I don’t understand what she means. Clearly, people have noticed. That’s the whole reason Jenny’s dad wrote the letter—people noticed.
Beside me, Strane says, “It really is absurd.”
Mrs. Giles says she has a theory about what’s behind all this. Every once in a while a rumor like this will manifest, and students, parents, other teachers catch wind of it and immediately take it as truth, regardless of how unbelievable the rumor might be.
“Everyone loves a scandal,” she says, and then she and Strane exchange a knowing smile.
She says the rumors usually sprout from jealousy or a misinterpretation of innocent favoritism. That over the course of a career, teachers have many, many students, most of whom are, for lack of a better word, inconsequential. Students might be bright, accomplished individuals, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a teacher will have a special connection with them. Every once in a while, however, a teacher will come across a student with whom he or she feels especially close.
“Teachers are human, after all, same as you are,” Mrs. Giles says. “Tell me, you don’t like all your teachers equally, do you, Vanessa?” I shake my head no. “Of course you don’t. Some you prefer more than others. Teachers are the same with students. To a teacher, some students are just special.”
Mrs. Giles leans back in her chair, folds her hands across her chest. “What I suspect happened is Jenny Murphy became jealous of the special treatment you received from Mr. Strane.”
“One relevant point Vanessa shared with me,” Strane says, “is she and Jenny roomed together last year and they didn’t get along.” He looks at me. “Isn’t that right?”
Slowly, I nod.
Mrs. Giles throws up her hands. “Well, there you have it. Case closed.”
She hands me a piece of paper—the letter from Jenny’s father. “Now if you could read that over and then sign this.” She hands me a second paper with a single typed line of text: “The parties below deny any truth to the contents of the letter written by Patrick Murphy on May 2, 2001.” At the bottom are spaces for two signatures, mine and Strane’s. My eyes skim over the letter, unable to focus. I sign the paper and then hand it to Strane, who does the same. Case closed.
Mrs. Giles smiles. “That should do it. Best to resolve these things as quickly as possible.”
Shaky with relief, feeling like I might throw up, I stand and head toward the door, but Mrs. Giles stops me before I leave. “Vanessa, I’ll have to call your parents to let them know about this,” she says. “So make sure to call them this evening, ok?”
Bile rises in my throat. I hadn’t considered this before. Of course she has to call them. I wonder if she’ll call my house, leave a message on the answering machine, or if she’ll call one of them at work—Dad at the hospital, Mom in her office at the insurance company.
As I leave the room, I hear Mrs. Giles say to Strane, “I’ll let you know if I need anything else from you, but this should take care of it.”
When I call home that evening, I offer a flood of explanations and platitudes: everything’s fine, nothing’s going on, the whole thing is ridiculous, a stupid rumor, of course it’s not true. My parents are on different phones, both talking at once.
“You need to stop hanging out with these teachers, first of all,” Mom says.
Teachers? Has there been more than one? Then I remember the lie I told back at Thanksgiving, that it was my politics teacher who said my hair was the color of maple leaves.
Dad asks, “Do you want me to come get you?”
“I want to know exactly what’s been going on there,” Mom adds.
“No,” I say. “I’m fine. And nothing’s been going on. Everything’s fine.”
“You’d tell us if someone’s been hurting you,” Mom says. They both wait for me to confirm that, yes, I would tell them.
“Sure,” I say. “But that’s not what happened. Nothing’s happened. How would it happen? You know how much supervision there is here. It’s a lie Jenny Murphy came up with. Remember Jenny, how mean she was to me?”
“But why would she make something like this up? Get her father involved?” Mom asks.
Dad says, “This just doesn’t sound right.”
“She hates Mr. Strane, too. She has a vendetta against him. She’s one of those entitled people who think anyone who doesn’t suck up to her deserves to have his life ruined.”
“I don’t like this, Vanessa,” Dad says.
“It’s fine,” I say. “You know I would tell you if anything was wrong.”
He and I go quiet, wait for Mom.
“It’s almost the end of the year,” she says. “I guess it doesn’t make sense to pull you out. But, Vanessa, you stay away from that teacher, ok? If he tries to talk to you, tell the headmaster.”
“He’s my teacher. He has to be able to talk to me.”
“You know what I mean,” she says. “Go to class and then leave.”
“He’s not even the problem.”
“Vanessa,” Dad barks. “Listen to your mother.”
“I want you to call us every night,” Mom says. “At six thirty, I expect the phone to ring. Understood?”
Staring across the common room, the television showing MTV on mute, Carson Daly’s spiked hair and black nail polish, I mumble, “Yes, ma’am.” Mom sighs. She hates it when I call her that.
Strane says we need to back off for a while, be conscious of optics. No late afternoons in his office, long hours spent alone. “Even this is a risk,” he says, meaning my skipping lunch to spend the free period in his classroom with the door wide open. We need to be careful, at least for the time being, as much as it kills him to keep his distance from me.
He’s confident, though, that it’ll all blow over soon. He keeps using that phrase, “blow over,” like this is some bad weather. Summer will come and, with it, drives in his station wagon, open windows, and sea-salt air. He tells me to trust him, that by next fall, this will all be forgotten. I don’t know if I believe him. A couple days pass and things seem ok, but whenever I’m within eyesight of Jenny, she shoots me a look of raw resentment. Strane thinks she’s given up because she transferred out of his class, but I can tell she’s still mad.
The bulletin board goes up listing every senior’s plan for college the following year. I go to dinner and, while I’m waiting in line at the sandwich station, I notice Jenny and Hannah moving methodically around the dining hall. Jenny carries a pen and notebook, and as they approach each table, Hannah says something to the people sitting there, waits for a response, and then Jenny writes something down in the notebook. I notice, too, how many eyes turn toward me, then dart away, not wanting me to catch them staring.
I leave the line, and as I walk across the dining hall I hear Hannah ask, “Have any of you heard a rumor that Vanessa Wye and Mr. Strane are having an affair?”
It’s a table of seniors. Brandon McLean, whose name I saw listed next to Dartmouth on the bulletin board, asks, “Who’s Vanessa Wye?”
The girl sitting beside him—Alexis Cartwright, Williams College—points to me. “Isn’t that her?”