The Player Next Door

The bell chimes, signaling the end of morning recess.

“If there’s nothing else?” I start to rise.

“I remember your mother coming in to speak to me after the incident.” Wendy’s eyebrows arch on that word. “She sat in that very chair.”

“Really?” I assumed she’d never set foot on school property again after the night of the pageant. “What’d she want?”

“Advice. She was worried about you.”

My mom? Worried about me? “Are you sure you’re talking about Dottie Reed?”

Wendy chuckles. “Yes. Most certainly. I’ll remember Dottie long after I’ve lost my wits and my bladder control.” At least she can find humor in it now. “She wanted to fix things, but she had no idea how. She’d lost her job and you hid in your room all day, refusing to talk to her. And, according to her, Peter Rhodes had promised to leave his family.”

“She told me the same thing the other day.” The day everything in my life went to hell.

“I don’t know if it’s true. You know how those things go, with men like that.” She waves a dismissive hand, but there’s no shortage of scorn in her voice. “But she wanted to know what she should do.”

“So, she asked you?” I can’t keep the surprise from my voice. Wendy was there to catch my mother in the act. She had to deal with the fallout. She couldn’t have been that sympathetic.

Wendy’s smile turns secretive as she studies a pen for a long moment. “Dottie was ten when I started teaching here. She was a high-spirited kid who liked to entertain. She was unlike any other child I’d ever met. And beautiful! So beautiful, even back then. I sometimes worried about what was going on at her home …” She frowns but doesn’t go further with that thought. “By the time she was twelve, I knew she was going to be trouble, skipping school and taunting older boys behind the bleachers. She loved the attention they’d give her. She was never mean-spirited. That’s not Dottie.

“On several occasions, I sat her down and tried to get through to her. But there was no getting through to that girl by then.” She sighs. “She wasn’t a good student, but she was resourceful when she needed to be. When she got pregnant with you, she came to me for advice. I helped her get set up with an apartment and social assistance. After that, she’d come by every once in a while to chat. I’d taken over as principal by then, and I remember sitting in here with the both of you. She’d bounce you on her knee and you’d laugh.” Wendy chuckles.

Meanwhile, my mouth gapes. I had no idea Wendy and my mother had a connection. She’s never mentioned it, not while I was a student here, and not since running into each other that day at the 7-Eleven.Is this why Wendy offered me a job?

“Honestly, I was waiting for the day I’d hear through the grapevine that Dottie was stripping or selling herself on a street corner to make ends meet, so when she told me she wanted to go to school to become a hairstylist, I was ecstatic. I coached her until she passed the GED and then I helped her apply for a government grant to pay for the schooling.” She smiles sadly. “She looked like she was turning over a new leaf.”

My students must be filtering into the class. I need to get back, but I’m curious. “What’d you say to her after that mess with Peter Rhodes?”

“To stop sleeping with married men.” Wendy gives me an exasperated look. “And that I was extremely disappointed in her.”

That makes me chuckle. “She would not have loved that.” Dottie has never appreciated being scolded.

“No. And honestly, chastising a twenty-eight-year-old woman to close her legs is not on my list of enjoyable activities. Neither is having to tell a mother to start acting like one and put her daughter’s needs ahead of her own.”

“She didn’t really do a good job of that.”

“No, she didn’t.” Wendy shakes her head. “But looking at you now, she must have done something right. Anyway, she stopped coming here, but I heard that whatever she had going on with Peter Rhodes was over and his wife was taking him back.” Her lips purse. “Having dealt with the both of them, and with Penelope, I’m not sure that was the right call either. But, that’s the thing about life—we each have our own to live, with all the regrets and mistakes that go along with it.”

“That we do.” And going forward, mine will have to be without a man I was falling desperately in love with. Maybe one day down the road, we can revisit it. Third time’s the charm, or something like that. I don’t have much hope things will change, though.