Out of the Woods Read online

  This is what Janet is thinking about as little Audrey Hamel walks away from her Genevieve, arms crossed, tears in her eyes, to stand alone at the bus stop. This is the picture Janet wishes she could paint for her daughter right now to wipe that smug look off her face.

  But Janet can’t show Genevieve a thing, because the bus is here and all there is time for is the last second hug that Gen never forgets to give her mother, the last minute kiss on the belly that is meant for the baby inside.

  Audrey Hamel is smiling by the time she boards the bus, laughing at some joke told by the obese woman who drives it. But Janet can spot a smile for show from a mile away. It is her job to spot the fakers, to teach them to be real.

  “It is not about acting,” she tells her students, “but reacting.”

  Some glaze over; others reach instinctively for the notebooks she has told them will not be allowed in her class. Three take in the lesson without words, without the exaggerated nods their classmates offer up. Those three, they already know. They will be the most fun.

  She sends them home with two assignments. They are to pick a Shakespearean sonnet and they are to memorize both parts of a scene from Godot, a scene none of them will ever understand — except perhaps for the bright three — but then, that’s the point. She wants them to be able to regurgitate the words on command. Then, they’ll spend the rest of the semester shaping their verbal vomit into any number of forms. They’ll make comedies of it, tragedies, and everything in between.

  “The words alone mean nothing,” she tells them. “It is what you do with them that counts.”

  When she visits the playwriting class that afternoon, across the lawn in the second of the college’s two classroom buildings, she does not say such things, though she believes with all her heart that they are true. Instead, she tells the budding playwrights that, without their words, an actor has nothing, can do nothing. There is one student who takes both classes. He does not call her on her contradiction. But he does write it down.

  She meets her husband at the snack bar before heading home to get Gen off the bus. Tom is an admissions counselor, a salesman for the school, and his three-button suit is as much a part of him as his impeccable smile. He does not so much play the part as he inhabits the role. And when Janet tells him about the scene with Audrey Hamel that morning, he is quick to move into his second favorite sales pitch: the case for Genevieve’s innocence.

  “Gen is a critic,” he says. “Her mind is incisive. She calls it like she sees it, and the only problem is that most kids her age aren’t ready for her particular brand of honesty.”

  Janet sips at her Coke — no longer Diet, because of the baby — then nibbles at the taco salad she knows she will not finish, that she knows will end up in the trash alongside half-eaten hamburgers, on top of French fries made soggy by sodas dumped for having too much ice. Her stomach churns at the image, even as she tries to turn off this terrible visual mind of hers, all the more visual since the pregnancy.

  “Did she hit the kid?” Tom asks.

  “No,” says Janet.

  “Then it’s not really bullying, is it? Teasing maybe, but — ”

  “It doesn’t matter what you call it,” she says. “I don’t want Gen acting like that.”

  “You don’t want Gen acting like herself?”

  That’s right, she thinks, but does not say. You’re damned right I don’t.

  Tom has a point about Gen, though. Janet can’t deny that. While Tom is at work at that night, the girls watch The Transformers: The Movie, and it is Gen who points out why Janet can tolerate it and not any of the episodes of the cartoon series. Tom has been introducing those to Gen little by little, since she fell in love with the movie during tech week for the college’s summer show, when there were seven daddy-daughter date nights in a row, when Janet wasn’t around to say “No” — her favorite word in the English language, according to both Gen and Tom.

  “You like the movie,” Gen says, “because there are consequences.” It’s a word she’s surely heard, with a harsh-grading professor for a mother, but not one Janet knows her to understand. “This time, when Optimus and Megatron fight, one of them dies.”

  Death, the weakest of a storyteller’s options when trying to make something matter, but the one the novice reader or listener or viewer is most likely to comprehend.

  “Also,” says Gen, pointing to the pink robot on screen now, “there’s a girl.”

  “Who is barely anything but a damsel in distress,” says Janet.

  “What about how she saves Daniel?”

  “The little boy?”

  Gen nods.

  “Well, that’s something,” says Janet. “But why is it that the most heroic thing she does is maternal in nature?”

  “Maternal?” says Gen.

  “Motherly,” says Janet.

  Gen turns her attention back to the television set. “You don’t like being a mom very much, do you, Mom?”

  Janet does not, in fact, enjoy parenting anywhere near as much as Tom does, or as much as the Hallmark cards she keeps in her hope chest told her she would when she opened them and the gifts she was showered with all those years ago. It’s a lot of work, the job of being a mother, and there are questions on the exam her daughter administers daily that were never covered in the books she studied, and studied, and studied again. Janet looks at her stomach, at the bulge of an elbow (or, perhaps, a knee) as the baby makes itself comfortable. At times, during her weaker moments, she’s not sure why she’s doing it again, except perhaps as part of a dare from Tom: “Do it better next time, if you think you’ve sucked so much this time around.” She looks past the belly, down at her toes, recalls Lizbeth English and her perfect pigtails.

  Incisive. Was that what you called it, that ability to find the place that hurt the most, to drive the knife in there, and to keep on twisting?

  “I’m sorry,” Gen says, remote in her hand, the TV muted. “Are you mad at me, Mommy?”

  Janet says nothing. She unmutes the TV, gathers Gen up in her arms, and then snuggles with her on the couch. The robot that looks like a hot rod, he picks up the so-called Matrix of Leadership, and the next time he transforms he is no longer a hot rod but an RV with flames on its hood.

  Janet says: “Do you think the movie means to imply that growing up, that taking on responsibility, automatically makes you lame?”

  Gen says nothing, though Janet is convinced it’s not because she doesn’t have an answer. Gen wants to say something. Janet can tell by the way she chews on her lower lip. That Gen holds herself back — that’s proof of something. But Janet’s not sure what, not yet.

  * * *

  The next time her acting class meets, she selects two of the brightest kids and pairs them up. She tells them they are to play ancient, bitter rivals, about to fight to the death. They have a grudging respect for one another. But, more than that, they know what will hurt the other most.

  “Did you ever read the Bible?” says the first, excitement in her voice, hope.

  “The Bible?” says the second one, waving a dismissive hand in the air as he stalks away from the first. “I must’ve taken a look at it,” he says, yawning.

  Their choices are over-the-top, obvious. But they are also strong. By the time they reach the end, the first on her knees, about to be strangled by the second as she prattles on about the trouble with one gospel saying that a thief was saved at the crucifixion when the others say nothing of the sort, the rest of the class is ready to applaud. Their hands are clasped together, waiting to break free and clap.

  “Who believes him?” says the second, wrapping his hands around the first’s neck.

  “Everybody,” says the first, in between choked breaths. “It’s the only version they know.”

  The first actor dies, collapses in a heap. The second falls back onto his ass, exhausted at the effort. The class applauds, stands, applauds some more.

  “Why did it work?” she asks them.

  “Because
he killed her,” says the class smart-ass, an art student in paint-stained overalls who’s taking the course as an elective.

  “Consequences,” she tells them. “She wanted one thing and he wanted another. The end result: consequences.”

  The third of the bright trio, the one who sat out this time around, she raises her hand.

  “Yes,” says Janet.

  “Wouldn’t it have worked even better if she put up more of a fight? Or if she was even capable of doing so?”

  Janet smiles at her. “Yes,” she says, embarrassed she didn’t get there first, but proud the student didn’t let the conversation get any further without the point being made. “Indeed, consequences are important. The stakes must be high. But we arrive at the consequences of great scenes only when the unstoppable force meets an immovable object.”

  She looks down at the sweaty, panting pair of actors at her feet. “Let’s try that again, shall we?”

  * * *

  Janet and Gen sit in the car the next morning, the first time this year it’s been too cold to stand outside for the bus.

  “What do you think of Audrey?” Janet asks Gen, as the other girl’s mother drops her at the corner and then, seeing that other parents are there to keep watch, makes the turn onto the main drag.

  “We are not friends,” says Gen, pouting, a bit of a snip and a snap in her voice.

  “Why not?” says Janet, but before Gen answers she is out the door and laying into Audrey again.

  Janet watches for a moment before leaving her car, hopes they will work it out, but when Gen grabs Audrey by the arm to keep her from running away, Janet knows it is time to intercede.

  All of the other parents, all of the other children, they stay in their cars.

  Janet grabs a girl with each hand and holds them apart, at arm’s length. They are flailing at each other as Janet separates them, but Gen, respecting Janet’s belly and what it represents, stops right away. Audrey, less aware or maybe just less concerned, swings one final haymaker of a slap in Gen’s direction, but misses, her hand making a hard thwack as it connects with Janet’s midsection.

  Janet steps back, more shocked than hurt. The baby kicks, then kicks again. Janet lets go of the girls, puts her hands to her stomach, and feels a third kick, a reassurance from the creature within that it is OK, if a bit pissed off.

  Not as pissed off as Gen, though, who is on top of Audrey now, punching Audrey in the head with closed fists.

  “My baby,” she shouts. “You hit my baby, you meanie. You stupid, mean dummy.”

  One of the fathers leaps out of his car. He tries to pull Gen off, but Gen’s got a hold of Audrey’s hair, two fistfuls of it, and she’s not letting go.

  As Janet unfreezes and moves to help the father, prying Gen’s hands free, she hears more doors opening and closing, the pitter patter of feet rushing toward the bus, its screechy brakes announcing its arrival. Then, she hears another mom say, from under her breath, “Kid had it coming, but still.”

  * * *

  When Janet stops by Audrey’s house later that night, Audrey’s mother does not make a fuss. She asks about the baby, which is unharmed, according to the gyno, then says, “It’s not the first time. Won’t be the last. It’s fine.”

  Janet wants to ask what she means by that, but Audrey is crying about the TV now, begging her mother to change the station, and Mrs. Hamel excuses herself, closes the door.

  At home, Gen is working on her line for the school musical, one sentence from a children’s story she will recite, in addition to the songs she and her classmates will sing. When Janet comes in, Tom looks up from his book of crosswords and Gen asks if they can watch Transformers now.

  “Given what happened this morning,” says Janet. “I’d say no.”

  Gen moves her lips, as if to speak, but abandons her protest, goes back to reciting her line. Tom looks at Janet, arching an eyebrow, then nodding at Gen in some sort of plea for leniency, a silent “Lighten up.” As she goes to the kitchen, Janet wonders why he always gets to play the good cop.

  Over dinner, Janet asks the question again — “Why did you pick on Audrey?” — but Gen hasn’t responded to it all day, so Janet isn’t expecting much.

  Gen sets down her fork. Having eaten her requisite seven bites of pork chop, one for every year of her life, it is likely her next words will be a request to leave the table. But, it turns out, they are not.

  Instead, she says, “I’m trying to teach her. Like Kup and Hot Rod in the movie. She says things she shouldn’t. She does things she shouldn’t. I tell her to stop.” Gen shakes her head, sighs. “And then she cries,” says Gen.

  “Gen,” says Janet, “it is not your place to — ”

  Tom grunts, raises his eyebrow again. Janet thinks, for a moment, about ripping the damned thing off and shoving it up his ass.

  She does not.

  She is about to continue when Gen says, “Audrey makes other people cry. I don’t think that’s OK.”

  “If it’s not OK when she does it,” says Janet, “what makes it OK when you do?”

  Gen says nothing, then asks to be excused.

  Once Gen is gone, Tom stands up and begins to collect the dirty dishes.

  “You want to say something to me?” Janet asks him.

  He says nothing as he moves to the kitchen sink, as he rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.

  Janet leans against the counter, watches as he scrubs. “The dishwasher broken again?”

  “No,” he says, “sometimes I just like to do things the old-fashioned way.”

  “Is that my problem?” says Janet.

  “I don’t know what your problem is,” he says.

  Janet plucks the towel from off of the oven’s handle, grabs a dish from the strainer, and begins to dry.

  It isn’t until the dishes are done that Tom speaks again, that he says, “You’re always trying to teach her something. A lesson.”

  “And I’m teaching her the wrong things?” says Janet, as she makes her way out of the kitchen, as she flicks the light off before he’s even made it out of there.

  “Not the wrong things,” he says.

  “What would you teach her?” says Janet.

  He leans against the doorway between kitchen and dining room and he sighs. “I wouldn’t teach her anything,” he says. “I’m her parent, not her professor. My job — our job — is to listen, to empathize, not to lecture, not to preach.”

  She shakes her head at him. “If I’m this bad at this, why did you get me pregnant again? Huh?”

  He goes around her, around the whole dining room table, so as not to even have to touch her, to move her out of the way.

  “No answer?” she says. “You’ve got nothing.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” he says, before he heads upstairs. “I sure as hell didn’t mean to.”

  * * *

  In class, as a form of mid-term evaluation, she has them all play the same scene in turn: one is a bully, the other is trying to get the bully to cry, to show him the error of his ways. It is up to them who plays Vladimir, who plays Estragon.

  It is the two weakest actors who nail it, a pair of roommates who have shown up late all semester, the smell of pot in their unwashed hair, the last remnants of their morning high lingering in their bloodshot eyes. They still can’t do their sonnets from memory and barely get through Godot, despite how many times they’ve done it, how many times they’ve seen it done.

  They fought over a guy, earlier in the year, one of them spreading lies about the other’s promiscuity to ruin her chances. And so, what they do is not an act. When the first calls the second an imbecile, the second feels it. It is not just an interpretation made in the brain, but a punch felt in the gut.

  She feels it, and then, as Janet has taught her, she reacts. She does as she was told, not just by her teacher, but by instinct as well.

  “Well, what of it?” she spits. “And why not?”

  * * *

  It is a Tuesday, the Tu
esday before Thanksgiving. Gen is in the car with Tom, skipping this last day before the break to head north early. Janet has been left behind. She has a final lesson to teach before she can join them. It is a short drive to the school, but the temperature is climbing — oh, New England! — and she decides to walk instead.

  Audrey is at the bus stop, alone for the moment. Janet checks her watch, realizes this moment won’t last long.

  “Hi,” says Audrey. “I’m sorry about your belly.”

  “It’s OK,” says Janet, buttoning her coat as a semi whips by on the main drag, its trailer of logs leaving behind a scent of cedar, of life where there is none left, on this road where the last of the fallen leaves were swept away weeks ago.

  Audrey fixes her stare in the direction the bus will come from. She nudges the toe of her boot into the frostbitten earth, breaks a clump of it free.

  “Listen,” says Janet, “Audrey, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  Audrey shrugs, looks at her feet, at the bit of earth between them. She starts to pick the dirt free from the grass.

  “What does Genevieve say to you to make you cry?”

  “Nothing,” says Audrey. “I don’t cry.”

  “Oh,” says Janet, kicking at the dirt herself now, digging her own hole.

  “She says I’m mean,” says Audrey, “and that no one will ever like me if I don’t start being nice.”

  “Do you think that’s true?” says Janet.

  “It’s fine,” says Audrey, sounding like her mother, that word — fine — making Janet’s heart ache.

  “I don’t care if people like me,” says Audrey, walking away.

  Janet means to say more, but the other children are coming, and it’s time to get going anyway, or she’ll be late.