On the Edge of Dangerous Things (Dangerous Things Trilogy Book 1) (17 page)

Thirty

Rather than listen to Al rant about how stupid everyone at Pleasant Palms was, Hester got in the Odyssey, drove to Saint Maximillian’s, and lined up for confession. How long had it been? She couldn’t remember. Two people were in front of her, and damn it, they were both from the park. She hadn’t wanted to run into anybody she knew.

Norman Colter stood behind Elizabeth Hanky. They were waiting for whoever was in the confessional to come out.

Elizabeth, a large woman with a grey gamine haircut, was married to Hurley Hanky, who looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and was the guy who invented the automatic pin replacer for bowling alleys and then sold the patent. He bought a chain of roller rinks and managed them until he retired ten years ago. The Hankys lived a few rows over from Hester on Royal Palm Way. Elizabeth kept to herself, but Hurley was always out and about, always into somebody else’s business. He was the type who couldn’t resist telling other people how they should do things. His totally unsolicited advice forced most people to cross the street to the other side when they saw him coming. Hurley never got the hint.

Norman Colter, on the other hand, seemed to be popular. His good looks might’ve had something to do with it. Even the Pleasant Palmers weren’t immune to falling under the spell of the beautiful people. Norman was slender but broad chested, and he still had a full head of sandy hair streaked with platinum. His skin was tan, a little wrinkled, but who at their age cared about wrinkles. He wore stylish board shorts and liked to surf and snorkel. Hester spent more than one afternoon following the yellow crook of his breathing apparatus maneuvering around beyond the break, waiting for him to surface, swim in, and emerge dripping wet onto dry land. It was how Hester imagine Odysseus must’ve looked when he washed ashore in Phaeacia. The man was a shimmering specimen, and the last time Hester watched him toweling off, she surprised herself by fantasizing about following him home.

And another thing Hester liked about Norman was that, unlike a lot of other people, Norman actually looked right at her on the few occasions when she’d had the opportunity to talk with him, his merry eyes actually making contact with hers. Gossip had it that he’d been a plumber or construction worker or something manly like that in New Jersey. Hester wondered about that cause Norman really didn’t seem like the type to get his hands dirty.

Mr. Colter lived in his spacious unit on Bottle Palm Place with another man whose name Hester didn’t know yet. And there seemed to be some mystery to this arrangement. Hester had been introduced to Norman, though, by Eve and, question marks or not, immediately liked his affable smile and rugged good looks. Ironically, lately, all the good looking men seemed to be gay. Eve wasn’t so sure Norman was gay. She really didn’t know and there wasn’t any sure way to find out since Norman and his housemate seemed to pretty much keep to themselves.

Well, gay or not, in Hester’s opinion, Norman Colter was the handsomest old guy in the park, and that was including Al. Hester wasn’t finding her Irish-Italian stallion all that enticing these days.

Hester got in line behind Norman. His verbena cologne filled her nostrils. Somebody came out of the confessional, and Elizabeth went in. Norman turned and smiled at Hester warmly, and the thought popped into her head,
if I do leave Al, I want Norman to want me.

Elizabeth came out of the confessional and left without kneeling down in a pew to say penance. Norman went in. Hester wasn’t purposely trying to listen, but some words reached her ears. She thought she heard “computer porn,” but she wasn’t sure. Whoever said it could’ve been saying, “other morn” or something like that. If it was Norman or the priest, she couldn’t say, the voice that spoke was muffled.

Then Norman came out, and Hester went in.

As soon as she blurted out her most grievous offense, Hester knew she’d made a mistake trying to confess; but the past kept pounding away at her, and she thought being forgiven for her iniquities would enable her move on. She barely got the words out when the priest rudely interrupted.

“And so you’re tellin’ me a terrible t’ing, you are.” She recognized the Irish brogue of Al’s favorite priest, Father O’Hannon. “I regret to tell ya, they’ll be no forgiv’n ya, no absolution, not from this priest nor any fine servant of God in the holy parish of Saint Maximillian’s. You can count on that, can’t you now?”

Hester mumbled, “Yes, Father. Sorry, Father. I just thought…”

“Don’t go tryin’ to t’ink anyt’ing. Go on your way now and curse the day you sold your soul to the devil by doing such a t’ing to a poor helpless unborn child.”

Hester never heard of anyone being denied absolution. Stunned and mortified, she left the confessional, and knelt several rows behind Norman. Her face was on fire. She buried it in her hands and prayed to the Virgin.
Will I never be forgiven? My God, I was young, impulsive, terrified to not do what…
Hester heard the doors at the back of the church open and close. She looked up, Norman was gone. The door of the confessional was opening. Hester couldn’t get out of the church fast enough.

A week later Hester, still agonizing over the priest’s refusal to give her absolution, still angry that the man robbed her of the comfort she would’ve derived from knowing God forgave her, was more of an emotional mess than she’d ever been. She hadn’t even gotten to her other sins, to what she’d done to Nina. Praying, a practice which had always given her peace, became impossible.

Al had gone on an overnight fishing trip with guys from the Billiard Club, so in an attempt to keep from slitting her wrists or drinking Drain-o, she put on her swimsuit and went to the beach. It was already after four and overcast. The water was rough, and the sand full of broken shells, but Hester went out where the waves lifted her off her feet. She remembered tomorrow was Valentine’s Day; she hadn’t gotten Al a card, and she wasn’t planning on running out anywhere to get one.
I’ll make him one,
she thought,
Happy Valentine’s Day, from Hester (your wife with the eternal black mark on her soul). Ha…
So this would be the first time since they were married, she didn’t give him a card.

The height of the waves doubled and the wind shifted to the east, but Hester stayed in the water until she was exhausted. An undercurrent pulled her far north of Pleasant Palms’ beach. She had to walk nearly a mile to get to back. After showering and putting on her pajamas, she picked up Anthony Trollope’s
The Macdermots of Ballycloran
and began to read. Hester was assigned the novel in college, but only skimmed the six hundred and eighty some pages and relied on the Cliffs Notes to write her paper. Reading it now would amend that minor falsehood, at least.

Soon she was wrapped up in the troubles of Thaddeus and Feemy, and forgot her own. But the dialogue was Irish like the voice of the priest, so Hester put the book down and tried to fall asleep. She listened to Chet’s too-loud television—
didn’t he realize how close the trailers were?
—and the murmur of the ocean beyond until she gave up and put on a pot of coffee. It was still dark, but she filled her mug and went down to the news stand in her pajamas and bought a
Palm Beach Post
. She sat in Al’s La-Z-Boy and flipped open the paper.

“Priest Arrested, Charged with Embezzlement of Millions”—the headline took Hester’s breath away. Below it was a photograph of Saint Maximillian’s Church and Father O’Hannon.
Well, I’ll be damned
, she thought. He was accused of skimming cash from the weekly collections for several years. The police estimated the amount to be in the hundreds of thousands. He owned a condo in Ireland and one in Las Vegas. He kept women, young women in both places and possibly a few illegitimate children. The police were checking records. Father O’Hannon denied everything, claimed he was framed, and blamed the missing funds on the parish council.

Hester clicked on the local news. Channel Seven had an exclusive interview with one of the parishioners. Channel Twelve had on a spokesperson from the bishop’s office. Channel Ten was interviewing an altar girl.

Hester sat back and felt the hand of God, or maybe it was the hand of the Blessed Virgin, hovering nearby. Inside her head she heard a voice whisper,
you are forgiven.

Ten minutes later she fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake up until Al came home with two king mackerels and one wahoo, filleted and sealed in Ziploc bags. Sunburned and smelly, he stood between Hester and the television, stretching his arms wide, then wider, showing how big the fish were. Behind him the set was still on, and the evening news was just starting. Between his legs she saw a close-up of O’Hannon trying to shield himself from the camera.

So it wasn’t a dream
, she thought, and it brought a smile to her face which Al must have thought was for him because he bent and kissed her.

Thirty-On
e

Hester was in her classroom shuffling things around on the top of her desk, fretting, yet again, about how she’d used and abused poor Theo Ottinger those many years ago just to make Al jealous. It had been over a decade since she’d come onto him, and even though Theo had married and had had a couple of cute kids, she still caught him staring at her with what she thought was lust. She hated it, but she’d brought it on herself so it was creepy and guilt-inducing all at once.

Shame on her, but, thank God, Theo hadn’t been fired.

Hester sighed a sigh of relief and began stapling handouts together when Nina Tattoni appeared in her doorway. She had on a tight, almost mid-riff T-shirt and even tighter jeans. Her hair, the color of peanut shells, was pulled up on top of her head in a frizzy ponytail. The skinny fifteen year old stood in the doorway of Hester’s classroom looking more like a ten year old, except for her large breasts and the silver ring in her navel that pulled Hester’s eyes reluctantly to the gap of flesh between her garments.

“I gotta tell you something, Mrs. M.”

Hester looked from Nina’s bare abdomen to her face. “Okay, Nina. Come in.”

Nina shuffled her way over to Hester’s desk and stood picking the chipped polish off one thumbnail with the other. “Well, you know when we finished reading
To Kill a Mockingbird
together. No, I mean, when
I
finished reading
To Kill a Mockingbird
to you?”

“Yes?”

“Well, remember, I told you it was the best book I ever read?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I lied.”

“I see. And what did you lie to me about?”

“About it being the best book I ever read. What I should’ve said was that it was the only book I ever read.”

“Really? I never would’ve guessed,” Hester said. “Quite frankly, you did an excellent job for never having read a book before.”

“Hell, I can read, Mrs. Murphy.” Nina looked up at her teacher.

“Watch your language, Nina.”

“But it’s true. I can read. It’s just that I never sat down and read a whole book.”

“Why not?”

“Because…I guess, because of the way things were.”

Hester wanted to get home early to catch Oprah’s book club show with Toni Morrison. She stayed awake half the night rereading
Beloved
, but Nina seemed on the verge of telling Hester something important, and the girl’s eyes glossed over like brown sea glass and tugged at Hester’s heartstrings.

“Alright, Nina, sit down and tell me about the way things were.”

Nina sank into the chair next to Hester’s desk, leaned back, and tucked her thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans, which resulted in her inadvertently pulling them down enough that Hester found herself looking at a few strands of Nina’s dark pubic hair. But Nina seemed oblivious about how much of her body was showing.

“I watched T.V., Mrs. M., watched it all the time when my mom was working so I never really read whole books by myself then. But I knew how to read because when I was real little, my mom was always home. I think we were on welfare or something. My mom and I did everything together then, and she was always reading to me. But she got this really important job at the Twin Towers. She was a lawyer or a judge. I forget which one. But she got real busy and had to work a lot of nights, too. I watched T.V. because it made me feel like I wasn’t so alone, I guess.”

It was like someone had opened the floodgate inside of Nina, and she talked and talked and told Hester her whole sad story.

The high rise in Queens where her mom and she had lived was a terrible place, and Nina wasn’t allowed to go out of their apartment without her mother. Nina never disobeyed, because she was scared to death of the hallways that reeked of urine and trash, and where men lurked in dark corners.

Nina had a few friends at school, but none came to the apartment, so she really couldn’t call them friends. She didn’t really know what it was like to have a real friend. All she had was her mom. Then day her mom went to work early in the morning and never came home. Nina stayed in the apartment and watched the Towers implode, over and over again. After eight days, a woman Nina had never seen before, knocked on the door and said she was Nina’s aunt. She had papers to prove it and was taking Nina to her home in a place called Moretown, New Jersey.

Hester was more than a little upset by Nina’s story. Nina had been Hester’s student now for over two months, so why hadn’t Hester been informed by Nina’s guidance counselor or Mr. Heck or even Al that the girl had been orphaned by the 9/11 attack? It seemed Nina didn’t know what happened to her mother, didn’t know this aunt who had somehow gotten custody of her. It was a heart-wrenching situation, a lot for a fifteen year old to handle.

Hester started to reach toward Nina to pat her on the shoulder, but let her hand drop on the desk. She’d been conditioned not to make physical contact with her students, but Nina, who was struggling to hold back her tears, unhooked her thumbs from the belt loops of her jeans, leaned forward, grabbed Hester’s hand.

“Mrs. M, it’s just awful. I miss my mom so much, and I hate my aunt. She’s hardly ever home, but when she is, she’s horrible to me. She hollers at me and curses and never lets me do anything, or she doesn’t talk to me and acts like I’m not even there. She’s not anything like my mom. I don’t even think she’s my aunt.”

“I’m sure she is, dear, and I’m sure she’s doing her best to look after you.” Hester was trying to gently extricate her hand from Nina’s grip, but the girl began to cry and only tightened it and pressed her teacher’s hand to her warm chest. Hester, uncomfortable with where this was going, said more sternly than she meant to, “Calm down, Nina. I know you’ve been through something terrible, but I’ll help you work it out.”

Nina eyes brimmed with tears. She let go of Hester’s hand, hugged herself, bent over, and cried harder. Her shoulders heaved. Hester watched the girl, feeling both pity, and misgiving.

Is this a kid who’s been through hell, or a little actress who wants some attention?

Though they’d spent a good deal of time together, Hester wasn’t sure. The teenager seemed to have no substance. She was, Hester realized now, whatever Hester wanted her to be. Nina was like a hollow chocolate bunny, a thin shell of sweetness with nothing inside.

Nina took a deep breath, and in one swift motion leaned forward and grabbed Hester’s thighs. Her hands felt like the small hot claws of a frightened animal. It was as though no boundaries existed between them, and Hester wondered how she’d let Nina touch her again. This was the kind of thing that if anyone saw, anyone like Janine Apgar, it could be blown out of proportion, totally misconstrued. Something like this could be a teacher’s downfall.

Hester peeled Nina’s hands off her thighs and held them. Nina resisted, sobbing, “Work it out? Mrs. M, how?”

Hester stood up and Nina did too, her head barely came to Hester’s collarbone.

“Nina, listen to me.” Hester’s voice was firm. “You’re in Sourland High now, you’re safe, and I’ll see what I can do to help you. Maybe I can talk with your aunt and try to get her to go a little easy on you.”

“No, please, you can’t tell my aunt I told you anything about her. You can’t,” she pleaded.

Hester stepped back from Nina. The girl’s eyes were red from crying, her nose was wet, and her mascara was all over her face. Hester thought,
God, she looks pathetic; but what more can I do?

And, as if in answer, Nina threw her arms around Hester and hugged her tightly. Hester smelled the cloying scent of Nina’s mango shampoo and felt Nina’s tears dampening her new beige sweater. Hester kept her arms down, her hands at her sides. But the girl’s neediness was palpable. Reluctantly at first, Hester put her arms around Nina. Their bodies against each other grew warm, and Hester was surprised to find herself really hugging Nina, hard. They embraced for what seemed to Hester an eternity, until Nina stood on her toes and whispered in Hester’s ear, “You won’t tell my aunt, Mrs. M, will you?”

“No, Nina, I won’t. Don’t worry, dear, I won’t.” As Hester felt Nina go soft in her arms, she remembered a line from Robert Browning. It went something like, our interest’s on the edge of dangerous things….