“I’m not sure I’m saving them for anything.”
It’s obvious what the next thing out of my mouth will be. He seems to hold his breath waiting for me to say the words:
“What about right now?”
I say it so jokingly, it should be easy for him to respond, Vanessa, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Maybe if another student asked him, it would be. But he doesn’t even pretend to deliberate. He just holds up his hands, as though I’ve twisted his arm and he can’t fight anymore.
“Why not?” he says.
Then I’m taking out my keys because I have a bottle opener key chain, and we’re clinking bottles, the fizz from the warm beer going all the way up my nose. Watching him drink is like peering behind a curtain. I see him at a bar, at home, sitting on the couch, lying in bed. I wonder if he grades papers late at night, if he keeps mine at the bottom of the pile, purposely saved for last.
No—he isn’t like that. He’s good, outright boyish, flashing me a sheepish grin before tipping back the bottle. I’m the one with ulterior motives. I’m the corruptor, luring him into a trap. I almost tell him to smarten up, stop being so trusting. Henry, you can’t drink beers in your office with a student. Do you understand how stupid this is, how easily it could get you into trouble?
He asks if I’m taking his gothic seminar next semester and I say I’m not sure, that I haven’t signed up for anything yet.
“You should get on that,” he says. “You’re running out of time.”
“I always leave it until the last minute. I’m a fuckup.” I throw back the bottle and take a long swallow. Fuckup. I like how it feels to describe myself as that to Henry, who has spent so much time praising my brain.
“Sorry for being crass,” I add.
“It’s fine,” he says, and I see a slight change in his expression, a shade of concern.
He asks questions about my other classes, my future plans. Have I thought any more about graduate school? It’s too late to apply for the fall, but I can get a head start on applications for next year.
“I don’t know,” I say. “My parents didn’t even go to college.” I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but Henry nods like he understands.
“Neither did mine,” he says.
If I decide to apply, he says, he’ll help me navigate the process, and my brain catches on his choice of verb—navigate. I see a map spread out across a desk, our heads huddled together. We’ll figure this out, Vanessa. You and me.
“I remember how daunting it was when I first thought about applying,” Henry says. “It felt like embarking on totally unfamiliar territory. You know, before coming here I was at a prep school for a year, and it was strange, teaching those kids. Sometimes it seemed as though entitlement was instilled in them at birth.”
“I went to a school like that,” I say. “For a couple years, anyway.”
He asks which school, and when I say Browick, he seems rattled. He sets his beer bottle on the desk, clasps his hands together. “The Browick School?” he asks. “In Norumbega?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
He nods. “Strange coincidence. I, uh . . .”
I wait for him and beer settles in my mouth, for a moment my throat too tight to swallow. “I have a friend who works there,” he says.
Nausea surges up my throat, and my hands tremble so badly, I knock over my bottle as I try to set it down. It’s nearly empty, but a little spills onto the floor.
“Oh god, I’m sorry,” I say, righting the bottle, knocking it over again, then giving up and tossing it into the garbage can.
“Hey, it’s fine.”
“It spilled.”
“It’s fine.” He laughs like I’m being silly, but when I push my hair back from my face, he sees I’m crying, but it’s not normal crying. This is just tears showing up on my cheeks. I’m not even sure they’re coming from my eyes when I cry like this. It feels more like being wrung out, like a sponge.
“This is so embarrassing,” I say, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “I’m an idiot.”
“Don’t.” He shakes his head, baffled. “Don’t say that. You’re fine.”
“What does your friend do? Is he a teacher?”
“No,” he says. “She’s a—”
“‘She’? It’s a she?”
He nods, looking so concerned, I imagine I could confess anything and he would hear it. I can feel his kindness already, before I say a word.
“Do you know anyone else who works there?” I ask.
“No one,” he says. “Vanessa, what’s wrong?”
“I was raped by a teacher there,” I say. “I was fifteen.” I’m shocked at how smoothly the lie comes out of me, though I don’t know if I’m lying or just not telling the truth. “He’s still there,” I add. “So when you said that you knew someone, it just . . . I panicked.”
Henry brings his hands to his face, to his mouth. He picks his beer back up, sets it down again. Finally, he says, “I’m stunned.”
I open my mouth to clarify, to explain that I’m exaggerating, I shouldn’t use that word, but he speaks first.
“I have a sister,” he says. “Something similar happened to her.”
He looks to me, big sorrowful eyes, each of his features a gentler version of Strane’s. It’s easy to imagine him sinking to his knees, lowering his head into my lap, not to lament how he will inevitably ruin me but instead to mourn that another man already has.
“I’m sorry, Vanessa,” he says. “Though I know that might be a useless thing to hear. I’m just so sorry.”
We’re quiet for a moment, him leaning forward as if he wants to comfort me—his kindness like bathwater, lapping my shoulders, milky and warm. This is more than I deserve.
My eyes fixed on the floor, I say, “Please don’t tell your friend about this.”
Henry shakes his head. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
* * *
On the day after Christmas, I drive to Strane’s house, blasting Fiona Apple and singing my throat on fire. I slouch in my seat as I pass through the downtown streets of Norumbega, leave the car in the library parking lot across from his house, and run to his front door with my hood covering my recognizable hair—precautions dictated by Strane that I’ve followed for so long, I do them without thinking.
Once inside, I’m shifty, darting away from his hands and not looking him in the eye. I worry he knows what I said to Henry. There’s the possibility Henry told his friend and his friend told someone else at Browick; it wouldn’t take much for the gossip to loop back around to Strane. There’s also what I know is impossible but nevertheless half believe: that he knows everything I say and do, that he has the ability to peer inside my mind.
When he surprises me with a wrapped present, I don’t take it at first, worried it’s a trap, that I’ll open the box to find a note saying, I know what you did. He’s never given me a Christmas present before.
“Go on,” he says with a laugh, nudging the gift against my chest.
I stare down at it, a clothing-sized box wrapped in thick gold paper and red ribbon, the work of a retail employee. “But I didn’t get you anything,”