“Yes, I’m sure they are very friendly. Did everyone bring him presents?”
“N-no . . .”
“And why did you, if no one else did?”
Nadia’s brain seemed to stop dead. She knew that she should be very careful what she said, that her indignant father was avid to seize her words and misuse them for his own purpose, yet she continued, stammering, “He—talked to me about death. . . . I was feeling kind of bad about M-Mommy . . . thinking about the time of year she went away . . . though I didn’t tell him much. And I guess I started to cry, and—we were in his office, after school—and Mr. Kessler touched my hand—and it made me feel better right away.”
“This man, this adult—Kressle—touched your hand? In his office, after school?”
“Just for a minute. Just to make me feel better. It was only just what anyone would do, who was n-nice. . . .”
“Nadia, let me see if I get this. The science teacher of yours called you into his office after school, when no one else was around—”
“Daddy, no! Mr. Kessler didn’t call me in, I just—went in. I went to see him during his office hour. . . .”
“And was anyone else around?”
Nadia recalled the girls who’d laughed at her. And Colin Brunner’s friends who’d laughed at her.
“Y-yes. Some people. It was after school. . . .”
“And was the office door open or closed?”
“Open! The office door was open.”
Nadia couldn’t recall if this was so or not. In her romantic replaying of the scene, Mr. Kessler’s office door was shut.
“So an adult man, a stranger, encouraged you to talk about your private life, your family life, including your deceased mother; he provoked you into crying; and then, to comfort you, he touched your hand? And where else did he touch you?”
“Nowhere, Daddy. J-just my hand, for a m-minute . . .”
“And this romantic encounter prompted you to leave a birthday gift for the man, whom obviously you adore, worth somewhere in the vicinity of three million dollars? Nadia, this is preposterous behavior! Even for you, so immature for your age! How did he encourage you?”
“Mr. Kessler didn’t encourage me—I mean, to give him anything. He was just nice to me and—I guess—I like him, a lot. Please don’t call Mr. Nichols, our headmaster—it might get Mr. Kessler into trouble, and none of this is his fault at all. . . .”
“Yes. Exactly. It might get Mr. Kressler in trouble—that is exactly what I intend to do.”
Nadia’s father stormed out of the room. Nadia stood paralyzed, looking after him.
Amelie said, disgusted: “And now I suppose I have to call Mariana! I have to apologize to Mariana!” Her streaked-blond hair was in her face, and there were frown lines in her usually smooth forehead. “You! Deceitful Nadia! You are to blame.”
Nadia murmured an apology, how many times she had murmured, Sorry, I am so sorry, deeply shamed and mortified and remorseful, but as she moved to edge past Amelie, the distraught woman struck out at her in sheer frustration, cuffing her on the side of the face with the back of her hand.
“You! Trompeuse! Et grosse! For shame!”
Tink. Where are you . . .
Tell me what to do, Tink.
I feel so bad. I have made such mistakes.
Despite Nadia’s pleas, Mr. Stillinger called Quaker Heights Day School as he’d threatened, Nadia would learn later.
Though it was well past school hours, after eight p.m., Mr. Stillinger managed to speak with Mr. Nichols.
And Mr. Nichols called Adrian Kessler.
And Adrian Kessler was astonished to learn that his student Nadia Stillinger was the mysterious “Dani A.” who’d left a framed painting for him in a woman’s gilt tote bag in the rear of his Subaru—“My God, you mean the painting is real? A real Kandinsky?”
He’d discovered it in the rear of his station wagon and brought it home, of course. At the moment it was on a table in his living room, propped up against a lamp.
It was a strange, dreamlike, abstract painting—reminding him of something familiar, though he couldn’t have said what.
“An original work of art? The girl left for—me?”
This was astonishing. Adrian had thought, as he told Mr. Nichols, that a friend at school—one of his colleagues—had left him the painting as some sort of birthday joke. The name “Dani A.” meant nothing to him—he’d been utterly baffled. Of course he’d assumed that it was just a reproduction, though a very good reproduction, in what looked like an expensive frame. And of course he’d heard of Wassily Kandinsky, but he wasn’t sure that he could identify a Kandinsky painting.
Yes, he assured Mr. Nichols—he’d made inquiries. He’d spent hours calling friends and acquaintances to see if one of them had played the prank on him—he’d asked friends if they could identify “Dani A.” He’d thought that the card to “Mr. Kessler” had been a trick to make him think that it had to be from a student—somehow, he hadn’t thought that it could be a student, though probably, in retrospect, he should have suspected that.
“I guess I thought it was a joke that would be explained soon—like on my birthday. Which is tomorrow.”
Adrian laughed uneasily. Headmaster Nichols, an older man with a penchant for hypervigilance regarding parental complaints about his faculty, had been listening in ominous silence.
“Nadia Stillinger. Maybe I should have guessed. . . .”
“Why do you say that, Adrian?”
“Because Nadia is—has been—talking to me quite a bit after class lately. She’s a bright girl, but very insecure. Physically she’s mature, but in other ways she’s very young.”
“Is this girl attractive?”
“Attractive? I—really can’t say.”
Adrian didn’t want to say yes. And he didn’t want to say no.
“How would you characterize your relationship with her?”
“Relationship? Why—nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Just the sort of relationship a teacher would have with any student?”
“Y-yes.” Strictly speaking, this was probably not true. But Adrian swallowed hard and resisted the impulse to explain further.
“Then why did the girl give you a birthday present, Adrian—worth three million dollars?”
Three million dollars! Adrian was astonished.
Thinking what a story this would be, related to his friends. And on his twenty-seventh birthday, which would have been, otherwise, a not very exceptional birthday.
“I—don’t know, Mr. Nichols. I think that Nadia is a little excitable—impressionable.”
“In what way excitable, impressionable?”
“She tends to be a little more emotional than most students. She seems always”—he hesitated, not wanting to say breathless, yearning. Not wanting to say pleading, adoring—“very intense about whatever she’s talking about, as if it had a personal meaning to her. Scientific ideas, for instance. . . .”
Mr. Nichols spoke in a neutral voice, as if he were making no judgment, only just stating facts: “Personally, I don’t know Nadia. I certainly know of Roger Stillinger, her father, but I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him. I seem to remember a quite glamorous young woman—the girl’s stepmother?—bringing her to school for an interview, before her application was accepted; and this young woman, Mrs. Stillinger, has come to a few PTA meetings, I think. Nadia’s father is CFO at Univers Pharmaceutical. I make it a point to know such things. And he’s very upset, as you can imagine. He demanded that I call you at once and tell you to bring his painting back to him, and the bag it came in, immediately—or he has threatened to call the Quaker Heights police.”
Adrian Kessler, who’d been standing in a doorway, felt his knees grow weak. He fumbled for a chair and sat.
“Call the police? Did you say—police? Mr. Nichols, I didn’t steal the painting—the girl left it in my car—she didn’t even give it to me, certainly I wouldn’t have accepted it. And I
didn’t even know who’d given it to me until a minute ago, when you called—how could this possibly be my fault?”
“No one is saying it’s your fault, Adrian, in any way. But people can file complaints with the police without evidence. Mr. Stillinger is angry and suspicious. He spoke very aggressively—he may have been drinking. He claims that you must have exerted ‘undue influence’ on his daughter, and that you’ve been seeing her after school in your office, to discuss ‘personal’ matters.”
“No. This all wrong. Give me Mr. Stillinger’s address, please, Mr. Nichols, and I’ll return the painting right now.”
“And the bag. The gold bag it came in. Don’t forget that.”
Shame! Nadia hid away in her room, wanting to die.
Her face was still smarting from Amelie’s slap. Her eyes welled with tears of hurt and indignation.
Her father had called Headmaster Nichols. In a sniggering voice outside her shut door, Amelie had told her that her teacher was “returning” the painting—as if Mr. Kessler had been the one to have taken it.
Oh! Oh God. Poor Mr. Kessler, humiliated.
Because of her, humiliated.
He would hate her now. He would never feel kindly toward her again.
Anxiously Nadia waited. Every few minutes she checked her iPhone to see if there might be a message from Mr. Kessler, but of course there was not.
Then, at 9:12 p.m., she saw headlights turn into the driveway outside. On the lighted front walk there was a man hurrying—Mr. Kessler?—Nadia wouldn’t have recognized her teacher wearing sweatpants and a nylon parka, carrying the gaudy gilt tote bag with an object inside.
How unfairly Mr. Kessler was being treated. Nadia could imagine what harsh, insulting, unjust things her father had said to Mr. Nichols about him.
Nadia hoped that Mr. Kessler wouldn’t bring the silly little birthday card to show her father, too.
What a reckless thing she’d done! Yet at the time it hadn’t seemed reckless at all but a sweet, intimate, playful gesture—if only Mr. Kessler had known who “Dani A.” was.
Nadia heard voices downstairs. Her father’s voice, and another voice she had to suppose was Mr. Kessler’s, not so loud. She stood in the doorway of her room, listening without daring to breathe, but she couldn’t hear distinct words.
She wondered—would Mr. Kessler ask to speak with her? Her father would never allow it.
Amelie hadn’t apologized for slapping Nadia. She’d seemed to have forgotten immediately.
No one had ever struck Nadia before. Not even her father on those occasions when he’d been in a rage at her. Only a brute will strike a child—Nadia had heard this somewhere.
Nadia remembered how Tink’s mother had slapped her.
You’d have expected, from Tink’s brash manner, that she’d have reacted more assertively against her mother, but she hadn’t. Poor Tink had pressed her hand against her stinging cheek in silence, just as Nadia had done.
Nadia wondered if, after Tink had gone away, her mother even remembered having slapped her in front of her friends.
Nadia ventured into the corridor, to the top of the stairs. Her father had commanded her to “stay in your room,” but she had to hear what was being said downstairs.
. . . claims you touched her. Talked of “personal things” in your office.
. . . claims you “comforted” her, after you made her cry. In your office, after school. When no one else was around.
. . . claims you drew her into talking about her mother. Which is none of your goddamned business. Taking advantage of a naive, immature, impressionable girl.
Mr. Stillinger’s deep, angry voice. And there came Mr. Kessler’s less forceful voice protesting, No . . . no . . . not like that.
Nadia listened anxiously. She hadn’t been able to eat much that day—she was light-headed, dizzy. Biting at her thumbnail and seeing the bloody cuticle.
. . . misunderstanding, Mr. Stillinger. Believe me. Nothing like that.
Cautiously Nadia descended the stairs. The adults were standing in a room that opened off the foyer, that Amelie called a “drawing room”; no one was seated. Mr. Kessler hadn’t even been invited to remove his nylon parka. On a table was the Kandinsky painting, which had been unwrapped and no doubt carefully inspected by Mr. Stillinger. Also on the table was the gilt bag, which looked cheaply glamorous now, like something you might purchase in an airport store, though it had originally cost seven hundred dollars.
How strange it was to Nadia to see Mr. Kessler in her house—in gray sweatpants, parka, and running shoes. His hair was disheveled, and he seemed so young—many years younger than her dominating father, and younger than Amelie. Though Mr. Kessler was the tallest person in the room, Mr. Stillinger outweighed him by many pounds.
As Nadia moved to the doorway, her father’s eyes shifted to her with a look of pained surprise and disgust.
“Nadia! Haven’t you caused enough trouble? I’ve told you—stay out of this. The painting has been returned—the situation is under control. Mr. Kressle is about to leave, but this isn’t the last he will hear from me. I intend to file a formal complaint with the headmaster, and if Nichols doesn’t cooperate, by which I mean a disciplinary hearing, I will file a report with the police. Touching a distraught girl—provoking her to tears, and to personal disclosures—will not go unnoticed.”
Mr. Kessler protested, “Mr. Stillinger, I explained to you—I did not—”
“My daughter doesn’t lie, sir. It will be her word against yours.”
Mr. Stillinger’s eyes glared in his flushed face. Even his ears were reddened. In calmer circumstances Nadia would have sensed that, though her father spoke threateningly, it was possible that he wasn’t entirely serious—he liked to intimidate, and to frighten, but it wasn’t like him to pursue an issue once he’d won and had forced others to capitulate to him. His intention was to assert his dominance over his daughter’s much-admired science teacher, and humiliate the man. He enjoyed, too, playing the bully in the presence of his young wife.
But Nadia was too upset to register this. She pleaded, “Daddy, no! Mr. Kessler did not touch me—not my hand and not anywhere. He did not. He did not cause me to cry—I was crying before I went to see him. None of it was his fault—it was my own crazy idea to give him a birthday present. It won’t be my word against his—and you can’t make me testify against him.”
Adrian Kessler turned to stare at Nadia. He was trying to smile but looking agitated as Nadia had never seen him.
“Why, Nadia . . .”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Kessler! I n-never meant to—I wasn’t thinking . . .”
Nadia’s father turned to her angrily. “Turn around and go back upstairs, Nadia. Immediately.”
Mr. Kessler objected, “Don’t speak to Nadia like that, please, Mr. Stillinger. She’s upset, she’s been under a good deal of strain—this isn’t the way to handle the situation.”
“And who are you? What business is this of yours? You can leave our house now, Mr. Tressle. Just—leave.”
“Mr. Stillinger—”
“You’ve caused enough disturbance in this household for the time being—taking advantage of an unstable adolescent girl. Please—just leave the premises.”
“I don’t think you should frighten your daughter as you are doing, Mr. Stillinger. You don’t need to raise your voice to her. Nadia may have acted impulsively and immaturely, but she didn’t do anything really serious, and your precious painting is back with you unharmed.”
“If you don’t leave immediately, Mr. Tressle, I will call the police. Or I will eject you bodily. Which do you prefer?”
“Are you threatening me? Are you threatening Nadia? If—”
“Get the hell out of my house, you pathetic—prep school teacher!”
Mr. Stillinger pushed at Mr. Kessler’s chest, forcing him backward. Both men were panting, and for a moment it looked as if Mr. Kessler might push back at Mr. Stillinger—then the younger man thought better
of what he was doing, and backed away.
“If they hurt you, Nadia—tell me. They have no right to terrify you or harm you—”
“Out! Get the hell out! You—child molester! Pervert!”
Mr. Kessler left. Nadia ran to the front door of the house to follow him, but Mr. Stillinger gripped her arm to pull her back.
“Mr. Kessler—take me with you! Please—take me with you! I don’t want to stay here with them. Mr. Kessler! Please . . .”
Mr. Stillinger yanked Nadia back, as if she were a limp cloth doll. And Amelie, cursing under her breath, slammed the front door.
Through the buzzing in her head Nadia could hear Mr. Kessler’s station wagon kick into life and depart.
Red taillights diminishing into the darkness, beyond Wheatsheaf Lane.
Nadia was unresisting now. She was not even crying now. Her furious father and her furious stepmother were saying terrible things to her, spitting terrible words at her. Nadia scarcely heard, and scarcely cared. She was suffused with shame; they could not hurt her further. In a few minutes they would banish her upstairs to bed—as if she were a small child. As if she were six years old, defenseless. They would deprive her of her cell phone and of her laptop. They would punish her, for they were ashamed of her, and hated her. And Nadia had not the spirit to resist. She had not the strength to tell them, I don’t love you—you can’t hurt me. I wish I was with Mommy. I wish that Mommy had taken me with her—that’s where I belong.
7.
“SUSPENDED”
SHE TEXTED HIM—KESSLER! SAID SHE’D DO ORAL SEX WITH HIM—IF HE SHOWED HER HOW.
SHE LEFT HIM A BIRTHDAY PRESENT—CANDY-FLAVORED CONDOMS IN A GOLD LAMÉ BAG LIKE FROM ARMANI.
SHE SENT HIM NUDE PICTURES OF HERSELF ON HER CELL PHONE—FAT.
WHAT A SLUT! AND STUPID! AND A SENIOR—THINK SHE’D KNOW BETTER, IT’S LIKE PATH-ET-IC.
Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You Page 19