I'm staring but keeping my mouth shut.
“Request from the front office,” Lori says.
Kids groan. “Can they do that? Make you change the way you dress?” someone asks.
“They can send any of you home if you arrive dressed against their rules, can't they?”
A grumble races through the room. “But you're a teacher. You're a grown-up.”
“If they can do it to you, they can do it to me,” she says.
“It sucks!” yells some guy in the back.
“Rules are rules,” Lori says. She's vented to me in private, so I know how she feels about the administration and Mrs. Dexter—“the old hag”—and how much she's hating this. It must be hard for her to act as if she doesn't really care. “Now, let's get to work.”
I think about the rules we're breaking, she and I. What would the principal say if she knew what Lori and I were doing right under her nose?
Once class is over and I'm going out the door, Lori says, “Ryan, can I see you a minute? About that special assignment I gave you?”
Two people waiting to walk with me look curious. I wave them on and go to Lori's desk. My heart is thumping like a drum. For safety's sake, she always steers clear of talking to me after class.
Her eyes laser into me. “Is your special assignment on target?”
Code for “Is your dad out of the house?”
“On target,” I say. The room is empty and we're alone.
“I'll pick you up at the bus stop. The one near your house.”
“I can ride.”
“I don't want to wait,” she says. Her voice is tight and sharp.
“All right.”
“And bring your things,” she says. “For the night.”
There's a bitchy bossiness about her that turns me off, but I nod anyway. And when I think about spending a whole night with her, I breathe hard.
Our clothes come off the minute we walk into her place, and our sex is wild and fast. When it's over, Lori dresses in a silky robe. She pops the cork of a bottle of champagne and pours two glasses. I've never drunk champagne but don't want to tell her that. I'm a beer guy. Joel and I got into my dad's bourbon once when we were in seventh grade. I felt great, all spaced out and soaring, until I got sick and tossed it all on the bathroom floor. Dad was better about it than I thought he'd be. He said, “A rite of passage, but don't do it again until you're legal.” I got grounded for two weeks, and a lock went on the cabinet, but he didn't go postal the way Joel's mother did when she found out.
“I've saved these for you,” Lori says, handing me a stack of presents.
I'm surprised because there are so many boxes. “I—I only got you one thing.”
“That's not what it's about. I want you to have nice things. I want to show you how much I care.”
I open boxes of cool shirts, a leather Harley vest, CDs by the hottest artists on the charts and, finally, an iPod. “Wow,” I tell her. “I've been wanting one of these. Thanks.”
“I'm glad you like it.”
I'm blown away but try not to show it. I retrieve my backpack and pull out the black velvet box. “Sorry it's not wrapped.” I feel like a miser, offering her one tiny present.
“Not to worry.” She opens the box and I see her eyes light up. “A Celtic love knot! I love it.”
“You know what it is? I didn't. I had to read about it.” Relief goes through me.
“Put it on me.” She hands me the necklace, turns and lifts her dark hair, showing me the soft tight white skin of her neck. The sight arouses me. I ease on the necklace, and she turns back toward me. Her hand slides down my body and I shiver. Her mouth ignites me. She slips off her robe and pulls me on top of her, wearing only my necklace until we're finished.
Ryan
I've always slept by myself, never shared mattress space with anyone. I sleep hard at first, but when I wake up, the room is dark and I don't know where I am. I panic. Then I remember. I'm at Lori's. I drank too much, but not enough to get sick. Already learned that lesson.
I touch the place beside me in the bed, but Lori isn't there. I hear a noise from outside the bedroom, find my jeans on the floor and tug them on. I come out into a brightly lit room and squint, a headache exploding my brain. “Lori?”
“In here,” she answers.
I go to the kitchen and she's down cleaning the floor with a sponge. Weird!
“What are you doing?” I look at the stove's digital clock and read 3:00 a.m. “Did you spill something?”
She stands up. “No. I have trouble sleeping.”
“So you're cleaning?” Weirder!
She drops the sponge in the sink and comes to me, loops her arms around me. “A lifelong problem. Don't think about it. When I wake up and can't go back to sleep, I just get up instead of lying in the dark. Tonight, I decided to clean. See? No damage from our party for two.”
The place is spotless. “I would have helped.”
“You were sound asleep.” She nuzzles my neck. “You're pretty cute when you're asleep.”
I hear that tone in her voice that says, “Let's get it on,” but right now, my head hurts and I'm not in the mood for another round of burning up her sheets. “Let's just go get some sleep,” I say.
She pulls back, a pout on her mouth. Under the overhead light, I notice the lines around her colorless lips and at the corners of her eyes. The last girl I was this close to was Janey Smythe, at an eighth-grade dance. She didn't have any lines on her face, just clear smooth skin, luscious enough to lick. Fortunately I didn't.
I back away from Lori, yawn and stretch. “I'll be in the bedroom.” I say it in a way that doesn't offer her an invitation. All I want is to go to bed and get some sleep.
“I'll be in later,” she says, her voice cool.
“Whatever,” I say, and leave her standing alone in the kitchen.
•••
“You look rough,” Dad tells me a few nights later over dinner.
“Been staying up late, studying,” I mumble. In truth, I hustled home this afternoon after three nights at Lori's, threw in a load of wash and made the place look as if I'd been living here.
“Those teachers shouldn't work you so hard.”
No work involved, I think. “You warned me that high school wasn't a cakewalk.” In dealing with parents, it's a good idea to feed them back the lines they've used on you.
“That's true, especially if a student has his sights on college.”
“Like I do,” I say. I haven't thought about college or homework or anything except Lori for months. The only reason I'm keeping up is because she helps me with my assignments. I almost blew a test before Christmas, but my other work was good enough to help me skate by.
“Where'd you get the iPod and new clothes?”
Dad's question comes out of left field. Adrenaline pumps, turning my brain to mush. “What?”
“I saw the stuff stacked on your bed. Just wondering where it came from.”
Stupid! In my hurry to get other things done, I left Lori's gifts lying out in the open. “Gifts from my friends,” I say.
“Pretty generous friends.”
“The iPod is Joel's old one. He got a new one for Christmas.” My brain finally wakes up. “Honey gave me the shirts.”
“All of them?”
“What can I say?” I shrug, bury my face in my dinner plate.
“But you don't like this girl.”
“I like her. Just not for a girlfriend.” Dad's staring hard at me. I try not to squirm.
