Beneath her light brown skin was a tinge, and her eyes were bloodshot as she held back tears. This job—her job—was originally meant for Brittany and Nate just admitted how he regretted her not taking it. That means he had to regret not having Brittany in a sexual sense too.
Nate really had settled for Gloria!
She went into an empty stall farthest from the entrance and faced the toilet. Maybe a good heave would do her good, and as it turned out, she didn’t have to force it. Everything came up within seconds of her getting into position.
“Gloria?”
Brittany’s voice from the other end of the restroom made Gloria cringe, and in turn retch up more food. She heard her friend’s high heels clack along the floor until stopping outside the stall.
“Oh, Gloria, are you OK? Do you want me to get you a towel?”
“Yes, please,” she bleated and hated herself for sounding so weak and pathetic.
She heard Brittany work the paper towel dispenser and then running water. Soon, there was a knock on the door and Gloria opened it enough for Brittany to pass the towel through. Gloria began to wipe her face and mouth, thankful for the damp and the cool.
“Was it something you ate, sweetie?”
Was it? Gloria wondered. Truth be told, there were a couple of contenders up for the honor of being the cause of her current situation, but the one standing outside her toilet stall certainly eclipsed any others.
“Yes,” she finally replied. “I don’t think that pizza agreed with me.”
“Where’d you get it from? I’ll go take it back and—”
“No!” she said, a bit more forcefully than necessary. “No, it’s alright. Besides, Nat—Mr. Larsen bought my lunch today.”
Aw, shit. She didn’t mean to reveal that little item.
“Did he, now?” Brittany’s voice was full of expectation for more details. “Does he buy your lunch often?”
Gloria finished wiping her mouth and flushed the paper towel down the toilet, not caring if it stopped up the plumbing. She opened the stall door to see Brittany, whose expression was hopeful.
“No, he doesn’t,” she lied. “Why should he?”
Brittany’s face fell a little, but only for a moment. “Oh. No reason. It’s just that Mr. Larsen is such a nice guy and a cool teacher. He’s probably a cool boss too.”
“He is.” Gloria brushed past Brittany to get to the sinks to wash her hands. “I’m not a charity case, Brittany.” She tried to sound light hearted and laughed, but she wasn’t sure she was convincing.
“I wasn’t suggesting....” Brittany wrung her fingers together. “Feeling better?”
From the mirror’s reflection, Gloria saw Brittany chew her lip and look worriedly at the floor and Gloria’s stomach knotted from a pang of guilt. She turned to face her friend.
“I’m glad to see you’re back,” she said, and she was being honest.
“Thanks.” Brittany’s face brightened. “You know, all the stuff people stress about when travelling to Europe is really exaggerated. Going through security over there isn’t too different than it is over here.”
“Really?”
“Piece of cake.” She hooked her arm through Gloria’s and they began to walk out of the restroom. “How is it working with Mr. Larsen?”
“Just how you said it would be.” Gloria’s lips made a weak smile. “He’s a cool boss.”
Nate tapped the end of the pencil he held against his lips, deep in thought, worried about Gloria’s sudden illness. She was only gone for a few minutes before Brittany left to get her, but Nate had to admit she looked worse than when she left, so it was no surprise when she asked to be taken home. They quickly took their leave of Brittany with a vague offer for her to visit the office, and Nate rushed Gloria home.
He insisted on helping her inside, ignoring her protests, and reluctantly promised not to call Michael—whose cell phone number Nate now had on his phone—about her coming home ill. He wanted to stay with her, but he couldn’t call off his afternoon class session on such short notice, especially since it was only his “typist” who was ill.
Now that he thought about it, while sitting in the noticeably quieter, lonelier office....
Did Brittany’s sudden appearance upset her?
It was a far-fetched notion, but what if? Brittany had breezed in on the scene, fresh from a fairy-tale Parisian holiday, and from what he gathered, it was on a scale only slightly beneath that of a minor royal. Brittany exuded a certain world-traveller chic, but it seemed positively garish up against Gloria’s calm, graceful poise.
While the other girl prattled on and on in rapid-fire teen-speak, he watched Gloria listen politely, but after so many intimate encounters with her, he could tell from her eyes that she wasn’t listening to her friend very much at all.
And that was another thing. He never would have guessed Gloria and Brittany to be friends anyway. It was something he’d always wanted to ask. They were total opposites, but he knew as well as anybody that sometimes opposites attract.
His recent love life were relationships all doomed from the start—Denise, Jill, and now Gloria. Three women he had no business messing around with. At least his relationship with Gloria was the only one he knew he’d have fond memories about when it was all over.
The word depressed him. Memories. An indicator of the past, done and dusted. Over. The future of their relationship was that it had no future and was destined to end sooner rather than later.
The more he thought about it, the more irritated he got.
“Enjoy your lunch?”
Snapped from his reverie, he noticed Jill coming into the office and walked toward his desk. He shrugged.
“It was lunch. It was OK.”
“Where’d you go?” She pushed the telephone on the corner of his desk aside so she could take a seat.
“Food court. Gladstone Mall.” He typed a few nonsense words into the open document on his computer screen in an attempt to drop a subtle hint of being busy.
“It’s been a while since I was there. Any new options?”
Nate looked up at Jill, his face blank. “Not hardly.”
Jill nodded. “Well, you never know. The last time I was there was...I don’t know... the last time we went there?”
Nate hung his head down to hide both his annoyance and amusement.
“Wow, you’re really subtle, Jill. If you want to join us for lunch—”
“Us,” she repeated. “So it’s true? You admit it. You and Gloria are really a pair, going to lunch like a regular couple without regard of how it looks.”
She traced a pattern with her forefinger on his desk. From the way she hung her head and her lips set in a slight pout, Nate could see her hurt and frustration, but considering the way she’d been treating Gloria, Jill was hardly a victim.
“What do you mean by ‘how it looks?’ It doesn’t look like anything but a couple of friends going to lunch.”
Jill’s chuckle sounded dredged up from the bottom of a well. “No, Nate, what it looks like is a teacher going out on a date with his student.”
He closed his eyes and took a cleansing breath.
“Oh, so anyone can look at me and Gloria and instantly see that I’m a teacher and she is a student? Correction—former student. Jill, in case you’ve forgotten, Gloria works for me—not the school, not the school district. As far as our relationship when she was a student, it can hardly be said that I helped her. She barely passed my class!”
“Exactly,” Jill said with a shrug. “How could she concentrate on her grades when she’s romantically involved with her teacher? The poor girl had to go to summer school because of you....”
Her words trailed and ended up at the smirk on her face.
“What a load of shit. Where’s your proof that Gloria and I had anything but a proper student-teacher relationship while she attended this school?”
“Your word against mine.” Jill’s laugh was eerily hollow. “When it comes to th
ings like this, that’s really all you need.”
He ground his teeth together, because as fucked up as it sounded, she was right. All it took was the merest suspicion of an inappropriate relationship between a student and teacher and the community would come out with their pitchforks.
And the teacher always got lynched, figuratively speaking, regardless of whether there was anything unethical, let alone illegal happening or not.
“I know there’s something going on between you,” Jill said. “You think you’re being so secretive, but I saw.”
He sighed. “OK, I’ll play. What did you see?”
Jill decided to milk her moment, stood up, and began to stroll around the office. “I was coming to your office when I happened to glimpse through the door and saw you leaning over her with your hand on her shoulder. You gave it a squeeze as she typed. A subtle gesture, but one with enough meaning to suggest a certain level of intimacy.”
Nate blinked, trying to think of the incident she was talking about. Hell, he’d done that dozens of times in recent weeks so it was really pointless trying to figure it out. He decided to take a more obvious plan of attack and go on the offense.
“Go spying around corners much, Jill? Like some lame Valerie Plame who’d rather expose herself than be exposed by someone else?” Then, he added, “Pun intended.”
Jill reflected his disdain back at him.
“You think you can afford to be funny? This is a very serious situation. You see it in the news at least once a year where a teacher ruins their career over some kid because they couldn’t keep it in their pants.”
“Who? The teacher or the student?”
“Does it matter?” she deadpanned. “You know as well as I do that most of these students are scammers. Jail bait. Felony fodder. They’re just waiting for a teacher to fuck up...and I hate to say it, Nate...but you have.”
“Have I? Gloria is eighteen.”
“She is now.”
They glared at each other and Nate struggled to comprehend why he ever allowed himself to be even briefly attracted to the woman standing before him. Her hazel eyes now just looked cold and beady like the reptile he’d known her to be all along.
“It doesn’t matter what you think you saw while lurking by my office door, Jill. You still have no proof.”
“You took her home last weekend. To your home.”
He then remembered Gloria mentioning something about seeing a Malibu following them. Turns out her suspicions were correct.
For a second, a cannonball of dry ice shot through his stomach and left him hollow and frozen, but this sudden sense of real terror could not sufficiently kill his irritation. But he wasn’t going to give her any satisfaction in her discovery as she stood there, tiny hands balled into fists at her sides.
Jill shrugged, taking his silence for complicity. “Do you really want to...test me, Nate?”
“Honey, I tested you once and you failed. Remember?”
Too bad he was so pissed off. Otherwise, he would have laughed at the way her eyes bugged out and her complexion turned bright red before becoming moist, but if they were from tears of hurt, anger, or frustration, he didn’t know or care.
If she wanted to play dirty, he could too. Reminding her of the one night they spent together and how she had to beg him to ease up on her, especially when attempting to knock on her backdoor—without success—was a memory she wanted to forget.
“Perhaps you’d better enjoy giving tests while you still can. I hope you can cover your royalty check should your publisher decide they don’t want the textbook written by a disgraced biology teacher.”
His nostrils flared as he took a sharp breath. He’d had enough of Jill Oliver and her shit.
“Close the door on your way out.”
“Certainly.” She instantly composed herself, gave him a brittle smile, and headed for the exit. “But a word of warning, Mr. Larsen.” She was now on the other side of the threshold and pulling the door closed. “Watch your back.”
Nate stared at the closed door. Only when he knew he was alone did he allow his anger free reign by picking up a stapler off his desk and fastballing it into the cinderblock wall where it shattered like the dream world he and Gloria had lived in—until now.
As the day went on, Nate came to realize just how much he’d come to depend upon Gloria. She could type ridiculously fast, and she had saved him from doing various admin duties that only got in the way of his real job: teaching.
Truth be told, Gloria had spoiled Nate, and not just with her work ethic, but with her presence. He looked up from his computer and at her empty workstation. Instead of seeing her, head bent down, eyes on her screen, and the cute way she had of biting her lower lip slightly as she typed—he saw an empty chair. It never took her long to sense his watching her, and she’d glance up and level those gorgeous brown eyes on him.
His cock twitched in his trousers just thinking about it.
Sighing, he leaned back in his seat and put his hands behind his head. The luxury of having Gloria around was coming to an end, and he needed to get his shit together—in more ways than one.
A gentle knock on his office door made him whip his head around. He knew it wasn’t Jill. This person had the politeness to knock.
“Come in,” he called out, adding a cheerfulness to his voice that he didn’t feel.
Vice principal Dr. Corrine Cole walked in.
“Good afternoon, Nate. Got a minute?”
“Certainly, Doc. Take a seat. Can I get you a bottled water?”
Dr. Cole was a small woman, barely over five feet tall. Some people made the mistake of equating size with ability, but they quickly learned not to underestimate Corrine Cole.
Nate thought of her as Darning High’s version of Judge Judy. She came from the East Coast, had stylish, short, brown hair, and was not shy in voicing her opinion or dishing out discipline. But for all her legendary fierceness, it was hard to accuse her of being unfair.
“No, that’s quite all right, Nate. I just wanted to visit and see how things were progressing with the book—along with everything else.” She dipped her head down to look at him over the rims of her glasses and pinning him with pale blue eyes.
For a moment, the bottom of Nate’s stomach fell and his mouth went dry. Had Jill put Corrine up to this?
“Uh...fine, Corrine.” He hoped he didn’t sound as guarded as he felt. “Things are right on schedule, if not ahead of schedule.”
“Good! I’m glad to hear it.”
Nate’s pulse lowered back to normal at her enthusiasm. It’s not as though she were a cold woman, but with regard to feelings, she tended to stay in the middle of the emotional continuum.
“I understand your assistant has been a great help to you.” Corrine looked around. “Has she gone home for the day?”
“Actually,” he began with a chuckle, “she went home while at lunch today. Something she ate didn’t agree with her.”
“Oh, poor thing.” Corrine clicked her tongue. “It’s Gloria Goodman assisting you, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Good, good. She’s a smart girl. She’s had to deal with a lot.”
“Yes, she has.” A few seconds of silence was all he could take, so he kept the conversation going. “She is very mature and capable for someone her age.”
Corrine nodded. “I’m not surprised. Academically speaking, she was on the road to a full scholarship until things at home got out of hand.” She leaned forward. “I’m sure you know about what happened.”
“I do,” Nate said, his mouth acting on its own. Why was his throat so damn dry? Because he’d been an uncaring jackass, helping to contribute to her academic problems that still affected her today? He tried not to let his mental self flagellation appear on the outside.
“Is she planning on going to college?”
“She’s going to State in the fall.”
“Excellent. Glad to hear it. Was she able to get any financial aid, do you know?�
�
Nate searched his memory banks briefly. “Some. She told me she had a few scholarships come through and the Pell Grant, but she’s going to have to borrow and work for the rest.”
Corrine shook her head. “It’s sad, really. Back in my day, my parents were able to pay for half and I worked part time to pay the other half. Graduation came and I was debt free.” She sighed. “It’s depressing to think that millions of students opt out of higher education simply because of the cost. I don’t envy these kids one bit.”
“Yes...,” Nate said, his voice sounded a little gravelly. He reached over to take a sip of bottled water.
“Well...I just hope she makes it without any serious distractions. The college dropout rate among freshmen is high, even higher when there is no financial support from family.”
Corrine stood up to leave and he tried not to look excited at the idea.
“Keep up the good work, Nate! You’re doing us all proud with this textbook.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Again he was taken aback by Corrine’s burst of liveliness more than the praise she offered, although both were appreciated.
“If you need anything, let me know.” She headed for the office door before looking back at him. “Let Gloria know I was asking about her. I hope she feels better.”
Corrine flashed him a quick smile.
“Yes, Doc, I...will....”
But he was talking to the air. She was gone.
He guzzled the rest of the water from the bottle, and when he finished, he was gasping for air, chest heaving. Nate never had any reason to spar with the administration and considered himself as having a favorable working relationship with everyone at Darning High. But after his run in with Jill, Corrine Cole’s visit had a speciousness about it that Nate did not like.
Now was not the time to get paranoid, but even he knew that paranoia could negatively impact on survival instincts. Therefore, using scientific reasoning, he had to determine if there was a real noose closing around his neck...or was it a manifestation of his imagination.
The Summer of Consent Page 13
