The Scarlet Letter Scandal by Mary T. McCarthy Page B

“Let Luisa clean at least once a month. Their family needs the money, too.”
    “I don’t see why we need to take care of someone else’s family when we have a family of four to raise right here,” Jeannie had tried to argue, to no avail.
    She loaded the few remaining items into the dishwasher and polished the kitchen sink faucet, marveling once again at how her kids had to somehow leave fingerprints all over the kitchen every time they came in here.
    She walked over to the kitchen pantry door to review the monthly calendar schedule that hung there. Chaz was constantly telling her to upload the kids’ schedules into the fancy smartphone he’d gotten her, but she could barely figure out how to make a phone call on that thing much less create some calendar.
    I don’t have time to manage one more thing anyway , she thought.
    She didn’t need an electronic device to tell her what the most dominant repeating event was on her life’s calendar. CJ’s ice hockey schedule was all-encompassing. The sport seemed to be 24/7/365 and her son was only eight years old. She shuddered, thinking not only of the temperature of the ice arena where she spent so many hours, but at how demanding the ice hockey lifestyle was.
    And the hockey moms.
    The night before, like every other night, Jeannie sat in the far corner of an upper bleacher, away from the other parents. As usual, she had paperwork in front of her. Sometimes PTA fundraiser forms, but yesterday the proposed revision to the homeowners association bylaws. Her six-year-old daughter, Kaylah, had been beside her, playing with her American Girl doll since she didn’t have gymnastics that night.
    The hockey moms always sat in a cluster, talking loudly, using bad language, drinking coffee spiked with God knows what. Jeannie failed to see how they could even consider drinking alcoholic beverages while their children worked as hard as they did on the ice. She had already spoken to the coach about it once, which didn’t help matters since his wife was one of the partiers. This was supposed to be travel hockey, not some girls’ night out.
    Forcing thoughts of hockey mom stress aside, Jeannie began to gather her keys and purse. She had to get over to the elementary school, where the PTA needed her desperately thanks to their having appointed some ridiculous idiot woman principal.
    Beneath the note about checking the tire pressure on the minivan and setting up an appointment with her mother’s cardiologist, Jeannie had jotted a note down on the ever-present small spiral notebook in her purse, reminding herself to speak with Chaz about getting back to town earlier in evenings to take CJ to more of these perpetual, freezing hockey practices so she could attend to other matters. It was impossible to be at two places at once anyway on the nights when Kaylah had gymnastics.
    Jeannie never really thought about it this way, but there was absolutely nothing about her life that had anything to do with her.
     

     
    On their weekly lunch date, Rachel parked her car at the tree-covered small liberal arts college and checked her texts. School was out so there weren’t many cars on campus. She grabbed the lunch bag and walked up the stairs to Kate’s second floor office. The academic building was nearly empty save for a few office lights on here and there for professors who were teaching a summer class or working on fall curricula. Kate’s office was tucked down a narrow hallway and relatively secluded. Rachel knocked on the door, which was cracked open, and Kate said,
    “Come in.”
    She did.
    Rachel closed the door behind her, placing the lunch on a round glass table near two chairs; a spot meant for teacher-student conferences.
    Kate rose to greet her, walking around to the front of her worn oak desk and placing her reading glasses on the desk.
    Rachel admired Kate’s low-cut pale yellow silk blouse, the view of her long legs from below her short fitted black skirt that fell just above the