In a Second by Kate Canterbary Free Novel Chapter 9

Today’s vocabulary word: pure

‘I know it’s only nine thirty,’ Jamie Rouselle sang as she swept into my classroom, ‘but I need you to feed me.’

I dropped my phone, pushed up from my desk, and clasped my hands behind my back in the most suspicious manner possible. Honestly, it would’ve raised less notice if I’d dumped a bucket of live lobsters on the floor.

She pointed at me. ‘Okay, that was weird.’

I shrugged and tried to look innocent. ‘I didn’t bake last night but I have leftover molasses cookies.’

I didn’t bake every night. Sometimes, but not always. Not anymore. Not since washing the blood from the worst of the wounds left behind by my time married to my ex-husband. But there’d been an era when kneading dough until my arms gave out was the only remedy for the stress that’d taken up residence inside my body.

Looking back on it now, I couldn’t believe I’d found the strength to put any of it into a blog. I’d been so…small in my marriage. So hollow. Because sharing thoughts and photos and detailed instructions onto the internet for others to consume required a level of confidence I’d left in my teens. That was probably why I’d started with a blog like it was the olden days of the internet. I didn’t expect anyone would notice me there.

I started The Ballerina Bakes about a year before leaving Christopher. The first recipe I posted was a gluten-free pumpkin cranberry bread. The flavors because they reminded me of autumn in New England. The lack of gluten because life with my ex made my body shut down to the point that I couldn’t digest much of anything.

I added videos of my baking process not long after but I stayed off camera. My hands made appearances but nothing else. I preferred it that way. I didn’t have to be myself when I baked. I could be The Ballerina. I found that I liked her better.

These days, I posted a new recipe once a week, down from four or five when my mental health had been at its worst. I had them planned out and edited months in advance, which meant I baked molasses cookies in June for a holiday series that would publish in late November.

My friends—the ones who taste-tested all my recipes—didn’t mind. One universal truth about teachers was that they were always hungry. Jamie in particular.

‘I will take those molasses cookies,’ she said as she crossed the room, ‘and I’ll sit right here and eat them while you tell me what the hell’s going on with you.’

I went to the closet behind my desk and grabbed the Pyrex container of cookies. ‘I think I did something bad,’ I said.

‘I don’t think you know how to do anything truly bad,’ the first-grade teacher replied. ‘But prove me wrong.’

I met Jamie when I started teaching here, right after my divorce was finalized. She was about five years younger than me but that didn’t get in the way of her taking me on like a mangy foster dog in need of serious socialization. She wormed her way into my life whether I wanted her there or not. Considering that all I’d wanted to do back then was walk through my days like a ghost and I’d perfected the art of disappearing into myself, it was a noteworthy accomplishment.

She taught me how to have fun again, how to laugh at life—and myself. She’d cornered me into eating lunch with the other elementary teachers and folded me into a group of friends that were now my favorite people in the world.

She’d taught me how to open up without worrying about anyone using those vulnerabilities against me, but I still had something to learn in that area. My friends knew about my divorce though I hadn’t gotten around to sharing anything about Jude. Talking about a bad marriage to a pathologically narcissistic man was relatively simple when the alternative was admitting I hurt someone who’d deserved better. As far as Jamie and the others were concerned, the divorce and the blog were the cornerstones of my lore. I didn’t hint toward others and no one went digging into that story any deeper.

But here I was now, days away from a whole summer vacation with the guy who’d wanted to stop my wedding, and I had some explaining to do.

Busy week for getting bitten in the ass by my own bad decisions.

‘I can see you being benignly bad,’ Jamie mused, half-eaten cookie in hand. ‘Not offering to let someone cut in front of you at the grocery store when they only have a few items and you have your usual forty pounds of flour and all the butter on the shelves. Or cutting across three lanes of traffic to make an exit but not waving at the people who let you in.’

‘Why do all of your examples involve cutting?’

‘Because cutting is a capital offense in first grade,’ she said, her mouth full. ‘So, what did you do? What’s so bad that it looks like you’ve been waiting to sneeze for the past six hours?’

I glanced at my phone before turning it facedown. Nothing new there anyway. ‘I went to that reunion, like I told you about,’ I started, hedging and wobbling my way through, ‘and I ran into someone. Who I used to be close with. Very close, actually. We’d—well, there was a time when we’d made big plans together. For life after school. And beyond that. For our whole lives, really. But I ruined it all because my parents said— It doesn’t matter what they said anymore.’

‘It probably matters a whole lot.’ I found her staring at me, eyes wide and cheeks crammed full with cookies. ‘What did they say?’

I grabbed a pen off my desk and let my thumb trace the edge of the cap. ‘My parents, they aren’t like most people.’

‘Honeychild, my father didn’t know I existed until I was thirteen and was deposited on his doorstep by social services. You will find no judgment from me.’

I didn’t know how to let myself believe that. I didn’t know what it meant to exist without judgment stacked up on my shoulders. ‘They—well, when I was a kid, they gradually took up some new religious views. But it wasn’t actually religious, which probably doesn’t make any sense. I guess I’m trying to say there was no faith to it, no traditions or spirituality. Just…shame and intense vibes and obsessing over how everything looked. It didn’t matter what it was, just how it looked.’

Jamie murmured in agreement. ‘We’re talking about the purity culture, the institutionalized gender roles, the unhinged hatred of anyone considered other? Generally shitty and morally corrupt from the inside out?’

‘All of it,’ I said, relieved that I didn’t have to elaborate.

‘Then I take it they didn’t approve of this young man in your life,’ she said.

‘They didn’t approve for so many reasons.’ I started ticking off on my fingers. ‘He grew up with a single mom who cleaned houses for a living. One of his jobs was working at my father’s country club, repairing the golf carts and equipment. He went to my school on a full-ride scholarship. He rode a motorcycle, James. They didn’t like him at all. No part of this was acceptable and they made it very, very clear that I had no say in the matter.’

‘But sweet little Audrey was defiant,’ Jamie drawled. ‘She kept secrets and did what she wanted, didn’t she?’

I ran a thumb over my fingernails. ‘No one was paying much attention to me in high school. My sister was always being bullied or targeted by a teacher, or so she said, and my parents focused more on her. And we’d moved to a new house in a different neighborhood and my dad finished his second term as Connecticut attorney general⁠—’

‘Oh, so, your dad basically had the state police at his disposal? And the boy still deflowered you? Must be tough on him, carrying around those titanium balls. Requires a lot of core strength.’

‘I can’t believe you said deflowered and—I won’t repeat the other part. Oh my god. Someone is going to walk in here and we’ll never be able to explain this.’

‘I’m just saying the boy knew the stakes were high and he chose to dive into your hedgerow anyway.’ She pressed her palms together in prayer, closed her eyes. ‘Bless us, Dolly, and the boy’s big, shiny balls too.’

I choked on a laugh. Leave it to Jamie to take an emotionally grueling situation and boil it down to its wackiest parts. ‘We’re not talking about’—I dropped my voice to a whisper—’balls anymore.’

‘Fine, fine, fine,’ she said. ‘The parents must’ve caught up on your extracurriculars and they didn’t like what they found.’

‘They threatened and issued ultimatums and they scared the hell out of me.’

‘Nouveau religious father who also has the police on speed dial? Yeah, I believe those threats packed a punch.’

For a minute, I couldn’t claw my way out of the memory of when my father called me into his office, locked the door, and informed me I’d be leaving home that day. Either I’d go with the bags that’d been packed for me with fresh, new, modest clothing and supplies, or I’d be leaving with all the things I owned—which was nothing. Not even the clothes on my back.

And it just kept getting worse after that. So much worse. The restrictions, the requirements. The punishment that’d last until they decided it was over.

I’d never figured out how to breathe inside that memory. There’d been a time when I wished it would just suffocate me already.

‘I—I didn’t really have any options,’ I said eventually. ‘Not any that felt real to me. I had to do what they wanted. And it was awful. They made me leave and wouldn’t let me talk to him. Wouldn’t let me explain. And they were so furious, so disgusted with me.’

‘Oh, baby girl.’

I shook my head. The last thing I wanted was sympathy. ‘No, it’s fine⁠—’

‘Is it fine though? And does it have to be?’ A few tendrils of her long, dark hair slipped free from a claw clip. She batted the hair away, saying, ‘Just because you can’t see the bruise anymore doesn’t mean it won’t hurt if you press on it.’

I was quiet for a minute, thinking of all the bruises I ritualistically pressed. The ones I kept black and blue just to prove to myself they existed. They’d been real.

‘I have several follow-up questions for you but two big ones before we go any further,’ Jamie said, wiggling two fingers. ‘First, how long do we have until your critters are back from their visit to the sixth grade? And second, do you have any more cookies or food items you’d share with me? I cleared out my snacks last Friday and most of my working memory too because I forgot that I graze all day long.’

I glanced at the clock. ‘We probably have another half hour.’ The last days of school were completely lawless. Schedules? We didn’t know her. ‘I have contraband almonds. Do you want those?’

‘Audrey, love, I almost ordered delivery of a taco platter for twenty. The only reason I didn’t is that they don’t open for another two hours. So, yes, I’ll take your almonds even if you throw them at me individually like I’m a sea lion while you tell me what happened with this old, iron-balled boyfriend of yours.’

‘He was there,’ I said as I emptied out the goods cached in my closet. ‘At the reunion. I didn’t think he would be, but he was. We met for coffee the next day and we talked and—and he asked me to go on a trip with him out west to visit his mother and pretend to be his fiancée.’

Jamie blinked a few times and then shrugged as if this wasn’t unusual at all. ‘And you said yes.’

‘I did, because I’ve broken all my promises to him in the past and this is the one thing I can do. But now I think I’ve made a huge mistake,’ I said, the words running together. ‘More like a series of mistakes.’

‘Here’s what I need you to do. Give me the minute-by-minute recap of this reunion. What was said, how it was said. Full dramatic reenactment.’ She rolled her hand as she chomped on the nuts. ‘Walk me through it and I’ll decide if mistakes were made.’

I continued organizing the closet as I went back to the tent on the tennis courts, with the wine down my dress and the blueberry feta crostini I hated. To the dance floor and the bathroom, and the next day at Semantic and the long drive back to Boston.

I didn’t love voicing the tragic comedy vibes of this, especially with me playing the part of the tragedy, but I trusted Jamie enough to tell her the whole, horrible truth.

‘Wait, wait, wait,’ she said. ‘Wait a minute. Just wait. You’re telling me his mother is deathbed-dying and she commands him to get his single-dad shit in order with you and he says, ‘Wedding bells ring in the morning.”

I still wasn’t sure I understood why he’d offer up such a thing, even on the verge of losing his mother. Maybe I didn’t have enough experience with deathbeds. I could see him pacifying her with some vague promises but an engagement seemed like a hard stretch. ‘Basically, yeah.’

‘Oh my stars and garters,’ she murmured.

‘But the joke’s on him because she made a full recovery,’ I continued. ‘I mean, the ‘healthy as a horse, jumping jacks up and down the hospital halls, picking up her life and moving to Sedona with her bestie’ kind of recovery.’

‘That boy put himself in a world of hurt, didn’t he? The holy spirits must’ve heard him rolling those dice and said, ‘Bet.” She cackled as she scooped up another handful of almonds. ‘What’s his endgame? Is he going to need you to marry him and live happily ever after to stick this lie to the wall?’

‘No. We’ll go to Arizona and do that thing and then be done with each other. Sometime around the end of the summer, he’ll tell his mother it ended.’

Jamie brushed salt from her fingertips. ‘Yeah, I don’t need a crystal ball to tell you that’s not happening. I’ve been down this path before and I can promise you it never ends that way.’

I stared at her as she snatched a stale box of cheese crackers off my desk. ‘Except that’s exactly what will happen. We’ve agreed.’ It sounded like I was trying to double underline my words. ‘I’m helping him and finally getting some closure after all these years.’

‘Sure you are.’

‘What?’ I peered at her. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I’d really appreciate daily updates. Hourly, if you can manage,’ she replied. ‘It also means you should splurge on some new bras and undies for this trip. Cover those bases.’

‘We’re not— I’m not—no. No. That’s not what’s happening here.’

‘Of course not,’ she drawled.

‘He has no interest in me anymore,’ I said, and I could hear myself fraying. Could feel where he’d held me on the dance floor, in the bathroom. The way he’d stared at me across the café table, a picture of disinterest until it came time to launch this wild setup. ‘That’s over. It’s done. And he’s not looking for anything. He’s busy with his son and that’s not where it’s going with us.’

‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ she said, elbow-deep in the box of cheese crackers. ‘Fuck that guy.’

I went to respond but stopped myself. Closed my mouth. Frowned at her. ‘You say that like it’s a suggestion, not an insult. It was ‘fuck that guy—question mark’ and not ‘fuck that guy—period, end of crude, declarative statement.” I blinked a couple hundred times. ‘You meant it in a derogatory sense, right?’

‘Go with your gut. You already know which one is right. But I hear condoms are north of ninety-five percent effective and no one’s ever sad about packing extra lube.’

‘I’m posing as a fraudulent future daughter-in-law and stomping all over a nice woman’s dying wish. Condoms are the last thing I’m going to need. We fly out in a few days and there’s a greater than zero chance this is going to blow up in our faces,’ I said. ‘All I need to know is whether I’m making a huge mistake. Should I back out?’

She downed a handful of cheesy dust. ‘What’s this boy’s name? You haven’t mentioned it yet.’

‘Jude,’ I replied. It was nice saying it out loud after going all those years only hearing it in my head.

‘Heavens help us.’ Jamie set down the box, her mouth round and eyes wide. ‘I’ve never once seen that smile from you. You just turned into a bright, shining sunbeam.’ She reached for me, closing her cheesy-dust-free hand around my forearm and giving me a meaningful shake. ‘You still have feelings for him. Big feelings. Serious feelings.’

‘That’s not it.’ I said this and I meant it…but I also knew seeing Jude made me feel like I was waking up from a long, dreamless sleep. He forced me to the edge of my limits and pushed me to say exactly what I was thinking, even when I took aim at him. There were no comfort zones when he was around, no boundaries to speak of, and something about that was outrageously freeing.

It also felt like he pushed me off a new cliff every five minutes—and wasn’t that fitting for such an overgrown super-specimen of a man? With his commanding personality that’d never once been compared to an antacid, and his well-fucked hair.

I really had to stop thinking about that last one.

Jamie balled up the empty cracker bag and started ripping the box to shreds. ‘If it’s not big feely feels, what is it?’

After a gaping pause where I overthought my entire inner world, I finally said, ‘We have a past but not a future.’

She nodded. ‘What if things change? What if he says⁠—’

‘They won’t.’

‘Hypothetically speaking,’ she said, ‘would you be open to a future?’

I crossed my arms, protecting the darkest of the bruises no one could see, and shook my head. ‘It’s just for the summer. Then, it will be over.’