Cassie Tremblay steered her aging red Toyota into a parking spot as near to the front entrance to MacDonald Secondary School as she could find. It was a spot in the teacher’s parking area, but that shouldn’t matter. Not after hours. They wouldn’t tow her at this time of day, would they?
She glanced again at the digital clock on her dashboard. Late, as usual. She’d have to risk leaving her car where it was and hope for the best. She still took time to pull down the sun visor and check the mirror. She pursed her lips and decided her lipstick was ok. But her hair? Such a mess. She quickly swept a few errant, brown curls into place.
Flipping the visor up, she thrust open the door and stepped out of the car. She smoothed down her skirt and made certain her blouse was tucked in properly. Then headed for the open door where a white-haired woman sat inside the main entrance behind a folding table covered in stacks of photo-copied paperwork. The older woman smiled, asked a few questions, then pulled together a couple of sheets for Cassie along with a few directions.
Cassie hurried towards the classroom where she was meant to be. The sound of her footsteps rang out in the empty corridor. Don’t run, she thought. They must have some rule about running in the hallways. Schools always have rules to enforce and someone’s always nearby itching to catch and punish somebody not following the rules.
She was late enough as it was. The last thing she needed was to be stopped by some hulking football coach or shop teacher chastising her for being a bad girl. Not tonight, and not all these years after graduating. How long was it since she’d been at MacDonald High? Nearly twenty years. When did that happen? It seemed not so long ago that she’d been a student here. Now her own daughter, Lisa, was in her freshman year and Cassie was late for a parent-teacher conference.
As she rushed by the administration offices she noticed her palms were sweaty. Cassie had spent more than a few anxious moments outside Mr. Skinner’s office, waiting to be reprimanded for yet another violation of school policy. There was a different name on the door; so Skinner must have moved on. Was the new principal as strict? Did he obsess as much over the length of the girls’ skirts as his predecessor?
Behind her, in the opposite direction, was the gymnasium. Memories flashed of too many humiliations in Ms. Parker’s gym class or being bored to tears during school assemblies and pep rallies. But not everything that happened there was bad. Some of the dances were the springboard to both some of her sweetest and naughtiest moments in high school.
Cassie had her first awkward yet amazing kiss during a slow dance with Robbie Sherman, a sweet guy with long blonde hair, Brad Pitt dimples, and a mouthful of braces. They ended up going steady long enough to practice kissing, and for her to learn how to use her tongue properly. Then there was Will Martin, who she groped on a pinky-swear dare. He sure was surprised when she put her hand on his crotch in the middle of the dance floor. How they avoided getting caught by eagle-eyed chaperones was still a mystery to her. She ended up giving him a handjob later that night in the back seat of her friend’s car. What an education that turned out to be. He was the first boy she ever did that with, though not the last, and she thought he was huge, the way he filled her hand. Hey, what did she know? Over the years, she’d come to learn that Will was pretty average, but then again, some of those bigger guys turned out to be pretty average in many other ways.
She pushed such thoughts aside. Time to focus on the task at hand. It took nearly ninety minutes to make her way from room to room, waiting her turn at each stop for a few minutes with each of Lisa’s teachers. Lisa was adjusting to her first year of high school fairly well. Good to hear, since her once cheerful daughter had gradually morphed into a sullen teenager and wasn’t into sharing much these days. There were concerns in math and biology, but business communication, English, geography and history were bright spots. There was only one last teacher to see.
Two women came out of the classroom Cassie was heading for and strode past her. They held their heads close together, talking and laughing quietly to themselves. Both women were about her age, with long, blonde hair and broad smiles made up of too many teeth. They looked like aging cheerleaders and each had high, perky, impossibly perfect breasts that seemed out of place on their slim bodies. Cassie felt incredibly ordinary-looking by comparison. She overheard one say to the other, “I’m tempted to take up French again.”
“I know. I’d be happy to get a detention if he was in charge,” the other woman gushed. “Ooh-la-la!”
“Ah, oui. Il est trés beau!” They both laughed and continued down the hallway.
Intrigued, Cassie crept up to the classroom to peer through the open doorway. And there he was. Monsieur Bonfils was sitting at his desk at the front of the room across from a couple who were asking about their son. He looked more like a Hollywood actor playing a teacher on TV than someone who spent his evenings marking tests and correcting homework assignments. His dirty blonde hair was trimmed neat and short and he rubbed his hand over his close-cropped beard.
Her daughter’s French teacher shifted his gaze and smiled as his eyes met Cassie’s. He nodded his head toward the centre of the room indicating that she should take a seat. Then he fixed his attention back on the parents in front of him. He spoke softly; his voice was gentle, yet masculine, revealing only the slightest hint of a French accent.
The beard made him seem serious and stern, but his voice, and the way his eyes sparkled when he smiled, softened that impression. If she were a teenager again, Cassie decided, she would most definitely have a crush on Monsieur Bonfils. She wondered if Lisa or any of the other girls sat in his class looking at him all moon-eyed and distracted. Did they shift awkwardly in their seats when he called on them to answer in French? Were tiny, folded notes passed back and forth when he wrote on the blackboard? No. Girls now would be texting.
Her mind shifted to other, more detailed thoughts about Monsieur Bonfils. Thoughts that made her cheeks feel warm. Thoughts that affected other parts of her. Tingling thoughts. Then she shook herself out of it. She was being ridiculous. He looked to be in his late twenties, at least ten years younger than her. Needing some distraction, she lowered her head and began to search through her purse for her phone. Finally, he was finished with the other parents.
She rose to her feet. Monsieur Bonfils turned his sunny smile on her again and gestured to one of the chairs in front of him. “Come, join me.”
Cassie moved quickly to the front of the room, extending her hand as she got closer. “Bonsoir Monsieur Bonfils. Je m’appelle Cassie Tremblay.”
“Ah, oui,” he said, his warm hand closing around hers. “Ravi de vous rencontrer. Je peux voir où Lisa a sa belle apparence.”
Now she was in trouble. She might kid herself it was the speed of his delivery, but Cassie understood too well that her comprehension was at fault. It was a bold move, dredging up her high school French to say hello. She might even have impressed him if she understood his reply and hadn’t just run out of words of her own.
“Um.” She stood there looking at him, an embarrassed smile on her face.
“Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas, je vais trop vite?” He spoke more slowly, but that didn’t help.
“Sorry. I’m in a little over my head. French was never my best subject, and I’m surprised I remembered as much as I did just now, but I think I hit my limit. Let’s start again. I’m Cassie Tremblay, Lisa’s mom.”
“Yes, I was saying how Lisa must obviously get her pretty looks from you. Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you.” Cassie was settling into the seat across from him when a thought occurred to her. “Wait. Did you just call me pretty?”
“I guess I did, yes. I hope that’s alright. I can take it back, if you like?” He adopted an innocent expression as he continued smiling at her.
“It’s fine,” Cassie said. “You took me by surprise, is all.”
“Now I’m surprised. I should think you hear that all the time.”
“Not lately,” she said quietly, then spoke up. “But we’re here to talk about Lisa, not me. How is she doing?”
“She’s doing well, although I believe she’s capable of more.”
Monsieur Bonfils continued, but Cassie was only half-listening as he described her daughter’s strengths and weaknesses in comprehension, pronunciation and spelling of French. She found herself drifting as she stared into the dark pools of his brown eyes. He was quite a charmer, and a treat to look at. No wonder those other two women were so taken by him.
She’d had her own schoolgirl crush on a teacher. Her focus shifted, remembering Mr. Keene, her grade eleven Geography teacher, who turned all the girls’ heads. Most girls in his class developed a sudden and profound interest in maps and land masses, in order to approach him with questions. It was Tori Hill who took a different approach, finding better results by acting up and getting a detention. She ended up staying after school with Mr. Keene a few times and the stories began. The gossip started with the boys, saying how Mr. Keene was giving Tori surprise ‘pop’ quizzes in her mouth while they were sitting in detention alone. The boys’ version of events was pretty gross, complete with rude gestures, but it didn’t take long for girls to pick up the story and make it worse. Funny how the same girls who were trying to catch Mr. Keene’s attention by sucking up to him gave Tori such a hard time for supposedly sucking him off, which, in the end was what they all really wanted to do.
At least, Cassie might have thought it was funny, if she hadn’t ended up as a target for the same mean-spirited catcalls and jibes. She’d been going through a rebellious phase, skipping classes until she was caught and sent to detention with Mr. Keene. The first time she received her sentence with a mixture of dread and anticipation. What if they were alone and he did come on to her? How would he do it? Would he invite her to come up to his desk and ask her to kneel in front of him as he sat in his chair? Or would he stand next to her in between the rows of desks and ask her to take care of him? Would he undo his fly or leave it for her to reach up with shaky hands that fumbled with both desire and a fear of disappointing him with her lack of experience?
None of these things, as it turned out. There were several other kids being punished with her, and no hint of the carryings-on that most of her classmates had been whispering about. That was the worst part. She might have accepted the unwelcome attention from everyone if there were actually anything behind it. To be slut-shamed for having done nothing? Not fun.
“Was Lisa’s father unable to come with you?” The question jolted Cassie back to the conversation she was having.
“No, we’re divorced. Nearly five years. He’s still in the picture, but leaves things like this to me.”
“So you raise Lisa alone then? Not a blended family with someone else?”
“It’s just the two of us at home.” Cassie wondered if he was simply curious about Lisa’s home life, or if there were maybe some other reason for his questions. She decided to pry a little herself, asking, “Do you have children of your own?”
“No. So far, teaching keeps me too busy for much of a social life.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Cassie heard herself saying. The words flowed out of her without a second thought. Even so, she felt a fluttering in her stomach and her cheeks began to redden as she leaned forward and blurted out, “It’s important to make time now and then for a little bit of play. All work makes dull boys, after all.”
“I suppose you’re right. Perhaps, I should follow your advice, Ms. Tremblay—”
“Please, everyone calls me Cassie.”
“Alright. Cassie. I’ll try to follow your advice. For the moment, I still have a little more work to do.” He shifted his eyes, looking over his shoulder, as he nodded his head.
Cassie turned to see that another pair of parents had slipped into the room. How much had they heard? Had what she said sounded as naughty as it felt saying it? She rose as he stood up, shook hands and exchanged good-byes.
They hadn’t done anything wrong. You could barely call it flirting. So why did she feel like she was doing a walk of shame as she shuffled past the other parents? The memories of catcalls, whispers, notes exchanged around her, and rude drawings on desks and lockers surfaced as vivid flashbacks of a time in her life she thought was long buried.
She got back to her car and sat in the driver’s seat for a few minutes, her hands clutching the wheel as she shut her eyes and squeezed her legs together. Breathe, breathe, breathe, she told herself. Wow. She thought about the blonde cheerleader moms joking about doing detention with Monsieur Bonfils. Then she shook her head and laughed. As if! Only bad girls get a chance at that kind of reputation.
-- -- --
Cassie tried talking about her visit to the school. Lisa had no interest in finding out what her teachers thought of her. Big surprise. Most conversations between them were greeted as something to be tolerated until she could slip her earbuds back in and return to listening to music and texting with friends.
Asking what Lisa thought about her teachers resulted in a shrug of her shoulders. And there was no flicker of interest when Monsieur Bonfils’ name came up. Not that it should matter to Cassie. It wasn’t like there was anything between them. Only a few moments of intense eye contact, flirty thoughts and some mildly pleasant physical sensations. Nothing to feel ashamed about. Although he had said she was pretty. Maybe she’d toss and turn a bit replaying the scene in her head before settling down to sleep. Likely it would all be forgotten by the end of the next day.
Except it wasn’t forgotten. Several times at work she remembered his brown eyes gazing into hers, and pictured the corners of his mouth rising up into that smile, the one that teased her into thinking something more was going on between them. She could dream, couldn’t she? Remembering the softness of his voice and the trace of a French accent sent shivers down her body. Was it wrong to lust after her daughter’s teacher?
At home the next evening, Cassie flipped through her old year books, looking to see who she still recognized. It was surprising how many kids she couldn’t remember. There were a lot of people she’d simply lost touch with. Most had moved on to unspectacular lives where they did the same as her, worked hard to make a living as they chased scaled-down versions of their dreams.
The pictures of Mr. Keene didn’t do justice to her memories of him. How could they? They weren’t coloured with the filter of youthful optimism and obsessive infatuation. Still, she recalled that they were responsible for inspiring more than a few moments of fantasizing during summer holidays. She had imagined numerous scenes where she ran into him at the mall and somehow, ended up being whisked away to his home. There they would shed their clothes and act out all the filthy innuendos that had been whispered and passed around throughout the year.
She never did bump into Mr. Keene, although she found plenty of other opportunities to fill in the gaps of her knowledge about sex as that summer flew by. Having a reputation at school had a few advantages with boys. It emboldened more of them to ask her out. There was less time spent fumbling through the awkward stages of early first dates. More time in the back seats of cars. She often moved as quickly as they did. Each time there was that fluttering in her stomach, but her hands never shook when she reached to unzip them as she had imagined she would when fantasizing about Mr. Keene.
Most of those guys feigned some form of respect as they pursued their goal of making it with her, although a few thought they could continue being as crude and indifferent as they had been at school. She quickly put those in their place. Did that earn her an added reputation as a cocktease and a bitch? Oh well.
The worst ones likely spread the biggest lies about her being a sleep-around; at least she never slept with them. Cassie found a few of their photos in her yearbook. She doubted she’d recognize them or they her, if they passed each other on the street. It didn’t matter. That was a different time and she’d grown up since then. Or so she thought, until meeting Lisa’s French teacher.