Rose had nightmares about her high-school days. She also had flashbacks. She told her therapist about old Ms. Bottle, the woman who had finger-fucked her, and her therapist suggested that she write it down.
There had been a bitch of a teacher in her high school, Ms. Bottle, a lesbian. No one knew that she was a lesbian except for the few girls who had been kissed by her. Ms. Bottle lived in a rich house and had an African-American maid and was ultra-respectable. Some of the older girls at school made fun of her, but no one paid much attention. Then she made a pass at Rose’s sister Megan during Megan's junior year. Megan came home and laughed it off.
Guess who kissed me today? she asked at dinner.
You shouldn’t be kissing anybody at your age, said their mother, Carrie, as severely as possible. Which wasn’t very severely. It usually involved a lot of sighing.
It was Ms. Bottle, the English teacher! Megan burst out laughing.
Now wait. That couldn’t have happened, said Carrie.
But it did. I had to see her about an exam. I hadn’t read the book. It was too boring. So she said I had to write a paper to make up for it. Then she kissed me. No joking. I told her I’d report her but we could make a deal if I didn’t have to write the paper.
I know Ms. Bottle. I don’t like her much, but she’s been there for years, Carrie said. Their mother was an English teacher at another school and she was so used to Megan’s jokes that she genuinely didn’t believe her.
Rose didn’t believe her at first. Ms. Bottle was so straight. She wore polyester pantsuits and never laughed. The students slumped in their chairs and were bored to death.
But then it happened to her, too, when she was a junior on the debate team. Rose had stayed after school to practice a speech in Ms. Bottle’s room. Suddenly Ms. Bottle was telling her a sob story about her life and had Rose in her arms and kissed her on the lips.
Rose didn’t know quite what to do. Ms. Bottle was an important person in her life. Her college recommendation could mean life and death. Rose was determined to go to Harvard. So she stood there, rigidly, and as soon as Ms. Bottle had stopped embracing her, said, I’ve got to be going.
After that Ms. Bottle asked her to stay after school a lot. When Rose couldn’t get out of it, Ms. Bottle always found excuses to touch Rose. Rose would move away in her chair or try to withdraw from her embrace, but essentially felt Ms. Bottle had a lot of power. And Rose, unlike Megan, didn’t know how to blackmail her. One day Ms. Bottle finger-fucked her. It was the most humiliating experience of her life.
Finally she couldn’t bear it anymore. She told her mother.
Carrie was shocked. This was Megan’s story. I don’t expect you to joke around.
I’m not joking. She’s just a bitch who calls me in after class and has her hands all over me. When we debate at other schools, she tries to get me to sit beside her in the car. I refuse.
I’ll talk to her, Carrie said.
Carrie was a wonderful mother. She took no crap. She and Rose went in together to talk to Ms. Bottle.
I hear you’ve been touching my daughter.
What? Ms. Bottle looked concerned.
Rose has told me all about it. This has got to stop.
She must have imagined it. I didn’t want to tell you this, Carrie. It’s obvious from her demeanor that she has problems. She’s so quiet except when she’s debating. Then she’s extremely aggressive, a different person. She can’t express herself at all otherwise.
Carrie looked at her. That’s not the Rose I know.
But it was Ms. Bottle’s defense. When Carrie complained to the principal, he took Ms. Bottle’s side. He said that he believed Carrie needed a psychiatrist.
The next year, when Abby started high school and Rose was a senior, Ms. Bottle wasn’t there, though. Mysteriously she had disappeared.
I’m so glad she’s gone, Rose said.
But she still had nightmares. She was in high school and she couldn’t get out. She was trapped in Ms. Bottle’s classroom. The door was closed. She tried to go out the window but the windows were locked.
Then she’d wake up, sweating.
There was a picture of Ms. Bottle in the yearbook. She was unattractive. Her hair was permed in a sort of Afro that looked odd above her middle-aged white face. She wore polyester bell-bottoms, with a navy-blue polyester vest over a white shirt and desert boots. She didn't smile. She looked as though she wanted to rebuke Ray, the photographer for the yearbook, for interrupting her.
She looked scary.
The picture horrified her. Finally Rose cut it out of her yearbook and burned it.
She looked at her own picture. She had been a cutie. Smiling, beaming, her hair in sort of pre-Farah Fawcett curls, the result of orange juice can rollers, she wore a peasant skirt and a heavy sweater she had knitted. It made her laugh to see her old self.
The rite of burning Ms. Bottle’s picture helped her. The nightmares didn’t go away, but they lessened.
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