by Linda Keir
“Ask your mom. You know, you look a lot like her.”
Cassidy pushed back from the table and stood up, shaking, barely remembering to grab her phone before she stumbled away. A deputy moved toward her.
Roy called after her. “Are you a wild child, like she was?”
Chapter Forty-Two
ANDI BLOOM’S GLENLAKE JOURNAL
Wednesday, March 12, 1997
I already felt light-headed and nauseated, like I was coming down with the flu. Then, a student messenger came to physics class with a note. For me. And definitely not from Dallas.
Andi,
Please come to my office for a short meeting. I’ll make sure you’re excused from any class time you miss.
Mr. Matheson
I collected my book bag and barely made it to the bathroom before I threw up. Could it be any coincidence that he’d asked to see me on a Wednesday, a few minutes before I always sneak away to Dallas’s cottage?
I couldn’t possibly let Dallas know something major was happening, much less find out what he wanted me to say, or not say. All I could do was rinse my mouth, splash some water on my face, and hope I made it to McCormick Mansion.
Or maybe that I crumpled on the sidewalk and died on the spot.
I almost threw up again on my way there. I hadn’t told anyone. Dallas hadn’t, either, obviously. And we’d never been caught together. Did someone from the roadhouse or that weird guy at Roy’s party know someone at school?
As crazy as it seems, that had to be it. That was the only place we’d been together in public.
I entered the building, planning how I’d say goodbye to everyone at Glenlake and thinking about what Simon was going to say when he heard I’d been expelled. “You were schtupping who?”
He’d lose his mind when I answered.
And how did Glenlake deal with teachers who had relationships with students? Would Dallas be fired . . . or arrested?
I forced myself into Mr. Matheson’s office, sure I was about to find out.
“Andi,” Mr. Matheson said. “Welcome.”
Mrs. Kucinich, the head of the English Department, was there, too.
“Thanks for meeting with us on such short notice,” she said, like I had a choice.
“No problem,” I told her.
“Are you all right?” Mrs. Kucinich asked. “You look pale.”
“Just feeling under the weather.”
The understatement of the decade.
“We’ll try and get through our questions as quickly as possible,” Mrs. Kucinich said as I took the open chair beside her.
“We wanted to speak with you today because we routinely conduct interviews of student leaders to get feedback about the effectiveness of our visiting teachers,” Mr. Matheson said.
“Mr. W-Walker?” I stammered.
“Dallas,” Mrs. Kucinich said with a smile. “We’re well aware that you call him by his first name.”
“The whole class does,” I said, sounding a lot more defensive than I wanted to.
They nodded in unison. It wasn’t reassuring.
“You’re a top performer in the English Department and in Dallas’s class, not to mention all the previous writer-in-residence classes during your time here—”
“And the brains behind that wonderful poetry event,” Mr. Matheson said, throwing me even more off-balance. “Everyone loved it so much.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“In any case, we have a series of questions we’d like to ask you about Dallas and the poetry seminar.”
I had to ask. “Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“That’s not what this is about,” Mr. Matheson said.
The next thing I knew they were firing questions at me. On a scale of one to ten:
How would you rate the quality of his assignments?
How would you rate the content of his lectures?
Does he have an engaging demeanor in class? Is he a good teacher?
How would you rate your overall enjoyment of his class?
There were a lot more. None of them were:
Does he have inappropriate relationships with students?
Are you having a secret affair with him?
How would you rate his sexual prowess?
“Do you think he grades fairly?” Mr. Matheson asked.
And there it was. I wanted to feel more relieved than I did.
“I know a lot of kids were unhappy about their first-semester grades until he made adjustments,” I said.
“But you weren’t?” Mrs. Kucinich said.
“No,” I said. “I worked really hard in the class and got the grade I felt I deserved.”
Mr. Matheson jotted a note.
I willed myself not to throw up again.
“And what about his poetry?” Mrs. Kucinich asked.
“What about it?”
“Does he read his work to the class?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“And what is it about?”
“Nature, philosophy, love, loss,” I said, sandwiching the word love as inconspicuously as possible in the middle of the list. “You know, the usual poetry stuff.”
“We understand he’s working on a book of poems about Glenlake,” Mr. Matheson said.
“I didn’t know that,” I said, annoyed they knew something I didn’t. “But I can’t say I’m totally surprised, because there’s a chalkboard where he writes out his works in progress sometimes.”
“And what do you think of these poems?”
There once was a boy named Dallas . . .
“That he’s a really talented poet.”
Mr. Matheson’s and Mrs. Kucinich’s eyes met.
Somehow, I knew I’d said either exactly the right thing or exactly the wrong thing. I just didn’t know which. They thanked me and sent me on my way.
I left utterly confused. There’d been no suggestion that they knew anything. On the surface, it seemed like they had really, truly called me in because I was Andi Bloom, literary It Girl of Glenlake, taker of all visiting-writer seminars, the girl most likely to . . . give an honest, well-informed student evaluation of Dallas Walker.
But there was definitely something else. Was it what they didn’t say, or was it something I hadn’t answered correctly? Would I be called in a second time and sentenced to public execution at the peristyle because of some question where I’d given Dallas a 10 instead of the 5 or 6 they felt he deserved? Maybe they already knew about our relationship, and the meeting had been my chance to confess.
I wanted to put a note in the tree for Dallas to let him know what happened. But what if they were watching, waiting for me to give them the definitive proof they were looking for?
He had to be wondering where I was and why I hadn’t shown up at his cottage. I wanted to run over there, but I had no choice except to wait until I bumped into him or saw him in class on Friday, just like the regular student I wasn’t at all anymore.
Thursday, March 13, 1997
I woke up today feeling even more exhausted and sick than yesterday. I never saw Dallas, even though I looked for him all over campus.
I got even more paranoid when I thought I saw Mr. Sweater-and-Chinos from the roadhouse parked in the visitor lot by McCormick. With the reflections on the car window, I couldn’t be sure it was him, but whoever it was caught me staring just before he drove away.
Desperate to get a minute with Dallas today, I knocked on his office door before class.
He was clearly pissed about being stood up because he didn’t even look at me when I came in. “Can I help you with something, Andi?” he asked.
“I got called into Matheson’s office yesterday. At exactly the time I was going to see you. Mrs. Kucinich was there, too.”
“Shit,” he said, finally looking at me. “Why didn’t you leave me a note?”
“I was afraid I was being watched. Afterward I saw a guy I’m sure was at the roadhouse the night we were there.”
“I dou
bt it. What did they say?”
“That they’d called me in to do an evaluation.”
“Of me?”
I nodded.
Appearing to relax, he actually smiled. “And how did you rank my performance?”
“This isn’t funny, Dallas. I’m sure they know something.”
“If they didn’t come right out and accuse us of being together, they don’t know,” he said, way too confident.
“How do you know they weren’t trying to catch us in some kind of trap?”
“You’ve been reading too many trashy suspense novels, my dear,” he said. “They may suspect I’m having an affair with Darrow’s wife, but not you.”
All of a sudden I felt stupid, and his offhand comment about Mrs. Darrow made me mad.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were writing a book about Glenlake?”
“You’ve already read almost every poem in it,” he said. “I hope you told them it’s going to be a modern classic. I’m hoping you’re going to give me a blurb.”
“Stop it,” I said, irritated that he wasn’t taking this seriously. Especially after my spending the last day and a half in a tailspin.
“That’s what they’re really worried about, Andi.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they already dragged me in for a meeting, too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What was I going to say? That Mrs. Kucinich and her band of barely literate, brownnosing wannabes brought me here to produce a work of great literature, and now they’re crawling up my ass trying to make sure the poems will be PG-rated, ‘as befits the prominence and standing of Glenlake’?”
“What did you tell them?”
“That the poems in the book are about natural beauty, educational excellence, and smokin’-hot boarding school girls.”
“You didn’t.”
“Like that hasn’t been the theme of everything ever written about a teacher’s life at a boarding school? Fucking students is a time-honored tradition here and everywhere else.”
Now I was angry and scared. I felt dizzy. “Students? As in me and who else? Georgina?”
“Jesus, Andi, I’m just joking,” he said, hugging me and pulling me close even though the door to his office was open.
“Well, don’t. I don’t like this.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “All I have to do is change the title of one poem from ‘Bloom’ to ‘Flowering.’ That’s the beauty of art. It’s subjective and open to broad interpretation. Just like love.”
And then he kissed me. Still with the door wide open.
“Although, if they don’t stop harassing me and trying to micromanage my work, I may just have to name the collection Glenlake Girl.”
Monday, March 17, 1997
The Pepto-Bismol Nurse Ratched gave me seemed to do the trick.
Until today.
It wasn’t like I woke up nauseated or anything. It felt more like a nervous stomach that didn’t kick in until the mail was delivered and there were three letters, one from University of Iowa, one from Berkeley, and one from Northwestern.
I got into all three!
I was really happy.
So happy, I threw up.
I kept telling myself it was nerves. I mean, how often do you get your first three letters from colleges and they’re all acceptances? I went with that until I got back to my room, opened my desk drawer to put the letters away, and saw a corner of the pamphlet Nurse Ratched had given me, just in case.
Then I cried.
Tuesday, March 18, 1997
I literally couldn’t stomach French class. I didn’t want to think about le petit-déjeuner, much less talk about food, the subject of this week’s unit. Luckily, Georgina—and, I assumed, everyone else in the dorm—was already long gone to class when I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed the wrapped testing stick I got at the town drugstore, and rushed down the hallway into the bathroom. I barely made it to the stall before I threw up.
I didn’t even notice I wasn’t alone until someone in the next stall did the same thing.
I stood there, shaky, mortified, and needing to puke again. Which I did.
“You okay?” asked the person, who sounded a lot like Sylvie.
“I’ve got the flu,” I said.
“Yeah, me too.” Definitely Sylvie.
Sharing my misery with Sylvie was punishment enough, and then the bathroom door opened.
“Is someone getting sick in here?” called Mrs. Henry, who I had assumed was long gone teaching her first-period class.
“I’ve got the stomach flu,” I said.
“Sylvie?” she asked.
“It’s Andi,” I said.
“And . . . ?”
The stall door clicked open and Sylvie shuffled out.
“I accidentally overslept,” Sylvie said.
I didn’t have the energy to bust her, even though she kind of deserves it for trying to hook up with every guy I’ve ever been interested in.
“Get to class, Sylvie,” Mrs. Henry said, obviously irritated.
“I’m going,” Sylvie said.
“Andi?” Mrs. Henry asked, as soon as she was gone.
“Sorry I’m missing first period, but I really don’t feel well,” I said.
“Anything I can do, honey?” she asked.
“I’ll be all right,” I said, looking at the pregnancy test and wondering if anything would ever be all right again.
“If you’re not, just let me know.”
“Thanks,” I said.
As soon as she was gone, I unwrapped the test, stuffed the wrapper in the white bin on the floor between the stalls, and peed on the stick.
Chapter Forty-Three
Ian checked the numbers one more time. Sales had slowed as they always did in January and February, but December, goosed by Christmas and New Year’s, had been good. Actually, great. With the new store open, gross revenue was up 34 percent over the same month in the previous year, and net revenue—not taking into account certain emergency loans—was up 13 percent. With St. Patrick’s Day only days away, things were starting to pick up again.
As his head of sales became more familiar with the category and his biggest customers developed a taste for the stuff, the “vintage and collectible” spirits category had the potential to do real business in its first full year. A local mixologist known for his lumberjack beard and leather apron had even inquired about stock, with the idea of offering an ultra-high-end line of cocktails at his bar.
It was all good news, good enough to wash away the awkward moment during WhaleFest with that drunk Ross Woodston, and afterward when Ian had taken what was left of the bottle of 1957 J.T.S. Brown into his office and done a blind taste test with a brand-new bottle.
The difference was imperceptible enough that he’d called Preston, who assured him that J.T.S. Brown was well known for its consistency from bottle to bottle, year after year.
He would need a lot more than consistency to make a dent in the $350,000 he’d borrowed from Simon. With just over six months left for repayment, it was going to be a challenge to pay it back on time. If he didn’t have an excellent summer, and if he couldn’t get another loan, he’d be going into business with Andi’s father. Which would be awfully awkward to explain.
Wrinkling his nose at the smell of his half-eaten dinner—a delivered order of shrimp pad thai—he closed the Styrofoam clamshell and moved it to one side, using a napkin to wipe the area where he’d been leaning over to eat. He and Andi had ordered and eaten separately, although their delivery drivers had arrived nearly simultaneously. When he’d last seen her, she was downstairs on the couch, reading book proposals.
Apparently, she was done. Coming through his door, she stepped over Rusty, who was sleeping at his feet, handed him her tablet, and sank into a chair.
“What is it?” he asked, even as his eyes found the headline: PREP SCHOOL MURDER RESURFACES.
“Just read it,” she said quietly
.
The art: photos of Dallas and Copeland Hall. It should have been McCormick Mansion, but Copeland was the first big building that came into view as visitors came up Campus Drive.
It was even labeled in the photo description. Seeing his family’s name next to the picture of Dallas made his hands start shaking, forcing him to set the tablet down on his desk.
He read the introductory paragraphs without fully comprehending them. It was only when Andi spoke that it started to sink in.
“They’ve charged Roy,” she said, almost moaning.
Farther down was his booking photo. With his chin up, there was a hint of his old swagger and defiance.
Curtis Royal gained employment at Glenlake Academy after the murder.
Ian’s head snapped up.
“Andi?”
“What?” she said flatly.
“Since when do you call him Roy?”
Chapter Forty-Four
ANDI BLOOM’S GLENLAKE JOURNAL
Wednesday, March 19, 1997
I left a note in the tree, telling Dallas to meet me at our special spot instead of his cottage. It’s such a beautiful day he assumed I wanted to have a romantic picnic and planned accordingly.
I had no appetite, and he lost his as soon as I told him there might have been a very faint pink line.
He said to go get a real test.
That he’d arrange for things to be taken care of.
Things.
It’s not like there’s any other solution, but did he have to be so . . . accusatory? So cold and dead eyed?
So angry.
Where was the Dallas so madly in love he writes me poems and leaves them for me in a tree?
His words today weren’t poetic at all. They keep echoing in my head:
This is a fucking nightmare.
What was I thinking?
And the worst one, straight out of a bad movie of the week:
Did you do this on purpose?
“Did you sleep with Georgina?”
He sneered but didn’t answer. “You did do this on purpose.”
I slapped a glass of wine out of his hand, and he slapped me back.
My face stung as I looked over the cliff and thought about how good it would feel to push him off.
