twelve

THERE WAS A FRAMED, BLACK-AND-WHITE PICTURE in the foyer of the Lidells in their wedding garb, both of them wearing widemouthed smiles, like they’d just been caught laughing their heads off at a joke. Beneath it in the frame was a handwritten note on a cream-colored card. To Sam and Mark, wishing you all the joy in the world. And, beneath that, an illegible signature. In real time, right before my eyes, Mrs. Lidell looked exhausted. But I couldn’t wait until school the next day.

“It’s a little late for a tutorial, don’t you think?”

“I know.” I had gone home to shower and look up Mrs. Lidell’s address. And to plan in my mind what I was going to say. “But I saw Lula’s last diary entry. I know she came here that night and she told you about me.”

Mrs. Lidell’s shoulders dropped.

“What do you want from me, Rory?”

“You have to tell the police! If they know she was here, maybe it changes things. Maybe it changes how they investigate—”

“The police know.” Her voice got quiet. “I told them everything I knew as soon as I heard she was missing. I let them search my house, my office, my hard drive. It didn’t change anything. They still think that she left because of you, not because of me.” She stopped, catching herself. “Of course, presuming she did indeed leave under her own power, you know she didn’t leave because of either of us. She left for her own reasons, and whatever the outcome of this is, you have to know that it wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t have to—” I swallowed. “You don’t have to say it like she’s already dead.”

“I’m sorry, Rory, I—” she shook her head. “Why don’t you come in, have a seat?” I followed her into the living room. There were a bunch of guitars propped up on stands in the corners. Electric ones, acoustic ones. Somehow, I wasn’t expecting Sam Lidell’s living room to look like a music store.

“Your husband plays guitar?” I blurted out.

“No.” She sat down on the couch. She didn’t seem tired anymore. She had on her all-business face, the one she got when we had a lot of material to review for a test. She lit one of her cigarettes from a soft pack on the coffee table. They were just regular Winstons. “So, are we having it out, or what?”

“I guess we are.”

“Lula came to me that night after she saw you with the bookseller. Rory, did you have any idea that Lula was in love with you?”

“I know.” I said. “I mean, I know it now. But I didn’t know it then.”

“I suspected it. She alluded to having feelings for someone who didn’t return them, and I assumed it was you. Lula and I talked a lot over the past semester.”

“About me?”

“About everything. She kept signing up for tutorials—I didn’t understand why, at first. Aside from a rather irrational intolerance for William Faulkner, she had no trouble grasping the material. I realized pretty quickly that she just needed someone to talk to. I probably should have advised her to see Mr. Peeler, but it wasn’t . . . she wasn’t troubled, she was just lonely.” Mrs. Lidell exhaled smoke. Mr. Peeler was the guidance counselor at school, and he wouldn’t have helped, anyway. He was, like, twenty-five and always tried to solve your issues using extreme sports metaphors. “Lula’s grandparents were very supportive, and of course she had you, but I think the fact that her mother was out of the picture was a . . .” Mrs. Lidell stopped. “My mom left me, too. She divorced my dad when I was a teenager and went off on her own to pursue her art career. She made it clear that me coming with her . . . wasn’t an option. It’s not something I talk about much, but I told Lula, because I wanted her to know that I understood where she was coming from. She started coming around more after that, hanging out in my office, just wanting to talk. Maybe she saw me as a sort of maternal figure. Anyway, I thought it was okay, considering she didn’t have very many female role models, or even female friends in her life. But then it seems she developed something of a—” She hesitated. “A crush on me, I guess you could say. When she came here that night she . . . confessed her feelings. And I had to let her down.”

I nodded. Mrs. Lidell looked away, touched her finger to her tongue to retrieve a loose tobacco leaf. I had a moment of feeling almost out of my body. I never expected to be here. To be sitting on a sofa in Mrs. Lidell’s living room, talking about Lula, who was in love with one or both of us. Lula, who was suddenly gone.

“What did you say to her?” I asked. What did you say to make her leave?

“Well, I was in shock, at first.” Mrs. Lidell frowned. “And then I was sort of weirdly flattered and horrified at the same time. Look, it’s never easy to have to let someone down, but I think she understood that it wasn’t personal. I liked Lula a lot, she was a bright kid, really sweet, great student. But that’s as far as it goes. I’m heterosexual, I’m married, I’m her teacher, and she’s only seventeen years old, for God’s sake. Not all of us are as unscrupulous as Andy Barnett.” She gave me a hard stare, and I blushed.

“Now is probably not the best time to give you a lecture on ethics,” she said, ashing her cigarette into a small, red glass bowl. “And you’re not the one who should hear it, anyway—”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We already . . . he broke up with me.”

“I could tell you I’m sorry to hear that, Rory, but it would be a lie.” Mrs. Lidell said. “You’re a little young to be involved with a married man—”

“He’s divorced,” I interrupted. “And why does everybody think I’m so young, like I’m some little kid who doesn’t get it? We were in love—why is that so hard to believe? I mean, Lula thought he was molesting me. But I’m the one who came on to him in the first place.” My whole face flushed hot, remembering it. Closing up the shop, asking him to help me with some boxes in the back. Palms sweating like crazy, scared to death. Scared he’d fire me right there, and I’d never see him again. Scared he’d beat the hell out of me, because I was pretty sure he was gay, but I’d never worked up the nerve to just come right out and ask him, and what if he wasn’t? Scared, just utterly scared shitless that he wouldn’t want me, this sweaty repulsive fat kid. Rehearsing my speech in my head, this whole confession that I was all set to swear I would never mention again if he didn’t feel the same way. And then as soon as we were behind the curtain, just going for broke, kissing him right on the mouth. He pulled back and looked at me all surprised, and for a second I thought I was going to die. Like time had stopped and I was already dead. And then he kissed me back. And everything that happened in my heart and my brain and my blood after that was unnamable but was the exact opposite of dying.

“It doesn’t matter if you started it, Rory. It’s still statutory rape, and he shouldn’t have let it continue,” Mrs. Lidell said angrily. I was beet-red and trying to wipe a tear out of the edge of my eye without her noticing. “I’m not saying what he did was your fault. I’m not saying that at all.” Her voice softened. “Look, I know from experience that being involved with a divorcee with kids is difficult at any age. And that sometimes when you’re involved with someone who’s older than you, it’s easy for them to forget that you might be a little more vulnerable than they are. That, for them, maybe it’s just dating, but for you, it’s your first real love.”

Now I was crying. I didn’t care if I cried in front of her. So she knows I’m a big baby. Big deal. She handed me a wad of Kleenex from the box on the end table and patted my back while I blew my nose and composed myself.

“Well, what did Lula care, anyway? Especially if she had some big crush on you. Why should she give a damn if I want to date somebody who’s too old for me? Why should she care if Andy Barnett breaks my heart? It’s my stupid heart, not hers.”

“Rory.” Mrs. Lidell sighed. “Whether she was attracted to you or me or the man in the moon, did you really think that Lula didn’t care about your heart? She was your best friend, and she didn’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Is my best friend,” I corrected, imitating Mrs. Lidell’s classroom voice. “Tenses, tenses.” She smiled faintly but didn’t laugh.

“She’s your best friend. And you’re hers. Lula didn’t have a big group of friends, Rory. She wasn’t part of any teams. She had you. Has you. And, for better or for worse, you met someone and fell in love—and I know, Rory, believe me, what it does to you. Falling in love for the first time, for real. It rearranges your molecules, it turns you inside out. And you kept all of that from her. Never mind the fact that she had feelings for you, herself, even though she was too busy trying to be your friend to mention it. I think she knew, deep down inside, that you were never going to ‘come around,’ you were never going to fall in love with her like she hoped you would. But she didn’t have anybody else. She was just a lonely kid, Rory, trying to find some little sliver of what you already had. Trying to find what we’re all looking for, you know? Love. Real, serious love.”

“So she came to you.”

“Yeah. She came to me. And I couldn’t help her. Not with that.” Mrs. Lidell scratched absentmindedly at her thumb. “I don’t think she was serious, though. About having feelings for me. Romantic feelings, anyway. It’s easy to mistake affection for infatuation, at her age.”

I thought about me and Andy. Did I mistake affection for infatuation? Did he?

“Do you think Lula had real feelings for me?” I asked her. “I mean, do you think it was really love?”

“Affection, infatuation—you tell me, kiddo. She’s your best friend.” She took a long drag on her cigarette.

“Why didn’t you—why didn’t anybody tell me she came to see you?”

“Probably for the same reason you didn’t tell anyone about Andy.” She exhaled smoke. “We’re all trying to protect someone, aren’t we?”

“Except Lula. Nobody tried to protect her.”

“Lula’s exactly who I was trying to protect. And I think I’ve done a pretty fair job of it up to this point. Right now, you and Detective Addison and I are the only ones who know the whole story. And her grandparents now, with this diary entry.” Mrs. Lidell gave me the chilliest of her cool looks. “I don’t think having the details of her clumsy teenage longings splayed out in the daily paper would make Lula feel very welcome back home, do you?”

“No, ma’am. I don’t reckon it would.”

So much for no more secrets.