by Claire Adams
They stopped and Nick looked right at me. “Did you just offer to blow me?” he yelled, and his friends cracked up.
Seth seized the moment and pounced on him, and they went back to wrestling. I picked up the paper and was about to grab for another when the words on the page happened to catch my attention. Civic engagement is a crucial component of a healthy, functioning democracy.
I kept reading, the words familiar, even though it was Seth’s name at the top of the paper. I had written this! This was the second paper I had written for whoever it was that had been sending me those letters. I stopped reading and stared at the two of them, who had all but forgotten about me. Seth had sent those letters? It seemed impossible. He was probably the last person on earth I would’ve ever suspected of doing something like that. But the proof was right there.
“Tessa!” Nick yelled. Seth still had him in a headlock. “Come on; join us!”
More laughter ensued. Some of the guys looked in my direction to see if I was actually going to take Nick up on his offer, but when I didn’t move, they looked back to Seth and Nick. No one seemed to notice that I had the paper in my hands, and no one said a thing when I walked away with it.
I hurried to my car, and when I got in, I threw my backpack into the passenger seat, and I read the whole paper. My words seemed almost unrecognizable to me, but they were most certainly the words I had written, despite the fact that it was Seth’s name at the top.
I put the paper down on my backpack. What was I supposed to do? Go back and confront him? What would I say? My stomach muscles clenched. If Seth was the one that had been sending those emails, then it meant that he also knew about Leo and me. But how? How the hell had he figured that out?
I decided not to confront him about it, at least not right now, when he was with all of his friends. I got my keys out of my purse and I saw that Leo had texted back. He was out doing some errands, but he’d be back to the apartment in a little while, and was there anything special I wanted for dinner tonight?
Whatever you get is fine, I typed back. I wanted to call him and tell him right then and there, but I decided to wait. It wasn’t the sort of news I wanted to break to him over the phone, when he was standing in line at the grocery store.
As I drove, I wracked my brain trying to figure out how it was that Seth could have found out about Leo and me. Seth barely even noticed me; the only reason he knew I existed was because Nick and I had been seeing each other. Or at least, that’s what I had always assumed.
Maybe I should email him, at the anonymous email address he’d set up. I know it’s you, Seth, I’d write, and I’m not going to write any more of your damn papers!
But even though I knew who it was, I still couldn’t call him out like that. Because he could still tell the dean about Leo and me, and that was really the main concern here. That was the one thing that I couldn’t let happen.
When I got back to the apartment, I went into the living room and got my laptop out. It was very tempting to at least send an email to that address, maybe the only thing being the subject line saying HI, SETH or something like that.
When Leo got home, he came in, whistling, carrying two bags of groceries. “I was thinking I’d make Fettuccine Alfredo,” he called from the kitchen. “How does that sound?”
“That’d be great.”
I set my laptop on the couch cushion and got up, carrying Seth’s paper with me. “How was your day?”
He came over and gave me a kiss. “It was good. How was yours?”
“Mostly good. I found out something interesting today.”
“Oh yeah?” He went back over to the counter and pulled a container of strawberries out from one of the grocery bags. “And what might that be?”
“I know who’s sending me those letters,” I said.
He paused, his hand on the refrigerator door handle. “Who?”
“Seth.”
“Seth Douglass?”
“Yeah, him.”
Leo raised an eyebrow skeptically. “How do you know that? Why would Seth do that? He doesn’t really seem like he’d have the forethought to do something like that.”
I held the paper out. “Because this came flying out of his backpack today when he and Nick were horsing around.”
Leo put the strawberries down and took the paper, reading the first few lines. “Ah,” he said. He put the paper down. “You know, it kind of surprises me that his teacher for this class doesn’t realize there’s no way in hell that Seth would have written something like this. Mainly because it’s coherent and very well written.”
“Maybe the teaching assistant is grading it.”
“Even if it was the teaching assistant, I think anyone who was actually capable of reading words would know that Seth Douglass didn’t write this. For fuck’s sake! Well. Now you know who did it.”
“I know. But does that really change anything? I mean, I’ve still got to write that last assignment.”
“Fuck that,” Leo said, shaking his head. “You’re not writing the next paper. Are you kidding me? Now that we know who is behind this? No fucking chance.”
“I want to, though,” I said. And I did, because suddenly I had an idea. I knew exactly the article I was going to write.
“Are you serious?” Leo asked. “You want to? Why? Why the hell do you want to help him out any more than you already have? You are way nicer of a person than I ever could be. Seth better hope I don’t run into him because I’ll probably fucking deck him.”
“No you won’t,” I said. “Because that would probably get you into more trouble than anything that we’re doing here. No, I have a plan.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“I’ll show you. When I’m done with it.”
I could tell he was wishing I just would’ve given him the okay to go kick Seth’s ass, but that wasn’t how I wanted to handle it.
He shook his head. “It might be Seth that’s reaping the benefit from this,” he said, “but it wasn’t him who had the idea for it. No fucking way.”
“Really?”
He stopped and looked at me, raising his eyebrows. “You might not know Seth that well, but I don’t think he’d really have the forethought to do something like this. The fact that the letters you’ve gotten haven’t had any typos makes it blatantly fucking obvious that there is no way Seth wrote these himself.”
“So who, then?”
Leo crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling for a second. “His fucking mother,” he said. “Of course. Carla Douglass.”
“You really think it was her?”
“Oh, I know it was. And you can go ahead and write that article if you want, but I am going to talk to his mother about this.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I don’t know. I’ll think of something, I’m sure. Carla Douglass.” He shook his head. “I can’t fucking believe it. What a bitch.”
“Stop,” I said. I didn’t really know Seth’s mother, but I had seen her around, and she seemed like a nice person. It was hard to think that she would do something like this, especially since she was also a teacher at the school and would probably get into a lot of trouble if word about this got out. “Don’t you think it would be better if I just did the last assignment and then we never talked about this again? It would be over and done with, and everyone could just move on with their lives?”
“Yeah, except what if it doesn’t? Seth’s got another year left of school. What if they’re so happy with the quality of the papers you’re writing that they just decide you’re the one who’s supposed to do it for the rest of the year? No. If you’re adamant about doing this last assignment, then go ahead, but that shit stops after this one.”
“You don’t care if they tell everyone?”
“You know what? They can go ahead and try, but really, what proof do they have? And it goes both ways here. Let’s just say she does have some sort of proof—we also have proof that her son has been handing in work
that wasn’t his, orchestrated by her. There’s no way that she’d be able to talk her way out of that one, and I really don’t think she wants to risk it.”
“I have proof,” I said.
“Proof of what?”
“Of us.”
He cocked his head. “What—you mean that video you took of us?”
I nodded. “Yeah. And . . . the first time I ever came over here, I had the voice recorder on my phone turned on.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I had kind of forgotten about it until just now, but talking about proof made me remember. I haven’t shown it to anyone. I’m not going to.”
“Well isn’t that something. Am I supposed to feel violated now? I had kind of wondered why you wanted to video it that first time, but I thought maybe you were just into that sort of thing. Have you watched it?”
“No.”
“Maybe we should. What’d you do it for? Insurance in case the end of the semester rolled around and I didn’t give you a good grade?”
“Originally, yes. But that’s before things had really happened between us. I mean, I hope you know that I wouldn’t do anything like that now.”
“I think I know that,” he said. “And I appreciate you being honest with me. But you didn’t need to worry—I was prepared to give you an A after that first time together, regardless of what happened after.”
I smiled. “I believe you,” I said. “At the time, though, I just couldn’t totally believe that someone like you would really want to be involved with someone like me.”
“Someone like you. What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know . . . you could clearly get with anyone you wanted.”
“Stop—you’re going to make me blush.”
“I just wasn’t expecting things to turn out like this. I didn’t know what was going to happen, to be honest, and it seemed like it would be good to have some sort of insurance in case you ended up being an asshole about it and telling me you weren’t going to give me a good grade after all.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Now why don’t you come over here and we’ll work on a little more extra credit . . .”
Lindsey and I were both done with our classes at the same time the next day, so went out to lunch, off-campus, and I told her that I had finally figured out who it was that was sending me those letters.
“I can’t believe it was Seth,” she said. “He’s like one of the last people I would have guessed. That’s so . . . weird. You should slap him the next time you see him.”
“I’m not going to do that,” I said. “Even though that was basically what Leo wanted me to do, too.”
“I don’t blame him! If that paper hadn’t happened to fall out of his backpack like that, you’d still have no idea who it was! Who’s to say the blackmailing wouldn’t go on until he graduated?”
“I don’t think it would. Once this semester is over, it doesn’t really have to be a secret anymore that Leo and I are seeing each other. We’re not going to flaunt it or anything, but he won’t be my professor anymore.”
“How’s that going, anyway?” she asked. “Living with him? Can you believe it—that you’re actually living with him? I mean, who would have thought at the beginning of the semester?”
“I know,” I said. And it did seem kind of crazy, sometimes, but also not. It sort of seemed like it was exactly what was supposed to happen, because I couldn’t imagine my life without Leo.
Lindsey shook her head. “Seth,” she said. “Shit. I really can’t believe it. So . . . you’re still going to write the article? Even though you know it’s him?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I actually wrote it already. Well, most of it. It’s not very long, but it’s good. It basically took me an hour to do, once I got the idea.”
“It did? You’re amazing!”
“Sometimes it works out like that.”
She grinned. “Can I read it? Actually, no, I’ll wait until it’s published. That way I can read it with the whole rest of the school, too.”
“I don’t even know if it’s going to be published,” I said. “I have no clue how many other students are submitting articles.”
“I’m not,” Lindsey said. “So you’ll have one less article to be competing with. Not that it would be any competition between the two of us anyway; your worst article would be way better than my best.”
“Stop it,” I said. “You’ve written plenty of good stuff. Remember that paper you got an A- on? You got a way better grade on that than I did.” And that was what had started the whole thing with Leo. I smiled thinking back on it now; it seemed like such a long time ago. I remembered the dread I had felt when I saw the grade, how truly awful it seemed like things were going to be, but they had turned out so differently than I ever could have imagined.
22.
Leo
I had a hundred different scenarios for how I would confront Carla about what she was doing, but I ended up waiting for our meeting about the first issue of the Benton Daily Journal.
I met with Carla in her office. She was sitting at her desk, which was immaculate, compared to my own desk. I couldn’t tell from her expression whether or not Seth had showed her the article that Tessa had written.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” Carla said. “I know that we’re both busy, but I think it’d be good if we got on the same page. No pun intended.”
“Ha ha,” I said.
“Honestly, this whole thing seems a little rushed to me. We’ve got, what—three and a half weeks until the semester ends? I think it would’ve been better if we had some more time to really dedicate to this, but Shannon wanted to get the ball rolling on this now.”
“It’s a little bit rushed,” I said. “But Shannon’s the boss.”
“So, before we really get started, is there anything you wanted to address first? I know you’ve got a lot of magazine experience, so I imagine you’ve got some input into all of this. I’ve received maybe half a dozen or so submissions so far, so maybe there won’t be that many for us to go through. Which would be good, I must admit.”
I laced my fingers together and rested them against the back of my head. Carla, Carla, Carla.
“We’re probably only going to get a handful of articles that are even ready to be published,” I said. “So we’ve got that going for us. And speaking of articles, there’s nothing else you wanted to discuss first?” I asked.
“In regards to the paper?”
“In regards to . . . anything.”
She frowned. “I think it’s best if we just try to stay on topic here. I’ve only got about 45 minutes, and then I have another meeting I need to get to. I’m sure your schedule is equally as busy.”
“Actually it’s not; I guess I don’t have the jam-packed social calendar that you must have. But I thought there might be something in particular you wanted to talk about first before we started figuring out just how this newspaper was going to be run.”
She gave me the sort of look I could imagine her giving her most petulant, pain in the ass students. “Would you care to be a little more specific?”
She wasn’t going to admit to anything unless I called her out on it, point blank. Fair enough.
“Sure,” I said. “I can be really specific, if you want. How did Seth like that article that Tessa wrote for him? The one that he’s going to submit to the first issue of the Benton Daily Journal, in hopes of seeing his name in print? Which will be kind of funny, seeing as he didn’t even write it. Though I’d hope he’d have the sense not to submit an article like that, with his name on it, because everyone in the fucking world would know that there was no way in hell he wrote it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Leo.”
I nodded. “I can see how you’re going to play this,” I said. “And maybe you think that if you do a good enough acting job, that I’ll actually buy it, but I’m not going to. I know that you’re the one behind all of this. There’s rea
lly no point in pretending otherwise.”
Her expression faltered. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally said.
“See, I think you do,” I said. “I think you know exactly what I’m talking about, because you were the one who wrote those letters to Tessa. I really don’t think Seth would have the . . . shall we say . . . gumption to do something like this on his own. Seth just wants to play basketball. But for Seth to play basketball, he’s got to keep the grades up. And for him to be able to do that, he’s got to be able to actually write a paper that will get him better than a C. And you seem to forget, Carla, that I had him in my class. I know what kinds of papers he writes. He didn’t write that paper.”
For several long seconds, we both stared at each other. The air thickened between us, but she was the one sweating, not me.
“What exactly is it that you’re proposing, then?” she asked.
“So it really was you. Carla, I’m surprised. I wouldn’t think you’d have something like that in you. Blackmail. Encouraging your son to hand in papers that he didn’t write. Would you ever put up with something like that if one of your students tried to do that? I think not.”
She leaned her elbows on the table and then rested her face in her hands. She stayed like that for several seconds. Then, she took a deep breath and sat up.
“I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand,” she said. “You, with nothing to really tie you down. You’re not married, you don’t have any kids, before this job you were traveling all over the place, going wherever you wanted, when you wanted. Must’ve been pretty nice.”
“Yeah, it was great,” I said. “But this isn’t about me.”
“I know. I’m just bringing it up for context, because the fact is, I don’t think you can truly understand. You don’t know what it’s like to be a single parent, to have a career, to be doing your best to hold it all together while at the same time trying to ensure that your kid also stays on the right track. Seth doesn’t realize this, but it’s unlikely that he’ll ever play professional basketball. It’s something that he’s wanted to do since he was a kid, and he’s always been very good at it, but not good enough to be able to make a living from it.”