Sweetest Taboo (2 page)

"Who picked up the phone?” Tom repeated, worry coloring his voice.

The
click
had not originated on my end of the line. I should’ve been relieved, but my panic rose even more.

“Tom,” I whispered into the receiver. “It wasn’t here, everyone’s asleep…”

“I have to go,” Tom interrupted abruptly. “Danielle’s coming.”

There was another click, and the line went dead.

Chapter Two

It’s Raining Men, Hallelujah!

M
y freshman year of high school had been … empowering. I’d found it almost immediately to be a welcome change from the awkwardness of middle school; my friends and I were growing up, we were having good times, and – best of all – the boys that I’d always noticed had finally started noticing me. I’d always been a family-oriented girl, but this new atmosphere brought a new independence, and I’d enjoyed every second of it. I was fourteen and ready for the world and ready for my first relationship with a boy. That year, and the summer after, had become a blur of new boys: Alfredo, Ryan, Brian, David, Charles, Eric … I felt as though I’d spent my entire life in a box, and was just now finding my way out of it. I never fell in love, though, and I was always careful to stop things before they got too serious. Nothing more than kissing; my parents had raised me to be a respectable girl, and I fully expected to be a virgin at my wedding.

When I started my sophomore year, though, everything changed.

***

I walked slowly down the open halls of the campus on the first day of sophomore year, reveling in the feeling of being back. The summer had been wonderful, and I’d had a great time, but school still held the things that were important to me – learning, my future, and the daily social interactions. Nothing had changed since the year before, aside from my status in the school. The lockers were still old, rusty, and badly in need of maintenance, though they were decorated today with purple and silver
welcome
signs, in honor of the first day of school. I laughed at the posters; they were hung haphazardly with silver duct tape, and had obviously been done in a hurry. The rest of the school looked exactly the same; drab brown and tan walls, concrete floors, and single-story classroom buildings. The best thing about this particular campus was that it was open to the sky; when I was outside of class, I could lie on the benches or grass lawns, watching the clouds float through the sky, and dream about the future.

I strolled past the window of one of the administrative offices, and glanced subconsciously at the reflection. I’d worn shorts, t-shirts, and jeans during my freshman year, and had been content to look like a tomboy. I was a sophomore now, though, and wanted to look the part, so I’d convinced my mom to buy me a new wardrobe over the summer: skirts, fitted jeans, and tops that showed off my emerging figure. I knew that I was maturing more quickly than some of the other girls in the class, and I intended to take full advantage of it. I’d also been told that I looked like Natalie Wood, and had done my hair in her signature style this morning – pulled back into a high, swinging ponytail, which just brushed the top of my shoulders. The only thing that spoiled my looks were the metal braces on my teeth, but I’d dealt with that. I had spent two full days in front of the mirror over the summer, learning to smile with my lips slightly parted.

I was convinced that this was going to be my year.

I’d even joined the swim team this year, with my best friends Vicky and Natalie, to pad my resume and get the extra-curricular experience. I’d never swum competitively, so it was going to take some work, but it would give me the opportunity to improve my form, enjoy my friends, work on my tan, and catch the eye of boys, who hung around the pool watching us girls in swimsuits.

I smiled shyly at my reflection on the window, then turned and walked away.
Enough daydreaming
, I lectured myself. If this was going to be my year, I needed to start by getting to my first class.

***

By the time January rolled around, swim practice had become the highlight of my day. It gave me something to work toward, and a break in the routine that was my life. It was also an additional activity on my transcript, and I was keenly aware that colleges would be looking for such things when reviewing my application.

I spent most of my time in class looking forward to the last bell. When it sounded, my team members and I rushed to the girls’ locker room – dimly lit by just a few fluorescent lights – to change into our suits and do our stretches. I became addicted to the smell of the chlorine, which never left my suit, and the cool, shocking plunge into the refreshing water. The afternoons were warm, even in January, so we always had a crowd of observers. I loved the spectators, and the knowledge that they’d come to see us perform.

Of course, there was something else that sent me rushing to the pool every day. Something bigger and more important than the smell of the chlorine, the cool water, or even the eyes of the audience. Two of our swim instructors were female coaches from the PE department. They handled the beginners and coached the JV team. They also ran the majority of our practices.

The varsity coach, though, was the reason I sprayed on
Exclamation
, my favorite perfume, every afternoon before heading to the pool. Mr. Stevens was the head coach, though he took a back seat to the two assistant coaches during practice. He didn’t give us our drills or correct our mistakes, as the two women did. He sat in the shadows instead, watching, and murmuring an occasional comment to one of the assistants. When it came time to separate into different teams, he took the varsity team to the smaller pool to work with them. I’d never had a personal conversation with him, and I didn’t know if he’d ever even looked at me.

That, of course, just made me even more attracted to him. I’d always had crushes on older men, but Mr. Stevens was the most attractive man I’d ever seen. Tall, athletic, broad-shouldered … he had the short dirty-blonde hair and hazel eyes that I’d always found very attractive, with deeply tanned skin and full, pouting lips. I had never noticed him before I joined the swim team, but couldn’t keep my mind off him once I’d seen him. A bit of quick research told me that he was a teacher as well, and taught both mathematics and photography to the upper classmen in the school. Several of my older friends were taking his class, though they thought I was crazy when I told them I wanted to meet him. None of my friends found him particularly attractive – he was in his late thirties and sporting some gray on his temples, and wasn’t exactly a high school jock. I ignored their opinions, though, and embraced my crush with all the fierceness of a love-struck fifteen-year-old girl.

I made it my mission in life to meet him and get to know more about him.

“So I hear that Robby Herrera is really into you,” Sarah said suddenly, breaking into my thoughts.

I gasped and blinked, clearing my head of the daydream I’d been having, and looked over at her. “What?” I asked gruffly. “Who?”

Sarah pursed her lips in disapproval and followed my eyes to the edge of the green, where Mr. Stevens stood talking to some teachers. “Robby Herrera,” she repeated. “You know, he’s a student here? He’s a freshman, but he seems like a nice guy.” She paused, frowning. “Better than having a crush on a creepy teacher,” she added darkly.

I narrowed my eyes at her in response. Sarah was the only one who reacted this way to my crush. I assumed that it had something to do with her family life, which wasn’t pleasant, but I never took well to being lectured. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sarah,” I muttered.

She huffed, crossing her arms. “What’s wrong with you?” she snapped. “Do I have to paint a few gray hairs on Robby’s head just so you’ll give him a chance? Izzy, Mr. Stevens is old enough to be your dad. He’s married and has kids. Daughters, not that much younger than us! What are you going to do, become a home wrecker?” She looked at me and shook her head. “I don’t know why I even bother. It’s not like you even listen to me.” She turned and stormed away from the green top toward the classrooms.

I sighed; I didn’t know why it meant so much to Sarah, and I didn’t know how to make it any better with her. She was right, though – her words had no bearing on my obsession with Mr. Stevens. What she didn’t know – though is that I’d been obsessing about it for a week – was that my crush had become even deeper the previous Monday. Mr. Stevens had finally started paying attention to me. I don’t know why it happened, or what I had done to attract his eyes, but when I got out of the pool he was standing on the deck, waiting, with my turquoise beach towel in his hand.

That’s when I’d known that this crush wasn’t as one-sided as I had thought.

He hadn’t been waiting for anyone else. He hadn’t even said anything to anyone else on the JV team. And he certainly didn’t know where anyone else’s towel was (this part might have been an assumption on my part). But he knew who I was, and he was waiting for me.

I stared up at him, my mouth open, and my mind raced through all of the implications. First, the fact that he handed
me
the towel, and not anyone else on the team, meant that he was sharing this connection with me, and
only
with me. Second, the fact that Mr. Stevens knew which towel was mine meant that he had been observing
me
. All of this time, when it had seemed to me that he’d never even looked my way, he had been watching. Watching for long enough to know which towel I picked up, at least. And he must have been watching me carefully to know that I always put my bag on the concrete bench near the south end of the pool. He’d known where to look for my towel, and that brought me to my third – and most important – conclusion. He knew when I got to practice, and where I put my things. That must mean that he watched for me to arrive. I took the towel and turned without speaking, dizzy with excitement. I don’t know how I made it to the girl’s locker room without tripping over myself.

After that, things changed.

***

Three weeks later, we had our first swim meet. This marked the first time that our team would compete together, and the first time we would face a real school in the races. I was ridiculously nervous the night before the meet – would we be badly beaten, or were we as good as we thought we were? I chewed every one of my fingernails during the long day, but finally found myself in my last class. The swimmers were dismissed early and I walked to the girls’ locker room with two of my teammates. We gathered our gear from our lockers and headed to the parking lot to wait for the bus.

When the yellow school bus arrived, everyone piled in, choosing their preferred seats as they walked the aisle.

“An old bus today,” Natalie muttered. “You’d think they could at least offer us a nice bus. We’re representing the school, after all.”

I shrugged, looking up at the peeling paint and faded lettering of the bus. “I guess they’re doing what they can. Not a lot of money to be had, you know.” My eyes traveled over the windows until I found the swim coaches. They were sitting in the front row, as usual.

My lips turned up in a grin and my voice rose. “Anyhow,” I continued, “at least we’re getting out of school early. And going on a trip.”

Natalie turned to me, frowning, then caught the direction of my eyes and grinned back. “And what’s got you in such a good mood, Izzy?” she asked, teasing. “Why so excited? It wouldn’t be the fact that we’re going on a trip … with Coach Stevens, would it?” She poked me in the ribs and laughed when I squirmed.

“Quiet, you,” I laughed. “No one’s supposed to know about that!”

Natalie laughed, then grabbed our friend Vicky and climbed up the stairs to the bus. Most of the team chose to sit at the back of the bus, to be as far away from the coaches as possible. My friends and I chose to sit in the row behind them, though, so we could look over their shoulders at the swim assignments. I knew that the two female coaches disliked me – they spent most of their time in practice assigning me extra laps – but sitting behind them would give us an idea of who was swimming what at the meet. Besides, Natalie and Vicky were returning swimmers, and some of their favorites, so the coaches were nice to me when they were around. I glanced past the two women to the other side of the row as we sat down, seeing that Coach Stevens sat by himself, with a list of assignments in front of him.

He looked lonely, I thought, and wondered if he would like some company. The thought of sitting so close to him made me blush, though, and I ducked my face toward the window before anyone could see he color rising in my cheeks.

He’d been friendlier since the towel incident, and people had started to make comments. He was always laughing at my antics now, and had even directed a joke or two my way. I’d turned around to find his remarkable hazel eyes on me more than once, and had learned to smile back when we made eye contact.

Thinking about sitting beside him on the bus was a whole new thing, though, and I didn’t think I was quite ready for that.

Natalie, who sat beside me, leaned closer and breathed quietly in my ear. “Why don’t you go sit next to your boyfriend, Mr. Stevens.” She laughed when I jumped, and I reached out to smack her on the arm.

“Oh stop,” she muttered, still smiling. “I can’t help it if you’re so transparent. I can tell exactly what you’re thinking every time you look at him. You need to learn to hide it better.”

I shrugged again, grinning, and turned back to the window. She was right. Whatever this was between us, I didn’t want to mess it up. And I certainly didn’t want it to end. I had to learn to play it cool and blow things off, the way the older girls did. It would never do for people to start suspecting that more was going on – it might ruin things for both of us. Not that anything
was
going on, I reminded myself. Nothing had happened.

At least, not yet.

That didn’t change the fact that I wanted to know more about this man. I wanted to know him better, and learn what made him tick. What made him smile, and what made him dream. I wanted to know everything about him: his strengths, his weaknesses, the things that upset him, his fears, what brought him peace … most of all, I wanted to know all about his desires. And what he thought of me.