When I wrote Johnny Pseudonym and the Noms de Plume back in November 2003, one of the things which most frustrated me during (and after) the writing process was my characterization of some of the players. Or, really, the lack of good characterization. Some of the characters felt very alive to me — Johnny, Kat, Vi, Bronson — and they were a lot of fun to write and, later, read. But some of the characters weren’t alive. Weren’t any fun.

The cardboard cut-out. The character who is filling a spot and stating a position just because I need someone to be there and say that. Motivation? Unclear. Attitude, personality? Poorly sketched if not wholly non-existant. These are unsatisfying characters to write because I don’t know who they are. I don’t know much about them. I don’t like them. I don’t even dislike them. They don’t have a cohesive persona to like or dislike.

This year, I’m feeling that with Principal Peggy Francis. She’s suddenly Tom’s antagonist, but I feel like I’ve created a mild and not even terribly sensible clash between them — why did she react the way she did, and why did he first play it nice and then get aggressive? What is she after?

But she’s not a major character. I’m not getting hung up on it. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. For the second draft, when I know how this is all supposed to pan out, then I’ll sit down and build (or rebuild) Peggy. The back-and-forth between her and Tom will get sharp and tactical, whereas now it’s just muddy and improvised and weak. Or at least that’s how it feels.

And is Tom just a big weenie or what? I know this guy has some passion and some resolve, and that will come out in some of the future plot I have planned, but right now he’s coming off as pretty petulant. Out or not out? I care! No, wait, I don’t care! Waaah! I mean, c’mon, Tom. Grow a thicker skin.

Tom knocked on the door. From inside: “Come in.” He did. Peggy looked at him with a frown.

“My inbox is empty, Tom.”

“I talked to Ron already. Apology accepted, water under the bridge. His words.”

“I said in writing.”

Tom shook his head. “No. I don’t see the need. This is a foible being blown way out of proportion. Ron deserved an apology for the confusion, and he’s gotten one.”

“I thought I was clear.”

“Look, Peggy, you can take it up with my lawyer if you really want to, but I don’t see why you would bother. I heard you very well, and I swear on my mother’s grave I will keep my email completely clean and work-related from now on. Just like every other member of this faculty, right?”

“You’re bringing a lawyer into this?” Peggy watched him cautiously, her hands folded and still on her desk before her. Tom met her gaze, spoke slowly and reasonably.

“Not at the moment. I don’t see any reason to. This is a small thing. I don’t care much what you or Ron Mailer know about me. That’s my personal life, anyway, it shouldn’t be your concern. I misdirected an email, and I apologize for that, but, c’mon. I embarrassed myself a little. Fine. I’m an adult, I’ll get over it, so will Ron. That seems pretty straight-forward.” Tom folded his hands together in his lap and sat back in his chair.

Peggy’s face did the tight-lipped samba that said she wasn’t getting her way, but at first she said nothing. They looked quietly at one another for a moment, and then she shook her head as if to clear it, and her expression settled to a muted concern. She spread her hands out flat on her desk and spoke to him over the tip of her nose.

“Okay, Tom. We’ll drop it. But this does not just evaporate. I don’t want to run into anything like this ever again. I believe in this school, and I will not have it hurt by the recklessness and carelessness of any teacher or counselor. Am I clear?”

He nodded, contrite. “As crystal.”

Corbett was out sick, or so the subsitute, a rabbit-faced potatosack of a woman named Mrs. Geissling told the class after the starting bell had rung and she had introduced herself. The class chattered and whispered the period away. Brian Owens kept whispering “faaaaggooooot” to his friends and giggling. A couple of girls discussed their respective dates the night before, oh my gods and he said thats in rapid whispers. Notes were passed. Notebooks were drawn in. Textbooks were, in some cases, actually reviewed.

Geissling had made a token effort to establish just what, exactly, the class was supposed to be working on, but she didn’t know much chemistry and furthermore Corbett hadn’t left notes anywhere that she could find them. Read your books. Work on any homework. The standard deal. Geissling had then simply dropped herself in Corbett’s chair and read quietly, glancing around and shushing people occasionally.

Rorie watched the clock.

Tom waited in the hall as the bell rang. The door opened and students poured and then trickled out of the classroom. When the stream of bodies dried up, he stepped inside. Ron Mailer, fifty and graying and dour, sat at his desk, shuffling through a stack of homework assignments and making notes in his gradebook. Tom knocked gently against the door frame.

“Hey, Ron.”

Mailer glanced up, went back to his papers, offered a minute nod. “Tom.”

“I want to apologize for any confusion. That email was supposed to go to my brother. I goofed up the address by accident.”

“Sure confused the hell out of me, Tom.”

“Stupid mistake. My bad. Just wanted to let you know. Hope I didn’t cause you any, uh. You know. Embarrassment. Or whatever.”

Mailer set his pen down on his gradebook, turned in his chair toward Tom.

“Look, McEllroy, I don’t really care what you do with your–with your free time. It’s not my business. And frankly I don’t want it to be my business. So do me a favor and be more careful next time you decide to send a little note to your ‘brother’.”

“Now hold on a minute, Ron, I’m being completely straight here–”

A low humorless snort from Mailer. Tom stared at him, crossed his arms. “Ron, just what–”

Mailer waved him off, turned back to his assignments. “Look, Tom, message received. I’ll take your word for it, it was an accident. Fine. Apology accepted if that’s what you came here for. Water under the bridge.”

“So who the hell is Ron Mailer?” Rob was obviously eating something on the other end of the phone. Odd pauses and smacking sounds between sentences.

“He teaches math and physics here.”

“Doesn’t sound like he has much of a sense of humor.”

“That helps, Rob. Thanks.”

“Okay, look. The point is, all you’ve done is maybe offend this guy. He accidentally received a misdirected mail. If it made him blush, so be it, but that’s the end of the story.”

“Peggy going on about sexual harrassment.”

“Peggy’s a bitch. I’m a lawyer. And I’m saying, end of story. There’s no intent, no history, nothing. It’s not harrassment, it’s a faux pas.” Chewing and swallowing sounds, and then some sort of beverage.

“She said something about improper use of district resources. Abuse of email and so on.”

“You and every other member of the faculty. She doesn’t want to go there.”

“You sounds awfully sure.”

Chewing. “Call it a hunch. If she gives you heat for emails sent and received, we say okay, let’s see what the rest of the administration is up to. Let’s dig around in the server. Let’s see what Principal Francis uses her email for.”

Tom sighed, drank some coffee. The escargot on his mug lay mutely in place, ideogrammatic. “So what do I do, here?”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Tom, you’re not writing any letter. Period.”

“And what do I tell her?”

“That you’re acting on the advice of your attorney, and you hope that’s as litigious as this situation gets. You’re not admitting fault and giving her a copy. Promise me that.”

“Cross my heart. Shit, I’d better at least go mea culpa to Ron.”

“You apologize for misdirecting the email. You apologize for any confusion. You don’t apologize for the contents.”

“Right. Sure.”

“This is not a big deal, Tom.”

“I outed myself.”

“So did ‘Ellen’, and that worked out okay.”

“Yeah, well, she did it on purpose.”

“Did Peggy say anything about you being gay? About that having anything to do with anything?”

“God, you know what she’s like, she didn’t say anything about anything, just implied to hell and back.”

“Did she imply anything about you being gay, then?”

“No, but–”

“Look, I know this is an issue for you, I know you’re embarrassed, but I really think you’re over-reacting. The administration wouldn’t dare–”

“Rob, the parents–”

“Oh, to hell with the parents. Look. It’s not a big deal, and it sounds like all of two people know your non-scandalous non-secret. Trust me, it’ll blow over.”

Rorie watched the clock and tried not to watch the clock. English crawled by, just as US History had crawled by and Advanced Algebra had crawled by. She couldn’t
(calm down)
concentrate on the lectures, couldn’t keep her
(hush)
mind off her appointment. She fumbled a pop quiz, got caught out woolgathering by teachers, nearly embarrassed herself on a simple question until she
(you know this)
(remember)
managed to pluck the answer out of thin air. And each time she swore to herself and tried to pay attention and then found herself staring at the clock again. Watching the clock and scrawling in her notebook.

(You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.)
“I do want to go.”
(It’s upsetting you.)
“I’m allowed to be upset. It’s okay to be upset.”
(But you’re unhappy. You shouldn’t be unhappy.)
“What’s wrong with unhappiness? Why shouldn’t I be unhappy? I have you hanging around and that makes me unhappy too, but you don’t seem to care about that.”
(I care very much for you, Aurora.)
“So leave.”
(Hush. You’re just making yourself more upset.)
“I am. I am upsetting myself. I’m talking to myself, and I’m just crazy enough that I think that someone else is holding up half the conversation. It’s a fact. You’re so right.”
(You’re not crazy.)
“If I’m so sane, why am I writing this?”

“Rorie? Do I need to repeat the question?”

She snapped her head up at Mr. Heckman. The question? What was the–
(Jim Goad.)
“Uh, Jim Goad.”

Heckman nodded, glanced at another desk. “And Sarah, what do you suppose motivated him?”

“What’s it like for you?”
(I don’t understand, Rorie.)
“Emmy, if you’re not me, if you’re not a tumor, then you have to be something else, right? I mean, who are you? What do you think about? What do you do when you’re not driving me insane?”
(I think about you, Aurora.)
“But what do you think about when you’re not.”
(I’m always thinking about you.)
“Who are you?”
(Hush. Hush.)
“Answer me. Who are you?”
(You’re getting upset again.)
“Answer me.”
(Hush, Rorie.)

“Holy shit, Nyx, what’d you do to your face?” Darren was standing in the park across from the school, smoking in his usual spot, and he’d watched Nyx as she trundled across the grass, veering toward him when she caught his eye.

“Ran into a door. Never mind.”

“I thought you were suspended.”

“I am. I just missed your sparkling conversation. Gimme a smoke.”

He handed her his pack and his lighter and stared at her face. An ugly blue bruise had formed over her cheekbone, with purple tendrils reaching out toward an eyesocket that was itself darker than it ought to be. “You get in a fight or something?”

She dropped her duffle next to her and worked on her cigarette. “Something like that. Thanks.” She handed the cigs and lighter back.

“No sweat. What’s with the bag?”

“Can you do me a huge fucking favor, Darren?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll shut up–”

She shook her head, blew smoke. “No, I, uh. I need somewhere to crash.”

He looked at her, looked away, rocked back and forth absently in his ratty Chucks. “Man, I–”

“C’mon, Darren. Just for the night. A shower and some sleep is all.”

“Nyx, I can’t. There’s no way my parents would let a girl stay over.” He looked down at his shoes, studied them.

“I could sneak in. I could, I could climb in through your bedroom window or something.”

He looked at her, blushed, went back to his shoes.

“Please. Darren. C’mon.” She coughed and then spat.

He shook his head, took a drag on his cigarette. “I can’t. I–there’s just no way. Sorry.”

She flashed a dismissive snark of teeth at him and picked her duffel back up. “Great. Thanks a lot Darren. Thanks a whole fucking lot.” He watched his shoes, and then glanced up after her while she strode away across the grass.

Tom sat in his office, first cup of coffee still steaming untouched on his desk. Sat staring at his monitor and gaping and trying not to lose control of his bladder. He flipped forward and back between the two emails. He shook his head. He cursed, a whispered litany of damnations to software, to typos, to hurried communications. To collosal fuckups born of tiny errors.

His phone rang. He flinched, let it ring a couple more times, and then, picked it up. “This is Tom.” He winced, rubbed his face with his free hand. “Yeah, Peg, I’ll be right in.” He dropped the phone in the cradle, took a sip from his coffee, still too hot, and cursed his email again. Stupid. Stupid.

Peggy’s door — PEGGY FRANCIS, PRINCIPAL in a shining brass plate in the center — was cracked open, and Tom knocked gently and poked his head in. She nodded at the empty chair facing her desk; he settled into it and swung the door shut behind him. Peggy looked at him for a moment, like a dog at a rabbit.

“Are you fishing for a lawsuit?”

Tom blinked. “I–”

“Do the words ’sexual harassment’ mean anything to you?”

“Peg, what are you talking about?”

She slid a piece of paper to him, a printout of the email that had gone to Ron Mailer. “He could sue you. He could sue the whole goddam school if he were so inclined.”

Tom stared at her, surprised by the direction of the conversation. “You have got to be kidding me! It was a typo, Peg.”

She read off the paper. “‘We need to talk about me getting laid’ is a typo? ‘Cock’ was a typo?”

“I’m not that stupid. That Ron got it was a typo. I was writing to my brother. I must have typed ‘Ronm’ instead of ‘Robm’ and the email client filled in the rest without my realizing it. I mean, Why the christ would I send that to Ron Mailer?”

She shook her head. Water off a duck’s back. “Tom, why would you send that to anyone?”

“I talk to my brother all the time. We shoot the shit. Come on, it’s an honest mistake, and a stupid one, but this should not be a big deal. I’ll apologize to Ron for the confusion this morning.”

She still sat ice-cold in her blue blazer. Tom started to wonder if she would even blink. He fidgeted in his seat.

“I don’t care how much you like to chat with your brother. Mistake or no, you did send this to Ron Mailer, and you absolutely will apologize, in writing, this morning. And you will not use school, hell, district resources for anything potentially sexually offensive or embarrassing ever again. Not even a note to your brother. Am I understood?”

“Christ, Peggy–”

“You realize this could be your job? If, if this,” and she shook the email at him, “if this caught on unfriendly eyes, there is no question that you could be out of here so fast your head would spin. And it’d embarrass the hell out of the school, the district–”

“And you.”

“You are damn right, and me. I am proud of this school. I am proud of the environment we have created for these young adults and their families, and the last thing we need is–”

“Alright, alright, I get the picture, Peg–”

“You’ll apologize.”

“Yes.”

“Written. I want a copy.”

“How about I just go talk to him and you come along.”

“I’m not negotiating, Tom. You are on thin ice as it is.”

He shook his head, raised an eyebrow. “Why would you want it in writing, Peg? Couldn’t that be an embarrassment if it got out, too?”

“Tom, I’m not going to argue with you. I want it this morning. That is all.”

From: Peggy Francis [pfrancis@adams.pps.k12.or.us]
To: Tom McEllroy [tmcellro@adams.pps.k12.or.us]
Subject: See me ASAP

My office as soon as you get in this morning.

Peggy

From: Ron Mailer [rmailer@adams.pps.k12.or.us]
To: Tom McEllroy [tmcellro@adams.pps.k12.or.us]
Cc: Peggy Francis [pfrancis@adams.pps.k12.or.us]
Subject: Re: Change of plans

This is incredibly inappropriate.

-Ron

On 4/9/05, Tom McEllroy [tmcellro@adams.pps.k12.or.us] wrote:
> What are you doing tomorrow night? Busy? Tonight won’t work
> for me, but we need to talk about me getting laid. Because I
> can’t even remember what a cock feels like anymore.
>
> Tom