“Sounds like fun.” If you like nails on a chalkboard or being strung up by your own balls.
“But also we have to learn things,” he says stoically. Like he’s accepted a grim but inevitable fate.
Ethan has been left at home today so I can do the honors for the paparazzi. And it’s not just for the good press on my own behalf—honestly, sports fans, what do you take me for?—It’s so I can check that the school isn’t too fazed by the whole tabloid interest thing. I need to see if their security is up to scratch. I picked the place for its no-bullshit approach to education rather than its popularity with celebrity parents, handily ensuring that Ash will be superior to many of his classmates on income terms alone. What? The kid needs all the help he can get.
We’re taken into a large, airy classroom that looks out on to a Japanese-style garden. A group of kids sit on a blue carpet while Miss Klonsky—who is a criminal waste of tits and natural red hair, in case you’re wondering—stands beside the interactive whiteboard and talks about different types of clouds.
She glances up as we approach and puts the PowerPoint presentation on pause.
“Ah. You must be Asher! Class, do you remember Asher, who came to visit us last week?”
The children nod and grin in an unsettlingly uniform manner. Still. Must remember that Ash is here to fit in, not trample over everyone. That comes later, when he needs to make money.
Ash suddenly stiffens. He halts just in front of me, a few feet from the carpet, and backs into my legs so he can clutch at my calf. I reach down to pat his sandy blond head, you know, for comfort and shit. He’s a kid. It’s the done thing.
Miss Klonsky tips her chin. “Aww, there’s no need to be shy. You want to come sit down with the other kids? We’re about to have snacks.”
Principal Nadir leans in to murmur, “All organic, obviously.”
“Obviously,” I agree.
They had better not turn him into some metrosexual vegan chef, or they’ll find themselves knee-deep in a child abuse scandal before they can say unsweetened almond fuckface smoothie.
Ash still clings to my leg.
“Come on, buddy.” I pat him again. “Time to make some new friends, right?”
Nothing. He just squeezes harder.
Miss Klonsky taps the shoulder of a small girl with shiny black pigtails and big brown eyes. The girl hops to her feet, straightens her green corduroy dungarees and starts toward Ash with her hand outstretched.
“Maybe if Tabitha takes you to the carpet?” Miss Klonsky suggests in a bright voice. “Just let go of your Dad and take her hand—”
“This is Asher Lore,” Principal Nadir cuts in. She’s talking through her teeth.
There’s a fleeting throb of awkward silence before I speak. “I’m not his father. I’m his brother.”
“Of c-course,” Miss Klonsky stutters. “My mistake. Apologies.”
“No harm done.”
But maybe there is—not on their part, but mine. Ash glares up at me with narrowed eyes, as if my correction is some sort of betrayal. Perhaps I’ve embarrassed him, singling him out as the kid without ‘real’ parents on his first day?
Or is it…something else?
“Asher?” Tabitha nudges his shoulder and giggles.
“You’ll be fine, buddy. I promise. And I’ll be here to pick you up at three.”
He blinks away the glassy beginnings of tears. “And Ethan?”
“Ethan can come too, if you want.”
“I want.” He blinks again. “Please.”
“We’ve got watermelon for snack today,” Tabitha announces. “It’s real good. They take the seeds out too.”
Tabitha will be selling pyramid schemes in approximately fifteen years.
I peel Asher’s fingers from the back of my knee and press them firmly into Tabitha’s palm, keeping eye contact steady, breathing with him. Parenting is so hard, they say. They listen to instinct too much and don’t consider logic.
“You’ll come back at three,” Asher says, almost to himself.
“Uhuh.”
“Will the snappers be there?”