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Chapter Text

Rio Vidal had only been late to two events in her thirty-five years of life; first to her own christening, because her mother, then sixteen, had just graduated from learner’s permit to adult license and in fear of being pulled over had driven five miles under the speed limit all the way to the church. The second was to after school soccer practice on the second Friday in October, because Agatha Harkness was directing the opening night of The Crucible.

Not that Agatha knew about this, of course. As with many other things, her influence was secondary, like a gust of wind shutting a door that then rattled a wall and knocked a book from a shelf. But, as Rio had found in the year that she’d been coaching soccer at Salem High, Agatha had an effect on people and things that was at times downright mystifying.

Rio herself included.

Even that morning, Rio had been on time to her first period PE class even though she’d woken only an hour before in an unfamiliar bed. The woman who had taken her home, Katie, lived in an attic apartment on a tree-lined street where the ceilings dormed up to a point. She was naked and on her stomach when Rio snuck out, quiet as a ghost.

She’d been on time for their date the previous evening, too, and there was a certain sense of timeliness to Katie’s taking her home and Rio fucking her.

A college counselor had once called Rio meek in her notes after a mock interview. Rio didn’t take it personally, even if it wasn’t totally true. But she thought about it a lot, that off hand note that she’d read on the bus back to her off-campus apartment. If Rio Vidal had nothing else, she had a sense of herself.

She was timely, yes, and structured. A little awkward, if only because she was too genuine to fake certain things. She liked rules and thought the world worked better when people followed them. But meek?

Rio’s phone buzzed on the counter of the staff lounge. She glanced over and saw that the text was from Katie, finished rinsing her mug in the sink, and set it to the side on a drying mat. A little ways away, Alice hummed a tune while she waited for her tea to warm in the microwave. Rio had been trying to place it for the last minute—Walking on Sunshine?

“Thank God it’s an early release day.” Alice said, interrupting her humming. Rio hmmed noncommittally in response and took her phone from the counter, swiping it open to see the message. “I’m going to get so much grading done, it’s not even—”

It was a picture of Katie. All of Katie, and a colorfully worded invitation for a repeat performance. Rio glanced over at Alice, then to the table where Lilia Calderu sat grading charcoal still lifes, and took it to tap out a response.

Send another one, her thumbs flew over the keyboard, this time with your legs sp—

“Earth to Rio?”

“Hm?” Rio locked her phone and slammed it face down on the counter. Both of the other women in the room were watching her with bemused expressions.

“I asked how your date was last night.” Alice blew over her tea as she said it.

“Oh, it was—” Rio’s eyes flicked up to the wall clock. 1:15. Fifteen minutes to the start of practice, “—it was fine. It was whatever.”

“It was whatever.”

“I don’t know. She was nice,” Katie, certainly, had not been nice, “I’ll probably see her again.”

“Ringing endorsement.” Lilia remarked.

“We need to find you somebody,” Alice nodded as if agreeing with herself, “You’ve been here how long? And you still don’t have a girlfriend?”

”Maybe I don’t want one.”

“What about the part-time librarian,” Lilia offered, blowing past Rio’s protest, “The one with the curly hair?”

“No, she’s like, twenty-five. Oh!” Alice snapped her fingers, “That bus driver.”

Rio frowned, “What bus driver?”

“You know the one. Yes you do. The only cute bus driver in the district.”

“Angela.” Lilia said. She had apparently tired of the discourse and retired her attention back to her still lifes.

“Angela. See? Even Calderu knows that it’s Angela.” Alice paused, worrying her lip with her top teeth, “Are you coming to the show tonight? Maybe there’ll be a hot mom in attendance.”

Rio’s eyes crept back to the clock. 1:20. “Show?”

“Agatha’s doing The Crucible this year. Or Ms. Smit is, technically.” Lilia offered, holding a paper up and squinting at it, “Should be good, I think.”

“I forgot Agatha ran the theater club.”

Lilia said, “She did. Does. This show is her pride and joy.”

Talk of Agatha was making Rio’s skin itch. She hoped that nobody could see that the tips of her ears were red. Rio, as she’d said, was a big lover of rules. Not developing a crush on a coworker had seemed to her, before coming to Salem, one of the most sensible and easiest to follow.

But Agatha Harkness was much more than a woman — she was peerless. She was so savagely attractive that being in the same room as her for even five or ten seconds made Rio’s palms clammy, and she was the only teacher with whom it had taken Rio more than a month to get on first name basis. The woman just exuded an energy that told her not to try.

Everybody who worked at the school was either in love with her or hated her and was trying to fool themselves into thinking that there was a difference. She’d been known to make parents cry during parent-teacher conferences. She moved with an utterly compelling sense of confidence.

“Well, if you were a little earlier, maybe you could have bagged the director herself,” Alice squinted over at Rio, “Didn’t you try, once? At my housewarming party?”

Rio, in confrontation with her past failures, was red as a tomato, “Are we ever going to forget about that?”

“You know, I could never really get a read on her,” Alice pondered, “Gayness-wise, I mean. She could be, right?”

“Alice?” Lilia delivered a reproachful look, “Are we not better than speculating as to the sexual preferences of our colleagues?”

Alice rolled her eyes, but she did stop, “I can’t believe she’s doing The Crucible,” She continued, “Nothing was available from this century?”

“The superintendent is coming to the show tonight, and he’s very old-fashioned,” Lilia looked back down with an arched eyebrow, “Agatha’s methods may not be for everybody, but she’s been running the program for years. She knows what she’s doing.”

Rio glanced at the clock, “Shit,” She said, “I’m late for practice.”

*

It was a perfect day. Warm for October, but not warm enough to activate the global warming doom tickle in the back of Rio’s brain. The boys buzzed around on the green, running drills. Rio glanced over to the sidelines and noticed a figure standing there that she vaguely recognized as William Kaplan. William’s eyes were following Eddie as he punted a ball around some traffic cones.

Rio’s gaze lingered for a second, and then she blew on her whistle. Immediately the team came trotting over to where she stood on the sidelines, sweating and panting. She smiled.

“Great work, guys. Great hustle. Let’s take 10 to rehydrate and then meet back here, okay? I just need to grab some equipment from the gym, but I’ll be back.”

There were a smattering of affirmative responses. As Rio turned to leave, her attention snagged on Eddie and William talking by the Gatorade cooler.

She trotted into the empty hallway and around the corner toward the gym. It was shaping up to be an alright day, she thought as she made her way down the linoleum corridor. Sure, it was the middle of Halloween season and Salem was a shitshow—everything had a witch on it, and tourists were crawling over the place like lice—but such was not true of Rio’s apartment, where she was certain to retire to in a few hours.

The school had emptied out, too. There were no clubs in session, no ambient sound of trumpets honking from the band room. It was nothing but peaceful silence and closed classroom doors.

That was, until Rio passed the door to the English room.

The English room was Agatha Harkness’ classroom, and the door was open, and the lights were on, and, indeed, Agatha Harkness herself was sitting at the desk drinking a can of soda through a straw. Rio paused as she passed by before she could think better of it.

If it were any other teacher, Rio might not have stopped. She might have carried on to the equipment room in the gym, finished practice, and been cracking open a beer on her couch by 5 PM.

But it wasn’t any other teacher, it was Agatha. And beyond Rio’s little infatuation with her, it was very surprising to see her in the school at that time for many reasons.

She didn’t look up at Rio when Rio paused in her doorway. Agatha sat behind her desk and sucked Sprite from a can with a bendy straw, her lovely face contorted in—was it agony? Or agony’s close, but more caustic cousin.

“Uh, hey,” Rio rapped her knuckles against the doorframe. She questioned for a moment why she would step into this obvious hornet’s nest, then realized that it was because she wanted desperately to be stung, “Ms. Harkn—Agatha. What’s up?”

Agatha swiveled her eyes to her, then pulled the straw from her mouth. She left a ring of lipstick against the white plastic. Good God, “Coach Vidal,” She drawled, like Rio was not even on her top 100 list of people she’d want to see darkening her door, “Shouldn’t you be…coaching?”

“Gatorade break,” Rio cleared her throat with a fist to her mouth, trying to cover up the fact that she was desperately wishing that she could have come up with something cooler than fucking Gatorade break. It evoked images of pre-teens with blue rings around their mouths, “Aren’t you—didn’t you go on mat leave?”

Oh yeah, Agatha was pregnant. Actually, clinically speaking, Agatha had been super pregnant the last time Rio had seen her. Now she was sitting behind a desk, so it was hard to see whether that had been resolved or not. Though a week seemed like not enough time to have, you know. Had the kid and returned to work.

But then Agatha grunted and shifted, causing the chair to roll back some and —yup, still pregnant. She rested her hand on her stomach, which swelled beneath her sweater. It was fisherman’s knit, oversized. A soft baby blue. She wore it over some sort of long, brown dress with leggings underneath. It gave Agatha a false veneer of amiability.

“He likes soda,” She murmured down to her bump, rubbing it, “It makes him kick.”

Rio adjusted so that she was leaning against the doorframe with a shoulder, “Does he have a name yet?”

“Nicholas. I haven’t picked a middle name. Maybe he won’t have one,” She winced, adjusting in the chair again in an apparent struggle to get comfortable, “But Nicholas is a good, solid name. It’ll look good on a resume.”

“I like it. It reminds me of Santa Claus,” Rio said, and then immediately wished to be turned to dust and blown away with the next stiff breeze. Agatha was looking at her like she had two heads. Fair, because what kind of knucklehead said something like that? “Y’know, he was a saint, so. Saint Nick. It’s a good thing.”

“Thanks for your valuable input, Coach Vidal.” Agatha, briefly softened by talk of her unborn son, rigidified back into something more catlike, “I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

Agatha thought about her enough to not know something about her? What a dream come true. “Santa Claus is not just for the Catholics anymore, I’ve heard. But I am. Catholic. Well, recovering.”

Rio lifted her gaze above her head to a poster of James Baldwin looking slyly down at them from above the classroom windows. Apparently he had been watching Rio flame out this entire time.

As if called by Rio’s distress signal, a girl appeared behind her in the doorway, quiet enough that Rio jolted. Agatha looked straight at her and said:

“Oh, come in.” Like she’d been expecting her. The girl slipped by Rio and jaunted into the room, back straight, arms folded in front of her. Chin up. She had pin-straight brown hair and bird-like features, and Rio recognized her from PE as Chelsea McDaniel. She’d cried once after getting hit by a dodgeball.

“Everybody’s waiting for you in the gym, Ms. Harkness.” Rio also knew her from gossip as a world class suck up. If Agatha noticed or cared, she didn’t show it.

“Thanks, Chelsea,” Agatha forced a tight smile on her face, “How is everything looking?”

A long pause, “We’ll show you in the gym.” The confidence in Chelsea’s voice had wavered. Rio looked down from James Baldwin’s face and saw that she was picking a cuticle.

“O-kay, well, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Sounds good,” Chelsea chirped, turning to leave. She paused as she got to the doorway, “Oh, Ms. Harkness—have you seen William anywhere? I have something for him.”

Rio watched the faintest twitch at the corner of Agatha’s mouth, “I have not, but if I do I will let him know you’re looking for him.”

Chelsea nodded once, turned back to leave, and then looked at Rio as if noticing her for the first time. Her big, wet eyes blinked. “Oh, Coach Vidal.” She said, paused, and then strode into the hallway. The clacking of her patent leather shoes echoed down the hallway as she departed.

“That girl,” Rio said once she’d left, “Is kind of a bitch, no?”

Agatha laughed, which was a good sound, and pleased Rio. It made her feel less self destructive about the Saint Nick debacle, “She’s our Abigail Williams, so. If the shoe fits.”

“You’re doing The Crucible.”

“Yes, in case you missed the posters and morning announcements, et cetera.”

“Just putting two and two together now,” Rio cleared her throat, “Opening night, the kids must be excited.”

“Eh,” Agatha rolled her neck, cracking it, “They wanted to do Hadestown. They even made a petition and had everybody sign it. Fucking Change.Org generation.”

“Oh. What’s wrong with Hadestown?”

A long suffering sigh, “Every October for the last five years the superintendent has attended our fall play to try and find an excuse to slash what’s left of the theater club budget and divert it to choir. They won Nationals in ‘22 and he’s never forgotten. I have to be very specific about the show we put on.”

“Not a big Anais Mitchell guy, huh?” Rio joked. Agatha didn’t smile.

“Coach Vidal, if any of these kids could sing, they’d be doing choir. Hadestown was a non-starter. They just had to suck it up for one show. I think they’ll survive.”

“That girl Chelsea was asking about William Kaplan, right? I actually did see him, out on the soccer field. He was waiting for Eddie, I think.”

Agatha’s gaze darkened. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, then dropped them to the desk, “Can you do me a favor and just— make sure that William stays away from the soccer team? At least until the show is over?”

“Oh—I mean, him and Eddie seem pretty close, so…”

“Chelsea has a little crush on him,” Agatha narrowed her eyes further, “Little might be understating it, actually.”

“A crush?” Rio laughed. Agatha was not laughing, which aborted it, “Oh, you’re serious—but isn’t William…” She made a face like, yikes. Rio was not exactly the most insightful person to ever walk the planet, but she knew a gay teenager when she met one. Eddie and William exuded the kind of raw adolescent sexual tension that was profoundly uncomfortable for an adult soccer coach to witness.

“William is definitely. But she’s our Abigail and he’s our John Proctor, so there needs to be peace between them.”

“Right. Okay. I’ll make sure they leave room for Jesus.” Another Catholic joke, and this one seemed to land. Agatha’s mouth quirked into a smile.

“Thanks. He should be with the rest of the cast in the auditorium, anyway,” Agatha said, as if this were just occurring to her, brow knitting, “They’re giving me a report on how it’s been going since I’ve been away.”

“Right, your mat leave. I thought Ms. Smit was handling it while you were out?”

“I sent Ms. Smit home to fall asleep in front of an episode of Jeopardy at 8 PM,” Agatha adjusted herself again with a little puff, rubbing her hand over the swell of her stomach, “There’s too much riding on this. Anyway, there was a mix-up when they ordered the costumes and they came in all the wrong sizes—so we still need to do a dress rehearsal tonight. And, they were supposed to build the sets with Ms. Smit last Saturday. I want to see how they did.” Her head fell back then, back against her chair, and it exposed the column of her throat and the jut of her collar bones as they peeked from underneath her sweater. Rio thought about how much she loved women, loved glimpsing the strange shapes that their bodies made. She may not have been particularly urbane, but that love had cultivated her a certain amount of goodwill over the course of her life, “Fuck, I need a beer. And a cigarette.”

Rio laughed, “Almost there, right?”

“I mean how much harm could it do? He’s done cooking.” Agatha lifted her head and looked to Rio, eyes flickering and bordering on affable. For the first time in the last ten minutes, Agatha seemed to really regard her. Her eyes went to the Nikes on Rio’s feet, to the bunched up tube socks on her ankles, and then further to her athletic shorts and the t-shirt she’d tucked into them. The whistle dangling around her neck, the windbreaker slipping slightly off one shoulder. As with anything Agatha did, it was difficult to say one way or another if she was enjoying it, “Do you think the janitor still keeps his stash of Busch Light in the staff refrigerator?”

Rio laughed again, although she was sure that Agatha wasn’t really joking. The words done cooking caught up with her only a second later and she stopped, frowning, “Wait,” She said, “When is your due date?”

“Yesterday.” Agatha grunted, braced her hands on the desk, and made to rise.

Well, yesterday had already happened—that was alarming. “Y—yesterday? Agatha. You should be at home. In bed.”

Agatha continued her slow rise to her feet, one hand on the top of the desk, the other bracing against the arm of her swivel chair, “You sound like my gynecologist.”

It was true that Rio did not know Agatha very well. She didn’t even know who the father of her baby was; Agatha didn’t have a wedding ring and never spoke of her personal life. Ipso facto, this was none of Rio’s business. It was also, however, the kind of situation that seemed to call for emergency bystander intervention, “I’m sorry, I feel like I have to insist on taking you home. Did you drive here?”

Agatha gave Rio a look that implied that stronger minds than hers had already tried and failed to talk sense into her. She rose completely to her feet, one hand rubbing her stomach, the other on her lower back, “Thanks but no thanks.” She began a slow shuffle to the door.

“Does anybody know you’re here?”

“Coach Vidal,” Agatha paused in the doorway, so close that Rio could smell her. She was more beautiful up close, and more frightening. Rio felt her stomach tighten, “It is important to me that this show goes off without a hitch. If it doesn’t, there might be no theater department for me to return to after I push this kid out of me. So, if you’ll excuse me.”

The statement might have landed harder if Agatha didn’t then proceed to shuffle glacially into the hallway. Rio blinked at the empty space she left behind.

Well, she’d tried. She couldn’t exactly remove Agatha bodily from the school and to her car. That was the kind of thing that evoked descriptions like kidnapping and false imprisonment. There was, however, a voice in Rio’s head that sounded suspiciously like her mother telling her that she could not let a woman who was 40 weeks pregnant and counting walk herself alone to the auditorium.

“Fuck,” Rio said under her breath. She pivoted to Agatha, who had not made much progress, “I’m walking you to the auditorium.”

“No you’re not.” Agatha said without turning, still tottering forward. Rio caught up with her in three long strides.

“Yes I am,” She countered articulately, “What are you going to do, run away from me?”

Agatha made no immediate response to this, but out of the corner of her eye Rio saw her bite back a smile. “I’m sure your Gatorade break is long over.”

“They’ll be fine for a few more minutes. My mother would roll in her grave if she thought I was letting a woman a full day past her due date walk herself somewhere.”

“Very chivalrous.”

“That feels like common decency.” For the first time, Rio formed a complete thought wondering where Agatha’s partner was. Agatha was the kind of person who’s past and personal life Rio could not even speculate about. Was she gay or straight? Did she have siblings? Hobbies? She was not the sort who lent themselves to conjecture in any direction.

But the fact that she’d had nobody to stop her from doing something so patently insane gave Rio a moment of pause. It didn’t sit right with her.

“You can walk up ahead,” Agatha said, “It takes me a while to build up momentum.”

“I’m fine right where I am.” Rio replied.

The one-minute walk to the auditorium from Agatha’s classroom took three. They didn’t speak, which was fine. Rio couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t foolish or bracingly personal.

When they entered the auditorium, there was a group of about twenty students milling about on the stage. Some were sitting in desk chairs, others chatting or pacing about with script books open. Chelsea McDaniel sat at one end of a tattered couch. All turned to look when Rio pushed the door open and Agatha shuffled in.

A strange quiet settled over the space, which seemed to catch Agatha off guard. “Something’s wrong.” Agatha said surreptitiously, only to Rio. Rio nodded.

“Agreed.” Sixteen year olds were only quiet like this when they were trying to cover up a crime. The gaggle of them were looking down at Agatha and Rio like a group of meerkats scouting a hawk. “I’ll help you up the stairs.”

Agatha didn’t protest. Maybe she thought that Rio helping her would be less humiliating than asking one of the students to do it. Either way, she said nothing as Rio bounded up the narrow half-dozen stairs to the stage, and then extended her hand.

She took Rio by the elbow, and Rio held her forearm in return. Under the knit fabric was Agatha’s skin, her bones. She wondered if it was at all normal to get turned on by feeling somebody’s bones.

“No, no, don’t do anything to help your poor teacher.” Agatha said when she got to the stage, out of breath.

From the couch, Chelsea piped up: “We thought you wouldn’t be back until next term, Ms. Harkness.”

“Why aren’t the sets up yet?” Agatha took in the totality of the bare stage. Nobody volunteered a response, which, to Rio, indicated that the response wasn’t good.

The sound of the auditorium doors opening punctuated the silence. William Kaplan spilled in, looking out of breath, “Sorry I’m late. Hi, Ms. Harkness. Hi, Coach Vidal,” He called affably, mounting the stage stairs in two large strides, “Coach Vidal, is practice over? The guys are still waiting on the field.”

“William!” Called Chelsea with a little wave. She patted the empty seat on the couch next to her. Rio felt a little wave of sympathy for both of them. To William’s credit, he only paused for a second before going over and sitting next to her. He arranged his body so that there was a gap of space between them.

“I’ll be out there in a minute,” Said Rio. She put on her coach voice, which she sometimes practiced in the mirror for when she’d need to deploy it, “But I think Ms. Harkness was asking you where the sets are for your show tonight.”

Agatha looked over at her funny. Not bad funny, necessarily, but funny. Rio felt something like indigestion and then blurted, “Let me get you a chair.”

“No, I’m—my legs fall asleep in like five minutes when I sit down,” Agatha regarded her for a second more before turning back to the students, “You were supposed to build the sets with Ms. Smit. Did that happen?”

A beat of silence. And then everybody was talking at once.

“We had an AP exam—” “I got sick last Saturday—” “I was visiting my grandma!”

Agatha held up a hand, “Quiet, just—everybody be quiet!” The pandemonium continued, louder even. The students were talking over each other in their haste to come up with a reasonable excuse. Out of the corner of her eye, Rio watched Agatha’s face contort, and watched her look down at her stomach with a wince. She put her hand over her bump, then folded her body forward somewhat, “Ow—ow, ow—”

“Hey, everybody, shut the hell up!” Rio yelled, going over to her. She put her hands on Agatha’s shoulders. The talking stopped immediately, all of the students looking to them with wide eyes, “Hey, are you alright? Do you need me to call somebody?”

Agatha straightened immediately, “I’m fine, I was just trying to get some peace and quiet in here.” She narrowed her eyes. Rio pulled back and threw her hands up.

“You scared the shit out of me!”

“I need one person to explain to me right now why there are no sets on this stage,” When many mouths opened at once, Agatha held up a finger, “One.”

“We took a vote and nobody wanted to come in on a Saturday,” Chelsea began haltingly, “We told Ms. Smit that you wanted to do bare stage. We didn’t think you’d find out.” She said the last part almost under her breath.

Agatha was eerily still, “So we have no sets,” She clarified in a deadpan. Even Rio felt a little nervous, “And we open in—six hours?”

“Nobody wanted to do The Crucible anyway, Ms. Harkness.” One of the students piped up, “What’s the big deal? We can still do the show. Bare stage, like Chelsea said.”

“What’s the—” Agatha put her face into her hands, as though she couldn’t bear to keep looking at the assembly of bewildered faces in front of her, “—the superintendent is going to be here tonight.”

“Who’s that?” Asked another student. Agatha groaned.

*

“I am going to kill them.”

“Agatha, calm down.” Wrong thing to say. It was like Rio had just been born yesterday. Who told a very upset, very pregnant woman to calm down?

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Agatha spun to face her, the squeak from rubber of her shoes echoing down the empty corridor outside the gymnasium. The students behind it were certainly getting an earful of this, “What are you even still doing here, anyway, other than getting on my nerves? This is not your problem.”

Except it felt like it was. Rio’s problem. She took a step back and tried to see things from Agatha’s perspective, which was difficult because there were clearly some puzzle pieces that Rio wasn’t privy to. But one thing that was clear was that this was important to Agatha. Important enough that she’d hauled herself up, nine months and a day pregnant, and showed up to the school to make sure it went alright.

Another thing that was becoming clear was that Agatha would not leave until she was sure that it was going alright. And Rio could not, in good conscience, leave her to her own devices until she was safely on her way home. This situation seemed like it was on the trembling precipice of bloodshed.

Agatha interrupted her thoughts by wincing and making a little sound, putting a hand to her bump. She worked her jaw, as if in pain. Rio rolled her eyes.

“Do you really think I’m gullible enough for that to work twice?” But then Agatha’s other hand shot out and gripped Rio’s shoulder. She was steadying her body, eyes shut and face crumpled, “Woah,” Rio said, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Agatha bit out, “Just indigestion from the soda.” She took a deep breath in through her nose and released it out her mouth.

Yeah, there was no way Rio was leaving this woman alone. In fact, she needed to expedite this as fast as humanly possible, before Agatha gave birth in the girl’s bathroom.

“I can’t believe that this is how it ends,” Agatha continued, her head still hanging down, “I worked for five years to get this program into shape and now it’s going to be slashed into nothing because some students couldn’t be bothered to come in on one fucking Saturday.”

“Why not just try it—what did they call it—bare stage?”

“Bare stage?” Agatha hissed, as if Rio had just suggested something crude about her mother, “Bare stage? Rio, this isn’t Phoebe Waller-Bridge doing Fleabag on the West End. This is a bunch of teenagers in pilgrim costumes from Spirit Halloween trying to convince a 70 year old man to not shut down the theater department. Bare stage!” She laughed ruefully, “That’s rich.”

“You’ve got six hours. Well, five and a half. What needs to be done—cut some trees out of cardboard? They can do that.”

“They need to rehearse,” Agatha hissed, “They can’t go onstage tonight wearing their costumes for the first time ever. Oh, my God. What a fucking nightmare.”

“Okay,” Rio’s brain was moving, and it was not at all being impeded by the warm press of Agatha’s hand on her shoulder, nor the smell of her soap and laundry detergent, “So we just need a group of kids who can build the sets while the cast is rehearsing.”

“There’s nobody here!” Agatha blurted, “It’s 2 on an early release Friday. Every student was raptured from this building a half hour ago.”

Except for the thirteen soccer players waiting for Rio on the field. She took Agatha’s arm and maneuvered them down the hallway toward the teachers’ lounge. To her surprise, Agatha let her.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to find you a couch,” Rio replied as they shuffled down the hall, “And then I have an idea.”

Lilia was still in the room when they entered, and her eyebrows rose in alarm upon seeing Agatha, “Harkness. Shouldn’t you be somewhere having a baby right now?”

Rio was pleased that finally somebody was giving this situation the treatment it deserved. Agatha waved at her like she was an annoying fly that she was trying to swat away.

“Tell her when your due date was, Agatha.”

“Shush.”

“What do you mean when it was?”

The lounge was medium-sized and filled mostly with second-hand items from teachers and staff. A round table sat in the middle with a kitchenette behind it; on the opposite wall, there was a couch that had seen better days. Rio maneuvered Agatha toward it.

Agatha didn’t protest, and when they got to the couch, she braced on Rio’s forearms as she sat down. “It was just indigestion,” She insisted when Rio wouldn’t stop looking at her with an expression of concern, “I’m alright now.”

At least the color had returned to her face and she was no longer wincing, “Can one of you explain what’s going on here?” Asked Lilia again from behind them. Rio turned.

“Apparently none of the sets are built for opening night of The Crucible.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that, Calderu?” Agatha angled her head to peer around Rio’s body.

“You told me if I gave them the keys to the art room that they could take care of it on their own with Ms. Smit,” Lilia crossed her arms, “I gave them to that girl, the nervous one. Chelsea.”

“Fuck, one Saturday,” Agatha groaned, “They couldn’t do one Saturday of work.”

“We’re going to figure it out—just, wait here, okay?”

“Where are you going?” Agatha called. Rio was already at the door.

“Five minutes, okay? Don’t move.”

She took off down the corridor, which was empty and cast in lights and shadows. It reminded Rio of how magical it used to seem to be in school after hours, how special. Her Nikes squeaked on the linoleum as she pivoted around a corner, then out the double doors to the soccer field.

The team was milling about on the green when she arrived, a couple of them kicking the ball around. They stopped when Rio strode out, her hand waived in greeting.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, guys.”

“Everything okay, Coach?” It was Eddie. He stood near the front of the pack, a look of concern on his face. Probably William Kaplan had texted him about what had happened in the gymnasium.

“Everything’s fine. But there’s been, uh. A change in plans,” Rio took a deep breath and pressed some hair out of her face. She considered how to proceed. After a year, she felt that she was entitled to say that she’d built up a rapport with the guys on the team. There was always a little push and pull, of course, being a woman and coaching men. But these boys lived in Salem, Massachusetts, and had been raised by more mothers per capita than the average American teenager, those mothers being mostly Smith College graduates and museum docents. Being bossed around by a 35 year old lesbian came second nature to them, “I’m ending practice early,” There was a ripple of excited energy, “But I need you guys to go inside and help the theater club build their sets for the show tonight.”

They stared back at her for a moment, blank-faced and uncomprehending in their matching soccer kits. A cool autumn breeze blew through and ruffled the turf. From the back, a boy said:

“Uh, why?”

“Because,” Rio began, putting her hands on her hips in what she hoped was a demonstration of authority, “You know how I’m always saying to you guys, uh, the number one rule of being on a team is that you have to be there for your teammates,” She was pacing now, “And you’re not just—the soccer team isn’t the only team you’re on. The whole school is your team, okay? Theater club included, and they need your help right now.”

She paused, looking back at them to gauge if any of that bullshit had just stuck. It wasn’t the most true, but to say what was the most true would have been to admit that she had a crush on their English teacher and was trying to stop her from going into labor in the staff lounge. The same boy asked, “But coach, if you’re ending practice early, can’t we just…go home?”

A murmur of agreement from the assemblage. Rio hung her head and tried to think of something else to say, “Guys, listen—”

“We should listen to Coach Vidal,” It was Eddie. Rio lifted her head and looked at him, “If the theater club needs our help, we should help them. It beats running laps, right?” She bit back a smile. Eddie was well liked on the team—if she had his buy in, the rest would follow in due course. It certainly had more to do with the fact that he was hooking up with John Proctor than her leadership skills but, whatever—a good outcome all the same.

There was a murmur amongst the crowd, guys kicking their shoes into the turf as they contemplated between a beautiful autumn Friday of freedom and building sets with a bunch of theater kids. Eventually, Rio felt the energy shift and they grumbled an assent, going to the bleachers to gather their things and follow her into the building.

Rio smiled at Eddie. He gave her a surreptitious thumbs up.

As they marched back toward the building, a boy named Hudson sidled up to Rio. She liked Hudson; he was affable if a little silly, short and stocky and tow headed. He smiled over at her, “Hey, Coach Vidal,” He greeted, “They’re doing The Crucible, right?”

“Hey, Hudson. That’s right.” Rio was carrying a bag of gear. She adjusted it on her shoulder.

“My moms and I watch the movie, like, every fall. With Winona Ryder? I could probably recite it from memory at this point.”

Not the player on the team that she expected to be a closet Millerhead, but whatever. He was the only one, other than Eddie, who looked genuinely excited to be helping. Rio smiled over at him, “Are your moms coming tonight?”

“Oh, yeah, they come to all the plays.”

“Don’t let Hudson lie to you,” Eddie appeared behind Hudson, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and using his fist to give him an affectionate sort of noogie, “He knows all the lines because he’s got a crush on Chelsea. How many rehearsals have you been to, again?”

Hudson reddened up to the tip of his ears, and said “Not that many.” In a way that sounded like it meant a lot.

“Oh Hudson,” Eddie crooned in the falsetto voice of a teen girl, “Can’t you please skip lunch just this one time and help me run my lines?”

”Stop it, man,” Hudson insisted without menace. He shot an elbow back into Eddie’s ribs and Eddie handled it affably, backing off with a laugh. Kids.

*

She led her ducklings to the staff lounge. They paused uncertainly at the door when she opened it. Rio remembered how intimidating it had been to enter any teacher’s space as a student, like you were about to witness how the machinery of the world worked and not just a middle aged, underpaid woman eating a Yoplait.

“Come on, don’t be shy,” She said, ushering them in. Agatha and Lilia were on the couch, Agatha with her feet propped up on a chair. They were talking, and Lilia had her hand on Agatha’s arm as she spoke.

Agatha jerked her arm away when she saw them enter, like they’d just walked in on some unspeakably private moment. She furrowed her brow up at Rio and Rio remembered that, oh right. She’d yet to provide an explanation for the thirteen soccer players standing in the staff lounge.

“I brought you the soccer team,” Rio supplied helpfully, gesturing to the boys. A few of them waved uncertainly, “To build the sets.”

A beat of silence. Agatha’s eyes went over Rio’s head to the heads of the adolescent boys she’d stormed the room with. There was a flicker of something over her face, as quick as the blue flash of a match sparking, but it was gone by the time her eyes met Rio’s again.

“You brought the soccer team,” She reiterated, “To build my sets?”

Rio didn’t understand why they were standing there volleying the same sentence around instead of, y’know. Building the damn sets.

“I thought you were gone until next term, Ms. Harkness.” Said one of the boys. Agatha grunted, taking her feet from the chair and pushing herself up. Rio surged forward to help her, but Agatha batted her away.

“Yes, well, duty calls,” She said when she was on her feet, “Have any of you ever done anything artistic before?”

There was a lingering moment of silence. Agatha’s gaze slid over to Rio, and she arched a brow. “What’s your big idea?” Rio asked, indignant, “The understudies? Guys, do you think you can cut some shapes out of cardboard and paint them black?” A smattering of affirmative responses. Rio arched her eyebrow right back. She was taken off guard when Agatha smiled, but the smile was a quick, blink and you miss it type of thing, and she turned her attention back to the team after only a half-second.

“Alright, well. No time like the present, is there? Let’s go, boys, andale. To the art room. You guys can drop your gear in here for now.” She made an ushering motion with her hand and the team shuffled out in front of her. Rio made to follow them.

“The keys are on the top of the door frame,” Lilia called from the couch. She gave Rio a look that made Rio wonder if her shirt was tucked into her underwear or something. She even looked down to check. “Rio, can you hang back for a second?”

Rio paused, “I’ll catch up,” She said to the guys as they exited, shutting the door behind them. She turned to Lilia, “What’s up?”

Lilia crossed her arms, “You need to convince Agatha to go home. This is dangerous. For her and for the baby.”

“I’ve been trying,” Rio threw her arms up, shaking her head, “I mean, she came to school a day past her due date to direct a high school production of The Crucible. The woman is a lunatic.”

“She’s Agatha. She’s pigheaded about things like this,” Lilia paused, and Rio thought she saw her expression soften, “In all the years I’ve known Agatha, she’s usually had to pull off these little schemes on her own. At least she’s got help this time.”

“I’m not helping Agatha pull off a scheme,” Rio asserted, though not even she believed herself, “I’m trying to stop her before she goes into labor in the auditorium.”

Lilia’s face contorted in pity, “Well,” She said, “Good luck with that.”

*

Agatha stood in the art room, surrounded by thirteen lumbering boys in soccer shorts, and showed them a diagram of how she wanted the cardboard cut out. From the doorway, Rio thought of renaissance paintings. Of naked, pregnant women surrounded by cherubic angels. Which then made her think of Agatha naked, and that was—

“And then we need some tree branches coming in from the wings like this,” Agatha slipped a foot from her clog and scratched at the opposite ankle with it. Over one shoulder, Hudson nodded. He’d removed his jersey and wore a white undershirt, “And then, fireplace. I’d hoped we would be able to make a sort of—flame effect—but,” Here, she clicked her tongue and shook her head, “We’ll just do what we can.”

“Got it, boss.” Hudson took the paper from Agatha and turned to the rest of the guys. They inspected it together, muttering. Just then, two students emerged behind Rio in the doorway. She recognized them from the stage.

“Oh, good,” Agatha said upon seeing them, “Johnny, Claire, I told these guys already what to do.”

“Shouldn’t they be rehearsing with the rest of the cast?” Asked Rio when Agatha shuffled over to her.

“Understudies,” Agatha said, “We need all the hands we can get in here. I imagine you’re going to insist on walking me to the rehearsal too?”

She didn’t sound quite as put out about it as she had the first time. Rio wondered if she was actually starting to enjoy her company, or just resigned. Either way, she pushed the door open and gestured for Agatha to go through.

“Good guess.”

“You know this baby isn’t just going to fall out of me, right?” Agatha asked as they made their way down the hall, “That’s not how babies work.”

“I know how babies work. I saw my little half sister being born. She did sort of fall out of my mom, honestly,” Rio wrinkled her nose. When Agatha didn’t immediately retort, Rio looked over and saw her with her face screwed up, “I mean, it was her third kid. I’m sure it won’t be like that for you. This is your first, right?”

“Yeah, he’s my first.”

“So I’m sure it will, you know. Take a while.”

“Is this you trying to comfort me?” Agatha laughed. It wasn’t mean. And that unsettled look had fallen from her face, “Telling me that my labor is probably going to be long?”

“I think what I mean to say is that it’s going to be alright. But I’m sure you don’t need random people telling you that. So, sorry.”

“I’m actually not sure somebody has said that to me yet,” Agatha said, “I don’t know anybody who’s had a baby. I think they’re all scared it won’t be. Your expertise from watching your sister fall out of your mom is appreciated.”

“What about your mom?” Rio asked before she could think better of it.

Agatha just shook her head, “We don’t talk.” They’d arrived at the door to the gymnasium. Rio found herself wishing that the hallway had been a hundred miles long. She wanted an excuse to keep talking to Agatha, wanted to know what was going on with her. They stood facing each other, and Rio thought for a moment that it seemed like Agatha might want the same thing, “You’re not a random person, by the way.”

From Agatha, this was a compliment so sudden and fierce that Rio was momentarily taken aback by it. “Thanks.” She said, and meant it.

“We met for the first time at Alice’s party, didn’t we? Back in May?” Agatha framed it like a question, but Rio suspected that it wasn’t really, “You offered to buy me a drink.”

“Yup,” Feeling exposed under the weight of Agatha’s gaze, Rio shifted from foot to foot. She resisted the urge to cross her arms, “And you informed me that you were four months pregnant.” A smoother person might have delivered a line like, the offer stands. But Agatha didn’t seem like the kind of girl who would respond to such obvious trifling.

“Hm,” Agatha’s eyes ran all over Rio’s face, consuming her. There was a little promise of a smile living at the corner of her mouth. It wasn’t much, but Rio found her chest clenching anyway, “Are you going to come in and watch the rehearsal?”

“Yes.” Rio said, “Agatha, I’m going to be here until I’m sure you’re going home. This is insane.”

The smile erupted on Agatha’s face, “I know,” She admitted, then opened the gymnasium door, “After you.”

*

The dress rehearsal went fine. Agatha and Rio watched from the front row of auditorium seats. The stage was blocked with cardboard stand-ins where the set would be. Overall, it seemed like the superintendent would not be shutting the theater department down, at least not this time.

This was good. They had two hours left until showtime; the sets would be finished in an hour or so, they’d have an hour to put everything up. And then Rio would make sure that Agatha got home safely, and this ordeal would be concluded with minimal collateral damage.

When it finished, Agatha joined the cast on stage. Rio watched as she gave them the usual pep talk. There was relief in her posture.

“Alright, 15 minute break,” She said, “And then I want everybody back here to get into make-up and do warm ups for the big show, okay? The soccer team should be bringing the sets in soon.”

Agatha dismounted the stage and made straight for Rio, who stood from her seat. “I can’t convince you to let me walk you to your car now, can I?”

“I’m not leaving until I either go into labor or the show starts with no issues, whichever comes first,” Agatha rubbed a hand over her stomach, “You could convince me to have that drink, though.”

Rio’s stomach clenched. “What?”

“If you grab me a soda from the fridge,” Agatha elaborated, a certain puckishness in her expression, “I need some fresh air. We can take the 15 minutes outside. If you wanted.”

“Yes,” Rio blurted. She thought to be embarrassed by the obvious eagerness in her voice, but dismissed it, “That sounds great.”

*

She found Agatha outside waiting for her on the steps of the school, sitting with her legs splayed out in front of her. Rio handed her down a can of Coke before sitting next to her.

“I did look for a Busch Light, by the way,” Rio said, “But it looks like the janitor forgot to restock the vegetable crisper. They’re all gone.”

“You’d give a pregnant woman a beer?” Agatha tapped the tab of the soda twice before cracking it open. She was regarding Rio from the corner of her eye. Rio wondered if her default expression was wily, or if this was something Agatha had been saving exclusively for her.

“How did you put it—he’s done cooking?” Agatha snorted into her drink. Around them, the air shivered with a little breeze. In only her windbreaker and shorts, Rio felt goosebumps erupt down her legs. She shrugged her shoulders up and tucked her hands between her thighs.

“Is that the first thing you’re going to do when he’s born,” She asked, “Have a drink?”

“A drink, a smoke, and a platter of sushi.” Agatha replied.

“I guess Nicholas’ other parent must have a sushi place on speed dial.” Rio didn’t look at Agatha when she said this, because she supposed her face would make this low-brow investigatory attempt into Agatha’s personal life even more obvious. This didn’t feel like a date per se, but Agatha had softened toward her more in the last few hours than she had in an entire year. Rio thought there was no harm in asking.

“Nicky’s father is some loser I had a one night stand with when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself. So, no, he will not be getting me sushi.”

“Oh.” Rio said, and then decided not to crowd the space with more talking. She pursed her lips and slid her gaze to Agatha.

“What,” Agatha said, already looking at Rio out of the corner of her eye, “You’ve got nothing to say to that? Shock? Thinly veiled judgement?”

Rio shrugged, “I could if you wanted me to, but it seems like not really my business.”

Agatha tsked and rolled her eyes, “It irritates me when people do that.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend to be above it all.”

“I’m not above anything. And I’m not pretending. I guess I just don’t think you’re the first person in the world to get pregnant from a one night stand,” Rio blinked when a particularly fierce gust of wind hit her face, “My dad was a loser, too. I mean, I never knew him. But that’s what my mom always said.”

“Really?” Agatha seemed genuinely surprised, or curious, or both.

“Really.”

“You don’t strike me as fatherless.”

“Hm,” Rio nodded, “Thank you. I mean, I think that’s a compliment. But I’m not really. My mom’s husband has always been around and he’s a really nice guy. She used to tell me that I was probably one of the only kids on earth who took after their step father,” She paused, “His name is Ron and he’s an accountant.”

The silence that followed was tranquil. Rio found herself not grasping for some next thing to say. She tucked her ears closer to her shoulders.

“I just don’t know if I’m dragging Nicky into something he didn’t ask for,” Agatha admitted after a moment, “With no other options.”

“If you give him half the commitment you’ve given this play I think he’s going to be alright.”

“Hah, I don’t know. I never thought of myself as the kid-having type,” Another sip of soda, “I’ve always imagined that I have, like, this void inside of me. Like an eye that doesn’t blink. And that’s why I’m so mean to people—what if I’m mean to him?”

“Do you think you’re going to be mean to him?”

“No,” Agatha replied immediately, her voice firm and doubtless, “No, I love him. But maybe that’s worse.”

“Love, you mean,” Rio clarified, “Is worse than the unblinking void, you think?”

“Before I got pregnant, I used to have this horrible reoccurring nightmare that I had a giant toe growing out of the back of my head, only I didn’t notice until Spencer Campos pointed it out to me,” Agatha paused, “I lost my virginity to Spencer Campos in the 10th grade, and he called me frigid, so I spread a rumor that he had warts on his dick.”

“Oh,” Rio said, “Of course.”

”It used to bother me even when I was awake, the idea that there was something wrong with me that everybody else could see, but I couldn’t.”

“The void?” Rio said.

“Maybe,” Agatha tilted her head, looking up into the darkening sky, “One day I was having sex with a boyfriend and out of the blue, I thought, am I gay? Like, is that what the,” She wrinkled her nose and gestured to the back of her head, “What the toe dream is about?”

“The toe being lesbianism?”

“Yeah, or something. I guess I spent so long trying to fill the void with things that didn’t work it sort of scared me to think that there might be something that could. Like the only thing worse than the void is the void dissapearing, you know,” She turned to Rio, a perplexed look on her face, “I don’t know why I just told you any of that. Has anybody ever told you you have a very trustworthy face?”

It was a mixed bag in terms of good and bad news for Rio’s romantic prospects. “Yeah. Ron does too. So I guess Nicholas’ dad is not going to be involved?”

“No,” Agatha said, “If and when Nicky ever decides to show up, he is not going to be around.”

“If? He’s definitely coming, Agatha. Sooner rather than later.”

“Tell that to him,” Agatha placed a hand over her stomach, “The only thing that I haven’t tried to get him out is fucking, mostly because at this point I’d need a fetlife account to find somebody willing to do it.”

Rio snorted, “No you wouldn’t.” And realized only a second later that she had just played her whole hand accidentally. It was Agatha’s turn to look shocked, then confused, then a little pleased.

“What do you mean no I wouldn’t?”

“I just mean, you’re—” How to wrap this in different packaging, Rio wondered, “—are you going to tell HR about this?”

“Depends on what you say next, I guess.”

Rio took a deep breath, “You’re beautiful, but I know I’m not the first person to say that to you. And you’re—well, pregnant women glow, don’t they? That’s a thing people say. You’re glowing. So it would be—it wouldn’t be a hardship for—” Agatha was poorly stifling laughter now. With the light of the sunset behind her and a little sheen of soda or spit on her top lip, Rio realized that she was glowing. She couldn’t stop looking at her, no matter how stupid it made her feel, “You’re making fun of me.”

“Sorry,” Agatha said unapologetically, “You did something really kind for me today, I shouldn’t be such an asshole.”

“It wasn’t that kind.”

“No, it was,” Her tone when she said it was matter of fact, unsentimental, “If we pull this off it will be because you helped, and you didn’t have to. So thank you. And sorry for razzing you just then.”

“I can stand a razzing.”

“Can you?” Agatha looked delightedly unconvinced of this fact, “Anyway, if what you said is true, why was I sitting at home alone tonight watching Alien?”

“Alien?” Rio asked with alarm, “The one where the aliens bust out of people’s bodies? Agatha, why?”

“I don’t know, self harm, I guess? Nobody to talk me out of it?” She paused, a cloud passing over her face, Her pointer finger was flicking the tab of her can, back and forth. “I had to take a break halfway through for some fresh air.”

“And then you drove here.” Rio guessed. She had a sudden vision of Agatha, waiting alone in her house for the arrival of her son. Watching a movie to hurt her own feelings, somehow.

“Nowhere else to go,” Agatha said, wrinkling her nose. Rio wondered if Agatha considered this some sort of profound admission, or if it was so true, so internalized, that it just felt normal for her to say, “And once the show is over I’ll just…go back and keep waiting.”

“Well, I mean,” Rio shrugged, “I don’t have any plans tonight. I like movies. I could—maybe we could pick something else out together.” Sure, it wasn’t Rio’s sanest ever idea, but she’d never considered herself a conventional person. And it did sound nice, sitting with Agatha, picking out a movie.

Agatha stared at her for a long time. Rio tried reading her expression, failed in the first second, and then gave the whole idea up as foolhardy. “You want to come over tonight and…watch a movie with me?”

“Yeah,” Rio shrugged, “Why not?”

“Why not,” Agatha echoed, then smiled. It was a close-lipped smile, a secret smile. It crawled down Rio’s spine and nestled itself low in her belly. Was that surprise on Agatha’s face—or bewilderment? “Wow.” She offered.

“Wow?”

Agatha shook her head, “Nothing, sorry. Yeah, Rio, you can come over after this and we can…watch a movie.” The way Agatha said watch a movie made Rio wonder what, exactly, Agatha thought that Rio thought was going to happen. And then Rio wondered what she thought was going to happen, and she blushed.

Before she could respond, the doors to the school opened behind them. They both craned their heads around to see Chelsea, standing primly in what took Rio a few seconds to realize was her costume. The fact that she looked so natural in pilgrim garb didn’t bode well for her.

“Ms. Harkness?” Chelsea called, “Sorry to—interrupt. We can’t find William.”

“Huh? What time is it?” Agatha consulted her watch, eyes furrowed, “It’s been 20 minutes. He’s not back in the theater with the group?”

“No, Ms. Harkness. We can't find him anywhere.”

Rio and Agatha exchanged a look. This was a foreboding development indeed, “Well,” Agatha said, “Let’s go find him.”

Chapter Text

In the auditorium, about half of the soccer team was milling about with the newly created sets — craggled black tree branches and a lit hearth. From afar, Rio thought, they would do. But, indeed, there was no sign of William.

Nor of Eddie. Rio grimaced inwardly and checked her phone — they had an hour until curtain.

“We don’t have much time,” Agatha said, as if reading her mind, “Doors are going to open in a half hour.”

“Hey, Hudson,” Rio called, jogging up to the stage. Hudson paused where he was adjusting a branch and turned to her, “Have you seen William anywhere?”

Hudson’s face pinched momentarily before releasing—another inauspicious sign—“No,” He said, “Last I saw he was with Eddie and them in the art room. A few of us stayed behind to…” He paused, “…clean up.”

Why had he said clean up like that, like the words had some secret, second meaning? Rio squinted, and then trotted back down to where Agatha and Chelsea stood at the bottom of the stage, “Hudson said he might be helping clean up in the art room,” Rio explained, “I’ll go down and check, you guys stay here. Maybe he’ll come back, right?”

Rio went down the hallway at a light jog. The stakes of this evening had suddenly increased; there was the show, and there was getting Agatha home safe, and then there was the promise that she and Agatha might—watch a movie. At minimum. At least if these kids could keep it together long enough to make it on stage.

When she arrived at the art room, the door was closed. Rio put her hand on the doorknob and tried it. It didn’t budge. Her brow furrowed.

She knocked, “Hey, are you guys still in there? It’s Coach Vidal. I’m looking for William.” Rio tried to peer through the window on the door, but somebody had pulled the shade down over it. She heard the sound of shuffling inside, then a crash, and panicked voices. A third dark portend, Rio thought.

The door opened and she stood in front of the flushed face of a soccer player. Even from the threshold, Rio could feel the hothouse energy of teenagers up to no good radiating from within the room.

“Lucas,” She said, “Why are you bright red?”

“It’s hot in here.” Lucas tittered, forcing a laugh. Rio squinted and shouldered past him into the room.

There was the faint sound of music playing from the desktop computer at Lilia’s desk. The room was still a mess, covered in open cans of paint and cardboard scraps. Rio turned to the small assemblage of students standing amid the desks, hands behind their backs, shifting foot to foot. Most of them as red as Lucas.

“I thought you guys were in here cleaning,” Rio noticed that Claire and John were among the group and turned to them, “Have you seen William anywhere?”

“He left with Eddie a few minutes ago. I thought the play was starting?” Claire said, fidgeting. She squinted like thinking was a monumental effort.

“It is.” Whatever had been happening in this room before she entered was not Rio’s problem, she reasoned with herself. Her problem was finding William, and he wasn’t there. And yet, she began to move around anyway, looking for some sign that would explain the weird behavior.

“Coach—” Lucas said as she began to examine a pile of cardboard next to Lilia’s desk, “—we’ll take care of it, seriously. Maybe you should go look for—”

As she absently moved one of the pieces of cardboard in the pile, Rio’s eye caught on something and widened. She pushed a large piece from the top and gawked at what she saw.

“Are those beers?” She turned to the group, who were all staring back at her, wide-eyed, “Seriously, why is there a mountain of empties in this cardboard pile?”

“Coach, listen,” One of the soccer team began, then hiccuped. Rio’s eyebrows lifted above her hairline, “Connor went to put his water bottle in the fridge and we saw—we—” Another hiccup, and he seemed to lose his train of thought.

“You’re all drunk right now,” Rio said, stating the obvious if only for her own comprehension of the situation that was unfolding in front of her. She pushed at the skin of her cheek with one hand and tried to order the crises unfolding by priority, “Okay, this is—okay. Oh my God, was William drunk when he left?” Rio asked desperately. She was afraid of the answer. A teenager could still get on stage and play John Proctor after one beer, right? Maybe even after two?

“Will didn’t drink anything.” Claire said earnestly, as if any one of them would be a reliable narrator. Rio wasn’t sure why she’d even asked.

“All of you, just—stay put. I’m going to deal with this later,” She put her hands out, palms up, “Is there any more beer in this room?”

“We drank it all.” Offered a soccer player, helpfully. A whole vegetable crisper drawer of beer. Jesus wept.

“Stay put. I’ll be back. And you’re all in—you’re all in a lot of trouble, do you understand? A lot of trouble.” Rio ducked from the room and shut the door behind her. She leaned back against it, listening to the ambient sound of the music from Lilia’s computer, trying to put the puzzle pieces together.

William and Eddie had left the art room a few minutes ago, ostensibly so William could get ready for the performance. It was two minutes, give or take, to get to the auditorium from the art room. Somewhere in that span, they’d gotten side tracked.

This wasn’t painting a very positive picture, but Rio had to go where the clues were leading her. She retraced her steps back to the auditorium, trying to enter the mindset of two gay teenage boys. Where could they possibly have veered off to?

She passed an entrance to the school and considered that perhaps they’d gone out to hook up in Eddie’s car. But even William seemed too dependable for something like that. Rio continued on until she was within a few feet of the auditorium, stumped.

There was a thumping sound to her left. Rio looked over, brow furrowed, and saw that she was standing in front of the door to the janitor’s closet. Another thump. Her eyes narrowed.

Too dependable to have run out into the parking lot. But probably not dependable enough to not have ducked into the janitor’s closet for a quickie before getting his makeup on. Rio took in a deep breath and wiped her hands down her face. She longed for the Rio of three hours ago, who had imagined a world in which she was back at her apartment by 5 PM was possible.

With acid in her gut, she knocked on the closet door. There was a crashing sound, and then utter stillness. She rolled her eyes, “William, Eddie, I know you guys are in there. I’m giving you 30 seconds and then I’m opening the door.”

A flurry of movement erupted behind the door. When Rio pulled it open, the two of them were standing there, disheveled. Eddie was halfway through pulling his jersey back over his head. “What the hell do you two think you’re doing?” Rio hissed, looking between them, “You couldn’t wait until after the show?”

“We lost track of time—” “I’m sorry Coach, we—”

“Shut up, just both of you—are you drunk?”

“We’re not drunk.” William insisted.

“Come here, let me smell your breath.”

“Are you serious?”

“Oh, I’m dead serious. And button up your pants, John Proctor. You should be thanking God it was me that found you guys and not—”

“—Rio? Did you find him?”

The auditorium door swung open, and Agatha and Chelsea shuffled out. Rio blanched and turned to the closet, “Get yourselves together.” She hissed. She could not imagine a worse case scenario that wasn’t Chelsea finding her crush thirty seconds out from having gotten a handjob in the janitor’s closet.

The boys moved frantically, but it was too late. Agatha and Chelsea were next to her, also looking into the closet. William’s pants were still hanging open. Eddie had barely gotten his shirt over his head. They were both flushed.

Agatha seemed to understand immediately what they were seeing. It took Chelsea a second longer.

“Will,” She said, her voice thin, “What are you—why—oh my God.”

“Chelsea,” William stuttered, his expression contrite. He started buttoning up his pants, “I’m sorry, I swear to God I meant to talk to you about—”

“This whole time? You’ve been—this whole time?” She took in a shocked, small breath, “I’m so embarrassed. Oh my God.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Chels, it’s not—”

But Chelsea had already turned on her heel and taken off down the hallway, toward the entrance to the school. The four of them stood in shocked silence as she pushed it open and stormed off into the night.

“I’ll go after her,” William said. He’d finished buttoning his pants and made to leave the closet, but Agatha stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Agatha hissed, “You need to go get your makeup on and start warming up.”

“Warming up?” William exclaimed, “Ms. Harkness, we can’t do the show without Chelsea.”

“That’s what Claire is for.” Agatha said. Rio and Eddie exchanged a loaded glance.

“I’ll go after her,” Eddie offered, “It’s partially my fault.”

“You?” Agatha said incredulously, “You think she wants to talk to the guy she just caught her crush hooking up with in a janitor's closet?”

“Eddie, go see if maybe Hudson can find her,” Rio said, “I need to talk to Ms. Harkness privately for a moment.”

Oh, God. Agatha was going to lose her mind. Based on her expression, and the way she was glaring up at Rio, she already had lost part of it. “Yeah,” She gritted out, “We definitely need to talk.”

They ducked into the nearest empty classroom. It was Alice’s; a diorama of the solar system hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly. Rio flicked on the lights and shut the door, Agatha storming in ahead of her.

“This is all your fault.” Agatha stopped in front of Alice’s desk and wheeled around to face her.

“My fault?” Rio put a hand to her chest. She took a step forward, “My fault? Agatha, I’ve done nothing today but help you.”

“I didn’t need your help,” Agatha spat. Her cheeks were pink, “I was doing fine without you. And if you hadn’t brought your horny little soccer team in here—”

“Oh, it’s my horny soccer team, is it?” Rio laughed and took another step forward. She threw her arms up, “Has nothing to do with your horny theater club? There were two kids in that closet last time I checked.”

Agatha raised her chin. Her chest was heaving. Pregnancy really did—ugh. Rio needed to focus up, “Eddie seduced him.”

“Eddie seduced him? William has been sniffing around the soccer field all damn day like a dog, Agatha!”

“Yes, Eddie seduced him. Like you seduced me.”

“I what?”

“Don’t play stupid,” Agatha’s jaw was set and her eyes were flinty. Rio imagined what a roller coaster it must be to have a real argument with Agatha, one that wasn’t about something as stupid as who’s teenager was the horniest, “You’ve been following me around all day, you got your soccer team to come build my set, and then you offer to come over and ‘watch a movie’? I wasn’t born yesterday.”

Rio scoffed. She wasn’t sure whether to be offended or a little flattered that Agatha thought any of that had been intentional, “You agreed!”

“Yeah, well, you’re charming!” Agatha exclaimed, throwing her hands up. She sounded put out, almost offended by this fact, “You’re charming and it worked on me and I did not expect it to. And now we have to put fucking Claire on stage to chew the scenery for two and a half hours—”

“Agatha, Claire’s drunk.”

Agatha’s face screwed up, “What?”

Rio took another step forward. The gap between them shrunk into almost nothing, “She’s drunk. So is the other understudy. Them and some of the team—they stole the janitor’s beers. She cannot go up there.”

A pin dropping in that classroom would have sounded like a nuclear bomb. Agatha emitted a strangled sound, “So your soccer players—”

“Enough with my soccer players,” With one final step, Rio was close enough to Agatha to put a finger to her chest for emphasis. Agatha might think herself a pro at arguing, but Rio had grown up with two sisters. She was not a quitter, “It’s your actors—”

“If it wasn’t for your team, my actors would be sober and doing a bare stage production in a half an hour. Get your finger off my chest.”

“I’ll get your finger off your chest when you calm down so we can figure out what to do.”

“‘We’? There’s no we, Rio. I think you’ve helped enough.”

“Fine,” Said Rio, not moving, not pulling her finger back. They made eye contact and held it. From her periphery, she could see Agatha’s teeth scrape against her bottom lip. Her throat bobbed. The air in the classroom was suddenly very thick, “Go figure it out on your own, I’ll stay out of your way.”

“Fine, I will,” Agatha spat back. Either Rio’s ears needed tuning up, or her voice was a little strained, “And you’re uninvited to watch a movie. Offer rescinded forever.”

“Fine, your loss,” Where that had come from, Rio didn’t know. But she saw Agatha’s eyes flash when she said it, “And by the way, I wasn’t seducing you. You were projecting.”

That was a true zinger. Now all Rio had to do was not let her gaze wander to Agatha’s mouth. Agatha’s perfect, full, mouth. Underneath which was her chest, which was still heaving, even under that sweater—

“Projecting?” Agatha laughed, a strangled sound, “I was projecting? Projecting what, exactly?”

Her gaze flicked to Agatha’s lips. Fuck. She looked back up to see Agatha’s eyes darker than they had been before. She’d definitely noticed. Rio worked her jaw back and forth. Now wasn’t the time for this, really. She barely knew what was happening, but she knew enough to know that it shouldn’t be, “You wanted me to fuck you.” She said anyway. Not a quitter, like she’d said before.

“Oh I did, did I?”

“You did, you probably still do.”

Agatha shifted from foot to foot. Without realizing it, they’d maneuvered so that she was almost pressed into the edge of Alice’s desk. Rio’s finger was still at her chest. Rio imagined flattening her hand, transforming the touch into something gentle. Something hot and insistent at Agatha’s sternum, “You should be so lucky.”

“Yeah, so what? I probably would have done it, and I probably would have felt lucky doing it,” For the first time, Agatha seemed truly disarmed. She took a step back until she did hit the edge of Alice’s desk, knocking a pen onto the floor, “But now, not happening.”

Agatha scoffed. She jammed her tongue into her cheek, flipped her hair over her shoulder. Seemed to be working up to some cutting retort, “Fine.” She said.

Rio leaned in just a hair, narrowing her eyes, “Fine.” She parroted.

They both leaned in for the kiss at the same time. Rio shoved Agatha into the desk so hard that it scraped against the floor. She pressed her tongue into her mouth and tasted Coca Cola.

It was the kind of kiss that Rio could only recall having had before kisses had rules. The kind that lived in the backseats of cars and in locker rooms and on twin sized mattresses under posters of the Hansen brothers.

Agatha’s body was like the mouth of some fierce animal, hungry and snapping and searching. Rio moved her hand from Agatha’s chest to her hips, her thighs, her ass. She squeezed. Agatha broke away from the kiss to moan.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.” Agatha panted, like they were a couple in a porno. It sort of felt like that, except that porn rarely featured a lesbian soccer coach creeping toward middle age and a pregnant drama teacher. Her blush had grown and claimed real estate on her neck.

“No, we need to stop,” Rio agreed, “Can you sit up on the desk?” They leaned in for another kiss, short and wet. When they pulled apart, Agatha’s lips remained parted.

“I think so. Let me try.”

“Alright, don’t if you’re uncomfortable.”

They were murmuring like lovers in some dark corridor. Rio supposed that they were. She used her hands and her hips to guide Agatha until she was sitting on the desk, Rio standing between her legs. Her stomach pressed between them. Another sharp left turn in the convoluted story of this evening. Rio felt dizzy.

She kissed Agatha again, her hand moving up, over her stomach and to her chest. She felt her breast through her sweater, heard Agatha inhale sharply.

“Gently,” She said, “They’re sensitive.”

“Sorry. Sorry.” Rio barely stopped kissing her to speak, “Fuck, you’re gorgeous. I wish I could take this off. I wish I could see you naked.”

“We shouldn’t even be doing this clothed,” Agatha groaned when Rio’s lips migrated down to her ear, then her jaw. Her hand was still working over her breast, “We should stop, right?”

“Yeah,” Rio agreed, but she’d just discovered the skin behind Agatha’s ear, and her earlobe. She sucked it into her mouth, for posterity, and Agatha gasped, “Do you want to stop?”

“Fuck no,” Agatha moaned, putting her hand on the back of Rio’s head, keeping it in place. Her grip was hard and firm and delicious. Rio wondered how it would feel holding her steady between Agatha’s legs, guiding her as she licked, “Can you be quick?”

Rio’s hands wandered again, to her legs this time. They swept up, feeling the fabric of Agatha’s leggings, and slipped under the hem of her dress. Rio moaned. Her hips moved involuntarily, grinding into Agatha.

“I can be quick.” Rio confirmed, though she preferred not to be. She liked to take her time. She liked to be methodical, to peel away layers of clothing, to use her mouth liberally. She wanted Agatha to submit to her, or she wanted to submit to Agatha. She wasn’t even sure which anymore.

Rio pulled at the waistband of Agatha’s leggings and underwear until they came down over her ass and legs. Agatha lifted her hips to allow their passage, and watched keenly as Rio put three fingers in her mouth and wetted them with her own spit.

Rio moved her hand down, a movement made more awkward by the swell of Agatha’s stomach between them. She felt a pang of uncertainty—should she have read something about this before doing it? Fifteen ways to please your pregnant wife? Something? It felt wrong to just dive in blind.

She tried to pull herself out of the thought spiral, “I’m gonna—” She began. Her fingers pushed up under the hem of Agatha’s dress. Without thinking, she let them linger briefly against the underside of her belly.

Agatha’s mouth twitched, “Do you always announce yourself before doing it?” She paused, “Are you nervous?”

“Definitely.”

“I’m pregnant, Rio, not an invalid,” Agatha nuzzled at Rio’s temple, “I want you to,” She murmured, her voice going soft and cloying. Rio wondered how many people Agatha had used that voice on, she wondered how often it worked to get her what she wanted. Probably a lot, “Please.”

Rio moved her hand further down. She wondered how much exactly that argument had been doing for Agatha, because between her legs she was already slick and pulsing. She worked her fingers over the coarse hair and then pressed them in until she found her cunt. Rio thought that touching it was like touching Agatha’s own need, feeling it under her spit-slick fingers, palming it. She felt drunk with power.

“Fuck, that’s good.” Agatha’s head lolled to her shoulder. Her brow was knitted and her lips parted, “Oh. Oh.”

Rio spread her fingers into a vee and dragged them on either side of her clit, stroking it, playing at being withholding. She kept her touch gentle enough that it wouldn’t tip Agatha over the edge, and Agatha seemed to notice.

“I thought you said you’d be quick.” She said, not opening her eyes. Her face was one of complete contentment, which made it hard to take her statement as a complaint.

“Trust me.” Rio murmured, then increased the pressure of her fingertips. Agatha groaned, low and throaty. Rio pressed harder still, rubbing at her clit, making an obscene, wet sound as she worked Agatha closer to the edge.

“Wait,” Agatha panted, “Wait, inside. I need you inside of me.”

Rio obliged. She pressed two fingers in, chasing the back of her hand with her hips. Her own body was so tightly wound that she was surprised she wasn’t trying to hump the edge of the desk.

Agatha cried out, too loud for the situation they were in. Her muscles clenched on Rio’s fingers. Their hips started to move together, and Rio’s hand, until they created a frantic, primal rhythm. Rio pressed as close to her as she could get with her stomach in between them.

“Is that good?” She murmured into Agatha’s ear. She felt Agatha’s nod against her cheek.

“Yes, it’s good, it’s good,” Agatha did not sound very much like she knew what she was saying, “It’s so good, Rio,” She said, babbled really, and Rio felt one of her arms go to wrap around her shoulders, and then Agatha began to speak again, saying— “Thank you, thank you, thank—” Until she was cut off when her whole body tensed with her orgasm, shuddering, knocking papers from Alice’s desk to the floor.

In the aftermath, there was near complete silence. They slumped together, Agatha’s arm still dangling around Rio’s shoulders. Rio pulled her hand free. It was soaked almost down to the wrist. “Are you alright?” She asked after a moment, pulling back to look at Agatha’s face, “Are your legs asleep?”

“Sort of,” Agatha studied her, “Are you…”

Rio raised an eyebrow, “Am I…?”

“With men it’s easier to tell, you know—easier to take care of, too, I think.”

“Agatha,” Rio smiled in spite of herself, “Are you asking me if I have a boner?”

“Do you?”

“I definitely do, but we—Jesus Christ,” Agatha’s free hand had found its way between Rio’s legs. Rio stopped it, grabbing it and holding it against her stomach, “Stop it, we don’t have time.”

“So you think I’m disgusting,” Agatha narrowed her eyes, “You think I’m a fat cow and the thought of me touching you makes you sick.”

“And now you’re manipulating me into letting you give me a handjob.”

“It’s working?” Agatha raised an eyebrow and smiled. The smile was soft around the edges, almost sleepy.

“Yes,” Rio shook her head, “Wait, no. Shit. I don’t know.” She sighed, “I mean, we can’t keep doing it here, but…would it be so bad?”

“Would what be so bad?”

“Chelsea’s missing, the understudies are drunk…bad omens, right?” Rio shrugged. She saw her opening in the softness at Agatha’s edges, and she was taking it, “Let me take you home. Let opening night happen tomorrow. And then you can do…whatever you what to do to me.”

Agatha studied her for a long moment. Long enough that the silence began to itch at Rio and she spoke, “What are you thinking about?”

“Just that we’ve been here, working in the same building, for—probably a year, at this point,” Agatha’s mouth twitched. She reached up and cupped a hand to Rio’s cheek, her palm hot, “And how strange it is that you’ve been under my nose all this time and I’d never noticed.”

Rio felt drowsy with pleasure at Agatha’s touch, “I don’t know what that means.”

“Neither do I,” Agatha slid from the desk, keeping her butt against the edge of it for support as she hiked her leggings and underwear back up. Her dress was all askew, as was her hair. She looked very much like she’d just been fucked. Rio felt her body clench, “When I was in high school, before she kicked me out of our trailer, my mom used to tell me that the most I’d amount to, if I were lucky, was a greeter at WalMart with no priors and only one baby daddy,” Agatha sniffed and snapped the band of her tights over her stomach, “I don’t care if this is the worst theater department in Massachusetts. I might actually prefer it that way, lying and scheming and doing whatever to keep it going. But as long as it’s here, so am I, you know? As long as it’s here, I have something that’s mine, and she was wrong.”

Rio felt, underneath her crush, something real begin to bloom. It was in those first licks of somebody, in seeing a glimpse of the person they were and not the person you imagined them to be. She envisaged a girl with hair the color of sable laying in a trailer somewhere, a freckle in the universe, staring into the dark, unblinking eye before her. Suddenly, sex felt too impersonal. She was desperate to taste Agatha’s favorite food, to know her middle name.

“I guess we ought to find Chelsea, then.” Rio said, and took a step back. Although Agatha’s hand had long since lifted from her cheek, her expression said that she was still thinking about the touch.

“If we’re going to do anything, you have to stop looking at me like that.” She hummed.

Rio went to the box of tissues at the corner of the desk and began to wipe her fingers, “Like what?”

“Like you’re about to jump me,” Rio had no retort to this. She was absolutely certain that that was exactly how she was looking at Agatha, “Rio. Look somewhere else or I’m going to make you stand in the corner.”

“Coach? Ms. Harkness?” The door swung open. Rio and Agatha sprang further apart so hard that Rio nearly toppled over one of the student desks. In the doorway, William and Eddie gave them a quizzical look, “We’ve been looking all over for you. What are you doing in here?”

“Talking.” Rio said, at the same time Agatha said, “Arguing.” Rio turned to shoot her a look, and saw that she was wincing, hand on her stomach. Her brow furrowed.

“Rio,” Agatha said, as if reading Rio’s mind, “It’s just indigestion. Soda, remember?”

“Can we talk to you guys in the hallway?” Asked Eddie. Rio turned to Agatha, who shook her head.

“You go. I need to sit for a few minutes. I’m fine, I promise.”

*

In the hallway, the boys started talking over each other.

“One at a time,” Rio said. Behind the tension in her body, she felt a headache starting to develop, “Please, I’m begging you.”

“We need you and Ms. Harkness to come talk to Chelsea,” William’s face pinched, “Hudson caught up to her in the parking lot but she says she’s not doing the play.”

“He’s stalling her,” Eddie insisted, “But we have to go.”

“Ff—fudge. Okay. Um,” Rio crossed her arms and clenched her face once, hard. Lord, it had been a day to end all days, and not all of the blood had yet returned to her brain. She glanced back at the classroom, “I’m thinking. I don’t know if Ms. Harkness is going to be able to make it all the way to the parking lot.”

“Can you do it?” William asked.

“I don’t really know Chelsea.”

“Coach Vidal,” Eddie was moving half of his body toward the exit to the parking lot, striking an anxious line, “I don’t think he’s going to be able to hold her out there for much longer. You’re a coach, you give pep talks all the time. Can you at least try?”

“Okay. Okay,” Rio nodded her head once and started to move. Eddie pushed open the door for them and the three of them alighted to the steps of the school and the crisp autumn night beyond. The parking lot stretched out in front of them, dotted here and there by streetlights. It was fuller than it usually would be on a Friday night; people arriving for the play. The thought sent a shot of misapprehension through Rio, “Lets go.”

Eddie led them to a red hatchback parked near the back of the lot. The dashboard light was on and, through the windshield, Rio could see Chelsea and Hudson sitting in the driver’s and passenger’s seats. Chelsea was still in her costume, a hoodie from an off-Broadway production of Wicked thrown over it, and her face was drawn and splotchy, like she’d been crying.

Hudson’s eyes flicked to them and he made a face that was probably meant to signal something. Chelsea still hadn’t noticed.

God, how the hell had Rio ended up here? She was supposed to be on the couch of her apartment sexting Katie. Katie. She hadn’t even responded to her text. Now was not the time, probably.

“Coach?” Eddie looked over at her. Rio shook her head to clear it.

“Okay,” She said, “Here I go.”

Chelsea startled somewhat when Rio slid into the back seat. She turned her head, sniffling, “Coach Vidal?” She said, “What are you doing here?”

Hudson turned too, “I thought they were getting Ms. Harkness.”

“Ms. Harkness is having some, um, indigestion. From the baby. She can’t be on her feet.”

“I told all of you that I’m not doing the play,” Chelsea said, her voice harried. She turned back toward the windshield, so that all Rio could see was her long, straight hair, “You can go tell Ms. Harkness that, wherever she is.”

“Okay, well, Chelsea,” Rio cleared her throat and fidgeted, “The club is depending on you, okay? I know what happened tonight was—upsetting—”

“Upsetting?” Chelsea’s head spun back around. There were fresh tear tracks on her cheeks, “It was humiliating,” For a moment, Rio felt a stab of genuine empathy. She remembered with startling clarity what it had been like to be seventeen, when everything in the world was both gargantuan and painful, “I know what people at this school think about me, Coach Vidal. I’ve seen the graffiti in the girl’s bathroom. But I thought this was the one place that I—but it turns out that everybody has just been whispering about me behind my back here, too.”

“Nobody’s been talking about you, Chels—” Hudson tried, but Chelsea sprang on him too.

“And you. You knew too, didn’t you? You’re friends with Eddie,” Hudson had nothing to say to this. Rio saw the tips of his ears turning red, “I don’t care what happens to the club. I don’t care if we can’t do the show. Ms. Harkness couldn’t even be bothered to come out and talk to me.”

Rio paused, “She’s nine months pregnant—”

“I don’t care!” Chelsea slapped her open hands against the steering wheel in an explosion of teen girl emotion that endeared Rio to Chelsea more than anything ever had in the past. It was sudden and ferocious and nonsensical, “The only thing I care about right now is going home and getting out of this dress. Get out of my car.”

“Chelsea—” Rio tried.

“Get out of my car!” Chelsea slapped her hands on the steering wheel again, startling both Rio and Hudson, “If you care this much, Coach Vidal, just make Hudson do it. He knows all the lines,” She stabbed her keys into the ignition, “If you don’t leave right now you’re both coming home with me.”

The car doors swung open and both Rio and Hudson scrambled out. Chelsea peeled out of the parking lot, nearly hitting William and Eddie on her way out. The four of them watched her headlights disappear into the inky night.

After a moment of silence, William said, “So that didn’t go well, I guess?”

“Jesus Christ,” Rio buried her head into her hands, “What time is it?”

Eddie checked his phone, “Seven thirty.”

Rio’s hands peeled away from her face and she shook her head in wonderment, “This is it. The show isn’t happening. Chelsea is gone, the understudies are drunk, I—”

“I mean, is it such a big deal?” William shrugged, “We’ll go on tomorrow.”

“Is it—yes, William, it’s a big deal. People are here to see you. The superintendent is here to see you. And Agatha put in a lot of work to make this show happen.”

“We didn’t want to do the show!” William exclaimed, throwing his hands up, “Ms. Harkness didn’t listen to us. She never listens to us. Why do you even care, anyway?”

“Why do I —” Rio laughed humorlessly. How to explain this feeling to a seventeen year old boy? He had but one tenth of the crucial life experiences that it would take to understand Rio’s position on this matter, “Just because I care, okay? And you know what — someday you are going to grow up and care about random shit, too. You’re lucky that Ms. Harkness cares about you, or you probably wouldn’t have a theater club anyway.”

William’s brow furrowed, “That’s just something that Ms. Harkness says to scare us into doing the plays she wants to do.”

“Is it? Or do you just feel that way because she’s good enough at her job that you’ve never had to worry about it?” Silence followed. William seemed genuinely stricken by this point, his mouth pulling into a shamefaced frown. The streetlights above him gave him a yellow-gold crown on his head of brown curls, almost cherubic. Rio felt, for a moment, almost regretful to have scolded him.

And then, Hudson spoke up, “Chelsea was right, you know.”

“About people treating her like shit? Yeah, I’m starting to gather that.”

“No, I do know all of her lines. I basically know all of the blocking, too,” Hudson spoke with more confidence as he went on. William and Eddie both turned their heads to look at him, “I watched a bunch of the rehearsals. I could do it.”

A beat. Rio blinked several times, “You could do it?”

“Well, yeah,” Hudson shrugged and nodded, “I could be Abigail Williams.”

Three heads swiveled to look at Rio, who made a strangled noise, “Hudson, have you ever acted before?”

“No,” His brow pinched, “But I get on the field every time we have a game and I improvise. I’m good at it. How much different could it be?”

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” William said, shaking his head, “I mean it sounds crazy, but—”

“It sounds crazy because it is crazy,” Rio was not an angry person, but she felt a flash of hot displeasure in her chest, looking at their guileless faces. Thinking of Agatha, who was not there to speak on her own behalf, “Just—let me get this straight. Ms. Harkness asks you to help build the sets, you don’t build the sets. Then, thirty minutes before curtain, you decide to stop over for a quick hand job in the janitors closet? And, by the way,” She threw her hands up, “You could have talked to Chelsea before. You didn’t even have to come out to her. You could have said anything. But after all of that, after your poor teacher came in nine months pregnant to make sure that the play went on, your best solution is to put Hudson on the stage? Hudson, who has never acted before a day in his life?” They were staring at their shoes then, those boys, cowed and scolded, but Rio didn’t stop, “That is not adult logic, that is teenager logic. It is not in the realm of the real world. You know, someday you’re going to have to grow up. You’re going to have to take responsibility, even over things that aren’t yours. Even over things that you don’t want to do at all.”

When she finished, William was looking at her with his chin lifted. He looked as defiant as he did contrite, “We’re trying to take responsibility for it right now.”

“It’s too late,” Rio said, “If your only and best solution is that Hudson goes on as Abigail Williams, then it is way, way too late.” She sighed, shoulders slumping. This was a pointless exercise, anyway, and would not change the outcome of the evening. She felt a sort of deep-down sadness in her bones at the thought of sharing this with Agatha; that she’d tried, that she’d ultimately failed, because the students couldn’t be bothered, “I guess you guys got what you wanted, anyway.”

William’s mouth twisted, “This isn’t what we wanted.” He said, as if discovering this for the first time.

“I have to go talk to Ms. Harkness,” Rio sighed, “And explain all of this to her.”

“We can talk to her,” William’s voice uncharacteristically quiet. He was regarding Rio with a serious expression, “You’re right. This was sort of our fault.”

“Sort of?” Rio shook her head, reminding herself not to go too hard. These were just kids, at the end of the day. Selfish, idiot kids. But kids nonetheless, “No, you guys—just, go talk to the rest of the cast, okay? I’ll see what Ms. Harkness wants to do.”

After they split up, Rio went down the hall in the direction of the classroom. She re-entered without knocking, shutting the door softly behind her. Agatha was sitting in Alice’s chair, hand on her stomach, face contorted. She seemed to barely notice Rio’s presence.

“Okay, so, I talked to the boys and Chelsea, and um—”

“Rio—”

“Hold on. Let me just—let me get this out,” Rio paced for a few steps, rubbing her hands over her face, “I know how important this show is to you. And I know that we’re about a half an hour from curtain and everybody is here, but—”

“Rio—”

“—I mean, would it be so bad to push opening night to tomorrow? Let Claire sober up, or maybe Chelsea will come around—”

“Rio!” Rio finally paused her pacing, turning to face Agatha. Her posture was tight and her face was distorted with pain. Rio’s heart clenched. Something was wrong.

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

“My water broke.”

“Your—” Rio took a few steps toward Agatha, her brain firing on all cylinders to try to process this information, “—I’m sorry, your what?”

“My water,” Agatha repeated slowly, “Broke all over Alice’s office chair.”

“No, no way,” Rio shook her head slightly, “You’re fucking with me again. You said he was never coming.”

“That was before you fucked me into the third dimension,” Agatha hissed between clenched teeth, “But you did, and now I’m in labor.”

Oh fuck, “Oh fuck. Um, okay,” Rio patted her body down, “Shit, my car keys are in the teacher’s lounge. Just—wait here five minutes, okay, I’ll grab my keys and maybe if Lilia is still here she can figure out what to do about the show.”

“No,” Agatha said, face still screwed up, “No. I’m not going.”

“No?” Rio gawked at her in disbelief. This woman was a true lunatic, the kind of genuine article that put lesser, faker lunatics to shame. It was insanely sexy, but it was also giving Rio heartburn, “Agatha, what do you mean no?” She crossed the room until she was in front of Agatha, then knelt before her chair, putting her hands on the armrests. She tried to catch Agatha’s gaze to give her a beseeching look, but Agatha kept her eyes closed and her chin down, “Look, okay, this was kind of funny in a wacky sitcom way before, but you’re in labor now. Like in danger of giving birth on the floor of Alice’s classroom labor. Is that where you want Nicholas to be born?”

“No.” Agatha muttered.

“No. Okay. I don’t want him to be born here either. So let me take care of a couple of things out there, and put a towel down in my car, and then I can drive you to the hospital.”

“No.”

“Agatha,” Rio pleaded, her tone somewhere between parent talking to tantruming child and hostage negotiator, “I can just push this chair out into the parking lot, you know that, right?”

“I’ll scream.”

Rio herself was about two seconds from screaming, “Okay, is there somebody I can call for you? Anybody you want to talk to?” Preferably, somebody who could talk some sense into her.

Agatha paused, then she shook her head once, “No, there’s nobody. Nobody cares.”

“What? What are you talking about, nobody cares? I care.”

At that, Agatha finally opened her eyes and looked Rio dead on. She considered her for a moment, face red and mouth trembling, “Rio, I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. I can’t have a baby by myself. I can’t even keep a plant alive. Why did I think I could do this?”

“I don’t know,” Rio said, “I don’t know why you thought you could. But at one point you did think it. Try to…mentally rejoin that space.”

“Mentally rejoin that space?” Agatha’s gaze went slightly hysterical, “That’s your advice to me right now? I’m not sure it occurred to me when I decided to keep him that I was going to have to have him completely alone.”

Without thinking, Rio covered one of Agatha’s hands in her lap with her own. Agatha looked at her, and for a second it seemed as though she was about to cry. She shut her eyes suddenly and took a deep breath. Her hand squeezed Rio’s. Rio squeezed back. “—sorry, contraction.”

“Oh, good.”

When the contraction passed, Agatha released a breath. She shook her head, “I don’t want to. I don’t want to do this.”

The thought occurred to Rio that if any woman on earth could stop themselves from having a baby through sheer force of will, it would probably be Agatha. She didn’t say this, didn’t want to plant any ideas in her head. “I get that. Agatha, I do. But I’m not sure what your other options are.”

Agatha was quiet for a long moment. Rio squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back, quick and hard like a heart pumping blood. “What’s going on up there?” Rio asked.

Agatha took a deep breath. She shook her head somewhat, “I keep thinking about how when I was in high school my mom took this trip to Las Vegas with some of her girlfriends. But she was dead scared to fly. So she asked me to track her flight, because she said it felt like as long as somebody was paying attention to it that nothing bad could really happen,” She laughed ironically, “I don’t have anybody to track my flight. Nobody even to just sit in the waiting room and care about what happens. I couldn’t even get these asshole kids to come in for one fucking Saturday to build sets. So after all this is done, I’m going to come back and the one thing I was proud of doing at this school is going to be gone,” She paused, lip quavering, “Rio, I can’t have this baby. I won’t do it.”

Rio took Agatha’s hand and held it in two of her’s. It seemed like the time to hand wring about crossing intimacy boundaries with her coworkers had come and gone. She felt a surge of protectiveness toward Agatha, who suddenly seemed so young, so lost, so unlike the caustic, impenetrable figure Rio had come to expect, “You can. And you will,” She squeezed the warm fingers in her hands and fought the urge to put Agatha’s palm to her cheek, “The show is going to happen. The theater department will still be here when you get back.” She said these things without knowing quite how they would happen. Rio thought suddenly of her step father, and the way people promised things, and the way those promises were never real until they made them so.

“How are you going to do that, exactly?” Agatha asked as if reading her mind. Her voice had a little warble in it, as if she wanted very much to believe that what Rio was saying was the truth, “Did you find Chelsea?”

Side stepping, as now was not the time to reveal to Agatha that Chelsea was gone and that Rio really had no idea how she was going to do any of this, other than a deep conviction that she had to, for Agatha, Rio said: “Just leave it to me, okay? And look, I’ll come to the hospital with you, too. Once this is all over. I’ll sit in the waiting room and I’ll track your flight.”

“No, Rio, you can’t do that.”

“Well my only plans tonight were watching a movie with you, and those are cancelled now, so. I’m free, and honestly I’m not sure it would even be my worst Friday night,” Agatha laughed a little. There were tears streaking down her cheeks. Rio smiled at her, “There, okay. So it’s a deal. I just need to—I need to go do a couple things, and then I’ll be back, and you’ll have this baby.”

She made to stand. Agatha gripped her hands, “I don’t want you to go.” She admitted in a small voice.

“I’ll be five minutes,” Rio promised, although she had more than five minutes of work ahead of her, “Just wait here, okay?”

Heart pounding, Rio tore into the hall. She looked both ways, unsure of where to begin. The theater. She had to talk to the cast.

Without thinking, she started to jog down toward the auditorium. There had to be something they could do. Fuck, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to—

Rio turned a corner and nearly collided with William. When her attention focused again, she saw that he was still in costume. Eddie was next to him. They looked out of breath.

“I’m glad I found you—” “Coach Vidal, we were looking for you—”

They spoke in a jumble of words. William paused, and Rio pressed forward, “Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I was frustrated and I took it out on the two of you. But the thing is, I’ve just made some promises to Ms. Harkness, and I—”

In the background, there was the sound of leather shoes on linoleum. A half second later, Hudson rounded the corner behind William and Eddie in a pilgrim dress and bonnet. It sat a little awkwardly on his body, and she realized when he got closer that somebody had safety pinned it so that it would fit.

“Coach Vidal, you were right,” William said, “About everything. I know you think that the Hudson thing won’t work but, look, the costumes came in the wrong sizes at first and one of them was this huge dress and I talked to the cast and we pinned it,” He gestured to Hudson, who did a little curtsey, “And Hudson and Eddie got all of the soccer players and their friends to buy tickets so the show is sold out. That has to count for something, right?”

For a moment, Rio could only stare. She thought again of promises, and of the promise she’d made to Agatha, and how eager she was to keep it. Wasn’t art subjective, anyway? And maybe it did matter that, after everything, William was trying. Even if these were the strange fruits of his labor, “Fuck it. Hudson, you look amazing.” She said, realizing then, that on that Friday night in October at a high school in Salem, Massachusetts, Hudson would be the person who got on stage as Abigail Williams. And that, sometime later, Agatha would give birth to a baby boy while Rio, a woman who she had scarcely talked to before that evening, sat reading magazines in the waiting room. Suddenly it all seemed so singular, so wretched and funny at the same time, that Rio could have laughed, or cried, or both, “Where’s the rest of the cast?”

“Backstage.” Said William.

Rio nodded once. “Eddie, go get Ms. Calderu in the audience and tell her to meet us on stage. The rest of you, let’s go.”

*

True to William’s word, when Rio peeked out behind the red velvet curtain of the stage, she saw that every seat in the auditorium was full. The lights were down and people were murmuring. She pulled her head back, letting the curtain fall shut with a ripple.

Behind her, on the stage, the cast waited with nervous expectation. They stood amid the set in their pilgrim costumes, looking forward at Rio.

“Ms. Harkness usually leads us through a warm up before we go on,” Said one of the girls uncertainly. Rio grimaced.

“I don’t think we have time for that,” She admitted, “Look, I know that things are a little…challenging right now. And that most of you didn’t want to do this at all—”

“William talked to us earlier, and he was right,” One of the cast members interjected, “This is important to Ms. Harkness, so it should be important to us.”

Rio’s eyes slid over to William, who was studiously avoiding eye contact with her. She bit back a smile, “That’s right. Look—let me put it this way, guys. Sometimes you lock a win in at the beginning of the game, and sometimes a win is something you claw back in the fourth quarter. This is definitely going to be the latter. But there’s an old guy out there who, for whatever reason, really wants to see you get out there and do The Crucible. So let’s give it to him,” There was a titter of excited agreement amongst the assemblage. Rio looked to Hudson, “Hudson,” She said, “I need you to go out there and make Winona Ryder look like a total amateur, okay?”

“Yes, Coach.” Hudson replied gravely.

There was the sound of footsteps from one of the wings. Lilia and Eddie emerged a second later, looking winded, “Rio—Coach Vidal,” Lilia said, “Is everything alright? Where’s Ms. Harkness?”

“Yeah, where is Ms. Harkness?” Asked one of the cast members, “She’s always here before we go on.”

“Ms. Harkness was, ah, not feeling well. I just need to talk to Ms. Calderu alone for one second, okay?”

Once they were out of ear shot, Rio said: “So, Agatha went into labor.”

“Here?” Lilia replied, flabbergasted, “In the school?”

“Yes, I need to get out of here and drive her to the hospital. I don’t want to freak the kids out more than they already are, so can you just—take over here? And don’t tell them until after.”

“Of course,” Lilia said, “Of course, leave it to me.”

“Thanks, Lilia,” Rio reached out and squeezed her shoulder. They exchanged an uneven smile, “I’m going to go get her. I’ll keep you posted,” Rio made to go, but turned before she disappeared off the stage, “Oh, and can you tell Alice I’ll buy her a new desk chair?”

*

“Can I help you find a room, dear?” Rio startled from where she’d been attempting to check her hair in her distorted reflection on a laminated poster on prenatal hepatitis C treatment. She turned to the kindly faced nurse who had interrupted her, jostling the flowers in her arms.

“Er, no. It’s this one, actually.” She gestured to the doorway that they stood in front of, “Just, um…” She tried to find a reason that she should be lingering in front of the entrance manically checking her appearance, but could find nothing. Mercifully, the nurse said:

“Okay, honey. Just let us know if you need anything.” And puttered off toward the nurses’ station. Rio exhaled a breath. It was time.

She knocked once in the door. There was a muffled come in. She pushed it open.

“I’m sorry,” Rio opened with an apology, “I meant to come in as soon as visiting hours started, but I didn’t want to show up empty handed, so…”

“That’s alright,” From her hospital bed, Agatha offered a tired smile. She was shrouded in white, starched blankets and her hospital gown was unsnapped at one of her shoulders. Morning sun poured in from the window next to the bed. It was in stark contrast to the way Rio had left her last night, sweating and red-faced and swearing, “I wasn’t presentable until ten minutes ago, anyway.”

“Here,” Rio approached the bed and extended the flowers to Agatha. The bouquet was a pitiful, garish arrangement. She and Alice called them boyfriend flowers because they looked like the sort of thing somebody would pick up from a drug store last minute because they’d forgotten a birthday, “Sorry, these are the best they had at Market Basket.”

“Sorry? They’re beautiful.” Agatha took them and held them for a moment before setting them to the side. She sounded so oddly genuine when she said it that, when Rio looked at the flowers again, they did seem beautiful. “Thank you.”

“Of course. And, um, one more thing,” Rio glanced over her shoulder to make sure that a nurse wasn’t coming, then reached into the pocket of her chore jacket. She produced a can of beer and passed it to Agatha, who took it with a grin, “Hide that under your pillow for later. And this,” Rio plucked a single Marlboro Red from her breast pocket and handed that, too, to Agatha, “For the lady.”

Agatha plucked the cigarette from Rio’s fingers and held it for a moment, looking down at it as though it were something precious. After a second, she turned that gaze to Rio. The expression on her face was so unlike Agatha, so open and warm, that for a moment Rio thought that she looked unrecognizable. Rio waited for the inevitable shift. For the moment that Agatha would become unreachable again. It never came.

“What about the sushi dinner?” Agatha joked, tucking the cigarette behind one of her ears, hidden by her long hair, and the beer underneath her pillow. That sincere look stuck to her face like gum on a shoe. Rio blushed.

“Well, I was thinking—there’s this place not far from my apartment—not right now, of course, but maybe in a little while when things have calmed down—”

Just then, there was a keening wail. Rio realized that the little clear plastic cradle between Agatha’s bed and the window held none other than Nicholas Harkness himself.

“Sorry,” Agatha said, pushing herself up in bed and reaching down to take him, “I wasn’t quite ready for him to go to the nursery last night.”

“That makes sense,” Rio watched her hold the bundle to her chest and jostle him, making little shushing noises. Nicky continued to cry regardless, “Have you spent a lot of time with kids?”

Agatha shot her a wry look, “Is it that obvious that I haven’t?”

“No, just curious. I can give it a try, if you want.” She held her arms out. Agatha passed Nicholas over into them.

“Be my guest.”

Rio took the squirming, fussing bundle into her arms and rocked him about as she hummed and paced. Nicholas gurgled, hiccuped, and then quieted. His unfocused eyes gazed up at Rio.

“Wow,” Agatha said, “You’re a natural at that.”

“Olivia was born when I was ten,” Said Rio, glancing up, “And Flor came when I was like…fourteen. So I’m, you know. A veteran of the baby trenches. I love ‘em,” She looked back down at Nicholas’ wrinkled face, “Hello, sir. I don’t think we’ve been introduced. My name is Rio. I’ve heard a lot about you from your mom,” She rocked him some and he gurgled happily, “Welcome to the world. And more importantly to the bustling metropolis of Salem, Massachusetts.”

Behind her, Agatha chuckled, “Why are you talking to him like he’s a 40 year old man?” Rio eyed her askance.

“Because—oh, hold on, he wants to say something,” She leaned her head down and held Nicholas up as if he were whispering in her ear, “Uh-huh. Yeah.” She tilted her head back up and looked to Agatha, “He says he actually likes it when I talk to him that way, so.” Agatha barked out a laugh. Rio put Nicky’s face back to her ear, “Oh, he also asked if he could start soccer lessons as soon as possible.”

“Keep it up and I’m going to have to ask you to give me back my baby,” Rio grinned and kept up her bouncy walk, soothing Nicholas. Agatha’s eyes followed them around the room for a moment, “I hesitate to ask, but what happened with the show?”

“Oh, that,” Rio cleared her throat, “Kind of hard to know where to start.”

“Did the superintendent like it?”

“Well, no,” Rio clicked her tongue, “But it turns out that one of Hudson’s moms works for the Salem Courier and wrote an article about it. Apparently our gender blind casting of Abigail Williams was a big hit. I heard the show is already sold out for the next two weekends,” She shrugged, “So even if the superintendent wanted to pull your funding, the ticket sales could float you for at least another semester.”

Agatha blinked, “Our what casting of who?”

The door opened and a different nurse stepped in, running her hands under the automatic hand sanitizer dispenser. She smiled at Agatha, and then Rio. Rio recognized her from the waiting room the previous evening, and the feeling appeared to be mutual.

“Good morning mom,” Chirped the nurse, rubbing the hand sanitizer in as she approached the bed, “And I assume this must be Nicky’s other mama? We were wondering, for the birth certificate.” She gestured to Rio.

Before she could say anything, Agatha said: “No, this is the soccer coach from the school I teach at. No relation.”

The nurse, to her credit, absorbed this information with barely a tick at her brow. “Well,” She said with a smile, “Okay. We were thinking it’s a good time to try breastfeeding, how’s that sound?”

“I’ll just—” Rio stepped forward and handed Nicky off to the nurse, “—head out now, Agatha. Um, I put my number in your phone. Last night. Maybe you don’t remember, but—”

“No, Rio, stay. I wanted to talk to you about something, anyway.” Agatha was already unsnapping the other side of her hospital gown and pulling it down to reveal her breast. Rio flug her gaze up to the ceiling before she could see anything really incriminating, but did not miss the incredulous look of the nurse.

For two or three minutes, she heard the sound of Agatha and the nurse shuffling Nicky about, of the rustle of fabric and soft gurgling. “There, he’s a natural.” The nurse said after a moment, when Rio could hear a faint suckling noise and a little, wet coo.

“I thought he would be.” Rio thought, then, that it would be safe to look down at Agatha, and she did. Nicky was attached to her left breast, the crown of a dark head of hair visible, a little hand starfishing against her sternum. One of his feet had escaped from his swaddle and dangled down, mottled pink and red.

Agatha had tucked her hair behind her ear and left the cigarette there exposed as a consequence. She was gazing down at Nicky as she held his chubby body in her arms. Rio thought again of renaissance paintings.

“I’ll give you some privacy, but I’ll be back in a few minutes to see how he’s doing.” Said the nurse, stepping out of the room. Once she was gone, Agatha tore her gaze from her son to look back at Rio. She was smiling.

“Does that feel weird?” Rio asked, unsure of what to say to one’s breastfeeding coworker after all that had transpired between them.

“Super weird,” Agatha said. The corners of her eyes wrinkled in mirth, “I decided I’m going to let the kids to Hadestown when I’m back from mat leave. Since you guys saved the club, and everything.”

“Oh,” Rio said, “That’s great. They’ll be excited.”

“I was thinking maybe that you could co-direct.”

“Co-direct?” She was looking into Agatha’s eyes, which were bright with a sort of puckishness, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about theater.”

“You don’t have to know anything about theater,” Said Agatha, “You just have to be dependable. Can I depend on you?”

“Yes,” Rio said, without any hesitation, “You can depend on me.”

“I thought so.”

Rio paused, “Earlier I thought you said you don’t need my help.”

Agatha laughed, as though Rio’s memory for detail pleased her. Or maybe it was her own inconsistency, or maybe there was no inconsistency at all, and her feelings had merely changed shape during the long night. That was the idea that thrilled Rio the most, that some secret transfiguration had taken place, that Agatha was different, that so was she. That it had all happened because a group of high school students had been too lazy to build sets on a Saturday.

Rio liked rules. She liked it even better when rules were strange, when they made sense emotionally but not logically. “No, I don’t need it,” Agatha said finally, still nursing her newborn infant, “But I want it. If that’s okay with you.”

From a certain angle, it could have sounded like a thank you. Rio thought that Agatha would never had expressed her gratitude outright, and added that to the steadily growing pile of things that she liked about her.

“Sure,” Rio said, rhetorically, “Sure, Agatha. That’s okay with me.”