Nine Inches by Tom Perrotta Page B

She turned at the sound of his footsteps, looking unusually pleased to see him. Her expression changed as he got closer, her mouth stretching into a comical grimace of despair.
    “Help,” she cried, fl inging her arms around his neck as if he were a long-lost relative. “I’m trapped at an eighth-grade dance!”
    Charlotte was an art teacher, a bit of a Bohemian, one of the more interesting women on the faculty. Ethan patted her cautiously on the upper arm, struck by how pretty her reddish-gold hair looked against the green of her sweater. Th ere was a nice clean smell coming o ff her, a humid aura of shampoo and something faintly lemony.
    “I’m fi lling in for Sam,” she explained upon releasing him. “His father’s back in the hospital.”
    Ethan nodded solemnly, trying to show the proper respect for his colleague’s ailing parent. Secretly, though, he was delighted. Sam was a social black hole, the kind of guy who could buttonhole you in the teachers’ lounge and kill your whole free period telling you about the problem he was having with his dishwasher. Trading him for Charlotte was a major upgrade.
    “It’s your lucky day,” she said, as if reading his mind.
    “No kidding.”
    Th ey smiled at each other, but Ethan couldn’t help noticing a slight awkwardness in the air. He and Charlotte had been good friends during his fi rst year at Daniel Webster. He was single back then, always up for a movie or a drink, and she was separated from her husband. For a little while there — this was fi ve years ago, ancient history — they seemed on the verge of maybe getting involved, but it didn’t happen. She went back to Rob, he met Donna, and their lives headed o ff on separate tracks. Th ese days they only saw each other at school and limited their conversation to polite small talk.
    “So how are you?” she asked.
    “Okay.” Ethan pronounced the word with more emphasis than it usually received. He was suddenly conscious of his thinning hair, the weight he’d put on since knee surgery had ended his pickup-basketball career. He was three years younger than Charlotte, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from looking at them. “You know, not bad. How about you?”
    “Great,” she replied, making a face that undercut the word. In the past year or so, she’d taken to wearing oval, black-framed eyeglasses that made her look like a college professor in a Van Halen video. “Nothing too exciting. How’s your little girl?”
    “Adorable. When she’s not screaming.”
    Charlotte took this as a joke; Ethan didn’t bother to correct her.
    “And you’re having another?”
    “Yeah, fi gured we should do it now, before we get used to sleeping through the night.”
    She said she was happy for him, but he could see it took some e ff ort. Kids were a sore spot in her marriage. She wanted to start a family, but her husband — he was a struggling scrap-metal sculptor, deeply devoted to his art — refused to even consider the possibility. Th is had been the cause of their separation, and nothing seemed to have changed since they’d gotten back together.
    Th ey were saved from this tricky subject by the arrival of Rudy Battista, barely recognizable in khakis, a brown turtleneck, and a checkered blazer, a far cry from the crinkly nylon sweatsuits he wore to teach gym every day.
    “Look at you,” Charlotte called out. “Got a date?”
    Rudy adjusted his lapels, his face shining with health and good humor. “It’s a special occasion. I believe it calls for a certain elegance.”
    “I wish you’d told me that an hour ago,” Charlotte complained, but Ethan thought she looked just fi ne in her simple skirt-and-sweater combo, the black tights and ankle-high boots adding a slightly funky touch to the ensemble. He was the slacker of the group in his relaxed- fi t jeans and suede Pumas. At least his shirt had buttons.
    “I brought you guys a present.” Rudy reached into his pocket and produced two identical strips of