Page 17 of Slander
Somebody sat down and built a thing that looks like me out of pieces that aren't me, and printed it, and mailed it to the people who decide whether I get to keep doing the only work I've ever wanted to do.
Somebody did that on purpose, with their hands, in the quiet, while I was grading spelling tests and lighting fires in my backyard and thinking the worst of it was a cold shoulder in the dairy aisle.
Goodness gracious, they probably used AI to do it, too. All of that stuff looks so real these days.
"How long," I manage.
"The review? I don't know yet. These things take time."
"Am I—do I still teach? Tomorrow? Do I?—"
"You teach tomorrow." She softens, finally, now that she has something true to give me. "Nobody's pulling you out of that classroom on an anonymous letter, attachments or not. We follow the process. The process protects you too, honey. That's the part to hold on to."
I nod, because she needs me to, and I stand up, because if I stay in this chair one more minute I'm going to cry in front of her and I don’t want to do that.
"Sophie." She catches me at the door. "Who would do this to you?"
I look at her, and I think about Lizzie Sue's hand on my forearm, and Beverly's hand on the small of my back, and Reverend Hardin building his sermon joint by joint with my name nowhere in it and everywhere in it at once.
"I don't know," I tell her.
All I do know is someone has me in their crosshairs, and I don’t know why.
* * *
I make it to my car before my hands start shaking, and I sit in the school parking lot with the engine off and let them.
The lot empties out around me.
Buses pull away in a line, brakes hissing, and the last of the car-riders get folded into back seats by parents who don't know yet, or maybe do.
Regardless, everyone will know soon. That’s how everything is when you live in a small town.
I watch them go and I keep both hands on the wheel like the car's still moving, because if I let go I don't know what they'll do.
I want to call my father.
I get as far as his name on the screen, my thumb hovering over it, and I stop.
Because if I call him and tell him, he'll have to tell me whether he already knew.
Whether the board talked to the deacons. Whether my own father has been sitting in a room with these people, hearing my name turned into a warning, and saying—what? Something? Nothing?
I picture him at the long table in the church annex, the one with the water rings and the box of tissues somebody always brings.
I picture Reverend Hardin at the head of it with his hands folded, sorrowful, careful. I picture my father not standing up.
I don't know which answer would be worse, and I'm not strong enough today to find out.
I put the phone face down on the passenger seat and drive home with the radio off.
By the time the light goes orange, I've changed into the soft pajama shorts and the threadbare tank I’m going to sleep in tonight.
I've got a fire going and a glass of wine I've half drunk before I've even sat down, which isn't like me, and tonight I couldn’t care less.
Hoagie sprawls across my feet with a groan like an old man.
"You don't know how good you've got it," I tell him.
