Dad is still in his work clothes, gray slacks and a blue pin-striped shirt with phil embroidered over the pocket. Despite everything else, embarrassment flares up in me. Couldn’t he have changed?
He slams the truck door and strides over to me. “You ok?”
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
He grabs my hand. “Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
He stares straight into me, pleading, but I reveal nothing. My lower lip doesn’t even tremble.
“Phil,” Mom says. “Let’s go.”
I follow them into the building, up the stairs, and to the little room outside Mrs. Giles’s office with the now-familiar secretary. I look to her for another smile, but she ignores me as she waves us in. Strane is in the office with Mrs. Giles, standing beside her desk, hands in his pockets, shoulders back. My chest aches from wanting to burrow into him. If I could I’d press myself into him and let his body consume me whole.
Mrs. Giles holds out her hand for my parents to shake. Strane holds out his hand, too, which Dad takes, but Mom just sits down, ignores him like he isn’t even there.
“I think it’s best if Vanessa isn’t here for this,” Mrs. Giles says. She looks to Strane and he gives a quick nod. “You can head back into the waiting room.”
She gestures to the door, but I’m staring at Strane, noticing how his hair looks wet from the shower and that he’s wearing his tweed blazer and a tie. He’s going to tell them, I think. He’s turning himself in.
“Don’t,” I say, but it barely comes out.
“Vanessa,” Mom says. “Go.”
The meeting lasts a half hour. I know this because the secretary turns on the radio, probably to keep me from overhearing what’s being said in the office. “It’s your two thirty afternoon coffee break,” the DJ says, “a half hour of nonstop soft hits.” While the secretary hums along, I think about how I’ll always remember these songs because they were the ones playing when Strane confessed and sacrificed himself for me.
When it’s over, they all emerge at once. Mrs. Giles and my parents stop in the waiting room. Strane keeps walking. He leaves without giving me a glance. I see Mom’s flared nostrils and dilated eyes, Dad’s mouth set in a straight line, looking how he did when he had to tell me our old dog died overnight.
“Come on,” he says, taking my hand.
We sit on a bench outside, Mom staring at the ground, her arms crossed tight, while Dad does the talking. What he says is so far from what I expect, it takes me a while to swing back up and actually listen. He’s not saying, We know everything, it’s not your fault. He’s saying that there’s a code of ethics at Browick that students are held to, and I violated it by lying about a teacher and damaging his reputation.
“They take stuff like that pretty seriously here,” Dad says.
“So it’s not . . .” I look from one face to the other. “He didn’t . . .”
Mom’s head jerks up. “He didn’t what?”
I swallow hard, shake my head. “Nothing.”
Their explanation continues. I’m going to end the school year early. There are only a couple weeks left anyway. They’re spending the night at the inn downtown, and, in the morning, I’ll have to, as Dad puts it, “right my wrong.” Mrs. Giles wants me to tell all the people on Jenny Murphy’s list that the rumor about me and Mr. Strane is a lie and that I started the lie.
“Like, tell them one at a time?” I ask.
Dad shakes his head. “Sounds like everyone’s going to get together so you can do it in one go.”
“You don’t have to do it,” Mom says. “We can pack up your room and leave tonight.”
“If Mrs. Giles wants me to do it, I have to,” I say. “She’s the headmaster.”
Mom purses her lips, like she wants to say more.
“I’m still coming back next year, right?”
“Let’s take this one step at a time,” Dad says.
They take me out to dinner at the pizza place downtown. Between the three of us we can’t even finish a pie. We pick at our slices, Mom using napkin after napkin to soak up the grease. Neither of them will look at me.
They offer to drive me back to campus, but I say no, I want to walk. Look at what a nice night it is, I say, still warm at dusk.
“I could use a peaceful few minutes before I go back up there,” I say.
I expect them to refuse, but they seem too dazed to argue and let me go. They hug me goodbye outside the restaurant, Dad whispering, “I love you, Nessa,” in my ear. They turn left toward the inn and I go right toward campus and the public library, toward Strane’s house.
“I know this is stupid,” I say when he opens the door, “but I had to see you.”
He looks beyond me, to the street and sidewalk. “Vanessa, you can’t be here.”
“Let me come in. Five minutes.”
“You need to leave.”
I’m so frustrated, I scream and shove him with both hands, using all my weight, which doesn’t move him but rattles him enough to shut the door and usher me around the side of the house so we’re shielded from the street. As soon as we’re secluded, I throw my arms around him, press against him as hard as I can.
“They’re making me leave tomorrow,” I say.
He takes a step back, unwinds my arms, and says nothing. I wait for his face to show something—anger or panic or regret for having let the situation reach this point—but he’s completely blank. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks over my shoulder, up at the house. He’s like a stranger standing before me.
“They want me to talk in front of a bunch of people,” I say. “I’m supposed to tell them I lied.”
“I know,” he says. He still won’t look at me, his face set in a deep frown.
“Well, I don’t know if I can do it.” At that, his eyes flick down at me, a tiny victory, so I push it further. “Maybe I should tell them the truth.”
He clears his throat but doesn’t flinch. “From what I understand, you’ve already come pretty close to doing that,” he says. “You told your mother about me. You told her I was your boyfriend.”
At first I don’t remember, then: the drive home from February break, after she heard me on the phone in the middle of the night. What’s his name? she asked, the snow-covered fields and skeleton trees flying past the car windows. I answered with the truth—Jacob. But that was just a word, a common first name, not the same as a confession. She hadn’t gleaned the truth from that one word. She couldn’t have. If she did, she wouldn’t have let Strane leave Mrs. Giles’s office or agreed to this idea of me apologizing to a roomful of people.
“If you’ve decided you want to ruin me,” Strane says, “I can’t stop you. But I hope you understand what will happen if you do.”
I try to say that I didn’t really mean it, that of course I’m not going to tell, but his voice drowns out mine.
“Your name and photo will be in the papers,” he says. “You’ll be all over the news.” He speaks slowly, carefully, like he wants to make sure I understand. “This will follow you around forever. You’ll be branded for life.”