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“If you have any kind of moral compass, you do,” Chamberlain says, pounding his fist on my desk.
“I’m an attorney. I don’t have a moral compass, just billable hours.”
“What?” He looks genuinely confused.
“That was a joke. Go on.”
“Well those drama kids are writing it themselves and word on the street is, it’s gonna have gays in it.”
I bite my tongue and work hard to look like I’m nodding thoughtfully, even though I really don’t want to know what else he has to say on the matter. Word on the street? What street? Who else could possibly care about any of this but Chamberlain and his tiny band of cronies?
He continues, “And it’s perversion. Teaching kids all kinds of things they’re too young for.”
“Such as?”
“Gay sex!” He seems incredulous that I’m not also horrified.
I raise my eyebrows. “You’re telling me that high school kids are going to be having sex? On stage? Certainly then, that’s public indecency. Call the police immediately,” I say, sort of admiring the fact that I can say any of this with a straight face.
“Well, I don’t think it’s gonna go that far. But there’s gonna be kissing and talking about gay stuff.” He doesn’t even realize I’m making fun of him. I almost feel sorry for him.
I lean back in my chair and study him for a moment while I click my pen. “I fail to see what about this made you want to pay me for another hour of my time,” I say.
He grunts and says, “I want to add it on to the lawsuit. Like an addendum or something.”
Exasperated and now really wanting this case to disappear more than anything, I tell him, “Sir, I would advise you against making a big deal about this. It’s only going to be seen as censorship. If there’s nothing more in the content of the play than the kind of kissing that children would see in a Disney princess movie, then I’m sorry, we are not suing anybody over that.”
This is a lie, of course. I could sue Martha for giving me a boner if I wanted to, but I don’t want to. And I do not want to touch this pinhead’s latest grievance with a ten-foot pole.
“What can I do then?”
I swivel back and forth in my chair a few times and tap my finger to my lips, thinking.
How could I use this to make the entire thing totally backfire? I have an idea.
The thought occurs to me that surely he’s not dumb enough to go for this. He can’t be that stupid.
“Write a letter to the editor of the high school newspaper,” I suggest.
He thinks for a moment. He points at me like I’m some kind of genius, which I am not. “You know, that’s not a terrible idea,” he says.
* * *
How many times had Martha destroyed me in debate practice in high school? As our language arts teacher who doubled as our debate coach, she regularly nuked any half-assed argument. She made us the best debate team in the state.
The day that we’d won our first competition ever against our rival school, everyone knew it was because she had totally desensitized our sense of attachment to our own arguments. We’d worked through all of our emotional reactions. We’d dissected and reworked everything with the utmost precision, both as a team and one-on-one.
It was the one-on-one time with Ms. Moody that I’d looked forward to. Any excuse to stay after school. Not just to be near her and fantasize about taking off her thick black frames, untying her tight bun, daring to taste those full, soft lips, teasing that knowing half-grin with my tongue. But also I wanted to spend time with her. My home life was not the greatest, and despite all the ball busting on the outside, something about her felt safe and warm.
I liked talking to her. Making her smile and laugh just once could make my whole week.
Martha would barely make eye contact when I made advances. She encouraged me to date other girls my age, but she enjoyed our conversations. She told me so much about the history of the school, and about how she dreamed of being headmistress someday.
Looking back, she was correct to resist my physical advances.
But there was no other woman for me. I just knew. Thoughts about her invaded my mind day and night.
And then one evening, everything changed.
