She pulled herself up laboriously from the bed and, stepping over the bodies, wrapped herself in her men's extra large parka. Wiping her shoes on a dish towel, she found the keys to the car he had left, a cheap Japanese car they had bought when they were first married. She drove straight to the ice cream parlor, wedged herself into the booth, and ordered the chocolate milkshake. Beige-gray in color, like mud or weak vomit, the milkshake had a sour aftertaste. After the one sip, she pushed it away, asking for the check. She wasn't hungry. Back at home she put her key in the lock, peering in, but they had not stirred. She heard no TV. No high sharp voices demanded her attention.
Cool silence seeped into her. She sucked in the quiet gratefully, allowing it to invade and fill her, standing utterly still in the dark hallway, savoring every last drop.
The Young Lady
Roo arranged to meet him in the parking lot after the game. She wore a carefully tight cropped knit top, yellow, with white shorts that she hoped showed off the golden glow of last weekend. Standing under a lamppost, she observed as the crowds poured into the parking lot. “They won,” shouted the running back's father to someone, tossing a cap into the air. “Helluva game!” The students seemed more subdued than their parents, but Roo knew why. Their celebrating started later, out from under the glare of adult eyes.
Roo watched for Newell's blond head. He would be happy. Good.
After the crowd thinned out, Newell finally appeared, his hair wet. He found her under the light, gathered her up, and kissed her. “Sorry I took so long. Grabbed a shower.” He steered her over to his car, a blue Cavalier, closing the door behind her with a hard thump.
They drove down the dark streets of their town and up the hill, winding around until the lights flickered like sparks through the trees. Coming out to the clearing, Newell parked the car. Usually the place was packed on Friday night. “Jeff's having a party. Didn't I mention it?”
“You don't want to go,” she said. “Do you?”
“Not really.” Newell put his arm around her and reeled her in close. They kissed awhile, then he watched and waited while she pulled the crop top down into a kind of belt around her waist. “Just a minute,” he said then, his breath a loud exhalation. “I need to tell you something.”
“I thought we decided,” she said, pushing him down, leaning over him. “Tonight's going to be so special…”
“Roo…” he said, and then he said her name a few more times.
Newell started the car up and rolled down the hill. He had to be home by ten. He had promised.
When they hit Main Street, he broke the silence. “Last night my parents got really mad about how much time we're spending together.”
“They finally know about me? About us?”
“Yeah. And I guess you know how my dad is. Don't you have him for English?”
Roo nodded.
“He gets on my case and won't let go. So I blew it. I couldn't help it, Roo. I told them how much I love you,” he said, reaching a hand over to stroke her hair. “How I'd do anything for you.”
“Bet they didn't like hearing that.”
“No. They told me they're sending me to an aunt in Sacramento until school's out. Summer, we're going back East. Renting a house in Truro.”
She didn't know where Truro was, but she could imagine the clapboard cottage overlooking a blue blue sea, sunshine, and pretty girls all in a row.
“Well,” she said. “At least we can write.”
“No. They said no.”
He didn't look at her, and Roo knew why. Newell was basically a coward.
He told her how he had fought them, and how only his mother's tears and the whiteness of his father's face had convinced him that this might be a good thing for both of them.
“God, Newell. You could have told me before we…”
“I know,” he said. “Sorry.”
Well, she couldn't blame him. For months she had teased him. She knew how he felt. He had earned her, with all those dates, the flowers, the whole romance thing. She sighed. “You told them who I was?”
“Yes. Don't worry, though. My dad would never use it against you in your grades or anything. Never. He's scrupulous when it's easy. He's just a weasel when it comes to the hard stuff.”
“You shouldn't talk about your father that way.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“You should have told them I didn't mean a thing to you.”
“Why would I do that?”
How could someone with his grades be so dense? “What else did you tell them?”
“My father asked if we'd had sex.”
“But we didn't until tonight.”
“No. That was lucky, wasn't it?”
While he faced the windshield, driving carefully, as he always did, his eyes swerved over to watch her. He drove her all the rest of the way home in silence, probably wondering why she wasn't crying.
In June, while sitting behind a tree at lunchtime listening to a gaggle of teenagers chat, Carl Capshaw found out exactly what his girl students thought of him. They loved having him for English. He looked like Ben Affleck, tall and dark. Deep. Also, they said, he seemed very young, although how could he be, being Newell's dad? He had to be in his thirties, at least.
On the way back to his classroom, he reran the conversation, feeling pleased.
Carl taught English literature, a sometimes arcane and dated subject, according to his students. He used any means at his disposal to keep the kids interested, including his smile, if it worked, or a sharp, mean bark if that worked better. The old songs and dances no longer did the trick. You had to work at penetrating their generally unfocused and overstimulated minds.
Passing by the lockers, waving at a few of the kids, Carl thought this year was winding up rather nicely. A group of his senior English students had rewritten King Lear in the style of Harold Pinter, full of pauses and portent, and would be staging their version next week. The junior students had just finished The Crucible, quite swept up in witchcraft and hysteria themselves, poor things, victims of spring fever en masse. They had stories to turn in at the end of the quarter.
He taught five classes and directed sixth-period study hall. According to Cath, he didn't make enough money to compensate for the aggravation factor, but then nothing he did lately satisfied her. As time passed, he had begun to wonder if anything would diminish the magnitude of his transgression, and her shocked memory of finding that motel slip in his pocket.
He didn't know why it had happened, except that Shelly, the school counselor, got so drunk that night. She had come on to him after a school board meeting, when they had retired to the bar to indulge in the general gossip and backstabbing they all enjoyed in mild forms, and he had done what was indefensible but entirely natural. He hadn't even come home very late. But, confronted with the evidence by Cath the next day, he confessed immediately.
Now, nearly a year later, at breakfast sometimes, he could see shadows of doubt and pain in Cath's eyes. The crisis in December with Newell had helped them to forge an uneasy alliance, raising a hope in him that someday she would love him wholeheartedly and without reserve again, as she always had before.
At his classroom, he stopped and fiddled for his keys. He had been taken off guard by the whole situation, surprised at himself, and surprised by the powerful aftershocks that had almost toppled his marriage. The truth was, from the moment he had that second drink with Shelly, Cath had flown out of his mind. He had never meant to hurt her. He had never even considered her.