He pulled a pen from behind his ear and wrote on a napkin: Charlie, right?
She nodded.
I was looking for you this morning, he wrote.
Me? I…L-a-t-e.
Late.
Late, she copied.
He turned the napkin over.
Headmistress wants me to show you around.
She nodded again, unsure of what to say.
Can’t today. Tour tomorrow?
O-k.
Tour.
Tour, she copied.
O-k.
He flipped the napkin back to where he’d first written her name.
Me…
He made a C shape with his hand and tapped it on his chin, then pointed back to her name on the napkin. Charlie felt her heartbeat quicken. Was it possible he was naming her?
Me?
He nodded.
She took his pen, another napkin: What does it mean?
He wrote: You talk too much.
She tried not to look disappointed. Of course her name sign would reference her dependence on speech. What else was there to say about her?
I don’t, she said.
But the boy put a finger to his lips and she felt something electric run through her, different from the usual static in her head.
Charlie, she said, trying out the new sign.
He smiled, his teeth large and white, with a gap between the front two large enough to mean he hadn’t had braces. Not a smile tortured into submission like hers.
Charlie, he signed again, then made the mafia I’m watching you signal as he got up from the bench.
When he’d gone, she sat unmoving for a few moments, thrilled and unnerved by the encounter. At Jefferson she’d learned not to trust the preppy ones, though this boy—shit, she hadn’t even asked his name—was more fresh out of the shower than purposefully coiffed. Maybe things were different here. Plus, those eyes.
She comprehended basically nothing for the rest of the day, anxious to return to her night sign class, where things moved slowly and precisely.
So? her dad said after class, as he walked her back to her dorm.
What?
How was the first day?
It was hard, she meant to tell him. Hard and strange and exciting. But she had spoken only a few sentences all day long, and her throat felt closed off and warm. She shrugged.
That night in bed, Kayla already asleep across from her, Charlie went back to trolling an ASL dictionary online, not looking for anything in particular, just opening the videos in alphabetical order and signing back at the monitor through the dark like a weirdo, hoping something would stick. She dozed off sitting there, snapping back at 1:00 a.m., confused and with a sore neck, in between languages, waking, and sleep.
it was one of those nights she could tell they were going to argue, a drop in atmospheric pressure trailing Mel into the house after work. February had made it a point to get home early, set her mom up with a word search in the living room, and start on dinner, thinking that modeling some domestic bliss might allay the tension, but Mel wasn’t having it—nitpicking as February cooked, sulking at the table as she slurped her zucchini bisque without a word of thanks.
Something had been simmering between them all week, ever since the night February had slept at the school. She had been holding out hope that it would pass without confrontation, but when Mel left the table in a huff without even bothering to clear her bowl, February’s pacifism began to wane. Still, she scrubbed their dishes clean and left the pot to soak, helped her mom to her room for the night. When she returned to the living room and pulled out her laptop, Mel made a sigh so hyperbolic it might’ve been comical had it not been so goddamn annoying. February batted the computer closed.
What’s your problem? said Mel.
My problem? You’re the one huffing and puffing like a goddamn asthmatic.
Does seem like a girl may have to die around here to get some attention.
I just cooked you dinner.
You only talked to your mom the whole time.
You could’ve said something. Takes two, you know.
Says the woman who sleeps wherever her heart desires.
Babe, said February. It’s a hundred-and-twenty-three-year-old tradition. For one night.
And?
And nothing! I ate soup! I read a book and passed out.
In reality it had felt more escapist, romantic even, but February didn’t dare say that. Mel looked down at her hands in her lap.
I thought you said she was moving away, she said, her voice low.
So there it was. February had been hoping it wasn’t this. A year ago, the advanced science teacher at the upper school had retired, and February had replaced him with Mrs. Wanda Sybeck. Wanda and February had been colleagues years ago at the institute up in Columbus, back when February was still a teacher herself. When February hired Wanda at RVSD, she relayed happily to Mel that she had employed an old co-worker whom she knew to be a dedicated teacher. She thought it neither prudent nor necessary to note that Wanda had maintained all the shapeliness she’d had in 2007, her skin untouched by age and marked only by twin patches of freckles on the apples of her cheeks. Nor did she mention their four-month fling of that same year, a hot and heavy affair that had had them behaving like the teenagers they taught, even reduced them once to a quickie in the science supply closet during Wanda’s planning period. Mel had always erred on the side of jealous, and anyway it was a long time ago. Wanda was married now. To a man.
February had been a little nervous about the two crossing paths at the staff holiday party, but Mel had been in good spirits and by the time dinner was served, February relaxed. Wanda was Deaf, so the depth of hers and Mel’s interaction was cursory—most of the signs Mel knew from being with February’s mom were of little use in a social setting. For her part, Wanda smiled at Mel a lot, and during dessert Mel had even leaned over and whispered to February that her friend seemed sweet.
There had been wine, and then eggnog, and Mel humored February as she and Wanda danced with their cheeks almost touching—they were old friends, after all—but in the end it had been Dennis, Wanda’s oaf of a husband, who’d leaked the story. Wanda had apparently given him the explicit details of hers and February’s time together as fantasy fodder and he’d made some offhand comment, on this part February had never been clear—had he made a joke about their wives’ past lives to Mel, or had she simply overheard? All February remembered was looking up from the dance floor to see Mel storming from the cafeteria.
A multiday blowout had followed, Mel oscillating between silent treatment and tirades, first that February was a no-good liar, and also that Mel had even liked the woman—this seemed to be the biggest betrayal. February could not reason the anger away. Though she technically hadn’t done anything wrong, her duplicitousness had opened a small patch of mind perfect for a growing doubt, and Mel was a talented horticulturalist. If February’s motives were pure, why hadn’t she been up-front about the relationship? It was a question for which there was no satisfactory answer, and February had slept a night or two in Old Quarters because of it.
I thought they were, February said. But Dennis’s job offer fell through.
And?
And I can’t fire her just because you don’t like her!
Oh she’s fine, Mel said as she stalked up the stairs. It’s you I don’t like!
She gave the bedroom door a triumphant slam. Even after all these years with a hearing partner, February could not bring herself to yell across the house. She followed Mel and jiggled the handle, but it was locked.