince murmurs something in his ear, and I see him nod solemnly before ambling away to sit under a tree on the playground.
I can’t help but feel heartwarmed. “That was my favorite tree ever since I was a girl. It’s a lot bigger now, but still my favorite.”
As Vince and I walk together back to the main entrance, down covered walkways and through limestone halls, he asks me questions about myself. “You went here as a kid?”
I nod. “Yes, it was very different back then. It used to be a Catholic school, but went through some tumultuous years in the late 1980s. By the time I arrived, it was still finding its footing as an independent prep school. Not quite as elite as it is now, but I still love its mission.”
“Why’d your parents want to spend so much money?”
I laugh. “I was disruptive and high energy, and Mom didn’t want to drug me to keep me still. So she searched all the options and Greenbridge had the best program and the best resources for a kid like me. After my mom died, I went to live with my aunt, and she made sure I could continue to go here.”
Talking about myself makes me self-conscious. Other people are much more fascinating, especially kids. Let’s amend that statement—kids and this man are fascinating creatures. He has a beautiful, touchable body, from his shiny hair to his beautiful beard to his slight beer belly, all of it. And god help me, I want to rub up against it and bite that most delightful, squeezable ass. I try not to picture him in my kitchen wearing only pajama pants and no shirt, drinking coffee, and glaring at me. I am finding it very difficult not to think of exactly that image.
“I’m sorry to hear you lost your mom so young,” he says, with a twinge of tenderness that I can tell does not come easy for him.
That’s it. He’s not getting out of my sight today without a hug. I must hug this big, scary man. I need to ma
sh my body against his body.
His reluctant acceptance of my embrace is warm, hard and soft at the same time. His body is a lot harder than I thought it would be. And he’s actually hugging me back, despite telling me he’s not much of a hugger. His hands awkwardly pat me on the back, but he ends it with a quick hard squeeze.
“Research,” I whisper.
“Huh?”
I pull back from the hug and give him my most winning smile. “The long recess, the toys, the delayed screen time. People pay for that now because child development research supports it.”
“‘K,” he says, nodding.
While I watch his tasty vintage Mustang disappear out of the lot, I scurry back to the playground for the remainder of recess, but not before stopping off at my desk to grab a dusty copy of the Greenbridge Teacher Code of Conduct.
It says nothing at all about teachers dating parents of students.
