There are extra clothes in Thalia’s backpack—a green sweater, jeans, some underwear—and he folds these neatly on the bench as if this were what she’d worn. He’ll take the wet, bloodstained clothes and find a way to burn them.
He slips back out through the emergency exit. In the morning, it occurs to him that he should have left the key with Thalia, given her a plausible way to have entered the pool alone.
But then, this version of Robbie is not the one who’ll wake up in the morning, because this Robbie vanishes. He becomes molecular, floats away in the damp March air.
The real Robbie is hurrying back to his dorm now with his friends, crossing North Bridge, happy and only a little drunk and only a little late for checkin.
He’ll get married and have kids and live in Connecticut, and he’ll never know what he’s done.
28
The Granby Supper Club was exactly as I remembered it, except that in adulthood the excellent wine list was an option, which immensely helped the mediocre food. There’s a particular charm to the glass of breadsticks on the table, the man who comes around with the basket of rolls and little tongs. We don’t get many bread basket men in LA.
When the carb man left—I managed to pass, to Fran’s eye-rolling—I said, “So you called Mr. Bloch a creeper.”
“Why, what.”
“You remember how we used to think Thalia was involved with him?”
Fran laughed, said, “Wait, do not let Britt say that on the podcast. Did I tell you she asked me for an interview? We’re doing it Monday.”
“But were they sleeping together, you think?”
“No. No! And don’t let her say that. Good God. I meant he was too close to the students. I didn’t mean he was fucking them.”
“But you were right,” I said. “Teenagers have a sixth sense for that stuff. I just keep thinking, if we thought it was happening, it was happening—or something was. Maybe not actual sex, but impropriety.” I told her about Bethesda Fountain, but it didn’t sound convincing.
“I mean,” she said, “teenagers also believe wild rumors. Remember how we thought Marco Washington was Denzel’s cousin?”
I was frustrated at her backtracking. It wasn’t fair for her to plant the seed in my mind, disrupt my sleep all week, then disavow it.
I said, “They spent too much time together. I’d show up for convocation practice and they’d be in there forever with the door closed. Something was off.”
Fran nodded. “You’re a kid, and you think, That teacher is amazing because he hangs out with us. Like, who wouldn’t want to hang out with sixteen-year-olds? Then you get older and you think, Huh, that person must not have had a real social life.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, though.”
“Right. But don’t say it to Britt. Do not let her get into that shit.”
She waved at a group entering the room. I spotted Dana Ramos, my old biology teacher, with whom I’d had a pleasant breakfast the day before, asking her over coffee and oatmeal if the kids still did the hula hoop observation in the woods (they did) and if she still made kids sketch (yes) and if they still dissected fetal pigs (it was an option, but a lot of kids opted for a virtual substitute). I was never much for science, but I’d loved her, the way she gave the Greek or Latin roots of every term, the way she insisted we say zo-ology instead of zoo-ology. “It’s the study of life,” she’d say. “Not zoos.” The way she articulated photosynthesis, as if speaking the private name of God. I loved the poetry of leaves converting sunlight to glucose and oxygen. And I loved the idea of adaptations, the ways plants battled for access to the sun: sprouting early or unfurling enormous leaves to catch more light or bearing tiny needles that hardly wanted any. “They’re specializing,” Dana said, “in much the same way you’ll all specialize on your college applications.”
Dana and the four other women in her party sat, already in animated conversation. They’d brought gift bags; it was someone’s birthday.
Fran said, “So what’s the gist of Britt’s podcast, exactly?”
I grimaced, unsure how she’d take it. “That Omar was wrongfully convicted.”
Fran nodded slowly. Our wine showed up, and when we both had a full glass and the waiter had scuttled off, she said, “But they’re not actually, like, broadcasting these, are they?”
“They’ll be available online.”
“I mean—you’re not going to amplify this anywhere. It won’t get out and cause a shitstorm?”
“God,” I said. “I don’t know. She could throw some video up tomorrow that goes viral.”
Fran looked irritated enough that I wondered if she’d brought me here just to grill me. She said, “So you think that’s true? He’s the wrong guy?”
I had been, until now, in a safe, neutral, academic space—or so I’d told myself. I could ask Britt helpful questions, prodding questions, devil’s advocate questions. I didn’t need answers.
I said, “That’s not up to me.”
Fran bit straight into her roll rather than tearing a piece off. She said, through her mouthful, “Maybe it is.”
“Whether he did it?”
“I mean—what Britt does, what you do with it, where you take it.” She reached for the chilled bowl of gold-foiled butter packets. She said, “Because just now, it sounded like you think Bloch had something to do with it.”
I made high-pitched noises of protest. I said, “He was home with his wife and kids! I’m not suggesting that!”
“I think you’re implying that.”
“No! He was in the theater with me after the show. Putting everything away.”
“I thought you said he was with his wife.”
“That was later, it—Jesus. Fran. I don’t think that at all. You remember how dweeby he was.” I heard myself, heard how ridiculous that sounded. But it was true that I couldn’t wrap my head around the possibility. The idea of you sleeping with Thalia was already more than I’d wanted to consider.
Fran said, “I know you were attached to him. I don’t mean in an inappropriate way. But he showed you a lot of attention. That’s what he was good at, right? He recognized people’s talents. And not big, obvious things like skiing.”
My feet were too hot now in their double socks and snow boots. My Sangiovese, which the waiter had poured into a glass as big as my head, was already rendering my limbs both leaden and weightless.
I said, “I don’t see what that has—”
“Look, I didn’t want to put you through stuff, bringing you back. You’ve seemed so solid, and like—I’m sorry, I don’t want you to spiral.”
“Who said I was spiraling?”
“Bodie, you look like you haven’t slept since you got here. You’re still gorgeous, but you look like hell.”
I was saved by our food arriving—steak for Fran, an oily vegetable terrine for me. I had a moment to collect myself, to remember that while I’d led twenty-three years of competent adult life since Granby, Fran had seen only a few weeks of me, total, in that time. She didn’t understand how far I was from the disaster I’d been senior year.
I said, “I’ve had several things on my mind. I’m in an emotional swamp.” I wasn’t ready to talk about Jasmine Wilde’s video, so I opted to tell her instead about Yahav, at length.
One of Fran’s best traits is that she genuinely wants to hear the whole mess of things. Her eyes light up like she’s rewatching her favorite movie.
“The problem is,” I said, “it’s like I have no sexuality anymore except for Yahav, like other men might as well be old women. Look at me, excelling at monogamy when it’s least appropriate.”
She asked if she could meet him on Saturday, at least arrange to cross paths with us on campus.
Dana Ramos had left her table and her increasingly raucous group and was swaying toward us, a glass of yellow wine glowing in her hand. She said, too loudly, “You two catching up? What’s the latest?” Dana’s hair had become frizzier since she’d entered the restaurant.
I could see Fran mentally rewinding to the last nonprivate thing we’d mentioned. She said, “We were talking about Denny Bloch. You remember him? He taught music?”