by Lucy Lambert
“So ask and I’ll give you a straight answer,” he said.
“Tell me about where you came from. What was a young Alex Crossley like? Where did he go to school? That kind of thing.”
For just a moment there I saw his jaw tighten and then it was gone. “Aren’t you hungry? Eat something,” he said, looking down at our untouched lunch.
His attempt at deflection just made me want to know all the more. It was strange to find something that could make him uncomfortable.
“I’ll go first,” I said, “I grew up here in Chicago. My mom kept house. My dad taught English. He used to read me the books he taught in class as bedtime stories. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times and When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow, are some of my earliest memories. That, and the way the light from the lamp on my nightstand reflected from my dad’s glasses. See? Not so hard. Now you go.”
He smiled, “It sounds like you had a nice childhood.”
“Are you implying that you didn’t?” I said, searching his eyes. They’d become somewhat distant, withdrawn, and I wondered if maybe I’d recalled some painful memories to him.
“I grew up here and there. It depended on what family I was with at the time. Spent a lot of that time in and around Detroit at different schools. I guess you could say that I have firsthand experience of all the stuff Dickens writes about.”
“Oh… I’m sorry,” I said, feeling at once excited and guilty. Excited that I got this peek behind the curtain of his life. Guilty that I’d apparently yanked the top off this can of worms.
He shook his head. “Don’t be. I made myself who I am through all of that, in spite of all of that.”
I still wanted more. There was so much hinted at in the tone of his voice, in the set of his jaw and in his eyes.
“So…” I started.
He stopped me, “Let’s have a few bites and start heading back. I don’t want to make you late for class.”
I opened my mouth to object but stopped. He was right.
We ate quickly and then stepped back out into the cool fall air. His Mercedes glinted at us from down the street and I started towards it.
I got one step before he grabbed my arm and pulled me back against him. His mouth found mine, his lips hot and intense on mine. We kissed until the breath burned in my lungs.
When we parted, I looked around nervously as though one of my students might be around, gaping at us, recording the moment on their phone.
“It’s okay, no one knows us here,” he said, “Now let’s get you back to school.”
I felt frazzled from that lunch, like my mind couldn’t quite focus. So I walked down the hall in a hurry, just wanting to start class and fall back into that groove of teaching that made me so comfortable.
Alex had gone ahead, and I was pretty much alone, my footsteps echoing down the locker-lined corridor.
I turned the corner and almost ran into the two friends Joe usually sat with. One was tall and the other short. The tall one was DeMichael, who could answer questions thoughtfully when he chose. He usually didn’t.
I thought that with enough time I could get through to him. Unfortunately, time was usually at a premium. I hated that, but a truth was a truth whether you liked it or not.
The shorter one (still taller than I was) was Lawrence, who usually gave the other two the hardest time. He was two years older, due to being held back twice.
“Oh man, he’s gonna do it! He’s totally gonna do it!” Lawrence said. They were so engrossed in what was happening in the hall around the corner that they didn’t hear me come up short behind them.
“Shouldn’t you guys be heading to class?” I said. I got that tingling sensation that most parents and teachers get when there is mischief in the making. Modern military radar couldn’t touch that tingle for accuracy.
DeMichael wheeled around on his heels, his eyes wide. “Miss M!”
Lawrence turned more slowly, being the more skilled of the two at hiding things.
“Do I find out from you now or from someone else later?” I asked, looking first at one and then the other.
“Nothing to find out,” Lawrence said.
DeMichael was a little more hesitant before agreeing. “Nothing. Just standing around.”
“Really?” I said. Here a few of my fellow faculty members might have opted to call in one of the school security guards. I didn’t like escalating things like that. Those sorts of incidents were recorded, held against the students.
There was already so much held against them, I didn’t want to add to it.
“Yeah, really,” Lawrence said.
The hollow snap of thin plastic hitting the floor interrupted our standoff. I moved around the two young men. “You guys better get to your next class. Either that or you’ll be sitting down with the vice principal. Your choice.”
They looked at each other, a flicker of defiance in Lawrence’s eye. But that defiance cooled and they both grumbled under their breath as they walked away.
Joe stood down the hallway pointing a red can of spray paint at the lockers in front of them, his finger poised on the nozzle. The sound had been the cap of the can falling down.
My heart sank. If he tagged those lockers I would be obligated to report it.
I started to call out to him, but then Alex rounded the opposite corner from the other end of the hall. He didn’t see me, but he did see Joe.
Rather than make my presence known, I took a step back to my corner. I don’t know why I did it, why I didn’t finish what I started. Some sense just told me not to.
Joe started shaking the can, the agitator inside rattling around, mixing scarlet paint and propellant.
He held the can up at about shoulder height, ready to slash his first mark across the row of lockers.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Alex asked. He’d stopped maybe twenty feet or so down the hall and leaned against the wall, his hands casually in his pockets.
Joe started. The agitator in the can rattled again. Then he looked, “It’s you. What do you want?”
“I want you to consider something,” Alex said. He made no move to rush in and take the can away from Joe.
“What if I don’t feel like it?” Joe said. The muzzle of the paint can lowered.
“Then do it anyway. I want you to ask why you’re about to do this. Really why.”
I could see Joe clenching and unclenching his jaw from where I stood. “Because not all of us are billionaires set for life. You going to snitch?”
Alex smiled. He moved away from the wall and started walking towards Joe. “No. And maybe you won’t even get caught this time. Or the next. But you will eventually.
Joe went rigid. “Hey man, get away from me. You don’t know about me or my life. You know jack about shit.”
The teacher part of me knew I should walk right up and take control. That maybe Alex wasn’t the best influence on my students. I hadn’t known him that long. What if he said something to make things worse?
What if, without me around to see what he said and did, he turned into a completely different person?
That was the thought that arrested me at the corner, watching it all unfold before me. It was curiosity, with pinches of both trepidation and excitement thrown in for good measure.
What will he do?
“I know more than you think,” Alex said. He gave the long hallway full of lockers a wistful look. Down on the polished floor in front of him was a distorted reflection, all blurry.
“Yeah, right,” Joe snorted in that way that so many teenagers did. I’d often heard the complaint that adults forget what it was like to be a teenager. Well, I felt that the opposite was also true: that teenagers forget that adults were once young, too.
“I know what it feels like to think you’re stuck, that nothing you can do could possibly make anything better,” Alex said, leaning casually against the wall a few lockers down from where Joe stood, “That thi
ngs will probably only get worse.”
Joe made a face. “Yeah, sorry, but figuring out what car you want the butler to pick you up from school in isn’t the same.”
“I imagine it isn’t,” Alex said, not missing a beat, “My troubles were more like having to wear the same clothes for a week and a half because my foster parents decided they wanted to get loaded on cheap vodka every night with that government money instead. Let me guess, you’ve got a couple buddies watching all this from somewhere close by. Told you that they know some people you could get in with if you showed them you had a pair.”
Alex glanced up and down the hall. I shrank bank against the painted cinder blocks, hoping he wouldn’t see me. I couldn’t believe the rush of energy going through me.
Joe looked down at the can of spray-paint in his hand. I couldn’t be sure from this far away, but I thought he trembled a little.
“I need to do this. I thought school would be enough but it’s not. If all that you just said’s true then you know I’m right,” Joe said.
“I haven’t been here long, but from what I’ve seen you’ve been doing great. Charlie… Miss Morgan always says good things about you. What’s changed?” Alex said.
I liked when he said my name. It sent little electric thrills up the front of my stomach. Stay on topic! I warned myself.
“It’s like you said. Things just get worse instead of better. My mom’s gonna get laid off from her night job at the 7/11. I’ll have to do something to help bring money in, and then my homework’s not gonna get done. Then I can kiss any of those scholarships goodbye… If you were like me, how’d you get out?”
Alex made a show of looking around, as though to make certain no one might hear what he wanted to say.
Joe’s paint can lowered a little more.
“I pushed myself through,” he said, “I decided I wasn’t going to be a victim of circumstance anymore. When I turned 17 I got myself emancipated, got out of that system, and finished school with good enough grades for a scholarship. That’s actually a part of my life that I haven’t thought about in a long time.”
I was holding my breath, I realized, while I leaned against the pebbly cinder block wall, trying to hear more, trying to make certain that I didn’t miss a word.
I’m as bad as one of those women who gets too caught up in the soaps, I thought. The admonishment went unheeded.
“That sounds like the plot out of one of Miss Morgan’s books,” Joe said. The hand holding the paint can fell to his side.
“Does it? I’d never noticed,” Alex said.
I thought then about meeting Alex, how I’d thought he knew nothing about literature, and how I’d been so mad at him when he quoted a few lines of Dickens back at me.
A door opened and shut somewhere behind me. The sudden, booming sound in the relative silence of the hall sent my heart up into my throat. I turned, the guilt of eavesdropping swimming inside me, to see if anyone saw me.
A young woman was walking the opposite way down the hall. Probably hadn’t even noticed me.
That was good; I could get back to Alex and Joe.
But when I turned back, I saw Alex tossing the can of spray paint into a garbage can and Joe walking the opposite way.
What did he tell him? I wanted to know so badly that I thought about going straight up to Alex and asking him. But then he’d know that I’d been listening in.
Alex started walking towards my corner, probably to go find out why I hadn’t met him yet. My heart stammered in my chest while I tried to think of what to do.
I tugged my blouse straight, tucked a few stray strands of hair behind my ears, and walked around the corner as though I’d been walking all along and not snooping and skulking.
“Charlie,” Alex said, “You’re running uncharacteristically late.” He stole a glance at the crystal face of his watch.
“Yes, well, some of us actually work here, and not all that work gets finished as quickly as you want it to,” I shot back. It wasn’t a complete lie. I had been catching up on some marking before this. I’d simply omitted the part about listening in on his conversation with Joe.
I looked at him, tried to imagine him as a younger man, wearing dirty clothes, his hair needing cutting, standing in a hallway similar to this one, just trying to get through the day. I couldn’t.
Had it all been a lie? A story he’d concocted to get on Joe’s good side, show him they weren’t so different as they first appeared?
It was possible, the rational part of me knew. But my first impression, my gut feeling, was that it had been the truth.
I burned with the desire to put him to the question. Especially with the way he smiled at me right then. That mischievous, knowing smile he had when he knew something he’d done vexed me.
“Usually you’re not so tongue tied,” he said.
“Unlike some people, I try to speak only when I have something worthwhile to say,” I returned.
“I knew that already,” he said.
“I get the impression that you think you know a lot about me.”
“Not as much as I’d like to,” he replied. He took a step closer to me. Close enough that he could reach out and snag my hips with his fingers and pull our bodies close together if he wanted. My heart pounded so hard I could feel my pulse in my fingertips and toes.
“Hey,” I said, “This has to be a two way street here. And so far you’re still Mr. Closed Book, for the most part.”
“That’s something we can change,” he said, glittering desire in his eyes, “When we get out of here I’ll let you peruse my table of contents at your leisure.”
Never had such innocuous words sounded so delightful to me. I thought of that evening we’d spent together after the rain, wondered if maybe that might happen again that night.
However, I also wondered if that had been a mistake. Was this all some huge, glorious mistake?
“But are you written in a language I can read?” I said, contemplating his lips and remembering how they felt fitted to mine. I also thought about listening in on his talk with Joe, and how now I knew a little more about him than he thought I did. It was exciting.
The bell rang, the sharp chime echoing through the hall. I flinched. Usually I heard that sound from within a classroom. I’d forgotten how loud it was.
Students burst into the hall, the floodgates opening. I pushed away from him, hoping that no one saw us holding each other. My heart slammed, my legs and arms went numb and shaky from the adrenaline of nearly getting caught.
There was a thrill in that, too: a thrill in nearly getting caught.
We walked together towards the classroom, surrounded by the milling crowds of students and teachers trying to get to classrooms or lockers or out to the parking lot to get a quick smoke in between classes.
And in that press, Alex put the flat of his hand against the small of my back. The warmth of his touch worked its way through my blouse. It made me shiver.
I looked around nervously in case someone might see. No one did. I thought I should tell him to stop, but I didn’t. I wasn’t certain he would, anyway.
Because I didn’t want him to stop.
The school day ended. When I got out to the parking lot I saw the rain coming down again.
My heart pirouetted in my chest while I watched the drops spatter hard against the asphalt, changing it from a light to a dark grey. A sleek, oily grey like a shark’s skin.
It also left a light mist just above the ground, barely visible. The mist made halos around the red brake lights of the cars lining up to pull out onto the street.
The rain was cold. The muscles in my shoulders tensed in anticipation of stepping out into that cold.
Alex and I stood in the little overhang in front of the door, contemplating the lot.
“Maybe your car won’t start again,” Alex said. His voice thrilled up and down the front of my stomach.
“It will,” I said. I bit my bottom lip and my fingers clenched around the worn han
dle of my briefcase. It took no effort at all to remember the taste of the rain-wetted kisses we’d shared.
“Let’s go,” Alex said. He put his hand in that same spot on my back again, intent on getting me started.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” I said, the trembles already starting in my knees.
It didn’t take a seer or prophet to see where all this was leading: back to the bedroom of my apartment. Or maybe the couch. Or hell, maybe we wouldn’t be able to contain ourselves beyond just getting the door shut behind us.
And it startled me how badly I wanted that to happen. Startled and scared and excited me all at once.
I stepped out into the rain before either of us could say anything. This time I had my umbrella. The rain turned it instantly into a hollow drum over my head.
It was as though all that rain slamming down on me was the weight of a sudden realization: I hadn’t even known Alex two weeks yet. And already we’d slept together, spent a lot of time together.
I found I couldn’t think about much except for him, really.
And that was frightening. No, it’s definitely the right thing that he shouldn’t come back to my place today.
I needed to slow down. To let my mind catch up with my reality.
“Hey, Charlie,” Alex said, coming up beside me, “Is everything okay?”
Why is it so nice to hear the way he says my name? “Yeah, sure. I just need some time by myself.” That was what I needed. I needed time to think, time to work things through. Time to mark some of the essays I’d collected that day.
What I wanted was for him to come over and show me that sexy body of his again. I think he knew that, too.
He had his own umbrella open over his head. The edge of his overlapped mine, and thin rivulets of water sluiced down from one to the other.
We got to my Camry, and I fumbled for the keys.
“This is about tomorrow,” he said. He had a way of asking questions that made them sound more like statements. I wondered if that was just some natural thing, or if he’d learned it.
I paused with my key in the door lock. “What about tomorrow?”
“The last day of the school program,” he replied.