Never Turn Back

by Christopher Swann

  “What—” I said, and then Marisa was kissing me, guiding my hands under her blouse.

  I pulled away. “Marisa, what are you doing?”

  “I wanted you,” she said, her face tilted up to mine. It was dark in the room, but light from the parking lot next to the Stone House came through the blinds, a false moonlight. “I wanted you today. I’m sorry I startled you in our classroom. I’ll be more careful.”

  I relaxed a bit, my hands at her waist. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks for that. It just—caught me off guard.”

  “Hmm,” Marisa said, and her hands slid up the back of my shirt. “That sounds fun.”

  I kissed her, long and slow. When we finally broke apart, I murmured, “Why don’t we go to my place?”

  Marisa smiled and took her lower lip between her teeth. “There’s a very comfortable couch right over there,” she said. She leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Have you ever been fucked on a couch, Ethan?”

  Which is how Marisa ended up straddling me on the couch in Cara Delonghi’s office, riding me to a shouted orgasm while the entire school cheered in the next building.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I have been grading my students’ practice AP exam essays and have just taken a break to search my office for my grade book, which I have once again misplaced, when there’s a knock and Coleman Carter is in the doorway.

  “Father Coleman,” I say.

  “Have you checked your email?” he asks.

  “I’m notoriously bad about checking my email.” As I say this, I wake up my laptop and look at my inbox. There’s a message from Jean Edwards, Teri Merchant’s assistant, sent at 9:14 this morning: Ethan, are you free to stop by Teri’s office at 11:00? It is now almost a quarter past eleven.

  I look at Coleman. “What’s going on?”

  He shrugs, clearly making a tremendous effort to look clueless. “I’ll walk you over,” he says.

  I look at him suspiciously. “You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope.”

  I stand, lock my office door, and walk down the hall with him. We take a sharp turn to the left toward the front entrance and then go up one flight of stairs to the administration level. The door to Teri’s office proper is open, so I walk in. Teri is seated behind her desk, talking to a student sitting in a chair facing her. The student turns around. It is Mark Mitchell, who bothered to shave today, so his moon face is round and smooth as a baby’s.

  “Mr. Faulkner,” Teri says. Teri Merchant is approaching fifty and looks a bit matronly in her sweater sets, but underneath the professional exterior is a shrewd intelligence that has served her well as a Black female principal in Atlanta’s private-school market. “Please. Have a seat.”

  Behind me, Coleman steps into the office, closing the door behind him with a quiet snik.

  I sink into the remaining chair Teri indicates, next to Mark. “Mr. Mitchell,” I say. “How’s it going?” Mark smiles and murmurs something.

  “Thanks for coming,” Teri says.

  “Sure,” I say. “No problem. Sorry I didn’t read my email earlier.”

  Coleman settles himself into a wingback chair off to the side, an audience of one waiting for the curtain to rise. I begin to feel uneasy.

  “Mr. Faulkner, you’ve taught here for almost four years now,” Teri begins.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, keeping my face neutral. What is going on?

  “I have to say,” Teri continues, glancing at Mark, then Coleman, “that it is unusual for us to hire teachers fresh out of college. Let alone have them teach an AP course.”

  Technically, they hired me to teach freshman English my first year. Then the newly hired AP English teacher, Cindy Stone, announced to her class that her job was to see that everyone got an A in AP English. Her students took that as a promise that whatever they did, Mrs. Stone would give them an A, and so she spent the rest of the year trying to get her students to finish their homework and take the class seriously. Her contract wasn’t renewed for the following year, and after sending me to an AP workshop over the summer, they gave me the class starting my second year.

  Beyond that, Teri Merchant and I had a shared history—she had known and worked with my mother. I’d never had her as a teacher, and when I applied for the job at Archer, I did not realize that Principal Teri Merchant was the same Ms. Merchant who had taught seventh-grade English at Dunwoody Middle.

  “We took a chance on you,” she says, as if reading my mind. “We could have easily said no and encouraged you to reapply after a few years of experience. But we did not.”

  For a few seconds I have a horrible thought: someone saw me and Marisa in flagrante delicto at school. While dating a coworker isn’t against the rules, I’m pretty sure having sex with a coworker in your closet, or on the school counselor’s couch, would be frowned upon, at the very least. My face warms at the thought, and my heartbeat starts to thud loudly in my ears.

  Then Teri is looking expectantly at me, a quizzical smile on her face, and I realize she has spoken but I didn’t hear her. I clear my throat. “I’m sorry?” I say.

  Teri looks at Coleman, who sits up in his chair, about to take on his own role in this production.

  “The student council, of which I am the faculty sponsor,” Coleman says, “selects one faculty member a year for the Archer Faculty Award, given to the best faculty member as voted on by the student body.” He is grinning now and nods at Mark. Mark turns to me, his eyes wide, his face trying to look solemn even though a smile is clearly breaking through, like sunshine through clouds.

  In a quiet, almost hushed voice, Mark says, “We voted for you, Mr. Faulkner,” and then suddenly we are all standing, and Teri is congratulating me, and Coleman too, and Mark shakes my hand with a crushing grip and his usual half smile, and I’m blushing for real now, overcome with a swelling happiness as if my heart has filled with helium and is carrying me up into the air, away from any earthbound concerns.

  * * *

  I HAVE NO idea how I manage to teach my class of freshmen after lunch. I’m giddy and distracted, and when my freshmen ask once again if we can have class outside—it’s a beautiful blue-sky day, the few puffy white clouds for contrast only—I almost say yes. They want to see if I will ever relent, and they also want to hear my usual response: “I don’t wear sandals, I don’t eat granola, and I don’t have class outside.” It’s stupid, but it usually makes them laugh. Today I just tell them no and have them turn to act 4 of Romeo and Juliet, where they act out the scene in which Paris tries ineffectually to woo Juliet and the Friar hovers in the background like the worst matchmaker in history. Before I know it, class is over and my students thank me as they leave the classroom. It’s something I really enjoy, this spontaneous chorus of thank-yous at the end of each class. It’s straight out of a sitcom fantasy of high school, and it always reminds me of how lucky I am to teach here. Today each thank-you feels like a personal tribute. These kids, I think, high-fiving one of them, are the greatest. When the last student leaves and the door swings shut behind him, I sit at my classroom desk, staring into space with a goofy grin.

  I’m not sure how long it is after class is over that the door opens. I’m still sitting at my desk, and at the sound of the door I snap to attention and sit up. Marisa is standing there. “Hi,” she says, the door swinging shut behind her. “What’s going on?”

  “You’ll never believe what just happened,” I say.

  She cocks her head, a smile playing on her lips. “Something about … a teaching award?”

  I look at her in surprise. “How did you—wait, did Mark say something? Because he’s not supposed to say anything until they announce it.”

  Her smile widens. “I might have had a little something to do with it.”

  I stare at her. “What?”

  She laughs softly. “It wasn’t just me,” she says. “The Faculty Award. All the students voted. Although I did mention your name to a few people. Primed th
e pump, so to speak.” Now a full, wicked smile from her. “Mark was a sweetheart.”

  Mark Mitchell, the influential student council president who, despite his semi-slacker pose in class, is smart and dedicated. The same Mark who I’ve seen watching Marisa, his eyes tracking her around the classroom with something like awe. No, not awe. Infatuation.

  My heart drops like an elevator into a coal mine. I stare at her, my earlier feelings of pride dissolving. This isn’t happening, some part of me insists.

  Marisa’s smile softens, coming close to an approximation of sincerity. “And you deserved it,” she says. “You’re such a good teacher, Ethan. Your students know it and wanted to give that award to you.”

  “You,” I begin, and my voice catches, my throat dry. “You … told students to vote for me?”

  She chuckles. “It’s not like I stuffed the ballot boxes or anything. I just made a few suggestions.” She tilts her head down flirtatiously. “Maybe we should celebrate.”

  “You manipulated Mark,” I say. “Why would you do that?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. Manipulated? I only told him how important teaching is to you, how much you care about the school.” She walks toward me. “I know how much it means to you. It’s a good thing, Ethan. And your mother would be so proud.”

  Something in my head gives way at that, some restraint, and I’m flooded with shame. Something else, too—it takes me a moment to realize I’m angry. I stand up. “Marisa,” I say, and something in my voice brings her to a halt.

  She looks puzzled for a moment, and then her mouth opens in an ah of recognition. “You’re having an attack of conscience,” she says, making it sound like I’ve got a stuffy nose. “I get it.” She takes a step closer. “But you can’t tell me you didn’t want that award.”

  “Not like this,” I say, and the iron in my voice makes her hesitate. I’m clearly pissed. “You shouldn’t have done that, Marisa.”

  She smiles, slowly, and reaches a hand to my face. I step back. “Don’t,” I say.

  She takes another step—she’s close enough for me to touch. “Ethan,” she says in a low voice, almost a whisper, “you don’t want me to touch you? Don’t you think about me, about us, together?”

  I want her. I admit it. Standing there with her eyes on me, lips parted, waiting for me to reach out and take her, put my mouth on her, slide her skirt down …

  “No,” I say. I lean back against my desk and grip the edge of it.

  She stands there, dumbfounded. “What?” she asks, her voice slightly higher, her question raw and direct, and I realize this is the first honest, unaffected reaction she’s had since she walked into my room.

  I spread my hands, futilely trying to encompass the whole situation with a gesture. “Why would you do this?” I say. “Why would you bring up my mother? You don’t know anything about my mother.”

  “I know everything about your mom,” she says. “About what happened to you and your parents. I read the news reports.” Her face forms a look of sympathy and concern, her eyes downcast and eyebrows quirked, mouth curved into a slight frown, but I see it for what it is—a construction, a mask. “After we met, I went and found out what happened to you. To your family.”

  I lean back, horrified. “You researched me?”

  “It was a home invasion,” she says, something like pity in her face. “Two men were chasing a woman who ran to your house. Your father let her in, and they came in after her.”

  I shake my head, trying to deny her words, but the vault of my memory is open and the images pour out in a flood.

  The silver shoe on our front walk.

  My mother kissing the top of my head, telling me I was a good big brother.

  The growl of the car pulling up in our driveway.

  The coppery taste like pennies in my mouth from the adrenaline.

  The doorbell ringing and the knocking, frantic, like a child beating at the front door.

  Marisa continues, inexorable as night. “Your father let the woman into your house, and the men chasing her found her and came in after her. Those men shot you, and your parents, and your sister.” She reaches out and places her hand on my arm. “They hurt you.”

  I shake my head, wanting her to stop but unable to speak for the moment.

  “They hurt you and your family,” Marisa continues. “But I knew from the moment we met that I could help you. I did this for you, Ethan. I wish you would trust me. You can tell me anything, Ethan. I would do anything for you. I can help you.”

  That anger is back again, boiling under the lid I’m keeping on it. It helps me find my voice. “I don’t want your help. I don’t need it.”

  Her expression doesn’t change as much as freeze in place, although her hand drops from my arm. “Yes, you do,” she says. “You do. You have no idea what I would do for you. What I’ve done.”

  I step back. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” I say, and just saying the words makes me feel as if I have been holding my breath, as if now I can finally breathe again.

  Marisa smiles like a painting that hangs a little crooked. “Okay,” she says. “Obviously you’re upset. Let’s just take a break. You can go get some coffee, whatever, and then we can talk about—”

  “I don’t want to do any of this anymore,” I say.

  She stares at me, long enough that I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying anything else just to fill the silence. Finally, her voice low, Marisa says, “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “I’m sorry; I don’t want to hurt you, but—”

  “Hurt me?” The scorn in her voice is like knots in a whip lashing into me. Her cheeks are flushed now, her eyes flashing with some barely repressed emotion. “You think you’re breaking my heart or something?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I hope not. But”—and I raise a hand out to her in supplication—“what the hell are you doing, Marisa? Manipulating our students? Getting into my personal life?”

  “Your personal life?” she says, her voice rising. “I’m sorry, I thought we had a relationship, and now suddenly I’m getting up in your personal life?”

  My voice rises to meet hers. “It’s not a relationship if you’re playing games and digging into my past behind my back!”

  She clenches her fists, her eyes burning with anger. “So now I’m just your whore, is that it? I embarrass you, but I’m good enough for a fuck?”

  I am wholly unprepared for her reaction and just stare at her, shocked, unable to form a response. Then her hands go to her waist and she pulls her skirt down, then yanks her shirt over her head. She stands before me in a bra and black panties, furious, an enraged nymph. “Then fuck me, Ethan,” she says, sneering. “Fuck me like the whore you think I am. Right here, on your desk. Do it.”

  I stare at her, dumb in the face of her rage. Then I turn away from her and place my hands on the back of a chair and stand there, hands gripping the chair back, head slightly bowed. Part of me wonders if she’ll attack me, snatch the three-hole punch off my desk and bash me in the head. I stand that way, my back to her, for some time, listening. Then I hear my classroom door slam shut. Marisa is gone.

  PART II

  The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

  —William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Susannah was refusing to eat again. She scowled across her dinner plate at our mother, who twisted her wedding ring. “Honey,” Mom said, “go on and eat your peas.”

  “They’re cold,” Susannah said.

  Mom glanced at the kitchen doorway. “Please, Susannah,” she said. “Your father wants you to eat your vegetables.” Something about her voice, a pleading tone underneath her usual Irish lilt, stirred my sense of filial duty.

  “Use the microwave, Suzie,” I said.

  Susannah spat, “Don’t call me that.”

  “Just heat up the goddamned peas, Suze.”

  “Ethan,” my mother said.

  “You heat
them up,” Susannah said.

  “You’re a big girl now,” I said. “Toilet-trained and everything. You do it.”

  It was like arguing with a flat tire. The only way to change Susannah’s mind would be to open up the top of her skull and physically remove her brain. Ever since she had turned nine—just after Dad returned from Iraq—she had refused to do anything she didn’t want to do, but it had become an annoying game lately; she was trying to see how far she could push us. The game threatened to become dangerous whenever she acted this way around our father. Pushing him wasn’t advisable. You never knew which Dad would rise to the surface. Sometimes he would be stern, like the soldier he had been, but otherwise normal. Other times he would just stand there and look lost, a baffled expression on his face. And then there were times when our father could be mean. He had never hit us—not yet, a treasonous voice whispered in my head—but he could shout, and he would glower at me and my sister if we were too loud. Once, when Susannah and I were sniping at each other, Dad had snatched the pepper mill from the table and thrown it across the kitchen, putting a dent in the pantry door. I wasn’t sure which was worse: seeing Dad turn mean, or not knowing which Dad would be coming home that night.

  Like my mother—and I cursed myself for having the same weakness, the same fear—I glanced at the kitchen doorway, the pencil-yellow walls highlighting the empty space there.

  Susannah saw me do it, like she saw everything.

  “The big bad wolf isn’t there, Ethan,” she said. “You’re safe for now.”

  “Just shut up,” I said.

  “That’s enough,” Mom said in the same voice she used to still a classroom of sixth graders. Usually this would be enough to subdue me, and Susannah would grin triumphantly at me behind Mom’s back. But something was different that day. Maybe I was sick of Susannah provoking me. Maybe I was sick of seeing my mother’s anxiety, of being afraid myself, the fear of my father a bright prison searchlight that stabbed out and pinned us mercilessly to the wall. But I also knew that, somewhere at my core, I was simply angry. I was the older sibling, the only other man in the house. Wasn’t I supposed to take care of my mother and sister if my father couldn’t—or wouldn’t?