Teach Me

by R. A. Nelson

  Wait.

  Five minutes, ten. Longer.

  He’s not coming.

  I unbuckle the suitcase, unzip the flap, and throw it back. Books, a couple of them coffee-table sized. I heft one out: Cacaxtla: Fuentes Historicas y Pinturas. Sorry, don’t read Spanish. I pick up another, flip through it: spectacular photographs of basaltic sculptures, jade objects, richly decorated pottery vessels, colossal Olmec heads hacked from giant boulders. On the title page, there’s an inscription in green ink:

  To my darling Ricky,

  May our love last longer than the Star of Venus Chamber.

  Your Ali

  Besides, Venus is not a star. Moron.

  The female guards suddenly scuttle by again, freezing my heart.

  They don’t seem to be particularly looking for anyone, just hurrying. My pulse rate begins to go down. Back to the bag: his shoes. I’ve never seen these, black leather and barely scuffed.

  I drop them on the floor.

  A shiny belt. A stack of slacks in varying shades. Blue shirt, white shirt, olive green. I hold a handful up to my face; these clothes don’t even smell like him, they’re so new. My temper surges—she bought these; I just know it.

  I ransack the rest of the bag, nothing much of interest.

  No clues of any kind. No journal, receipts, notes, date book.

  Just boxers.

  No.

  Please, no. Mr. Mann wears athletic briefs that hug his lovely thighs. Always. He looks like a god in them. Standing against the window. Watching the rain. Please.

  Not these. These plaid and striped and checked boxers.

  She has burned me out of his life in every way imaginable.

  I’m ready to die now.

  I turn the case over; clothing begins to spill out. I drape the boxers, all six pairs, over the rubber tree plants. Arrange them for maximum effect. Is anybody watching? I don’t care. Something small and white tinkles on the carpeting.

  A bell.

  I pick it up. It’s a tiny replica of a mission bell, painted bluish gray with two robin’s egg stripes and a pearl-colored ribbon tied at the top. A keepsake. Something to remember the trip by. Maybe they shared a kiss beneath a church bell just like this one and wanted something to take home that would perfectly symbolize their treasured union forever. Lucky it didn’t break.

  I put it beneath my heel and stomp.

  Again.

  One more time.

  Now grind the pieces into a bluish powder.

  As I walk away, leaving it all, the bag, everything open, exposed, the underwear spread out on the rubber trees, it’s the last thing I see:

  The ribbon.

  killer comet

  Doom.

  The last week of school.

  I’m standing with Schuyler, watching Matt and the other Jesus Phreaks link hands around the flagpole. They’re praying about the Last Days.

  “They’ve got it all wrong,” Schuyler says. “The world won’t come to an end until 2086.”

  No special reason. Except that’s the year he turns one hundred.

  Today would be fine with me.

  “Good morning,” Mr. Mann says. His face is wooden.

  Some of the kids gape. He’s never said this before. He usually attacks the blackboard without a word and we’re supposed to jump right in. Is he afraid I’m going to stand up and scream? Denounce him before the world?

  Gut him like a deer?

  Is that what he’s waiting for? The final freak-out, the break with sanity, the secret made known, scandal flung to the winds?

  I watch. I tell myself I can’t see a difference in his eyes, but his hands jitter nervously over the top of his desk, feeling their way. Did he prepare himself? Did he stand in front of his small bathroom mirror this morning and think, This is it. Today, everything is over. I’m dead. Crushed. Finished.

  He doesn’t look at me. I don’t think he can.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Havisham-Kelly suddenly squeals. “We could have thrown you a party.”

  “So, did you get some?” another voice says. Snickers ripple horribly around the room.

  Mr. Mann grimaces good-naturedly. What a guy. “Hello, Mr. Atkinson.”

  I don’t do anything.

  I don’t want to. Not here. Not now. I smile as sweetly as I can through his class but never directly at him. Through the compliments and congratulations and questions and girly squeals and double entendre nasty boy jokes.

  Because maybe today the world really is coming to an end.

  How nice that would be.

  But before a comet from the Oort Cloud slams into the Pacific Ocean, I have something I need to do.

  Somehow he senses this. He takes my arm at the end of the period.

  “What’s your next class?”

  “You know what it is, sir.”

  “Then skip lunch. Meet me in my office. We have to talk.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And please drop the sir bullshit, Carolina.”

  “Maybe you could teach me, sir. You’re good at dropping things.”

  Before he can reply, a girl from his next class sidles through the door, a look of embarrassed curiosity on her face. Why is this teacher holding my arm? Why is he squeezing it so tightly?

  “Go,” he says.

  Time.

  The white industrial wall clock ticks expectantly. I’ve seen this kind of clock before. It can only measure the passage of serious things.

  So now I get to see the inside of his office.

  Now that the danger is over. Now that the fun and games are finished. Now that I’m safe, legal, even appropriate. Now that we’re no longer lovers. God, I hate that word. It feels sickening, revolting, disrespectful. Is that what we were doing? Lovering?

  The walls are painted a sectarian beige. Like me, the cloth on the brown furniture is stretched to its limits; beneath the armrests I can feel the staples. His desk is small and short legged, a vulnerable, neglected marsupial.

  No pictures of Emily, no New Wave tapes, nothing personal from a hyper-personal man. I’m a little surprised. Only overstuffed shelves and stacks of paper left in fanned disarray. The owner of this room is in a state of perpetual search.

  What is he looking for? I thought it was me.

  Where is he?

  The door opens; Mr. Mann drops a stack of books on the desk with a dusty bang, shuts the door behind him. His posture says this: This meeting will be Short and Conclusive.

  It pisses me off how he is using his age.

  When he needs it, he uses it—it ’s not there when he wants somebody younger, but it’s his crutch when he needs to fall back on it, become somehow superior.

  “So, okay,” he starts, reaching to brush back a lock of hair that doesn’t exist anymore.

  “Okay.”

  “Are you proud of what you did in my apartment?”

  “Yep. Are you?”

  Bull’s-eye. He blows air from his cheeks and settles wearily in his chair. “You have every right to hate me, Carolina. Go ahead. Most of the time I even hate myself.”

  “You should. And don’t call me Carolina. I don’t know if that person is even alive anymore. Call me Nine. I’ll always be a number to you. The only thing is, which one?”

  A dark figure skulks dangerously close to the mullioned glass in the door, then moves on.

  “You know it wasn’t like that,” he says. “You know it.”

  “Okay, then tell me. What was it like?”

  He looks down, fingers roving over his desk, picking things up, putting them back. What is he deciding? Which hat to wear? Lover or teacher? Boy or man?

  “I can’t blame you for what you did. I deserved that much, at least.” He tries a halfhearted grin. “One of the things I love about you is your creativity.”

  Even in the middle of my anger, my heart wells up. “You said love. One of the things you love about me. Present tense.”

  “Oh God, Nine. I—well, maybe I did. But you have
got to let it go and leave me alone.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you hope to accomplish?”

  “What do you?”

  He leans back. “I know you’re angry. Hurt. Hell, when I was your age, I would have at least blown up your mailbox by now.”

  I lean forward, pulling up some of his papers between my fingers, crumpling them a little, menacing. I have to do this, do anything physical; otherwise I will be at his throat.

  “No, you wouldn’t have.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because you’re a coward.”

  His eyes flinch. You sank my battleship. Good.

  “We both know it’s not your fault,” he says.

  “We both know no matter how much apologizing you do, it won’t help.”

  “Agreed. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not defending myself. But things are different now. I’m married and you have to respect that. If not for me, then for her. She’s done nothing wrong.”

  “Yes, she has.”

  “What?”

  “She got you.”

  He thrusts himself away from the desk as if needing a break from my personal Sphere of Pain. The chair tilts too far, nearly toppling him over. He finds a point of equilibrium and hangs there ridiculously, heels off the floor. “What do you expect me to do?”

  “That’s my question.”

  “Okay. Here’s your answer. I expect you to go on. Live your life. Dream. Explore. Move on. What happened to college?”

  “You.”

  “Bullshit. Don’t use me as an excuse. You’ve got too much going for yourself, Nine.”

  “You never sounded like a cliché before.”

  He groans. “I never had to. What I did was a huge mistake, and I take full responsibility. But it’s over.”

  “Nothing’s over. In what way have you taken responsibility? You’ve got your bouncy new wife; I’ve let you keep your job. So far. What have I got? What have you left me with?”

  “Look, you’ve had your revenge.” He puts his hand to his temple. “What do we call ‘even’ in a game like this?”

  “Who said this is a game.”

  “You’re making yourself sound like a goddamn nut.”

  Am I? A jolt of fear stabs me. Is he right? Is that what’s happening to me? Is this what crazy feels like? This blind anger, this desperate need to strike out, to somehow make him understand, even if I have to hurt him to do it? I can’t think. I can’t think. Not about that. That’s what he wants, wants to turn it around on me, make me believe I’m the problem and he’s the rational one. No.

  “Maybe I am,” I say.

  He leans forward; the chair nearly throws him out. “Look, nothing you do will ever make up for what I’ve done. You’ll only be hurting an innocent girl.”

  “Hurting? Is that Alicia’s idea of pain? Washing out a few sheets with OxyClean?”

  “Okay. But the ball is in your court. What do you want, to get arrested next time? You do realize you’ve committed a crime, don’t you?”

  “Do you?”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “What do you think?”

  He rocks forward out of the chair and lunges at the desk, stares hard into my eyes. It’s difficult not to look away from all that blue, but I hold my gaze. So now he’s going to be tough? But it doesn’t fit him. There is something inside him that always feels as if it is hiding from everything else. It’s always been a big part of what I love about him. Finding that center of his deep inside, the place he wants to keep hidden, dragging it out into the light.

  “Do you really want to do that?” he says.

  “No. But I will. Unless.”

  “Unless what?”

  “I don’t know.” I swore to myself I wouldn’t do it, but I start to cry.

  “No.”

  I stand and come toward him. “If I could just hold you, if you could just tell me.”

  He backs away defensively. I’m close enough to touch his shirt. He glances at the door. “Tell you what?”

  “That it’s all a mistake. The wedding didn’t really happen.”

  “But it did.”

  “But why did it did.”

  “What?”

  “Why. You owe that to me.”

  “I told you, Nine, I can’t tell you.”

  I put my fingers on his chest. He’s warm. How can a piece of paper and a few minutes in a church make this any different? I know what he feels there. I know it can’t have just gone away. “Then tell me that it didn’t happen,” I say. “Lie to me. You know how to lie.”

  “I never lied,” he says.

  “Call it what you want. It’s still a lie.” This gives me an idea. I brighten a little. “Maybe we could still meet? Yes. Please! That’s it! She doesn’t have to know; I won’t tell her.”

  My tears are coming harder now. I’m trying to take him in my arms; he’s pushing me away.

  “Carolina, stop.” He shoves me hard. My eyelashes are so wet, I can’t make out his face.

  “It’s finished,” he says.

  “Why? Why? I love you. I know you love me.”

  “That’s just the way it is. It’s beyond love now. I’ve got to go. You’ve got to move on. Enough.”

  I drag my forearm across my eyes and put my hand on the doorknob. Just as I open it, I turn.

  “It’ll never be enough,” I say. “Never.”

  dishes make love

  Night.

  It’s when all the other things come out.

  The scariest things, thoughts, fears.

  Plans.

  I’m trying to recognize myself.

  Where does this massive anger come from? How deep does it go? How connected is it to my core, my center? Is it a part of me? Has it always been there? Waiting for something in my life to go insanely wrong?

  Or does it come from somewhere else? Is this how I get rid of it, by bleeding it off, or will it always be there, waiting for the next time I need it?

  I need it now.

  Wilkie’s steering column crunches as I crank his tires around. I can see piney woods on the left side of the road here. The fence in front of me is topped with razor wire. The official-looking sign in the headlights says:

  As much fun as it would be to play here, this is not the side I want.

  I park and get out.

  My war is across the road.

  Across the road from the test range is the swamp where the beavers live. Eventually the swamp becomes a lake.

  Sunlake.

  The swamp is harder to skirt than I figured. Along the edges the water is reasonably shallow, but the muddy bottom sucks at my feet, threatening to pull my sneakers off. It takes fifteen minutes to wade to the back of Mr. Mann’s complex. Swamp water is amazingly cold, even this time of year. I’m terrified my toes will be eaten by snapping turtles.

  I count the units until I know I have the right one. I can’t see his car from this side, but I’m pretty certain they are home. The lights are on.

  Good.

  I come to a place where the bottom under my feet turns hard and I nearly fall; chunks of limestone have been tumbled along the bank to prevent erosion. I’m standing in the lake. I climb out of the water and come free of the trees. Edge along the strip of wasted yard behind Mr. Mann’s building. This is where they hide the air-conditioning units, power transformers, curly black downspouts.

  The apartment below his is dark. It won’t be that hard to get to the second floor. I step on the ground-floor porch railing and haul myself up, holding one of the support columns. I stand there, toes of my sneakers on somebody’s handrail, catch my breath. My legs are shaking a little—from the effort of balancing or the intense fear of what I’m doing?

  Only crazy people and criminals do something like this. And me. Where do I fall on that spectrum?

  Falling.

  A really bad word.

  This is the last possible stopping place. It would be a little weird getting caught hangin
g on to some guy’s porch, but climbing to a second-floor balcony, that’s off the scale.

  But I’m going through with it, aren’t I?

  Yes. Yes, I am.

  No one around, not too many lights. Go.

  I grab the spindles on Mr. Mann’s deck and start to haul myself up. It’s a little tough to boost myself from here using only my arms—my strength comes from my legs—until I get a toe between the railings. At last I swing my leg over and drop as quietly as possible to the deck.

  I’ve done it. I’m here. I’m really here.

  I wait a few beats of my screaming heart to decide if anybody has heard me. My teeth are dry, breath sibilant, mouth awful. When did I eat? When did I bathe? Who am I?

  Nothing. Not a sound.

  I look around. No curtains on the slider, but the room is dark. I scuttle over as slowly as a spider with arthritis in every leg. Crouch behind a rusty gas grill and peer through the glass. The living room is empty and dim, but the small kitchen beyond is glaring.

  I wait, trying to breathe deeply. Are they here? Then I hear movement, voices inside. I nearly jump to the railing, but instead I force myself to be still. Strain my senses to the bleeding point and wait.

  I want to see how they touch.

  Mr. Mann shows up first, freezing the breath in my lungs. No shirt, and he’s scratching his shoulder near the armpit. I’ve rested my head there. We were watching Random Harvest, with Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson. Ronald Coleman had lost his memory. Greer Garson was desperately trying to make him remember how much he loved her—

  Crap.

  This is crazy.

  Intellectually, I know it’s not likely they will come out on the deck at this time of night.

  Emotionally, I’m completely freaked, scared witless. What am I doing here?

  I’ve been here so many times, it feels supremely weird to be on the outside, watching through the glass. Everything inside calls out to me, says I should be able to stand, call out to him.

  Rush into his arms.

  Alicia suddenly moves into the kitchen with her back to me, making my heart drum. She’s tugging out plates and doing something at the stove. To help keep myself calm, I make observations: her hands are small, arms short, movements precise and compact; I wonder, does he kiss each finger as he kissed each one of mine? He leans across the short bar on his elbows, watching her work. I hear the rumbling vibration of his baritone but can’t make out the words. Alicia laughs.