YOUR NOT EVEN COMING TO THE DINNER PARTY SO YOU SHOULDN@T CARE.
I don’t care.I feel like Priya’s predictive text probably filled inI don’t carewhenever she let it pick the first three words for her.But your babysitter can’t have scrofula.
Maybe it was scurvy?James Royce-Royce had suggested.A lot of people these days aren’t eating anything like enough fresh fruit and vegetables.
Do people still even get scrofula?Jennifer.In industrialised countries, I mean. I don’t want this to be a conversation about global health inequality.
You do a bit, don’t you?Peter.
A series of typing-dots came from Brian, followed by:Scrofula is actually tuberculosis of the throat. It’s caused by the same bacteria that causes it in the lungs so it’s uncommon in this country because we vaccinate against TB anyway. It still happens sometimes but most of the examples I can find are from the states.
Then he linked a couple of sources. Then he linked some truly disgusting images of an elderly woman with suppurating lesions on her neck.
OKAYN IT MIGHT NOT BE SCROFULA, Bridge admitted.IT MIGHT BE MUMPS.
Hoping to drag things back in a semi-productive direction, I sent:So next weekend then?
Next weekend as in this weekend coming, asked Jennifer,or next weekend the weekend after that?
Figuring the rest of the chat could work that out amongst themselves, I stood up unsteadily and went out to the car. Once I was behind the wheel and making the best attempt I could to psych myself into effective-solving-problems-parent mode, as opposed to parent-who-has-blatantly-fucked-up mode, I checked my phone one last time.
Are the Straights Okay (Dinner Party Remix) had devolved into a conversation about the correct usage of “next weekend” that Ifound even less appealing than the scrofula discussion, and that probably did not bode well for the vibe if we ever finally got round a dinner table.
Less appealing still, Oliver had texted back. His message had been even shorter than mine. A clear, to the point:What happened?
I guess I’ll find out when I get there.
We’ll talk about how to handle this when I get home.
And I guess that was fair? Like at least it was awestatement.I’ll fill you in soon as I can.
Thank you.There was a pause and then a little three-dot moment and then:I love you.
I sent back anI love you towithout even stopping to second-guess myself, which I thought really showed how far I’d come. Then I sent a*toowhich showed how far I hadn’t. Then I put my phone away like a responsible driver, pulled out into the road, and immediately stalled.
I definitely did not take that as a sign.
Jaz was waiting at the school gates clutching her bag and looking anywhere but at me. The sky behind her was as grey as the car park, and the wind kept blowing her hair across her face. She seemed to have got bored of pushing it out again.
“What happened?” I asked.
Silence.
I waited for her to get into the car and to my relief she did, but when I got back into the driver’s seat, she kept looking out the window at the drab, suburban streets of Havering.
“Miss Collins will tell me if you don’t,” I pointed out. Honestly, she’d probably already put the details in an email—these things had to have a paper trail because of accountability and shit. “But I’d like to hear your side of it.”
After a while Jaz just said, “Challenging behaviour.”
I tried to keep my tone…not light—I didn’t want to sound like I wasn’t taking this seriously—but nonjudgemental. “They wouldn’t have sent you home just for being challenging.”
“Challenging don’t mean challenging. It meanschallenging.”
I bit my lip and took in a short breath. “Jaz, don’t make me say something really wanky.”
“Bit late for that.”
“No, I mean really wanky. Like, ‘I’m trying to be on your side but you’re making it difficult.’”
