"Maybe Mrs. McQuat would take me," Jack suggested. His mother stiffened as if she'd been slapped.
"One shouldn't bother teachers in the summer," Mrs. Oastler said--mysteriously, it seemed to Jack. He sensed that his mom had other reasons for not considering The Gray Ghost; maybe Mrs. McQuat had made clear her disapproval of his mother's plans to send Jack away.
Miss Wurtz, Jack knew, spent part of her summer in Edmonton--not that he relished the prospect of The Wurtz delivering him to Redding. (The very journey itself would be dramatized, of that he had little doubt.)
"What about Mrs. Machado?" Alice asked. Only Emma noticed that this caused Jack to lose his appetite.
"I doubt she can drive," Leslie Oastler said dismissively. "That woman is so stupid--she can't put the laundry back in the right drawers."
"Don't you like the pizza, honey pie?"
"Jack, please finish your milk--even if you're full. You have to stop losing weight," Alice said.
"If you don't want the rest of that pizza, I'll eat it," Emma said.
"What about that little faggot, your drama teacher?" Mrs. Oastler asked Jack. "What's his name?"
"Mr. Ramsey," Emma answered. "He's nice--he's a good guy! Don't call him a faggot."
"He is one, dear," Emma's mom told her. "I'm sure he's entirely safe," Leslie said to Alice. "If he'd so much as touched a boy at St. Hilda's, someone would have blown the whistle on him."
"What about not bothering teachers in the summer?" Jack asked.
"Mr. Ramsey wouldn't mind," Mrs. Oastler said. "He obviously worships the ground you walk on, Jack."
"Well, I don't know--" Alice began.
"You don't know what, Alice?" Leslie Oastler asked.
"It's just that he is a homosexual," Alice replied.
"It's not guys who are inclined to mess around with Jack," Emma observed.
"I like Mr. Ramsey--he would be fine," Jack said.
"If he can see over the steering wheel, baby cakes."
"I guess it wouldn't do any harm to ask him," Alice said. "Maybe Mr. Ramsey wants a tattoo."
"He's a teacher, Alice--he makes no money," Leslie told her. "Mr. Ramsey doesn't need a free tattoo; he needs money."
"Well--" Alice said.
When Alice and Mrs. Oastler went out to a movie, Emma was left to do the dishes and put Jack to bed. Emma ate the remaining pizza off everyone's plate. Jack understood why she was hungry--she hadn't touched her salad.
"Put on some music, honey pie."
Emma liked to sing when she was eating. She did her best Bob Dylan imitation with her mouth full. Jack put on the album called Another Side of Bob Dylan--loud, the way Emma liked it--and went upstairs to get ready for bed. Even with the water running in the bathroom sink, when he was brushing his teeth, he could hear Emma singing along with "Motorpsycho Nightmare." It must have put him in a mood.
When Jack undressed, he had a look at his penis, which was a little red and sore-looking. He thought of putting some moisturizer on it, but he was afraid the moisturizer would sting. He put on a clean pair of "summer pajamas"--his boxer shorts--and lay in bed waiting for Emma to come kiss him good night.
Jack was thinking that he missed saying prayers with Lottie. The only prayer he sometimes said by himself was the one he used to say with his mom, who had stopped saying prayers with him--another feature of his being too old, apparently. Besides, that familiar Scottish prayer seemed inappropriate--given his new life with Mrs. Machado. "The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended. Thank You for it." (Most nights, Jack didn't feel like thanking anyone for the day he'd had.)
As for Lottie, she'd sent the boy a postcard from Prince Edward Island; from the look of the fir trees, the gray rocks, the dark-blue ocean, you wouldn't know that anything was wrong.
"No, no, no, it ain't me, babe," Emma was singing. "It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe."
Jack was obsessing about Mr. Ramsey taking him to Maine, which also put him in a mood. He was feeling sorry for himself, which is fertile territory for bad dreams. The Bob Dylan album was still playing when he fell asleep. He imagined that his mother and Mrs. Oastler had returned from the movie before Emma had come upstairs to kiss him good night. He was lying there wondering if his mom or Emma would kiss him good night first, but of course it was a dream--he was only dreaming that he was lying in bed, awake.