His hand shot out across the floor and the cigarette was there, suddenly in his hand. She felt the sear against her neck, the smell of burning skin.
She let go, cried out, jumped back. She clutched her neck, the boil bubbling beneath her fingertips.
From the floor, Lenny laughed.
She left, the screen door slamming behind her. Standing on the broken sidewalk, the weeds tickling her ankles, she could still hear him laughing, a loose, maniacal sound, and she knew she’d never go back.
CHAPTER 11
Nate, Tuesday, April 28, 2015: A week after the birds fell
“You have to understand where I’m coming from, Nate.” Tad Bachman crossed and uncrossed his legs, settled finally with his ankle resting on his knee, his body pitched forward as if any moment he might dart for the door.
Nate studied the degrees behind his desk. Mounted in gilded frames, the glass glinting with a hint of Nate’s own reflection.
“Suspended? No, I really don’t. I didn’t do anything with this girl. I bought her a hotel room to get her away from her abusive brother.” His mind flashed briefly on her fingertips brushing his bare skin, a feather touch between the buttons of his shirt. He took a breath, took a gamble. “Bring her in, ask her. The reporters are here looking for a story. There’s no story in the birds. There won’t be for weeks. They know that. They’ve all gone home, except for one. Why? She’s looking to take something back to her editor. She dug up this little gem; who cares if it’s not real?” He was protesting too much, going on about it too long. He could see the doubt in Tad’s wrinkled forehead, his face almost a wince.
“I made the same argument to the superintendent. I did.” He paused then, picked up a pen, flicked it between his fingertips. “But we did bring her in, Nate.”
“What?”
“This isn’t about what the paper says anymore. It’s what she says.” Tad’s voice dropped and he looked off to the side, a bare expanse of wall that held no interest. Nothing to look at, except it wasn’t Nate’s face.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Lucia wouldn’t say that. We’re friends.”
Tad’s face snapped back, his eyes widening. “Friends? How so?”
“Don’t pull this shit on me, Bachman. The same way I’m ‘friends’ with all my other students. I teach them algebra, precalc, statistics, yes. But you know as well as I do they come to me. I’m the coach. I pay attention. Which is more than some of their parents do.”
“You’re on dangerous ground, Winters.”
“Again, what the fuck does that even mean? I’m not doing anything differently than you’ve known about for years. And now you’re high and mighty on me? Come off it.” Nate stood, his legs shaking, his blood pumping in his throat. He gripped the edge of Tad’s desk, an easy three feet between them.
“I never thought you’d abuse it.” Tad’s voice was loud, almost a shout. Nate pictured Ginny on the other side of the door, her fingers working at her blueish hair, a nervous twitch, her hand hovering over the phone. To call whom?
“I’m not abusing anything!” Nate slapped at the desk, his hand stinging, and Tad jumped back, took a breath.
“Look.” Tad lowered his voice. “Let me just do my job, Nate. If you weren’t involved,” his voice broke on the word, “it’ll come out in the wash, okay?”
“She really said that? That we were involved?” Nate’s mind spun, thinking back to all their twilight conversations in his classroom, after the halls fell silent, that veered toward too intimate, too close, the ones that made his heart thud in his chest like a drum.
“She called it . . . love.” Bachman flexed his fingers against the glass top of his desk, his eyes darting at the word love.
“I need to know, Tad, exactly what she said,” Nate said, a scratch in his throat. He tried to clear it, but couldn’t. He could hardly breathe.
“I can’t tell you that. It’s an ongoing investigation,” Tad said. He held his hands out, plaintive. “It’s my job, you get that right?”
“She called it love?” The idea seemed unfathomable. They’d never uttered those words, the very idea of it ridiculous.
Tad stood, crossed the room, put his hand on the doorknob. A dismissal. Nate’s job, then, suspended. A continued paycheck, but for how long? Tad half turned, his head down, eyes studying the carpet, a red-and-black square pattern that looked like a maze.
“She said you loved her.”
CHAPTER 12
Alecia, Tuesday, April 28, 2015: A week after the birds fell
The story first hit the Harrisburg Courier, a second-rate paper with day-old news. The byline said Rowena White, the reporter who cornered Alecia outside Bridget’s house the day of the shopping spree (was it only Saturday?).
“Teacher Accused of Student Affair” was the headline, but Alecia could hardly bring herself to read the story. She read it in bits and pieces on the computer, scrolling up then down again, the text flying by making her dizzy. The whole story rested on anonymous sources; it was horrible reporting, really. Irresponsible. The reporter corroborated that Nate and Lucia were seen together at Deannie’s Motel. She found the desk clerk: “I thought she looked young, but not like a student. I’d never seen either of ’em before in my life.” You could hear the gum smack through the print.
The story named no one on record.
The school had no comment. Nate, of course, had no comment. Alecia had no comment. Alecia suddenly wanted to punch something, a surge of anger blooming bright hot in her chest.
The article itself was short, only a few paragraphs. The only pictures included were Nate’s yearbook photo and Lucia’s senior pictures. Her long hair looked more blond than white, and her makeup was minimal. She looked almost girl-next-door, save for the glittering piercing in the soft skin between her lip and her nose.
Nate came home at two, before the last bell, and he stood in the hallway, his backpack hanging impotently in one hand. “I think I was fired.”
Alecia could only nod, the bile rising in her throat.
Now that it was in print, it all felt so much worse. Even if she had believed Nate before, when he begged her to and got mad and broke the beer bottle and cut his hand that night in the kitchen (Was it only three nights ago? Saturday? How was it possible?), how could she believe him now?
She could ask him about the picture, the girl’s ivory skin, her bursting cleavage. Alecia wanted to ask him if Lucia felt younger, tighter, smoother. She bit back the words. He might lie. She wasn’t sure if she could bear it, the way his eyes would skip around the room, his tongue finding the words slowly. She needed more first, she needed something concrete.
She stared at him, his hair ragged and disheveled, and felt angry, like she wanted to punch his chest, and profoundly sad. What had they done to each other here? If she couldn’t even be sure he was telling the truth, what did they have?
“Alecia, I didn’t do this. You have to know that.”