Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You (22 page)

7.

“SUSPENDED”

SHE TEXTED HIM—KESSLER! SAID SHE'D DO ORAL SEX WITH HIM—IF HE SHOWED HER HOW.

SHE LEFT HIM A BIRTHDAY PRESENT—CANDY-FLAVORED CONDOMS IN A GOLD LAMÉ BAG LIKE FROM ARMANI.

SHE SENT HIM NUDE PICTURES OF HERSELF ON HER CELL PHONE—FAT.

WHAT A SLUT! AND STUPID! AND A SENIOR—THINK SHE'D KNOW BETTER, IT'S LIKE PATH-ET-IC.

 

Posted on a website called QWAKERDEPPS were nude photos of a female with fat, bulging breasts and thighs like hams and Nadia Stillinger's head on her body; and a comical muscleman, also nude, with a small penis and Adrian Kessler's head on his body.

“Gross! This is disgusting.”

“Is that real? It looks phony.”

“Who cares?”

 

Nadia Stillinger wasn't in school. Nadia Stillinger didn't respond to text messages or to calls from her friends.

Merissa Carmichael was so upset, she went to speak with Mrs. Jameson in her office. “We have to stop this. We have to help Nadia. She's not a slut—she's the very opposite. I don't know anything about her giving a birthday present to Mr. Kessler—but I do know that Nadia is very emotional, and that since Tink Traumer died, she hasn't been—Well, I guess”—Merissa began to break down, as Mrs. Jameson listened sympathetically—“I guess none of us have been doing too well. But Nadia especially.”

Mrs. Jameson said yes, Merissa was right, the postings were obscene and cruel and would come down immediately, she would see to it. And how was Nadia? Would Nadia like to speak with Mrs. Jameson, too?

Merissa said, wiping at her eyes, “I don't know. I don't know Nadia all that well, actually. I just know we have to stop this—cyberbullying. We have to help her before it's too late.”

 

So sleepy! Sleep like a heavy embrace.

She was sinking beneath the surface of the dark, choppy water; she would not keep herself afloat by the exertions of her arms and legs. Her mother's spirit hovered near. Nadia pulled the covers over her head.
Nadia, it isn't time. Nadia dear, it isn't your time. Go back, Nadia—to your friends.

8.

THE PLEA

COME BACK, NADIA! WE MISS YOU.

Nadia's friends texted her and called her. And Merissa came to Nadia's house to speak to her in person, to encourage her to return to classes.

Nadia insisted she'd been planning to return. Soon.

“Not ‘soon'—tomorrow. Come to school tomorrow.”

Nadia felt a clutch of panic. “Maybe—next Monday.”

“No. Tomorrow.”

“But—I don't think I—I'm ready. . . .”

“Don't be ridiculous, Nadia. What would Tink say?”

“I don't know—what would Tink say?”

“Tink would say, ‘Don't be ridiculous, dude.'”

And when Nadia returned to school, and saw that a stranger named Mrs. Rappaport was teaching Mr. Kessler's fourth-period science class, she was shocked, and she was suffused with a new sort of shame; she'd known that Mr. Kessler was still “suspended,” yet it had not seemed quite real to her, until she'd entered his classroom.

Virgil Nagy looked at her, with his awkward smile.

“Nad-ia! Welcome back.”

“Thanks.”

Nadia would have liked to slink into the room invisibly. But she knew that everyone was watching her and that there was no way she could be invisible—(this was like a dream of being naked in public!)—so she made her way to her desk by the window with whatever measure of dignity she could summon and a radiant blind smile, knowing that a blush was rising into her face for all to see. She would have stumbled over a boy's long legs carelessly crossed in the aisle, except at the last minute she stepped over them nimbly.

“And you are—?”

The substitute teacher frowned at Nadia in a pretense of not knowing who she was.
Mean,
Nadia thought.

“Nadia Stillinger.”

“Oh yes. Nadia Stillinger.” Frowning, Mrs. Rappaport made a mark in a little notebook. “You've been absent quite a while.”

Was this a statement of fact, or an accusation? Nadia, blushing, decided to say nothing at all.

After a while, the stares of her classmates eased. With Nadia so blatantly in the room, at her desk, there was really nothing to
see
.

Nadia thought,
Maybe it isn't so important. Nasty things on the internet. Maybe—like TV cartoons.

After class Virgil Nagy walked with Nadia. You would not have known the scandal attached to Nadia Stillinger, judging by the way Virgil spoke to her. “Mrs. Rappaport isn't anything like Mr. Kessler, is she? She couldn't even pronounce ‘proprioception.'” (Virgil laughed: He'd been the one to “help out” the embarrassed teacher.) “We're all tired of her getting things wrong and repeating the few things she does know. Some of us are thinking of signing a petition to get Mr. Kessler back
soon
.”

“A petition? That's a great idea.”

Nadia was excited: She would ask her friends to help circulate a petition to all the students at Quaker Heights, not just those in Mr. Kessler's classes.

Almost immediately Nadia realized how
complicated
and
complex
things were at school—apart from a few glances, sniggers, and pitying smiles, no one was really so very concerned with Nadia Stillinger any longer.

And public opinion seemed definitely to have swung to Adrian Kessler's side. That was clear.

Merissa said, “The next thing you must do, Nadia, is make an appointment with Mr. Nichols. Not just send him emails—go to talk to him. And to the disciplinary committee—maybe even the trustees when they have a meeting.”

“Talk to the trustees! I could never do that.”

“To get Mr. Kessler exonerated and reinstated, you will have to.”

“I just don't think that I—I—”

“I thought you liked Mr. Kessler! Isn't that what this is all about?”

“Y-yes, but . . .”

“You must help him, then. Only you can help him, really.”

“Only me? I—I never thought of that. . . .”

“Only you got him in trouble,” Merissa said wickedly, “so only you can get him out of trouble. What would Tink say?”

 

It happened that Headmaster Nichols had convened a quasi-emergency meeting of the board of trustees and the disciplinary committee, to discuss the issue of Adrian Kessler. This was fifteen days after the “incident” had come to light, with Mr. Stillinger's angry telephone call to the headmaster.

Nadia had asked to be allowed to attend the meeting, to address the committee and the trustees.

She was terrified of speaking to these strangers! She could not believe that such a thing would happen, by her own volition: Like a responsible adult, she'd actually made an appointment to see Mr. Nichols.

Is this how life is?
Nadia wondered.
You don't just think about things and get anxious about them; you do something.

She could not trust herself to speak spontaneously. She spent hours composing her remarks.

On the eve of the meeting, Nadia was sick with apprehension.

It would be easy, she thought, to just not show up at the meeting, which was in the headmaster's office at school. Or she could send an email to Mr. Nichols's secretary saying that she was sick—she wasn't coming to school that day.

“I can't. I can't do this.”

There was a deathly silence in her room. At a distance, wind was blowing in tall trees, like barrels being rolled across a pavement.

Elsewhere in the Stillinger house there was silence, too: Both Mr. Stillinger and Amelie were out for the evening, together.

There came a shivery presence in Nadia's room. She knew, without turning, that Tink had entered.

Was Tink disgusted with her? Nadia wouldn't have blamed her.

Nadia said in a faint, whining child's voice, “See, I can't. I just c-can't. I c-can't talk to these people.”

And Tink said,
You will do it, dude
.

“No, Tink! I can't. I just—can't. . . .”

And Tink said,
Yes, you can, and you will, dude. No turning back
.

 

One hundred eighty-six students! The names included a number of students who hadn't yet had a course with Adrian Kessler but who had taken up his cause in the wake of the suspension.

Mr. Nichols's secretary led Nadia and Merissa into the oak-paneled room, in which twenty men and women sat around a heavy oval table. Several faculty members on the disciplinary committee were known to Nadia, but all of the trustees were strangers. It seemed significant to Nadia that she and Merissa were introduced to the room but that no one was introduced to them, for their time at the meeting would be brief.

Nichols wasn't the chair of the meeting, it seemed. The chair was a gentlemanly white-haired alum (class of '56) who wore a glinting school pin in his lapel. His manner was bemused and curious but not unfriendly.

“Girls, welcome! Tell us why you are here.”

Nadia was trembling. She and Merissa were both wearing Quaker Heights Day School uniforms—a dark blue wool school jumper over a white turtleneck sweater, with the heraldic insignia of the school over their right breasts: a lion, against crossed staves.

Nadia had suggested the uniforms. Merissa asked where she'd gotten such a great idea, and Nadia said proudly, “It's something Tink would do. You know—dressing funny.”

Nadia had written her own statement. At first her voice quavered as she read it, then gained strength as she continued.

“I have come here today to appeal to you to exonerate Mr. Adrian Kessler from any purported wrongdoing or ‘unprofessional behavior' and to reinstate him as an instructor at this school. I know that many cruel and crude and inaccurate things have been said about him, and about me, but Mr. Kessler is entirely innocent of anything you might have heard. He had nothing to do with the fact that I left a gift for him in his car, which he knew nothing about; he returned the gift to my father as soon as he was notified whose it was. He did not ever speak improperly with me. He was always kind, considerate, thoughtful, and professional. I am so sorry—my mistake was to act without thinking, and to give one of my teachers an expensive present that wasn't mine to give. And to give it anonymously. I would not ever do such a thing now. Mr. Kessler had no idea who'd left the gift for him and was totally surprised! I know that my father, Roger Stillinger, has filed a formal complaint about Mr. Kessler, but that's because my father is angry at me. He wants to punish me by punishing Mr. Kessler. But I am hoping that you will see that this has all been exaggerated.”

Nadia paused, breathing quickly. After her initial panic she'd begun—almost—to relax; it was clear that everyone at the table, including Headmaster Nichols, was listening intently to her, and respectfully—several were even nodding sympathetically.

Then Merissa spoke, presenting the petition to the meeting—(it was passed around the oak table, examined and admired)—and telling of how Adrian Kessler had been a wonderfully encouraging teacher to her: He'd inspired her to write an essay that had won a prize in a national competition sponsored by
Scientific American
, and that had been posted on the magazine's website for a month; moreover, Mr. Kessler had encouraged her to apply for early admission at Brown, and she'd been accepted weeks ago—“I will always be grateful to Mr. Kessler.”

Early admission at Brown!
That
was greeted with unanimous approval.

It seemed that both Nadia Stillinger and Merissa Carmichael had made a strong impression on the adults. They were thanked for their testimonies by the courtly chair of the board and escorted from the room, and in the morning a notice was issued by the headmaster's office that Adrian Kessler had been taken off his suspension and would resume his teaching duties the following day.

 

Pretty damn good, guys!

Couldna done better myself.

9.

THISTLE

She would call the little lost lynx-cat Thistle.

She knew her father would disapprove. Her father would disapprove
strongly
.

She'd mentioned this to Tink.

And Tink had said,
So? Don't tell him.

“Don't tell him? My father? He'll discover the cat, and—”

Maybe. But maybe not.

“Unless I could hide her. The house is so big, and Daddy is never home much. . . .”

Nadia laughed. This was a very wicked idea!

But not so wicked as stealing her father's painting. Or anything of her father's.

That, she vowed she would never do again.

Or, if she did, she would never, ever behave so carelessly as to get caught.

 

When Nadia returned to High Ridge Park, she brought with her not only a can of tuna fish but a cardboard box with a few strategically positioned airholes in it.

She hadn't told any of her friends about the beautiful little lynx-cat that had mewed at her in the woods. Not even Merissa.

Nadia believed that if she persevered, she would rediscover the lynx-cat.

Or Tink would send the cat to her.

“Kitty? Oh kitty-kitty . . .”

In the wake of the meeting in Headmaster Nichols's office the day before, Nadia was feeling very good. It did not seem real to her—and yet, it was real—that a decisive action of her own had had such an immediate and positive effect: Mr. Kessler had returned to teaching!

Merissa, too, was thrilled—though she had had much more experience with things going well for her, as Nadia knew.

“The Perfect One—it must be wonderful to be
you
.”

Nadia had spoken without guile or irony to her friend, who'd stared at her for a moment as if suspecting that Nadia must be joking—then laughed and said, with a droll little grin, “Oh, yes—it's wonderful. I have to pinch myself to make sure that I'm real.”

Strange how Merissa Carmichael was now, as if overnight, Nadia Stillinger's closest friend. The girls guessed that Tink had had something to do with this, but—what?

In the vicinity of the path above the river, and the steep fall to the water thirty feet below, Nadia searched for Thistle.

Cupping her hands to her mouth, calling, “Kitty-kitty-kitty!”

And after a while, maybe forty minutes, maybe an hour—there came a faint mewing sound, from deeper in the woods.

Quickly, Nadia turned, calling, “Kitty-kitty!” and hearing the mewing until at last there was a movement in the underbrush, and there, the little lost cat with the silvery brindle markings and glassy-green eyes.