I took a seat across from her, giving her the usual practiced smile and sat back, crossing my legs. The office was small and always made me feel trapped. “Good afternoon.”
“I’ll make this quick. Something with Jamie has been brought to my attention, and I feel it is prudent we discuss it.”
“Okay.” I intertwined my hands in my lap, already wanting to throttle her by her tone alone.
“His teacher, Mrs. Rener, said Jamie hasn’t been completing assignments and has been lying about—”
“My son doesn’t lie.”
“—it, saying he turned them in.”
“If Jamie says he turned something in, he did. He sits at our table several nights a week and works on assignments.”
Ignoring me completely, she kept on going, rolling a pen back and forth between her thumb and pointer. “Mrs. Rener also said he regularly ignores her lectures and reads books under his desk.”
“Then he’s bored.”
She opened her mouth, but I continued. “Look, I’m not saying it’s okay for him to ignore the lesson, it’s not, and I’ll talk to him about it. But he has an A in every subject, so he understands what’s being taught, he’s just not handling it in a great way.”
She set her pen down, leaning forward onto her elbows and resting her chin against her steepled fingers. “Is there anything going on in his life that might account for his sudden disinterest in school? Any changes?”
I deserved an award for containing my eye roll. She was blatantly disregarding everything I was saying. “We moved out of our apartment and into a new home a few weeks ago.”
“Ah,” she said, as if that explained everything. “That’s probably it. Suddenly having a new bed and new people around is a lot for a child his age.”
My hands clenched each other so hard, a few knuckles popped. “We didn’t move in with anyone. It’s still only us, and he sleeps on the same bed he always has.”
“Are there male figures coming in and out of his life?”
“Excuse me?” My face grew hot, my ears raging infernos on either side of my head. Was she fucking serious?
“I’m just trying to find out if there’s anything going on that might be causing him anxiety and to feel like he has to escape into a fictional world, Ms. Hartland.”
“I do not have men coming in and out of my home, Mrs. Brueger, and I do not appreciate the insinuation that I do.”
“My apologies. I suppose it was presumptuous of me to accuse you of allowing your dates to meet him.” She didn’t sound apologetic at all. She sounded like she was so full of shit that it was packed all the way up to her tonsils.
“I don’t date.”
“Is his father—”
I stood abruptly, the chair scraping across the floor like nails on a chalkboard. “If that’s all, Mrs. Brueger, I need to go. I’d rather not be any later to work than I need to be. I will email Mrs. Rener to apologize and to discuss providing Jamie with higher level work. I will also speak with him tonight about his behavior in class.”
Her mouth hung open, like she was genuinely shocked I’d cut her off and would leave. “Yes. Please do.”
I was fuming, practically foaming at the mouth when I re-entered the main office. Jamie jumped off his seat, eyes wide and white knuckling his bag. I didn’t acknowledge the secretary as I stormed out. I couldn’t. I was ten seconds away from exploding.
Jogging to keep up with my pace, Jamie didn’t say a word as he buckled into his seat, but I could feel his eyes on me. I ripped off my heels, throwing them on the passenger seat and watching them bounce off onto the floorboard. I curled my hands around the steering wheel in an iron grip, blinking rapidly and trying to clear my vision enough to get us home.