After the Moment (21 page)

"I won't get expelled. I promise."

For obvious reasons, Millie didn't put a lot of stock in her brother's promises, and took her woes to Franklin. Who simply couldn't believe the mounting damage his brother had caused without paying for any of it.

Leigh never knew whose idea it was—Franklin's or Millie's—but he found out soon enough what was done. Franklin played the video for Diana Jane Gilbor, who did just what he hoped she would. She left the Staineses' house (Leigh would always wonder how Franklin had convinced her to go there), called Oliver's father, and had a private conference with her firster, Ms. Kestell.

By the third day in December, Leigh was looking at a ninety-six-hour suspension, which Calvert Park Prep was happy to consider as already served. But Leigh would have preferred being expelled, even if it meant Lillian finding out everything. Because as a result of Franklin's showing the video to Diana Jane, Maia went from trying to put what she called
that bad night
behind her to living with everyone having an opinion about it.

Calvert Park Prep was located in a small suburb, but it was part of a wide, close-knit circle of private schools located throughout several of Maryland's counties. As the story of Maia's rape spread, different versions appeared and certain details were told as gospel truth. In one version, GHB was slipped into Maia's wine; in another, five boys had sex with her; and in yet another, she'd
asked
them to make the tape, wanting to become a sex star via the Internet.

Some thought her story showed what could happen when boys got out of control. Others pointed to it as part of an obvious lie told by a girl with morning-after regrets.

Leigh, watching and listening to this happen, finally understood why she had elected to skip a trial. The swirl of rumor, speculation, and judgment was like reliving
that bad night
every day. Throw lawyers into the mix, and it would have been that much more toxic.

What he also understood, as Maia sat apart from him at lunch, refused to meet his eye in the hallway, and stopped coming to the house for dinner, was that she would never forgive him. Leigh was forced to assume Maia had found another way to visit Josh, since Leigh's e-mails asking if she needed a ride went unanswered.

He wanted to tell her she was wasting her time being mad at him. Leigh was already mad enough at himself for the both of them. He heard from Janet that a radio talk show in Baltimore had discussed
the alleged date rape
during a segment on how technology was changing not just dating but all the ways in which dating could go wrong.

No names had been mentioned, of course, but Millie reported that a link to the radio show's audio was flying around the school population via IM and e-mail. Leigh wasn't sure how things could get much worse. He studied for his exams, got the stitches in his tongue taken out, and sent his applications to six colleges he picked by randomly opening a guide book.

The school in Ohio was impossible now. Any college seemed impossible. And pointless.

Leigh tried watching the DVD of the 2002 World Cup that Pete had given him over Labor Day. Leigh had thought France would win that year, but it was Brazil, for the fifth time in a row. Watching the highlights was boring, because the goals were never, for him, at least, the highlight of a good game. But there were no clubs Leigh cared about on the three channels that brought soccer into Clayton's house.

For the first time, zoning out with soccer failed him, forcing Leigh to turn his attention back to the war. It too had become worse in almost every way, and especially difficult to follow. In a way, this was good, as it made it impossible to dwell on how Preston had been the only person with whom Leigh could talk about what was happening in Iraq. He had to focus on what he was reading, not on any conversation he
wasn't
having.

If he missed Preston, he missed the guy who had been his friend. Not the guy who'd shot the video.

As Leigh navigated through the newspaper stories of power transfers, bombings, and attacks, he picked one news source—the paper Clayton read each morning—and began noticing bylines. Leigh realized, in a way he hadn't before, that reporters were living in Baghdad or Basra or, more likely, the Green Zone. They weren't simply writing about the war from a newsroom somewhere in an American city. The same names would show up again and again, and after Googling them, Leigh understood that just like everyone else, reporters had jobs and bosses. And, as in school, there were assignments, and Leigh supposed that reporters got a kind of grade based on how well they captured what was true.

Not that anything true seemed to be coming out of Iraq. He tried to imagine himself in Iraq, not as one of the teenagers on the Kuwaiti border whom he'd thought of in March, but as a reporter assigned to figure out what had happened when. Leigh didn't have the slightest idea about how events were investigated but suddenly wanted to learn. He was disgusted that something as important as a
war
should be happening without the consequences of it being broadcast everywhere.

Was getting away with it now allowed on a global level?

For a few hours on the Sunday when the news channels were full of Saddam Hussein's capture, Leigh thought that maybe, finally, something had happened. An end or a new beginning, he couldn't tell, but at least it was a clearly stated goal that had been accomplished.

Maybe it would all be over, the army would come home, and the reporters sent somewhere else.

Leigh watched TV in the kitchen that day, perched on the counter while Janet and Millie moved around him, making a batch of Christmas cookies. He had gotten up early to go running and discovered that, for the second morning straight, his father had already left, presumably for the office.

"What's Dad got going at work that he's there all weekend?" he asked Janet, and she shrugged, as if it happened all the time.

Instead of running or even helping with the cookies, Leigh watched the news and ate the misshapen ones that his sister slipped him. When the same clips of the hiding place began playing over and over, Leigh told Millie he'd take her to a movie when she was done baking, and then went upstairs to finish his homework. Exams would not be given until after the Christmas break, but there was still a lot to keep up with.

Leigh spent the afternoon trying to write about
Winesburg, Ohio.
What he really wanted to do was build an entire essay on the sentence "Tom had seen a thousand George Willards go out of their towns to the city." Leigh thought he should discuss how ordinary lives, which
Winesburg, Ohio
was sort of about, are like romance novels. Every life had the same basic story, made different—or special or unique—only by details.

After six false starts, Leigh decided he didn't have the brains to make his point well enough to get an A. He felt keenly how disappointing he must be to his father right now. Since he couldn't take back having put Preston in the hospital, Leigh wanted grades that wouldn't cause Clayton any further worry. So he wrote about the manifestation of despair and loneliness in the life of a small town, as imagined by Sherwood Anderson. Obvious, but a safe bet for an A.

It was Millie who knocked on the door with the news that Leigh's father was home and wanted to speak to him.

"Oh, Christ," Leigh said. "Am I in trouble?"

"I don't think so," Millie said. "Mom says he's spent all weekend getting you out of trouble."

Leigh looked for his father in the sun porch, but it was Janet who was there, using the computer, and she said, "He's waiting for you in the dining room."

"Thanks."

"Leigh, remember that he only wants what's best for you."

He went, with mounting dread, into the dining room.

~~~

When Clayton began to speak in the same clear, easy manner he had used for their talk about car insurance, Leigh knew his father had found a way to view him as a problem.

His son had become a crisis, and now Clayton could manage him.

"The Gavenlocks are still making a lot of noise about charging you," Clayton said. "But the video has scared them and they've agreed to a deal."

"What kind of deal?" Leigh asked.

"They wanted Maia to sign a document in which she relinquishes her rights to ever press charges."

"You're kidding."

"No," Clayton said. "A lawyer has drawn it up."

"But she decided not to go to court," Leigh said. "So why would she have to sign that?"

"The Gavenlocks were clearly afraid that she might change her mind," Clayton said. "And, I believe, although I can't prove it, that the Lexham boy's father was involved in their decision."

"Well, let them charge me," Leigh said. "I don't care if I wind up in jail. There's no way she's signing that."

"It's done," his father said, quietly. "She's signed it."

Leigh was quiet as this new reality settled over him.

"How could you ask her to do that?" he said, finally.

"Charles and I explained it to her," Clayton said.

"Why?" he asked. "Why would you do that? It's ... wrong."

Leigh caught himself chewing on the inside of his mouth and quickly stopped, almost gagging at the recent memory of his stitches.

"Jesus, you said I'd get anger management," he said. "I'd do that happily a thousand times over."

"That was when the Gavenlocks were talking about assault and battery," Clayton said. "But because of the extent of Preston's injuries, his parents were ready to add grievous bodily harm and, if they could manage it, criminal negligence."

"Well, what does that mean?" Leigh asked. "A year? Two?"

How long was a tour of duty in Iraq? Could he manage two years behind the walls at Cumberland? That endless supply of his good fortune that Leigh barely understood
should
run out. It seemed only fair.

"There's no way I'd let you risk going to prison," Clayton said.

And back it came, that mixture of luck and luxury, as invisible as air and blood, only this time it belonged to Leigh at Maia's expense.

"
Let
me?" he asked. "You don't get to let me."

This wasn't a car trip, after all. Insanely horrible things had taken place, and even more insane ones were waiting their turn. Criminal negligence? Relinquishing her rights to press charges?

"I'm your father, which means I get to protect you," Clayton said. "And it's not as if she were chomping at the bit for her day in court."

"But asking her to sign that makes me more important," Leigh said.

"To me, you are more important," Clayton said.

"I don't understand," Leigh said. "Why make her sign something when she had no intention of charging them?"

"I am under the impression Lexham senior was concerned that
his
boy might wind up in court," Clayton said. "I think this was all a precautionary measure, but the chances of charges sticking to you were too great to risk."

"Oliver," Leigh said.

"Excuse me?"

"It's the name of Lexham's boy. The one who did it. Mostly did it."

"Yes, Oliver Lexham," Clayton said. "His father is ... How does your mother put it?"

"You've told Mom? I thought you didn't want Mom to know unless she had to."

Leigh wondered how it was that Lillian knew anything about this mess and hadn't phoned him or, more likely, shown up at the door to find out for herself exactly what had happened.

"No, no, I haven't told your mother," Clayton said. "I'm waiting for my nerve to arrive."

They both laughed uneasily.

"If she gets mad, it will only be at me," Leigh said, for once in his life not caring about his mother's opinion.

Maia had signed a legal document so that he would be safe. This was wrong on every possible level.

"It remains to be seen with whom she will be most furious," Clayton said. "But that absurd expression of hers...'a piece of work.' Lexham Senior is a real piece of work."

"You should meet the son," Leigh said, but he didn't feel so confident saying that.

He barely knew Oliver Lexham. Franklin's tormentor and the guiding force behind what Kevin did to Maia was also, according to many people, a great guy. And Leigh remembered how often Oliver had avoided him after their first meeting—perhaps indicating that Oliver knew he had been wrong and was embarrassed about how he had treated Franklin.

"And yet it wasn't him you attacked," Clayton said.

Who was Leigh to judge Oliver? Before meeting Maia, he himself had been widely considered a great guy.

"No, it wasn't," Leigh said, knowing he would never regret what he'd done to Preston, even though the aftermath of it had been a disaster.

Even if Preston had suffered far more serious injuries, Leigh would never shake the image of him, camera in hand, just watching as Maia's
bad night
unfolded.

Would things have been better for Maia if Leigh had gone after Oliver? Maybe. Lexham Senior—the piece of work—would have tried everything to put Leigh away, not pausing to ask for a signature from a girl whom his son had, months ago, briefly dated.

"Anger is hard, or at least, I find—I find anger very hard," Clayton said. "As your mother has no doubt told you, I am bad with ... at those sorts of things. Emotions and such."

Leigh waited as his father paused, seeming to collect himself.

"I'm sorry to have passed any of this on to you," Clayton said.

"Everyone is bad at them, Dad," Leigh said. "It's hard, you know, to feel ... feel things."

"Well, I'm sorry it isn't easier for you—for us," Clayton said.

"She'll never forgive me," Leigh said.

"Maia, you mean?" his father asked, and Leigh nodded.

"You loved her."

"I do, yes," Leigh said, objecting to his father's use of the past tense but wondering about how true either statement was.

After all, since he had discovered what had happened to Maia, were his actions those of someone who loved her?

"Does she know—I mean, that I didn't know, I would never have," Leigh said, aware that he was in danger of crying.