“I’m fine,” she said. “What about you?”
“I’m all right, but I have a sinking feeling we won’t be driving out of here.” He opened his door and stepped out, grateful, when he sank into snow up to his knees, that he’d worn boots tonight instead of dress shoes. He waded through the snow to the rear of the Jeep and knelt down to assess the situation. His right rear wheel was buried to the fender in heavy, wet snow. He did a little half-hearted scooping with his hands, but quickly gave up. The snow was too heavy to move by hand. He always carried a shovel in the winter, but the way he was mired, no amount of shoveling was going to free him. He was going to have to call a tow truck.
Jesse stood back up, wiped his wet hands on his pants, and studied his surroundings, trying to get his bearings. It wasn’t easy with the snow obliterating landmarks. As far as he could tell, he was about twenty miles out of Jackson Falls on a back-country road that was seldom traveled at night. He turned around to get back into the Jeep and ran head-on into Jolene, who’d been standing about a half-inch behind him. He hadn’t even heard her get out of the car. “Sorry,” he said.
“Are we stuck?” she asked, peering around him at the Jeep’s right rear quarter.
“Afraid so. You might as well get back in. It’s freezing out here, and it could be a while before we get hauled back onto the road. I’m going to find a phone.”
At a nearby house, he used the phone to call AAA, and was told that there were vehicles off the road everywhere. “We’ll get to you as soon as we can,” the dispatcher told him.
He dialed home, and Rose mumbled a sleepy hello. “I was just napping,” she said. “What time is it?”
“About ten-thirty. Everything okay there?”
“Mmn.” She yawned. “Where are you?”
“Somewhere around Livermore.”
Sleepily, she said, “And this is supposed to have significance for me because?”
He laughed. “Let’s just say I’m somewhere in the boonies, about halfway home. I’m calling because I ran off the road, and—”
“What?” The sleepiness was abruptly gone from her voice. “Are you all right?”
“We’re fine. A buck jumped out in front of us and we slid off into the ditch. But we’re mired some good. I’ve called for a tow, but it may be a while. I just didn’t want you to worry.”
“You’re sure everything’s okay?”
“Everything’s fine. But I’ll be pretty late, so don’t bother to wait up for me.” He paused. “What about your situation? How’d that turn out?”
“Oh, God, Jesse, she’s a mess. He’s not getting away with this one. I’m going to see to it that he hangs by the balls for what he did to her. The hospital’s releasing her in the morning, and I’m taking her to Lil.”
“To Lil? Why so far?”
“All the shelters around here were full. Lil will squeeze her in for a few days, until I can find something for her, and nobody will know the difference. It was either that or bring her home with me. Even I’m not that crazy.”
He returned to the Jeep, and he and Jolene settled in to wait for the tow truck. Outside the vehicle, in the darkness, snow fell softly all around them. “I’m sorry,” he told Jolene. “I imagine this isn’t quite how you expected tonight would turn out.”
“Are you kidding? This is the best time I’ve had since I left Philly.”
“I guess Jackson Falls isn't quite what you’re used to.”
She snorted. “Hardly.”
He toyed with the keys in the ignition. “My wife’s from Boston. Lived her whole life in the city until we got married a few months ago. It’s been a bit of an adjustment for her.”
“I still can’t believe my parents moved here. Deliberately. I’m getting out the minute I’m free. I’m not about to spend the rest of my working in a shoe shop. I’m headed someplace where I never have to listen to another George Strait song.”
“Have you applied to college?”
“I’ve been accepted to UCLA to study journalism. As of June fourteenth, this girl is headed for Southern California, and she’s not looking back.”
He was glad for her, and said so. “I already know how hard I’ll have to work,” she said, “to get what I want. But I’m not afraid of work. I’ll flip burgers if I have to. I’ll work as a stringer for the National Enquirer. Deliver pizzas. Clip poodles. Whatever it takes.”
Her gritty determination impressed him. “If you need a letter of recommendation, I’ll write you one.”
She hesitated. “There is one thing you could do for me.”
The snow had begun to accumulate on the windshield, and he was feeling mildly claustrophobic. “Sure,” he said, turning the key and sending the wipers in a quick sweep across the windshield. “What’s that?”
“You could come with me.”
He should have seen it coming. But he hadn’t. She’d come at him out of nowhere and hit him with a line drive right between the eyes. “Come with you?” he said stupidly, the only words his stunned brain could come up with.
“I tried to tell you how I felt,” she said. “In the notes. I thought you’d know they were from me.”
He almost laughed. Know they were from her? Hell, he’d never even remotely considered her. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “Look, Jolene, I’m flattered. Really flattered. But I’m married.”
“I’ve read every one of your books. You’re a brilliant writer. I couldn’t believe it when I found out you were teaching in this little backwater town. I fell madly in love with you the day I walked into your classroom.”
“You’re seventeen years old. I’m old enough to be your father.”
“Boys my age are so callow.” She dismissed them all with a single wave of her hand. “They’re clueless. Immature. But it’s obvious from your books that you know what life is all about. It’s such a turn-on.”
“My books are fiction. They’re written to entertain people. I’m no hero.”
“You are to me. And we think alike. We could accomplish so much, the two of us. Two brilliant minds, both of us writers, both of us working to better the world. Together.”
“Look,” he said, “you’re intelligent and talented and you really have a lot going for you. But I’m a married man, and I’m way too old for you. One of these days, somebody your own age will come along, and you’ll forget all about me.”
“Don’t patronize me!”
The palms of his hands were sweating, and with enormous relief he saw the tow truck rounding the curve behind him. It pulled up beside them, its revolving amber light a welcoming beacon in the darkness. In its glow, he watched as a single tear welled up, overflowed, and ran in a glistening trail down her cheek.
“I’ve waited so long to tell you how I feel,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about you, watching you, dreaming about you, for months. I know everything about you. I know that you park your car in the corner lot so nobody will dent it. I know that you eat a tuna sandwich and an apple every day for lunch. I know that you graduated from Jackson Falls High eighteen years ago and you got your teaching degree from the University of Maine at Farmington. I know from the way you write that you understand what it feels like to love somebody until you think you’ll die from it.” She turned a tear-stained face to him. “That’s how I feel about you.”
Jolene—”
“Tonight,” she said, “when Tessa and your wife didn’t come with us, I took it as an omen. Like we were meant to be together. Just the two of us, watching Shakespeare’s most romantic play together. I knew it had to mean it was time to tell you how I felt.”
The tow truck driver got out, clipboard in hand, and began walking toward them. Jesse hesitated, hand on the door latch. The sophisticated woman who had discussed Shakespeare with him was gone, replaced by a seventeen-year-old girl who had just been rejected. He felt a twinge of compassion. Hell, she was just a kid, just a kid with a crush on her English teacher. “Look,” he said gently, “to spare you any further embarra
ssment, I’m going to forget this ever happened. But first thing tomorrow morning, I want you to meet with Principal Lamoreau to talk about finishing Honors English as an independent study with somebody else. After what’s happened, it would be better if you didn’t come back to my class. Do you understand?”
Her face buried in her hands, she nodded.
***
When he crept into the house, a little after midnight, Rose was asleep. He puttered silently about the bedroom, undressing, hanging up his clothes, too worked up to sleep, torn between his reluctance to wake her and his need to talk about what had happened.
Common sense prevailed. For weeks now, Rose had pushed herself to the point where he was beginning to fear that it would interfere with her health, and that of their baby. Between her job, the house, and the kids, Rose had spread herself far too thin. But that was Rose, he thought as he crawled into bed beside her. A human dynamo, always more concerned for other people’s welfare than she was for her own. She needed her sleep, and what he had to tell her, although it was welling up inside him like a balloon about to burst, could wait until morning.
But in the morning, she was up ahead of him, already in the shower before he was even out of bed. By the time he emerged from his own shower, she had packed lunches for all three kids and was running frantically around the kitchen, her half-eaten English muffin deserted on the sideboard next to a cup of coffee that was growing colder by the minute. She tripped over the dog and cussed. “Get out of here, you fat fool,” she said, “before I boot your hairy ass to the sausage factory, where they’ll turn you into dog chops.”
“Where are my sneakers?” Luke demanded. He began digging through the pile of shoes near the door, scattering footwear like a bloodhound digging for the bone he knew he’d buried somewhere nearby. “I left them right here last night.”
Devon reached past her brother for her coat and scarf. “They’re probably somewhere in that vile room of yours, moron.”
“Oh, shut up, Devon. You just think you’re so smart.”
“Keep it up,” Rose said as she sprinted past, “and you’ll both be at the sausage factory right along with the dog.”
Luke located the missing sneakers and plopped into a chair to yank them on. “You’re supposed to untie them first, doofus,” Devon said.
“Hey, Dad,” Mikey shouted as he thundered down the stairs. “I need five bucks for gas, or I won’t make it to school.”
For a moment, Jesse stood there, lost in the chaos that was his family. Rose slipped on her coat, pulled her hair free from the collar. “I have to go,” she said. “They’re releasing Torey first thing this morning, and I have to swing by the office first. I want to get on the road early. Don’t look for me before suppertime.”
She snatched up the remains of her English muffin, grimaced at the cup of cold coffee, and blew out the door.
So much for talking.
He tried to get through to Henry before his first class, but the principal was behind closed doors, and the dragon lady refused him access. The summons came during his fifth-period class, right before lunch. Hazel knocked on his classroom door and said, in her gravelly voice, “Principal wants to see you, Mr. Lindstrom.”
He paused at the blackboard, chalk in hand. “Right now?”
“Right now.”
This couldn’t possibly be good news. “Okay, guys,” he said to the class, “start working on the questions I’ve already got up on the board. We’ll do the rest when I get back.” He set down the chalk, brushed chalk dust from his hand, and followed his royal escort to the front office.
Henry Lamoreau’s face was grim. “Shut the door,” he said, “and sit down.”
With a leaden feeling in his gut, he did what Henry said. “I’m not going to like this,” he said, “am I?”
“I had a call this morning from Jolene Hunter’s mother. They’re filing a complaint with the school board against you. For molesting their daughter.”
His mouth fell open. “For what?”
Henry loosened his tie and ran a hand through his thinning hair. Cleared his throat. “Jolene says that you and she, ah—” Henry closed his eyes, clearly uncomfortable. “—had a relationship. An inappropriate one.”
“She’s lying.”
“She’s seventeen years old. You’re her teacher. I’m not sure you understand how serious an accusation this is.”
He stood up, leaned on both fists over the desk. “Henry,” he said, “it didn’t happen.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What the hell do you mean, it doesn’t matter? Of course it matters. The goddamn girl is lying! I’ve never laid a hand on her!”
“That’s not what the mother says. She claims you brought Jolene home last night—late last night—and the girl was almost hysterical when she came into the house because you’d just ended the relationship. The mother’s ready to press charges.”
“There is no relationship. Damn it, Henry, you know me better than that.”
“Were you with her last night?”
“Yes! Jesus Christ.” He sat back down heavily, ran trembling hands through his hair. “There was a live performance of Romeo and Juliet last night in Portland. My senior honors students are reading it next week, and I handed out flyers before Christmas vacation, hoping I could entice some of the kids into going to see the play. Jolene Hunter and Tessa Dawson asked if they could ride with us, and Rose and I didn’t see any problem with it. But Rose had an emergency at work, and she couldn’t go. When I went to pick up the girls, I found out that Tessa wasn’t coming either. She’d had a fight with her mother, and Mrs. Dawson had grounded her. I’d already promised Jolene a ride, I couldn’t very well back out at that point. I would have looked like a fool. So we went alone. It was completely innocent. Ask Rose. Ask Tessa, for Christ’s sake!”
“Why would the girl come up with a story like this?”
Jesse swallowed hard. “Apparently she has a crush on me. She’s been sending me notes. Unsigned. I didn’t know who they were from. Last night, on the way home—” He paused, tried to still the hammering of his heart. “She made a pass at me. I turned her down. It wasn’t a pretty scene. But I never thought she’d pull anything like this.”
Henry sighed, a long, drawn-out hissing that sounded remarkably like a death knell. “Jesse,” he said solemnly, “I’ve known you for a long time. You’re not the kind of man who preys on young girls. I wish I could just forget this whole thing and pretend it never happened. But I can’t. My hands are tied.”
He gripped the arms of his chair. “I’m going to talk to her parents.”
“I wouldn’t advise that.” Henry loosened his tie again. “I want you to understand that what I’m about to do, I’m not doing by choice. It kills me to have to do it. But I’m obligated, by law, to report an accusation like this to the police, and to DHS.”
“For Christ’s sake, Henry!”
“And I’m placing you on suspension. Effective immediately.”
He felt like he’d had a brick wall dropped on top of him. His ears were buzzing, and his stomach roiled with nausea. “As in don’t come to work tomorrow?”
Henry sighed. “As in don’t go back to the classroom. Hazel has already gathered up your personal belongings.”
This couldn’t be happening to him. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” he said.
“If I were you,” Henry said, “I’d get a damn good lawyer.”
chapter fifteen
The sky was rosy with dusk when she pulled into the driveway. Across the meadow, a thin gray cloud spiraled from Everett Laliberte’s cinder block chimney. When she got out of the car, she could smell the seductive aroma of wood smoke carried on the sharp, still air. Rose paused for a moment to fill her lungs with the perfume of it. Above her head, a pair of mallard ducks passed, wings flapping frantically in their characteristic rush, and she smiled at the fanciful notion that they were rushing to be home in time for supper. Just as she’d done.
>
For the first time in her life, Boston had been a place she couldn’t wait to escape from. The once familiar downtown office towers, the congestion, the aggressive drivers, had seemed foreign, somehow threatening. She wasn’t sure when home had become this drafty, rambling house situated at the edge of forest, but she suspected it had less to do with the house than with the man who waited inside for her. It had been so long since Rose had experienced happiness, she wasn’t sure she would recognize it if it bit her. But this deep contentment, so buoyant it threatened to burst, came very close to the real thing.
Even her mother had noticed her uncharacteristic behavior. As Rose toyed with the lunch that Mary had insisted on serving her when she’d dropped in unexpectedly, her mother had eyed her levelly and said, “What’s got into you, girl? You’re as antsy as a rooster at a hen party.”
She’d glanced up, surprised, then dropped her fork with a clatter as she realized that this wasn’t where she wanted to be. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and said, “Sorry, Mom. I have to go. But thanks for the lunch. It was delicious.”
Her mother gaped at her in astonishment as Rose nearly knocked over her chair in her haste to escape. Mary’s voice followed her out the door. “How the devil would you know? You never ate any of it!”
Now, Rose closed the car door and picked her way carefully across the icy ground. Jesse had sprinkled rock salt this morning before he left for work, but by nightfall, the melted snow had congealed back into a hard pack of ice. When she opened the kitchen door, the warmth rushed into her face. She closed the door behind her, pulled off her knit hat and scarf, and shrugged off her coat. “Jesse?” she shouted. “I’m home.”
Somewhere in the innards of the house, a television droned. She hung up the coat, flipped on the kitchen light and wandered toward the dining room. “Jesse?”
She found him in the den, sitting on the couch, staring out the French doors at the snowy meadow. The last vestiges of day reflected pink in its smooth, shiny crust. “Good God,” she said. “You’ll go blind, sitting in the dark like this.”
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