“Excuse me!” Jackie retorted. “I just need a smoke.” She turned to J.J. “Thatwoman, she’s saying Austin is dumb, I won’t listen to it. Just because he failed some rigged test? Please, look at Austin. He’s smart as a whip. And even if he wasn’t, let’s say he’s dumb, guess what? Who cares? He’s better-looking than every kid in this school. No one that handsome needs to know fractions. I’ll tell you that.”
J.J. winced and hid her face behind her hand. She wanted to disappear. She’d asked Jackie for help. She’d asked her mother to doone thing, to cover this single meeting, and it was blowing up in her face.What was I thinking, asking Jackie to attend the teacher’s conference?J.J. rubbed her forehead. A migraine wanted to form. She didn’t have time for that.
The familiar click of a cigarette lighter put J.J. back on alert. Jackie had a Virginia Slim menthol lit up between her lips. The lines around her mouth etched deeper with the puff.
“Mom, you can’t smoke in here.”
“We told her that multiple times,” the math teacher said.
“It’s a teacher’s lounge,” Jackie complained, “isn’t that what it’s for?”
“They haven’t smoked on school property in decades, Mom.”
“Ma’am, coming on school grounds, smoking, and while intoxicated is dangerous for the children. And then there’s the matter of destruction of property.”
“What?”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Your mother took the binder we presented her of Austin’s test scores”—the teacher paused, clearly trying to keep her composure— “and threw it across the room. It hit the computer monitor, which then fell to the ground.”
“The things in there do not reflect the intelligence of my grandson, and if these cows don’t know that, they’re the ones who need to be tested!”
“Mother.Enough.” J.J. grabbed the cigarette out of Jackie’s mouth. She stubbed it out with her thumb and pointer finger and then dropped it into her own purse. She turned to the math teacher. “I apologize for this. If we can reschedule Austin’s meeting? Maybe next week?”
“Yes, that would be best.”
“Mom, come on. We need to get the boys and go.”
“It’s about time.”
“I’m truly sorry,” J.J. said again to the teacher. “I had to work and knew the meeting here was important. I just—I’m sorry.”
The teacher, who all in all was a sweet woman, just young, took pity on her, it seemed. “We can do it next week. Austin will get it. I was trying to tell her that.”
J.J. raised her hand. “I know, this is, she is, a lot.”
J. J. loaded her boys and then her mother. Jackie wasn’t drunk. She was just in a manic phase. An ill-timed one.But then again, when were they ever well-timed?
* * *
By the time she got her mother home and somewhat calmed down and the boys in their jammies, J.J. was beat.
Her phone rang: Dean.
“Great news, babe!”
“Yeah, less great here.”
“What, are the boys okay?”
“They’re fine, just Jackie fun. It’s handled. What’s the news?”
“Got the bid in early, thank you very much—and we got it!”
“They decided already?”
“Yep, called me a few minutes ago. You know Matty Forsythe? He’s a buddy. He said they decided as soon as they saw. He called me right away.”
