What Never Happened - Jackie Davis-Martin

Virginia had to wait through two class periods for enough of a lull to read Henry’s note in peace. She’d forgotten all the senior presentations were beginning until she was on her way to school, stuck in the car with Stewart who slipped a tape into the recorder and lit a cigarette before they pulled out of the drive.

Her own car wouldn’t start that morning, the car whose trunk contained squeezed tubes of acrylic paint, squeezed onto rags a little and onto the riverbank a lot, the mere wasted oozings of them then a reminder (she couldn’t help it) of her recent sexual transgressions, the paintbrushes, too, properly dabbed and rinsed and all put together in a box except for the canvas which she’d thrown into a large wire garbage container, blank. She’d heard latter, pulling away in her car, a voice of discovery: “Hey! Look at this. It’s brand new.”

That same car, though, now sat on the road in front of their house, and Virginia tried not to see it as a sign. She and Stewart always drove to the same school in separate cars. Virginia didn’t like to smoke in hers, as much as she enjoyed the coffee and a cigarette in the faculty room, and hated more the lack of silence wherever Stewart was. She couldn’t get her wits about her, and made the excuse that she was never sure when she’d leave the building and liked her own wheels. Stewart, for his part, hated to wait.

But this morning they were stuck in Stewart’s car, Virginia surrounded by the heat of her own sunburn—although that was abating—and the heat of her ardor for another man which seemed to be increasing, as well as the soprano duet from Norma. It was easier to pretend she wasn’t as trapped in the marriage as she felt that moment in the car, easier to think that at least she’d see Henry at the end of the short ride, and beyond that she wasn’t thinking at all.

Until it occurred to her that this Monday began the senior art presentations, something she’d made a very big deal of and hadn’t even prepared rubrics for the students’ evaluation or a stage kind of set-up for them to present. The latter she managed to cull together and wrote on the board: Interpretation of Assignment:: 10; Reaction and involvement of others: 10; Execution: 10. That would do it—and of course they’d mostly get A’s since they were seniors and very involved. But still.

Huddled in the bathroom stall of the upstairs faculty room at 11:15 Virginia opened her note:
V—Saturday never happened.

Virginia’s heart heaved and she had to sink, fully clothed, onto the commode. There was a space on the paper, then more writing, the print careless or in haste:

That’s what I’m telling myself because I don’t know when I can get away again.
Virginia drew some breaths. The writing got very small: You’re all I can think of. -- H

She must have gasped or moaned. Fran’s voice from the other stall called out, “Virginia? Is that you? Are you all right?”

Snapped to accountability, Virginia muttered yes and flushed the toilet, just as she realized she hadn’t peed and really had to. Damn all this proximity! She didn’t emerge from the stall, but used it the way she should have, listening to Fran wash her hands and chat to her about the bell schedule for Friday. God, people were such incredible bores. All Virginia could think about was Henry; she had to be with Henry. And people like Fran had to take days to adjust to shift in bell schedule. But: that was right—a big assembly. Fran left the ladies’ room, and Virginia stared at her own image over the washbowl, her own eyes widening: was there any way at all that they could cut?

Back in her classroom Virginia felt heartened. She had a new assignment that she’d share with Henry—somehow—and was about to erase the standards on the board. A moment ago she felt she was failing; now, she looked at her criteria and scored herself a tentative 20 points for Interpretation and Reaction. All that they had to do was Execute.