“Mom,” Scott said, squeezing his eyes shut. And Sylvie laughed as if it was a joke, though it kind of wasn’t. There was more implicit in it than she’d intended.
People make assumptions about everything, she wished she could say. Would this situation with the dead boy—the hazing rumors, the coach’s supposed role—would it be different if, say, Scott didn’t have that tattoo on his calf? If he didn’t have that smirking, subversive look on his face whenever he dealt with authority, if he didn’t wear street clothes with brightly colored sneakers? If he looked like all the other teachers at Swithin—say, if he looked like Charles—would this be anything?
The world wasn’t fair, she wanted to say. All it wants to do is pigeonhole you. It reminded her of what James had said about the miniature birdhouse, which she could see outside Scott’s window, high on its post next to James’s office. One day not long after they were married and settled, James finished feeding the birds from the window, walked into the upstairs hall and said, “Did you ever notice that all the jays go to one hole, all the starlings go to a different hole, and same with the cardinals and the woodpeckers and the towhees?”
“That’s silly,” she answered. “Birds don’t do that. They go to any spot on the feeder that’s open.”
He shook his head. “Not this birdfeeder. I’ve watched them. They never diverge from their spots. It’s like they know their place in life and that’s that.” Then he added, “Seems like an appropriate metaphor for all you Bateses, I should think.” When he glanced at her, his eyes felt like knives.
Water dripped into the bucket, drawing her back to reality. Sylvie had to be oversimplifying things. People didn’t make accusations purely on how someone looked. But as Scott turned and poured the water that had collected in the bucket into the sink, just as she’d asked, she felt wary. Why wasn’t he arguing with her? Did it mean he thought she was right? That he’d thought about the accusations, too, and had maybe even wondered the same things? Was all this getting to him, even though he tried so hard to be cavalier?
Scott turned back to her when he finished. “Come on,” he said. “It smells disgusting in here.”
They turned and left Scott’s apartment, going back into the main house. Sylvie quickly busied herself with the breakfast dishes, wanting a moment away from him to collect her thoughts. Was it possible that she could just ask him what had happened with the wrestlers? If she put it in just the right gentle and unbiased way, would Scott tell her the truth?
When she walked into her bedroom a half hour later, Scott was standing at the mirror in her walk-in closet, dressed in a pair of James’s pinstripe pants, a white button-down shirt, a gray sweater-vest. He’d even put on a pair of James’s shoes, brown and white wing tips.
She ducked behind the door, covering her mouth with her hand. He hadn’t seen her. She clenched inside, watching as he pivoted and lowered his chin, examining himself from all angles. Right here, right in this moment, she could ask him. It was possible.
Then Scott caught her reflection in the mirror and jumped. His face tightened. He folded in his shoulders and pulled off the shirt. “I was just fucking around.” He kicked off the shoes and socks.
“It’s all right,” she said earnestly. “Take it. Wear whatever you want.” She leaned on the console table to get her balance. “It all looks nice on you.”
Scott snorted. “Right.”
As he put his hands in the pants pockets, he hitched them up a little, revealing his socks. She pointed. “You put on a brown one and a black one.”
Scott leaned over to look. “Huh.”
“Your father used to do that, too. Especially when we were first dating. He said it was because he was distracted. Because he was in love.”
The words hung in the air for a moment; more personal than anything she’d ever told him. Scott whipped the sweater off his head fast and sniffed. “In love,” he muttered under his breath, as if it was a joke.
Sylvie’s skin prickled. “Why did you say it like that?”
Scott eyed her. He chewed on his top lip, considering. “Forget it.”
The room seemed to drop a few degrees. Sylvie placed her hands on her throat. An alarm in her head went off. Scott knew. He knew something about her. Something about James. What James had done.