Page 34 of Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)

“Hello! This is Anya Cobb, vice principal of Roosevelt Middle School. Please come pick your daughter up from school right away.”

TJ swallows. His throat is a desert. “Is there—is she okay?”

“Yes, she is all right, but she is being suspended and needs to be picked up. Can we expect you soon?”

Suspended. TJ closes his eyes.

“Um. Hello?”

“Yes,” he croaks. “I’ll be there.”

He hangs up and rises from the chair.

“Robin okay?” Vera says.

TJ blinks. Somehow, he’s forgotten that Vera was sitting a mere three feet across from him. “No. I’ve gotta go.”

“I come with you.”

“Vera, no.”

She follows him out of the office anyway. “I’m leaving for the day,” he calls out to Elsie. “Can you lock up in here?”

“Sure thing.” She smiles and waves. “See you around, Vera!”

“You drink that ginseng tea I make you, okay? Good for baby,” Vera says as she hurries out after TJ. Just how many things has she made for TJ’s employees?

TJ unlocks his car and slides in, his mind a scramble. He startles when Vera hops into the passenger seat. “Vera,” he groans. “Seriously. This is a family matter.”

“I have pork buns,” she says simply, like that would make everything magically okay.

TJ starts to argue with Vera, but there isn’t time. There never is enough time. His kid needs him, and it was all his fault, and he really shouldn’t keep her waiting a minute longer. God, why do things have to be so complicated? He strangles the steering wheel as he drives, his mind going through all of the possibilities that could’ve landed Robin in a suspension, each one worse than the last. Cigarettes, drugs, stealing. When TJ thinks about how different Robin is, how quickly she’s changed from his baby into this surly preteen, he wants to bury his face in his hands and wail. He can still remember her at age five, suddenly getting separation anxiety and clinging to his leg every morning, crying so hard at the gates of her kindergarten that she threw up. He’d been so frustrated at her then, and so torn up about leaving her, getting teary-eyed himself as he hurried away and blocked out her wails. But every evening when he picked her up, they’d have what he called a “luddle,” which was basically a cuddle but extra long, and he had convinced himself that it was enough. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she felt abandoned by him, over and over again, and that was why she was having such a hard time in middle school now. Maybe, maybe. That was parenting: a never-ending series of maybes.

TJ is so lost in thought that he barely notices Vera scurrying out of the car once he’s parked outside of the school. He’s only subconsciously aware of Vera’s presence behind him as he rushes through the school doors and hurries down the hallway. And there she is, his not-so-little baby girl, sitting outside of the principal’s office.She looks so skinny, he thinks. All elbows and knees. When did the baby fat melt away? TJ had loved that baby fat, the chubby thigh rolls, the round cheeks, the protruding belly. Robin looks almost like a stranger now. She looks up, and for a second, her face falls when she spots him. Then it hardens. TJ can practically hearthe walls slamming into place around Robin, and he girds himself for yet another fight.

“What happened?” he says, and he immediately hates himself for saying it, because a good parent would’ve said,Are you okay?He adds belatedly, “Are you okay?”

Robin shrugs and looks down at her feet. The door opens and Mr.Burns, the principal, says, “Ah, you’re here, good. Come on in.”

TJ straightens up, pats Robin on the shoulder, and ushers her in. When he turns to close the door behind him, he bumps into Vera, who’s slunk into the office with them. “What—”

“I’m her grandmother,” Vera says to Mr.Burns.

Mr.Burns’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and he looks back and forth from Vera to TJ to Robin, clearly wondering how in the hell the three of them could be related. Then he probably decides it’s not worth pushing and says, “Ah, well it’s nice to meet you, Mrs….”

“Mrs.Wong.” She takes Mr.Burns’s hand and sits down primly across from his desk. She pats the chair next to her and says, “Come sit next to Grandma, Robin.”

Robin, looking confused but also slightly amused, does so, leaving TJ standing awkwardly. Now it’s impossible for TJ to tell Vera to get out. And what would he say to Mr.Burns? She’s not really his mother? She’s just some random old woman who’s wormed herself into his life because of a death that’s connected to him? He’d only be reinforcing Mr.Burns’s opinion of them being a problematic family. So TJ gives a weak smile and sits down on the remaining chair, resigned to his fate.

“So,” Mr.Burns says, sitting behind his desk. “I regret to inform you that Robin will be suspended for a week due to indecent behavior.”

Robin rolls her eyes.

“What did she do?” TJ hears himself ask, and oh, could he hate himself even more than he already does? His voice sounds so thin, as though it didn’t want to be heard. How can he expect anyone to take him seriously when he sounds like a lost, scared kid?

Mr.Burns clears his throat, looking uncomfortable, and TJ wants to hide behind his chair. “Well, Robin was asked last week to, ah, start wearing a bra.”

And now TJ really would like to hide behind his chair, please. Somehow, he remains sitting, maintaining eye contact with Mr.Burns.

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