“You,” he said, and leaned forward slowly to kiss me. I let him and then leaned back on my pillow.
“How’d you know I’d let you do that?” I asked.
“I was hoping you would.”
“You going to try to take advantage of me?” I asked him.
“No,” he said, and smiled. “I’m hoping you’ll take advantage of me.”
We both laughed.
“I want you to know right now,” he continued, dropping his smile, “that I’m not easy.”
“Listen to you!” I said with some outrage. He shrugged.
“You’re a very pretty girl, Phoebe. I don’t know how long I can hold out.”
“What?”
He leaned down and kissed me again, this time slipping his hands under my sweater and blouse. I held his arms for a moment and then he lifted his lips from mine, looked in my eyes, smiled again, and kissed me harder. It had been so long since I felt this good, I couldn’t help but let my resistance slip away, especially when his fingers reached my breasts and his thumbs reached my nipples. I couldn’t help moaning softly.
“I really like you,” he whispered. “You’re an exciting girl.” He lifted my sweater and I let him take it off, and then he unbuttoned my blouse and pressed his lips to my breasts, sliding them over to each nipple so slowly and gently, I tingled in anticipation.
“Man, you really are nice,” he said. He surprised me by bringing his mouth down to my belly and then undoing my jeans to kiss me lower and lower.
Every few seconds I told myself, we’re doing this in school, right in the nurse’s office. It made it all seem more exciting—so exciting that my heart hammered at my chest and shortened my breath.
If I don’t stop him soon, I’m actually going to give up my treasure, I told myself. He had his hands inside my jeans, moving around to cup my buttocks and lift me so he could kiss me lower, his lips now caressing the insides of my thighs.
“I’ve got what we need,” he whispered. “Don’t worry.”
He backed away to prepare himself and in those seconds, I argued with myself, warning myself that this was my last chance to stop before it was too late. I knew what it was to reach a peak of excitement and then fall over like someone who had lost her footing on a cliff. I would be helpless, caught up in my own ravishing sexual hunger.
You’re not here two days, Phoebe Elder, I lectured myself. How can you do this with the first boy you’ve met? You’ll get a bad reputation so quickly it will be impossible to walk the halls. Stop him; stop him before it’s too late.
It’s all right, another side of me argued. He really likes you and you like him. When that happens, you don’t need much time. It’s magical. Go with it. Enjoy something in this miserable situation.
He stepped out of his pants and underwear and was between my legs. We were kissing harder now. I held on to his shoulders and waited, but before he could do anything, the door opened.
There was a moment of such deep silence, it was as if a nuclear bomb had gone off and it was just a split second before the explosion would sound. The silence made the situation seem more like a dream, like Ashley Porter and I were floating and would just fall to earth like two feathers.
Then we heard Mrs. Fassbinder’s scream, and Ashley leaped back, scurrying for his clothing. I pulled up my jeans and turned away from the door.
“Get out! Get out!” she shouted at Ashley.
“I’m going. I’m going. Take it easy,” he cried.
I got my blouse back on and buttoned it clumsily. Then I sat up and pulled my sweater over myself as Ashley rushed out the door. Mrs. Fassbinder stepped back with her hands still up and shaking.
“Oh, my God,” she said, looking in at me. “Oh my, my.”
She looked so confused and flustered, I half-expected her to suffer heart failure. Her pallid face was beet red, her lips twisting. Then, finally gathering her wits, she told me to stay where I was and rushed off. I finished fixing my clothes and walked out of the room. Ashley was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Mrs. Fassbinder. After I splashed some water on my face, I wiped it with a towel and returned to the remedial reading room.
“How are you?” Mr. Cody asked when I entered. “You look a little flustered yet.”
“I’m all right,” I said, and then noticed no one else was in the room. “What’s going on?”
“It’s your lunch hour, Phoebe.” He pointed to the clock. “Be back at one-ten. You know where the cafeteria is and all, right?”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“Well, you still have a long day ahead of you, Phoebe. You should get something in your stomach, unless the nurse has said otherwise, of course.”
“That’s right. She said otherwise,” I told him.
“Well, I’m just off to lunch myself. You can sit here or go outside as long as you don’t leave the school grounds, okay?”
I nodded, and he left. The truth was I was still shaking, the trembles rattling my very bones. I flopped into my seat and lowered my head to my folded arms. I think I fell asleep for a few minutes because when the door was opened and I heard my name, it was almost one o’clock.
A tall, dark-haired man wearing a tie and a shirt with no jacket stood in the doorway, holding the door open. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows. He had a firm mouth, a cleft chin, and two brown eyes under thick, dark brown eyebrows.
“Phoebe Elder?” he said again.
“Yes.”
“Come with me,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“Dean Cassidy,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Where am I going?”
“To my office, young lady. Move it. I don’t intend to have a conversation with you in this doorway,” he said sternly.
I rose and walked out.
“Keep going,” he said, remaining a foot or so behind me. “Just past the guidance department,” he added, and I turned into an office doorway.
The secretary turned from the filing cabinet and looked at us. She had short, auburn hair and was dumpy with a round face. Her eyes narrowed as she shook her head.
“Send for Ashley Porter,” Dean Cassidy ordered, and she moved quickly to the phone on her desk.
“In here,” he told me, holding a door open.
I entered his office, which wasn’t much bigger than the outer office. On the paneled walls were all sorts of commendations, plaques, and awards from a variety of community organizations, congratulating Dean Cassidy for his work with the youth of the community, as well as his college degrees in gilded frames. I saw pictures of a pretty woman and two little girls on his desk.
“Sit,” he commanded, pointing to a chair in front of his desk. He didn’t go to his chair. Instead, he went to the window and looked out. He stood there without speaking so long, I assumed he was waiting for someone else, but finally he turned and glared down at me.
“I’ve been here for almost ten years now,” he began. “I’ve dealt with many things, insubordination in class, truancy, theft, fighting, smoking, vandalism, but this is the first incident of something as sordid and disgusting as this.
“And then, on top of that, to have such a thing involve a student that hasn’t been in my school two full days!”
I turned away from him and stared at the wall.
“I don’t know whether to have you sent to a church, a mental institution, or a prison,” he hollered so loudly it made my ears ring and shook my insides, but I didn’t cry and I didn’t cower.
Slowly, I turned my head back to him and looked up at him. He was frozen with his back bent, his face glaring, his arms out.
“Well, when you decide,” I said softly, “let me know.”
If a human being could explode and reform himself, he would have at that moment. His face got so red with blood, I thought the top of his head would blow off and stick to the ceiling. His throat undulated like the body of a snake, his Adam’s apple bulging, and then he stammered and pointed at me.
“You… you show me some respect, young lady. Your life here is hanging on by a thread.”
I turned away again, and there was a knock on the door.
“Come in!” he screamed.
The door opened, and his secretary told him Ashley was outside.
“Send him in here,” he commanded.
I heard Ashley enter, but I didn’t look back at him.
“Not only is the coach very, very disappointed in you, Ashley, I am absolutely disgusted with your behavior. What was going on in your head?”
I smiled to myself.
It wasn’t exactly what was going on in his head that mattered, I thought.
“Wipe that grin off your lips, young lady, or I’ll wipe it off for you,” Dean Cassidy threatened.
“And how you going to do that?” I shot back up at him.
His eyes widened in surprise. I looked at Ashley, who was just as astounded. He shook his head gently as a warning.
Dean Cassidy got hold of himself and straightened up.
“I wanted the two of you in here together so I wouldn’t get one story from one of you and another story from the other. You don’t know how serious this is, Ashley. You could be in a lot more hot water than I cook up,” Dean Cassidy told him, and nodded at me.
What was he implying? That I would accuse Ashley of trying to rape me?
Ashley looked sufficiently terrified now.
“I’m not going into detail about what Mrs. Fassbinder reported. You know what she saw. Do either of you want to deny it?” the dean asked.
“No, sir,” Ashley said quickly.
“And you, young lady?”
“My name’s Phoebe,” I said.
“And you, Phoebe?”
I looked at Ashley.
“I guess what she told you is what it was, but I don’t know what she told you, now do I?”
“Well, I’m not going to get into detail about it,” Dean Cassidy said.
He finally sat behind his desk.
“Okay, Phoebe, you wait outside. I want to speak with Ashley first.”
I got up and walked out, closing the door hard behind me. I knew what he was going to say in there. I could have written his dialogue for him. He was going to tell Ashley Porter I was a very bad girl with a bad record from my other school and he had gotten himself into trouble because of me. He was going to tell him how devastated his parents were going to be when they heard about it all. He was going to tell him how he was a boy with a good future that he was tossing into the ash can. And then finally, he was going to try to get him to put as much blame on me as he could. By the time he was finished, it would be as Ashley had pretended: I had seduced him.
Ashley will probably do and say what the man wanted, I thought. What did I matter anyway? His parents lived here, and the dean would emphasize that he should be concerned about them.
“She doesn’t care how her aunt Mae Louise and uncle Buster look in the community, or she wouldn’t have gotten herself into so much trouble here so quickly. You have no reason to be loyal to a girl like that,” he would say.
Maybe Ashley didn’t need all that much convincing. The truth was, I hardly knew him. For all I knew,
loyalty
was a foreign word to him. He was certainly not very loyal to his teammates on the basketball squad, I thought.
Why didn’t you think about all that before, stupid? I asked myself as I sat across from the secretary, who looked at me as though I were a serial killer. She avoided my eyes and worked on files.
After what seemed like thirty minutes, but was probably only ten, the dean’s office door opened and Ashley, his head bowed, came out with the dean right behind him. He glanced at me and then quickly shifted his eyes guiltily away.
“Write him a pass back to class,” the dean said with his hand on Ashley’s shoulder.
“Phoebe,” the dean said, and nodded at his opened door.
I stood up, looked at it, and shook my head.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I been there, done that.”
“What?”
Ashley spun around in surprise as I walked past him out of the office and started down the hallway.
“If you know what’s good for you, young lady, you’ll march right back in here!” Dean Cassidy called after me from the office doorway.
I know what’s good for me, I thought.
That’s why I’m not marching right back.
I didn’t know where I was going, of course. I just left the building and continued to walk down the street. I went about four blocks before a police car pulled up alongside me and sounded its siren. The policeman got out when I stopped and turned.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
“Anywhere but here,” I said.
“You can’t do that, miss. The school is responsible for your well-being. Now get into the car,” he ordered.
He wasn’t that tall, but he looked like he could rip a tree out by its roots. His shoulders were wide, and he had a neck so thick, I thought it would look perfect on a bull. He stepped toward me threateningly.
I walked to the car and got in.
“Where do you live?” he asked, and I gave him Aunt Mae Louise and Uncle Buster’s address.
“You’re taking me home, then?”
“That’s where the school wants you brought. Your mother’s been called.”
“She’s not my mother,” I said.
“Who is she?”
“My aunt.”
“Whoever she is to you, she’s been called. What did you do wrong, anyway?” he asked.
“Be born,” I said, and stared out the window.
“Kids today,” he mumbled. We drove without speaking the remainder of the trip.
I felt certain Aunt Mae Louise would get rid of me now. With all she was telling Daddy and me about how important she and Uncle Buster were in the school community, she would surely be too embarrassed to keep me around. In a way I felt relieved. Daddy would have to take me back, and we would have to find a way to make it work.
When we pulled into the driveway, the front door opened and she stood there with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. The policeman got out and approached her with me trailing behind.
“You her aunt?” he asked.
“Unfortunately, yes,” she replied.
He asked her to sign some paper on his clipboard, which made me feel like a package being delivered.
“Good luck,” he sang as he returned to his car.
“We’ll need it,” she called after him, and looked at me.