Friction

by E. R. Frank

  “Your teacher?” she goes, like there’s something wrong with that, and she lifts her eyebrows. It doesn’t help.

  The parking lot’s empty of people. The heat smothers me immediately, like plastic wrap stuck all over my body. Simon isn’t anywhere. Maybe he came inside, and I just didn’t see him. Maybe he sat at a table, waiting for me to get the food. I walk back in and then get goose bumps from the cold. I look around at all the tables. Simon’s not there. Maybe he went into the bathroom. I stand by the men’s room, waiting for him to come out. Then I get worried that all the food’s ready and that lady is waiting for me to pay. If I’m not there, she might start putting the food back again. I go back to the counter. The McDonald’s lady has three bags done, but she’s still getting drinks, so I go back to the bathroom. A man comes out.

  “Is there anyone else in there?” I ask him. He looks at me funny and shakes his head. Maybe Simon was in there when I went to check the counter just now, and then he walked out to the parking lot again. So I go back to the parking lot.

  I almost miss him, except for this movement. This flicker. From a silver Bug, with its engine on and the windows rolled up. It’s Simon in the front seat, practically on top of Dawn. Kissing her. With his hand on her chest over her shirt. Tongues. Belly button. That warm, sliding feeling.

  Dawn pulls her head away suddenly, noticing me. I see her face again. She’s younger than him. My stomach turns to stone. Way younger. I back up quick through the McDonald’s door into the air-conditioning. There’s a film of sweat all over me, but I’m shivering, too. I walk to the counter.

  “You’re holding up the line,” the McDonald’s lady complains.

  “My teacher’s coming with the money,” I tell her. She raises her eyebrows again, and then Simon’s behind me. He pays and takes the receipt. I grab three big bags, which is all I can manage, and Simon takes the drink trays and two more bags. I walk ahead of him out the door to Maggie’s car. I don’t see that silver Bug anywhere. They like younger women.

  Simon rests the drink trays on the roof of the car and opens the back door.

  “That was my friend Dawn,” he tells me. I hand him my bags, and he puts them on the seat. Older men like younger women.

  “Oh,” I say.

  “She works nearby.” Perverts.

  “Oh,” I say again. I wonder what kind of work she does dressed like that. I bet she doesn’t work in any office. She didn’t look old enough to be someone who works in an office.

  Simon hands the drink trays to me. I put them on the floor of the backseat. They can’t fall so easily back there.

  “Actually,” Simon says, “she’s my girlfriend.” We get into the car. It’s about ten degrees hotter in here than outside.

  “I guess you saw us, huh?” he goes. Did they plan it? Did they plan to meet in the McDonald’s parking lot to fool around?

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “I’m sorry,” he goes. We’re driving now, and even the wind on my face is hot, like a hair dryer.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “It’s not like I haven’t seen that before.” I don’t tell him I’ve only seen it on TV and at the movies.

  “Is that right?” he says.

  “Yeah,” I go. I wish he would just drop it. I wish he would drive faster. I pretend to be really into the view out the window, so I won’t have to look at him.

  But all I can see is his mouth on hers and his hand on her chest over her shirt, and I can’t help it, can’t help feeling that melting, and my face is hot, and he’s looking at me, all worried, and right then I think I might cry, and I try really hard not to, but my eyes fill up, and even though I blink hard, one big stupid fat tear gets out and spills down my face, and Simon sees it, and I want to die.

  “Hey,” he goes, all nice and everything. “Alex.” He puts his hand on my leg. “I’m sorry.” The flat of his hand on my leg. On my thigh. “I’m really sorry.” And it stays there for a second, because I let it, because of the picture of that same hand on her chest over her shirt and the blue jewel and the skin and that soft sliding feeling and older men liking younger women—Lech—and then I pull away so fast, my knee slams hard into the door, and then Simon snatches his hand back and swerves a little bit on the road.

  “Oh,” he goes. “I . . .” But he doesn’t finish.

  It’s quieter than anything after that. Not the kind of quiet that used to be so okay between us, though. It’s that bad quiet. Ugly and thick.

  “Didn’t mean to upset you,” Simon tells me finally.

  “I’m not upset,” I say. Because he was just touching my thigh to make me feel better. He was just touching it in a hug sort of a way, not some other gross way.

  “I sure didn’t mean to be disrespectful of you,” Simon goes.

  “I know,” I say. It wasn’t a bad touch. It was just a friendly touch. That’s all it was.

  “Not back there with Dawn, or just now, either.”

  “I know,” I say. The heat’s coming up off the road in ripply waves, and a part of me wants to ask Simon what makes it do that, exactly, but the other part of me doesn’t let my mouth open.

  “Well, all right, then,” Simon says into the messy air.

  * * *

  “Did you tell him?” Tim goes as soon as Simon disappears into the bathroom.

  “Tell him what?” Stacy asks. Everybody’s crowding around, grabbing their drinks and McNuggets and things before I even have a chance to take it all out of the bags.

  “Nothing,” Tim says.

  “Did he do anything?” Stacy goes, and everybody gets quiet. Stacy presses closer. “Did he?”

  I don’t know. It was just a don’t-worry-about-it touch. A friendly touch. That’s all it was.

  “Alex!” Stacy eyes are kind of bloodshot. “What did he do?”

  “Nothing,” I say, looking at Tim for some reason. “He just touched my leg.” Why did I say that? Tim’s mouth opens, and the others kind of breathe in all at once. Stacy taps my thigh with her good hand.

  “There?” she asks. “Did he touch you there?”

  How did she know?

  “I knew it!” Stacy goes. “I told you so!” She flicks her hair. “I bet you liked it,” she says. “You did, didn’t you, you perv!”

  “I did not!” I yell. “I’m not the pervert!”

  Tim’s face crumples, like a photograph swallowed by flame, and he bolts toward the double doors.

  I chase him all the way to the stream, where he squats, hunched up on the bank.

  “I didn’t mean it like it sounded,” I say. It’s so hot.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Tim tells me. “He touched you!” His face is red, like the way Teddy’s gets all the time, and there’s a shine on his upper lip.

  “It wasn’t like Stacy made it seem.” Was it? “It wasn’t like what Simon did to her.”

  “See?” Tim says. “Now you believe he did something to her.”

  “No, I don’t,” I argue, but I can hear how I sound. Uncertain.

  “You just said you did.”

  The truth is, I don’t know anymore. I’m confused.

  “Maybe some of it’s my fault,” I say low. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said I wanted to go with him alone.”

  Maybe if I hadn’t seen his thing, or if I had yelled when I did . . . If I hadn’t gotten that feeling, that melting and sliding, that time he touched my chest. Maybe he knew about that somehow and then knew about it again when it happened today. Maybe he saw me watching him and Dawn, just standing there watching. Did I make him think the wrong thing?

  “I hate him!” Tim says, and then he spits into the stream.

  No. It was just a friendly touch. Just a nothing touch. I grab Tim by the shoulders and shake him once, so hard, his head snaps back and forth like a rag doll’s.

  “You do not hate him!” I say.

  He reaches up to pry my fingers away. I can’t help it. I creep my hands back to where they were. I make him look at me.

  “We
don’t hate him,” I say.

  17

  I CALL TIM from my rocker in my bedroom. It’s late.

  “I can’t sleep,” I say.

  “Yeah,” his voice cracks over the phone. “I know what you mean.”

  My dad knew something was really wrong when he got home from work. I don’t know how he knew, but he tried to get me to talk about it. And then when my mom came home way later, she tried. Only I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t know how. What was I going to say, anyway? Simon’s been . . . Simon is . . . Been what? Is what? No way.

  “You want to come over tomorrow after school?” I ask Tim now.

  “Okay.” We’re quiet a second.

  “Bring your ball,” I go. “Mine’s flat, and I broke the needle on my pump.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  “So in the fall we’ll really be a team,” I go. “Officially and everything.”

  “Yeah,” he says. He doesn’t sound too psyched. “And Simon will be our coach. Officially.”

  We sound careful. Like if we speak too loud, we might break something.

  “I don’t feel too good,” I say.

  “I don’t either,” Tim says.

  We hang up pretty soon after that.

  * * *

  When I walk through the double doors from the driveway into the lower school, Maggie’s there with a man and a woman I’ve never seen before.

  Maggie waggles her index finger. “Morning, Alex,” she goes. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Prescott.”

  “Hi.” I nod as polite as I can.

  “Nice to meet you,” the man says.

  “The Prescotts have a daughter about your age,” Maggie says. “They’re thinking of sending her here next year.”

  “She goes to Lincoln now,” Mrs. Prescott tells me.

  “Lincoln sucks,” I say, before I know what I’m doing.

  “Alex!” Maggie goes.

  “It certainly does,” Mr. Prescott agrees, and Maggie lets me go.

  At the slate path practically everyone’s outside, except for Stacy. It’s too hot to be outside.

  Tim rolls the soccer ball over to me, and I knock it back.

  “Why’s everybody out here?” I ask Viv. I know why, but I have to ask anyway, while I try to think of what to do. Viv stares straight at me from underneath his turban, but he doesn’t say anything. “Come on,” I say.

  “Nobody wants to be near Simon.”

  “That’s stupid!”

  Viv nods. “Maybe.”

  “It wasn’t like Stacy made it seem,” I tell all of them. I try to sound as sure as I can.

  Simon opens the upper school doors and yells out to us. “Let’s go!” We gather up our things and trickle inside. Simon crosses his arms and leans back on the heels of his feet. “You’re all late.” Nobody says anything. “Want to tell me what’s going on?” Simon’s looking at me and Tim. His eyebrows are all pulled together, thick and worried.

  “Beats me,” Tim mumbles. I shrug.

  The day gets worse and worse. Nobody wants to do any work with Simon, and he can’t figure out what’s happening. His glass room is empty, and everybody’s being really quiet, like it’s a silent study day, only it’s not. The Prescotts visit for about fifteen minutes to double-check that they want to send their daughter here.

  “Are they always this focused?” Mr. Prescott asks, and Simon runs his hands through his hair.

  “No,” he says. “Something’s wrong.” The Prescotts laugh at that, even though Simon didn’t mean it as a joke.

  After they leave, Simon stands in front of the science counter and claps his hands together twice. Then he asks us all, straight out, “You going to let me in on this thing?” Nobody says a word. “Tim?” Tim shakes his head. “Alex?”

  “It’s just a misunderstanding,” I say. That’s what it is.

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah,” I say. That’s really what it is.

  “Is Stacy involved in this misunderstanding?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anybody know where she is today?” Simon looks around the room again. But nobody knows. Simon waits it out for a while, staring at each one of us, making us squirm. We don’t say anything, though, and finally he gives up.

  “All right.” He sighs. “Eat your lunch.”

  * * *

  Today’s the first day we can use our new field, and we eat fast. There’s not much talking on our run through the playground. It’s still way more hot than usual this time of year, and we’re kind of out of it. We pick teams quick, though, and start playing. The fresh grass improves our game somehow. The ball moves smoother, or straighter maybe. I’m glad for the way my body takes over, letting my mind go blank. Glad for the chance to do nothing but follow the ball and shouts until the ugliness of the past days drifts away, leaving the green of the ground mixed with the black and white and red flash of our cleats. I don’t think about anything. I don’t worry about anything. I just run and breathe. Kick, dribble, and dodge.

  Sebastian interrupts our game, stumbling into a fall onto our new grass, landing on his side.

  “Maggie wants you, Alex,” he goes. “Right now.” Then, before I can even register that much, he says, “And your parents are here.”

  * * *

  The first thing I see in the lower school building is Stacy’s father stalking out the double doors, stiff and tall, like a living statue. The next thing I see is Maggie and Simon, both of them huddled by the painted mural, his hands bunching in and out of fists at his sides. Then my parents are there—why aren’t they at work?—rushing me into Maggie’s office. I can hear Maggie’s and Simon’s voices hissing and low, all the way across the lobby.

  “. . . next to them at the tent . . . ,” Maggie’s saying. Simon argues something back at her, and then Maggie cuts him off. “. . . I’ve always said that about rappelling, and you . . .” My father clears his throat, trying to cover up their talk. It works a little, but not much. “. . . that ladder for years . . . you were thinking?”

  “What’s going on?” I ask. “What are you doing here?” Maggie pokes her head in the doorway.

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk to her,” my mother says.

  “The detective will be here any minute,” Maggie goes, and then she closes the door on her way back to Simon.

  My mom sinks into one of two chairs and pats the other one for me to sit in. I do, and my dad squats a little on the floor, sort of between us.

  “What is it?” I ask again, loud this time.

  “Stacy’s arm is infected,” my mom starts.

  “Is she going to die?” That’s the only thing I can think of that might have brought my parents and Stacy’s father here. The detective part, I don’t get.

  “No, she’s going to be fine,” my mom answers. “But it seems she hadn’t had a full medical checkup in a long time. Not even when she was in the hospital for her broken arm.” She stops and looks at my dad.

  “Mom!” My stomach is clenching and unclenching like Simon does with his fists. My mother opens her mouth to keep going, but then she closes it again. My dad puts his hand on her shoulder, his arm resting across my neck to reach her. Now I’m really scared. “Tell me!”

  My father takes over. “The doctor who examined Stacy this time didn’t just look at her arm. He did a complete workup, and it seems he had some questions after that, and Stacy told him that Simon—” Now he stops. All this stopping and starting is making me crazy. “That Simon has been doing things, sexual things, to her.” I feel a riot in my guts.

  “Stacy lies!”

  “We know,” my father says, but then he goes on like that doesn’t matter. “She also said”—I can feel his arm tense up—“Stacy also told the doctor about Simon doing things with you, too. Also sexual things.”

  “But she lies!”

  “We know Stacy lies sometimes, Alex,” my mother says. “But you don’t, and we need to know the truth.”

  “No matter what it is,” my fat
her goes. “It’s very important.”

  The door opens again, and now Maggie walks in, holding some folding chairs, and there’s a man behind her. He’s got a mole on his nose, and he looks hot in his suit, and for a minute I think he’s someone who wants to send his kid to our school.

  “This is Detective Edwards,” Maggie tells us. She starts unfolding the extra chairs and passing them around so everyone can sit. She does it without looking at any of us.

  “Does this have to be done right away?” my mom asks. “We’ve had no time with her to . . . to prepare.” Prepare for what?

  “You can wait if you want,” the detective says. “But we tend to clear these things up a little quicker when we keep it informal at first.” He looks at each of us separately before he goes on. “With everyone here now, it sure would make my job easier just to go ahead and get this out of the way.”

  “I don’t like this,” my father says to Maggie, and then Simon walks in, his face a sick gray color. I wonder why Stacy’s father didn’t kill him yet.

  We sit in a tight circle, and it’s crowded. My father has a chair now, but he keeps his arm across my neck. The detective starts talking. He shakes my hand and tells me his name again and then tells me my name and age, even though I already know my own name and age. Then he reaches into the inside of his jacket and pulls out a handheld. He flips it open.

  “Stacy Janice has quite a list of events she says pertain to you and your teacher.” Pertain. That’s a Teddy word. I think it means “has to do with.” “Touching on the back, arm, shoulder, thigh, breast.” My face goes hot. My mom adds her arm to my dad’s, crossed over my shoulders, and that helps keep me from crying. “Exposure of the penis.” I hold my eyes as wide as they’ll go and try to breathe. I want to be playing soccer. I want to be passing to Tim and ducking around Viv and kicking the ball, far, far across the field. “Sleeping on top of you inside a tent. Hugging.” My father rubs the back of my neck with his thumb. The detective makes a mark with his stylus, and I think I’ll die if there’s more. “Stacy Janice also says she told you of an incident during which your teacher molested her while she was in the principal’s office, injured.”