Page 9 of Pick-Up
I explain the situation with Nettie and after-school. “I’m not sure how she got unenrolled. I have an email confirming her place in drama,” I say, referencing my phone. “I can show you if it will help.”
Ms. Choi bites her lip in a way that spells nothing good, fingering a stack of papers in her hands. She looks from me to Ethan, who is shifting in his perfect beat-up brown leather boots in obvious discomfort.
“Unfortunately,” she begins, as my heart sinks, “when Nettie got unenrolled, the system repopulated as if there was one space left in the class. There’s a record of Nettie’s enrollment, but also of her disenrollment. And Ethan, here, has just secured that open spot for his daughter.”
This fucking man.
“Okay,” I say, propping up my wobbly voice with an emotional matchbook. “But can’t you make space for one more kid? She’s small for her age,” I joke. But nothing is funny here. “I really need to have her in after-school on Fridays. For work.”
“I’m afraid we can’t.” Ms. Choi shakes her head. “There are DOE and building regulations about how many children are allowed at once in certain spaces for certain activities. There was only space left for one more child.”
I look up at Ethan, who is studiously avoiding my gaze, examining some wall-mounted kindergarten scribbles like they are Van Goghs. He clears his throat. Scratches his stubble.
He is not wearing a ring.Shockingthat someone divorced him.
I watch his Adam’s apple bop up and down like buoy.
“Is there any chance—?” I begin.
“I can’t!” he barks before I can finish. He turns to Ms. Choi and shakes his head. “I can’t help her.”
“Sasha,” I bark back.
“What?”
“My name is nother. It’s Sasha. I’m standing right here.”
We stare at each other while an uncomfortable number of seconds pass.
“I’ve got to… go somewhere else,” says Ms. Choi, backing away down the hall, papers in the crook of her arm. “But email me, Mom, if you want to get Nettie signed up for a different Friday after-school activity. I believe there’s space left in Mindful Soccer and Intermediate Ukulele.”
I can feel more than imagine my daughter’s cataclysmic disappointment. I am nauseous in anticipation of telling her. She’s been talking about drama class all summer. I wanted so badly to deliver her this. After-school sign-up is basically the Hunger Games. I prepared a ranked cheat sheet; set multiple alerts and alarms at sign-up time; sat at my computer and refreshed until the after-school offerings appeared and, with shaking hands, snagged a spot before everyone else. And yet, I have failed. I feel horrible.
Ms. Choi hurries away until all that remains is the echo of her ballet flats slapping against the floor. Whatever Ethan’s follow-up question was for her, he will have to ask it at another time. Once again, this infuriating man and I have sent onlookers fleeing.
“Of course!” I humph at him, as I turn and storm toward the exit.
I shouldn’t feel horrible!He should.
“How is this my fault?” this Ethan person says, following behind me.
Even Officer White, sitting at the security desk, averts his eyes as we pass.
“How is itnotyour fault?” I spit. “Apparently, everyone is about pleasing you and you’re more than happy to take, take, take.” Ethan. With aname.
We make it outside the enormous red school doors at the top of the steps and into the crisp air as he says, “Nobody is about ‘pleasing’ me!”
“Oh yeah?” I whip around to face him. He is annoyingly good-looking. I want to smack that cuteness off his head. “Then why doyoukeep getting whatIwant?”
He shrugs. “Look,Sasha. Maybe if you were more on top of things?”
The words hit me hard, unleashing a rage flash flood through my body. Now, I am literally vibrating. “Excuse me?What should I be more on top of?”
“What I mean is—” Ethan begins, my red-hot anger reflected as fear in his deep brown eyes. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded. What I’m trying to say is, if you sign up early for things, and, like, prepare, then maybe you won’t wind up getting screwed.”
“Screwed?! Screwed?! The only person screwing me isyou!”
If I committed homicide in this moment, would anyone blame me? An all-female jury would surely acquit. But no. Even then, they’d probably take one look at his chiseled jaw and leave me to rot in the clink.
