“Sure,” I said. “I can be really specific, if you want. How did Seth like that article that Tessa wrote for him? The one that he’s going to submit to the first issue of the Benton Daily Journal, in hopes of seeing his name in print? Which will be kind of funny, seeing as he didn’t even write it. Though I’d hope he’d have the sense not to submit an article like that, with his name on it, because everyone in the fucking world would know that there was no way in hell he wrote it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Leo.”
I nodded. “I can see how you’re going to play this,” I said. “And maybe you think that if you do a good enough acting job, that I’ll actually buy it, but I’m not going to. I know that you’re the one behind all of this. There’s rea
lly no point in pretending otherwise.”
Her expression faltered. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally said.
“See, I think you do,” I said. “I think you know exactly what I’m talking about, because you were the one who wrote those letters to Tessa. I really don’t think Seth would have the . . . shall we say . . . gumption to do something like this on his own. Seth just wants to play basketball. But for Seth to play basketball, he’s got to keep the grades up. And for him to be able to do that, he’s got to be able to actually write a paper that will get him better than a C. And you seem to forget, Carla, that I had him in my class. I know what kinds of papers he writes. He didn’t write that paper.”
For several long seconds, we both stared at each other. The air thickened between us, but she was the one sweating, not me.
“What exactly is it that you’re proposing, then?” she asked.
“So it really was you. Carla, I’m surprised. I wouldn’t think you’d have something like that in you. Blackmail. Encouraging your son to hand in papers that he didn’t write. Would you ever put up with something like that if one of your students tried to do that? I think not.”
She leaned her elbows on the table and then rested her face in her hands. She stayed like that for several seconds. Then, she took a deep breath and sat up.
“I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand,” she said. “You, with nothing to really tie you down. You’re not married, you don’t have any kids, before this job you were traveling all over the place, going wherever you wanted, when you wanted. Must’ve been pretty nice.”
“Yeah, it was great,” I said. “But this isn’t about me.”
“I know. I’m just bringing it up for context, because the fact is, I don’t think you can truly understand. You don’t know what it’s like to be a single parent, to have a career, to be doing your best to hold it all together while at the same time trying to ensure that your kid also stays on the right track. Seth doesn’t realize this, but it’s unlikely that he’ll ever play professional basketball. It’s something that he’s wanted to do since he was a kid, and he’s always been very good at it, but not good enough to be able to make a living from it.”
“It’s a very small percentage of people that have the skills to make a living from an activity most people do recreationally,” I said.
“A fact that I’m well aware of. But how do you tell that to a kid whose only dream has been to play basketball professionally? I’ve tried to talk to him about it. I’ve tried to put it nicely, I’ve tried to suggest that he have an alternate plan in case the basketball doesn’t pan out. But he doesn’t want to hear that. He keeps his grades up as high as they need to be in order for him to continue playing, but that’s it.”
“Well, shouldn’t that be enough then? For him to graduate?”
“But I want him to do well enough that he’ll have other options available. What if he decides he wants to go to graduate school? What if he finds something that really interests him, but he can’t get into grad school because he only did the bare minimum now?”
It was a rhetorical question, of course, but I shrugged. Carla was clearly delusional about her son, but I was beginning to realize that’s just how parents were. Like Tessa’s parents, thinking they were doing her this huge favor by cutting her off just because her grades weren’t perfect. But it was all coming from the same place—Carla wanted the best for Seth, Tessa’s parents wanted the best for her. They just had no clue how to go about ensuring that.
“That’s all well and good,” I said. “And I’m certainly not going to try to tell you how you should be raising your son. Like you said—what would I know about that sort of thing anyway? But how did you know about us, anyway?”
“It was obvious, Leo. That day I came into your office to borrow that book?”
“We weren’t doing anything.”
“You might as well have been. That outfit she was wearing?”
“So you surmised all this based on an outfit?”
“I figured if there was nothing going on between the two of you, then she’d just ignore the letter. But she didn’t. And that’s how I knew.”
“You do realize that Seth could probably get expelled for this. And you could probably lose your job.”
“I’m sure that was something you realized too, when you were deciding to get involved with a student. Sometimes we do things without fully thinking about the consequences.”
“You could say that again.”
We seemed to be at an impasse. “Tessa’s not going to write any more papers for Seth. You can go tell whoever you want about us, but she’s not going to be doing that anymore. She’s got enough on her plate as it is; she doesn’t need to be graduating college for him, too. Why didn’t you just write them yourself? I mean, does Seth think that the homework fairy is just making these papers magically appear or something?”
“I have too much on my fucking plate to be writing my son’s papers!” she snapped. “I’m trying to hold things together the best I can, but I certainly don’t have time to be writing any papers.”
“Yet somehow you expect Tessa to.”