Peer Pressure (20 page)

“Good morning,” said Katy, finally, as if trying to find any sign of life around this kitchen table. Jodie said nothing, but continued to stare, completely at a loss. She just didn’t know how to play it at this point.

“Everything all right?” asked Katy, again trying to get something out of either of them.

She kept her eyes fixed on Jodie, starting to feel concerned, as Jodie’s face continued to remain blank and at the same time began to wonder what the hell Laura was doing there at that time of the day.

Finally, in an act of heroism that was usually rather un-characteristic, Laura decided to reflect the attention away from her friend, by breaking the silence:

“I slept with Sean Lewis last night!”

Both Jodie and Katy’s gaze then fell on Laura, who sat, un-easily, in her seat, all attention now on her. Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought any further ahead than this, and so the room fell silent again and remained so until the bread popped out of the toaster.

After the drama of that weekend, Jodie took it as something of a relief to get back to school that Monday. The awkwardness of Saturday morning in the kitchen never truly relented, and instead stretched into Sunday evening, before Jodie decided to say more than four words to her mother. Those four words were,

“I’m okay, mum really.”

She had decided to give her mother that comfort, mainly because she had been good enough not to sit down with her to have ‘the talk’, a ritual Jodie had become accustomed to over the years and a ritual that always followed her mother’s romantic encounters with boyfriends. Jodie felt relief about this because she didn’t think she would have been able to take it. She had had experiences in the past in which boys she had liked had ended up with one of her friends, and she knew only too well how painful it was to have to sit in a group and hear about what they did or didn’t do, so she imagined it would have been an almost suicide inducing experience to listen to her own mother talk about her date with the first man she had ever really been in love with. And by now she was sure that it was love; if it wasn’t then it wouldn’t hurt so much inside.

Any relief she felt at being back in the classroom, where she at least had an upper hand on the situation, not to mention Rob’s attention all to herself (she didn’t think her classmates counted, as they weren’t privy to the information she had), was instantly crushed as she settled into her seat, eyes fixed on Rob as he sat at his desk, looking through papers, only to have a knock at the classroom door signify the entrance of Patrick Fitzpatrick, who had been told to fetch her and take her to her Guidance Councilor’s office.

It was the second time that term that Jodie had found herself sitting down in front of Mr.

Posner. She could tell from the expression on his face, that what had at first seemed like a caution, had now evolved into something a little more serious. Her file sat on the desk before her, while Mr. Posner simply stared at her.

“I know why I’m here, I guess,” was all she had to say, moving un-easily in her chair, which squeaked as she shifted about.

Posner sighed and put his hands together, in as great a show of seniority as he could muster.

“Have you applied to University yet?”

“I have and,” Jodie nodded, before attempting to shift into bargaining mode, “listen, I know what’s at stake here.”

“I don’t think you do, Jodie.” Posner shook his head and took a quick look through her file. “You have to understand that this is your future and that, whether you believe it or not, we care about what happens to our students. Especially the ones such as yourself.

But I have to say, Jodie, that I am very disappointed in your academic performance since we last talked.”

Jodie had no argument to make and simply nodded her head again. It was all she had left, replying,

“I know, it’s pretty bad.”

“Did you not listen to anything I said to you?”

“I did, I did.”

“Then what is it?” he asked, leaning forward, as if to give the impression that what was spoken here was almost like a therapy session and that she had no need to fear her problems getting out, “Is it trouble at home?”

Jodie thought about this. In fact, she almost said yes, before thinking better of it and instead shook her head. Posner persisted.

“Trouble with a boy?”

Jodie’s head slowly came up and her eyes met his. This was an even more interesting question, and she wondered how much, if any, of what had gone on in the last few weeks, she should tell.

“Let’s say it was. What’s the protocol there?”

“It depends. Are you pregnant?” In a very matter of fact tone that Jodie wasn’t expecting.

“No,” Jodie shook her head in revulsion, “God no.”

Posner sat back and breathed out, a little frustrated.

“It’s none of my business Jodie, but whatever it is we need to fix it, before it’s too late.

It’s one thing to coast through a term with sub-standard test scores, but a very different thing to try and sit exams, important exams, that might determine which university you go to.”

Jodie said nothing, instead intent on staring at him with a pretty much blank expression.

Posner sighed again, desperately hoping inside that Jodie McPhee was not a lost cause already, before continuing,

“This leaves me no choice but to send a letter to your mother.”

This woke Jodie up a little, for sure. She sat up and leaned forward, a look of panic quickly rising on her face.

“What kind of letter?”

“A letter explaining the situation. Maybe she’ll have more luck getting through to you.”

Jodie nodded, but found herself too worried to really say much else. Mr. Posner gave Jodie an almost parental smile as she rose to leave the office. And while she may have been shaking a little as she walked out the door, for Mr. Posner the look of panic in her face and the sense of doom in her body language, was the only positive glimpse of hope he could have longed for that afternoon. For him at least, it meant she still cared enough about her future to have the fear of God put into her.

The weeks leading up to Christmas were busy for all to say the least.

For Jodie, the end of term brought with it the promise of only a handful of months until her time at Brushwood Academy would come to an end. It felt good to finally be leaving and yet Jodie was already becoming more than aware of a certain anxiety that was niggling at the back of her brain. Of course, she tried to put these feelings down to the frustrations born of her mother’s growing relationship with Rob, but really, she knew that more accurately, it was down to her current academic progress.

With exams fast approaching and her grades, so far, way down from her average performance in years past, the nightmare scenario of potentially having to re-sit an exam or, worse still, missing out on the university placements she had applied for, was becoming quite real. If she had perhaps been a little more careful in the past few weeks, or less focused on trying to get Rob Peer to see her as something of a contemporary, then she would have realized that it was not too late to get her head down and study before the end of winter term.

English would be a doddle, of that she was sure, but there was still the little matter of mathematics, physics and geography to contend with and the outlook, after two meetings with her guidance counselor and a letter sent home to her mother, was looking decidedly bleak.

The letter had arrived on a Saturday morning, while Katy was in the shower. Jodie recognized it almost immediately, amongst the other mail that morning, her talent for spotting her school’s office stationary having been well practiced during a particularly boring afternoon a year earlier, when she had volunteered to help the office faculty send out invites to a third year parents evening. Quick as a flash, she grabbed the letter from the floor and took it up to her room, closing the door behind her. She sat down on her bed and opened the envelope, pulled the letter out and read it to herself.

‘Dear Ms. McPhee,

We are writing to inform you of your daughter’s progress this year, in regards to her
performance in class and the resulting grades.

There are a number of instances this term in which we feel your daughter is
underperforming, given her past excellent track record, and we feel that perhaps you
should be made aware of such instances.

Please rest assured that this is by no means a letter to cause concern, merely to allow you
to discuss with your daughter her plans as regards her future in the next few months,
heading towards exams and eventual university placement. We think Jodie has a very
bright future ahead of her and it is our aim to help steer your daughter in the right
direction, a sentiment I’m sure you agree with.

If you have any concerns at all regarding your daughter, please don’t hesitate to get in
touch with myself or one of my colleagues.

Yours Mr. Posner’

Jodie’s heart skipped a beat. This was pretty serious by the sounds of it and if she had been thinking more clearly, then maybe things would have turned out differently. She could have sat down with her mother, the only person in the world that she had ever trusted completely, and talked about this. They could have worked it out together.

Instead, Jodie scanned the four walls of her bedroom, for a place to hide the letter. She settled on her bookshelf, both the bed and the wardrobe appearing to be dangerous ground. After all, her mother would be in her wardrobe with her clean laundry and as for the bed? Jodie hadn’t made her bed in seventeen years so why would she start now? That would just have aroused suspicion, surely. So the bookshelf it was.

She pulled out her copy of
‘Jude the Obscure’
and placed the letter within its pages, next to her list of sabotage techniques, in fact, before closing the book and placing it back on her shelf.

The relief, she felt, would probably be short lived. But at least, for now, she had eliminated the problem. She tried to console herself by way of the re-assurance that she would get her grades back on track, get her head down, study her ass off and stop being so distracted. The only trouble was that the very thing distracting her in the first place was fast becoming a large part of her life. And what had started as a crush, before developing into, admittedly one un-requited, love, was about to start sleeping in the room next door.

Rob and Katy tried to keep things as casual as possible. They did this for a number of reasons, but primarily in order to keep their relationship as under the radar as they could for Jodie’s sake. Katy agreed that it was the best course of action, as she felt that was the most responsible thing she could do as a mother, particularly at this time of her daughter’s life. With her final exams looming, she knew any distractions could prove terrible in the long run and seriously jeopardize Jodie’s chances for attending university.

She also felt that it wasn’t fair on Rob.

The burden of having to put her daughter first was always one of the main reasons any of her past relationships had failed and she knew it, so the idea of keeping a distance from each other had not only the benefit of keeping things fresh and interesting, but it also allowed Jodie a certain amount of emotional freedom, to go about her daily business and study in relative peace and quiet.

Katy was proud of her daughter’s maturity. The sense of freedom that she felt her daughter was allowing her with her new boyfriend, a constant source of both wonder and respect. Had she known that beyond the mature exterior lay a simmering mass of envy, perhaps she would have sat down sooner with her daughter to talk things over.

At first, Katy and Rob only saw each other on Friday nights, making an effort to go out.

For her it felt like the first grown up relationship she had had since her daughter was born, the irony that she was only fifteen back then and barely a grown up herself, not entirely lost on her, or Rob for that matter. Nonetheless, it was a feeling she desperately craved.

For Rob, it was more of a pose. He maintained the appearance of an old soul, of someone terribly sophisticated and mature, but really, if he was honest, this was all just a little bit of an act at first, mainly because he felt that was probably what Katy wanted from him. It wasn’t that he wasn’t any of the things he purported to be, on the contrary, he was a nice, sweet, intelligent guy, it was just that he felt Katy deserved the best version of himself that he could muster.

It was only as Christmas approached, that he began to loosen up and let his real, relaxed persona stretch its legs. It was probably for the best. With his work life already demanding a certain persona of him for eight hours of his day, the idea that his social life then demanded another one started to seem preposterous.

For the first months leading up to New Year, they only slept together at Rob’s flat. It wasn’t really anything to do with choice, it merely made more sense, as Rob lived in the city center, whilst Katy lived in the suburbs. Having said that, Katy had begun to grow fond of the idea of Rob sharing
her
bed in
her
home and come Christmas, they had both decided that he would spend the night over New Years.

Katy and Jodie spent Christmas together at home, while Rob travelled back to Edinburgh to spend it with his parents. He had toyed with the idea of spending it with Katy, but felt he would be intruding too much on Jodie’s time with her mother and, if he trusted anything, it was his own sense that family was one of the most important things in the world. Meanwhile, Rob found himself being quietly grilled by his father as to what he thought he was up to dating the mother of one of his students.

It was a cold, cruel winter that year and by the time Rob arrived at Katy and Jodie’s house for New Year’s Eve, the snow had fallen heavy. He almost hadn’t made it up the A90 in time and at one point had found the traffic so heavy he feared he would be celebrating the midnight festivities at a road side Travel Lodge reception hall.