The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

When Dr. Morgan Lemus was appointed to Ravendale High School as the new principal five years ago, everyone with even a dash of common sense realized that sweeping changes were high on his agenda. I didn’t necessarily disagree with altering the course of our school’s programs and policies, providing that any proposal for such redirection was superior to the system currently in place. But like so many other zealots before him, Lemus made a rash decision in attempting to eradicate the school’s problems without first investigating the sources behind them. Had his plans succeeded to even a minor degree, people would’ve praised him as modern day genius. When none of his strategies worked, peons took the inevitable fall.

  One of Lemus’s professional blunders occurred last year when he sought to reduce tardiness by realigning the students’ according to grade level. In theory, Lemus’s idea didn’t sound too illogical. He estimated that a large number of kids from different grades were intermixing in the hallways, creating immovable pockets of stragglers throughout the building. However, theories, as most teachers know, often glimmer like gems set against a foil, but when tested in usable practice they become as lackluster as a mudstone.

  I suppose advisors explained to Lemus that the corridors were simply not wide enough at certain intersections to accommodate the foot traffic, and no reconfiguration would’ve mattered much at all. We simply needed more space or fewer students. Soon after Lemus’s design turned into a crude realization, the hallways became more congested than a Californian freeway at rush hour. The frequency of lateness among the students increased twofold. Presently, it was almost impossible for even the most conscientious and fleet footed suck-ups among us to make it to class before the late bell.

  My walk to Shawn Winger’s classroom on the C-Wing side of the school would’ve normally taken me at least twice as long with the students inside the building. In this instance I almost wanted to praise Lemus for his foresight, but then I realized that too much credit had already been extended to his bankrupted viewpoints on overseeing a high school. It seemed that Lemus’s time here was as numbered as a desk calendar’s days. Fortunately, not even a bungling bureaucrat like Lemus spoiled the teaching experience for everyone. In fact, Ravendale still had an ample share of creative young teachers working hard enough to cover up Lemus’s incompetence.

  One such prodigy was Shawn Winger. He joined the English Department at Ravendale four years ago. Normally, an upstart freshly plucked from college required years to hone his practice before making a noticeable impression in the classroom. He may have earned the credentials to stand in front of a cluster of ornery teens, but this by itself did not transform him into an educator. Any teacher who endured this profession for more than a few years sustained himself by adhering to one basic premise: everything he learned about teaching in college only worked in practice among those studying to be educators. None of those methodologies helped forge the interchanging relations between students and teacher in a real classroom environment. In this respect, today’s memorable teachers were no different from those who succeeded twenty or thirty years ago.

  Of course, Shawn Winger debunked all my preconceptions about new teachers. From his first day at the school, he demonstrated a wit and charisma that immediately impressed his charges and supervisors. His gravitas and self-assurance among students not much younger than himself still astounded me. In less time than it required most teachers to acclimate to the realties of instructing teenagers, he had emerged as one of the most popular figures in the entire school. Maybe this influx of enthusiasm was in part attributable to his wholesome, small-town sensibilities. Even Norman Rockwell would’ve touted Shawn’s resemblance to a caricature cropped from a cover of The Saturday Morning Post.

  No one ever complained about his Romanesque features either. He was a tall man, perhaps standing at least two inches higher than my six-foot stature. But unlike my lanky posture, he had the physique of a gladiator, undoubtedly acquired by following an exercise regime that I avoided like rank sardines. His raven-black hair and swarthy skin accentuated a facade that might’ve been carved from Michelangelo’s chisel. But beyond his indisputable manliness, he had some other intangible trait that made him shimmer brighter than the rest of his ilk. In all my years at Ravendale, I don’t think I ever met a colleague more supportive of his students’ successes than Shawn Winger.

  He struck me as a person who had a natural propensity to lead others, and they followed in tireless droves. A behavioral infraction in Mr. Winger’s classroom was more unusual than a three-sided coin. He was clever and quick-witted enough to disperse the students’ unpredictable temperaments by interjecting light sarcasm when necessary, but never to a point where his comments became derisive. I tried to recall a time in my teaching career when I cared as much about the students as he apparently did, but there was never such a moment. Shawn had uncovered his life’s passion early, and I sometimes wondered if he recognized how envious I was of his foresight.

  The fact that he summoned me to his room for advice on any occasion made me feel even more like a fraudster. In truth, I had nothing to offer him on the stratagems of education that he didn’t regularly showcase in his own classroom. Although he wasn’t much older than twenty-seven, his adeptness in all that he attempted far surpassed my achievements. In the past four years, Shawn had earned awards as teacher of the month at least a dozen times. That was twelve more than I managed to accrue in the program’s ten year existence.

  Aside from his unwavering commitment within the classroom, Shawn loaned his numerous talents to extracurricular activities as well. For the past two seasons, he coached both the girls’ junior varsity tennis and basketball teams, leading the former to their first state championship in more than two decades. With such an impressive start to Shawn’s career, administrators scurried fast to secure him. There’s an unwritten rule in schools among faculty members, administrators, and supervisors that the best teachers were typically rewarded with the most driven students. But this entire system seemed backwards to me. If Shawn Winger were truly Ravendale’s crem de la crem, wouldn’t it have made better sense to assign him the underachieving students? As it now stood, Shawn essentially wrote his own schedule, and Principal Lemus catered to his whims like a hound dog fetching a stick for its master’s recreation.

  When Shawn’s responsibilities ended at school, they resumed again at home with his family. In true homespun fashion, he married his high school crush as soon as they graduated college. The couple had their first child three years ago, and they just purchased a modest home on the west side of Willows Edge. All the pieces for a happy, gratifying life had fallen effortlessly into place at an early age for this young man; it seemed like a divine hand guided everything his way. Sometimes I looked at him and was reminded of all the things I hoped to attain when I was much younger. But Shawn had the verve that I lacked. His desire to see his dreams come to fruition was matched by a tenacious plan. For him, it simply wasn’t good enough to imagine a goal and then not employ the energy to get it accomplished. This sort of resiliency defied me my whole life, and it’s only in retrospect that I counted all my squandered years.

  I approached Shawn’s classroom with reluctance; I hadn’t yet constructed any rational explanation for my presence here. The only idea I came up with was that I acted as his mentor during his first year of teaching. Even then, that became more of an obligatory role rather than any serviceable tool he benefited from. But perhaps in respect to my seniority, he still valued my insight into the minutia of this craft. As I neared his classroom’s door, however, I noticed something I’d never witnessed before. Shawn was hunched motionless behind his desk with his hands gripping his computer’s keyboard as if they were affixed to the plastic casing.

  His posture stunned me. Had it been any other teacher, I might’ve not lent a second thought to this behavior. But if Shawn Winger ever had a bad day in his life, his face never reflected it. The man seemed virtually impervious to the rigors of a teacher’s routine, and he typically flashed
a burnished smile when anyone happened to walk in his direction. Yet it didn’t require anything more probing than a quick glance into his classroom to identify the despondency cemented in his eyes on this morning.

  He must’ve seen me observing him from outside his room, but he refused to pivot his head away from his computer’s blue screen. I finally tapped my knuckles three times on the door’s window, causing him to acknowledge me with a listless wave of his hand. I needed no further invitation to step inside. Upon entering the classroom, my attention was immediately drawn to a lighting fixture above Shawn’s desk. The fluorescent light flickered with a yellowish haze, leaving half of his face cast in shadow. I wondered why the custodian hadn’t yet fixed this problem, being that Shawn’s classroom usually received primary consideration for any required maintenance.

  Shawn had decorated his classroom as a paradigmatic example on how it should’ve been done for those seeking favoritism from the powers that be. Every particle of corkboard on the bulletin boards was laden with his students’ work. The result looked like a museum of poster board and crayon visualizations of classic novels. In addition, charcoal depictions of Shakespeare, Joyce, Bronte, Twain, Dickens, Dante, and among others were stationed on the walls around the room like sentinels of the written word. These legendary literary figures peered down upon the empty desks with a haunting surveillance.

  To suggest that Shawn Winger was merely well organized would’ve been a disservice to recognizing his staunchness toward perfectionism. His desktop appeared immaculately arranged on all occasions, with his books and anthologies piled tidily on one corner, a box of tissue paper as a centerpiece, and a plastic bin for homework submissions on the opposite end. A bobble-head statue of The Bard himself served as a paperweight for some office memos and miscellaneous memos.

  Shawn also had a framed photograph of his pretty wife and child situated near his computer’s monitor so that he could admire them while he worked. There were other unframed photographs, too, but these were primarily related to the students’ activities. On the wall closest to his desk, he created a collage of the girls’ tennis and basketball teams at play in competitions. There was also another random collection of stills of him supervising a variety of the recreational events from previous years, such as the prom, senior class trip to a water park, and yearbook signing dinner that I hardly devoted any attention to in the past. I could’ve safely declared that Shawn had his fingers wedged firmly in most functions within the school and community since his arrival.

  Despite all his undertakings in Ravendale, one glance at Shawn today made it seem as though he had failed at all his endeavors. I’ve witnessed such vacant and sorrowful eyes before; his stare reminded me of my father’s visage just before he died. In this moment, I had every reason to suspect that something vital had been taken from Shawn, but I dared not presume anything aloud. I made my presence less imposing by leaning on the corner of a desk closest to where he was positioned. He still looked blankly into the computer’s electric blue screen, almost as if he believed the remedy to his anguish existed somewhere within that cold circuitry.

  After several seconds of silence passed, Shawn swiveled his chair away from the computer to acknowledge me, but it was a subdued greeting at best. “Thanks for coming to see me on such short notice, Corbin,” he murmured. This voice sounded like it projected from another person. The cadence of his speech was sluggish and noticeably deficient of a lighthearted tempo that I had come to expect from this man. Even more unnerving was the way his robin egg-colored eyes watered at each pupil duct; this man obviously struggled to confine his teardrops.

  “It’s no problem,” I offered. “Is everything okay?”

  My blatant question was met with a frown from Shawn, which always indicated that something was indeed afoul. Before proceeding with any further talk, he motioned to the classroom’s door, which creaked partially open. “Do you mind shutting that all the way?” he asked meekly, pointing toward the door.

  “Sure thing.” I then returned to the door and closed it completely, realizing that whatever Shawn felt compelled to share with me wasn’t intended for ears beyond these four walls. I returned to my original spot in front of his desk, but his fretfulness hadn’t yet subsided. His sable hair remained tousled atop his head as if it hadn’t been combed in days, and his unshaven cheeks matched an overall slovenly appearance that was entirely outside the realm of his shipshape disposition. My curiosity to his plight deepened, of course, but I kept quiet until he was ready to purge his mind.

  “I guess I’m not sure how to begin,” he stated tentatively, “but you’ve always been the one guy around here who I could trust. I need to rely on that trust between us right now.”

  I didn’t know precisely how to respond to Shawn in this instance, or even if he expected me to say anything at all. Granted, we worked in the same department for the past four years, and sometimes met for lunch when our schedules permitted. I even interacted with his wife a couple of years ago and debated public education in Willows Edge, but outside this occasionally courteous discourse and maybe a bawdy joke whispered across a table during a faculty meeting, we didn’t nurture a truly authentic friendship. Based on his exalted status among our colleagues, I presumed he had established other relationships within the school that served as better prospects for trustworthiness. With that point being noted, I certainly harbored no desire to undermine the confidentiality that should’ve taken precedence between all people when requested.

  “It looks like you’ve got a lot on your mind right now,” I said. “It might be better if we discuss this another time.”

  “No. This can’t wait.” Shawn then jolted up from his chair and stood parallel to his desk. He paced to and fro like a caged animal searching for an avenue of escape. His fists were clenched so rigidly that his knuckles whitened from the pressure against his palms. Globules of sweat sizzled on his temples and brow, reminding me of the onset of my own somatic illness.

  “Are you sure you’re feeling up to this?”

  Shawn stroked his fingers through his hair again, presumably to press the leaking perspiration back into his scalp. He no longer attempted to conceal the water welling in his eyes. It was as though his eyeballs melted in both sockets, and a torrent of liquid agony could not be contained any longer. The tears skidded down his cheeks in broken chains, before splashing silently on his leather loafers.

  “I messed up,” he announced sullenly. His normally spirited tone sounded utterly deflated, almost as if an invisible harpoon impaled his throat. “I’ve been kicking myself in the head over this for a few days now, but I’m not making any progress.”

  “Before you say anything else,” I advised, “did you try to talk to your wife about what’s troubling you?”

  If any buoyancy whatsoever remained in Shawn’s disposition, my question seemed to torpedo the last glimpses of hope from his expression. He simply sunk back into his chair as if I had kicked his feet out from beneath him. “What I have to say,” he muttered, “can’t be told to her—not now anyway.”

  “But she’s okay? And your son, too?”

  “They’re fine. For now, they’re just fine. Thanks for asking, though.” Shawn’s voice indicated that he wasn’t as immune to marital disharmony as I once presumed. He suddenly seemed vulnerable to all the calamities that compromised an average fellow’s dreams. It humbled us both to witness such a visible chink in this gallant man’s polished persona.

  “I thought I had everything under control,” he continued. “But I was wrong.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “I’m supposed to make sure everything goes smoothly,” he said. “When trouble happens around this school, people come running to me for help. For God’s sake, they look up to me. Do you know how much pressure that can be on a man?”

  “I can’t pretend that I do.”

  “Anyway, I never believed it would work out like this. I’m in a real bind.”

  “Well, maybe if you te
ll me what’s going on, I might be able to help you figure something out.”

  Shawn’s face twitched as though he swallowed an acidic lozenge. His expression nearly depleted my meager display of optimism. He then situated himself in front of his desk in a seated position, using his elbows as support to keep his head from tipping against the wood surface. I still resisted an urge to comment on his muddled behavior.

  “I don’t want you to judge me too harshly,” he said. “You know I’ve done quite a bit for this community, but I also realize that none of what I’ve done in the past matters anymore.”

  “I’m listening, Shawn.”

  “I’m a good coach and teacher, anyone who works here can vouch for that,” he said, dallying with his thoughts. I watched his posture stoop forward a bit as he turned his head toward a collage of photographs on the wall behind his desk. He settled his eyes on a black and white print of the girls’ basketball team. It took him a moment to stabilize his feelings before he proceeded. “They’re a great group of kids. There’s one senior in particular on the varsity basketball squad—you might know her. Did you ever have Desiree Meadows in class?”

  Since I remembered faces better than I did names on the fly, I simply shrugged my shoulders. This girl’s name spurred no other reaction from me. “I don’t think she was ever in any of my classes,” I replied. My voice sounded as almost as grave as Shawn’s while I observed him shifting in his seat as if he was perched atop a bed of reddened coals.

  “You’d surely remember her if she was ever your student,” he remarked. “Anyway, more to the matter, I know what happened is inexcusable. But I can’t take it back now, Corbin. Desiree and I have been involved.”

  “Involved? What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I paused as if stupefied by Shawn’s words. Perhaps I misheard him, or was purposely being obtuse to avoid the reality of such a confession. He waited for my reaction, but my lips became congealed in a vertical line across my face. I couldn’t manage to enunciate a coherent response for at least ten seconds.

  “Are you telling me that you’ve had an affair with a student?” I asked, while trying not to sound appalled. I was suddenly overcome by a surreal sensation, and fervently wished this exchange could’ve been dissolved as expeditiously as awakening from one of my episodes. But as I watched Shawn’s eyes pool with sorrow, I realized that we were both fully conscious in our surroundings.

  “It wasn’t a planned thing between us,” he sulked. “I keep rehearsing the moment over in my mind, and I just never saw it coming. It was after practice one night. She needed a ride home. I don’t know what happened after we were alone in the car. Everything got so crazy.”

  “Crazy?” I repeated with a measure of hostility and disbelief vying for top position in my tone. “Yes, it’s very crazy indeed. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I…I don’t know. God, it’s like we were just drawn to one another. Karma, maybe.”

  “In the car? I just don’t know what to say. This is something that I would’ve never expected from you. Nobody would’ve ever expected such behavior from you.”

  “You’re right. It’s gotten out of control.”

  “Hold on a second. When did this happen?”

  “It started over two months ago, maybe a little longer.”

  “And it was just that one time in the car you were together?”

  Shawn lowered his chin even before I finished my inquiry. I suspected he neither had the ability nor desire to look me in the eyes. Eventually, the harsh truth lurched from his mouth like an insidious obsession. “It’s still going on,” he admitted. “We’ve been intimate at least ten times since then, probably closer to fifteen. I lost count.”

  “But you can bet your last dime she hasn’t,” I returned. My expression must’ve plummeted along with Shawn’s as I looked at him with both a mixture of pity and disgust. “You’re too smart not to realize that this is going to screw up your whole life, Shawn. I can’t believe that you’d let something like this happen.”

  “It’s impossible to explain,” he groveled. “I wasn’t thinking about the long-term consequences of my actions.”

  “And now you’re ready for them?” He didn’t answer me. Instead, he cupped his palms in front of his face and wept like a boy who’d skinned his chins in a nasty fall. Unfortunately, there was not enough gauze and tape in the entire state to bandage his present wounds. My next question was more direct. “How old was Desiree when you started fooling around with her?”

  “She’s seventeen. Won’t be eighteen until June, I think.”

  Berating Shawn on his sheer stupidity was a tempting antidote for my own frustration, but it served no benefit to him now. Besides, he wasn’t asking me to commend him for his indiscretions, and I wasn’t emotionally equipped to function as a keeper of morality. I stewed with the information he had provided for a few seconds before attempting to rectify a situation that we both deemed as catastrophic.

  “The first thing you got to do,” I suggested, “is get your emotions under control.”

  “I…I don’t mean to cry like a wimp,” he sobbed. “It’s pathetic, I know.”

  “I’m not talking about that. You have to stop seeing that girl right away.”

  He hesitated again. When he peeled his palms away from his shivering face, I detected a distinct ashen color to his flesh. His eyes verified that he wasn’t finished with his declaration of guilt. “Last week,” he announced morbidly, “I would’ve most likely agreed with you. But it’s not so simple now.”

  “Don’t tell me….”

  “Yeah…you guessed it. She’s pregnant, Corbin.”

  Shawn’s agonizing grimace in no way measured the irreversible heartache that he had selfishly brought upon multiple families. My revulsion for his recklessness intensified, and any goodness that I espied in his character before this moment evaporated like the teardrops dribbling off his shoes. My next question was merely a formality, but an essential one that required some consideration on his part.

  “Are you absolutely certain you’re the father?”

  “She says it’s mine. What choice do I have other than to believe her at this point? But even if someone else got her pregnant, she doesn’t want to be with anyone but me.”

  “Then you already know where this is heading, don’t you?”

  “Look, I don’t know what to think anymore. That’s why I called you here confidentially.”

  I expelled a breath that briefly made me supplant my own predicament, but even if my life was entirely unburdened, I had no solution or legerdemain to make Shawn’s crisis vanish. Since he already indicated that his wife was oblivious to this affair, I focused on the inevitable aftermath. “You know, in regard to your wife,” I offered tentatively, “it’s only going to be a matter of time before she finds out the truth. Do you want to be the one who breaks the news to her?”

  “I can’t tell Jill about this,” he said adamantly. “She’ll be literally crushed.”

  “And how do you think Jill’s going to feel when she hears from somebody other than you that her husband impregnated a seventeen-year-old student?”

  “God, I…I don’t know. She’d be devastated either way. I can’t think straight anymore. I keep closing and reopening my eyes wishing this were all a nightmare. But it’s not going away.”

  “No,” I reiterated. “And it’s bound to get a hell of a lot worse.”

  I reserved my judgment on whether Shawn deserved any real sympathy for his plight. I felt most sorry for his family, particularly his young wife and son. My eyes swayed to Jill Winger’s photograph positioned in a gilded frame by his computer. She appeared so attractive, albeit in a conservative manner, with her auburn hair and fawn-colored eyes. Why did he feel compelled to sabotage something so fragile and rare as a loving marriage? Instead of demanding an explanation for his egregious insensitivity, I moved toward his desk and flipped a box of tissue paper into his lap.

&n
bsp; “You need to shape up fast,” I told him firmly. “The time for feeling sorry for yourself has already expired. I hope you don’t think you can come out of this scandal unscathed.”

  Shawn clutched the box of tissue paper with one hand, but he didn’t bother to wipe the mist from his eyes. “It’s a complicated ordeal right now.”

  “So why did you bring me into this mess?”

  “I guess I just needed to tell someone. I’m sorry for saying anything. I hope you can forgive me someday.”

  “You don’t need my forgiveness,” I exclaimed. “Trust me, I’m not the one you’ll be apologizing to down the line.”

  “I’ve been a selfish ass,” he gulped. “There’s no way to justify what I’ve done. What more can I say?”

  “That you’ll do the right thing.”

  Shawn paused again, and in this instance his eyes followed mine to the photograph of his wife and son. He then mumbled pitifully, “That’s just it, Corbin, I don’t really know what the right thing is anymore.”

  Perhaps my intellectual colleague wasn’t as bright as I initially credited him. Even a simpleton would’ve recognized the gravity of his choices. Since our time together was limited, I elected to persuade him as bluntly as possible. “You’ve already told me how wrong you are. Once the boundary is severed between a student and teacher in this way, I shouldn’t have to remind you of the repercussions. The fact that she’s considered a minor in the eyes of the law makes it even direr for you. Given the severe circumstances, I think you know what must be done.”

  Shawn’s voice dipped into a whisper when he uttered, “What if I love her, Corbin?” I was instantly mortified for both him and me. Although I understood the ineffectiveness of literally smacking common sense into someone’s head, I briefly entertained the notion of belting Shawn in his face.

  “Have you lost your mind completely? The girl is seventeen. She might not even have her driver’s license yet, and you’re talking about loving her.”

  “I know it sounds bizarre,” he said, “and believe me, I’ve struggled to come to terms with my feelings toward her for weeks now. We talk and instant message one another on the phone all the time. She makes me feel like I did when I was back in high school. I really can’t stop thinking about her, and she tells me the same thing.”

  “Shawn, the girl looks up to you because you’re a popular, good-looking teacher and her coach. But she must know that you’re married and have a small child. Use a little common sense. Dolores is not the right girl for you.”

  “Her name isn’t Dolores—it’s Desiree.”

  “What’s the difference? The name isn’t as important as her game, and you stand to lose this one big-time. I know you’re still relatively young, and if the circumstances were different, you and Desiree may have had a chance to build a relationship after she graduated. But come on, you can’t act like you’re still in high school simply because you’re employed by one.”

  “That’s why I needed to speak to you. You always use reason and logic. I really wanted some critical advice right now, but I still can’t deny my feelings. I’m being tugged in the opposite direction.”

  “You mean away from your wife and son?”

  He stared reflectively at the photograph again, perhaps earnestly trying to show me his confliction. “I really do care about them both,” he muttered. “Jill’s a wonderful mother, and a very sweet woman. And Raymond is so much fun, the joy of my life.”

  “You don’t believe that,” I scolded him.

  “The hell I don’t. My son means the world to me.”

  “Bullshit. If he did, why would you ever contemplate leaving his mother? Do you realize what the media will do to you once this story leaks out? They will take more pounds of your flesh than Shylock would’ve dared to carve. And we haven’t even talked about the legal issues you’ll be facing down the road. The longer you pretend to love this student, the more people you’ll hurt—especially your wife and son.”

  “So you think I should just forget about Desiree? Could I really be that flighty and hardhearted? If she’s pregnant with my child, don’t I owe her some devotion, too?”

  “Listen to me. The noblest thing you can do right now is admit your mistakes to Desiree. If she loves you as you claim she does, then she’ll want you to stay with your family. Any way you look at it, though, that girl is going to cause you a lot of pain and disgrace before this is all over. I know you’re accustomed to getting what you want, but I don’t believe you can win this time.”

  Shawn resisted using the tissue until his eyes became bloodshot. I didn’t anticipate him to relinquish his pride and more efficiently than he did his tears. It seemed as though he resigned himself to salvaging something from the wreckage.

  “Desiree and I have been talking about a plan,” he said. His tears stopped trickling from his eyes as if he turned off a spigot inside his head. For the first time since I entered his classroom, a sliver of vitality surfaced in his countenance. “She’s graduating in two months, and she wants us to live together.”

  “That’s your brilliant strategy?”

  “I didn’t say it was brilliant, but at least it’s an option.”

  “So you’re going to leave your wife and son to shack up with a pregnant teenager? This is the best solution you could come up with?”

  “It sounds incredibly ill conceived and immature when I hear you say it, but that seems to be the sensible choice for us now.”

  “Really? I must’ve missed the part where any of what you’re talking about made good sense. What happens if you decide you want to stay with Jill?”

  Shawn’s mouth curled into a lopsided frown as if he ingested another tart pill. His response was almost predictable. “Desiree said she’ll keep quiet about our affair as long as I agree to leave my wife and live with her.”

  “Does that sound like love to you? In my way of thinking, I believe it’s a form of blackmail.”

  “Please don’t make this out to be so ugly,” Shawn implored. “Desiree has really been unbelievably conciliatory about everything. She just wants me to promise her that I’ll take care of her and the baby after it’s born.”

  “You know,” I chuckled gravely, “this is starting to sound a lot like the plot to one of those awful movies on a women’s television network. But you already know how this scenario ends. The villain always loses, and no one is going to be able to paint you as the good guy by the time the credits roll.”

  Shawn returned the tissue paper box to its original spot on his desktop. He then removed the exposed tissue and crumpled it in his hands; his palms were undoubtedly as moist as his eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t have much flexibility,” he said. “Consider the alternative. If I turn myself in, I’ll lose everything—my job, my wife, my kid, my reputation, and all my friends. The way I see it, Jill is lost to me either way. She’ll never forgive me for this.”

  “But you haven’t even told her what’s going on.”

  “Forget it. I know my wife. Besides, I don’t want to go to jail for falling in love with a girl who’s fewer than ten years younger than I am. Believe me, I wish I did everything differently, but I can’t change anything now. I can only try to stop the problem from becoming any bigger.”

  At this stage in our conversation I leaned closer to Shawn’s face, while trying to locate a province within his pupils that reflected his true intentions. My next question was to the point of the matter. “Are you convinced beyond any doubt that you’re both in love with one another?” Shawn stared at me as if he suddenly realized that I had an ability to see beyond what his words conveyed.

  “Love makes the smartest people behave stupidly at times,” he replied. “When it comes right down to it, despite my immaculate image around this school, I’m just a regular guy like you, Corbin. I have weaknesses, flaws—whatever you want to call them. Maybe I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life by pursuing this relationship, but I also can’t help but to suspect that Desiree and I were meant to be to
gether. I still believe in fate.”

  “A marked man usually does.”

  “I never expected your applause. You’ve always been the voice of descent, and I needed your criticism. But sometimes life pulls you in directions you never see coming in advance. In this way, Desiree has shown me another path to happiness.”

  I motioned to the crumpled tissue paper on his desktop, and then to the droplets of tears sprinkled on his shirt’s collar. “Am I to believe that these are all remnants of joy?”

  “I’m an emotional guy. I guess crying is a way of releasing stress for me.”

  “You know, after hearing your confession and proposal to correct what you’ve done wrong, I can’t see that you’ll ever be happy again. I just wish you didn’t think of me as the guy who’s going to keep your secret safe.”

  “You’re not going to rat me out, are you?”

  “No, I don’t want to be that guy either. But you need to be mindful of something important. Since Desiree is only seventeen, she’s likely to have a girlfriend or two who might not be as passive as me when they learn that their friend is with child by Mr. Winger.”

  “She doesn’t have many close friends at this school.”

  “It only takes one slip of the tongue. One whisper. One vulnerable moment where she realizes how insane all of this really is.”

  “I trust her.”

  “It’s good that you do, but very naïve of you, too. High school girls don’t generally deal well with pregnancy in isolation. When did Desiree find out that she’s going to be a mother?”

  “Monday night or Tuesday morning.”

  “And it’s now Thursday. If you’re fortunate, you may have until the end of the weekend before the lid blows off this thing. I suspect by next week she’ll be itching to tell her story to anyone who’s willing to listen.”

  Shawn shook his head, refusing to concede to his shortsightedness. “You don’t know Desiree,” he informed me. “She’s not like the average high school girl. There’s nothing fake or pretentious about her. And she’s really not mean spirited. Honestly, I think she just wants to be loved passionately.”

  “And what about her parents? Where do they fit into your quixotic plans?”

  “As far as I know, her parents are divorced. She doesn’t talk much about her father, and her mother is deaf and an alcoholic.”

  “How sad for Desiree Meadows.”

  “I’m just trying to get some normalcy back in my life. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Shooting for normalcy won’t be an option for you now. But I don’t want to lecture you anymore on this topic. You know how I feel. Maybe we should drop it for now.”

  Shawn wasn’t the type of fellow who liked to come up short, even when engaged in a conversation where he was unquestionably dubious. Yet if any flexibility seemed apparent for a rebuttal, I assumed he would’ve taken it. This might’ve occurred sooner than I preferred had it not been for another visitor at his classroom’s door. Based on Shawn’s startled reaction, I assumed that this other guest arrived unannounced. I peeked toward the door’s window and noticed a girl waiting anxiously within the frame of glass.

  She looked lost at first glance, and woefully uncertain of her right to even be standing in the spot she had chosen. Her short, ruler-straight hair framed a petite face like a honey-colored bonnet. The girl’s doll-like eyes were oval, thickly lashed, but slanted somewhat at the corners, and shone over skin that appeared as white as fresh linen. There were no visible curves in her straight figure, and she dressed as conservatively as a parochial schoolgirl. Shawn’s exaggerated restlessness hinted that this was not just another student passing by for a make-up homework assignment.

  “It’s Desiree,” he whispered to me, nervously jetting from his chair as if this was his first date with a cosmopolitan woman.

  “She looks barely pubescent,” I remarked. “Are you sure she’s even seventeen?”

  “Look, she must want something,” he said, ignoring my jab.

  “Of course she does.”

  “Can you give me a few minutes?”

  “Yeah, Shawn. Fly to the fair Desiree. She’s obviously in need of some reassurance from her noble suitor. You know, this reminds me a song lyric from The Rolling Stones. It goes: ‘You’re her knight in shining armor coming to her emotional rescue.’”

  Shawn straightened his posture and started toward the door. “It’s too early in the morning for your sarcasm. This will only take a minute or two. I wonder what she wants?”

  I almost had an inclination to shout, ‘not much other than your dignity and your life,’ but maybe Shawn was right. Perhaps my sardonic spirit shouldn’t have been on full display before noon at least. Instead of offering a verbal response, I retreated to Shawn’s chair and sat down behind his desk. I watched him exit the room to talk to Desiree in the hallway. It didn’t take long before the room’s quietness consumed my thoughts. I began scanning the classroom’s interior, focusing briefly on the photos enshrining the memories of Shawn’s life. Then, I settled my eyes on the images of those writers who I admired most in this world. I wondered what these literary icons would’ve thought of my writing had they ever a chance to peruse it.

  The flickering light above the desk summoned my attention, and I soon sensed a familiar sensation. My head throbbed repeatedly, prompting me to close my eyes and succumb to what I couldn’t oppress any further. Another spontaneous collapse into unconsciousness was only seconds away.

  Chapter 25

  9:23 A.M.