Sinister Shorts

“You made As all last year. Now you'll be lucky to get a C this last quarter. Want to tell me what the problem is?”

She looked at him, thinking about Newell. Then she talked about what a mess her life was lately, how her mom was on her case, about how her dog had died. Tears dribbled down her cheeks.

Mr. Capshaw frowned. He handed her a tissue.

“I just miss him so much,” she sobbed. “It's nothing to do with English. I'm doing badly in every class. I just can't seem to concentrate.” Her body shook. This room always felt hot, since the first day of school. Mr. Capshaw kept the windows closed most of the time, to keep the noisy equipment and traffic sounds out, he said.

“I'm sorry for your loss, but we've got another problem here. I'd like to help you. You could bring your grade up to a B with this next story. It's the last creative writing assignment for the year, so I expect everybody to do his or her best work.”

She wiped her face with a tissue. “I sit down to work. I start something. I end up crying. My mom says she cried the whole last half of her junior year. She says it's hormones.”

“Did you tell your mom about you and Newell?”

“No! She could never understand.”

“Think about telling her. And think about this story. You're going to find it hard to swallow, but you need this grade. You need it to get into college. It's dumb, but your future's riding on it.”

She stood up. “I know, Mr. Capshaw. I'll try.”

“Can you get me a preliminary proposal by Friday? It can be about anything.”

“Sure,” she said.

Friday afternoon, Carl had Roo in his sixth-period study hall. She came in looking bedraggled, her face flushed pink with heat.

“Where's your proposal, Miss Fielding?” he asked. “That is due today, last period. I thought I made that clear.”

“I'll work on it right now,” she promised. “I'll get it to you by the end of the day.” The bell rang. The other students hustled to the oak tables, hanging backpacks on chairs, littering the floor with notebooks. He sat at his desk, trying hard not to notice Roo, whose pen hovered over her paper for minutes at a time, unwavering, while she stared at the neck of the boy in front of her. When the bell rang, the fog left her eyes. She looked up with a start and caught his eyes on her face.

“Your story concept?”

“Not done.”

“You'll have to stay after today, Roo. I'll help you if I can.”

Roo called her mother from the office so that she wouldn't panic when she came home late. “I'm working with Mr. Capshaw on finishing something up, Mom.”

“He's that cutie from open house?”

“My English teacher.”

“Newell's father, right?”

How was her mother always so clued-in? “Yes.”

“Where'd he go, anyway?”

“Who?”

“Newell. You went out a couple of times, didn't you?”

“He's at another school.”

“Private school, I bet. All the public school teachers send their kids to private, the paper says. They're canceling Honors English at Obispo next year. I'm just disgusted.”

“Can I stay 'til five? I'll unload the dishes when I get home.”

“Okay, honey. Need a ride? I don't want you to walk home alone, young lady.”

“Don't worry so much. I'll find a ride.”

Roo managed a poor rehash of a story she had written in eighth grade for something to give Mr. Capshaw. He didn't really do anything to help, just sat there at his desk pretending not to look at her the whole time. She finished by five. She asked him for a ride home, explaining that her mother worried. “A guy pulled over off the road once. He got out of his car and followed me for a few blocks. Asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. I was only thirteen. Since then, Mom's a maniac about safety.”

Roo had worn the lightest cotton she could find that morning, a sleeveless red blouse over sparkling white slacks. Her mom had helped her to twist her hair into a French braid, but by now she had a curly halo around her face, too messy, she felt. She excused herself for the bathroom and wetted some scratchy paper towels, getting her underarms with one, smoothing back her hair with another. She dabbed a dry towel over her washed face, licked her lips, then glossed them. She was ready.

Mr. Capshaw had parked his car under the row of eucalyptus by the far lot. By the time they got there, she was sweating again. “I hope you have air-conditioning,” she said.

“I do. My wife says it's an u

“Me, too,” she said, wondering what his wife looked like. Maybe like Nicole Kidman, with that narrow face and rat's nest of hair. “I live kind of up in the county land. It's not quite two miles. Sorry to take you out of your way.” Newell had always raved about how pretty it was up there, how woodsy and pleasant compared to the flats. He must hate Sacramento, with its heat and tract houses.

Mr. Capshaw turned the air on full blast and rolled open the sunroof. “Is that okay?” he asked, and she nodded, half-closing her eyes as they swerved out of town.

“Last time I came this way,” she said dreamily, “was with Newell.”

Carl could smell Roo, a kind of gym class sweat he remembered from his son, mixed with a lusty odor he tried not to think about. She seemed to have fallen asleep, her head tipped back against the seat. Awkward. Beautiful.

He remembered his body at seventeen. He recalled a day stepping out into the sunshine, fresh from the shower, the sun petting his skin, the licks of air, the rank smell of wet dirt. His own juicy youth had filled him up, flooded him. For one luscious moment, all was perfection. Then, knowledge returned like a slap and woke him up. The concrete burned his bare feet…

“Shoot. Roo, wake up. We're lost.” He could see the Pacific below the road. He'd overshot his turn. He'd gone too far.

She breathed deeply and raised a hand to her cheek. “Where are we?”

“I don't know,” he said. “You're the one who lives around here. Could you take a look at the map in the glove compartment?” They climbed steadily up a winding road to a dead end.

“I can't figure this out.”

“I'll look,” he said. Stopping in a shady spot high above the ocean, he turned off the engine, turning the map over to find the town. “Okay, the high school, right here.” He traced their route. “There's where I turned wrong.” She moved in to look. “We're five miles off base. At the bottom of the hill, I go left. Then back to Foothill. Left again onto Crocker.”

“I live right there.” She drooped a long thin arm over his arm to point. Her breast pushed against him, lightly, i

When she removed her hand, he folded the map. She stayed close, looking out at the trees. “Can I get out for a second?” she asked. “I want to peek at the ocean.”

“Okay,” he said. “Quickly, though. Let's not give your mom anything to worry about.”

She walked over to where the land dropped away. On top of the hill like this, the wind off the ocean hit full force. Her hair slapped and blew like sails. She stayed so long, raising and lowering her arms in the wind, that he got out to get her.

She was crying again. “I'm so lonely,” she said. Carl put her head against his shoulder and let her cry.

After a while she quieted down. She sat on a rock, still clinging to him, holding his legs. She looked up at him once. She reached up.

“No,” he said. “Roo…” He stood with the wind to his back, as lovesick as any seventeen-year-old, as deeply moved, as heartfelt, as pained.

They made love, the teacher halting the compelling rush of his lust just long enough to witness himself there, hanging over the ocean, his body disappearing into the girl's body, his past resurrected, his future destroyed.