She gripped his short-sleeved shirt then, her hands cool and small, fingers slipping between the buttons to touch his skin, seeking the soft downy hair of his stomach. Her mouth pressed up against his and her tongue lapped against his closed lips. He opened his mouth to speak, too stunned for the words to come, and her tongue slipped once quickly inside, finding his teeth, darting hot and quick, and he felt his insides pool to liquid, his knees weaken, his throat close. His hands tightened around her arms and the whole room swirled in a whirlpool that centered around her and that hair, like a feather up and down his forearm, and that tongue. Her breasts pushed up against him, braless through the thin cotton of her shirt, the small knot of a nipple against his bare arm and his breath came in wet gasps.
He gripped her arms hard and pushed her away. “Lucia.” He turned his head, looked out the window to the horizon, anything to find his bearings. Shocked, then ashamed, at how little control he seemed to have over his fucking body, his mind. “Oh my God.” He pushed his mouth against his own shoulder and backed up, to find air. He filled his lungs, once, twice until the room righted itself.
He put the back of his hand over his mouth, his heart slowing from a gallop to a steady rhythm. “That never happened. Do you understand? And it never will again.”
She cocked her head, her mouth open in surprise.
“You want to know who did that to me? My hair?” She leaned forward, her mouth close to his ear, her breath tickling. “I do this to myself.”
CHAPTER 17
Bridget, Friday, May 1, 2015
The faculty lounge was worse than the halls. The students buzzed with the hushed excitement of drama, their faces flushed, skin pinked. The teachers were sullen, drawn in and whispering. They avoided Bridget’s eyes, gave her thin smiles, and while they talked to her—subjects like the weather, crazy seventh period, the new administrative assistant—no one asked her about Nate. This, more than anything, gave them away. They talked to each other, but not to Bridget. They asked each other, “Do you think he really slept with that girl?” She heard them whispering and then they’d clam up when they saw Bridget. They coughed and changed the subject when Bridget went to heat her cup of soup up in the microwave.
Bridget thought long and hard about slamming the break-room door shut, standing in front of it, and asking everyone, point-blank: Do you really think Nate’s guilty? She thought about pointing to Dale Trevor, who taught algebra in Nate’s department, who had a daughter with Down’s syndrome in a special school. She wanted to remind him that last year, Dale and Nate chaperoned prom, and Dale brought his seventeen-year-old daughter, his sweet, happy, wonderful daughter in a cotton candy gown because their school didn’t hold a prom. Nate brought her a corsage. Nate danced with her, and Dale didn’t flinch; in fact, he took a picture. He didn’t seem to think Nate was some kind of danger to society. He posted it on Facebook for crying out loud.
Bridget wanted to remind Paula Hortense of the time her car had a flat tire, and Nate stopped on the Owega turnpike because he recognized her car and her vanity plate—LGoM#31, (Let’s Go Mets #31)—and helped her change her tire in the rain, then followed her to the tire center, over twenty miles away. On a Saturday.
None of it mattered. Nate was now a creep, a scum, slept with a student, sick, practically a pedophile. Bridget kept her mouth shut, thinking of that kiss, and how sometimes the truth is actually right smack dab in the middle between speculation and perception. He was her friend. Alecia was her friend. There was a truth somewhere, and Bridget had no intention of eschewing it simply because it was easier.
The microwave dinged and suddenly Dale was behind her, emanating the smell of oily fast food. His wife must have favored the deep fryer because he always smelled like wet french fries.
He coughed and Bridget stood off to the side while he heated up a frozen dinner. She watched him press the numbers with his pale, shaky fingers. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore, the cup of soup burning hot in her palm.
“Dale,” Bridget hissed.
His shoulders hunched like he’d been expecting it.
“Talk to me. You can’t think Nate did this . . . thing. Can you?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Bridget. It’s a serious allegation. You know?” His glasses slid down to the end of his red nose and he twitched, twice, like a mouse. “They’re saying institutional assault now.”
“What does that mean?” Bridget asked.
“It means that Lucia is eighteen but it doesn’t matter. He was her teacher, it’s still rape.”
Bridget balked. “Nate would never rape anyone.”
Jane Blue, who taught gym (and whom all the boys called “blue balls,” although Bridget pretended not to know this), hung behind her, studying the bulletin board, her blond hair threaded into a thick braid. She inched closer.
“I really can’t say, Bridget. I can’t go out on a limb, though, because what if it is, you know?” Dale shook his head. “It doesn’t seem like the Nate I know, but—”
“Have you called him? Emailed him?”
Dale shook his head. “I just want to let the school board and the police do their job. If Nate’s innocent, we’re all here for him. If he’s not . . . well . . .” Dale cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up. Squared his shoulders. Lowered his voice. “Bridge, you know, there’ve been rumors before, you know that, right?”
“About Nate?” No she did not know that, she’d never heard one blessed word about him. He was Saint Nate, the baseball coach with the disabled son, the beautiful wife. These are all the things she’d ever heard about him. Everybody’s buddy. What a bunch of stupid hypocrites to say this now, oh we always knew. That was the way it went, right? In the paper—there was always something strange about that guy, he was just too nice. Is that where this was headed?
“Just a few years ago. You know he’s on social media. I mean some of the teachers knew about it, but the administrators don’t. It’s not an outright rule yet, but it’s highly frowned upon. So the Nate we know wouldn’t necessarily sleep with a student, but he’d cross that line?” He shrugged. “He’s too close to them, you know? So anyway, it’s hard to be sure, that’s all.”
“Give me a break, Dale.” She was about to leave, then stopped and turned around. “What rumors?”
“What’s that now?” Dale played dumb.
“You said there have been rumors before? What happened before?”
“It was a few years ago, I don’t quite remember. Anyway, it wasn’t like this, but another student did lodge a complaint. He favored her, catered to her, that kind of thing. She wasn’t well liked, kind of like Lucia. I can’t remember her name, though.” Dale looked upward, like the answer might be scrawled above on the yellow-stained drop-ceiling tiles.
“Robin Hendricks.” Jane said behind them. “Her name was Robin Hendricks.”
Bridget turned and Jane smiled, her fingers coiling the end of her braid. “Everyone forgets about that girl. She had a ton of problems: drugs, a bad crowd, you name it. She graduated, though, thanks to her good pal Nate Winters. Pulled some strings, who knows? All I know is, the summer after she graduated, somebody saw them together at the Quarry Bar.”
The Quarry Bar sat a few miles off Route Six, dilapidated, its neon signs hardly even lit up anymore. A place for drunks and hookups.