Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [39]
“Thank you for telling me.” I thought a moment. “Why don’t we consider your absences excused in advance? If you can e-mail me the days you can’t come, I can write back a description of what you missed, be sure you get the right assignments.”
“I don’t want special treatment.”
Before she left, I promised I would remember our conversation and that I would be happy to talk with her if she ever needed a listening ear. She was as uninterested in my listening ear as she was in my special consideration.
Though the rest of the day went on in its usual blur of lesson plans and student e-mails, I couldn’t stop thinking of Ashley. I regretted how hastily I’d found refuge in a label. Knowing that she had just buried a sister, I saw every detail of her appearance differently. The rings beneath her eyes were evidence of sleeplessness and weeping, not hunger. She wrapped her arms around her body for comfort, not warmth.
That afternoon Mom called to report two deaths at Kent State.
“It was a fire. Caught while they were sleeping, all of them in their beds completely nonsuspecting. There were ten people in the house total—they all got out but those two. Died of smoke, we can only hope.”
“That’s awful.”
“The girl was in the boy’s bed,” Mom explained. “They weren’t even dating, just together for that one night. I’ll tell you what, that girl didn’t know what she was in for: You give a boy an inch he’ll take a foot, that’s what your grandmother always told me. But then it doesn’t seem like people much care about that kind of thing anymore. When I was growing up you didn’t sit on a boy’s bed without sending the wrong signal. Now nobody seems to care. Everybody’s about this booty call, is that what your students are calling it?”
“More or less,” I said, switching my phone to my left ear and hiking the strap of my heavy bag higher on my shoulder.
“It just goes to show you.”
“Show you what?”
“So how’s Eli?” she asked brightly.
“He’s fine.”
“He’s at the apartment?” Her voice strained with the effort of sounding nonchalant.
“He’s at work,” I said vaguely, careful to imply this was not a new development. Monday he’d had a phone interview with Zoë’s boss that lasted all of three minutes. He was hired to work at The Brewery on the spot. I had every suspicion this was Zoë’s doing; the coffee shop was a popular place to work and had been turning down applications for weeks.
“Is he helping with the chores?” she asked, unimpressed and undeterred. “If you’re going to have a man in the house you might as well make him useful. Have you changed the batteries in your smoke detector?”
“Our landlord takes a look through our place every year,” I said. “I’m sure we’re fine.”
“You really ought to check them anyway. Those batteries can die.”
“Mom, I’m sure we’d know if they died.”
“I’m just saying. You go check them, and if they’re not working, I’ll buy the replacements.”
“They don’t need to be replaced,” I said, slowly counting my breath with each word.
She punctuated the ensuing silence with a sigh. “With this wedding and with Brian leaving us, I just don’t need more worry.”
I promised I would check the smoke detector and hung up.
I told Zoë about the situation with Ashley. “One of my student’s sisters died.”
“Really?”
She didn’t look away from the television. We were in her bed watching a PBS special on killer whales. Since declaring my sabbatical from television, I only watched when she watched and she only watched what qualified as educational. Michael was at her desk, bidding on eBay and chewing a Bic pen cap. He was hoping to win a new Hydr8r Ultralight HydrationWater Bladder.
“She didn’t say how, just that it was recent and that she thought I should know in case