Okay. Fine. She’s right about that, then.
I must have an air of defeat around me, because I catch Barbara Mischky smiling at me from the back row.
“Which then brings us to the second issue,” Maureen says. “Which is the fact that you have a romance book podcast.”
Jerry, the vice chairman, snorts at that.
I immediately give him the nastiest look I can muster.
He stops smiling.
“Now, what a teacher does in their private time is not an issue so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. But when faced with this, it was pointed out that if a teacher was promoting pornography outside the classroom, there would be very swift punishment toward them.”
I nearly choke on a laugh. What?
“I’m sorry,” I say, raising my hand again. “Are you suggesting that my romance podcast is akin to promoting pornography?”
Maureen’s face goes red. She clears her throat again. “I am saying that perhaps it could be perceived that way.”
“Well, have you read a romance? Better yet, have you listened to my podcast?”
She shakes her head.
My eyes bug out. “You’re calling me up here to try to clear my name over something and you didn’t even bother listening to the supposed evidence?”
Maureen clamps her lips shut and looks away.
I stare at everyone else. “Did any of you?”
“I did,” Barbara says, her voice smug and tight. “I listened to one, and that’s all I could take. You’re an extremely crude and disgusting person and definitely not suited to be teaching the innocent children here.”
I am so flabbergasted, so angry, that I don’t even have the words. I don’t even know how to proceed.
It takes everything inside me not to call her the same word Harrison used to describe her daughter.
“My podcast,” I begin, my voice tight, “is directed to a mature audience. To the romance-reading audience. It’s okay to read about sex. It’s okay to have a book that’s focused on both people falling in love and the woman’s own pleasure. The genre has a lot of stigma attached to it, but only because some people are afraid of women’s empowerment and sexuality.”
“It’s smut,” she practically spits out.
“It’s smut, and it’s wonderful,” I tell her. “What’s so wrong with smut? What’s wrong with a book that focuses on sex? On romantic relationships? And on top of that, in a respectful way. Why is sex in movies and in TV and in art and in music and in literary novels considered okay, but a romance novel isn’t?”
She looks shocked. “It’s wrong . . . It’s prostitution.”
She’s really reaching now. “So now you’re saying that a romance novel is akin to prostitution. Okay then.” I look at Maureen. “Is this why you called me here? Because this is what you believe? That a romance novel, or talking about a romance novel, is the same as prostitution? Never mind the fact that I can also debate you about sex workers and the lack of support and care they get. I’ll save that for some other time.”
“No, of course not,” Maureen says. “Look, this is all very complicated.”
“Actually, I don’t think it is,” Georgia speaks up. “As the principal of the school, I think I should get a say in the matter.” She gives me a supportive smile. “I know Piper is an excellent teacher. What she reads or does in her own time is her own business. But I will say you are making this out to be something it’s not. Just because you have a prejudice against romance novels doesn’t mean that what you believe is true. It means you’ve bought in to a dangerous, inherently anti-feminist narrative. I read a whole range of books, and some of them are romances. I wish I had known about Piper’s podcast before, because I would have loved to have felt like part of a community, especially when so many of the readers get shunned for it. As it was, of course, Piper’s podcast was anonymous until it was more or less doxed. Wouldn’t you say that’s correct, Piper?”
I’m trying not to smile at how she’s going to bat for me, but my heart is being warmed over. “Someone called up my mother and asked her a few questions about me. My mother thought she was helping, but the podcast would have remained anonymous otherwise.”
“Because you’re ashamed,” Barbara says.
“Because I knew that someone like you would have an issue with someone like me talking frankly about sex. That’s why. But you know what, grill me all you want over this, try to shame me. I won’t be ashamed, I will not retract, I will not back down. I am a proud romance reader, and I’m not ashamed of what I read or what I discuss with other readers. Nothing you can do or say will make me feel that way.”
A loaded silence fills the room, and everyone stares at me, gobsmacked. I want to look over at the door to see if Harrison is still there, but I don’t dare. Besides, I can still feel him.