Authors: R.D. Power
“It’s going to come out, you know. Think of how you’ll look when the media play back the tape showing you kiss the ass of that national disgrace. I swear to you, you’ll regret endorsing the crusade for getting him the Victoria Cross.”
“Robert Owens!” Kristen shot back, “I’m ashamed of your conduct tonight. You’re a great disappointment to me.” That upset him and it showed. Considering his behavior vindictive and calculated to hurt both her and her fiancé, she’d wanted to convey her anger, but his reaction troubled her.
He left.
•
“Gertrude,” remarked Mr. Carlton, “some asshole from London embarrassed us all last night by shitting all over that hero from I-raq that saved us all from the chicken pox. I hope he gets chicken pox and dies.”
T
he next weekend, as Kristen and Mark walked together on campus, she spotted Robert in the distance talking to a man; the same teenage girl she’d seen in his office was with them. Kristen halted when she saw them. “What’s the matter?” said Mark as he looked up the path and saw Robert. “Is that his teenybopper girlfriend?” he asked. She nodded slowly. “Christ,” Mark continued, “she can’t be any older than fifteen or sixteen.”
“She must be at least seventeen if she’s a student here.”
“I doubt that. Anyway, he has no business dating a student.” The girl left the two men and strolled toward Kristen and Mark. When she approached, Mark said, “Excuse me, I’m Mark Loftus, Liberal candidate for Parliament. May I ask you if you are of voting age?”
“No,” she said with a giggle. “I’m only fifteen.”
“Oh,” said Mark, with an
A-ha!
glance at Kristen. “Sorry to bother you. Have a nice day.” The girl went on her way. Mark said to Kristen, “That son of a bitch. If he’s you-know-whating her, that’s statutory rape. I’ve got the son of a bitch now!”
“No!” Kristen screeched before she controlled herself.
“What?” rejoined her surprised fiancé. “Why would you not want that? I thought you hated him.”
“I simply meant that we’re jumping the gun. We have no idea what relationship they have, if any.”
“It was you who said he loved her. Anyway, I’m going to find out.” He called over the radio for two officers to come to his location. They arrived within three minutes. “You see that man up there with the baseball cap. Take him to the station for questioning concerning a possible sexual relationship with a minor.”
“Mark, is this really necessary?” Kristen asked.
“Kristen, don’t question me in front of my officers,” he scolded. “What is it with you and him, anyway? I can’t figure this out at all.” He reiterated his command, and the officers obeyed.
Kristen observed as the officers went up to him and talked to him. Robert reacted with shock—Kristen heard him yell, “You’re full of shit!”—but he accompanied them. As he walked toward Kristen and Mark, Robert noticed the couple and frowned. He gave Kristen a look of indignation that cut right through her. And that was nothing compared to the look he gave Mark.
Seeing the intent in Robert’s furious eyes, Kristen pleaded, “Bobby, please don’t resist!”
He submitted, and the officers took him away.
Mark said to Kristen, “Let’s follow them downtown, and have this out. You can make a statement of what you saw between the two. With any luck, he’ll never bother us again.”
Mark was now treading on parlous ground with her, though he didn’t sense it. She was a boiling cauldron of emotions inside. Mark could only pressure so far before her love for Robert would blow off the lid and knock him aside.
“I can’t,” she said. “I have to get back to work.”
“I thought you said you could take the rest of the day off.”
“I just need to check on a patient I’m worried about.”
“Are you afraid of him? That’s it, isn’t it? He beat you or something, right? If he did, just tell me, and I promise you I’ll deal with him personally.” She glared at him. “I’ll protect you from him, don’t worry. Come with me, Kristen. If he’s taking advantage of a child, he has to be stopped for her sake.”
She accompanied him to the police station. On the way, Mark asked her how he knew they were lovers.
“I know no such thing,” she said. “All I saw was her looking at him as if she was in love; that’s it. That’s why I said you’re jumping the gun.” She omitted what she’d heard Robert say in his office: “I love you so much,” and later, “I’ll pick you up Friday at seven.”
When they got to the station, she insisted on speaking to Robert alone. Mark reluctantly agreed.
Upon entering the interrogation room that held him, Kristen saw he was sitting at a table with his head resting on his arms, face down. He tilted his head up to see who came in. She expected him to scream at her, but he seemed more hurt than angry.
On the verge of tears, he said, “You helped him set me up with a bogus charge of statutory rape, didn’t you?”
“How can you possibly think I’d do that to you?”
“That you’d have a hand in sending me to jail for something I didn’t do?” He smirked.
She sat next to him and said, “I’ve spent twelve years regretting that; I’d rather die than do it again. I have no intention of testifying against you or telling them anything, but I need to know, are you really in love with her?”
“With who?”
“That young girl I saw you with.”
“First of all, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Second, it
was
you who pointed the finger at me. Do you hate me that much?”
“No, you don’t understand. I didn’t want any of this. It was just the offhand remark I made when I was angry with you at the pub.”
“About the teenybopper I supposedly love? What the hell, Taylor?”
“Standing outside your office a while back, I heard you say that to a girl who was far too young for you.”
“My daughter?”
“No. A cute fifteen-year-old girl, the one who—”
“You saw me tell a fifteen-year-old girl that I love her? You must’ve been dreaming.”
“I wasn’t dreaming. It was more like a nightmare. I was standing outside your office. I couldn’t see you, but I heard you say ‘I love you so much.’ I saw this cute girl with short, light brown hair standing at your desk, smiling, the one who was talking to you today. You said you’d pick her up Friday at seven. Then at the pub you said you tried to fake her ID.”
“Melissa? Oh, for Christ’s sake, Taylor! Are you bonkers? She’s my babysitter. I was going out that Friday evening and was making arrangements for babysitting. Melissa’s the dean’s daughter; she always babysits—babysat—for me. My daughter was sitting on my lap. I was telling Kara I love her. And at the pub, I thought you were talking about Kara when you asked about my girl. I was joking.”
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m here under suspicion of statutory rape, and you’re sorry. That’s just swell, Taylor. What did you tell that bastard you’re marrying?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing. He just jumped to the conclusion when he saw you with her.”
“The same conclusion you jumped to?”
She lowered her head. “I never meant for this to happen. You know me.”
“No, I don’t, not anymore. What happened to the Krissy I loved?”
“She’s … I’m petrified of you, petrified that you’ll break my heart again. I can never go through that again. That’s why I’m so guarded with you.”
“Lucky me. Truth be told, Taylor, I came back to London for you.” She opened her eyes wide, but before she could say anything, he continued. “That was obviously a mistake. I would’ve thought that the one person in the world who would trust me, who would know I would never harm a child, who would know I would never lie about Iraq, would be you. But you aren’t you anymore.”
“I know you would never hurt a child, and I know you are a hero. I only questioned whether you were the one who was with Hendrix when he made the call.”
“I don’t care whether you consider me a hero; that’s your hang-up, not mine. I do care that you think I’m a liar, not to mention a pervert, and I care that you sided with that charlatan and with your asshole fiancé against me!”
“I’m sorry, but even if I believed you, I would never have condoned the way you went about trying to unmask him. You not only ruined the evening, something that Mark and I worked really hard to pull off, you compromised his election chances—”
“He did that all by himself by aligning himself with Rocha—”
“Let me finish. Worst of all, you embarrassed yourself.”
“As if you care about that. You love him.”
“You still have no idea what you mean to me. Part of me does love Mark, but—”
“The part I don’t know, the part I don’t want to know, the only part I ever get to see; the part that said yes to his proposal!”
She sat there silent for a time, not knowing what to think or say. Before he interrupted her, she was on the brink of admitting how much she still loved him, but with Robert so inimical and with Mark looking on from the next room, she thought the better of it. Finally, she said, “I don’t want to leave it like this between us. It was uncomfortable enough before.”
“Then let’s just stay apart.”
“If that’s the way you want it,” she said, as she stood to leave. “I hope you and Kara will be very happy.” He glared at her. “What did I say wrong now?”
“Have you seen her around lately?” he said. “Jenny took Kara away from me.” His eyes watered once more. “Like her cousin, she’s lost faith in me because of Rocha. Then you have the gall to tell me how I should handle the fraud who’s ruining my life? And for the icing on the cake, you land me back in jail. Go to back to your fiancé, Taylor. He’s welcome to you. I can’t stand the woman I see before me; she killed the woman I love!”
That started her tears flowing. She looked at him desolately, and said, “Don’t say that, Bobby.”
In her beseeching look, he thought he recognized something of his Krissy of old—her gaze of love. It vanquished his anger at once. He softened his tone and said, “Krissy, you’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, but you seem to be hiding your true self from me. Please let her come back to me.”
At that juncture, Mark entered the room and asked what Robert had done to upset her. She composed herself and assured him that Robert had merely set her straight, and proceeded to tell Mark what the confusion was over the young girl.
Mark expressed his regret for the misunderstanding and extended his hand to Robert as Kristen looked on with concern. Her expression was begging him to accept the apology. Out of respect for her, he shook Mark’s hand. She smiled her gratitude.
That evening, Kristen had an epiphany. Protecting her ego had cost her his love. She had buried her profound love for him so effectually, he could no longer sense it.
I killed the woman he loved
. That said it all, and it shook her to the core.
He said he came back for me. If I don’t take the chance of telling him how I really feel, I will lose him forever. I’m so afraid, but what’s the point of protecting myself from getting hurt by him? So I can get along without him? That makes no sense!
T
rumpeting “I told you so” is one of the great satisfactions in life, but the wait for it to play out can be frustrating.
Jennifer, having an awful time with a daughter who would not stop crying and who screamed every time she came near, and still nervous over what a livid ex-husband might do to get her back, decided to call Robert to talk peace terms.
“I know you hate me more than ever,” she opened after his “Hello.” She interpreted his silence as confirmation, but continued, “I don’t want you as an enemy. God, Bobby, I still love you.” He said nothing, so she went on: “I want you to know you can come here to see her whenever you want for as long as you want. I never had any intention of cutting you off from her. You must know I’ve always wanted you in her life. She needs her father. Will you come to see her?”
“I want her back, then I want nothing to do with you for the rest of time.”
“Dammit, this is why I had to do what I did. You gave me no choice with your stubborn insistence that she was yours alone. I’m her mother, and I love her. I want her in my life, too, but I want to share her with you. Will you please come—”
He hung up. She threw the phone at the wall.
•
Word got around campus quickly that Robert Owens had caused the city and the university humiliation with his appalling treatment of a national idol. Newspapers across Canada reported the incident. He was told to attend a disciplinary meeting the next Monday.
Professor Taylor was asked to recount the events of that night. Not wanting to be in the position of testifying against him ever again, she declined. She did attend the meeting, though, to see if she could help him.
“What are you doing here, Taylor?” he asked her.
“I came here to help you if I can.”
“I don’t need—”
“Listen to me. I can help you. Just trust me.”
He remained undecided.
She said, “If you want me to trust you, you have to be able to trust me.”
He acquiesced.
Another professor narrated his version of the events, with appropriate indignation and mortification over the fallout for the university. Robert was invited to rebut.
“All I have to say is Rocha is a phony,” he said.
“Do you have any proof?” said the chairwoman.
“Every bit as much as Rocha does that he’s the hero.”
“Dr. Owens,” said the chairwoman, “I hardly think that is an acceptable defense. If that’s all you have to say, I’m afraid we have no choice but to dismiss you—”
“Please, madam chair,” interrupted Kristen. “He’s an incredible asset to this university. He’s probably the finest computer scientist here or anywhere.”
The chairwoman responded, “That isn’t the issue here.”
“If it isn’t, it should be,” said Kristen. “This Rocha business will blow over within days; Dr. Owens will be one of this institution’s brightest lights for
years
—unless you make a big mistake today.”