I replied, “How does anyone fuck anyone?”
The answer didn’t appear to satisfy her. “Do you know who’s been supplying him with condoms all these months?” she asked. “Me. Because it’s the job of adults to teach teenagers to be responsible. That’s what grown-ups do.”
“You’ve done an admirable job.”
She picked up the jar of comb honey beside the stove and flung it at me. It missed my arm and hit the refrigerator, sending an amber trail trickling down the white. The jar rolled across the floor with an undulating glassy sound, dispensing with bits of comb that flecked the tile.
“I ought to turn you in,” she yelled, and now I felt real fear, more of Russ than of her. “I told him I wouldn’t, but I’m very tempted. Someone needs to hold you accountable, even if he won’t.”
“I don’t believe he told you anything,” I said quietly.
“Oh, he sure did.”
“I don’t believe you. I think you’re just guessing in the dark.”
She leaned forward from the waist, her eyes large, face jeering. “You’re wrong. I was shocked. I would never have guessed a Sylvania teacher would do such a thing. To a boy.”
At that moment the chain inside me broke. “He’s not six years old,” I shouted, my hands in fists at my sides, my neck arching toward her. “He’s not a child. He knew what he was doing and he came after it like he had a free pass to fucking Disneyland. He wouldn’t be taking all your precious condoms if he wasn’t dying to use every last one of them. And who are you to him? Nobody at all. Just another adult he likes to talk to about sex. And you’re jealous. You wish you’d had the nerve.”
Her lip curled like a dog’s. “That’s bullshit. How dare you. You’re so twisted you don’t even know what it is to feel protective of somebody who’s young.”
“Oh, I know what that’s like. But my kindergartners aren’t barging in and dropping their pants in my classroom two minutes after dismissal. Which is what your little angel has been doing for months. He doesn’t want to be protected. He wants to be blown.”
She rested her hands low on her hips and came toward me. “You need to turn yourself in.”
“I’m not turning myself in for anything. I’ll turn him in first for ripping half my hair out the last time I victimized him.”
Her face was inches from mine. I could see every puckered pore along her cheekbones, every haphazard eyelash. “Turn yourself in or I will.”
I cuffed her ear with my open hand and shoved her as hard as I could, sending her stumbling backward into the stove. As she winced, I grabbed the glass sphere Bobbie had given me, delicately streaked with color and hanging in the window by a thread, and flung it at her. She ducked, and it shattered against a cabinet in a spray of shards.
“You’re insane,” she shouted. “You need to be evaluated. There’s something wrong with you, Judy. I mean it. I’m calling a psychiatric transport on you.”
“Go ahead,” I yelled back. “Be my guest. Make sure they’ve got a rape kit.”
She stared into my eyes for a long moment, then brushed past me and out the door.
29
On the night of the Wicker Man Festival, Fairen came by to pick up Zach, her small white car turning sharply into the driveway with a grace he had to admire. They stopped to get sandwiches, then sat in the car for a long time, heater blasting, making out. For once he didn’t mind the setting one bit. It wasn’t half bad, this business of hooking up in cars, if one respected the limitations of the space. The frustration of wishing he could take her elsewhere had its own peculiar excitement.
Once at the lake they ducked through the trees and entered the park, where the party was already in full swing. To the right a band played in an amphitheater; straight ahead, in the lake itself, scaffolding supported a high platform on which the wicker man was suspended. It looked less like wicker than like blocks of straw held together with metal bands, and, Zach guessed, the burn would be fast and messy; chunks would probably fall off, necessitating the midlake location. The pyrotechnics guys, two shadowy figures moving around a control box, looked like they were making the final preparations.
Fairen set down her backpack and unfurled a quilt onto the cold ground, a little distance from the amphitheater. She waved to a couple in the crowd, dancing to the modern-Celtic music coming from the stage, heavy on the drums. “Want to dance?”
“Not yet. Maybe when the burn starts.”
“Oh, c’mon. Don’t be inhibited.”
To distract her, he chose to deliberately misinterpret her meaning, and leaned in to kiss her. She laughed and kissed him back, and after a little more of that he playfully wrestled her down onto the quilt. A pine bough sheltered them somewhat, but people were everywhere, and so he contented himself with the sort of kissing that didn’t quite qualify as public indecency.
A whoop went up from the crowd, and Zach looked up to make sure it wasn’t a reaction to him and Fairen. Instead he saw a tongue of flame lapping at the leg of the wicker man. He rolled himself back up to a sitting position, and watched as the legs, and then the torso, gradually caught fire. Fairen moved across him, sitting backwards on his lap briefly and taking a moment to kiss him again before standing up and reaching out her hand.
“It’s started,” she said. Her smile was almost persuasive. “Come join me.”
“I liked what we were doing.”
“There’ll be more of that later. C’mon.”
He grinned and hesitated, trying to think up a new way to lure her back. But then, behind her, he saw a woman walking swiftly toward them, wearing a down vest much like his own. As she came closer he realized it was Rhianne.
“There you are,” she said, clearly exasperated. “Zach, can I have a word with you privately?”
He immediately stood up, and Fairen shot him an odd smile and a small wave. “Catch up with me in a minute, okay?”
“Sure thing.” She walked off, and he asked Rhianne, “Is my mom in labor?”
“No. She’s fine. I’m glad I found you. Seems like every kid from Sylvania is here.” She took a deep breath. “Zach, listen to me. You have to break things off with Judy McFarland right away.”
His eyes widened at hearing her name from Rhianne. Immediately he felt the gut-level panic he had feared for months at being found out. He said, “I already did. There’s nothing going on anymore.”
“You’re sure she understands that. Because that woman’s not stable, Zach. She’s dangerous, and she might try to say you raped her.”
He shook his head. “She won’t really do that. She’s just upset and got her feelings hurt. I didn’t do anything to her that she didn’t want me to do.”
“Well, you need to be prepared for what she might accuse you of, if she’s crazy enough to try. Which she might be. She hit me and shoved me into her stove.”
“Really?” He half laughed, and Rhianne gave him a look of alarm. “Glad it’s not just me. She gets pissy when you tick her off.”
“I’d get a restraining order if I were you.”
Now his laugh was outright. He felt impatient to get back to Fairen. “You’ve seen her, right? She’s about the size of a twelve-year-old. I’m not worried about it.”
“I think you’re underestimating her.”
He shrugged and let his gaze wander over her shoulder. “People mouth off when they’re mad. Word getting out about what happened is the last thing she wants, trust me. It’ll blow over.”