“Tell me the story,” I said.
“While you film me?”
“Can I? This can be your audition.”
“For what?”
I couldn’t resist. “The role of my corrupt teacher. Of the third kind.”
He gave me an electric look. Even through the cheap phone camera it made my nerves tingle, lightning lacing up my arms. Our gazes met above the screen.
“I thought I already had the part.”
“Not until I get you on the casting couch.”
His eyes crinkled, his face folding into embarrassed laughter. “You’re a predator. I’m pretty sure you’re the one corrupting me.”
I sat behind my phone, relishing this. My power over him. The strange dynamic of me as the observer, him the observed.
“Why don’t you put that away?” he said.
“Why?”
“So you can corrupt me.”
I put it away.
“You owe me that story,” I said.
He tilted my face. Kissed me lightly on the mouth, then along my jaw, following it to my ear. My eyes half-shut, drifting to the carnival lights in the distance. The hot breath in my ear was unbearable, a chemical pulse straight to my spine.
Something rumbled out on the road.
We stiffened, listening. A car going past.
“Kids come out here,” I whispered, thinking of Wesley.
Evan took my hands and pulled me to my feet. Scooped up the blanket. I walked my bike toward his car on the road shoulder.
“I can’t last until Thursday,” I said. “I need to see you.”
He gave me that regretful wince, but it had become much less regretful lately, more longing.
“Rent another room,” I said. “At a different motel. I’ll pay for it.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. This is as much mine as it is yours.”
We stared at each other over my bike. Far down the road, two red snake eyes winked in the darkness.
“Okay.” His voice was a little strange. “When should I pick you up?”
“As soon as the last bell rings.”
He reached over and lifted my face and kissed me, so intensely I let the bike fall against him. This was an old-time, black-and-white movie kiss, with the orchestra swelling in my chest, hot tungsten lamps carving out our shadows. My bones turned to air, nothing holding me up but the fierceness of my desire. God, I just wanted to get into that car with him. Forget this whole f**ked-up life and disappear somewhere together. I had to push him away, fight for my breath. Too much. I gave him an agonized look. When he spoke, his voice was guttural.
“I can’t hold on to you. You’re like that shooting star. Just a trail of fire in my hands.”
And the Oscar goes to Evan Wilke, for putting the first fine, hairline crack in the ruby of my heart.
Before Nan died, she set aside a small nest egg for me. $6,000 sitting in a trust fund, waiting for me to turn eighteen. For your future, she said, with a guilty tone that was clearly also an apology: Sorry you were born to my daughter. I made a promise to myself that I’d use it for college.
I ditched Wesley at lunch and got an off-campus pass and biked downtown to the bank. I wasn’t going to pay the ATM fee at school, and I didn’t want anyone—especially Wesley—seeing me take out money.
Key skill while having an affair with your teacher: discretion.
The bright-eyed, bushy-tailed teller made squirrel noises at me.
“I need to make a withdrawal.”
Squeak, squeak.
I slid my bank card through the reader.
Squeak.
I pushed my ID under the window.
“Oh, you’re Maise,” the squirrel said.
“Right. Who else would I be?”
Puffy-cheeked smile. “Well, it’s a joint account.”
“With who?”
“Yvette?”
Mom.
I waited as the squirrel counted ten twenties with her twitchy little paws, then said, “Can you take Yvette off the account?”
“Unfortunately, no. It was opened for a minor. But you could start a new account.”
I had all of ten minutes to get back to school. “Maybe some other time.”
Squeak squeak.
As I walked out, tucking the wad of bills into my pocket, I suddenly felt my grandmother watching me withdraw my college money so I could shack up with my teacher. Jesus, when was the last time I’d actually felt ashamed of myself? I made two promises as I unlocked my bike.
One: I will replace this money before I go to college. Every cent.
Two: I will pay my own way with Evan, no matter what. I’m not a child. I’m an adult, in an unusual but no less adult relationship.
Key skill: denial.
Fast forward.
Wesley flicking my ear in the hall and tossing me an apple.
Me and Britt getting kicked out of the library for laughing too loudly at a boy giving us googly eyes.
Evan in his aviators, picking me up at the ghost town gas station.
Me in the motel office in borrowed sunglasses, renting a room.
And then just us.
Press play.
Urgency and need, my skin hot as tinfoil straight out of the oven, fingernails clawing his back. Him taking out a condom and me saying I’m on the pill and him saying, “I don’t want you to worry, ever,” and I agree because I just want to be f**ked. And I am. And then I can think again, a starving girl given her first meal in weeks.
Fast forward.
Trading life stories in our underwear on a motel bed.
Burgers and fries spread across the blanket and his laptop playing 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Evan doing the ending monologue from American Beauty and making me shiver.
Photos of us I take in the bathroom mirror: laughing at the camera, then his head turned to me, then mine to him.
Faster.
School days ending in motel rooms. Broken AC, humidity making the air cling like clear jelly. A thunderstorm releasing us from misery, and me running barefoot into the parking lot, screaming with crazed abandon. Evan taking my wet clothes off in the sudden chill of the room and getting into a warm shower with me. My hands unable to find purchase on his slick skin as he holds me against the wall and f**ks me with his finger, the tiles printing a graph onto my back.
Wesley saying his mom invited me over to Sunday dinner, even though I know it’s him.
Siobhan hugging me before I leave, and me stopping on a dark street to cry and smell her on my shirt.
Hiyam formally inviting us to her homecoming party.
Mr. Wilke and I talking to each other in class as if we’re just teacher and student, though our jokes are a little too familiar, our glances a little too intense.
Making out with him in his dark classroom during fourth period while kids walk past the locked door.
Wesley asking why I smell like men’s cologne.
Me listening to stupid sappy love songs nonstop, getting addicted to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Wedding Song.”
Another bank withdrawal, and me and Wesley applying for jobs together online.
Mom mercifully leaving me the f**k alone.
Finally, homecoming.
Siobhan said we’d regret missing the dance.
“It’s just a bunch of idiots trying to conceive illegitimate children,” I said.
“We’re not missing anything,” Wesley agreed. “Blood, fire, heads exploding. We can just watch Carrie.”
Which we did.
Besides, I thought, who would we go with?
Insane fantasy of me and Evan showing up together, blowing everyone’s mind.
At nine, Siobhan drove us to Hiyam’s house. “Watch each other’s drinks,” she said. “Don’t take any mysterious pills. Call me if you need anything.” Her eyebrows rose with droll disdain. “And tell this child’s parents they’re trying too hard.”
Hiyam’s house could’ve been airlifted from Beverly Hills. There was nothing like it within a hundred miles. It sat on half a dozen acres, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Inside was a brochure spread of flagstone paths, landscaped shrubs, illuminated accent pools. It took fifteen seconds of walking before we even saw the house, a pile of geometric debris.
“It looks like a parallelogram f**king an isosceles triangle,” I said.
Wesley snorted.
Light bled from every window, clear chardonnay yellow. Silhouettes swam across it. The music was a murky underwater pulse that grew clearer as we approached. Kids sprawled in the garden, laughing drunkenly, lurking in shadows in various states of undress. Despite myself, I felt a flare of excitement. It seemed all two hundred-odd members of our graduating class were here tonight.
I poked Wesley in the ribs. “Have your camera ready.”
“Always do.”
We walked through open French doors into the house.
Half the kids were still in formal wear, the rest in street clothes, like us—Wesley in a graphic tee and skater cargos, me in a babydoll top and skinny jeans. The deejay had some Hot 100 shit on at skullfuck volume. I couldn’t see much through all the skin and rayon and sweat, just flashes of onyx granite and oxblood leather, a cut-crystal punch bowl, platters of canapés. Every room flowed airily into another and people followed the circuit, moving, mingling. They were all sleepy smiles, shiny eyes, duckfaced girls making out with boys who had less hair on their face than I’d shaved off my legs, everyone drunk and dumb and happy.
We hit the drink table hard. A guy had smuggled in some Grey Goose and I slipped him a twenty and Wesley and I matched each other shot for shot, one two three four until he stepped back, looking dizzy.
“Lightweight,” I laughed.
“You’re trying to take advantage of me,” he said dubiously.
The room with the soundsystem was full of blacklights. When I glanced at Wesley he grinned, showing me moon eyes and a mouth full of glowing teeth. I closed my eyes and grinned back.
“Creepy,” he yelled in my ear.
The crowd split us for a moment, skeleton kids dancing with their arms in the air. The deejay spun some lame Ke$ha, but it was infectious. I slipped into the rhythm, let my body ride the music, vodka flooding my veins with sugar and fire. Wesley tried to sneak away and I caught him.
“I can’t dance,” he said.
“Neither can they.” I took his hand. “Just let yourself go.”
He was such a giant, it was hopeless. So I stayed close to him, and he faced me, and it worked. We were in our own little zone, surrounded by perfume and alcohol breath and damp young skin. A girl blew glitter in my face and instead of slugging her, I just laughed.
“This is so weird,” Wesley said when the song faded to the next.
“I know,” I said. “I feel like an actual kid.”
I grabbed his hand again and pulled him to the next room.
Hiyam was there, surrounded by her royal court of Mean Girls. She smiled and beckoned us over. Her subjects scattered like roaches when we neared.
“Having fun?” she said to me.
“I don’t know. Are we having fun, Wesley?”
Wesley stared at something across the room.
Hiyam’s feline eyes flicked to him, then to our clasped hands. I let go of him, suddenly self-conscious.
“Oh,” Hiyam said.
Jesus, awkward.
“I’ll catch you later,” Wesley muttered, slinking away.