A Certain Slant of Light

by Laura Whitcomb

  In the white robe

  And they were the little hand that knocked

  Could I forbid?

  I closed the book and waited.

  “What sort of poetry is that?” she asked.

  “It’s Emily Dickinson.”

  “Watch what you pick up in the library.” She smoothed the magazine on her lap. “Don’t you think it would be more appropriate to read something inspirational before bed?”

  “You weren’t inspired?” I asked her.

  She raised her brows. “You know very well I mean stories and poems about God.” Cathy rose and clapped her copy of In His Time under her arm. “Say your prayers and do not come to Him without a contrite heart.” Before leaving the room, she glanced back as if expecting me to be sneaking a book on witchcraft out from under my pillow.

  As I had the night before, which seemed so long ago, I stayed in my room until the house was very quiet and, as I looked out into the hall, very dark. In the kitchen, instead of searching for food, I took the telephone receiver carefully off the wall and dialed James’s number. It suddenly occurred to me that I might wake Mitch, but the line was busy, a sound I recognized but that startled me with its irritating volume now that it was right in my ear.

  As I replaced the phone, I remembered Dan’s threat to take me out of school. I had the horrid thought that Cathy and Dan would decide to place me in a Christian academy for girls. A panic shot through me and then a loneliness. I took up the phone again and dialed a number I knew from years of hearing it spoken.

  “Hello?” The sound of his voice, even for that one simple word, was so achingly dear. “Hello?” Mr. Brown repeated.

  I thought of speaking. Just to hear him say more. Of asking for a fictitious name so that he could tell me I had dialed the wrong number, but I couldn’t speak. My throat closed and the tears came hot on my face.

  “I can’t hear you,” he said. So polite, even to thin air.

  “Who is it?” I heard his wife ask. She was near. They were probably in bed reading or just undressing.

  The gentle, low sound of a laugh from him cut into me. “If this is a computer—”

  “Hang up,” she said.

  I had covered the lower part of the phone with my hand, but the sound of my weeping must have come through to him. “Hello?” he asked again. Then in a whisper to Mrs. Brown. “I can hear someone.”

  “If it’s an obscene phone call, give it to me,” she laughed, but the line went dead.

  Eleven

  I CLIMBED INTO THE CAR the next morning, a slight soreness between my legs making me smile. Cathy seemed distracted, which was all the better for me. She had been having a tense conversation with Dan before Prayer Corner. He lectured us that morning on the dangers of disobeying God’s will. Perhaps he was still angry with me for my manners at table the night before, or perhaps Cathy had told him about my penchant for Dickinson. Whatever the reason, he was determined to make the point that willfulness leads to disaster. He chose a Scripture passage thoughtfully and drummed his fingers on his knee as Cathy read from Isaiah. Word by word, I listened and I wrote: “Where will you be stricken again, as you continue in your rebellion? The whole head is sickened and the whole heart is faint.”

  Now she turned on the car radio to KDOV. Unnaturally tranquil voices harmonized a song called “Blessed Forgiveness.” The only time Cathy spoke to me was just as the car pulled up to school. As we drove, I remembered an odd dream I’d had about standing at heaven’s door like a Dickens caroler stamping my feet to keep warm and trying to look through the tiny milked windows. A slit like a letterbox had finally opened, and a cross voice called through the opening, “Go home!”

  When we got to school, I struggled with the seat belt, which seemed to be jammed.

  “Don’t be tricked by the devil.” Cathy looked at me as if she’d just given me precise instructions on which our lives hung in the balance.

  “I’ll try.” I had the strange image of a costume ball at which devils and angels all arrived dressed as each other.

  Slowly I walked into the quad, looking for James, but I saw Mr. Brown instead. Like a bride who misses her father, I followed him at a distance, just happy to see that familiar color of hair, the worn-out corduroy jacket that Mrs. Brown kept trying to throw away, the scratched leather of his briefcase. I followed him right into the administration building and was bold enough to pursue him into the office. I hesitated at the door, waiting as he stood at the counter to read a flyer from his mailbox. I stepped in and stood beside him. Olivia was on the phone. She glanced at me, then away, then her gaze came back to me quickly. So quickly that I felt uneasy, as if she knew I wasn’t Jenny.

  I turned to Mr. Brown but didn’t dare look up at his face. Instead I stared at his hands holding the paper, the scar where he’d cut himself on the thumb while backpacking, the tiny line of lighter skin where his tan disappeared at the edge of his wedding band. Talk to him, a voice in me urged. But what would Jenny say to him? He left the room without a word and without seeing me at all. Olivia was still watching when I walked out.

  I hunted for James in the sea of students but didn’t find him. Taped onto my locker was a note that unfolded to read: “Parking Lot. 11:15.”

  As I arrived at my geology class, a girl smiling a full set of braces paused by me. “Half day tomorrow” she said. “So Bible Study will be Thursday lunch.”

  I blinked at her. “Thank you.” This seemed to be enough, for she walked on, swinging a flowered purse.

  Class was slow as ice melting. The clock moved by in two-minute clicks, the second hand circling gracefully, but the minute hand taking a tiny step backward and then jerking forward every 120 seconds in a nightmare dance. All I wanted was to be with James. Not true. I wanted to speak with Mr. Brown, too. I had always wanted to but not as Jenny. An idea came to me suddenly.

  I turned the page of the notebook I had in front of me and started to write. I didn’t hear the bell when it rang. I noticed that the class was over only because the students in front of me stood and moved into the aisles. I knew that Mr. Brown had a free period, so I went to the tree outside his classroom and stood watching the open door until I had the courage to approach. I was supposed to be in government class, but there he was, Mr. Brown, sitting at his desk, his head propped in one hand, reading a stack of papers, holding his green pen at ready. The box of his manuscript was not there. I studied his face, wanting to remember every detail. I could recall the faces of the others down to each hair—my Saint, my Knight, my Playwright, and my Poet. And here sat Mr. Brown. He seemed frozen in time, as if I’d painted a picture of him, but then he turned and looked me in the eyes, lifting his head.

  “Good morning,” he said, right to me. “What can I do for you?”

  I hoped he couldn’t tell that I could hardly speak. I stepped in but stayed close to the door, my only escape route.

  “You were in my class last year,” he said. “Jenny, right?”

  I thought I would run from the room if I didn’t move forward, so I walked up to the desk, stood in front of him, and spoke. “I wrote something.”

  “Great,” he smiled. “Whose class are you in now?”

  “I don’t have English this semester,” I said, clearing my throat, sounding like a mouse. “I thought if I could read you what I wrote, you could give me some advice.”

  He was struck silent, rarely having heard these words from a student’s lips. “Of course.” He motioned me to sit in the front row. “Is it a poem?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, letting my bag clunk onto the floor beside the chair as I sat. I cherished his attention so much, but now it was difficult to bear. I kept my gaze on the paper in my hands. “Not exactly.”

  “A short story?”

  “Well, it’s short.”

  Be bold, I told myself. “A Letter from a Muse to Her Poet,” I read. He leaned back in his chair. “Dear sir, I was called away and couldn’t bring you, but now I feel haunted.” He was starin
g at me, which made my cheeks prickle. “I know that sometimes you felt I was a part of you and that losing me would leave a hole in your heart, but that’s not true.” I looked up now, knowing the rest by heart. “I liked to pretend I was the core of your talent, but it wasn’t me. Everything you do, the ideas you weave, the lines you write, the words you choose, it was always only you.” He was still as a statue. “Please forgive me,” I said. “I’m sorry that I didn’t say goodbye.”

  We levitated in that fragile moment, then my tears came furiously and sudden. I sobbed into my hands. I heard his chair grate on the floor and felt his palm on the top of my head. But this didn’t stop me. Like the new well of weeping a child finds in her mother’s embrace, I dropped my head into my arms on the desk and cried even harder.

  I only half-heard his questions of concern. I couldn’t answer. He kept one firm hand on my arm. Finally I had emptied myself and gasped in a shuddering breath, lifting my head. He gave me his handkerchief, white, clean, folded, still warm from his pocket. I took it with perhaps too much familiarity and wiped my face.

  “Please tell me what’s wrong,” he said. Now he was sitting in the desk beside me, and his hand released my arm. “Or if you can’t tell me, I can take you to the counseling office. Have you met Mr. Olsen?”

  “It’s all right,” I said, still shaking. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You don’t seem fine,” he told me.

  “It was reading out loud,” I tried to explain. To you, I thought.

  “Oh.” He seemed uncertain. “It was beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” I said, rubbing my eyes again, and then I started laughing for some reason. “I’ve always wanted to talk to you about writing.” I handed him back the handkerchief.

  “But that’s not the only thing making you cry, is it?” he asked.

  I wanted to lie, but, after all, it was Mr. Brown. “No,” I said. “But it’s too difficult to explain.” Oddly, I no longer felt as if I needed to talk to him for hours about his novel. I felt strangely free.

  “Please try,” he said.

  He didn’t understand that the quest was over. He had looked at me, heard me, spoken to me. That was my grail.

  “I have to figure out the rest on my own.” Then I smiled at him, calm and without shyness. “You’re a wonderful teacher.”

  He looked doubtful. “I didn’t teach you that.”

  “Yes, you did.” I stood up, putting my bag over my shoulder and handing him the paper. “I’ll see you around,” I said, which made me laugh again. “Thank you, Mr. Brown.” I left the room, and I didn’t feel any need to look back.

  By 11:15 James was already at the parking lot curb. He took my book bag and kissed me, then led me to the row of lockers outside the cafeteria, opening number 77 with surprising speed and grace. Although they would barely fit, he managed to pack both our book bags into the small space and forced the door closed.

  “Ever ridden on a bicycle?” he smiled.

  “No.”

  Once back at the parking lot, James freed his bike from the rack. “Nothing to it.” He stepped over the middle bar and balanced the apparatus between his legs. “Hop up.” He put his hands on my waist and lifted me as I gave a small jump. My heart was pounding as I sat perched on the metal handlebars in front of him.

  “I’m scared.” I was laughing, but I meant it.

  “Trust me,” said James. I gave a little cry as he pushed off, stepping into the pedals with a runner’s strength, and we rolled toward the street.

  “Just keep your balance,” he coached.

  We leaned to the right and curved into the roadway much faster than I liked. I closed my eyes as we passed a row of parked cars. But when I opened them again, a calm set into me. This was familiar but not because I had ever been on a bicycle. It was the way you travel invisibly when you’re Light. I took a deep breath of cool air, the wind fluttering my hair like ribbons. We were at Amelia Street far too soon.

  The garage was closed. James gave me a hand as I jumped down and let the bike rest on its side on the lawn.

  “Why are we here?” I asked innocently.

  He took my hand and led me up the porch steps. “We’re having lunch at my house today.”

  “Why?”

  He laughed as he felt on the ledge over the door and brought down a key. I couldn’t hear the music yet, but James said, “Mitch must’ve left the radio on.”

  When James pushed open the door, we froze in the doorway. Libby, who was wearing nothing but a smile, sat astride Mitch, who was sitting on the couch, wearing nothing but his tattoos. I ducked behind James, who just stood there, confounded.

  “Oops,” said Libby.

  “Libby,” said James, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it. “Hello.”

  “Hi,” she said good-naturedly.

  I backed up a step and stayed on the porch.

  “What the fuck—” Mitch sounded angry.

  “Sorry,” said James. He turned sideways in the door frame and looked away. “What are you doing home?”

  “It’s my lunch hour, asshole.” I could hear the rustling of clothes even over the sounds of guitars from the radio. “You’re supposed to be at school,” said Mitch.

  “I left one of my books here,” said James. “It’s my lunch hour, too.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Mitch muttered and the radio was shut off. Then I could hear him very close to James, but I stayed hidden.

  “Didn’t you tell Rayna you’d rather chew off your own hand than go out with Libby?” James whispered.

  “Shut up, wiseass.”

  “Nothing wrong with changing your mind,” said James.

  Libby came out onto the porch adjusting her bra.

  “We’re gonna go get something to eat,” said Mitch.

  “I’ll drive,” called Libby. “Does Billy wanna come?”

  “No, he does not,” said Mitch with irritation.

  “Can I use the car,” said James, “if you’re taking Libby’s?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Just to drive back to school and home after,” said James.

  There was a pause, then Mitch sighed. “Anything happens, you’re dead.”

  Then Libby noticed me and smiled.

  “This is my friend,” James told her.

  Now Mitch followed Libby down the porch steps.

  “Hi.” Libby waved with a child-sized hand.

  Mitch only glanced at me on his way across the lawn. “Get your stuff, get out, and lock it,” he said as he and Libby climbed into her dented red car.

  “I will,” James reassured him.

  I stepped into the living room that I had seen before but never smelled. It had the scent of beer and pine needles. As soon as the door shut behind us, James was kissing me. He pressed hard as if he were lost at sea, drawing fresh water from my depths. He lifted me in a hug around the waist with my toes barely grazing the floor and walked me to his room. I shrieked at the cracking noise the bed frame made when we fell on it.

  Again, I was amazed at my own undisguised desire. It was as if sex were something that we had just invented, a magic alchemy that only our two spirits could create.

  I managed to get his shirt off, but the metal buttons on his pants were tight. “Help me,” I laughed. And he did.

  “What do you want for lunch?” he asked, but I couldn’t speak.

  Afterward, he was kissing my neck as if now he craved the salt he found there, and, to my surprise, I began to cry.

  “Did I hurt you?” He brushed the hair out of my eyes.

  “No.” Then I noticed that I was still wearing my dress, and James still had on his socks and shoes. His jeans were around his ankles. I poked at the pants with one foot and started laughing. James just looked relieved the tears had stopped.

  He kicked off the rest of his clothes and carefully took off the rest of my mine as well. I watched him all the while. The room smelled of newsprint. I felt an absurd pride at being Quick enough to smell and taste the
world again. To celebrate my senses, I kissed his bare shoulder, tasting his skin.

  “I want to sleep all night with you,” I said.

  “I’d never have another nightmare with you in my bed,” said James.

  “You have nightmares?”

  He looked embarrassed to have spoken of it.

  “What do you dream?” I asked.

  “I’m always shouting at Mitch. I think it’s Mitch. I’m warning him about some danger, and he can’t hear me.”

  “I want to sleep with you all night, every night,” I told him.

  “Some day.” He pulled the bed sheet over us and put his arms around me. Then he saw my expression and added, “Soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “Well, we’re nearly eighteen. When we’re eighteen, we can make a home together.”

  “Why do we have to pretend to be young?” I demanded. “We could lie, couldn’t we? Move to a new city and say we’re twenty-one.”

  He looked intrigued by this scheme.

  “Well, when is your birthday?” I asked impatiently. “I mean, Billy’s birthday?”

  “In October,” said James.

  “Only one month?”

  “Thirteen months, actually.” When he saw how shocked I was, he added, “Well, we need a proper engagement.”

  “Are you asking me to marry you?”

  He straddled me, a knee on each side of my body, pinning me down on the mattress, and sat up, the sheet making a cape over his shoulders and leaving me bare under him. The sudden cool on my skin made me cover my breasts with my crossed hands, but James gently took my wrists, opening my arms like wings as if he were a painter rearranging his model.

  “I’m on my knees,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

  Something in me whispered a warning: You’re too happy—in a moment, you 11 wake. But I didn’t listen. “Yes, I will,” I told him.

  I thought for a moment he intended to consummate the betrothal, but then he caught sight of the little clock on his desk. “We have to get back.”

  Once we were dressed and heading for the kitchen, James reached into his pocket.