And yet, ever since the gala, Karen had felt a little like a middle-aged Cinderella, returned to a life of hearth sweeping the day after the royal ball. Moreover, while the families of the students at Constance C. Betts trundled by in various states of bedragglement and hopelessness—including a grandma with what appeared to be a burned face holding a cane in one hand and a cigarette in the other—Clay seemed so many miles away as to be almost fantastical. Karen also suspected that Clay’s efforts to veto Winners Circle’s co-location had been halfhearted at best. But this was the wrong time to start doubting him. Hungry Kids needed his money—and Karen, for whatever combination of reasons, needed his attentions. Even so, dinner was out of the question. How would she ever justify such a thing to Matt? How could she justify it to herself?
In any case, she needed to pick up Ruby. After enough time had passed that Karen could reasonably assume Michelle and Mia had left the building, she followed the thinning crowd into the gymnasium. By then, everyone in Ruby’s class was gone except for Ruby and Jayyden. The latter sat with his head bowed and his legs extended in front of him, scratching at something on his jeans. According to Ruby, Jayyden was retrieved every day by an older cousin who arrived at least an hour after school had been dismissed, forcing Jayyden to kill endless amounts of time in the hall outside the principal’s office. Although the after-school program offered financial aid to students whose families couldn’t afford the fifteen bucks a day, no one had ever turned in an application on his behalf, so the school couldn’t legally send him to it. And so he sat—and sat. “Hi, sweetie,” said Karen, glancing helplessly over at Jayyden as she reached down to pull Ruby off the floor.
“Thanks for forgetting about me,” she announced.
“Sorry, but I’m only two minutes late,” said Karen, steering her away. “And I just spent half the day with you already. What did you do when you got back to school?”
“Nothing,” Ruby replied with a shrug.
“Nothing?” asked Karen.
“Just boring stuff.”
“Why was it boring?”
“Because it’s too easy,” said Ruby, “and we never learn anything.”
“What’s too easy?” asked Karen, attempting to quiet her own distress at this revelation. “I don’t understand.”
“Every part, but especially math. We always have to show our work even if it’s just, like, twenty-five plus twenty-five. It’s so stupid. Like, we can’t just say, ‘It’s fifty.’ Also, we did the same unit in second grade.”
“That does sound frustrating. But I thought you were doing fractions now. That’s what Miss Tammy’s newsletter said.”
“Well, we were going to start fractions,” said Ruby. “But this afternoon, while Miss Tammy was trying to teach us, Empriss started calling out and making fart noises like she does every day now.”
“And what did Miss Tammy do?” asked Karen, further dismayed but also surprised. The picture that Ruby was painting of Empriss didn’t mesh with the outspoken but overall cooperative child Karen had met on the class trip to the botanical gardens.
“She told her to stop,” said Ruby.
“Did she?”
“She stopped calling out, but she was still making fart noises. It was so annoying. Finally, Miss Tammy called the principal, and she took Empriss out of class. But by then, it was time to pack up.”
Sympathetic to both sides, Karen wondered if there was some way to turn the anecdote into a teachable moment—that is, an opportunity to instruct her daughter about socioeconomic difference and unequally distributed resources. “That must be frustrating,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “But you know Empriss is probably trying to get attention because she doesn’t get enough at home—because her parents are probably busy and preoccupied just trying to put food on the table. Being very poor, like her family is, can be very stressful for grown-ups.”
“How do you know she’s poor?” asked Ruby.
“I just do,” said Karen, embarrassed to admit the truth even to her daughter.
“Well, then, why does she have her own iPhone Five?”
“I don’t know the answer to that. But you realize that Empriss’s family doesn’t live in a nice house like we do.”
“We don’t live in a house—we live in an apartment,” Ruby pointed out.
“Well, a nice apartment,” Karen went on. “Empriss’s family lives in a homeless shelter because they can’t afford a real apartment with separate bedrooms and everything. So next time Empriss is annoying you, will you try to think about that before you feel critical?”
“If they’re so poor, why doesn’t her mom get a job?” said Ruby.
“It’s not that easy,” said Karen.
“Can we go home now?” asked Ruby, showing no signs of having registered the intended message.
“We’re going, we’re going!” said Karen, leading her daughter out of the gym and feeling frustrated not for the first time by what she felt to be a lack of empathy on Ruby’s part. What was Karen doing wrong? She feared the only thing she’d accomplished by sending her child to a mixed-income school was to make Ruby feel venomous toward at-risk children. Or was she expecting too much from an eight-year-old?
That weekend, Karen and Matt finally had sex. It was neither great nor terrible, neither loving nor angry. All parts functioned as designed, and afterward Karen felt relieved and refreshed. But the high lasted only so long. By morning, she was back to fretting and obsessing over what to do with regard to both Clay and Betts. Needless to say, she couldn’t very well discuss the former with Matt. But in light of their recent tiff, she was also reluctant to raise the latter. Instead, on Sunday night, she vented to Miss Tammy in an e-mail.
Hi, Tammy. So sorry to bother you on the weekend, but Ruby has been complaining that the math program isn’t quite challenging enough. Is there any way you could throw some harder worksheets her way? My husband and I would really appreciate it. Also, I hate to bring this up, but I understand that a certain girl (Empriss) has been regularly disrupting the classroom. I’m aware that she has a challenging situation at home, but I’m wondering whether there are services available at the school that could be utilized to help her control her impulses so she doesn’t jeopardize her classmates’ ability to learn. Thank you, Karen
But as soon as she clicked Send, she felt uneasy. She feared that she sounded like one of those brilliant-and-exceptional parents who seemed genuinely to believe that, by random chance that had nothing to do with their socioeconomic status, God had granted them the stewardship of a certifiable Einstein (or two). She also worried that, by tattling on Empriss, she was only adding to the girl’s troubles.
Tammy replied almost immediately.
Hey, Karen,
I’ve offered to give your daughter supplemental math worksheets. But she always tells me she hates math. As for Empriss, yes, the school psychologists have been working with her. But thanks for your “concern.”
Tammy
P.S. Speaking of interrupting learning, Ruby has been arriving late to school almost every day. It would be way more awesome if you got her here on time. Thank you.
If Miss Tammy was unmoved by Karen’s pleas, then so be it. But she didn’t see why the teacher had to be a complete and utter bitch about it. With a shudder, Karen hit Delete and tried to pretend the e-mail exchange had never happened.