Exposure

by Therese Fowler

  “You did a wonderful job with the new display near the office,” Kim said.

  Shirlene looked at her archly and replied, “I’m surprised you noticed.”

  Bryce Edwards, next to Shirlene, said, “Give her a break, Shirl.”

  Kim touched his shoulder and moved on.

  The passage leading from the lounge to William’s office went through the main office, where Sue Pender and Andrea Barnett, who habitually stopped what they were doing in order to chat with passersby, remained occupied as Kim passed them, knocked once on William’s door, then let herself inside.

  He was standing near the windows, with their view of rolling lawn and pin oaks that had stood since Civil War days. As she entered, he turned toward her.

  “So, that was awkward and unpleasant,” she said. Getting the words out eased the constriction in her chest, slightly.

  “I’m sorry. I tried to get you on your cellphone—”

  “You did?” she said, taking it from her pocket. The display was black, and remained black even when she pressed the power button. “The battery’s dead; I forgot to charge it, no real surprise. On my way in, I saw that my gas gauge is on E, and twice this week I wrote the wrong year on a check.”

  William looked sympathetic, but he remained standing where he was. “How’s Anthony?”

  “At loose ends, as you might expect.”

  “I had a seven o’clock meeting this morning,” William told her, tugging at his ear. “With the advisory board. This kind of situation is unprecedented here. The calls we’ve been getting, the emails … I’ve gotten everything from demands that we confiscate cellphones and disable our Internet connectivity—as if kids only use these things inappropriately at school—to detailed proposals from counseling agencies who’d like to do programs here, to diatribes—really vitriolic stuff—over how I could be so blind to the obvious pornography ring operating here, right beneath my nose. Three parents—so far only three—have threatened to withdraw their kids.”

  She moved toward him. “William, I am so sorry—”

  “The worst, though,” he said, looking defeated but holding a hand up to keep her at a distance, “is that I am required”—he sighed heavily—“to put you on leave without pay, indefinitely, effective immediately, while I conduct an internal investigation—which I will do as quickly as I can, I promise you. And I need to warn you, the State Bureau of Investigation is likely to show up at your door to question you, soon.”

  Kim stared at him. “Me?”

  “There could be charges, if they determine that you knew what was going on and didn’t take any action, inform me, inform the Wilkeses, that sort of thing.”

  She sank into a chair. “Jesus God, that’s just what I need,” she said. “Who told you that?”

  “One of the school’s lawyers.”

  She thought of all the time she and William had spent together, the conversations they’d had about their childhoods, their aspirations, the goals they still had, and the way they both sort of circled around the unspoken possibility that they’d pursue those goals together, somehow. They’d talked a lot about Anthony, too, and his plans, and she’d let William speculate on Amelia’s uncommon talent and love for theatre and her post-high-school plans, wanting to share what she knew, forcing herself to keep quiet. They weren’t close enough for her to share secrets. And now, with this new layer of complications … now it looked as if they might never be.

  Hadn’t she earned some happiness of her own, some companionship, a shot at something lasting—especially now, when she was about to have the time to give it her best? How was this fair? Right, sure, life’s not fair, and hadn’t she tried to calm Anthony with assurances that things could be worse? How easy it was to speak in platitudes.

  She said, “I didn’t know the specifics of what was going on, the things they’ve been charged with.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Even if I had known, it wouldn’t have occurred to me that they could be charged with felonies for it. I … I wouldn’t have reported it,” she said, turning her palms upward. “That’s the plain truth. Maybe that does make me culpable.”

  “You’re not saying you’d have condoned it?”

  “No, I—”

  He paced in front of the windows. “We tell them—it’s in the Health curriculum—‘respect yourself, make good choices regarding sexuality, recognize the dangers out there.’ ”

  “We don’t tell them to avoid taking and sharing private photos.”

  “They should know this,” he said, turning toward her. “It should go without saying.”

  “Well you’d better tell them anyway, because clearly they don’t know. Smart kids don’t know.”

  “Or they do it anyway. They do it anyway,” he repeated, shaking his head. Then, as if catching up again with the reason for this meeting, he said, “You really wouldn’t have told the Wilkeses that Amelia was involved in this kind of thing?”

  Kim stood up, preparing to leave. Indefinite suspension without pay—how was she going to manage that?

  “Don’t judge me, all right? You don’t know—you can’t know what it’s like, how different things feel when it’s your own kid who’s involved in some situation.”

  “These kids are just as important to me as my own would be—”

  “That’s head,” Kim said, pointing at his. “I’m talking about heart.” She touched her chest. “Now, if you’ll excuse me …”

  William stepped in front of her and said, “Kim. I wish I had a choice, here. All of this is getting out of hand.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly, “and I’m sure I speak for Anthony, too.”

  “Don’t be like that.” He took her hand and studied it, then looked up at her and said, “Don’t think I blame you. It’s just an unfortunate situation.”

  “Yes,” she said, pulling her hand back.

  He let it go, emitting a small sound that Kim heard as resignation, an acknowledgment that what was no longer could be. The sound was a rending of the delicate fabric they’d been weaving these past several months.

  He said, “I wonder if we shouldn’t try to get everyone who’s involved together in one place—the kids, you, the Wilkeses, your attorneys—and see if there’s a way to put this to rest. It would be hard for Liles to press on against a united front.”

  “You think the Wilkeses would unite with us, do you?”

  “Now that Amelia’s been charged, yes, I think they might. And at any rate, what can it hurt to try? I’ll talk it over with some people—strategize a bit—and then get up with the Wilkeses next week.”

  They stood there awkwardly for a long beat. Anything Kim might have liked to say refused to travel from thought to speech. There was as little chance of his welcoming the words as there was of the Wilkeses—Harlan Wilkes—agreeing to side with Anthony. The only action she seemed able to take now was to hold her head up as she left William’s office and walked through the Ravenswood hallways to the exit, to the sidewalk, to her car.

  22

  N FRIDAY MORNING, ANTHONY LEFT HIS NEWLY ADRIFT mother working on a new oil painting, and arrived at the Habitat building site hoping to paint, too, if in a less artful way. Their strange situation—both of them free on a weekday at the height of fall, both of them suspended from school, neither of them earning any money at the moment—made him feel guilty and angry, and not good company to be around. She wasn’t such good company either, and he was getting tired of hearing her say things about him and Amelia like, Maybe it’s for the best, meaning maybe they should split for real, which was not going to happen. Getting back to work here would be a useful distraction, and gave him an excuse to be out of the house.

  This house, his second construction project since signing on as a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, was about four weeks away from completion. Though it was not yet nine o’clock, two cars were parked out front. He recognized them as belonging to Marcus, the project supervisor and owner of a contracting busine
ss, and Sam, who had worked for Marcus before his alcoholism got out of hand and cost him his wife, his job, his driver’s license, and his self-respect, until he dried out and got involved with Marcus again through Habitat. They were like brothers, and both had been quick to give Anthony a warm welcome and put him to work when a lot of the others on the crew kept their distance. He was a little different from their usual volunteers, he knew. No ties to a church, no real knowledge of Raleigh or the South before moving here, a kid who spent his breaks reading Voltaire or studying his lines for a play. That was okay with Marcus and Sam. As Marcus had once said, “If we all take the same road, we all end up in the same place.”

  The exterior of the house looked finished, though the property on which it sat remained a barren quarter-acre of reddish clay littered with nails and scraps of shingles. In four weeks or so, everything would be done: painting completed, cabinetry and fixtures and appliances installed, carpet and vinyl laid, and a selection of starter plants tucked into little berms of soil and mulch that would improve their chances of survival. And then, in a ceremony attended by all the volunteers who had worked on the project, the house would be officially presented to the new homeowner or homeowners.

  At the ceremony for the first house Anthony had helped to build (a miserable project for most of the six months thanks to rain, and more rain, and then a fire, and then the theft of the kitchen cabinetry, for which every volunteer had been questioned), the new homeowner was a young widowed mother who had three children under age six. Michelle was her name. Michelle had cried and hugged every single one of them. Anthony, fifth in line, felt her grateful arms around him and started crying, too—just a few tears, which he laughed about and quickly wiped away on his T-shirt’s sleeve. But he was hooked. All the aggravation they’d endured to build the little three-bedroom house, a home that was not very different from the one he and his mother shared, had been worth it to get that hug. Though his original commitment to the organization had been meant to make his application to NYU more competitive, he’d signed on for another house, no question.

  This one sat up from the street and had a steep driveway that was going to delight the little boy who’d be living there. Seven-year-old Eric, skinny and gap-toothed with crazy blond curls, was a real skater kid. His father brought him around to the site regularly in the late afternoons when school was out, and he and Anthony had become fast friends. Recalling the schedule, Anthony intended, today, to assign himself to painting Eric’s room if it hadn’t already been done.

  He walked up the driveway and entered the house through the side door. Marcus looked up from where he stood reviewing a list at the makeshift table—two sawhorses supporting a white six-panel interior door—and said, “Well, Winter, my boy. This is a surprise. I thought we might not see you anymore. Glad to have a couple extra hands today, thanks for coming.”

  Sam said, “Hey, Winter, didn’t think you’d show up here. Thought they’d have reassigned you to ReStore.” He laughed and slapped him on the back. ReStore was the donation-and-resale arm of Habitat in Raleigh, and the place where a lot of men who’d gotten in trouble with the law went to serve their community service hours. Sam added, “Figures, white boy makes bail and is out in minutes, no ReStore for him.”

  “Three days,” Anthony said. “Not ten minutes.” He glanced at Sam, then away. No gain in discussing how he’d managed to make bail at all, while Sam’s brother remained in jail four months after arrest, awaiting trial for aggravated assault. “And no ReStore yet. Guess I don’t need to ask whether you heard.”

  Marcus tucked his pencil behind his ear. “They’re talking about you on the radio, my friend. You are the morning’s entertainment for that bunch on G105.”

  “Nice,” he replied, his voice flat. The bagel he’d had for breakfast sat in his stomach like a rock.

  Marcus put his hand on Anthony’s back. “You got a good lawyer, I hope?”

  “I think so—Mariana Davis? I can’t say much about the case. It’s all crap, though. I’ll say that.”

  Sam grinned. “So it’s not you and the Wilkes girl running a child porn ring?”

  “Tell me they didn’t actually say that.”

  “Both y’all get arrested for possessing child porn and stuff, and you, with the giving porn to minors—see how many ways that can sound,” Sam said.

  Marcus asked, “But it’s just the two of you, isn’t it?”

  Anthony nodded.

  “Thought so. Somebody called in, said they knew you both, and that it was the two of you swapping pictures, and that kids are doing it all the time, ‘sexting,’ she said, and it’s just that you got caught.”

  Sam snorted. “And Daddy Wilkes, bet he’d like to take a buck knife and raise your voice some octaves. Lucky you’re not black. He’d a been waiting for you outside the jail with one of them knives, you know, like they use to gut deer.”

  “Wilkes is no racist,” Anthony said. “Not that I ever heard of. But yeah, he’s not happy with me.”

  Sam said, “You defend the guy?”

  “He loves his daughter, same as me. I get that.” Which was true. The rest of his opinion about Wilkes was best left unspoken, in case Marcus or Sam ended up being questioned. No sense digging himself a deeper hole—but reticent really was not his style. Speech was not exactly free when you were at risk of spending the better part of your life on the sex-offender registry.

  “Bet Wilkes don’t love either one of you too much right now,” Sam chuckled. “What was your bail, anyway?”

  “Thirty thousand.”

  Sam whistled long and low. “Your mom, she’s a teacher, right? How’d you pull it off?”

  “Property bond. Can we get to work now?”

  “Touchy.”

  “We’re painting today, gentlemen,” Marcus said, drawing their attention to the business at hand. “Sam, you and I will work on the master bedroom and bathroom. Anthony, why don’t you do the boy’s room?”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. Sounds good.”

  “He was asking after you, the boy was. Said you’re almost as good as Tony Hawk.”

  Anthony shook his head. “Nah. I got a couple good tricks is all.”

  Sam said, “Hope you got one ’will get that DA off your back.” He feinted a skateboard kick and twist, then hooked his arm around Anthony’s neck and said, “ ’Else you ain’t coming near my girls.” Then, laughing, he released him to his work.

  Anthony carried the paint up the stairs and into Eric’s bedroom, glowering. Sam could joke; it wasn’t his life being screwed with. Sure, Sam had been down, but never so far that he couldn’t see a way back up. Never to a place so low in the public’s esteem that even drunk-driving, philandering alcoholics like Sam had once been looked good in comparison. Sam had never lost his future.

  Anthony went back downstairs for a stepladder, then down once more for the paint tray and roller and brushes. The color Eric had chosen was a bright green, sure to take two coats. Anthony put on headphones he’d borrowed from Cameron and set her iPod to play Train’s “Counting Airplanes,” looking for the lift that music never failed to provide—an even higher lift when Amelia’s voice was the music he heard.

  He was pouring the paint into the tray when he noticed feet in the doorway, running shoes, women’s white-silver-pink. He looked up to see Caryn Pierce. A six-year Habitat veteran, her reputation was that she’d made volunteering there her career. Though she dressed in the same styles the teenage girls were wearing and had a youthful face, she had four sons, ages thirteen to seventeen, and a twelve-year-old daughter who, as best Anthony had been able to tell, did little other than beg for UGG boots and ride horses in her free time. The boys were all hockey players for the middle and high schools Anthony used to attend. Caryn had quizzed him about his transfer to Ravenswood, and he’d gotten the sense that she was jealous on her children’s behalf. For all that she could afford to give her time away, Ravenswood was apparently out of reach for her family of seven.


  “Hey,” he said, moving the headphones to his neck.

  “Marcus wants me to do the edging.” He heard the grudge in her tone—because of the assignment?

  “Oh, well, that’d be great—we’ll get it done faster that way. I’m sure Eric will come by this afternoon, so it’d be cool if we had it done.” She didn’t reply. He tried again. “This color’s gonna be a challenge. Marcus was a real softie to go along with it.”

  She continued to stand there and watch him, lips pressed into a firm line, one hand coiling her thick blond ponytail around and around. When she hadn’t moved after he’d loaded his roller with paint and was preparing to start, he said, “Would you rather roll? I know edging’s a pain in the butt.”

  “I can’t do this,” she said, backing out and leaving.

  “Can’t do what?” he heard Marcus say from down the hallway.

  “Work with him,” Caryn said, not bothering to lower her voice. “I tried, and I just won’t do it. You know what he did.”

  “I know what he’s been accused of doing, and it’s not all that bad. And either way, he didn’t do anything to you.”

  “As if that should matter. He shouldn’t be here—you shouldn’t let him be here. We are decent, God-fearing people. We can’t have nasty sex-addicts sliming up the place, ruining it for the new owners. Get rid of him or I’m out of here.”

  Anthony let his arm drop. He didn’t like Caryn that well to begin with, and wouldn’t have said her opinions mattered to him one way or the other. The venom in her words and tone, though, might as well have been injected straight into his veins. He set the roller down carefully in the paint tray and left the room, finding them still standing in the drywalled, plywood-floored hall. Marcus was saying, “Can we be reasonable here?” and Caryn had her index finger pointing at Marcus. Anthony put his hand on her shoulder and said, “No trouble, Caryn, I’ll clear out.”