Where You Are

by J. H. Trumble

  Chapter 44

  Robert

  I turn that thought over in my mind the rest of the night. By morning I know my answer.

  I get to school early, hoping against hope that Caleb has been able to elicit some kind of confession from Stephen. I sit on the floor and lean against the sax lockers and wait.

  I’m thinking about Andrew—Did he sleep? Is he safe? Is he afraid?—when Luke drops down on the floor next to me.

  “Did you see the news last night?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” I twist my head to look at him.

  “How you holding up?”

  Before I can answer, Caleb calls to me from across the band hall. He’s holding a piece of paper high in his hand. My heart thuds in my chest, and I hope to hell that’s what I think it is. We get to our feet. “I’ve got it,” he says excitedly. “I didn’t think he was going to respond, and then this morning I got up, and, well, look for yourself.”

  Luke reads over my shoulder. “You got him.”

  “That motherfucker,” I say softly.

  “Caleb, I love you.” I grab his face and plant a kiss right on his mouth. He beams and maybe swoons a bit, but I’m already running across the band hall.

  I’m out of breath when I burst into the front office. I barely register the receptionist’s surprised look or Mrs. Stovall’s “Ex-cuse me” as I slip past them to Mr. Redmon’s door.

  “I have proof that Mr. McNelis did not send those text messages.”

  Mr. Redmon looks up from his computer screen. I enter his office and place the screen shot of the private Facebook conversation on his desk. “Andrew—Mr. McNelis didn’t do it. Stephen admits right here that he set him up. And it all makes sense. Andrew—I mean, Mr. McNelis—his phone disappeared Friday morning. I can prove that. He sent me this note during fourth period to let me know it was missing so I wouldn’t—” I stop. Shit.

  I lay the note on his desk next to the other paper. “Stephen took his phone, then he used it to send texts to himself. Then he made an anonymous phone call to you that morning. He made it so you would call him in and then he acted like he’d been too afraid to tell anyone when all along there was nothing to tell. He made it up. They have to let Andrew go. You have to make them see that.”

  Mr. Redmon drops his eyes to the two pieces of paper on his desk. He picks up first the Facebook screen shot, then Andrew’s note, then stacks them neatly together.

  I don’t get it. He should be jumping all over this evidence. Instead, he sits quietly and stares at the papers. I want to shake him. “Mr. Redmon, he’s innocent. He didn’t do anything wrong. He would never do anything like that. He’s a good person. Pick up the phone,” I plead. “Just call them. Please.”

  “Robert, sit down,” he says, looking up at me.

  “Call Stephen in. Ask him. Search his house. You already have all the evidence you need right there. You can’t let this happen.”

  Mr. Redmon props his elbows on his desk and presses his mouth into his clasped hands, then rests his chin on them. “You speak very passionately on his behalf, Robert. I assure you, I will turn this over to the police. But I need you to be honest with me about your relationship with Mr. McNelis.”

  “We’re friends,” I say too quickly. “That’s all.”

  “I wasn’t born yesterday, Robert. I assume you are aware that we’ve already spoken with Mr. McNelis about the time he’s been spending alone with you.”

  I shake my head, desperate to make him believe the lie.

  “There’s a photo of you on his phone. And a call came into his phone yesterday afternoon from your cell number. Let me ask you again: Have you been involved in a relationship with Mr. McNelis?”

  “No,” I say emphatically.

  “Robert.” He sighs heavily. “The police will subpoena you. I understand that they have some pretty solid evidence that you were with him Saturday night.”

  I am mute with shock. He’s lying. He has to be lying.

  “You can’t protect him from this, Robert. He is a grown man, and he has violated a sacred trust. He used the power of his position to take advantage—”

  “He took advantage of nothing.”

  “He used his power—”

  “I wanted to be with him,” I snap. “I pursued him.” I suddenly realize what I’m saying, but I’m helpless to stop. It’s too late for that. “No one made me do anything I didn’t want to do,” I say more quietly. “I’m not a child. And in just a few more months I’ll graduate and none of this will even matter.”

  The weight of what I’ve just confessed presses down on me, and I sit, numb. “Mr. Redmon, you have to see that—you can’t—he’s not—” I don’t know how to make him understand.

  Mr. Redmon leans back in his chair and wipes his hand down his face. “All right.” After a moment he gets to his feet. “I want you to wait here for a few minutes. Okay?”

  When he returns, it’s with Mr. Hough. He has a form with him. He tells me he needs to take a statement from me.

  Chapter 45

  Andrew

  Crews from two of the four local TV stations are waiting outside the jail when they release me. They dog Maya and me and my lawyer all the way to our cars, shouting questions and getting no answers. Maya takes charge, elbowing reporters out of her way, telling me in a no-nonsense voice to keep moving.

  As she pulls the car into the one-way street, I see the signs advertising bail bondsmen. There’s one on every seedy little dump for blocks. I wonder for a moment which one she used. I feel like I’m in a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I watch from the window as the grungy city slides away. I want to go home.

  “Kiki’s with a sitter,” Maya says, turning on her blinker to enter the interstate. “She doesn’t know.”

  I acknowledge that information with silence.

  “I picked up your car this morning. Karen next door drove me up to the school.”

  I feel her glance at me. I notice that a few early wildflowers are just starting to bloom in the scruffy patches along the freeway. I try to remember their names—crimson clover, red poppy, Indian paintbrush, bluebonnet.

  “One of your teacher friends called. Jennifer, I think. She said to tell you she’s taking care of your classes.”

  My classes. My students. Funny. If anyone had told me this is how my teaching career would end—fingerprinting, a mug shot, a command to jerk off in a room so my erect penis could be photographed—I would have laughed. It was just that absurd. I almost refused. They couldn’t force me. But if I could prove that I did not send that photograph, that the penis in that photograph was not attached to me, then I had to try. The officer had uncuffed my wrists and handed me a Boys’ Life magazine. A Boys’ Life. I can still hear him snicker.

  But I couldn’t do it.

  It didn’t matter in the end. I don’t know how, but by the time Maya had arranged bail, I had already been cleared of any charges relating to Stephen Newman, but those charges had been replaced by another—improper relationship with a student. No amount of jerking off could exonerate me on that charge.

  They’d pulled my credit card bill and then pressured Robert into a confession.

  I don’t blame him. I’m only profoundly sorry for dragging him into this mess.

  “It’s going to be okay, Drew,” Maya says, patting my knee.

  I don’t think so.

  When we pull into the driveway, the sitter opens the door and Kiki runs to me. I scoop her up. “Hey, baby girl.” I choke on the words and bury my face in her hair. She doesn’t understand, and in a moment she’s crying too.

  “I’ll take her,” Maya says, reaching for her. But I clutch her to me, her wails covering my own, quieter sobs.

  Maya quickly pulls a few bills out of her purse for the babysitter, who is standing by in awkward silence. Then she takes my elbow and ushers me into the house. Inside she peels Kiki from my arms and quiets her with some juice and crackers in the kitchen. I retreat to my room.

  Sometime later
she knocks on my door and comes in, then sits on the bed next to me. “Can I make you something to eat?”

  I shake my head and close my eyes, hoping she’ll just go away and leave me alone.

  She begins to shift a little closer to me but stops when I roll over and turn my back to her. After a moment, I feel her pull her legs up onto the bed and settle closer to me anyway, and then her thumbs press into my shoulders.

  “You just need to relax, baby,” she murmurs. “Everything’s going to be okay. How about I draw you a bath?”

  I answer her with silence.

  “Oh, Drew. You’re home now. And I promise you, I’m going to be with you every step of the way. We’re a family. We’ll get through this together. One day we’re going to look back on this and—”

  “Can I borrow your phone?” My voice is rough, like I haven’t used it in a while.

  Her hands freeze on my back for just an instant, then resume their kneading. “I’ve already called your parents. They know you’re home and you’re okay.”

  That’s not what I want, and she knows it. I can hear it in her voice. “Please, Maya,” I plead. “I need to use your phone.”

  She removes her hand from my back and the bed shifts as she gets up. I hear her huff. “Do you have any sense of self-preservation?”

  I wince at her shrill, angry tone.

  “Do you have any idea how this has affected me? How it’s affected your daughter? You stay away from that kid, or so help me . . .”

  I roll my face into my pillow.

  “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “But you have to understand that your relationship with Robert Westfall is over. You’re going to be damn lucky to escape a prison sentence as it is. If you contact him again—don’t do that to your daughter. Think about somebody other than yourself for a change. This thing you had going, it could never last. You know that, don’t you? He’s a bright young man with a big future ahead of him. If you care anything at all about him, you’ll let him go.”

  I feel like I’m suffocating in her presence, and then I hear the door close behind her.

  Robert

  “I just want to talk to him. Just for a minute.”

  Ms. Momin steps out onto the porch and pulls the door closed behind her. “He doesn’t want to see you, Robert. He goes before a grand jury in a couple of months. If they know you’ve been here, it will only make things worse for him. Don’t come again. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Will you at least tell him something for me?”

  She pushes the door open behind her and slips back in without another word.

  Andrew

  Maya is just coming in the front door as I’m coming in the back with Kiki. I can see on her face that she’s upset.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  She smiles. “Nothing.”

  Jen takes a good look at me when I open the door later that evening. “You look like shit,” she says.

  I take the box she hands me. “Thanks, Jen. You didn’t have to do this.”

  “Your sub’s been poking around your desk, and no one else was breaking down the door to protect your stuff, so here I am.”

  “What are they saying about me?”

  “About what you’d expect. Pervert. Stupid. Incompetent. Sleaze. Creep. Everybody knew there was something different about you.” She makes those finger quotes when she says different.

  “Thanks for making me feel better.”

  “Aah, come on, Drew. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “Isn’t it?” I take the box to the kitchen counter. She closes the door and follows me in.

  “You know, this whole mess would make a great novel.”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  She laughs. “Don’t worry, I’ll change the names. So, um”—she pauses then gives me an impish grin—“what’s he like in the sack?”

  I can’t believe she just asked me that.

  “Come on. Throw me a bone.” She lifts a tie from the box. I always keep one—kept one—in my desk drawer just in case. She wraps the tie around her fingers and flicks her eyebrows at me. “Is he as hot naked as he is in those jeans?”

  I look at her for a moment in disbelief, then take the tie from her.

  “Okay,” she says, undeterred, “so this is just research. So, let’s just say that gay men engage in three different acts. I think one and two are a given. But what about number three?”

  I stare at her, trying to make sense of what she’s asking me, and then I get it. “Are you asking me if we had anal sex?”

  “Well, yeah,” she says, grinning.

  I feel my eyes fill with tears.

  “Oh, shit,” Jen says. “Okay, don’t cry. Crap.”

  I press the heels of my palms to my eyes and will them to dry up, but it’s no use.

  “What’s going on?” Maya asks, coming into the room.

  I drop my hands and turn my head away, blinking a few times. Then I introduce Jennifer. “She’s in the classroom next to mine.”

  “Oh,” Maya says coolly, then continues on to the kitchen.

  “I’ll show you out,” I say to Jen.

  She follows me to the door, but I don’t open it right away. I study my bare feet, reluctant to let her go because right now, she’s the best link I have to him.

  “I didn’t know,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  I swallow past the lump in my throat and look up at her. “Have you seen him?”

  “Yeah. I’ve seen him.”

  “Does he look okay?”

  She shrugs. “Kinda quiet, but that’s nothing new.”

  Chapter 46

  Andrew

  It’s March twenty-eighth. A Monday. Robert’s eighteenth birthday.

  Kiki is pushing Spot around the house in a toy stroller and babbling to him like he’s a real baby. I smile when she stops so I can pet him. We’ve withdrawn her from Ms. Smith’s Village now that money is so tight. It gives me something to do with my long days and keeps me from going completely mad. I’m not under house arrest, but it sure feels like it.

  “Spot thirsty,” she says to me in her most grown-up voice.

  “He is? Well, maybe we should get him a drink.” I go to the cabinet and remove a sippy cup, then pretend to fill it with apple juice from the refrigerator.

  She takes it from me with a very serious look on her face, then gives the stuffed dog a two-second drink. “Daddy thirsty too,” she says, handing the cup back to me.

  “I am.” I pretend to take a drink, which seems to delight her.

  She scuttles off with Spot, and I’m left clutching the cell phone in my hand. My own phone is still being held in evidence; this is a cheap prepaid phone that Maya bought so I’d have a way to call her or 911 if necessary. I haven’t dared use it for any other purpose.

  I have never felt this low in my entire life. Not even after Kevin. I feel worthless—no career, no job, no income, no choices, no life. I feel like Maya is my mother, and I’m some impetuous child who’s had to be harnessed for his own good.

  Just last night, after Jen left, Maya told me she’d contacted a Realtor about putting the house up for sale. She wants us to move back to Oklahoma and start over. She’s already talked to my parents about moving in with them for a while after this school year ends, just until we can find new jobs, just until we can find our own place to live, just until we can get back on our feet.

  All this we, we, we is making me crazy. I don’t want a we with Maya. I want a me. Even so, I do sometimes think about it now. Just giving in. Being what she wants me to be—husband, lover. Sometimes it feels safe, like a place where I can hide from all the bad things. But at other times, I feel like I can’t breathe when she’s in the room. No. Right or wrong, I’m in love with that kid, and there’s no going back. I’m not so sure where forward will lead me, but back is not an option.

  His birthday.

  “Kiki! Hey, baby girl, you want to go for some ice cream?”

  Maybe I
am impetuous, and maybe I will regret this later, but it’s his birthday, and he will have flowers. In the H-E-B floral department, I choose a small clear round bowl tightly packed with hot pink roses, light pink carnations, and white daisies with green centers. The flowers are bright and beautiful, just like him, and they smell like happiness, which is exactly what I wish for him on his birthday. Just that—happiness.

  I set the basket with the chocolate ice cream on the floor and take a small card from the display. I’ve been thinking about what I want to say since we got in the car. I borrow a pen from the florist person and scribble a quick note, then tuck the note into an envelope and stick it in the little pitchfork jutting out from the flowers.

  “This is our little secret, right?” I say to Kiki.

  She holds her finger to her lips and says, “Shhh.”

  “That’s right. Shhh.”

  We’re checking out when a woman in black jogging pants with a matching zip-up jacket leans over the counter past the bagger and fixes me with cold eyes. “That little girl deserves better.” She storms off. The checker avoids my eyes as she hands me the receipt.

  We leave the flowers in the shade on Robert’s front porch, and then hightail it home.

  Robert

  “Happy fucking birthday to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Luke says. “You want to go get something to eat? My treat? You don’t turn eighteen every day, you know.”

  I bang my head against the band lockers, then get to my feet. From across the room, I see Caleb heading our way. “Thanks, but I just want to go home.”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  I shake my head. “No. Maybe Ms. Momin is right. Maybe he really doesn’t want to see me.”

  “Hey,” Caleb says, planting himself in front of us. “I just wanted to say happy birthday.”

  I look up at him. “Thanks, Caleb. Where’s the rest of my fan club?”