The File on Angelyn Stark (21 page)

I don’t know what I feel.

“Now that it’s out—now that you’re talking about this, Angelyn—I’m going to support you. We’ll do things the right way.” I’m thinking through three years of
stuff
.

“Say something.” Mom is staring.

“In Mr. Rossi’s class,” I say, “I did this report. He liked it. Charity stomped on it, and then she said she knew about Danny and me. That’s why I punched her.”

Mom pulls out my desk chair and sits. “How would that girl know?”

“I told another friend back when it was happening. Jacey. She must have told Charity.”

“But that’s good! Jacey could come with us and tell the police.”

“No, Mom. Those girls don’t really like me. They think I’m trash. And—they think you are.”

“I know what people think. I don’t let it stop me. You shouldn’t either.”

“I’m not asking Jacey. No way.”

“You know,” Mom says, “it wasn’t Mr. Rossi or me who pulled you from that class. Charity’s mother asked for that. She didn’t want her little darling competing.”

His hands, pulling me off Charity. His voice, hard. What he said:

“Let’s go.”

Something else:

“She isn’t worth it.”

“Is Mr. Rossi all right?”

Mom sits back. “Is he all right? Worry about
this
, Angelyn. Worry about us.”

“I might have got him in trouble.” I shake my head at her expression. “I called him something bad. I said it in front of everyone.”

“What?” she says.

“Something he didn’t deserve.”

Mom studies me. “What happened—for real—between you and Mr. Rossi?”

“Nothing. For real. Mr. Rossi didn’t go there.”

Our eyes hold. I look away.

“Is that what he taught you?” Mom asks.

“Yeah.” My voice is thick.

“I heard he’s taking some time off.”

I sit up, icy-shower awake. “Mr. Rossi is? Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s not my concern. Or yours.”

I twist in bed, wanting to do—something. Say something, to someone who’ll hear.

Mom checks the clock. “I’ve got to try to sleep. We both have to be fresh for the morning.”

She turns at the door. “So, you see—I would have thrown Danny out if I could. I would have asked you about him
if I could
. Angel, I couldn’t. You get that, don’t you?”

“Angel,” I say. “You called me that when I was little.”

“Yes,” Mom says. With a smile. “Things will be better here without him. You’ll see.”

Sick, frozen smile.

I clear my throat. “Do you really think I have a million chances, Mom?”

She nods. “You can make something of yourself. Like I did.”

“I will leave to do that,” I say. “Like you did.”

Mom’s smile deflates. “You’re finishing high school, Angelyn.”

“I’ll finish. I’m gone after that.”

She straightens, a hand to the doorframe. “You hold to that. You make your own life.”

I look at her steadily. “I will.”

“Nine a.m.,” Mom says, her face in profile. “We’re going to the cops.”

At eight a.m. she’s still asleep. I’m on the landing outside the kitchen, on the phone to Steve.

He squints at me. “I wish you’d say where we’re going.”

“You said you’d do this,” I remind him.

Steve grunts.

“And you wouldn’t ask questions.”

We pass the elementary school where I went. Nathan went. Not Steve. I didn’t know him then.

“Thanks for doing this,” I say.

He nods. “Jacey was there when you called. She said to tell you hey.”

“Tell her—tell her
nothing
.”

Steve looks over. “Charity’s out, you know.”

“Good,” I say.

He chuckles.

I don’t smile. “I’m done with them.”

We start onto the country road. I flip the visor. A bright fall day, the light more white than gold.

“I was thinking,” Steve says. “We could try something new.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“We could go out like other people do.”

I check him. “What other people?”

“
Most
other people. I’d take you to the movies, bowling, whatever. It wouldn’t just be seeing each other at school.”

The old hurt flares. “You didn’t want any of that the time I asked.”

Steve says, “You mean when I was at your house for the first time ever, and we’d been together a year?”

I lift a shoulder. “There were reasons for that.”

“I had my reasons too, that night. I didn’t know what you were after.”

“You only knew what
you
wanted,” I say.

“Angelyn, let’s don’t fight. It’s good you called me. That’s a start.”

“I needed a ride.” Steve winces. “I didn’t know anyone else who’d drive me. I thought, maybe, you’d want to do a friend a favor.”

“I did,” he says. “I do.”

“Steve, all you cared about before was getting in me. What changed?”

“I keep trying to tell you. I didn’t know—I couldn’t do without you.”

“Oh,” I say.

“We could find a way to be together,” he says. “We could find a way for both of us.”

“There would always be them,” I say. “Your friends.”

“Forget them! I’m talking about us.”

I turn to the window. “Everything’s together. You know it is.”

“I’d stand up for you, Angelyn. I swear I would. Things would be
different
. We’d make them different.”

In quiet I watch the passing scene, remembering that first trip with Mr. Rossi. The second one with Nathan where I couldn’t see a thing.

“You can’t forget I left that dog,” Steve says with lowered voice.

The trees are thinning, the houses coming through.

“Hell, my dad told me to shoot it. I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” I sound a million miles off.

“You want to be alone,” Steve says. “Alone without anyone. You really do.”

I nod. “I want to try things on my own.”

“I want to be with you, Angelyn. Yeah. And know you. Wouldn’t you want me—if things were like that?”

“No, Steve.” I look at him. “Too much happened.”

“Too much, huh?” His voice is strained.

“I don’t mean to hurt you.”

“Hey, I’m all right,” he says.

I turn back to the window. “Around the next corner, I think.”

I tell Steve to park on the roadside. He pulls in past the driveway, under a cluster of oaks.

“I won’t be long,” I say.

“Okay.”

Outside I stand in a tangle of weeds, a hand on the side of the truck.

Steve switches the radio on. Country music.

I walk around. “Hey.”

He looks at me, no expression.

“Are you going to wait for me?” I ask. “I get it if you don’t want to. I can walk back. But I want to know if you’re going to be here or not.”

“I’m waiting for you, Angelyn,” Steve says. “Friends don’t leave.”

The driveway is rutted. Not easy to walk. I stay to the side like I did in the dark, scuffing browned oleander petals and slippery oak leaves. Gravel crackles underneath, noisy to me like popping bubble wrap. I listen for Dolly, expecting her. I only hear myself.

Around the turn to Mr. Rossi’s place, I stop, look, and listen hard. His car is in the detached garage. Dolly’s leash is on the lead, but she’s not on it. The house is closed and quiet.

“Dolly?” I say. Scared, a little.

Faintly, I hear a sound like
clip clip
. Metal on metal.

The pool is covered, a slick blue vinyl throwing back sun. I shade my eyes, passing. He’s buzzed the lawn.

I call her: “Dolly!”

In the distance, an answering bark. I smile.

She comes running from behind the house, fur combed to feathery swirls along her belly.

My smile stretches. “Hey there!”

Dolly circles, wagging her body. I fold into the spiky grass, arms out. She climbs in and licks my chin. I hold her close. So warm and good.

“Angelyn?”

Mr. Rossi stands above. Sweaty, bits of brush stuck to his T-shirt and jeans.

“I was working out back,” he says. Then: “Why are you here?”

“Please,” I say. “Please don’t be mad.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Rossi says.

“I know.”

“It isn’t good for you or me that you’re here.”

I look at Dolly, curled in my lap. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Now I’ll have to ask you to leave,” he says.

I touch her silky ear. “I wanted to see if you were all right. Are you, Mr. Rossi?”

“Am I—?” He’s quiet. “Sure I am. How about you?”

“Oh. Suspended,” I say. “And other things.”

“We can’t be having this conversation.”

I raise my eyes. “Are you in trouble over me?”

Mr. Rossi says no.

“But—we’re both out of school today. Like you’re suspended too.”

“I said I’m all right.”

“I’m sorry for what happened in class.”

Mr. Rossi nods. “You know you have to go.”

I pet Dolly. “Maybe I could take her.”

“What? Take the dog?”

“You don’t want her. And, well, I do.”

Dolly licks my arm.

I see us at the frosty. Dolly, Steve, and me. I’m sharing my hamburger, and he’s flicking fries. Dolly snaps them from the air. We’re laughing
.

“How did you get here?” Mr. Rossi asks.

“Steve brought me. He’s out there.”

“Steve brought you. Coslow.”

“We’re not together,” I say. “Friends, sort of.”

Mr. Rossi rubs his neck. “So, if you walk out with this dog he dumped weeks ago—that’ll be okay?”

“Why not? She’d be mine.”

“It’s all right, then, with your folks? They told you,
Get a dog
?”

“My stepdad moved out. My mom? She owes me.”

“That’s where you want to bring Dolly? To a place your mom ‘owes’ you?”

I lean over her. “Dolly would be
mine
. Not my mom’s or anyone else’s.”

Mr. Rossi says, “She’s found her place here.”

Face hidden, I frown.

“What’s best for the animal? Ask yourself that.”

“Mr. Rossi, I’d treat her like gold! Don’t you know I would?”

“I know that you’d want to.” He crouches. “I’m not being fair. I want the dog.”

“
You
do?”

He nods to the porch. “Come on. We can talk.”

I sit with him on the steps, sipping lemonade he’s brought out. Dolly stretched on the cool concrete below.

“She’s worked out great,” Mr. Rossi says. “She’s a good fit. My son likes her.”

“Your son?”

“Camden was here this weekend.” He says it like sunlight.

“Oh.” I stare at my feet, lined up with his.

“Things are different for me now. Better.”

“You mean with you and your wife?”

“With everything,” Mr. Rossi says.

“How can they be,” I ask, “after what happened at school?”

“The school is not my life.”

“But—they made you take time off.”

“The time off was my decision.”

“Mr. Rossi, you don’t have to protect me. I called you—
that
—in front of everyone. I want to make it right. I’ll talk to any of them—Miss Bass, the principal. I want to tell the truth about you.”

He sets his glass down. “Angelyn, I don’t need you to do that. I’m a big boy.”

“But not
a freakin’ perv
. You never were.”

Our eyes catch.

“Someone in your life was,” Mr. Rossi says.

“Yes,” I say.

“I wondered. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. He’s gone now.”

Mr. Rossi looks off. “I am sorry. I might have helped you.”

“You did help me. You so did.”

“If that’s true, I’m glad.”

“It’s what you
didn’t
do, Mr. Rossi.”

“I crossed some lines,” he says. “Things got rough here for a while.”

“Lines,” I say. “Like, saving Dolly? Letting me stay over? Taking me to see Mrs. Daly?”

“I got to be more than a teacher to you,” he says. “I saw you as more than a student.”

“Is that bad?” I ask. “Is it always bad? You weren’t like him. You never used me.”

Mr. Rossi sighs. “I’m taking the time to figure some things out. About teaching, about me, and my family.”

“Okay,” I say because I can’t think what else.

He shifts around, his back to the rail. “You know, you weren’t wrong in the classroom.”

I stretch my legs. “But I shouldn’t have hit her.”

Dolly lifts her head, watching.

“Right,” Mr. Rossi says. “You put the outcome in her hands.”

“I have to sign some stuff before they’ll let me back. They’re going to be watching me. Everyone is.”

“Probably,” he says. “Work through it. You’ve got a brain, Angelyn. A good mind.”

“I’ll work through it. I know I’ll never have another teacher like you.”

“Be a student,” Mr. Rossi says. “You’ll be surprised what can happen when you go in thinking like that.”

I nod, hoping he’s right.

Mr. Rossi dusts his knees. “Well—”

I’m not ready for the end. “You and your wife are okay now?”

His face clouds. “For Camden’s sake, we’re working on it.”

“Will you tell me, Mr. Rossi? Why was she so pissed?”

He looks at me. “I spent time with someone I shouldn’t have.”