“Jennifer,” he asked. “How do you know that?”
The room went still as a stopped clock. My defenses were gone. I retreated into mute surrender.
Mr. Olsen’s voice was tense, his face red. “Both parties say nothing happened.”
Mr. Flint bristled. “I promise we’ll investigate the situation thoroughly,” he told Dan and Cathy.
“Mr. Flint?” Dan’s voice had a prosecutor’s edge. “You’ve had your turn. Now I’m going to speak.” He moved into the center of the room. “Tomorrow we will be transferring our daughter out of your school.” He paused for effect, having chosen his words long before. “We will be pressing criminal charges. And we will be filing a suit against the department of education.” Apparently Mr. Flint was speechless. Dan snapped his fingers, and Cathy rushed forward, lifting me from my chair by one arm.
All the way home, I sat like a doll, buckled in the back seat behind Cathy. Dan drove, neither of them speaking to me. Cathy said something to him quietly and he turned on the radio to cover their words. It was nothing like the music in Cathy’s car. A symphony, heavy with violins. When we got home, I just sat in the car. Cathy had to open my door.
“Let’s go.” She undid my seat belt and started to pick up my bag. I felt a wave of panic that seared through me like a lightning bolt.
“I need to use the phone,” I said. “I have to be somewhere.” I didn’t even know what I was going to say. I was vibrating with a desperate energy. “I need some time.”
Cathy’s face covered a flash of fear with a determined strictness. “Young lady,” she said, her jaw taut. “Get out of the car and inside now.”
I climbed out of the back seat and looked around the garage as I jabbered on like a lunatic. “It’s hard to explain,” I said. “I have to take care of some things.”
Dan took my elbow and led me into the house. Next moment, Cathy had an arm around my waist and was leading me to Jenny’s bedroom.
“I left things in my locker,” I babbled. “I have to go back.”
“Jennifer Ann, be still,” Cathy snapped at me as if I were three years old.
I sat on my bed and, through the open door, watched Jenny’s parents in the hall whispering in hot little bursts. I couldn’t understand their words, but next moment, Cathy disappeared, and Dan was left in my doorway, gazing at me with an odd expression. What was it? He believed his fifteen-year-old daughter was having an affair with her high school English teacher, and although he had been angry in the principal’s office, there had been something missing in his eyes, and the same dark hole was staring back at me now.
What was it I wasn’t seeing? He believed his little girl had been defiled, yet he could feel only fury. This look that he gave me now, after the anger had ebbed, was not the pain of a man who had failed at protecting his daughter, it was a look of fascination. He was simply curious about me, imagining me with a grown man, having sex in an empty classroom. What was missing was sorrow. I felt a chill run through every rib. When Cathy came back into the hall, I saw his expression shift into disapproval again. Cathy came at me with a glass of water and a pill in her outstretched palm.
“Take it,” she said, firmly. “And get in bed.”
Dan slipped out of view and I picked up the pill, holding it between thumb and finger.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Valium,” she said tightly. “I’m going to make you a doctor’s appointment.”
When she looked away to see whether Dan was still in the doorway, I pretended to put the pill on my tongue but kept it in my closed hand. I took the water and jerked my head back a little as I swallowed.
“I’ll wake you for dinner,” she said, “and you will tell us the truth. Have no doubt about that.”
Cathy closed the door behind her, and I rolled the pill in a tissue before tossing it in the white wicker wastebasket. I didn’t have a real plan. I just needed to be with James. I bunched up clothes and placed them down the middle of my bed, draping my blanket over the mound. I turned off the light and gently opened my bedroom window, climbing out right foot first. I wondered whether this was how Jenny left her body behind—one day she had to escape so she threw a blanket over her flesh and gently climbed out.
I hadn’t even thought to bring my purse. I hopped into the eerie perfection of Cathy and Dan’s backyard. No pet, no bird, not even a weed contaminated the silence there.
I crept out of the side yard and walked down the street, wanting to run but not wanting to attract interest. I didn’t even have enough money in my pocket for the bus, but an old woman in the front seat, with a tiny dog peering out of her purse, gave me a quarter. I thanked her but was so embarrassed, I walked to the back where she couldn’t see me. I had taken the city bus enough times now to know which stop was near Amelia, but I was too anxious to sit. I waited at the back door, standing on the step.
I tried to picture James explaining that the charges against him had been dropped. They couldn’t jail him for loving me. He was still under age himself. Even if Cathy and Dan sent me to another school, we would find each other—in the library, at the park, in the shopping mall.
As I walked up to the Amelia house, I saw in the driveway two cars, Mitch’s and Libby’s. I knew I shouldn’t knock on the door—I had been banished, but I couldn’t help it. Mitch answered. He was frowning, shirtless, his eyes darkly shadowed.
“May I talk to Billy?”
“No,” said Mitch. “He can’t see anyone.”
“Just for a minute—”
“Go back to school,” he told me, and let the door slam.
I just stood there on the front walk for a few moments, my mind running in little rat circles. I saw that Billy’s bedroom window was curtained. Finally I decided to creep down the graveled side yard of the next door neighbor’s house. Their driveway was empty and their windows dark. I stared in at Billy’s backyard with my fingers through the chain link, straddling a concrete grave marker in the grass that read: OUR MITZY. We had decided we should return the bodies we’d stolen, but we had no plan about how to go about it. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t leave without at least a glimpse of James.
And then he was there. He came out on the porch beside the washer and dryer, scanning the yard secretively as if having heard someone was calling for him.
“Here!” I said. He ran up and put his fingers through the fence to touch mine.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “What did they do to you?
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll go to the police and explain,” I said.
“It’s not because of you.” He glanced behind him to make sure we weren’t being observed. “A girl from another school says Billy stood by and watched two of his friends rape her.”
The thought seized at my heart. I remembered the girl, her cheerleader uniform, the way she stared at James until her friend had led her away. “Will you go to jail?”
“They want me to testify against them.” His hands were icy. “But I don’t remember what happened. I wasn’t Billy then.”
Tell them whatever they want to hear, I felt like shouting at him. But I knew he wouldn’t lie.
“I have to get him back in his body,” James said. He looked me in the eyes for a moment and then let go of my hands. “Wait for me at the park, the one with the deer statue.”
“Will Mitch let you come?”
“No.”
I sat down on the base of the statue, but a voice sent me to my feet at once.
“Mommy!”
The park was deserted except for a small boy sitting in an empty swing, glowing like a full moon. Smiling, he kicked his feet, but the swing hung perfectly still. He was looking in my direction, but it wasn’t to me he spoke. He ignored me completely and leaned back, tilting up out of the swing, then forward into the air. He jumped with a laugh and disappeared like a firefly blinking out. Feeling queasy, I sat holding on to the iron ankle of the deer and waited perhaps ten minutes before I saw James.<
br />
He held out a hand and I ran to him. We didn’t speak until we were at the bus bench. I huddled against him, praying that the bus would come soon, not looking up at the cars, afraid of seeing a rusty one. James kept an arm tight around me. It wasn’t cold, but my teeth rattled.
“My parents think I’m having an affair with Mr. Brown,” I told him.
“What?” His whole frame jumped.
“I’ve made a mess of everything.”
“Tell them it’s me,” said James.
I considered telling him that I was only fifteen but instead hid my face in his neck and breathed in the scent of him—sweet salt, laundry soap, something indescribable that was just James.
We managed to get on the bus without being caught, and James read the map on the wall above the seats, almost as if searching for the secret instructions on how to lure Billy Blake back into his flesh.
Fifteen
THIS TIME WHEN JAMES signed in at the hospital, I signed in after him, forgetting to write Jenny’s name until I had already written the word Helen. After it, I found that I had written the word Lamb. My father’s name or my husband’s, from a life I could not recall. I dropped the pen and followed James.
The halls smelled like strong soap and coffee. When we came into her room, Billy’s mother sat in a wheelchair. Verna held the silent woman’s bare foot in her lap, carefully painting her toenails pale pink. We stood in the doorway, and Verna smiled.
“I guess the cat’s out of the bag,” she said.
James came closer, watching Billy’s mother. She wore a yellow bathrobe with tiny roses on it.
“If I didn’t pretend to need you boys to bring me,” said Verna, “how would we ever get Mitch to come visit?”
James wasn’t listening.
“Who’s your friend?” Verna asked him.
“I’m Jenny,” I said.
“Verna, you know how drugs can affect your brain?” James asked.
The woman stared at him, open as a sunflower. “Sure, hon.”
He was in a rush, but he stopped and took a breath, smiling at Verna. “Are you my mother’s best friend?”
“Since we were eighteen.”
“Would you tell me what happened to my mom?” he asked. “I don’t remember.”
She thought about this for only a heartbeat. “Your father was drinking, Mitch was at work, you and your mother were home. He used a bookend instead of his hand, and he didn’t stop.”
“Why didn’t I stop him?”
“Honey,” she said, almost as if scolding him. “You were twelve. And he threw you through a window.”
“And I think Mitch blames me,” said James. “Right?”
The question threw her off for a moment, but she capped the nail polish and looked at him sternly. “Billy, Mitch thinks if he’d been there, he could’ve saved you both.”
“What’s her first name?” James asked. We had both heard it before, but I couldn’t recall it either.
Now Verna looked a little unnerved. “Sarah.” She lowered Sarah’s freshly painted left foot and backed out of the way when James knelt in front of the wheelchair.
“Sarah,” he whispered to her. “Billy isn’t dead. I’m holding his place. But I don’t know how to call him back.” James took her right hand and tried to look her in the eyes, but her head was tilted forward and her mouth hung slack. “Help me,” said James.
I was praying for James to get some kind of message. Verna looked very confused.
“Please,” said James. “What should I do?”
Verna looked at me now, but I couldn’t answer the question in her eyes.
“Please.” James put Sarah’s right hand to his face. “Show me what to do.” Her whole body was as still as wax, except for a tiny twitch that started now in her left hand.
“What’s going on?” Fear had crept into Verna’s voice.
The overhead light flashed off the wedding band as the ring finger on Sarah’s hand trembled.
“Look,” I said. James followed my gaze and saw the twitching now. He touched the ring with one finger and it stopped shaking.
“Thank you,” he said, and kissed the hand he held.
“Where are they holding my father?” he asked Verna.
“Glisan.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Mitch never took you?”
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Straight out MLK.” Verna reached for her purse. “I’ll drive you.”
“No.” James took my hand. “Please stay here with Sarah.”
Verna watched anxiously as we hurried out.
When we were halfway across the parking lot, I looked back and through the glass doors saw Verna borrow the receptionist’s telephone.
James had to stand beside the bus driver for the first couple of blocks to get advice about where to transfer. A toddler in a man’s arms three rows back cried a tired stream of tears that made my bones ache. When I was Light, I hardly heard the weeping of infants, but now every sob pulsed in my head.
When James came to sit beside me, he held my hand to his chest. Like a knight before battle, he was gathering strength, watching the horizon, rubbing my fingers so hard they tingled. Please, I thought, please don’t leave me.
I looked to the window across from us and saw what looked like a double image. There were two of him reflected, but only one of me. James squeezed my hand tighter.
“It’s him,” he whispered.
The double image was gone.
“Who?” I asked.
“Billy.”
I felt a sudden joy; something that was happening here had called him back. I scanned every windowpane, wanting to see Billy Blake’s spirit, if I could. But I felt anxious about his presence, too; I was afraid it signaled the end of my time with James.
When we transferred to a second bus and sat in the front row, James finally looked at me and kissed me as if savoring a dip at the well before crossing a desert. I felt an urgency fill him and his face warmed with color.
“What are you going to say to his father?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What’s going to happen to us?” I sat with my arms around him and my legs over his.
“I don’t know.” We were both trembling but not in the same way. Not like when we were making love. Now I was trembling with fear, and James was vibrating with excitement—a hunter tracking a bear; a child stepping out into the night on Halloween.
The Glisan County Prison was a slate-colored grid. A huge lawn stretched out in front of the office that sat outside the enormous fences. It reminded me of a mausoleum where they don’t want the corpses to escape. Once inside the lobby, I waited near the glass doors while James talked with the uniformed man behind the front desk. Half a dozen people waited in plastic chairs surrounding a low table covered with wrinkled magazines: a few middle-aged black men in bowling shirts, a large woman with a gigantic purse, a pale girl with a patch over one eye.
A guard came and led one of the men down the hall and around a corner. The man behind the desk was shaking his head at James, but James didn’t give up. I was standing so near the door that Mitch almost ran into me when he stormed in.
He was wearing jeans and boots but only an undershirt, as if he’d rushed out in such a fury that he didn’t notice. He pulled James around by the arm, but James didn’t flinch. I could hear Mitch’s acidic whisper, but I couldn’t understand the words until they moved away from the desk, back closer to the entrance.
“Are you fucking nuts?”
“I need to see him,” said James.
Now I could see Mitch’s face as he stepped around James, positioning himself between his brother and the hallway. “You don’t talk to me? You just run?” Mitch had his hands on his hips as if angry, but I saw his wrist shaking, and it wasn’t rage.
James whispered something I couldn’t hear.
“If you’re looking for goddamn answers, I got one,” said Mitch. “Tell them what those two little fuckers did. I can’
t believe you’re protecting them.”
Again James spoke too low for me to hear.
Mitch put his face in his hands. “Shit!”
Now the other visitors were watching the two brothers. Mitch returned to the desk, slapped open his wallet to show his driver’s license to the man behind the counter. He signed the clipboard, still seething. James moved close to Mitch, seeming to have forgotten me. I wished I had Jenny’s camera with me. I wanted to photograph the back of James’s head—the way his hair made dark arrows on his damp neck.
“Maybe it’ll do you good,” Mitch grumbled. “See what it’s like in there.”
A guard approached them, and Mitch clutched a fistful of James’s shirt as if he were planning on dragging him into the meeting room by force to face his father. James put his arm around Mitch’s waist and, as he spread his hand on his brother’s back, Mitch relaxed. The guard led them down the corridor, and I saw Mitch cup his brother’s head in his big hand as they turned the corner of the hall and disappeared.
I was about to quietly take a seat and pretend to read a magazine, when someone spoke to me.
“Jenny?”
I looked over to find a tall policeman with a gold mustache standing in the lobby, holding a folder. He looked familiar. He frowned at me, but the next moment he was grinning, sliding the folder under one arm.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked, looming over me.
“My friend’s father—” I started, but I didn’t know how much to say.
“Where are your parents?”
“I came with my friend,” I told him.
“Why aren’t you in school?”
I opened my mouth, to say, what? That I’d been taken out of school because I’d been having sex with the English teacher?
His expression cooled. His name tag said Redman—the policeman from the church picnic, the one who had done Dan a favor—he’d gone through channels, copied phone records, proved that I had called Mr. Brown at home. “Wait here,” he ordered.
I might’ve run, but I was waiting for James. I watched Officer Redman lean in toward the man at the front desk, exchange a few words with him, borrow his phone. I didn’t hear all that was said, but he did laugh out loud when he said into the receiver, “Better look again. I think she woke up.”
A Certain Slant of Light Page 20
