He crumpled his lunch sack, threw it into the plastic container beside his desk, and took his seat. Somehow, he could never get being a couple exactly right. He felt like hell about it. His only consolation was the assurance he made to himself and to Cath that it would never happen again.
This virtuous thought left an indistinct emptiness at the same moment it soothed him.
As the kids raised hell and found their seats, he paused to consider the mighty pines outside the bank of windows his desk faced. He had watched them grow from seedlings. He had watched Mr. Cahill, the school gardener, prune and nurture them for his whole working life through those windows. He had watched the man's hair go gray and fall out.
Fourteen years of a man's life were summed up in those big old trees waving in the wind, looking so happy and well-fed. You could grow plants in any room in this school, as a matter of fact, particularly his classroom, he thought whimsically. You could fill the place up with hothouse flowers, the girls displaying bright blossoms, the boys buzzing around their heady perfume. When they had decided to send Newell away in December, he had tried to remind Cath about how mature seventeen felt, how full-blown, how physically electrifying. She told him Newell was just a pup, in spite of how he looked. That girl had seduced him.
Her naiveté never ceased to astound him.
Carl had met his wife at fourteen and married her at twenty-one. He had enjoyed returning to her cool gravity and good sense after a bevy of selfish, bullheaded college girls. He had experienced enough high drama between fourteen and twenty-one to last a lifetime-at least he thought so until the Shelly incident, and more recently, the escalating scenes with Newell.
At least Newell, being amenable to bribes, had been easy to fix. The promise of a trip East in summer and maybe his own wheels spun his attitude around fast.
He shuffled the papers on his desk, waiting for the kids to settle down. The air in his classroom, thick with evaporating body fluid, stinking of adolescent sexual glory, sometimes made him want to throw his arms around the kids and dance naked with them in circles around a bonfire. More times, it made him sick with longing for the sweeter smells found elsewhere.
Class began. The fifth-period juniors read minimally coherent essays on Miller in monotone, a low roar of voices their accompaniment, until he could stand it no longer. He stormed, raining down until they sat silent and he was spent.
“Capshaw's still pissed about Newell and Roo,” he heard the whisper as they scurried to the bell. “Dude's lost it.”
He cleared his throat to say over the din of their leaving, “Miss Fielding. Please stay after for a moment.”
Roo stopped in her tracks, shifted her books, marched back to the front row, and sat down, feeling curious but acting blasé.
“You're not turning in your work,” Capshaw said, when the door slammed.
Roo knew from the girls' bathroom mirror she had eyes round as plates, edged in red. She looked emotional, dramatic. She hoped he noticed. “I'm sorry, Mr. Capshaw,” she said, but he wanted an explanation. He waited long enough to make her uncomfortable.
“You made As all last year. Now you'll be lucky to get a C this last quarter. Want to tell me what the problem is?”
She looked at him, thinking about Newell. Then she talked about what a mess her life was lately, how her mom was on her case, about how her dog had died. Tears dribbled down her cheeks.
Mr. Capshaw frowned. He handed her a tissue.
“I just miss him so much,” she sobbed. “It's nothing to do with English. I'm doing badly in every class. I just can't seem to concentrate.” Her body shook. This room always felt hot, since the first day of school. Mr. Capshaw kept the windows closed most of the time, to keep the noisy equipment and traffic sounds out, he said.
“I'm sorry for your loss, but we've got another problem here. I'd like to help you. You could bring your grade up to a B with this next story. It's the last creative writing assignment for the year, so I expect everybody to do his or her best work.”
She wiped her face with a tissue. “I sit down to work. I start something. I end up crying. My mom says she cried the whole last half of her junior year. She says it's hormones.”
“Did you tell your mom about you and Newell?”
“No! She could never understand.”
“Think about telling her. And think about this story. You're going to find it hard to swallow, but you need this grade. You need it to get into college. It's dumb, but your future's riding on it.”
She stood up. “I know, Mr. Capshaw. I'll try.”
“Can you get me a preliminary proposal by Friday? It can be about anything.”
“Sure,” she said.
Friday afternoon, Carl had Roo in his sixth-period study hall. She came in looking bedraggled, her face flushed pink with heat.
“Where's your proposal, Miss Fielding?” he asked. “That is due today, last period. I thought I made that clear.”
“I'll work on it right now,” she promised. “I'll get it to you by the end of the day.” The bell rang. The other students hustled to the oak tables, hanging backpacks on chairs, littering the floor with notebooks. He sat at his desk, trying hard not to notice Roo, whose pen hovered over her paper for minutes at a time, unwavering, while she stared at the neck of the boy in front of her. When the bell rang, the fog left her eyes. She looked up with a start and caught his eyes on her face.
“Your story concept?”
“Not done.”
“You'll have to stay after today, Roo. I'll help you if I can.”
Roo called her mother from the office so that she wouldn't panic when she came home late. “I'm working with Mr. Capshaw on finishing something up, Mom.”
“He's that cutie from open house?”
“My English teacher.”
“Newell's father, right?”
How was her mother always so clued-in? “Yes.”
“Where'd he go, anyway?”
“Who?”
“Newell. You went out a couple of times, didn't you?”
“He's at another school.”
“Private school, I bet. All the public school teachers send their kids to private, the paper says. They're canceling Honors English at Obispo next year. I'm just disgusted.”
“Can I stay 'til five? I'll unload the dishes when I get home.”
“Okay, honey. Need a ride? I don't want you to walk home alone, young lady.”
“Don't worry so much. I'll find a ride.”
Roo managed a poor rehash of a story she had written in eighth grade for something to give Mr. Capshaw. He didn't really do anything to help, just sat there at his desk pretending not to look at her the whole time. She finished by five. She asked him for a ride home, explaining that her mother worried. “A guy pulled over off the road once. He got out of his car and followed me for a few blocks. Asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. I was only thirteen. Since then, Mom's a maniac about safety.”
Roo had worn the lightest cotton she could find that morning, a sleeveless red blouse over sparkling white slacks. Her mom had helped her to twist her hair into a French braid, but by now she had a curly halo around her face, too messy, she felt. She excused herself for the bathroom and wetted some scratchy paper towels, getting her underarms with one, smoothing back her hair with another. She dabbed a dry towel over her washed face, licked her lips, then glossed them. She was ready.