Tom stopped in her open doorway and found his wife bent over a cardboard box, removing an armload of portfolios. Her backside was pointed in his direction; she was clad in blue denim stirrup pants and a red football jersey that nearly reached her knees. The sun fell in slices across her blond hair and her shoulders as she grunted and set the heavy stack of paper on a table. She pushed her hair back, jammed both fists into the hollows of her waist, and stretched backward. Observing her so—unaware she was being studied, working at the job she did better than any other teacher he knew, still trim, stylish, and pretty after eighteen years of marriage and two children—Tom experienced a sudden stab of fear that he might lose her.
“Claire?” he said, and she turned, smiling, at the sound of his voice. She was tan from a summer of golf. A pair of twisted gold earrings appeared richer for swaying against her golden skin.
“Oh, hi. How are things downstairs?”
“Still crazy.”
“Did you find the new English books yet?”
“Not yet. I’m still working on it.”
“They’ll show up someplace. They always do.”
The missing textbooks had lost all importance as Tom entered the room and shuffled to a halt before her.
“Claire, I’ve been thinking ...”
Her face clouded. “Tom, what’s wrong?”
He took her in his arms.
“What is it, Tom?”
“Let’s go out Saturday night, maybe even stay somewhere, just the two of us. Maybe we can get Dad to come over and stay with the kids.”
“Something is wrong!”
He could hear in her voice the sudden worry, feel a faint stiffness in her shoulders.
“I just needed this”—he drew back to see her face, holding her loosely by the sides of her neck—“and I think we both could use one night to ourselves before school starts and things get even crazier.”
“I thought we had an agreement—nothing personal in the school building.”
“We did, but I’m the principal and I can break the rules now and then if I choose.” He bent his head and kissed her with a more overt show of feeling than he sometimes displayed in their bedroom at home. He loved this woman in a way in which he’d at one time thought himself incapable of loving. Yes, he’d married her under duress and had harbored some deep resentment at that time, a young man fresh out of college with some footholds he’d wanted to gain before saddling himself with a wife and children. But she’d gotten pregnant and he’d done what at that time had been touted as “the honorable thing.” Love for him came only afterward, after she’d had Robby and he’d seen her mother him, then a year later Chelsea, and when, within two years, she’d returned to work and juggled both careers so admirably.
She was bright and hardworking, and they shared so much common ground—both of them being educators—that he couldn’t imagine being married to anyone else. They were good parents, too, having seen so many disastrous results of bad parenting right here in their own school. Divorce, abuse, alcoholism, neglect—they frequently sat in on conferences with parents of children who suffered because of such home situations. Consequently, Tom and Claire knew what built strong families; they talked about it, kept their own relationship strong and loving, and presented a unified front before their children in their decision making. They counted themselves lucky that so far, their methods and their overt love for their children had worked beautifully. The kids had turned out great.
Love Claire? Hell yes, he loved her. After all these years, and all their building, their relationship had become the fastness from which both of them operated their busy, rewarding lives.
A girl with long blond hair came around the doorway and stopped dead still at the sight of her principal kissing one of the English teachers. She smiled, dropped a shoulder against the door frame, crossed her arms and ankles, and rested the toe of one worn-out athletic shoe on the floor. Chelsea Gardner watched her mother’s hands spread on her father’s back and felt flooded by a sense of security and happiness. Though they openly showed affection at home, she’d never seen them do it here.
“I thought this school had a rule about necking in the halls.”
Their heads snapped around, but Tom’s hands remained at Claire’s back.
“Oh, Chelsea ... hi,” he said.
Chelsea peeled herself away from the door frame and approached them, grinning. “You could get a pink slip for that, you know. And haven’t I heard a thousand complaints about stuff like this, around the supper table? About all the gropers who push each other against the lockers and corner each other under the stairs?”
Tom cleared his throat. “I was inviting your mother away for the weekend. What would you think about that?”
“Away where?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to a bed-and-breakfast somewhere.”
Claire exclaimed, “A bed-and-breakfast! Oh, Tom, do you really mean it?”
Chelsea said, “I thought you didn’t go for that frilly stuff, Dad.”
“So did I,” Claire added, studying him curiously.
“Well, I just thought ...” Tom shrugged and released Claire. “I don’t know, you’re always after me. Maybe it’s time I tried it for once, because after this weekend, you know how crazy my schedule gets. Both of our schedules.”
Chelsea grinned. “Well, I think it’s a good idea.”
“I’ll ask Grandpa if he can stay at the house Saturday night.”
“Grandpa! Oh, come on, Dad, please ... we’re old enough to stay alone.”
“You know my feelings about parents’ leaving kids alone.”
She did. She’d heard about that around the supper table, too. Monday mornings at school were the busiest for police traffic, and much of it resulted from kids’ being left alone by their parents over the weekend. Besides, her grandpa was really okay.
“Yeah, I know,” Chelsea conceded. “Well, listen, whatever you decide about Grandpa is okay, I guess. But listen, you guys, I’m in sort of a hurry. I just stopped by here to get some money for a new pair of tennis shoes. These are fried.”
“How much?” Claire asked, heading for her desk to find her purse.
“Fifty dollars?” Chelsea asked hopefully, screwing up her face.
“Fifty dollars!”
“All of us cheerleaders are getting the same kind.”
It turned out both Tom and Claire had to pool their cash to come up with what Chelsea needed, but she left with the full fifty for which she’d asked.
At the door she brought herself up short, spun to face her parents, and said, smiling, “You know what? When I walked in here and found you two kissing, I had this really sensational feeling, like—wow, you know?—I’m the luckiest kid in the world because my mom and dad have really got it together, and nothing can ever go wrong with our family.”
Her words pierced Tom like a hot wire. He stared at the empty doorway after she’d gone. Let it be true, he thought, let nothing ever go wrong with our family.
But even as he willed it, he realized their troubles had already begun.
Two
At three o’clock that afternoon Tom walked onto the football field where the team was warming up. Kent Arens—prompt, Tom observed—was waiting on one of the lower bleacher seats.
Even before his suspicions were confirmed, Tom felt a rush of emotion at the sight of the boy rising—straight, sturdy, and strong—from the metal bench. It swept down upon him with a force he had not expected as he found himself unconsciously assessing the quality of Monica Arens’s parenting. First impressions indicated she’d done one hell of a job.
“Hello, Mr. Gardner,” Kent said.
“Hi, Kent.” It took an effort to speak and act calmly when his heart was clubbing so. “Did you talk to Coach Gorman yet?”
“No, sir, I just got here.”
“Well, come on ... let’s go flag him down.” They walked the sideline together, Tom captivated by the boy’s nearness, by Kent’s bare arm so close to
his own, by his vitality and honed young body. Merely walking beside him brought a rush of physical response not unlike that accompanying his earliest awareness of girls as sexual beings, though this was paternal, pure and simple. It had a wrenching pathos, being close to Kent, believing he was his son, convinced he was right when Kent had no idea about their relationship. Are you? Are you? The question battered his mind, relentless as a litany, along with others he’d want to ask if this turned out to be true.
What were you like as a child? Did you resent having no father? Did you ever wonder what I looked like? Where I lived? What I did? Did you have any father figure in your life? Did you wish for brothers and sisters? Were you always so polite and serious?
The repressed questions formed an ache in Tom’s throat as he spoke dutifully of other things.
“Pretty hard to make a move like this at the start of your senior year.”
“Yes, sir. But we’ve moved before, so I know I can adjust. Anyway, when you go to a new school you find out people are pretty nice about helping you out.”
“And going out for sports is certainly a good way to start looking for new friends. You mentioned other sports besides football.”
“Basketball and track in school. Tennis and golf away from school. In Austin we lived on a golf course, so it was pretty natural for me to give it a try.”
All were sports Tom himself had pursued at one time or another, though his life now left little time for leisure. He noted the mention of the golf course and concluded that Monica must have done quite well to provide them with an upper-class home. He found himself seized by a peculiar greed to learn all he could about the boy, and to find parallels between Kent and himself.
“Did you letter in basketball and track, too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I used to coach when I first started teaching,” he told Kent. “I think I have a pretty good eye for an above-average athlete. I’d be awfully surprised if Coach Gorman doesn’t give you a uniform.”
“I hope so.”
The truth was that as principal Tom had only to give the word that he wanted a student on a team for the deed to be done. In this case, the boy’s record, goals, and personality seemed to speak for themselves; he had little doubt Gorman would see that too.
They approached mid-field and watched the team doing ten-yard sprints combined with high knee lifts. Out among the red practice jerseys, the player wearing number twenty-two raised his arm and waved. Tom waved back and said, “My son, Robby.” The head coach caught sight of the principal and left the team to join him.
Bob Gorman was shaped like a butcher block with arms. He wore gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt, and a red baseball cap bearing the school initials, HHH, in white. When he stopped at the sideline he did so in a James Cagney stance, feet wide-set, his cannon-shaped arms arching away from his sides, too muscular to hang easy.
“Tom,” he said in greeting, simultaneously nodding at the boy and giving the bill of his cap an unnecessary reset.
“Coach, how's it going?”
“Not so bad. They’re a little rusty after vacation, but a few of them worked out all summer and really kept in shape.”
“Coach, this is a new transfer student, Kent Arens. He’s a senior this year and he wants to play football. I told him I’d bring him down and put the two of you together and let you take it from there. He’s lettered the last two years in Austin, Texas, and last year he made all-state. He wants to attend Stanford and study engineering, maybe on a football scholarship.”
The coach took a good look at the six-foot-two boy who towered over him. “Kent,” he said, extending his beefy hand.
“How do you do, sir.”
The assessment continued while the handshake ended.
“What do you play?”
“Running back.”
While the coach went on asking Kent questions, number twenty-two came jogging off the field and panted to a halt at the sideline.
“Hey, Dad,” Robby Gardner said breathlessly.
“Hi, Robby.”
“You gonna be around after practice? Chelsea took the car out shopping, so I haven’t got a ride home.”
“Sorry, I won’t be. I’ve ah”—Tom rubbed the underside of his nose with a knuckle—“I’ve got an errand to run.” He told himself it was an evasion, not a lie. Until he knew the truth about Kent Arens, some caution was necessary. “What about the school bus?”
“The dreaded school bus? No thanks. I’ll find a ride.” As Robby headed away Tom called, “Oh, Robby, just a minute.” It was a queer moment of muddled emotions, one in which Tom Gardner wondered if he was introducing his two sons to each other. Given the choice, he would have forgone the introduction altogether, but protocol demanded that as principal he make every effort to ease the incoming student into this new society in whatever way possible. “I want you to meet Kent Arens. He’s a senior, too, and he’s new here this year. Maybe you can introduce him around to some of your friends.”
“Sure, Dad,” Robby said, turning to assess the newcomer.
“Kent, this is my son, Robby.”
The two boys exchanged a self-conscious handshake. One was blond, the other dark. Tom resisted the temptation to stick around and compare them further. If his suspicion proved true, he’d undoubtedly spend too much time doing that in the future. “Well, Kent, I’ll leave you to the coach. Good luck.”
He gave the boy a smile, which was returned, before he left the field and headed for his car, passing on the way the aquamarine Lexus owned by Monica Arens. Its presence gave him a jolt not unlike that he’d experienced as a teenager when some girl he had a crush on would cruise past his house in her daddy’s car. But this jolt had nothing to do with crushes. It had to do with guilt over a boy who might possibly be his, and uncertainty about how to handle the situation if it was true.
The windows of his red Taurus had been rolled up in the warm August sun. He sat for a minute with the doors open and the engine running, wondering what to do next. The picture of those two boys shaking hands kept playing inside his head as he wondered, Are they? Are they? And will I find out soon?
When the air conditioner started blowing cool, he slammed the doors and pulled Kent’s green school registration card out of his breast pocket. The address was there, printed in careful draftsman-style letters that resembled Tom’s own printing somewhat: 1500 Curve Summit Drive. It was an area of new construction, a subdivision of affluent homes in the hills above the west shore of Lake Haviland in the western suburb of St. Paul Heights, Minnesota. After eighteen years, Tom knew the addresses in his school district almost as well as the police did.
He felt like a damned philanderer as he drove out to find it, his emotional side wishing Monica Arens wouldn’t be home after all, his more rational self realizing there was no advantage in delaying the inevitable: whatever the truth, he had to know, and the sooner the better.
The house was impressive, a two-story walk-out, built of eggshell and gray brick with an irregular roof line and a triple garage. It sat on a crest of land, with the driveway climbing at a rather steep angle.
Tom parked at the bottom of the drive and got out slowly, pausing with his hand on the open car door, looking up at the house. The lot had not been sodded yet, but the finish grading was done and already new trees and shrubbery had been planted—a lot of good-sized trees and shrubbery that cost dearly to have brought in. The driveway was made of concrete and shone white in the sun while a freshly laid sidewalk curved upward, connecting it to the front door.
Monica Arens did very well indeed.
He slammed the car door and approached her house with his every instinct urging him to return to his car, drive away, and leave well enough alone.
But he could not.
He rang the doorbell instead, waiting with his key ring caught over an index finger, dreading the moment when she’d open the door, realizing that the next hour could change his life forever.
She opened the door and sta
red at Tom in stunned surprise. She was dressed in canvas shoes and a loose-fitting jumper-style dress clear down to mid-calf, a shapeless style he’d never learned to like, one that Claire had bypassed not because of his dislike, but because of her own.
“Hello, Monica,” he said at last.
“I’m not sure you should be here.”
“I thought we should talk.” He kept his keys handy in case she slammed the door in his face. She looked less than pleased by his appearance, and stood with her hand on the doorknob, moving not a muscle, her face devoid of anything resembling welcome.
“Don’t you think we should?” he asked, the words nearly snagging on the lump of apprehension in his throat.
She released a breath and said, “Yes, I suppose so.” When she stepped back he knew she resented having to do so.
He entered her house and heard the door close behind him, sealing him into a foyer that segued into a vast combination living room/dining room. The west wall was dominated by a center fireplace flanked by two sets of French doors, which were thrown open onto a redwood deck spanning the entire sunset side of the house. The place smelled of fresh paint and new carpet, and though its windows were bare, it held the promise of future richness. North American Van Lines boxes filled much of the space between the furniture. Monica led the way to the left end of the room, where a dining room table and chairs created the largest island of cleared space. The table appeared to have been freshly polished, for the lemony scent of furniture wax lingered in the room, and the faint swirl of rag marks was exposed at an oblique angle by the light cascading through the nearest pair of French doors. Beyond them, the deck overlooked the unsodded backyard and a new house still under construction a good acre away.
“Sit down,” she said.
He pulled out a chair and waited. She moved around the comer of the table and took a place, leaving plenty of distance between them. When she sat, he did the same.
Tension pervaded the room. He felt himself struggling to frame the correct words, to suppress his embarrassment at even being here. Monica—it appeared—had her mind made up to fix her eyes on the bare tabletop and leave them there.