Chapter 48
Andrew
Just as my lawyer predicted, the grand jury declines to indict me because of Robert’s age and his affidavit that our relationship was completely consensual.
Three months after my arrest, I am cleared of any criminal charges, but my teaching career is finished. I’ve been terminated by my school, and the state is in the process of revoking my license.
Crews from all four of the local TV stations this time are waiting outside the courthouse when we exit. My lawyer covers me on one side, Maya the other, as we hurry to our cars.
We try to pretend like it’s just a normal evening. We have dinner together. I read Kiki as many stories as she wants, and when her eyes droop, I tuck the covers around her and kiss her good night.
Maya’s waiting in the living room. When she hears me come in, she looks up from the spiral notebook she’s been keeping since I was first released from jail. The pages are filled with lists and plans and projections. I guess committing everything to black-and-white on paper empowers her. It’s funny, though . . . I’ve always found a certain kind of beauty in lists. But the only thing I find in her lists is despair.
“I just talked to my principal,” she says with a small smile. “As soon as she can find a sub to finish out the school year for me, I’m free to go. It’s just a couple of weeks. Shouldn’t be a big deal.” She looks at me and her smile falters, but she continues with even greater energy. “And I talked to the Realtor this morning. She’s had a couple of bites and thinks if I’m willing to drop the price a little, she can get a contract by the end of the week.”
I sit on the edge of the couch and clasp my hands together. I don’t know what she expects me to say. So I say nothing. Frustrated, she looks back at her notes like she’s missed something, and if she can just remember what it is and record it in her list, everything will be okay. Tears edge the lower rims of her eyes.
“Talk to me,” she pleads.
Her phone rings. She looks at the number, then disconnects the call. I glare at her. “Was that him?”
She sniffs and glares back. “No.”
I hold my hand out for the phone, but she slips it into her jeans pocket.
“Let me have the phone, Maya.”
“It wasn’t him,” she snaps. “Why can’t you understand that? He’s a fickle young man and he doesn’t—”
“Give me the goddamn phone!”
“No!”
So I try to take it from her.
“Stop it,” she says, twisting away from me.
“I want the phone. Why won’t you let me talk to him?”
“Because,” she screams at me, breaking free. Then she pulls the phone from her pocket and flings it at me. “Because he hasn’t called you.”
I don’t believe her. I retrieve the phone from the carpet where it landed after bouncing off the couch and open her Missed Calls folder. The call was from some one-eight-eight-eight number. I open the All Calls folder and scan through them, too, but I don’t see his number anywhere.
“It’s time to move on, Drew,” Maya says, crying softly. “We’ve got to—”
“You’re right, Maya. It is time to move on. But not together.” Numbly I hand her the phone and collect my keys from the counter.
“Where are you going?” she says, suddenly wild-eyed.
“I’ve already reenrolled Kiki in Ms. Smith’s Village. They’re expecting her tomorrow morning. Mom and Dad paid her tuition for the next two months. As soon as I can find a job, I’ll catch up on child support.”
Maya’s lip trembles and tears spill down her cheeks. “You don’t have to do this. Drew—no—don’t—please—wait. We can make this work.”
“We can’t make this work, Maya. I don’t want to make this work. I want—I just—” I stop and will myself to hold it together. “Will you tell Kiki something for me?”
“You’re just going to walk out on me and your daughter? Just like that?” She’s angry, and I don’t blame her.
“Tell her that her daddy loves her, and he’ll see her soon.”
Her breath hitches and she wipes at the tears on her face. I’ve left a small bag just inside the hallway. I shoulder the strap and let myself out.
I’ve debated and debated whether or not to see Robert before I leave. It’s been so long. I don’t even know if he wants to see me; I don’t know if I want to see him, because seeing him will just make everything so much harder.
I pull up to the curb outside his house and put the car in park, and I sit. One window is lit up, but I’ve never been in his house and have no idea if that’s his bedroom window or not. So many emotions jumble at the back of my throat, and I find it hard to swallow. When he didn’t rendezvous with me, it hurt like hell. I admit that. And I’d been so certain that was him who’d called earlier. How could I have been so wrong?
Through the white shade I see some movement in the room. Two people. Then the shade shifts and a little black-and-white dog works his way between the shade and the window. “Hey, Spot,” I say softly.
I wait, hoping Robert will retrieve the dog and I’ll get to see him, but after a minute or two, the dog backs his way out and disappears into the room.
I put the car back in drive and head out.
It takes about fourteen hours to make the eight-hundred-fifty-mile drive to my folks’ house. I drive straight through the night, stopping only for gas. I’ve made myself a promise—when I get there, I’ll allow myself to feel.
I keep my mind busy. Outside of Huntsville, I try to calculate the time it takes to destroy a man’s life. Maybe two seconds to swipe a phone. Another fifteen to jot down a phone number and a note (Anybody going to Saturday’s concert? Call me.) and pass it around the room just so I’d take it up and everyone would know I took it up. Five minutes to take a couple of photos and fake some text messages. A half a minute maybe to make an anonymous phone call. Another five minutes to walk from my classroom to the office and claim he was too ashamed to tell anyone about my “advances.” Eleven minutes. Less time than it takes me to shower most mornings.
Outside of Dallas, I try to calculate my debt. Student loans, attorney’s fees, car loan, back child support, credit cards. I can’t even wrap my brain around the number. It might as well be a million dollars.
I’m crossing into Oklahoma as the sun rises on the passenger side of my car. For the last hour or so I’ve been thinking about all the reasons why I couldn’t stay—Maya, no career, no job, the public humiliation. Those things have kept me up at night for weeks, but there was something else, something I just couldn’t live with.
It was the fear of seeing that light go out in Robert’s eyes when he realized I wasn’t as clever or as smart or as good-looking as he’d once thought I was. That fear that one day I’d no longer be someone he looked up to, someone he admired, respected. I’d just be another loser with worn-out soles on my shoes and cheap twill pants.
Maybe to him I already was.
I pull into a Shell station and maneuver close to a pump and get out. It’s hot and I think we’re in for a scorching summer. I stick the nozzle into my gas tank and lock it. I’m surprised to see a pay phone on the outside wall of the station. I leave the pump and call Mom and Dad to let them know where I am.
Mom answers. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
Hearing her voice rips something open in me. I start to say yes, but my voice catches. I swallow hard and croak, “I’ll have to call you back, Mom.”
“Drew, where are you?”
I somehow manage to tell her, then I fumble the phone back on the hook and grip the edges of the privacy wings as all the feeling I’ve been holding back finally overwhelms me.
Robert
I don’t understand. I will never understand.
I’m furious that Ms. Momin blocked my number, but he could have found a way to contact me. And then when I stopped by last night, she told me he was gone. Her eyes were red, and I could tell she’d been crying.
“Just leave him alone, Robert,” she’d said. “If he wanted to see you, he would have seen you. You have no idea what this has done to him.”
“Where did he go?”
“You just don’t get it, do you?” she’d said. “You practically destroyed him. He’s lost his career, he’s lost his reputation, and you think he’s just going to pick back up with you now that he’s free? It’s not going to happen.”
I didn’t want to believe her, but he had no reason not to see me last night. He could have, but he hadn’t. I understood that we couldn’t be in contact while he was waiting for his hearing with the grand jury, but that was over. And yet, he’d left without so much as a good-bye.
“Hey, man.” Luke takes the chair next to me as I’m numbly going through the motions of warming up. He opens his clarinet case and begins snapping the pieces together. “I saw the news last night.”
“Yeah.” I stop and adjust my mouthpiece for something to do.
“So, what happens next?”
“Nothing. He left last night.”
“Is he coming back?”
I look at him, and I burn with jealousy. I remember how Curtis fought for him. I really thought Andrew would fight for me. I thought what we had was solid, real.
I think about those months before he was arrested. The time we spent together, the things we talked about. I really felt like his equal. And now, I just feel like a student who once had a crush on a teacher.
“No. He’s not.”