A Certain Slant of Light

by Laura Whitcomb

  I crept back to my room and changed for bed. As I buttoned my pajamas, I glanced across the room and felt a chill. My book bag was standing open and the contents were neatly stacked inside. Cathy had found the camera. On top of having a heathen boyfriend, I had committed the strange sin of taking pictures. I was so startled when she opened the door, I shrieked.

  Cathy looked at me coldly as if I had called her a name. I tried to smile. I climbed under the covers and she came to my side, putting a thermometer under my tongue. I sat with her in silence for a full minute, her arms folded stiffly, her foot tapping, her eyes red.

  “No fever,” she told me, reading the glass stick at last. “Do you need an ibuprofen?” She shook the thermometer as if punishing it.

  “No,” I said. Then I added, “I’m sorry for making you angry.”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “With your father.”

  That sounded ominous. “Tonight?”

  “He may be late.” Her mind drifted. She stared at the floor, holding the thermometer now like a candle. “You say your prayers,” she said without turning to me.

  “I will,” I told her. I prayed constantly—a flutter of pleading.

  “And you ask God for forgiveness when you confess your sins,” said Cathy, and left me alone.

  I looked through my book bag, but my camera and all my books were still there. I considered calling the police station and asking about James, but I wanted to wait until Cathy had gone to bed. I sat in bed with the light on, too anxious to read, listening to the sounds of Cathy walking in the hall, clinking around in the bathroom, crossing through the hall again. I didn’t remember falling asleep—only the vague impression of someone turning off my lamp.

  I turned the radio in the car on myself, the atmosphere was so oppressive. Dan and Cathy had been arguing about something when I came into the kitchen that morning, and although I suspected it was at least partly about me, they didn’t ask me any questions or give me any orders. Prayer Corner was brief, a long silent prayer with only a few words of Scripture wisdom. Again, the absence of reprimand was foreboding. Now Cathy was sitting forward as she drove, looking as if she hadn’t slept, her grip so tight I could see the taut muscles on her thin arms stand out through her sweater. She didn’t kiss me. She barely remembered to say goodbye. I watched her pull away and was surprised she didn’t run into the students crossing in front of her fender.

  I stood in the middle of the courtyard, searching every face that passed, but James was not one of them. I went to my first class but immediately asked to use the restroom. Wanting to hide in a hole somewhere, I climbed into the empty theater loft. The black cloth was still there. I smelled it, hoping to find a trace of James, but it smelled only like paint. I cried into my sweater so no one would hear me.

  A sandpaper whisper stopped me. I lifted my head, wiping my tears with my sleeves. It came again, like a snake’s belly on stone. Leaning over the edge of the loft, I saw a woman, as delicate and yellow as onion paper, ebbing back and forth in the darkness, her long dress floating behind her and her ringleted head bent over a small book. A faint and lovely scent of candle wax floated up to me. She read in a smoke-thin voice, too soft to understand, paused, held the book to her fragile heart, and closed her eyes. Her paper lantern face glowing up at me, she moved her lips as she committed her lines to eternal memory.

  The bell was so loud it growled through my ribs like a passing train. The vibration seemed to consume the apparition with an invisible flame. The empty stage seemed impossibly dark until a band of day stretched in like a searchlight. I could hear the second-period drama class talking, singing, banging noisily as they dumped their belongings into the front row of seats.

  The firm voice of their teacher interrupted, ordering two pupils on stage. Words filtered up to me. The two voices were awkward ducklings, but they were so free from shame, it was as if they were inventing the poetry for the first time. I recognized the verse, even though they had barely begun. It was Shakespeare. Romeo was luring Juliet into a first kiss. I felt foolish, suddenly. Why was I hiding? Juliet wouldn’t sit on her bed and weep until they married her off to Paris. Go find him, I told myself.

  I climbed down, not caring whether the drama students saw me. James might have been late to school, I told myself. I went to the office and looked at the clipboard that hung on the wall near the mail slots. This was where absent students are listed so the office could contact parents. The names were crossed off as the students arrived late, but Billy’s name was not crossed through. Olivia turned from her phone call. She was unnerved by the sight of me, for some reason. I hurried out, pretending I didn’t hear her call Jenny’s name.

  In the phone booth where James and I had spoken, I dialed his home, and Libby answered.

  “Is Billy there?”

  “No,” she said. Someone in the background was talking to her. “Who’s this?” she asked me.

  “I’m a friend from school,” I said. “I was worried about him.”

  “He’s out on bail,” she said, then I hung up. Mr. Olsen, the school psychologist, was standing outside the booth, waiting for me. I came out, feeling as if I’d been caught stealing.

  “Jennifer, we need to speak to you in the principal’s office.” He was smiling, but his eyes, dark and tense, betrayed a trap. “Would you come with me, please?”

  I walked beside him, silent as a prisoner of war, feeling he and I didn’t have a common language. He was a mild man I had never taken much notice of before. The passion with which he dialed and redialed his cell phone was the most animated thing I had ever seen him do when I had been with Mr. Brown. He never spoke as he listened to the phone. Finally frustrated, he put the phone away and as we entered the administration building, I held my bag to my chest and kept my head down. When we walked into the principal’s office, I stopped breathing. Dan and Cathy rose from two chairs against the far wall. Cathy looked as if she might cry at any moment. Dan was so tense his neck was twitching.

  “What’re you doing here?” I asked.

  Cathy opened her mouth, but Dan cut her off. “Jennifer Ann, please wait until you are spoken to.”

  The principal wasn’t there, but behind her desk was vice principal Flint. Mr. Brown had been polite to him, but neither of us liked him. His compliments were hollow and his smiles forced. He half rose and motioned me to a chair beside the desk. No one sat in the chair that faced the desk, isolated and waiting.

  “We need to ask you a few questions,” said Mr. Flint.

  Don’t say anything, I told myself. They don’t know about James. I never used Billy’s name.

  Mr. Olsen crossed behind the desk and whispered something to the vice principal that irritated him.

  “I’m in charge when she’s away,” Mr. Flint answered him. “Let me do my job.”

  Dismissed, Mr. Olsen stood beside Cathy’s chair, holding his cell phone as if expecting a death-row pardon from the governor.

  “Jenny, your parents have become aware of the fact that you’ve gotten involved with someone recently,” said Mr. Flint. Like a proud usurper, he seemed pleased with his seat behind the large desk.

  “Where’s the principal?” I asked, not meaning to open my mouth.

  “She’s out of town today.” Mr. Flint smoothed his tie and adjusted his smile. “Your mother found this.” He handed me a piece of paper in a clear protective sleeve like exhibit A in a trial.

  I took it and recognized it with a rush of blood to my cheeks. It started with the words: “Dear sir: twelve hours is as twelve years to me.” And ended with the words: “I reread you, memorize you, every waking moment we’re apart.”

  “Who did you write that to?”

  I knew I was blushing, but I couldn’t help it. “No one,” I lied.

  “Jennifer!” Cathy hissed. Dan cleared his throat, a warning growl that shut her up.

  I handed the letter back and glanced up, noticing that Mr. Olsen was looking very distressed by the interrogation.r />
  “Didn’t you tell your mother you had someone special at school?” said Mr. Flint.

  I knew I had to say something. “Just a boy,” I mumbled.

  “Even if that were true,” said Cathy, and I was surprised to find that she was talking to the vice principal and not to me, “it’s still rape. She’s only fifteen.”

  “Cathleen,” Dan said.

  Fifteen. That couldn’t be right. Then I remembered what had bothered me about Jenny’s little paper license. The birth year. She was more than a year younger than Billy.

  Mr. Flint held up a hand to Jenny’s parents to be patient.

  Cathy turned to me, teary. “I found the underwear you tried to wash. I read the letter. I saw the photograph. Tell us what happened.”

  What photograph?

  Dan clamped a hand on her arm, but she rushed on. “The books you’re reading now. They’re not like you. I know what Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are about. They’re about girls who are in love with married men.”

  “Enough,” Dan snapped at her. “Let him handle the questions.”

  Mr. Flint faced me again. “Even the school secretary said she’s noticed your feelings,” he said.

  I just stared at him.

  “You confessed to Miss Lopez that you were in love, didn’t you?” He tapped a pen on the desk and swiveled back and forth in his boss’s chair as if he were screwing it into the floor. “We’re not blaming you,” he said. “But you need to tell us what happened so we can take care of it. This is very serious. We need to know the truth.”

  No, not the truth, I thought. I’m possessing your daughter’s body, but everything’s all right.

  “Who gave you that button?” Cathy asked me.

  I flinched, wanting to cover it instinctively where I had it pinned to my bag. Cathy jumped too, as if expecting Dan to strike her.

  “I told you,” I said. “A friend gave it to me.”

  “Did you take this picture?” Mr. Flint handed me another sheet protector, this one with a single black-and-white photo inside. I stared at Mr. Brown’s face in the small square—he was looking back over his shoulder, the white wall of the administration building behind him. It was the picture I had taken of him with Jenny’s camera. The picture Cathy must have stolen from my school bag.

  “Yes,” I said. I was confused now. Were they going to trace James through the button from Mr. Brown’s class?

  “Don’t cover up for him,” Cathy pleaded.

  “Be quiet,” Dan ordered. And she obeyed by pressing a finger over her own lips.

  I had an odd urge to laugh. “You think the boy is Mr. Brown?”

  Finally Dan spoke up. “Tim Redman, a member of our church, is a police officer,” he told Mr. Flint. “He did us a favor.” Now Dan looked at me. “We found out this morning that you called this teacher’s home on Monday night.”

  A coldness started creeping into my heart and up my throat. I had the peculiar feeling that Dan enjoyed telling me about the phone call more than he disliked the idea of me making it. So a policeman from Jenny’s church had helped Dan and Cathy spy on their daughter. Officer Redman. He must’ve been the man I’d seen at the picnic with a baby sleeping on the shoulder of his uniform.

  “No,” I said. “Well, yes, I called his house, but no, it’s not Mr. Brown.”

  But then Mr. Brown walked in, as if summoned. Obviously he hadn’t been told why. He looked blankly at Dan and Cathy, then his eyes rested on me. I was horrified that he would think I had accused him of something. I met his eyes with panic. “Run!” I urged him with my mind. “It’s a trap!”

  “You wanted to see me?” He glanced at Mr. Flint, then at the counselor, growing visibly more anxious.

  “Have a seat.” The vice principal motioned him to the chair in front of the desk, the chair in the center of the room, removed from all other furniture, like an electric chair. Mr. Brown sat. He looked at me again and asked, “Are you all right?”

  I nodded and noticing I still held the photograph of him, turned it over on my lap to hide it. I felt as if the air were swallowing me, slowly digesting me with acid. I felt Mr. Brown wanting to read my expression, but I couldn’t bear to look him in the face. I knew that Cathy was watching me, reading my distress as passion. And I knew that she was looking at Mr. Brown, imagining how I might have become infatuated with his face and form and how he might have realized this and cornered me in a dim classroom. With sweating hands, I pressed the picture of him to my legs as I heard Mr. Flint introducing him to Jenny’s parents.

  “Michael,” said Mr. Flint. “You know this student, Jennifer Thompson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever met with her outside of class?”

  “In my classroom during my free period,” he said, not seeing the ambush.

  “Were you alone with her?” asked Mr. Flint.

  “Well, yes.” In the pause between those two words, I could hear him realize what was happening.

  “Was the door opened or closed?”

  “Open,” he said, going pale. “I think.”

  “Have you ever had physical contact with this student?” Mr. Flint sounded as though he had watched too many courtroom dramas.

  “No,” said Mr. Brown. “Yes.” He sighed. “I touched her arm, or her hand.” He rubbed his palms on his knees. “Her head, maybe. I can’t remember. She was upset.”

  “Was she crying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why was she crying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you ever had sexual contact with this student?”

  “No,” said Mr. Brown. A weight settled in him, a horror that pressed on his heart so heavily he had to take a deep breath to continue. He turned to Cathy and Dan to reassure them. “I would never do that.”

  “Has she ever called you at your home?” asked Mr. Flint.

  “No.” Mr. Brown turned to me now for support, but I couldn’t speak.

  “Never?”

  “No.”

  “She didn’t call you Monday night?” Mr. Flint cocked his head as if he had tricked him.

  Mr. Brown looked Mr. Flint straight in the eye. “No.” But now he didn’t seem as sure.

  “But she is special to you,” said the vice principal, tapping the desk again, swiveling his chair.

  Mr. Brown looked at me and didn’t seem to know how to answer. I saw in his eyes that he felt something powerful between us. He sensed me, his lost companion, hiding inside Jenny. Once I would have done anything to hear him say that he knew me and loved me, but now I was terrified at the idea. Please don’t try and explain it, I prayed.

  “Michael, didn’t you ask for her file just this morning?”

  He looked away from me at last and blinked at Mr. Flint. “I was worried about her because she was upset on Tuesday, and this morning she looked as if she’d been crying—”

  I looked up at Dan and Cathy. She was staring at Mr. Brown as if he were a monster she was afraid to confront. Dan held her wrist hard like a manacle. His expression was icy, but there was something missing in his eyes.

  “She gave you this.” Mr. Flint was holding up a clear page protector with a piece of notebook paper inside. Mr. Brown got up to take it and sat back down, reading it over. I saw only the back of the paper, but I recognized it at once. An itchy feeling of frustration started making my fists clench.

  “You dropped it in the office yesterday,” Mr. Flint explained.

  “Oh,” said Mr. Brown. He gave the page a shake to make it stand straight in its plastic sleeve. His jaw tensed the way it did when he was trying to avoid tears.

  “This is from Jennifer, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat.

  “But you’re saying you’re not involved with her,” said Mr. Flint.

  “She didn’t write it about me,” Mr. Brown explained. “She just read it to me.”

  The harder he tried to be calm, the more I felt the urge to touch him, to rest my head on th
e back of his neck as I had so often before.

  “Where did she read this to you?” the vice principal wanted to know.

  My frustration jumped up my legs and made me stand. “Stop it!”

  Mr. Flint gaped at me.

  “Jennifer?” I ignored Dan’s voice.

  “Mr. Brown has never treated me with anything less than respect and kindness. He did not take advantage of me.”

  Mr. Flint took a moment and then said, “But you do love him.”

  My legs went weak and I sat down again, the plastic-wrapped photo in my fists. I looked at Mr. Brown and couldn’t find the strength to lie. I knew the silence that came before my answer was condemning.

  “Not in the way you mean,” I said.

  The room was perfectly quiet for a long moment.

  “Might I make a suggestion?” Mr. Olsen still held his cell phone at the ready.

  “Later,” was all Mr. Flint said to him. He swiveled toward Mr. Brown. “Thank you, Michael. We’ll let you know if we have any more questions.”

  Mr. Brown stood up slowly, and I know he was watching me as he left the room, but I felt too wretched to raise my head. I sat, rolling up the plastic sleeve that held my only picture of him, though I’d known him since he was Billy’s age.

  “Jennifer, I can tell you’re a very caring person.” Mr. Flint’s voice was like a poison now, burning in my ears. “You would do whatever you could to keep Mr. Brown out of trouble, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, hoping he would offer some escape. “Even lie?”

  I put the picture of Mr. Brown back on his desk. “I don’t need to lie about his being innocent.”

  “Did he ask you to keep a secret for him?” Mr. Flint’s poison was burning my eyes now too. “Some secrets aren’t meant to be kept.”

  “Bring me a Bible,” I said, and I heard Cathy gasp. “I swear Mr. Brown is not my lover.” I looked the man straight in the eyes, ignoring the venom. “He would never do that to his wife. He’s completely devoted to her. He lights up when she just smiles at him—” I stopped when I realized that Mr. Flint was frowning at me.