CHAPTER SEVEN
Molly was driving on the interstate,
halfway home. “Tuesday Afternoon” played on the car radio, and a
cool breeze whipped through the half-open window.
She thought again about calling him,
but told herself that Chris was a big boy. He had bus fare and a
route schedule. He could get home on his own. He was a responsible
kid.
As she watched the road ahead, Molly
remembered six months ago and how they’d tried to do the
responsible thing. But then it all spiraled out of
control.
Before that, back in October, she still
hadn’t known Chris well enough to read his various moods. She’d
been married to Jeff for only three months. She’d figured most
teenagers were sullen and withdrawn all the time. Chris was still
getting used to this strange woman in the house, moving in on his
mother’s turf. His behavior seemed normal considering the
circumstances. But Jeff was deeply concerned about
him.
“Since Angela moved out, he’s been
getting worse and worse,” Jeff observed. “Every time he comes back
from a weekend with her, all he does is snarl at me. I’m sure
Angela’s bad-mouthing us to him every chance she gets. And poor
Chris is her captive audience.”
Molly tried to reach out to Chris.
Having him pose as the teen hero for the cover of the young adult
novel, Conquer the Night, helped thaw him
out a little. And in early November, when he asked her to come with
him to Zales to pick out a bracelet for Courtney, Molly felt she’d
finally won him over. She told him in the jewelry store how
flattered she was that he’d solicited her opinion.
He shrugged. “Well, Mr. Corson thought
I should ask you—since you’re a woman and you know this kind of
stuff.”
She and Jeff had been hearing more and
more about his guidance counselor, Mr. Corson. At first, Jeff had
been grateful Chris was even talking to them—about anything. But
after a while, Molly could tell he felt a bit threatened. Ray
Corson seemed to have become Chris’s new father figure. “I’m not
sure I like Chris going on these late-afternoon runs with this
guy—just the two of them,” Jeff told her one night. “It’s just
weird.”
But Molly considered Mr. Corson a
godsend. Until the guidance counselor came along, Molly hadn’t
realized Chris could be so sweet and friendly. She guessed he might
have been that way before his parents’ separation; and if so, they
had Ray Corson to thank for bringing back the old
Chris.
But he started to backslide in late
November. His mother had suddenly fallen in love with Larry Keegan,
a Bellevue divorced dad. She didn’t waste much time moving in with
him. So Chris had a potential stepdad and teenage stepsister, and
obviously, he wasn’t crazy about either one of them. Making matters
worse, he and Courtney had broken up.
It seemed to come to a head one night
the week after Thanksgiving, when Jeff was out of town. Molly had
been holding dinner for Chris, who still hadn’t come home from
school. He hadn’t answered his cell phone, either. She finally fed
Erin at eight-fifteen. Chris crept in at a quarter to nine, while
she and Erin were washing the dishes. Erin wanted him to guess what
she drew in art class. Molly asked where he’d been and why he
hadn’t called.
“Could you both just leave me alone?”
he muttered, retreating upstairs to his room.
After tucking Erin in bed, Molly went
to his door and gently knocked. “Chris, can I come
in?”
“I don’t feel like company, okay?” he
replied from the other side of the door.
“Well, I didn’t feel like worrying
about you for the last four hours, but I did,” she replied. “You
owe me an explanation. I’m coming in.” She opened the door and
found him on top of the bed with his hands clasped behind his head,
staring up at the ceiling.
“I know you’re having a tough time
lately,” she said, standing in the doorway with her arms folded.
“What happened today? Why didn’t you call? You were very curt with
Erin when you came in. That’s not like you. Her feelings were
hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, rolling over on
his side. His back was to her.
“Did something happen with
Courtney?”
“No. It’s got nothing to do with her,”
he murmured.
“But something happened,” she
said.
His voice was strained when he finally
answered. “I—I can’t talk to you about it, Molly.”
She sat on the edge of his desk. “Well,
if this is as serious as it sounds, maybe you should talk to your
dad.”
“He’s too busy,” Chris
grunted.
“He’s never too busy for you, Chris.
You know that. You should call him.”
“It’s almost midnight in D.C. He’s
probably asleep. It is D.C. where he’s at this week,
right?”
Molly didn’t respond right away. He
sounded so bitter. “Well, it’s not too late to call your
mother.”
“She can’t be bothered right now. She’s
in love.”
“What about Mr. Corson? Do you have his
number? You trust him.”
“Not anymore,” he
muttered.
“Why? Did something happen with Mr.
Corson?” Molly remembered what Jeff had said a while back:
“I’m not sure I like Chris going on these late
afternoon runs with this guy—just the two of them. It’s just
weird.”
She walked around the bed so she was
facing him. “Chris, did something happen with Mr.
Corson?”
He rubbed his eyes. “Damn it, you’d
think I’d learn. People always let you down. What a
disappointment—first, my mom and dad, and then Courtney, and now,
Mr. C. . . .”
Molly sat on the edge of his bed.
“Chris, what did Mr. Corson do to you?”
With a sigh, Chris half sat up. He
pushed his pillow up against the headboard and leaned back on it.
“He didn’t do anything to me. It’s just . . . I needed to talk with
him. I’ve missed him on the track the last couple of days—and I’ve
had a lot of stuff on my mind.”
Molly nodded. “I know you
have.”
He picked at a loose thread on his
bedspread. “I’m not sure whether or not I told you about Ian
Scholl.”
“Isn’t he the boy everyone picks on?”
Molly asked. “He snapped at you when you tried to help him pick up
his books. . . .”
Chris nodded. “Mr. Corson asked me to
be nice to him—and be his pal. I wasn’t so gung ho about the idea.
I mean, I tried to be nice to him before, and look how he reacted.”
Chris shifted on the bed, and the springs squeaked. “Anyway, I went
looking for Mr. Corson this afternoon. It was kind of late, and he
wasn’t at the track. He sometimes takes a shower in the varsity
locker room after his run. So I went looking for him in there. At
first, I thought the place was empty. But then I heard this
strange, moaning sound a few locker rows down from where I was. I
went to check it out and . . .” Frowning, he took a deep breath.
“Well, Mr. Corson was standing there hugging Ian Scholl. No one
else was in the place. Mr. Corson had his shirt off, and it wasn’t
buddybuddy hugging, y’know? I mean, it looked like he was kissing
the top of Ian’s head. . . .”
“Go on,” Molly said
somberly.
He shrugged. “Ian suddenly saw me, and
he just freaked. He practically knocked me down running out of
there. I couldn’t believe it. I just stared at Mr. Corson, and I
think he started to say something. But I didn’t stick around. I
bolted. I heard Mr. Corson call to me, but I just kept running. A
few minutes later, he phoned my cell twice, but I didn’t pick up. I
finally switched it off.” Chris shook his head. “It really
disgusted me, and I’m not sure why. I don’t think I’m homophobic or
anything like that. I just—”
“What if you found him with a female
student, doing the exact same thing? How would you have
felt?”
He sighed. “Just as disgusted, I guess.
I didn’t think of Mr. Corson as the type of guy who would make a
move on a student—any student.”
Molly patted his leg. “You’re not
homophobic, Chris. You’re just very disappointed in Mr. Corson. So
am I—if that hug is what you say it was. Are you sure it was
sexual? I mean, don’t guys sometimes hug in the locker room after a
game?”
“Not when one of them is half naked,
and no one else is around—and there’s no game,” he muttered. “It
looked pretty sexual. So now, I’m wondering why he wanted me to be
friends with that creepy Ian, and why he’s been so nice to me. I
think back to all the times we were alone, and—shit.” Chris shook
his head. “How come I feel so pissed off and disgusted about this?
I mean, why should I care if they want to get it on?”
“Because you looked up to Mr. Corson,
you trusted him,” Molly said. “And then you found him doing
this—this wildly inappropriate thing. Ian’s a student—and a minor.
It’s not just inappropriate, it’s against the law. What Mr. Corson
was doing was wrong.”
Chris turned away and rubbed his
eyes.
“You said he tried to call you?” Molly
asked quietly. “Did he leave a message?”
Chris frowned. “No, I checked. I was
hoping he could explain. . . .”
Biting her lip, Molly realized she was
out of her element here. This was a matter Jeff needed to handle.
The new stepmom had no business trying to resolve it.
So she heated up leftovers from that
night’s ham-and-mac dinner for him. Though Chris had claimed he
wasn’t hungry, he wolfed it down—alone in his room. Molly retreated
downstairs to the kitchen and phoned Jeff at the Hilton in
Washington, D.C. Jeff had been sleeping. He sounded groggy at
first, but after Molly explained why she was calling, he became
wide awake—and angry.
“I knew that guy was bad news!” he
declared. “What have I been telling you? There’s something
basically wrong with a teacher spending so much time alone after
school with a student. Damn it, I should have nipped this in the
bud months ago. Jesus, it’s a good thing I’m not there right now.
I’d kick the crap out of that SOB.”
“Well, then I’m glad you’re not here,”
she said. “Jeff, we can’t be one hundred percent positive about
what Chris saw. We should at least listen to what Mr. Corson has to
say, maybe get him together with Chris—”
“What? Are you nuts? He’s not getting
near Chris again. Listen, listen—put Chris on, honey. I need to
talk with him, make sure he’s okay. . . .”
She let Chris talk to his father in
private for a few minutes. When Molly got back on the line, Jeff
explained that Chris had agreed to tell his story to the school
principal in the morning. Could she set up the appointment? Could
she go with him to see the principal?
They met with the principal during
lunch hour the next day. Molly’s heart ached for Chris, who sat
across from her in Principal Carney’s office. His foot shook
nervously, and he kept glancing down at the ugly gray carpeted
floor—unable to look anyone in the eye. Molly’s chair was hard and
uncomfortable, and she figured his was, too. They were probably
that way on purpose for students being disciplined in
there.
Carney was a large, fiftysomething
black woman who looked like she didn’t smile much. Behind her desk
was a blown-up photo of the Seattle skyline and several framed
certificates. She listened solemnly as Chris recounted what he’d
seen in the varsity locker room the previous evening.
When he was finished, the principal
cleared her throat, reached for her phone, and pressed three
numbers. “Shannon, have Ray Corson come to my office. . . . Yes,
right away . . .”
Chris seemed to go pale. He shot Molly
a panicked look.
She reached over and put her hand on
his arm. “Chris and I aren’t comfortable with this,” she said to
the principal. “I thought we’d be talking with just you, Principal
Carney. We weren’t expecting a face-to-face with Mr.
Corson.”
The principal gave her a dubious
sidelong glance. “Well, if Mr. Corson has an explanation, you want
to hear it from him, don’t you?”
Molly just sighed and said nothing. She
noticed Chris’s foot started to shake so bad it looked like a
spasm.
Principal Carney began typing on her
computer keyboard. Molly wasn’t sure if she was writing up a
summary of what Chris had just told her or if she was answering
e-mails. The principal didn’t explain. No one said anything. Molly
listened to the click-click-click of those
fingernails on the keyboard for about five excruciating
minutes.
At last, she spotted Ray Corson through
the window in the office door. At least, she was pretty sure he was
Ray Corson. He reminded her a bit of Jeff, only not quite as
handsome—and a few years younger. Still, he was pleasant looking.
He wore a blue striped shirt, jeans, and a loosened tie. He knocked
on the office door and then opened it.
Chris slinked down in his
chair.
When Corson saw him, a sad half smile
came to his face. “Hi, Chris,” he said. Then he approached Molly
with his hand out for her to shake. “Mrs. Dennehy?”
She hesitated. All she could think
about was Jeff, going ballistic because she actually shook the
guy’s hand. “Molly,” she said finally. She didn’t want to be
mistaken for Angela. She went ahead and shook his
hand.
“Have a seat.” Principal Carney nodded
at a single chair against the wall. He sat down in it. The
principal folded her hands on her desktop. “Mr. Corson, Chris
happened to see you in the locker room last night with a student,
and he was concerned that something inappropriate might have
happened there. Maybe you can clarify for us exactly what was going
on.”
Ray Corson frowned. “I was counseling a
student on a personal matter.”
“Would you care to elaborate?” the
principal asked.
“I don’t see why I should. It’s nobody
else’s business.” He glanced at Chris. “I’m disappointed you didn’t
come to me about this, Chris.”
Squirming, Chris rubbed his forehead.
“I’m sorry—”
“Excuse me,” Molly interrupted, gaping
at Corson. “But you’re disappointed? Chris
walked in on you and a student—in the locker room, embracing. You had your shirt off, and no one else was
around. What was he supposed to think?”
“Ray?” the principal said. “I’ll ask
you again. Would you care to elaborate?”
In that isolated chair, he might as
well have been sitting on the witness stand. He stared at Chris. “I
was running laps around the track when Ian Scholl came to see me
about some problems he’s having at home and at school—as you often
do, Chris. We spoke for about twenty minutes. He agreed to make an
appointment to see me in my office this week. We shook hands
good-bye. Then I went to take a shower. . . .” He turned toward the
principal. “I sometimes shower in the varsity locker room when it’s
not in use.”
“Go on,” she said.
He looked at Molly, and she
involuntarily shrank back a bit. “I started to undress,” he said.
“After I took off my shirt, I realized Ian had followed me into the
locker room. He still had some issues he wanted to discuss—very
personal, very emotional issues. Maybe you think I should have put
my shirt back on, Mrs. Dennehy, but it never crossed my mind. I was
listening to this young man, who was hurting. Do you
understand?”
Molly almost nodded, but she held
back.
“Anyway, Ian started to cry—and I
hugged him. That’s when Chris saw us. I know how it must have
looked, but I also know Chris. . . .” Corson had a wounded look on
his face as he turned to him. “I figured you trusted me, and
wouldn’t jump to any wrong conclusions about what you saw. I
figured you’d talk to me about it if you had any questions or
concerns. I guess I figured wrong.”
Chris let out an unsteady sigh. “Why
did Ian run away like that?”
Mr. Corson shrugged. “I honestly don’t
know. Why did you run away,
Chris?”
Chris opened his mouth but didn’t say
anything.
Frowning, Principal Carney tapped the
end of a pen against her desk. “Mr. Corson, considering the time
and place—and how you were dressed—I don’t think hugging this
student was an appropriate action.”
He straightened in the chair.
“Considering the fact that Ian was crying and in anguish, I think
hugging him was very appropriate.” He turned to Molly and then
Chris. “Anyway, that’s what happened. Do you believe me,
Chris?”
“Yeah—I guess, of course,” he murmured
with his head down. Molly barely heard him,
“Then that’s all that matters,” Corson
replied, standing. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re done here.” He
headed toward the door.
“Wait a minute, Ray,” Principal Carney
said.
“Please, let him go,” Chris interjected
woefully. “Can we—can we—just drop this?”
Glaring at the principal, Corson paused
by the door. “May I go now, Hannah?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “But this isn’t
completely over yet.”
Mr. Corson turned and walked out of the
office.
As far as Molly was concerned, it was
over—mostly because she could tell Chris regretted it had come to
this. Still, the principal seemed to have a valid point. Mr. Corson
might have inadvertently crossed a line when embracing that boy in
the locker room after hours. And didn’t Chris say it looked as if
Mr. Corson was kissing the top of Ian Scholl’s head?
Molly didn’t want to analyze it any
more. That was Principal Carney’s job. If Chris wanted to drop it,
that was fine with Molly. She could tell he was already wishing
he’d never confided in her about what he saw.
But Jeff wasn’t quite ready to let it
go—though Chris begged him to forget the whole mess. Jeff mentioned
to Angela what had happened, and she went nuts. She acted as if
Chris had been sexually abused. Molly suspected Angela was trying
to show everyone what crappy parents Jeff and his new wife
were—allowing her son to consort with a potential
pedophile.
Her gal pals, Lynette Hahn and Kay
Garvey, got involved, too. Lynette and Kay asked their daughters if
they’d heard anything about Mr. Corson making advances on any of
the male students. Had Chris said whether or not Corson had ever
come on to him?
Courtney Hahn had four hundred
thirty-one friends on her Facebook page—all over the United States,
and even overseas in London, Sydney, and Paris. On Saturday night,
thirty-six hours after Chris and Molly had met with Principal
Carney and Mr. Corson, Courtney broke the news to her Facebook
friends:
One reason I broke up w/Chris
Dennehy was cuz he spent so much time w/Ray Corson & I wasn’t
interested in a 3-way! Thursday night, Chris walked in on Corson
with his shirt off molesting Ian Scholl (ick!) in the boys’ locker
room after hours. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to do the
same w/Chris. Pervert alert! Chris’s parents are pissed. I think
Corson will be forced to leave the school.
By Sunday night, Courtney, Madison, and
all their friends were texting, Twittering, and discussing on
Facebook what they thought had really happened between Ray Corson
and Ian Scholl—and Chris. That sad, private little moment in the
varsity locker room was analyzed, joked about, and condemned by
teenagers all over the country.
The word spread fast to many of their
parents, too.
By eleven o’clock the following Monday
morning, Principal Carney had asked Mr. Corson for his resignation,
and he left the school.
That had been almost six months ago,
and Chris still hadn’t quite forgiven himself—or her. Molly thought
about what he’d said outside the funeral home: “I
never should have told you what I saw. None of it would have
happened if I’d just kept my mouth shut.”
Molly hadn’t noticed Principal Carney
or any of Chris’s peers or their parents at the wake. Then again,
why would they attend Mr. Corson’s memorial service? They’d all
turned their backs on him months before.
Watching the highway ahead, Molly took
her exit toward home. She glanced at her cell phone on the
passenger seat. She’d taken it out of her purse just in case Chris
called. As she turned into the cul-de-sac, Molly noticed the
NO OUTLET sign was still standing. She’d
been checking it quite often lately.
That little precautionary habit
reminded her of when she was a teenager, babysitting at night in
someone else’s house. When she got scared, she’d pick up the phone
receiver every once in a while, then listen for a dial tone to make
sure no one had cut the wires. The weird part about it was hearing
a dial tone didn’t really make her feel safe. It merely reminded
her how vulnerable she was.
She passed the NO
OUTLET sign and headed toward home.
Molly knew she would check it again
before the night was over.
“Hello, is this Mrs. Corson?” Chris
said into the intercom. Holding the mum plant, he stood by the
gated entrance of a new apartment complex—four uniform beige
buildings, each housing about twenty apartments. It was one of
those charmless places that looked as if it had gone up in a hurry.
He imagined residents coming home drunk probably had a tough time
figuring out which building and apartment were theirs. It was in a
cul-de-sac, between two more apartment complexes just like
it.
The taxicab idled in the driveway in
front of the closed electric gate. Chris had paid the man and asked
him to wait until he got inside the complex.
He heard a voice though the intercom
static: “Yes?”
“Um, floral delivery for you, Mrs.
Corson,” Chris said, keeping up his lie.
“C’mon in,” she said. “Second building,
second floor, unit 2-F.”
The lock to the tall gate made an
obnoxious buzzing sound. Chris pushed at the handle and then waved
at the cab.
At the second building, he found an
alcove and stairway marked UNITS E–H. He
went up the stairs to Unit 2-F, and saw her name handwritten and
taped above the doorbell: J. Corson. He
adjusted the mum plant, took a deep breath, and rang her bell. The
door must have been pretty cheap and thin, because he could hear
her coming.
The lock clicked and the door swung
open. The woman in 2-F stared at him. She looked skinny in her
oversized long-sleeved henley T-shirt and sweatpants. She had
shoulder-length, frizzy brown hair, a fair complexion, and a
birthmark on her cheek. Chris thought she looked a bit older than
Mr. Corson. “Are you Mrs. Corson?” he asked.
Nodding, she held out her hands. “I’ll
take that, thanks.”
Chris carefully handed the plant to
her. She didn’t look as if she’d been crying or anything. He
lingered in the doorway. He could see a stack of unpacked boxes in
the front hall.
She looked like she was about to shut
the door in his face, but then hesitated. “Am I supposed to sign
for it or something?”
He shook his head. “Um, no, I . .
.”
“Were you expecting a tip?” she asked,
adjusting the plant in her grasp. She seemed a bit
impatient.
“Mrs. Corson, I’m Chris Dennehy,” he
said finally. “I—I’m very sorry about Mr. Corson. He was a really
good man.”
She stared back at him and
blinked.
“I apologize about coming to see you
this way—under false pre—pretenses.” He struggled to get the words
out, he was so nervous. “You—you know who I am, don’t
you?”
She nodded.
He wished she’d say something. “It’s
mostly my fault that Mr. Corson had to leave school back in
December. It was all just a misunderstanding. Mr. Corson never did
anything wrong. You should know that. I’m not sure if he ever
mentioned it to you, but I tracked him down a few months ago, and
told him how sorry I was. But I—I never got a chance to apologize
to you, Mrs. Corson.”
“Is that it? Are you finished?” she
asked.
“I guess,” he said. “Only I hope you
don’t think anything—inappropriate ever happened with Mr. Corson
and me. He was always—very kind to me. He helped me get through a
lot of stuff. . . .”
She just kept staring at him over the
top of the mum plant in her hands.
“I thought you should know,” he went
on, a tremor in his voice. “I mean, you didn’t come to his wake, so
in case you’re mad at him or anything, I wanted to tell you he
never did anything wrong. He was a nice guy. I miss
him.”
“Are you done now?” she asked. Her eyes
were dry.
Chris swallowed hard. “Yes, I’m sorry,
Mrs. Corson.”
She set the plant on the floor, and
wiped her hands on the front of her sweat pants. “Listen . . .
Chris,” she said in a very quiet voice. “Because of you, my husband
lost his job. More than that, our lives were destroyed. All of your
sniveling apologies aren’t going to change that. So—leave me alone
with my grief. I’m moving to the East Coast soon. But while I’m
still here, I don’t want to see you ever again. You make me sick.
Is that clear? Do you understand?”
She didn’t wait for him to answer. She
shut the door in his face.
Stunned, Chris stood there for a
moment. Through the thin door, he listened to her walking away. He
felt as if someone had just sucker punched him in the stomach. He
didn’t know what he’d expected. He only knew what he’d wished for.
He’d hoped to feel some connection with her, because they were both
so close to Mr. Corson.
But there was nothing—just the feeling
he’d intruded on an angry stranger.
She was right. All his stupid apologies
weren’t going to change anything.
Wiping his eyes, he retreated down the
staircase and headed toward the exit. He slowed down as he
approached the high gate. Something was dangling from one of the
gate’s crossbars—at chest level.
Chris stepped closer, and a chill raced
through him. He recognized the eighty-five-dollar pair of
Ray-Bans.