Her mother shook her head. “We don’t know him, that’s so. But it’s plain enough that he’s the sort who’ll lead you where you ought not to go, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would say that you and Daddy are overreacting,” she said. “Please, Momma. I know you don’t agree with Daddy about all this. Call whoever it is you need to call so that they’ll let Anthony be.”
Her mother averted her eyes. “What?” Amelia asked. “What’s going on?”
“Even if I wanted to go against his wishes, there’s nothing I can do. Anthony was arrested yesterday.”
Amelia stared. “He was not. Cameron would have told me.”
“I imagine she would have if you’d talked longer. Look, I couldn’t do anything even at the time; it was too late. The best thing is to accept that it’s over and done. He’s not the one for you, I promise.”
What insubstantial things, dreams. Amelia watched the one she’d conjured and nurtured and kept before her for twelve brilliant months dissolve like a sand castle in the onrush of a rising tide.
10
ARLAN’S CAMPAIGN TO PUT HIS WORLD BACK IN ORDER began with a list, which he wrote out in small, neatly printed letters on Wilkes, Inc. letterhead. He did this from his desk at Wilkes Honda, his flagship store, while outside his office windows the sales consultants, as they were called nowadays, stood with customers and talked up the superior features and benefits of Honda automobiles, the finest vehicles in their class. It didn’t bother Harlan a bit that he had employees two miles away doing the same thing but with Toyotas, and five miles away with Volkswagens. You told your buyer what he or she wanted to hear—that’s what sold cars.
He wished positive persuasion was as easy with teenage daughters. That Amelia imagined herself in love in the first place was ludicrous to Harlan. He’d been seventeen once—granted, forty years earlier—and knew very well that the feelings she was having for that slick piece of work, Winter, were no different than sweet little Tanya Hill’s had been for him at that age. Tanya had been quite willing to give him her heart, and whatever else he wanted, but that supposed love had turned out to be no more real than a three-dollar bill.
He wanted to give Amelia more credit than what he ascribed to Tanya. Amelia was in every way a superior young woman, thanks to the care he and Sheri had taken with her all along. He was reasonably certain that when it came to getting physical with Anthony Winter, she’d had far more sense than Tanya’d had. The trouble was that no girl of that age could be trusted to know her own mind or heart—especially heart. And if you didn’t stop them in time, the way he’d cut himself loose from Tanya back then, they might never get wise. They might, at seventeen, marry the sweet-talking devil whose souped-up 1940 Dodge D-17 Special had been won in a bar’s backroom poker game, making him appear to be a hot high-roller, rather than the reckless good-timer he really was. From there they might have a kid who, cute as he’d be, wouldn’t rate high enough on the list of after-work attractions (parties, bars, beer, joyrides, parties, beer, joyrides, bars) to get much notice. Such a woman might stay blind to good sense her entire life and die of a ruined liver with a no-good man’s name on her lips.
No. You had to stop the train before it even left the station.
Harlan’s train-stopping list began with William Braddock’s name. After Braddock were the four local television news stations, and then the N&O and Wake Weekly. With the same diligence that had ultimately won him business dominance and the respect of not only his peers but of the community at large, he looked up the names and phone numbers of every Raleigh, Wake Forest, Cary, and Garner public high-school principal. It was only right, he thought, to make educators aware of the Winter kid and the danger he posed. Harlan’s grandfather had liked to say, “It’s not until you shine a light on a snake can you really tell what kind you’re dealing with.” Harlan would be the light for the whole community. That way, not only would he stop Winter in mid-slither, but he’d likely force some of the other snakes out there back into their holes, for good, he hoped.
“William Braddock, please,” Harlan said, reaching over to close his office’s interior blinds. “It’s Harlan Wilkes.” When Braddock came on the line, he said, “Thanks for taking my call. I wanted to just touch base with you this morning.”
“It’s no trouble,” Braddock said. “I’m hoping that having a chance to sleep on things has changed your mind. As I said last night, given the nature of the trouble, keeping Amelia in her regular routine is really the best thing for her.”
“Mm. Well, I’m sure your intentions are good and you are, of course, an expert, of a kind, where kids are concerned. But—and this is no dig—you’re not a parent, and especially not Amelia’s parent. You’ll have to leave ‘what’s best’ up to my wife and me.”
“Ah,” Braddock said, and there was a short silence on the line. He coughed, then said, “So if you haven’t changed course, what can I do for you this morning?”
“Given that the DA saw fit to arrest Winter, I’d like to suggest that you expel the boy, as protection for the other girls. I know his mother’s a teacher there, but that shouldn’t matter—plus, it’s not as if you’ll lose any revenue with him gone. And while I’m on it: you need to find out how this happened under her watch. Winter is her kid, and Amelia was her student—which, to my thinking, means she’s doubly responsible.”
“Mr. Wilkes, your concern is admirable, and I appreciate it. I’ve already begun looking into the matter, and I assure you, appropriate action will be taken just as soon as the situation is fully known.”
“Why wait? Every minute he’s there, you’re endangering every girl in your charge.”
“Kim Winter is a good teacher and a valued asset here,” Braddock said, “but Ms. Winter notwithstanding, due process demands that I give the matter a full, fair hearing. I’ll be talking to both Ms. Winter and Anthony in detail, as well as consulting with the advisory board, and appropriate action will be taken.”
Harlan sighed. Men like William Braddock were too caught up in “consulting” and “process.” The man needed to have some balls and just make an executive decision and move on with things.
“Keep me posted,” Harlan said, then moved on to phoning the next principal without taking a break. These calls were announcements, warnings. Not everyone on his list was available to take his call. In the cases when the principal wasn’t, he requested one of the assistant principals. He spoke anonymously, a “concerned father” who, to protect his daughter’s identity, declined to reveal his own. “But I promise, this is no prank. The arrest is public record,” he said, and provided all the details that would let them find the Wake County arrest log themselves, assuming they, like Braddock, would have to weigh and measure and discuss before taking action to protect their students.
His approach with the news stations was similar. But here, all he needed to do was point the dogs in the direction of the arrest log and mention that the kid involved attended “one of the prominent private schools,” and he knew they’d go running for the story like Buttercup used to go after the neighbor’s cat when it came around taunting her.
He was about to contact the newspapers when his wife called. “Have you decided whether you’re golfing today?” she asked, sounding tired.
Neither of them had slept much last night, and they’d gotten up for good at four-fifteen. Sheri went to shower and Harlan, seeing her there, slim and firm as a lot of women half her forty-nine years, took off the clothes he’d just put on and stepped into the shower with her. It’d taken some persuasion to get her to go along with his interest, but he’d prevailed. Fifty-eight years old, and he was still more than able to make love standing up in the shower—not as easy as it looked in the movies. The very fact of this accomplishment gave him a little surge of manly pride, and why not? He knew men a decade younger who were popping Viagra and griping about needing knee or hip replacements.
Afterward, Sheri grabbed her robe and wrapped it around herself without toweling o
ff.
“Cold?” Harlan asked, still standing in the wide, tiled expanse of shower that was—he’d measured it—bigger than the entire kitchen of the trailer he’d grown up in. There were two shower heads and a dozen spray nozzles placed along the walls so that, if you wanted it, you could have a shower that felt like you were standing outside during a September hurricane.
“Mm,” she said, noncommittal, and began pressing her hair with a hand towel.
“ ’Cause it’s a little late for modesty.” He laughed. She didn’t. He didn’t pursue it. Women were too damn complicated.
Now he said, “You know, I think I’m gonna stay here and finish up some business. I’m not really up for golf, anyway. Think I used up my sports energy this morning.”
“I found a tutor,” Sheri said. “She’ll work with Amelia’s teachers, and come in for three hours a day, Monday through Thursday until school’s out for winter break. I don’t know what we’ll do then.”
Harlan leaned back in his chair. “She won’t need a tutor during break.”
“I mean about her being home for near three weeks with nothing to do. Honestly, Harlan, that’s the least of it. I truly do not know what we’ll do with her being home all afternoon and evening every day, and all weekend.”
“What’d you do when she was little? Just do that.”
“Tea parties and playgroup and grocery shopping?” Sheri said. “I can’t think that’s going to work very well at her age.”
“I didn’t mean literally. You’re great at the mom thing, is what I mean. The togetherness will be good for you, don’t you think? And I’ll fill in what blanks I can,” he added, envisioning himself and Amelia taking the new GranCabrio out—he’d let Amelia get behind the wheel, give her a taste for what a truly fine car was like for the driver—and she could join him on the golf course, too. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d golfed with him. “And how about this?” he added as another idea came to him. “We’ll go away for the holidays—take your parents with us and head to Mexico for a week or so.”
“Maybe.” Her voice thickened as she said, “You can’t imagine how she’s been today. I told her the Winter boy got arrested, and she looked at me like I said I’d just run over the dog.”
Harlan shook his head. That Amelia could be reduced to this state over anyone, and especially over someone with so little actual worth, made him wonder where he’d gone wrong—and, more to the point, what Winter had said, what he’d done to trap her. Some poetic bullshit, probably. Amelia, sweet as she was, was probably vulnerable to that. He should’ve seen it coming. Amelia wouldn’t fall for the bad-boy type that had entranced his mother. For her it’d be the artsy guy with the high IQ, who could easily identify a doe like Amelia, draw her in, and hypnotize her with his spotlight eyes.
He said, “I’m sure it must be rough for you both. Maybe take her out for lunch. Go to that nail place you like and get your toes done. I want to thank you, by the way, for putting all your things on hold while we straighten this out. I’d do the same if I could.”
“Would you?” she said flatly. “See you at dinner.”
As soon as he ended that call, he was on the phone again. The woman he spoke with at the newspaper listened politely, asked him three different times to identify himself, then told him she’d let the appropriate reporter know, but made no promises about running a story. She said, “Frankly, I’m not sure I can see how this is newsworthy.”
“You want someone like him preying on your daughter?”
“If I had a daughter, I would not want her preyed upon, no. But honestly, Mr. Whoever You Are, I can’t say that the behavior you’ve described is predatory.”
“The DA thinks so.”
“The DA thinks prayer should be made mandatory in public schools.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?”
“Thank you so much for your call,” she said.
11
OR ANTHONY, SCHOOL ON TUESDAY WAS STILL SCHOOL AND not the rumor circus it would soon become. Except for the occasional question from a friend either verifying Amelia’s having mono, or asking whether he’d heard that she did, no one behaved out of the ordinary. Word hadn’t gotten out. No one looked at him, yet, as if he’d grown a third eye on his forehead. No one avoided him in the halls. The teachers did not view him as an object of pity, nor an object of scorn, and Mr. Rickman did not yet treat him as if he were a scourge and the school in desperate need of disinfectant.
Amelia’s absence, though, was a stain on the day.
Third period was four minutes from ending when Anthony heard the crackle of the room’s intercom, then the secretary’s voice saying, “Mr. Rickman, please dismiss Anthony Winter to Mr. Braddock’s office.”
“Whoa, Winter,” his classmates hooted, while Rickman raised an eyebrow and waved him off.
Though his anxiety made him want to run—not to Braddock’s office, necessarily, but somewhere, anywhere—Anthony made himself move at a normal pace down the hall to the stairs, and then to the administrative offices.
Braddock’s secretary avoided looking at him as she said, “Go on in, he’s waiting for you.”
He grasped the handle and turned it, expecting nothing good as he pushed open the door. A lecture probably. Advice, if he was luckier.
“You rang?” he said, as if this visit was another request to script some jokes for morning announcements, or act as ambassador to a prospective student from upstate New York.
“Hi, Anthony,” Braddock said. He was sitting on the corner of his desk, one pant leg hitched up high enough that Anthony could see the top of a brown-on-brown argyle sock. “Tough week, huh?”
“I’ve had better.”
“Take a seat. Let’s talk for a minute about you and Amelia Wilkes.”
Anthony sat in the proffered seat, one of four padded leather captain’s chairs. He said, “What do you want to know?”
“You’ve been accused of providing her with … inappropriate materials. I spoke to your mother; she says you sent the pictures at Amelia’s request. I’m curious as to why Amelia would do that.”
“Did my mom tell you that I’ve been going out with Amelia for the past year?”
Braddock’s mouth tightened before he said, “She just mentioned that you’d been dating, in secret, yes.”
Anthony rubbed the chair’s polished arms. “Well.”
“Well?”
“What goes on between Amelia and me is private, okay? It would be … ungentlemanly to say more.”
“While I admire your sense of honor, the fact is I can’t make informed decisions unless I have information.” He clasped his hands in front of him.
Anthony considered what he might say that would satisfy Braddock. “It’s like this: she likes the way I look, and I didn’t mind her having pictures of me. Pretty simple. Older generations are too hung up on nudity.”
“I think maybe honesty is as much the problem here.”
“You think that if her parents had known we were dating they wouldn’t have called the cops? I doubt that. If Amelia thought they’d be rational about it, she’d have told them right from the start.”
Braddock took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He looked younger without them, Anthony thought. Less like a headmaster and more like a guy who might show up in Anthony’s kitchen some Sunday morning in a T-shirt and pajama pants, sitting across the table from his mother—something that in all of Anthony’s eighteen years had never occurred. Not that he thought about it much, but he figured his mother must have been intimate with a few guys over the years and must have kept it from him. Maybe she and Braddock were keeping that kind of secret right now. Not every secret was harmful or shameful; sometimes secrets were practical. Necessary.
After replacing his glasses, Braddock said, “I wanted to discuss this with you personally because I think it’s only fair to give you a heads-up. The fact is, I’ve got a parent who’s out for blood right now and who will, I expect, become vindictive if he do
esn’t find satisfaction anywhere.”
Anthony said, “Mr. Wilkes.”
“Yes. He’s convinced that you’re a danger—”
“Come on,” Anthony protested. “A danger? I didn’t rape someone. I didn’t beat someone up.”
“I know, okay, but for your sake, it might be best for us to take action that respects Mr. Wilkes’s concern, and keeps you out of harm’s way. I have a meeting Thursday evening with my advisory team—”
“What action?”
“Most likely it would be suspension from school and extracurriculars, until after your court appearance.”
Anthony said, “I don’t see how suspending me makes sense. My situation has nothing to do with school—and Amelia’s not even here, so it isn’t like you’d be preventing us from having contact.”
“Mr. Wilkes believes you’re a danger to young ladies in general. And despite my personal feelings,” Braddock said, with enough emphasis on “personal” that Anthony could hear the subtext, “it’s possible that I’ll be compelled to take action so that—”
“So that your ass is covered,” Anthony spat. “There—I’ll give you a real reason to suspend me.”
Braddock looked at him evenly. “I’ll know more on Thursday, and I’ll give you and your mom a call afterward, to let you know how things went. Now go on, get some lunch,” he said, “and hang in there.”
“Oh, gosh, thank you so much, Mr. Braddock, sir. I feel immensely better.”
“Anthony—”
“Save it,” he said. He wiped his palms on his pants legs, stood up calmly, then left the office and headed for the student parking lot.
When he got to his car, he climbed onto the hood and lay there, reclined against the windshield, eyes closed, soaking up the sun. He was not really angry at Braddock, just angry in general. He recalled a line from the play Henry VI, a summer stock production he’d done two years earlier, and recited it aloud: “What fates impose, that men must needs abide; It boots not to resist both wind and tide.”
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