sudden outburst of anger. Its intensity startled the teacher. Conners reached out and grasped Josh’s shoulder. “Sounds to me like maybe you care a lot.”
“No, I don’t!” Once again Josh sounded as if he was trying to convince himself more than the teacher.
Conners turned back to the wall, giving Josh a little privacy. “Well, you’re doing better than I am,” he said quietly as he tapped once more at the plaster, though he’d already located the stud and knew he could measure out the next two. “My dad took off when I was eight, and I’m still pissed off at him. It was like one day he just stopped caring about me. But I couldn’t stop caring about him.”
Josh said nothing for a few seconds, then: “So what did you do?”
Conners shrugged without turning around; he knew that if he faced Josh right now, the boy would close up immediately. “I hurt,” he said. “I tried not to let my mom know how much I hurt, but some nights I just cried myself to sleep. And I kept hoping he’d come back.”
“D-Did he?” Josh asked, his voice trembling now.
Conners shook his head. “No. He sent me birthday cards for a couple of years, but then I never heard from him again. For a long time I tried to hate him. But then I decided maybe he had his own reasons for taking off.” At last he turned around, and squatted down so his eyes were level with Josh’s. “And maybe he did,” he said quietly. “But even figuring that out didn’t make me stop hurting.”
Again Josh was silent for a long time. When at last he spoke, his voice was barely audible. “My dad didn’t even say good-bye to me,” he said. “He just … left. How could he do that?”
Steve Conners put his arms around Josh, hugging him. “I don’t know.” His voice was almost as quiet as Josh’s. “I just don’t know how people can treat other people that way. But it seems that they do, and when it happens to us, all we can do is go on living, and not give up. And after a while the hurt gets a little easier. You don’t forget, but you get so you can live with it.”
Josh’s arms tightened around the teacher’s neck, and as the boy choked back a sob, Steve felt his own eyes moisten. He said nothing for a few moments, until he felt Josh steady again. Then, giving him a quick squeeze, he released the boy and stood up. “Tell you what,” he suggested. “What do you say we finish these shelves, then go out and get a hamburger and maybe go to a movie. Just you and me. Okay?”
Josh stared up at him, his eyes eager. “Really?” he breathed. “Just us?”
“Sure,” Conners told him. “Why not?”
“I–I’ve got a lot of homework,” Josh said, worried.
“Nobody’s going to kill you if you don’t have it all done tomorrow,” Conners told him. “Besides, the reading I assigned would take two hours, and since you missed class this morning, you didn’t get the assignment, right?”
Josh nodded.
“And you’d eat dinner anyway. So let’s just use up the time you’d have spent doing my homework on going to a movie. I guarantee it’ll be a lot more fun, and I can fill you in on the reading while we eat.” He winked conspiratorially. “Just between you and me, it’s poetry, and it’s not very interesting.”
Josh grinned. “You going to tell the rest of the class that tomorrow morning?”
“Of course not,” Steve Conners replied. “I’m going to talk about all the symbolism in it, and all the deep meanings everyone thinks the author buried within the lines.”
Josh cocked his head. “It sounds like you don’t think there’s deep meaning,” he ventured.
Conners chuckled. “Very good. You’re right, I don’t. I think authors tend to say exactly what they mean, and a lot of people who can’t write like to pretend there’s a lot more to it than there really is. Which is the lesson for today. Got it?”
“Got it,” Josh agreed.
“Then let’s figure out how this drill works, and finish this up. And if the shelves aren’t straight, don’t blame me. I teach English, not math.”
Half an hour later, when they were done, the shelves were on the wall, and they were perfectly straight.
Between the two of them, they’d managed to get it right.
By the time Josh got back to the Academy that night, the lights were out and the house, with only its porch light glowing softly, loomed eerily in the moonlight. As he pulled the Honda up in front of the building, Steve Conners glanced over at the boy sitting next to him.
“Want me to go in with you?”
Josh shook his head. “It’s okay. We told Hildie what time I’d be back, and we’re only ten minutes late.”
“If she’s waiting up for you, tell her it was my fault. Tell her I had a chocolate malt attack, and I was writhing on the sidewalk, begging for a fix.”
Josh giggled. “I’m not gonna tell her that!”
“Why not? Give her something to think about.”
“She’d never let me go to the movies with you again,” Josh said. Then, hearing his own words, he wished he hadn’t spoken them. After all, Mr. Conners hadn’t said anything about their going to another movie. Or doing anything else, either. What if he wasn’t going to say anything? “I–I had a really good time, Mr. Conners. And I didn’t mean to sound like I thought you should take me again.”
“Why wouldn’t I take you again?” Conners asked. “It isn’t any fun to go to movies by yourself.”
“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” Josh asked. Suddenly he realized that all through dinner, they’d been talking about him. And it had been nice. Everything he said, Mr. Conners seemed to understand.
Now Conners grinned at him. “Even if I had a girlfriend’—which I don’t right now — that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take you along sometimes, too.”
“What if your girlfriend didn’t like me?” Josh asked, only partly joking. As usual, Mr. Conners seemed to know he’d really meant the question, even though he’d tried to sound as if he didn’t.
“Then she wouldn’t be much of a girlfriend. So don’t worry about it, Josh. But right now, you’d better get inside before it gets any later. And don’t stay up studying all night. Promise?”
Josh grinned at the teacher. “I promise,” he said, but behind his back he had his fingers crossed, knowing he had a full math assignment still to do. Opening the door, he started to slide off the seat, but before he could climb out of the car, Conners spoke again.
“Hey, Josh? If we’re going to be friends, I think you better start calling me Steve. At least outside the classroom. ‘Mr. Conners’ makes me feel old. Okay?”
Josh’s grin broadened. “Okay!” He slammed the car door closed and hurried up the steps into the shadows of the loggia. At the front door he paused and looked back.
Mr. Conners — Steve — was still there, waiting for him to go into the house.
Making sure he was safe.
Like his father would have done.
His throat constricted and he felt his eyes get damp. Wiping them with the sleeve of his jacket, he waved to Steve once more, then opened the front door, closing it quickly behind him.
A moment later he heard the engine of Steve’s Honda rev and the tires spin in the gravel of the driveway as he pulled the car away. Only when the sound of the engine had faded did Josh finally cross the dimly lit foyer and start up the stairs.
He came to the second floor and paused to take off his shoes, not wanting anyone to open his door and ask him how the movie had been. For all evening, even as he tried to watch the movie, the thoughts that had kept going through his mind were not about the film, but about the man who sat next to him, the man who seemed to understand what he was thinking and how he felt, and accept him just the way he was.
Like his father should have.
He crept down the hall, deciding that maybe he wouldn’t do his math after all.
Maybe he’d just get into bed and lie there in the moonlight, clinging as long as he could to the good feeling that had come over him.
He came to his room, turned the knob as silently as possible, and pushed the door open.
And froze.
Sitting at the desk in the near total darkness of the room, hunched over the computer’s keyboard, his eyes fixed on the glowing screen, was Adam Aldrich.
No.
It wasn’t possible!
