Flying

Even though I have just taken him on a fieldtrip to my drug dealer’s house, Sullivan still wants to have our tutoring session.

“You don’t have to,” I tell him.

“No, no. We need to work on your math,” he says. “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care.”

I reach into my pocket, pull out a couple pills, and swallow them dry. Sullivan shakes his head. Druggie whore.

“If you’re going to do that stuff,” he revs up his car’s engine and starts down the road “I’d rather you didn’t do it around me.”

“Sorry.”

I actually do feel bad. I know what I’m doing isn’t something that pretty, skinny math tutors like Sullivan are used to and I don’t want to expose him to it any more than necessary.

“I won’t take anything else in your eye line.”

“We’ll go to my house,” he says.



I’m finally flying again when we get to his house. Sullivan lives in a really nice place in the rich part of town. Sluts with pill addictions don’t belong here. I make a low whistle as we walk up the steps.

“Swank.”

“I’m home,” he yells when we get in the door.

Immediately a leggy blonde woman in a tracksuit rushes out into the foyer. She is practically made of plastic. She has a wrinkleless face, fake tanned skin, and teeters on high heels. She doesn’t look very much like Sullivan.

“Sully,” she engulfs him in a tight hug, which he doesn’t reciprocate.

How predictable. Pretty, skinny Sullivan has a pretty, skinny (present) mother and they live in a posh mansion and everything is lovely. He probably has a former football star father, who never drinks, and is always home by dinnertime. They probably all sit around the table and exchange anecdotes about their days. I wonder if Sullivan will talk about me. ‘Well Mom and Dad, today I made the mistake of going on an outing with the craziest fucking bitch in school and she took me to a drug den, where we met a complete tool, and then she got high in front of me.’ Ha ha ha. Sullivan’s mother notices me and sucks a huge amount of air through her teeth. My reputation precedes me. She looks me up and down. What’s this faculty-fucking floozy doing dirty up my house?

“Lauren, this is Zara. Zara, Lauren,” Sullivan says. “I’m tutoring her in math. We’ll be up in my room.”

Lauren’s eyes bulge. “Leave the door open.”



“So your mom—“ I begin when we step into his room.

“Stepmom,” he interrupts, closing the door even though he’s not supposed too.

“So your stepmom,” I correct. So pretty, skinny Sullivan has a pretty, skinny stepmom. At least he has a mom. “Think’s we’re going to fuck or something.”

“Why do you say that?” his cheeks redden.

“Leave the door open,” I say mimicking Lauren high-pitched tone. “That and the look.”

“What look?” he asks, settling down at a little white desk in the corner of his room.

He offers me a chair. I sit and search his eyes. I think he knows what I’m talking about but I explain it anyway. “The look that everyone gives me. Like they know everything they’ll ever need to know about me and they don’t approve.”

Sullivan frowns. His big, red lips turn down and a few lines appear on his forehead.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I say. “They’re probably right.”

Once again he confuses me, by replying, “I don’t think so.”