by Luna Lacour
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.
My cells were already coursing through thin, blue veins in a confused frenzy. We had done nothing; and yet in that brief span of time done absolutely everything.
Our hands were stained; our mouths smeared in cake even though we hadn’t tasted any.
“The other half of me?” he prompted. He’d heard me after all.
I nodded, hopping down from the desk and nearly toppling over. Mr. Tennant caught my arm, straightening me out with a soft half-smile.
“The other half of me wants to see you again,” he said. “But the last thing I want is to take advantage of you.”
There was a heavy silence before I finally spoke again. I took the moment watch his face; his eyes, his lips, the rise of his chest as it moved with each breath.
I wanted to know him. I wanted all of him. I was just a girl standing in a room with a man who had once been my age, too. He was once eighteen; young and hopeful and full of that same naive vibrancy. His age and position hooked me like a floundering, struggling fish that was trying to gasp for air and at that same time, wanted to be tossed back into the water. Into that same, safe, familiar place.
But the temptation was very real. The thought of his hands on me was thrilling.
I touched my left hand, covering the ring. It meant nothing, it meant everything. With my warmest smile, I gazed up at him. A girl in years, but a woman in understanding; that desire and matters of the heart were two different realms entirely.
I didn’t want to fall in love with him; I just wanted to know what it would be like to spend some time in the arms of someone who could give me an experience to look back on; a blanket of poignant nostalgia that I could wrap myself in after evenings spent in the same settled routine. Before I reached the age where the world tilted into something gray-scale and predictable; and with Marius’ money, I would at least be able to afford some time exploring other parts of the world before I slowly sank into the inevitable limbo that was adulthood. Where happiness always seemed conditional, hinged on something or someone. Money, money, money. Career choices. Child-bearing abilities; social status; the size of your engagement diamond.
Give me a real education, Mr. Tennant. Give me something to remember when all of this is over; when I’m staring into the ocean of some faraway place.
“I’ve wanted you since the moment I first saw you,” I said quietly. “I like that you’re older. You’re smarter, you know things that the rest of us have no idea about. You’ve already seen the world, Mr. Tennant.”
You’re my teacher. You’re a real man standing in between the parted sea of body spray and teenage hormones.
Mr. Tennant didn’t move; his head low and arms crossed. Third bell rang, and I was officially late.
“I need to see you again,” I said. “This can be casual. It can be on your terms. I won’t ever say anything to anybody.”
“This is dangerous, Kaitlyn,” he said. “And the last thing, the last thing I want is to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” I swore. “I’m hard to hurt.”
Not a lie, either.
Mr. Tennant wavered for a half-second before turning to his desk; removing a paper slip from the stack that hid beneath a cluttered mess of assignments and books. He quickly wrote me a pass.
Even the script, his name, was perfect.
William Tennant.
I took the note. Will looked at the door, almost as if he were looking through it. As if he sensed that there were others out there even though we both knew that there was no one. It was just the two of us.
“When?” he asked, eyes still on the door. “When are you free?”
Free. The word held so many different definitions, and a torrent of possibility.
“Tonight,” I said. “My parents will be gone all night at some fancy banquet event. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up staying at the hotel. As long as I’m home before 9 o’clock.”
Responsibility: making plans for a secret tryst with a teacher ten years your senior, and ensuring that you’re still home within a reasonable hour to complete your homework.
“It’s Monday,” he said. “It’s a school-night.”
“So let me hang out in your apartment. I’ll do homework and you can grade papers.”
It wasn’t funny, but we both chuckled. He understood, Mr. Tennant.
“Okay,” he said. Just when I’d begged him to watch Romeo and Juliet on the projector. Each of the two syllables sounded exactly the same. “What time?”
“Seven,” I said. “That’s 19:00 hours to you, mate.”
“Cheeky,” he sneered. “Now go. Leave before the spies find you here.”
He stayed in the office after I left; I pictured him with his hands covering his face, wondering what the hell he had just agreed to. The halls were empty, and I was relieved. I had half-expected Piper to be waiting for me; standing in her ankle socks with her white hair pin-straight and smelling of flowers and cinnamon.
In the space between two walls, students were nestled away; listening to lectures and turning pages of textbooks.
I glanced down at the note in my hands. The ink was still wet.
Yanking up my sleeve, I pressed the paper down on my wrist, smearing William’s name over pale skin. The script was still intact; my secret, temporary tattoo.
God, all of it was so wrong.
But I wasn’t sorry. Not at all.
And that, perhaps, was only one of two things that I would end up mourning.
“Here.”
Tyler dropped half a peanut butter sandwich into my hands. The crusts had been cut off this time and the bread appeared slightly less dry; white bread, obviously filled with preservatives.
“I’m not really hungry, Tyler,” I told him. He groaned.
“You need to eat something. I’ve never seen you eat once during the almost four years we’ve sat across from each other in this courtyard.”
He bit into his half, chewing and swallowing; he wiped his mouth with a brown napkin that had been purposely folded into a triangle
“That’s because we were never friends or anything,” I said. “And I was never really hungry all those times, either.”
“Goddammit, Kait. Just take the damn sandwich.”
I took the damn sandwich. I took a bite; chewing and noting how the bleached flour seemed to melt the bread into this weird, almost pasty texture. The peanut butter was thick, sticking to the roof of my mouth. I had to swallow several times to get it down, but the whole act seemed to make Tyler happy.
He handed me his water bottle; the seal had been cracked, which told me he’d already sipped out of it. But I took a drink anyway.
“So how’s life, Romeo?” I asked. “It’s true. We’ve never really talked.”
“Yeah, because I’m poor.”
“Don’t pull that card. Don’t even,” I stole another swig of his water. “I’ve never cared about whether or not people have money. I told you, I’m just the kind of girl who keeps to myself. Less of a mess that way.”
I smiled. He liked that, too. It made the corners of his own mouth stretch just a bit wider; he had the kind of face that made it look like he’d never so much as squashed a spider. The kind of eyes that told me he was the type that kissed slowly and insisted on holding hands, even if he was driving or carrying your books that were maybe too heavy for just one arm.
“You must be pretty smart to end up here,” I said. “Unless your folks have some insane connections.”
“Nah, I’m just secretly rich. I hide it well, is all. All of you guys have it wrong about me being some broke scholarship kid,” he laughed; not to me, but to himself. “I don’t know. I guess I’m pretty damn good with my academics. I don’t think about it much. I prefer to treat it like something that just needs to get done, and spend the rest of my time with things I actually enjoy.”
“Did you want to come here?”
Tyler shrugged.
“I mean, my
mom really wanted me to come here. She wants me to have a good life,” he sighed. “I guess she figured that a place like this might give me a better running chance at something better than waiting tables. But I’m just a kid, so it’s hard to appreciate that shit sometimes. I remember being fourteen and being pissed as all hell because my mom made me spend nearly half of my summer savings on the application for this place.”
He paused for a moment, crumpling the napkin into a tiny ball of brown paper.
“I did apply to Stanford though,” he said. “But we’ll see what happens. I’m not exactly starting on the celebration banners or anything.”
“No back up schools?”
“Well, I applied to two others; but I’m pretty sure that actually attending would be a long shot. What with tuition costs and all that junk,” he looked at me, as if he were selecting the next words carefully. “I’ve gotta think about those kinds of things.”
I could tell that he wanted to say: unlike you, I have to think about those things. My life is planted deep in the wallows of middle-class reality.
“It’s a hard knock life, Juliet,” he said, his voice almost sing-song. “It’s a hard knock life. But you know something?”
He looked at me like that conversation, in the courtyard of Trinity Preparatory Academy, was the single most important conversation that he’d ever have in his entire life. Around us, a few kids stared; surprised, I’m sure, that I was sitting next to the Scholarship Kid whose parents had no name or place or penny to throw into the melting pot of this cataclysmic shit-hole concealed as an upper-class institution of learning.
“What?” I asked quietly.
“I’ve got big dreams, Kait,” he said. “I’m getting out of here someday. I’m gonna play my music and see the mountain tops. Maybe I’ll even climb one. My dad, he used to climb rocks - or I guess they were more like boulders. He did this thing called free water soloing in Vietnam back when he was a kid. Scaled some huge cliff without any rope or spotter or anything but his bare hands. I might try it. I might think about building houses in broken parts of the world, too.”
He kept talking; his voice humming along with the wind and the laughter and all the other courtyard noise. I watched his eyes rise to the sky; lowering only when his voice dropped an octave, like something wasn’t quite right. Like he was afraid, or unconvinced, that all of his grand dreams were somehow just figments blown out of proportion by his own, ever-expanding belief that there was hope for everything and everyone.
“I’m real excited for Friday,” he eventually said.
“Me too,” I said. “Maybe sometime we can do something on my side of the fence. Would you like that? I can steal one of Marius’ suits. You two are probably around the same size. We can do pretentious, flamboyant Rich People things.”
“Like see a foreign flick with subtitles? That kind of stuff?”
“Whatever you’d like,” I told him. “Anything you want.”
Tyler was over-the-moon with all of the potential ideas; trying caviar or wearing expensive cologne. The way he viewed my existence could have summed up with silver spoons and fish eggs; an expensive steak or tailored suit.
As we sat, two people from different lives, sharing scant similarities – I was irrevocably consumed in the way every little thing to this boy was full of passion and beauty. Tyler truly made for the perfect Romeo; a bleeding-heart to a fault.
“It’s starting to get warm out,” Tyler said, eyes on the distant chapel. The old bell rang twelve times, signifying noon. “We’ll see flowers soon, I think.”
I plucked a blade of grass, letting it fall like a feather.
“I hope so.”
EIGHT
Black liquid hissed out of a chrome-coated espresso machine; filling two tiny ceramic cups. Will spiked them with cream, and I watched the clouds expand like paint dropped into a glass of water.
“Cheers,” he said merry and dark. Unabashedly British.
Heads tilted back, one sharp swallow. Mr. Tennant cringed from the bitter stuff, and the scalding heat made my throat burn.
He wiped his mouth, the beginnings of stubble shadowing his fair face. I watched him wipe his lips with a fingertip; unintentionally, naturally seductive.
We settled in the living room: Mr. Tennant took the settee; papers resting in neat stacks, paperclips scattered on the glass tabletop. He clicked his pen as he read, glasses perched on the tip of his nose. The bifocals made his eyes appear slightly larger, which made me wonder what I would look like wearing them.
I watched him from my spot on the floor; my copy of Lolita working as head-rest, an untouched notebook beneath my arm. Occasionally, Mr. Tennant glanced up at me, then back down at his work.
“You don’t use a red pen,” I said. “When you correct our papers. You use a blue pen.”
“Homework. Focus,” he said, a gentle command. “Don’t mind my pen.”
“But why?”
It didn’t matter why. I just wanted to hear his voice.
“Red pens have been shown to lower students’ self-esteem. I don’t know,” he flipped to the second page of his grading, eyes focused. “Now read the chapter I assigned you unless you want to be sent home.”
The pen clicked beneath his thumb, his fixed expression serious. Around us, the clock sounds had returned in the subtle but ever-present tick, tick, tick.
“Are you going to call my parents, too?”
“Kaitlyn,” he said, soft. Too soft. “Do your homework.”
So I did. Legs clad in jeans bought from stores that were dimmed and smelling of clear, watery perfume, I threw myself back on the faux-hardwood floors and smiled inwardly when I saw that small bit of mid-section; the calico-print, pink and golden button-down creeping up to reveal that tiniest bit of skin. The shadows of my hipbones sunk in, reminding me of that constant, clawing hunger.
“Good luck,” Marius had muttered while I was half-way out the door. He was still dressed in his uniform, his face covered in coral-colored lipstick kisses. Vivian’s. She already had a buzz on before leaving for the gala, and had smothered Marius with groan-inducing smacks all over his cheeks.
“You’re so gorgeous,” she kept saying. “Kaitlyn, isn’t your step-brother gorgeous?”
“He’s alright,” I said. But I wasn’t even looking at him.
When I left, the sun was still peeking through the trees; glints of light dancing over the sidewalk. Once, when I was little, a tiny, deformed sunflower had managed to grow through the cracks of the sidewalk by our house. It hung around for ages, and when someone finally plucked it out, I wept.
Mr. Tennant looked up briefly, shaking his head. His tie hung loosely as he leaned forward, hunched over the papers. The pen in his hand clicked; the clock ticked. I was totally aware of every breath and every movement; pen scratching against paper, re-adjusting on upholstered fabric. The way he occasionally cleared his throat, or skimmed a finger over something he was reading with the intent interest of a proper teacher. I was aware of every half-second of silence.
I opened my book, flipped to a dog-eared page, and read without saying another word. For a solid hour, Mr. Tennant and I communicated solely through shuffling papers and quiet sighs. Every so often I’d slam my book shut loudly, and catch his mouth fall into a small slant; I did this on purpose. I wrote long, drawn-out notes on the assigned chapter; peppering the pages with questions on Humbert Humbert and his affair with little Dolores Haze.
When Mr. Tennant was finished, he watched me from his side of the room; a span of flooring that couldn’t have been more than several feet between the two of us. But it felt like an ocean.
“Do you think he loved her?” I asked. “Humbert, I mean.”
Mr. Tennant’s eyebrows raised into half-moons.
“What do you think?” he asked, still in teacher mode. I opted to appease him.
“I think maybe. Maybe he cared,” I said. “But I suppose I’m at a point where I can’t really discern whether or not he truly loved
her in a deep, lasting kind of way – or if it was just infatuation.”
“Twitterpatted,” he said, smiling. “Do you know what that word means?”
“I think we’ve all seen Bambi. I would not compare this book,” I raised it theatrically, cover facing him, “to a movie about an adorable baby deer that befriends a bunch of equally-adorable woodland creatures.”
I went and sat down next to him. He was still smiling. The clock was still ticking.
Outside, it was almost dark; the scant clouds were smoky, dark purple. I couldn’t see any stars.
“I feel as if people like to twist things around so that they can relate,” I continued. “Like, with Lolita. People love treating the book like it’s this great love story – but what is it, really, other than a grown man’s infatuation with his land-lady’s young daughter?”
My insides screamed hypocrite; I was one of those girls, and no single, fractured part of me could deny it.
“Well, we’ll see what you think when you get further into the book,” Mr. Tennant said. “Maybe your opinion will change.”
“Do you think it will change?” I asked. He shrugged.
“We shall see, I suppose.”
I liked that we had this ability to communicate mainly through body language. We spoke, certainly, but the conversations were few and long-stretched when it came to actually verbalizing the thoughts that ran like short-circuits through our heads. In class, we stole short looks, small smiles; little things here and there that only the two of us would ever catch. Everyone else was entirely unaware.
I imagined, just for a moment, that we were both teenagers. That, as I gazed at Mr. Tennant, whose hands were combing through rebellious hair and eyes cast towards the window, that Will’s twenty-eight year old frame had been replaced with some familiar stranger ten years younger. I wondered, watching his head tilt so that it rested on the back of the settee, what he looked like a decade ago. Leaner limbs, perhaps slightly thinner – not in weight – but in the bulk that had filled him out, coiling around bones in taut muscle. Braces, or a retainer; the metal band flashing whenever he smiled. Hair parted down the middle, perhaps. Striped sweaters and torn denim.