A Certain Slant of Light (40 page)

  
"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.

  
"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 fil
ing 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 sym
phony, 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 strict
ness. "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 expres
sion. 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 fascina
tion. 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 tis
sue 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, want
ing 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 di
rection, 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.

  
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.