“Ruby, stop that. It’s inappropriate,” said Karen, dismayed by both the lyrics and the sexual nature of Ruby’s movements. Or was it not sexual if there was no knowledge of sex? From what Karen could tell, Ruby had no idea how babies were made, and Karen hadn’t yet offered to explain.
“But all the sassy girls in school twerk,” said Ruby. “Like Janiyah, Khloee, and Jasleen.”
“I don’t care what all the girls are doing,” said Karen, for whom the t-word seemed like an omen of civilization’s final descent. Though what in particular was so terrible about a bunch of eight-and nine-year-olds shaking their backsides was hard to say. What if they simply found it funny? And wasn’t the area of the body from which waste matter was expelled inherently amusing? Even so, Karen couldn’t ignore the growing conviction that invisible forces of corruption, dissolution, and danger were growing ever closer to her daughter, turning her head in the wrong direction and pulling her farther away from Karen’s reach—a conviction that only grew stronger after Ruby leaned forward and said, “Can I tell you something else?”
“What?” said Karen.
“Jasleen and Janiyah both wear bras!”
“Well, I think that’s ridiculous,” said Karen. “I don’t see why girls your age need to wear bras when they don’t have boobs.”
Ruby shrugged, then lay down.
After Karen tucked her in, she went back into the living room where Matt sat reading sports scores on his phone and told him what Jayyden had said to Ruby.
“Boys just say stuff,” he said. He sounded as unconcerned as Ruby. “Besides, he didn’t say he wanted to fuck her up—or, God forbid, fuck her. He said he wanted to fuck with her. Honestly, it doesn’t sound that bad to me. Having said that, I wouldn’t be that psyched if I were Dashboard’s parents right now, or whatever that kid’s name is.”
“It’s Dashiell, not Dashboard,” said Karen, not in the mood for Matt’s punning. “His parents own the artisanal sausage place up the street.”
“Isn’t that kind of an oxymoron?” said Matt. “I mean, isn’t the whole point of sausages that they’re highly processed and really bad for you?”
“The artisanal ones are probably bad but not as bad for you, because they don’t have as many additives in them. But I’m trying to talk to you about something else!”
“Oh, right.”
“So you’d rather wait until Ruby is Jayyden’s next victim than try to do something about it now?”
“He’s not going to go after Ruby. He only goes after the kids who start up with him. And Ruby’s not like that. Also, they’re eight years old. Can we please not lose sight of that fact?”
“That’s not even true—Jayyden is nine going on ten,” said Karen.
“Whatever,” said Matt.
“I’m thinking of talking to the principal about it.”
“You sound like Maeve’s parents.”
The accusation made Karen wince. In her mind, Laura and Evan had become the apotheosis of liberal hypocrisy. “That’s not fair,” she said.
But wasn’t the child’s removal her unspoken goal too? And what if Laura and Evan had had a valid point about Principal Chambers protecting Jayyden at the expense of the others? Or had skin color distorted Karen’s perception to the point of blindness? If some troubled white boy had told Ruby he wanted to fuck with her at recess, surely Karen would have been concerned as well. But how concerned? And what would happen to Jayyden? Maybe April Fishbach was right, and the child needed succor, not censor. But did he have to get that help in the same building, the same room, as Ruby was in?
“Honestly, Karen, I really think you’re overreacting,” said Matt.
“Am I?” She could no longer tell.
Maybe not surprisingly, Karen and Ruby were late for school the next day. But Karen’s chronic insomnia was only partly to blame. Her head awhirl with visions of Jayyden inserting various sharp implements into her daughter’s flesh, Karen felt uneasy even entering the school building. And having finally done so, she was reluctant to let her daughter walk down the now-deserted hall. “I love you,” she said—twice.
“Mommy, you’re embarrassing me,” said Ruby.
“Sorry, sweetie—sometimes moms are really embarrassing,” said Karen.
For the rest of the day, every time the phone rang at work—before Karen picked it up and found it was a robo-call from a politician or HK’s charming but lazy truck driver Gregor calling in sick with a bad back, as he constantly did—Karen imagined it was the main office of Betts Elementary phoning to say that her daughter had been taken away in an ambulance. She even pictured herself in reaction, trembling and hyperventilating as she fled her office, the image superimposed over stock photos of slumped bodies from the latest school shooting, the latest terrorist attack. There was a new one seemingly every day. Was it any wonder she felt as if she were being thrown from the stern of a small boat to the bow and back again? Nausea was a not-unexpected by-product.
Yet Karen had always prided herself on being strong, reasonable, tolerant, and tempered—not a hysteric shivering and cowering in the corner at the very suggestion of ghosts. What was happening to her? How had she allowed her dreams to supplant reality? And what was fear, after all, but a projection into a future that no one could predict?
Only, for Karen, the future felt like right now. That Ruby apparently had a perfectly fine day at school that day did nothing to diminish her paranoia. “I need to talk to you,” she told Matt that night. “And it’s important.”
“Again?” he said.
“Can you please mute the game?” Legs splayed on the sofa, he begrudgingly hit the remote. “I want to take Ruby out of Betts,” she said.
Matt unleashed a long sigh. “Is this about that kid again?”
“Yes, it’s about that kid, who is endangering the welfare of not just Ruby but all the other kids in his class. But it’s also about the fact that Ruby is bored and coming home singing really inappropriate songs she picks up in the schoolyard.”
“You mean, songs courtesy of the black girls with their morally bankrupt hip-hop culture?” countered Matt.
“I didn’t say anything about race,” Karen shot back.
“Well, I did. Besides, since when have you been a puritan?”
“Since today.”
“Whatever you say, Miss My Favorite Song in Fourth Grade Was ‘My Sharona’ by the Knack.”
“Okay, forget about music,” said Karen, already exasperated. “There’s also the fact that Ruby’s only friend at school turned on her, and the mother turned on me. And now it’s really uncomfortable for both of us.”
“So she’ll make new friends.”
“With who?”
Matt shrugged. “I don’t know. Aren’t there twenty-four other kids in her class?”
“Twenty-two of whom she has nothing in common with.”
“So, that’s what this is about,” said Matt with a leading smile that Karen didn’t appreciate. So often, Karen felt as if her husband was trying to out her as a reactionary or—even worse—a racist. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“There aren’t enough white kids,” said Matt, spelling it out for her. “Isn’t that the real issue here?”
“I never said that. You did,” said Karen.