The Word of a Child (12 page)

"No, I've succeeded in hiding up here." She put
her hands on her hips and nodded at the second desk he was pulling into place.
"The janitor will do that."

He carefully aligned it with the others anyway. "Are
you leaving?"

"As soon as I gather some papers to grade
tonight."

"May I walk you to your car?"

So formal! Mariah eyed him with suspicion. "Think of my
reputation," she said, only half kidding.

Did he actually look crestfallen? "Being seen with me
would blacken it, huh?"

"No." She straightened a pile of papers
unnecessarily, squaring the corners. "At least among the faculty, it seems
to be common knowledge that I have inside knowledge. Maybe a secretary in the
office talked. Or, heck, maybe people have noticed how much you've been hanging
around up here."

He moved another desk. "Are you a pariah now,
too?"

"I can't tell," she said frankly. "I fled
into hiding before I could get a real sense."

He moved his shoulders restlessly and prowled the room.
"What do the kids think?"

"That the idea of an old guy like Mr. Tanner making up
to one of them is gross." She frowned, her hands going still in the act of
gathering student papers. "You know, I couldn't really tell whose side
they're coming down on. Gerald is generally known as funny and pretty
nice…"

"And he has those cool programs."

She smiled ruefully. "Right. While Tracy is popular
only with a certain segment of the kids. Some of the others think she's…"

"Slutty?"

Mariah made a face. "What an awful word."

"But one suggested to me by a girl I interviewed."

She sighed. "Tracy does come across that way, I'm
afraid. Well, I suppose you noticed."

The detective crossed his arms. "Actually, no.
Remember, both times I've talked to the girl, she was at home. The first time,
she was wearing jeans and some little T-shirt—skimpy, but all the girls wear
ones that look a size too small to me. Her hair was in a ponytail, she had on a
little makeup…" He shrugged. "Just a regular teenage girl. The second
time, her mom said she didn't feel very well, and Tracy came out in a bathrobe,
face scrubbed clean. She could have been ten years old."

"Is she okay?"

"Tracy?" In his roving, he paused to glance out
the window. "I don't know," he admitted. "Tension seems to be
seething between her and her mother. Maybe it always is. She's thirteen, right?
Isn't that the teenage version of the Terrible Twos?"

"So it's reputed to be," Mariah admitted. "I
kind of like kids this age."

"Why?" he asked, studying her. Since he seemed
genuinely to want to know, she answered.

"They're half child, half adult, gawky and graceful,
naive and wise, foolish and sensible, all big feet and skinny legs and
exaggerated posturing, but you can see in each of them the promise of who he or
she will become."

"The English teacher speaks," he mocked, a smile
in his eyes.

"The English teacher?"

"Who he or she will become."

"Oh." He made her sound so pedantic. Warmth crept
into her cheeks. "I particularly dislike mixed singular and plural."

"Just kidding." His smile was friendly. "I
particularly admire the proper use of language."

Her heart did a funny hop and skip. She said the first thing
that came to mind. "I'm, uh, ready to go."

"To go?" His brows rose. "Oh. Yeah. Sure. Can
I walk you?" He lifted one hand. "No, wait.
May
I walk
you?"

"Yes, you may," she said primly.

His smile teased her. "Kids are gone by this time,
anyway. No one will see us."

She knew better but, feeling strangely light-headed, didn't
care. What did she have to hide? She'd done no more than any teacher was
required by law and conscience to do, however she might agonize over her
decisions.

Mariah closed her desk drawer, swung her purse strap over
her shoulder and lifted her tote bag full of papers.

"Let me carry that." His tone was polite but
determined. "I'll look like a cad if I let you lug that down all those
flights of stairs."

"I thought no one was going to notice us." Good
heavens, was she teasing him? Detective Connor McLean, the man who had
shattered her serene world?

He took the bag, his knuckles brushing her hand. "Hey,
I'm a cop. 'Always be prepared,' is supposed to be our motto."

When the classroom door clicked shut behind them, Mariah
realized how uncomfortably close Connor stood. Although he wasn't touching her,
the hairs on her nape stirred when he let out the soft exclamation.

This was insane. She was painfully aware of him as a man.
Her hand where he'd inadvertently touched her felt hot and tingly, as if she'd
burned herself. The smile glinting in his eyes had created a fizz of bubbles in
her chest, anticipation and excitement for something that
could not be.
Even
assuming he was … well, interested, she could never, ever forget how she'd met
him, the way he'd unrelentingly driven doubts between her and Simon as if they
were crude, pointed stakes in the ground.

She heard her own harsh whisper.
You believed her.

Yes.

He knew no more now than he had then, but he still wouldn't
say,
Maybe I was wrong.

Oh, how she wanted him to be wrong!

Except, if her doubts were erased, then all she would be
left with was her own apparent inability to feel the kind of faith and love a
man deserved from his wife.

Fear for Zofie, or despise herself. Two unhappy choices,
brought to her in a surprise visit by Detective Connor McLean.

She could not be attracted to him.
She wouldn't let herself be. Surely she possessed that much
self-discipline.

Careful not to back into him, she stepped aside and turned.
"Shall we?" she said briskly.

The hall was empty, the banks of lockers closed. The
linoleum floor still gleamed from the weekend polish. Her heels clicked on it,
but Detective McLean walked lightly.

A few doors down, light and a masculine laugh spilled from
Rod Cabot's classroom. He and a new young Social Studies teacher were
conducting a flirtation, Mariah knew. She had felt a few pangs of … not
jealousy, exactly, but wistfulness. It would be nice to be in love again.

Maybe that's all that was wrong with her today. Three years
without a date was a long time. She hadn't been interested when a few men had
hinted that they might be. But if her body was reacting this way just because
she was alone with a well-built man who had an oddly sweet smile, it was time
she consider reentering the dating world.

Relieved, she said, "Back to Tracy. She does dress a
little differently than most of the girls. Skirts shorter, shirts tighter, more
makeup… She acts more sexually aware than her peers. I assumed she was
imitating her mother, who also tends to wear miniskirts and three-inch heels
even when the other mothers are in jeans." Tracy's mother also wore her
bleached hair teased high and her skimpy tank tops cut low.

"She's a cocktail waitress down at the Customs House
Inn," he said, as if in answer to a question.

"I know."

She felt his glance.

"I asked."

They reached the third-floor landing. A thunder of footsteps
warned them to step aside. A kid tore past them going up, his face red and his
breath coming in gasps.

McLean
turned
to watch. "A gunman in the basement?"

"I'd guess he forgot something in his locker.
Seventh-graders are unlucky enough to be assigned lockers on the fourth
floor."

"You work your way down with seniority?"

"Exactly."

They continued down the broad, polished linoleum steps with
a peeling abrasive strip on each meant to prevent slips.

"I heard you were asking about the dance last
week," Mariah said. "Do you mind telling me why?"

Voices rose from the stairwell below.

"Let me wait until we get outside," he said.

They reached the heavy doors on the second floor that opened
outside to a grand porch and wide steps that curved in two directions. The air
was damp but cool, typical for a Pacific Northwest autumn day.

Students still loitered on the sidewalk and narrow stretch
of lawn between the building and the street, some waiting for rides, others
hanging out with friends, some skateboarders doing forbidden jumps off the
curb. The two adults were alone on the porch.

"Rumor has it," Connor McLean said, "that a
high schooler—maybe even a junior—sneaked into the last middle school dance to
see Tracy. A four year age difference—that's a big gulf in sexual
sophistication. I'm wondering whether he didn't come for more than a
dance."

"You mean, she had sex, but not with Gerald,"
Mariah said slowly.

"Exactly." He shrugged. "Could be it was
consensual, but then she panicked thinking she might be pregnant. Or it could
be she thought if she sneaked away with him, they'd make out, only he pushed it
further."

Mariah ran her hand along the rough stone cap on the
railing. "But if he raped her, why lie?"

"I was hoping you could tell me." He grimaced.
"You understand teenage culture better than I do. So here's my question—if
this junior is popular, a guy all the other girls think is hot, and suddenly
Tracy claims he raped her, what would the reaction be among students?"

"You mean, would 'snitching' be social suicide?"

"Exactly."

She thought. "I don't know. I wish I could honestly say
every single kid would be repulsed by a boy who would rape a seventh-grade
girl. The truth is, teenagers still have some pretty old-fashioned ideas about
sex and sexuality and even gender roles. I can just hear some of them saying,
'She was asking for it,' because she dresses the way she does and because she
agreed to go behind the gym with him, assuming that's your scenario."

His gaze never left her. "Would it make a difference
whether he's popular or not?"

"I don't know that, either. But frankly, I doubt a
really popular junior in high school would bother with a seventh-grader—
that
might
be social suicide."

"In my day—" his tone was dry "—a certain set
of boys kept track of how many virgins they'd had. You might have to hunt young
for that."

She shuddered. "What a thought! And, yes, of course
it's possible. Have you asked Tracy about the dance?"

"I'm looking for ammunition first."

Her mind jumped. "And why Gerald?"

"Because she genuinely does hate him," the
detective said reasonably. "What a chance to kill two birds with one
stone! Get rid of a teacher you detest, and have an excuse parents and authorities
will accept for maybe being pregnant."

Mariah gazed sightlessly at the few students still hanging
around the front of the building. "Does she hate him just because he's
giving her a bad grade?"

He hesitated. "I'm getting the feeling there's a little
more to it than that. At this point, I'm just guessing."

She hugged herself. The day
was
cold.
She had no reason to feel as if a ghost had brushed by her. Sure, she was a
teacher, too, but she'd never had a student actually hate her.

Had she?

"Kids aren't the only ones who make fun of someone to
get a laugh. Teachers do it, too. Or they sit in judgment on the basis of a
narrow ideological focus."

She turned her head. "You're saying…"

He held up both hands. "I'm not saying yet. It's too
soon."

"You told the principal it could take weeks."