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So I pull out the big guns.
“I’ll tell Mom you have a girlfriend.”
Devon whips his head toward me.
“How do you—”
It’s my first smile of the week. There’ve been clues, but my brother just confirmed it. My guess is Colleen.
“I can hear her questions now. ‘Where did you meet? Why didn’t you tell me? When are you bringing her to dinner?’”
“Char.” I don’t heed the warning in his tone.
“Maybe I’ll call Mom up now before her movie . . .”
“You are such a pain in the ass.”
“And you need to spill whatever you were going to say. Now,” I press, seeing the lights flicker off in Mike’s house.
“If you tell him . . .”
“I assume you mean Enzo? The man I am no longer dating?”
Saying it aloud sucks.
“He doesn’t tell people. I’m serious, Chari.”
Normally, I wouldn’t press my brother to break a confidence. But he’s the one who offered it up. And I’m way too curious to let this go now.
Mike’s front door opens.
“Enzo . . .” He hesitates. “. . . couldn’t read.”
I sit up in the seat and turn the music down.
“He got to fifth grade somehow before they figured out he had dyslexia. His mom went on a tear trying to figure out how to help him. She finally convinced the school to get some special program . . .”
I was barely listening.
Enzo? How is that possible? He went to an Ivy League school, for God’s sake.
“I’m not sure who worked harder to help him at that point, Enzo himself or his mom. I just remember they had to get a lawyer. It wasn’t pretty.”
Having dealt with the system for the last several years, I completely get it. Well-meaning teachers (myself included) are still fighting the good fight to help the kids who need it. To get money diverted from new gyms or sports equipment for the expensive research-based programs that might help kids like Enzo learn to read more quickly. The exact program Devon’s talking about.
“Don’t mention it to him,” Devon pleads as Mike opens the back door. “I could tell you a few horror stories, but I won’t. All I’m going to say is that I think it’s part of the reason he pushes so hard.”
“Hey, Atwoods,” Mike says. “Ready for a night on the town?”
I turn to greet him, trying really hard not to look as if my heart wasn’t torn out twice this week. Once when Enzo decided not to make room for me in his life, ad again upon learning that the man I know, the paragon of confidence, was once a fourth- or fifth-grade kid who pretended he could read because he thought he had to. Who feared being called on by the teacher. Whose parents were shuttled from one conference to another to be told about how he was struggling with the curriculum. As if everyone involved didn’t already know that.
I know that kid, because I see him or her every year. I lie awake at night wondering if, despite my best efforts, that kid has left my class without the skills needed to progress to the next grade even though I did my very best to help close the gap.
I know that kid because I was just dating him.
I just didn’t realize it . . .
39
