The One I'm With

by Jamie Bennett

  “I was looking for your substitute plans, in case you didn’t come in again,” she explained.

  I walked over and picked up the yellow folder lying neatly on the top of my things, the one that said “SUB PLANS” in giant, black letters. Jolie had found it for me when I’d texted her that I wouldn’t be coming in the day before. “Here they are. But since I’m here, I guess they won’t be necessary.” I put the folder back down. “Um, was Felix in yesterday?” I asked. “Is there anything I should know about that situation?”

  “Felix is at home with his older half-brother who has taken charge of his care. We expect him to return to school next week.” Shirley studied me. “Lanie, you’ll be meeting this afternoon with the school’s general counsel.”

  “An attorney?”

  “Colette von Schaffgotsch, Coco, has made some appalling accusations against Starhurst. She has mentioned your name in relationship to these charges. Our attorney would like to review some details with you, discuss your memory of past events, to ensure that we can quickly move past Mrs. von Schaffgotsch’s allegations.”

  My stomach flipped. “Actually, Shirley, I needed to talk about that with you. I’m not sure if you saw my email requesting a meeting with you—”

  She started to move towards the door. “It won’t be necessary. The lawyer will help you prepare some remarks refuting what Coco has said and we’ll go on from there.”

  “I can’t refute her accusations,” I said clearly. “I’m a witness to them.” I almost puked. On the floor, at that moment.

  Shirley stopped in the doorway to my room, then slowly turned back toward me. “I’m sure that’s not the case.”

  “What? No, it is the case. I’m telling you, that’s the case. I saw—”

  “The attorney will be able to direct you better, Lanie. In the meantime, I will ask you not to discuss these false allegations.”

  “No, you’re not hearing me. They aren’t false. I saw Coco and the PE teacher together, when she was a senior and I was a sophomore. I saw them having sex in the training room.”

  “I’m sure that’s not accurate. Memories are tricky. I’m sure that you, as a loyal alumna of Starhurst Academy and as an employee, would not—”

  “I wanted to tell you,” I said, before she talked more and I lost every bit of my courage, “before I told the police. This is something that I need to tell the police.”

  We just stood and looked at each other. Then Shirley turned again, and without another word, she left my classroom. I grabbed the trashcan and threw up into it.

  Not too much later my students started to arrive, and they hugged me and said they had missed me, and that the sub was not at all as good as I was because she didn’t laugh as much. She wasn’t scared of bugs, either, so she didn’t even scream once at all the nature they had found at recess, not even at the one creature that Jonah unearthed that they thought was maybe not a bug but instead a baby dragon.

  Even Mrs. Rosse seemed, if not pleased, at least not angry to see me back. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said cordially, and I nodded at her. She sniffed. “It smells like vomit in here.” I had opened the windows and removed the wastebasket, but maybe still. The weird thing was, I already felt better, and I didn’t think it had to do with puking. I had told Shirley and that part was over, and even though I didn’t know what was coming next, at least I had acted. The pounding in my head had diminished and my throat, which had been so tight, had loosened. I took a deep breath and tried to smile at my kids.

  I didn’t see Shirley for the rest of the day, not until I was walking down to my car to go home. I was finally feeling better, as in, not ill, but the moment I spotted her, the nausea returned with a vengeance. Shirley stood in the light rain next to my car, with a guy I didn’t know but recognized. He had been on the stage at the staff meeting, the one where everyone had talked forever about the assistant athletic director getting fired, but didn’t actually say anything.

  “Ms. March,” Shirley said, and the other guy said, “Alaina March?”

  “Yes?” I answered both of them.

  “Ms. March, due to serious deficiencies in your performance as a kindergarten teacher,” the guy said, and then he said some more stuff, but I heard one word that started looping through my brain. Suspension. He handed me a letter and I took it without thinking.

  I looked at Shirley. “I’m suspended from school? I mean, from my employment here? Because of what I said to you this morning?”

  Yes and no. Yes, I was suspended, the guy with her said. But not due to supporting Coco’s charges against the school; no, this was totally different. However, he did want to talk about that. “Have you contacted the police about the alleged incident you alluded to this morning?” he asked me.

  “Who are you?” I managed to say.

  He was the attorney that Shirley had wanted me to meet with to hammer down exactly what I was supposed to say about what I hadn’t seen, except that I had seen it. “Have you contacted the police?” he prompted me.

  “No,” I answered, and they both seemed pleased, which made me absolutely furious. “No,” I continued, “I haven’t yet called the police to let them know that I saw a Starhurst employee having sex with an underage student on the campus. Not yet.”

  That wiped the pleased expressions right off their faces and Shirley looked shocked. It made me even more upset, because the part about me telling shouldn’t have been the part that bothered her about this scenario.

  “I didn’t talk to them yet, but I will,” I promised. “Shirley,” I turned to her. “Is this really what you want to do? Is this really how you’re going to handle this problem, and handle me?”

  She pressed her lips together and the lawyer said he hoped I would rethink any ill-advised actions I might have considered. Totally unrelated to why I was being suspended, of course.

  It wasn’t ill-advised, and everything they said to me made me more determined. “There’s no way that you’re going to be able to cover this up,” I said to Shirley. “And you shouldn’t want to.” I had a sudden thought. “The Von Schaffgotsch adult kids are in charge of the family fortune now. You can’t support Coco and what she’s saying, because that would put you on her side. And they would take back their father’s giant donation to the school. Is that right?” I shook my head, pretty repulsed. “That’s terrible. Do you hear how terrible that is? Shirley, I really respected you. Your job is to lead teachers and to help children. You’re not doing either of those things right now.” I was pretty shocked at myself, first that I hadn’t started to cry with all this going on, and second, that I told her that. Even if she didn’t care, I was glad that I had said it, because I was right, and Brooks had been, too. He had told me that I needed to start saying more of the things that were happening in my head.

  The answer from the lawyer was that I needed to leave the premises or be escorted off by security. I put my lips together so they wouldn’t shake in front of Shirley and this weasel guy and got into my car, and I left the Starhurst campus for maybe the last time, maybe ever.

  I pulled off onto a side street about a mile down the road and I called the county sheriff, and that call lasted for a long time. It wasn’t going to be the last time I talked to them, either. Then I called Jolie, who wasn’t out of class yet, and left a message asking her to get a few things I had left in my room, and told her I would explain why, later. Then I started the car and called Brooks on speakerphone.

  “I’m on my way home,” I said. “Do we need anything at the store for dinner?” I pulled out and started down the street, amazed at how well I was handling everything. I was as cool as a cucumber. An ice-woman. Nerves of steel.

  “I was thinking we should order in,” his deep voice said through the speakers of my car. “I guess nothing must have happened today. You decided not to talk to Shirley?”

  “No, I did. She was there in my room this morning, going through my desk, and she wanted me to meet with a lawyer to come up with a stor
y to counter what Coco is saying. I told her I couldn’t do that and that I was going to talk to the police. And when I came down to my car at the end of the day, they told me that I’ve been suspended. Not for the Coco thing, for poor performance.” Plop, plop. Tears started to fall into my lap. No longer was I the ice-cold, steely cucumber. “I knew this could happen. I knew it would probably happen. I don’t know why I’m crying about it now.”

  “Peanut, it’s upsetting to lose a job, if you saw it coming or not. And what’s going on at the school right now is ridiculous. I think you’re better to be out of it.”

  “Yes, but next week is Blue Week for our class, and I have so many good books to read and so many things planned. We were going to make blue slime and talk about mixing things to make other things, like, science…” I started to cry harder and I fumbled around for some kind of napkin.

  “I’m sorry,” Brooks said. He sighed. “Come on home.”

  I reached up above my sun visor for another old receipt to mop my nose. “I’m—” A gigantic, black, hairy spider descended on a slender thread from the visor and into my lap. I screamed and then, I crashed.

  ∞

  “Are you sure it isn’t on me?” I ran my fingers through my hair again.

  Brooks ran his hands through my hair, too. “I’m positive. There is no spider on you.” We were sitting together on the couch in our house, Maisie at our feet. Brooks had arrived faster than Kristian in his Scemo after I screamed into the phone and he heard the sound of the accident. The crash had been low-speed, but I had managed to hit a bike rack on the curb, and my car had looked better.

  “Peanut, I don’t want to kick you when you’re down, but you never considered with all the webs you were finding, there might be a spider in your car making them?” he asked. “Maybe more than one?”

  “Do you think it had babies?” My voice rose. “Do you think there are thousands of spider babies in my car?”

  “We’re going to get your car fixed, cleaned, sanitized, fumigated. No more spiders.” He ran his hands through my hair again and then gently over my cheeks. “You’re sure you’re ok?”

  “I’m not feeling sick anymore. But it hasn’t been my best day,” I said, and tried not to cry again. “I feel like I’ve had better.”

  “This is a bad one,” he agreed. He picked up my hand and I held on to his tightly.

  “Shirley and the school, they’re doing it all wrong. Why would they try to hide it? You can’t hide things, especially terrible things. Like the footage of Felix’s dad…” That whole thing was already online, racking up views. “Anyway, this is just so—immoral! And stupid. They should want to tell and be open, and even if they don’t, they should be smart enough to see that it’s for the best to appear that way.” I remembered when my mom’s “Mojave Heat” lipstick line had ended up with about 15 times the amount of lead allowed in it and she’d called in the big guns from a Los Angles crisis management firm to help out her company after the recall. They cleaned up the problem pretty well by having my mom first admit to everything and then apologize, publicly and repeatedly, and within a few months sales had rebounded, especially when she came out with her line of “Salton Sea Organics.”

  “They’re wrong,” he agreed. “And you’re getting screwed right now because of it. You do have options. I called a lawyer today. California has a lot of protections for whistleblowers.” He studied me. “But let’s talk about that tomorrow. I know this all sucks, but would you tell Shirley again, if you knew the outcome would be what happened this afternoon?”

  “Yes,” I said promptly. “Absolutely I would.”

  “I’m really proud of you,” he said again. “Because you knew how hard it was going to be and you did it anyway.” He put his hand on my cheek, and I rested my face against it.

  “Are you proud that I took out the bike rack?” I asked.

  “Not as much about that,” he said, and for the first time that day I smiled. It felt good, especially when he did it back. I touched Brooks’ cheek too, and brushed my finger over his dimple. I ran my finger over his lips and then I froze and looked up into his eyes.

  He held completely still, but he was watching me, his eyes burning down at me, and then slowly, very, very slowly, he leaned down and kissed me. He pulled away from my lips for a second and I opened my eyes to find him looking at me again. My heart pounded so hard I thought he might be able to hear it. I leaned up slightly and pressed my mouth back to his and he lifted me into his lap and he kissed me dizzy, his lips on mine and tongue in my mouth. I had the fleeting thought that this was what it was supposed to feel like, but then I wasn’t thinking, because I was just overwhelmed with all of Brooks, his body and his mouth and his strength. Before I really knew what was going on, I was lying back on the couch with my arms wrapped around his neck, my legs wrapped around his hips, and we were still kissing like we weren’t going to survive without it.

  I felt my whole body heat and pulse and I was moving myself against him, my hips against his. Brooks let go of where he was cupping my neck to take my butt in his hand instead and he pulled me tightly against him, and when I moved again, he moaned into my mouth. He stopped our kiss and looked down into my eyes. “Is this good, Peanut?”

  I had never felt anything better. “Is this for real?” I asked him. Because I’d had a lot of dreams before, dreams where we were doing things like this…

  “For real,” he agreed. Brooks kissed me again, then he opened the top buttons of my shirt and he kissed me there, his warm lips moving across my collar bones, over the dip in my neck. “You have little freckles here, too,” he murmured against my skin. He kissed around, nosing the cloth out of his way, blowing air over my skin. He opened a few more buttons. “Let’s see how far down they go.” He put his tongue under the lace edge of my bra and the tip found my nipple. I jumped and made a sound and Brooks squeezed my ass and circled his hips against me. His breath came faster. He used his teeth to pull on the lace until my breast was free and then he covered my nipple with his mouth, suckling with his lips and tongue and teeth. “Brooks,” I said, and I made the same sound again: it was desire.

  He pulled away, leaving my breast tingling and aching for more, but then he pulled his shirt over his head and moved to the other side, slowly and carefully tugging down the silk and lace until that nipple was also liberated for his mouth to find. “No freckles here,” he said, then nipped at me so I squeaked and jumped and he again covered my breast with his mouth and hand. I closed my eyes and ran my fingers through his hair, basking in the pleasure of what he was doing and the feeling of his weight on me, our bodies pressed together. “Lanie,” he whispered, “this couch is too small. Let’s go upstairs.”

  I nodded and Brooks picked me up to my feet. I put my arms around his neck and rubbed myself against him, the hard muscle and his own hard nipples making the heat inside me burn even brighter. I wrapped my leg around his calf to try to pull us even closer and he kissed me hard, bending me back and holding my head in his hand. “Upstairs,” he said, his voice now gruff. We walked with me backwards, still kissing. He undid my skirt and I stepped out of it, and it fell on Maisie, who barked.

  Brooks picked up his head from mine. His lips looked a little swollen. “Stay here,” he told the dog as she backed out of the fabric. She threw herself down on my skirt and glared.

  I laughed, but then Brooks slid his hand over my thigh and up to cup me in front, the heel of his hand caressing me. “Oh…”

  “Upstairs.”

  We made it slowly to second floor. With me on the step above him, our faces were level, our bodies perfectly aligned. Each time I stepped up, he pulled me against him and I wrapped my leg around his hips, feeling him grow bigger and harder underneath his pants. It was making me lose my mind, that feeling. When we finally reached his bedroom, Brooks was ripping off his clothes and I was mine. We fell back on the bed, naked together, wrapped around each other. He put himself between my legs and moved back and forth, not entering
me but just rubbing, caressing…Oh, God. I felt myself start to shake, to move my hips uncontrollably. Brooks held my arms over my head and watched me, stopping to bite and suck my neck, to kiss me, to catch my moans in his mouth. He just kept rubbing, relentlessly, against my clit.

  “Are you close, Lanie?”

  “Yes,” I gasped. He kissed me again and stopped. “No, keep that, keep going that, do that,” I told him incoherently.

  He kept my arms over my head with one hand and ran the other down my body, over my breasts, feeling my hard nipples between his fingers. I moaned and tried to move but his hips pinned me to the bed. “Wait,” Brooks said. “Wait.” He moved his mouth over my jaw. “Wait,” he whispered in my ear, nosing it, licking.

  “No.” I tried to move against him, and when I couldn’t, I turned my head to find his lips, twining my tongue with his, sucking it into my mouth. I could feel his heart too, beating hard, and his breath panting from his lungs. He broke our kiss again to move down my body, kissing every freckle along his path over my breasts, where his lips found my nipples again, making me arch and moan, down the curve of my stomach. He ran his hands over my body, stroking me and touching every bit of my skin. His hand moved between my legs; his finger slid inside me.

  I lifted off the bed and called his name. He picked up my feet and put them over his shoulders and my legs opened up to him, all of me was open to him. I sat up on my elbows and watched as his face disappeared between my thighs and felt as his tongue moved between my legs with little flutters and flicks. He slid another finger inside me and they moved in and out, beginning a rhythm that matched the movement of his tongue. Flick, flick, in and out, and I was shaking and talking but not making sense. He held my butt and pressed me closer to his mouth and his tongue stroked harder.

  It was coming. I was coming. “Brooks, now, I’m—” and then I just moaned.

  He stopped and pulled up his head and blew cool air over my wet folds. “Wait.” He licked the insides of my thighs, closer and closer to where I wanted him to put his mouth, holding me steady with his hands. He dipped his head again and sucked, plunged his fingers inside me, and sucked hard again. All I knew was pure, white-hot bliss, and then he was lying over me, telling me that he had the condom on, coming inside me, and I was coming too, over, and over, without stopping. Brooks pumped his hips into me, driving hard, and I was still coming, or maybe again, and he growled my name.