“I don’t need to listen to you!” Ren stood behind his desk, his outrage palpable. I found myself on my feet, as if ready to physically defend myself. A vein forked in his forehead, thick and dark under the skin. “You deceived me, Matthias,” he continued angrily. “You made me look like a fool. And we are not telling the Jarrars about any of this. A faculty member was negligent, and a boy stole his key, resulting in a tragic accident. That is what happened.”
So this was why the school would say nothing: aside from the threat of a potential lawsuit, this was about Ren’s anger over looking foolish to the Jarrars. If I hadn’t been horrified by the whole thing, I would have laughed at the absurdity of it. “So we just ignore it?” I said. “We don’t even look at the possibility that Paul Simmons has some sort of responsibility?”
“Travis Simmons will take care of his son,” Ren said. “I suspect he will withdraw and continue his education elsewhere.”
“It’s a lie.”
Ren didn’t blink. “It’s an omission.”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. Ren came around the side of his desk and stood a few feet from me, the fingertips of one hand balanced on the desktop. “Some truths are best left uncovered,” he said quietly. “All of us face that fact at some point.”
“Lying, omitting the truth, whatever you want to call it, it’s just wrong.”
Ren nodded slowly, in consideration. “And what about you, Matthias?” he asked. “What about that physics test your sixth form year?”
I stared at him, stunned. How in the hell did he know about that? After a moment, I said, in an utterly unconvincing voice, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“All of us keep things hidden,” Ren continued. “Not because we want to lie, but because it’s necessary in order to function in society. Otherwise we have messy stories to tell, uncomfortable truths about ourselves we would rather not share with others. Colleagues, for instance. Or future employers.”
I managed to find my voice. “Are you threatening me?”
Ren looked disappointed. “No, Matthias,” he said. “I’m simply pointing out that all of us do such things, so you can better understand why the school will do so as well. For the greater good.” Ren reached over and picked up the two bags of pot, opened a drawer in his desk, dropped the bags in, and shut the drawer. “Your contract, as you know, is for one year,” he said. “I can’t say if we’ll continue to have the same position available next year. But should you decide to seek employment elsewhere, I would write you an excellent letter of recommendation.” The look on his face was inscrutable, tight as a closed fist.
After a moment or two of silence, I realized I had been dismissed. Without protest, I walked out of the office and shut the door behind me. Going down the hall in a daze, I felt as if I had suddenly woken from a dream and found myself alone, in unfamiliar country, with no idea of how to get home.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Porter Deems packed his bags the same Sunday night I had my conversation with Ren. A grad student from UVA who was working on his dissertation took over Porter’s classes. Paul Simmons transferred to a school out in Utah, the official rumor being that he had struggled academically at Blackburne and needed to attend a school where his father was not the headmaster. I soon learned that “out in Utah” was code for residential treatment or therapeutic boarding school.
The same week that Paul Simmons left for whatever educational experience awaited him in Utah, I ran into his father outside the dining hall before dinner. He and Ren Middleton were walking together, engaged in deep discussion, when I came upon them from the stairwell by the doors to the dining hall. Dr. Simmons came to an abrupt halt so as not to run into me, and as I stammered an apology, he gave me a look that stopped my words in my throat. His expression was a mixture of sorrow, disdain, and fear. At that moment, he looked old and worn. The look vanished, and he smiled and asked how I was getting along, and then passed into the dining hall. Ren Middleton followed him after giving me a warning glance. I turned away, my appetite gone. The message Ren had given me in his office the day I had brought Paul Simmons in had been very clear: Keep your nose clean and I’ll help you find another job—just not here.
Ren’s comments about my J-Board hearing had been a way for him to show he owned me. Telling people outside the confines of Blackburne that I had once been suspected of cheating on a test would mean little, but Ren knew he had shaken me. More important, one negative recommendation from him and I could forget about teaching anywhere. The irony was, as I had said to Trip, I thought I was actually a good teacher. And my career as a writer still seemed on hold, if not comatose. Every time I opened my laptop to try to write—which, admittedly, was not often—I found myself staring at the winking cursor on the screen, or I spent up to an hour playing Internet solitaire, promising that if I won this round, I would write; by the time I had won, it was nearly midnight and I would fall into bed, exhausted. At least I wasn’t going to coach winter track with Ren, which I found out just before Thanksgiving break. Instead, I’d been assigned extra dorm duties, proctoring study halls, and so forth. So I just focused on my teaching and worked very hard not to give Ren Middleton any reason to notice me except as a productive, happy drone.
FOR THE FIVE-DAY THANKSGIVING break I stayed at Blackburne. To see the school empty in November, with dead leaves whirling in eddies by the stairs to Stilwell Hall and the dormitories dark at night save for the entrance lights, was eerie. But Sam Hodges and his wife, Laura, invited me for Thanksgiving, and we had a merry holiday together. It was nice to have almost a week to sleep late and finish grading work in preparation for fall exams, which students would take just before Christmas vacation. I avoided running into Ren and Dr. Simmons by either staying in my apartment to work or visiting with Sam.
Sam brought up Terence only once. We were sitting in his study one afternoon, talking about exams, though it would be more accurate to say that Sam, who had taught English for three decades, was talking while I listened. He glanced out his window at the falling light and then removed his glasses, absently polishing them with a handkerchief. “You doing okay, Matthias?” he asked, looking at me with that strange, almost vulnerable look people have when they normally wear glasses but aren’t.