minute crises among her students and, often, their families. She had no time to contact Evan to find out what, if anything, had happened after he'd stormed out on her on Wednesday night. And, truth to tell, she wasn't too inclined to call him anyway. She thought she would let him take a few days to sober up and get over his embarrassment about how he'd acted. Then, after he'd called her and apologized, they'd see where they were. But in the meanwhile, she had her job and her kids. She thought that a couple of days' respite from the emotional turmoil and upheaval surrounding Ron and Evan might do everybody involved a world of good.
Saturday, she slept in until nearly ten o'clock, then went down to the pool and swam a hundred laps. Coming back upstairs to her apartment, she showered and threw on some shorts and a T-shirt, made a salad for lunch, and after that dozed off watching a tennis match on TV. When she woke up, she graded the last of the written reports for another hour or so. At a little after four, she was just finishing up the last one when her doorbell rang. Checking the peephole, she saw Eileen Scholler, her face blotched from crying.
Limping, scabbed, and bruised in his orange jail jumpsuit, Evan entered his side of the visiting room chained to twenty other men. Watching the line enter, Tara stood among a loose knot of mostly women in a kind of bullpen waiting area on their side of the Plexiglas screen that separated the visitors from the inmates. A row of facing pairs of talking stations bisected the room from one end to the other.
Tara had to fight to hold back her tears as they unfastened Evan from the chain of men to whom he'd been attached. He saw her and started to raise a welcoming hand, but his wrists were still attached to the chain around his waist. The guard directed him to one of the desks and Tara excused herself through the now-pressing crowd of visitors and sat herself at last facing him. There was a hole in the Plexiglas through which they were supposed to talk.
It was Wednesday, his fourth day in custody, and the first day that his injuries had healed enough to allow him to walk unaided and to see visitors. In the first moment, neither could find anything to say. They looked at each other, then away, and back again.
How could either of them be here? How could it have come to this?
Finally, Evan leaned forward, shrugged, manufactured some kind of brave face. 'I guess I should have gone home with you after all.'
Tara didn't trust herself to say anything.
'I am so sorry,' he said.
Tara opened her mouth, but again no words came. Now, unexpectedly, tears began to overflow onto her cheeks. She didn't try to stop them.
'Oh, babe,' he said. Then, 'I don't think…' He shook his head and looked at her. His shoulders rose and fell. 'I don't believe I killed him.'
Tara was still reeling from the bare fact that Ron Nolan was dead. Putting Evan together with that on any level wasn't yet possible for her; the idea couldn't bear any scrutiny. Instead, she found herself fighting a sense of unreality that permeated her waking hours as though she were living within a bad dream from which she couldn't will herself awake.
'I wouldn't have killed him,' he said, then waited for her until he couldn't take it any longer. 'Can you say something, please?'
'What am I supposed to say? What do you want me to say? I'm here. That says something, doesn't it?'
'I hope it does.'
'I hope so too. But I'm not sure. Are you hurt?'
'I'll be all right.'
'Will you? When will that be? What does that mean?'
He just looked at her.
Ten weeks passed before they saw each other again.
In that time, Evan was charged with the murder of Ron Nolan, but no charges were brought against him for the Khalil slayings-the district attorney, Doug Falbrock, decided that the evidence tying Evan to those murders wasn't strong enough to convict. As almost always in a murder case, bail was denied.
Tara had cleaned up her classroom and then hung around her apartment for the first couple of weeks of summer. On the Fourth of July, she went up to her parents' condominium to spend the holiday near Homewood on Lake Tahoe and decided on more or less the spur of the moment that she wasn't going to go back home. She couldn't bear reading about Evan every day in the newspapers down there. She needed to be away from the whole thing-the requests for interviews with reporters, her proximity to the jail, the expectations and/or accusations of people who didn't know her. She wound up staying alone at Homewood until late August-reading, running at altitude, dead sober, swimming in the cold lake.
Finally, it was time to come and get her classroom ready for the new year. She drove down on a Thursday morning, cleaned up the dust that had gathered in her apartment, stopped by the school, and started in again on the familiar yearly routine. And somewhere in the middle of it, she realized that she'd come to her decision. Finishing for the day at a little after three o'clock, she drove directly to the house Evan had grown up in, parked out front in the street, and knocked at the door.
Eileen greeted her as she always did-effusively, sincerely-with a welcoming smile, a hug, a kiss on both cheeks. They went together into the airy, modern kitchen and made catch-up small talk until Eileen had poured them both iced teas and they were sitting across from each other at the table in the nook that looked out at the Eden that was the Schollers' backyard. At last, Eileen cocked her head in her trademark fashion. 'So what brings you around today?'
'I wanted to ask you if you think Evan would want to see me again.'
'I think he'd want that more than anything.'
'I wasn't too good the one time, you know? Did he tell you about that?'
'He didn't give me too many details. He said it wasn't very easy between you two. But he didn't blame you. Nobody blames you-I mean we don't-you know that, don't you?'
Tara nodded. 'I just didn't know where to put any of it. Everything happened so fast. Finding out about all the lies Ron told me, and then thinking Evan and I, we might get another chance. Then that last night in the bar… where I thought…' She stopped, swallowed, shrugged.
Eileen reached over and patted her hand. 'It's all right. If it means anything, and I think it does, Evan has no memory of what happened over there. He doesn't believe he killed Ron. He says that's just not who he is. He never would have done that.'
'I believe him.'
'So do I.'
'But somebody did.'
'Maybe somebody connected to these Khalils. That's what Everett says he believes.'
' Everett?'
' Everett Washburn. His lawyer.' A rueful smile. 'His
Tara hesitated, then came out with it. 'They want me to testify about that last night. Against him.'
' Everett said they would. I think it'll be all right if you just tell the truth.'
'The truth wasn't too pretty, Eileen.'
'No, I understand. But you can't do anything about that.'
Tara twirled the iced tea in its little ring of condensation. 'I could marry him,' she said.
Sitting back and straightening in her chair, Eileen drew in a big breath and let it out. 'Well…and here I've been thinking these old bones would never be surprised by anything again. But I don't think you'll have to take it that far.'
'Not just to keep from testifying, Eileen. I've had all summer to think about how I feel about all this stuff. And over the weeks, it's just gotten clearer and clearer. Whatever happens, I'm on Evan's side. If he still wants me. If he'll see me.'
