The coach’s flinty face managed to convey his opinion of the Meachams in a precise, economical tightening of the lips.
Brandon and Elaine Meacham, the parents of Travis High’s star pitcher, were active in the Baseball Boosters Club, and they spent a lot of time volunteering at other school activities. Clay was their only child. They didn’t miss a single opportunity to support and promote the handsome junior.
If Clay had been as good a young man as he was talented, Anne would have thoroughly approved. Clay’s academic and athletic glory was the school’s (and therefore her) glory. But Clay was not a good young man, and his judgment was deeply flawed.
“What’s he done?” she asked.
“He was messing with Hazel Reid.”
Their eyes met while Anne absorbed the implications. She considered wasting time with things a normal woman would have said, like, “How is she?” or “Should we call the police?” None of that was on the table: if it had been, Holt would have led with the worst news. Hazel Reid was mentally and emotionally handicapped. But she was also a physically mature sixteen. Anne said, “How far did it go?”
“He’d taken her shirt off,” the coach said.
“Where?”
“In the woods in back of the school. If she hadn’t been wearing bright pink, I wouldn’t have spotted them.”
“So, after school. But on school property.”
“Yeah.”
“Why wasn’t she on her bus?” Hazel was supposed to catch the vehicle derisively called “the short bus” to her home.
“Her mom was here for teacher conferences. She’d parked Hazel on the bench outside to wait. Clay saw her when he was walking to his car after practice. I guess he was in a bad mood. Or maybe a good one.”
“Does he know you know?” she asked.
“Not for sure. I called him on his cell phone, asked him if he’d seen Hazel in the parking lot, her mom was looking for her.”
Anne checked the list of phone calls she’d gotten that morning, and Mrs. Reid wasn’t on it. “Hazel didn’t tell,” Anne said.
“I don’t think she minded,” the coach said. “But she’s not mentally capable to consent or refuse.”
“Noted,” Anne said. She thought for a moment, and Coach Halsey let her.
Her previous job had been far tougher than this one, and when she’d left it so abruptly, she’d sworn to herself she wouldn’t ever get so invested again. But here she was, thinking of Travis High and its reputation.
Did Anne care about each individual student? No. But this was her turf, and she would protect it. She would make it as perfect as she could. When she looked up at the rugged, impenetrable face of her baseball coach, she surprised a look almost of… sympathy. And for a second…
“Do I know you?” she asked, with no premeditation.
He smiled. It was like watching rock move. “It’s time for the Meachams to get here. I’ll hear from you later.” It wasn’t quite a question.
“You will,” she said, and stood up. They eyed each other for a moment. It was as though Holt Halsey was willing her to realize something. But then he turned to go, and she had to change gears to deal with Clay’s parents.
The Meachams weren’t anything special, in Anne’s expert estimation. Brandon, handsome like his son but not as mean, might look at other women but he never touched. His wife, Elaine, a former pageant queen, made a creditable effort to conceal the fact that she didn’t give a shit about anyone else’s child but her own. She would clap for another child’s achievement, she would tell the other moms how much she admired their progeny, but in truth she believed the sun shone out of Clay’s ass.
All in all, Anne couldn’t feel surprised that Clay had no sense of guilt in taking advantage of a handicapped girl. He was sure that everything he did was fine, simply because he, Clay, wanted to do it.
“Ms. DeWitt,” Elaine Meacham said, flashing her broad white smile. “Thanks for making the time to see us today.”
“Of course. What do we need to talk about this morning?” Anne asked, trying to cut through the pleasantries. She gestured them to the chairs in front of her desk, took her own seat again.
“I saw you at the last game,” Brandon said, to make sure she knew he appreciated her. “I know the kids think it’s really cool that you go to all the sporting events.”
“Of course I do,” Anne said. This is my school, she thought. I’m going to go to everything I physically can. She adopted her fallback face: pleasant, but not encouraging. Not only did she have to think about Coach Halsey’s tale, the pile of paperwork in the in-basket wasn’t going to take care of itself. She had two other meetings scheduled during the day too, one with a prospective temporary replacement for the enormously pregnant Spanish teacher, and one with a vendor who wanted the school to switch to his software system in the chemistry lab. The vendor would ask her out for a drink after work: she would refuse him. She was going to have to be more forceful in her refusal this time.
Barely able to restrain some manifestation of her boredom and her itching desire to get to the work on her desk, Anne had to sit through a few more platitudes before Brandon got down to brass tacks.
“Principal DeWitt – Anne—we hope the school will help Clay achieve his goal,” Brandon said very seriously.
“Which goal is that?” Anne worked to keep her voice neutral. She was thinking of how much she’d like to kick Clay Meacham’s ass. The enormity of the boy’s offense was sinking into her psyche. She didn’t even want to imagine the headlines, the disgrace of the school, the navel-gazing that would inevitably follow the exposure of Clay’s little after-hours adventure with the hapless Hazel Reid. Anne found herself thinking wistfully of some of the more inventive punishments she’d employed at her previous job.
Instead of getting to the point, the Meachams began the litany of what Clay had meant to the schooclass="underline" class president, star athlete, honor roll, captain of the debate team. “And what goal would that be?” Anne prompted again, when she felt her impatience building to a dangerous level.
Cut off in mid-flow, Elaine looked comically surprised. “I’m sorry?” she said.
“I’m very well aware of Clay’s position at Travis,” Anne said evenly. “Can you tell me what you think Clay needs from this school?”
“Sure,” Brandon said. “Sure. I’m sorry, we got kind of carried away, like parents tend to do.” He smiled at Anne in what he surely felt was an ingratiating manner, though he couldn’t suppress the snap of irritation in his voice.
She tried not to let her shoulders heave in a sigh of exasperation, but maybe the lines of her face conveyed her strong desire to extract some specifics.
“It’s his senior film.” Elaine again bathed Anne in the radiance of her brilliant smile.
“Clay isn’t in the drama department’s film class,” Anne said. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
“He needs a film to send to recruiters. Clay’s such an outstanding pitcher, we want to be sure he’s placed at the right college, with a good scholarship. So he needs a film to send out to athletic departments early next school year. We’ve got some examples.” Elaine extracted some DVD cases from her purse and set them on the edge of Anne’s desk.
“So you’ll hire someone to film Clay’s games?” Anne said, not reaching for the DVD cases.
“We were kind of hoping that we could use clips from the school’s game films,” Elaine explained. She kept the smile in place. “It seems like a shame to duplicate effort.”
She meant it was a shame for the Meachams to spend their own money. Anne had wondered how Meacham Motors was doing in this recession. She thought she’d just learned the answer.
It was true that the school lined up an employee or some astute volunteer parent to film every baseball game – and all the other sports events too, of course. This was invaluable as a teaching tool, the coaches assured her.