Tell on You Read online

  Heather retrieved her hairbrush and placed it on her dresser. Her stomach clenched and made a hideous noise. She’d had to come up with some explanation when Mom insisted on looking at her paper. And so she’d stretched the truth a little—but really, only a little. She’d made it like Mr. B had actually said some of the things his looks were suggesting. That was all. She’d interpreted.

  Like he’d taught them to do in English class.

  Heather turned away from the mirror. If she hadn’t done anything so bad, why did she have stomach cramps at the prospect of talking to that Child Whatever worker? Maybe getting Mr. B into a shitload of trouble. But he deserved it, right? And what would Mom do, if she admitted she’d lied?

  The doorbell rang, and Heather raced back to the bathroom.

  FOUR

  NIKKI JORDAN STOOD, AN island of serenity in the packed school corridor, bustling with fellow students scurrying to their next class. She wore a small smile. Her intuition—which Nikki always trusted—smelled something funny going on with Heather, and Nikki wanted the 411. Well, she’d sure as hell get the full story out of her later.

  Meanwhile, let French class wait.

  Nikki’s ice blue eyes scanned the hallway. The door to the principal’s office opened. Mr. B walked out, looking positively sick. Jeez, his face was practically white. Something going on, all right. The tiny hairs on Nikki’s skin prickled with anticipation. When Mr. B headed down the hall, she gave him a head start—not to make her pursuit obvious to any onlookers—then followed.

  JEREMY LOOKED AROUND HIS office in confusion. What should he take home? Surely not everything. He placed his briefcase on the desk and opened it. The suspension couldn’t be permanent. The more he took home, the more he’d have to bring back in a few days. Only a matter of days. A week, at most, right? He couldn’t afford to be out of work longer than that. The thought made him queasy.

  No. He stuffed books and papers into his briefcase. He hadn’t said or done one untoward thing to Heather Lloyd. Not the Salem witch trials, after all. On cue, he picked up his copy of The Crucible. They’d studied the play last semester. He managed a wry smile. No trial coming here, at all. No arrest. It would all blow over.

  He picked up a paperweight from his desk—a snow globe. A gift from Melissa, it displayed a tiny New York skyline within. Jeremy held it in his hands, flipped it and watched as white flakes fell on the city. How would he explain all this to Mel? He put the globe into his briefcase.

  He reached for another memento—a baseball resting on a display stand. Passed on to Jeremy by his father, it bore the signature of the three-time Cy Young award-winning pitcher, Tom Seaver. Mike Barrett, a die-hard Mets fan, even before the team began logging wins, had wangled Tom Terrific’s autograph on Fan Appreciation Day at Shea Stadium. One of his father’s most treasured possessions, Jeremy kept the ball turned on its stand, signature facing down. An ordinary baseball made a less tempting target for theft.

  Jeremy ran his fingers over the smooth leather, feeling a pang of regret. His father had encouraged Jeremy to share his passion for baseball, but he had remained indifferent. Beyond indifferent. Always the last kid picked by playground captains, Jeremy swore off sports early on. He’d never admitted the reason to his dad, left hurt and bewildered by Jeremy’s rejections. Two years since his father’s fatal heart attack, only a week before Jeremy turned thirty one. And he felt like shit every time he looked at that damned baseball. Yet he’d kept it there on his desk in plain sight, half wishing one of his students would steal it.

  Instead of the jock he’d have understood, Mike Barrett wound up with a nerdy kid who devoured literature and wrote poetry. His father had loved him, Jeremy knew, but he’d recognized his dad’s disappointment. When he’d married Melissa, Dad was probably relieved that his artsy-fartsy son wasn’t gay.

  No leaving the baseball behind.

  Jeremy dropped the ball and stand into his briefcase. He eyed the Casablanca poster mounted on the wall. His favorite film. Rick and Ilsa. Here’s looking at you, kids. He started toward the wall to take it down, but changed his mind. Carrying it through the corridors would only make his departure more conspicuous.

  What else? He’d left his copy of Gatsby back in the classroom. Now he’d have to interrupt the next class to retrieve it, or risk the principal’s wrath by hanging around until the period ended. He’d written his name on the inside cover. Maybe the book would find its way to his box.

  He closed his briefcase, chewing on the inside of his cheek, an anxious traveler, sure he’d forgotten to pack something essential. And it hit him. Heather’s paper. He had to email it to the principal.

  He booted up the laptop furnished by the school. While he was at it, might as well email a few files to his home computer. Use the time off to get ahead on his lesson plans.

  The login page came up, asking for Jeremy’s UserName. He typed in jbarrett Invalid UserName.

  “Damn it!” he muttered, trying again.

  Invalid UserName.

  They’d already shut him out of the system.

  Jeremy kicked his desk chair and sent it scraping across the floor. Then he remembered—he’d backed up the papers on a zip drive, to work on them at home. He still had a copy for Donnelly.

  A soft rapping on his office door.

  “What?” The last thing he needed right now was company.

  The door opened part way.

  “Mr. B?”

  Round doe eyes, under a fringe of dark lashes, fixed on his face. “Talk for a minute?”

  Those delicate features, etched with distress, pulled at his heart. Determined, he looked away. “Not now, Nikki.” Not when I’m all fucked up like this.

  She took a step into his office and leaned one slender shoulder against the door jamb. “Something’s happened, right? Please tell me. I’m worried about you.”

  Jeremy smiled, in spite of everything. She worried about him. His resolve began melting. “I have to leave now,” he said. And then not see her for—how long? He stepped forward, closing the space between them. “Anyway, we can’t talk here.”

  She opened her mouth to speak.

  Those lips! He murmured: “Meet me at the park on your lunch break. The regular spot.”

  She backed out of the doorway, flashing him a grin that took his breath away.

  FIVE

  “HEATHER? WHAT ARE YOU doing in there?” Her mother rapped on the bathroom door. “Hurry up and come into the living room. The woman from DCPP is here to talk with you.”

  “Be right out, Mom.” Heather flushed the toilet and went to the sink to wash her hands. She splashed cold water onto her face and toweled off.

  “Heather?” her mother called.

  She made a face at herself in the mirror, wishing she had the nerve to do that to her mom. “Coming!” She opened the bathroom door to the sight of her mother’s frown. “Sorry. My stomach’s upset again.”

  “Let’s go.” Mom motioned her toward the bedroom door. “You don’t want to keep the investigator waiting.”

  Do too. Heather trudged into the living room, her mother a half-step behind her.

  A heavy-set woman with ebony skin that contrasted with her brightly-colored print dress, rose from the couch, smiling, when Heather entered. “Hello, Heather. I’m Ms. Price.” She held out her hand.

  Heather gazed at the pink-skinned palm for a moment, then shook the woman’s hand.

  “Why don’t we sit down?” the woman said. “I have some questions for you.”

  “Uh huh.” Noting the investigator’s large tote bag already resting on the couch, Heather moved across to a chair on the other side of the coffee table. Her mother swooped into the chair next to hers and Heather felt an impulse to flee.

  “Mrs. Lloyd,” the investigator said, “It might be helpful for me to speak privately with your daughter.”

  Her mom pursed her lips. “I don’t see why that should be necessary. Heather doesn’t keep secrets from me.”

  �
�No, of course not,” Ms. Price agreed. “But perhaps she would feel more comfortable if it were the two of us.” She glanced over at Heather. “Since she’s over fourteen, a parent’s presence isn’t required for the interview.”

  Heather turned to her mother, eyes beseeching. If she didn’t have to deal with both of them at once, perhaps she’d get through this.

  “I prefer to stay.” Her mother’s mouth set in a firm line.

  Heather’s eyes dropped to the floor.

  Ms. Price nodded, her silver hoop earrings jangling. “Very well.” She reached into her tote bag for a yellow legal pad. “I’ll be making a few notes while we’re talking. Okay?” She clicked a ball point pen, and Heather drew a breath.

  “Certainly,” Mrs. Lloyd said.

  “Unhhuh,” Heather mumbled.

  “So, then. Heather, I’ve spoken with your principal at the Forrest School, Mr. Donnelly. He said your mother—” A slight nod of her head acknowledged Mrs. Lloyd. “Made a complaint about your English teacher, Mr. Barrett. Did you know about that?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Do you know what your mother’s complaint said?”

  Heather started to say yes, but hesitated. She hadn’t read her mother’s email. A trick question? “Um—I think so.”

  “Tell the lady what Mr. Barrett did to you,” her mother ordered.

  “Mrs. Lloyd, please,” the investigator said. “I prefer that you let me conduct the interview with your daughter.”

  Heather’s mom held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. Heather doubted she’d give up that easily.

  “Heather.” Ms. Price fixed dark eyes on her. “Would you like to tell me what happened between you and Mr. Barrett?”

  Heather swallowed. Not really. “Well…he—he’s a really good teacher. All the kids like him.”

  With a slight smile, Ms. Price jotted a note on her pad. “Why is that?”

  Heather relaxed a little. “He’s pretty hip. Like he doesn’t talk down to us, and stuff.”

  “I see. So you liked Mr. Barrett.”

  Mrs. Lloyd sniffed. “His teaching wasn’t the problem. Tell her how he stared at you all the time.”

  “Mrs. Lloyd…” The investigator’s tone held an edge, punctuated by a few extra clicks of her ballpoint. “Heather?”

  “What?” Her palms began sweating.

  “What do you think your mother meant—about the staring?”

  Heather took a breath. “He—looked at me a lot in class. We—uh, studied The Great Gatsby. Ever heard of it?”

  Ms. Price smiled more broadly this time and nodded as she wrote. “I had to read that one in high school, too. How did you feel when Mr. Barrett stared at you in class, Heather?”

  Heather rubbed clammy palms against her thighs, trying to figure out the right answer. “Kind of—embarrassed, I guess.” Excited or flattered would have been closer to the truth. She glanced at her mom, hoping those compressed lips were on account of Mr. B, and not her.

  “Mr. Donnelly mentioned…” Ms. Price paused, as if weighing her words.

  Heather held her breath, waiting for her to continue.

  “—an incident involving a paper you wrote for Mr. Barrett,” she concluded.

  Heather’s face grew hot. She hoped she wasn’t turning beet red.

  “He led her on!” Her mother sounded shrill. “The man is a predator!”

  The investigator clenched her jaw. “Mrs. Lloyd, I need to hear what Heather has to say. Perhaps it would be best if you left the room.”

  Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “May I remind you that this is my house?”

  Heather wanted to crawl under the sofa. Beyond terrible. She thrust both hands into her curly hair and pushed back hard enough to feel the roots pull against her scalp.

  “Mrs. Lloyd,” the investigator’s tone turned frosty.

  “All right!” Heather cried out. “I’ll tell you.” She had to end this. “He—he walked up behind me in class one time and started rubbing the back of my neck. And another time he patted my rear end when I was the last one out of the room.” Keep going, keep talking! “He used to wink at me and give me these—these sexy looks! And he got me all—messed up and everything, so I wrote that stuff on my paper.” Heather burst into tears. “Then he practically failed me and treated me like everything was my fault! But it wasn’t me! It was him. Him!”

  Ms. Price scrawled furiously on her pad as Heather jumped up and ran to her bedroom.

  “Heather, get back in here right now!”

  She slammed the door behind her, drowning out the sound of her mother’s voice.

  SIX

  JEREMY LINGERED A FEW minutes in his office to make sure Nikki left the hallway outside. How had he fallen in so deep with her?

  At first, his feelings had been a concerned teacher’s for a gifted student, one whose frail shoulders clearly bore too much weight. An overdue assignment, coming after several weeks of pitch-perfect written work and class participation: the red flag. Nikki had come to his office, blue eyes brimming, to turn in her paper—three days late—offering an apology, but no excuses.

  He’d coaxed the story out of her.

  A recent divorce, an indifferent father. Mother working too many hours and, reading between the lines of Nikki’s halting account, depressed, to boot. All of which left a sixteen-year-old girl playing surrogate parent to her eight-year-old special needs brother and burdened with who knew what other responsibilities at home. Jeremy had discerned no resentment in Nikki’s description of the situation. If anything, she’d sounded guilty about not doing more.

  He shook his head. She worried about him.

  Without bothering to turn off the useless laptop, he snatched up his briefcase and went out the door.

  Head down, eyes glued to the floor, Jeremy made his way down the corridor, praying he wouldn’t meet anyone. He resisted the urge to jog. Hell, he fought the impulse to throw his jacket over his head like some poor slob doing a perp walk. Don’t act guilty. Don’t call attention to yourself. Don’t—

  “Jeremy! What’s wrong?”

  How tempting to keep walking and ignore his colleague Marge Peterson. But the concern in her voice, the kindness she’d always shown him, ruled out that option.

  “Nothing serious.” For a moment Jeremy’s mind went blank. Then he pulled himself together. “A doctor’s appointment.” He smiled weakly at Marge’s puzzled expression. “Sorry, gotta run.”

  “But everything’s okay?” Her voice followed him down the hall.

  “Fine, Marge.” He waved without turning back.

  Jeremy made it to the parking lot, spared any additional encounters. He opened his car door, threw his briefcase onto the passenger side and sank into the driver’s seat.

  Now what?

  Of course he should go home and tell Melissa what had happened. Get himself a lawyer, maybe. But he stayed put, elbow resting against the steering wheel, chewing the cuticle of his thumbnail. Not yet. No facing Mel until he got his own mind around all this.

  Jeremy glanced at the dashboard clock. Another hour and a half before he’d meet Nikki. He bit his cuticle again, savagely enough to taste the metallic tang of his own blood. Unthinkable to keep that rendezvous.

  And yet.

  He started the engine.

  Jeremy made two cups of coffee and an English muffin kill an hour at the local diner, all the while reminding himself of the solid arguments against meeting Nikki Jordan. Teachers didn’t tryst with their students. Not if they wanted to keep their jobs. He’d already been suspended and accused of sexual misconduct. Madness to take any more risks, even though he was innocent. Mostly.

  All he’d meant to do was step up and be the concerned, supportive adult Nikki so plainly lacked—and needed—in her life. Encouraged her to come to his office and talk, unburden herself. And gradually she had. The day she told him how much she missed her father, tears rolling down those porcelain cheeks, Jeremy ended up giving Nikki his cellphone number. In
case she needed help when her mother wasn’t around.

  A couple of weeks and she’d used it one evening, not so late as to be inappropriate, but late enough. No, she refused to ask her mother to take her to a therapist. “No one else listens to me like you do,” she’d told him. And he’d been touched.

  Jeremy hadn’t known the real Nikki Jordan then. And didn’t, even now. That discovery lay ahead of him. In the end, he drove over to the park early and waited at their regular bench.

  The small suburban park stood only a few blocks away from the Forrest School, but thanks to the lush athletic field and ample outdoor gathering space on campus, students had no reason to trek over there during the school day. No legitimate reasons, at least. An occasional pot smoker might lurk behind a tree, but rarely. Easier for the stoners to slip into the spectator stands on the athletic field.

  A few weeks from now, when April lengthened the days and opened early blossoms, mothers with strollers would populate these benches. But today, during the second half of March, the wind chill kept them away. Jeremy had relied on the cold to furnish privacy over the past six weeks, using the park as his secret meeting place with Nikki. Foolhardy, he knew. And very, very wrong. Teachers don’t tryst with students. His eyes darted around the empty grounds and benches while he waited for her.

  He heard her footsteps before he saw her, the crunch of a dead leaf signaling Nikki’s approach. He sprang from the bench and turned, his stomach doing a tiny flip flop.

  She came toward him, wearing that smile that reduced all his concerns to dandelion fluff, scattered into the wind. Drawing closer, Nikki raised her arm and held out a book.

  His copy of Gatsby.

  “You left it in the classroom.” Her voice tinkled like sleigh bells, and held a captivating hint of shyness.