THE FIRST CHANCE JENNY GOT, Monday afternoon, she stomped up Sanford Hill in her well-worn brown boots. She was trying not to get ahead of herself, but the letters in her pocket felt as good as currency. Information is power, and she had her hands on one hell of a bombshell. There were a million reasons Mr. Renkin wouldn’t want this getting out. He would lose his job, Ms. Willoughby would leave him, he could even go to prison.
She climbed the stairs onto Mr. Renkin’s front porch and took a deep breath before knocking on the door. The woods were silent, and she could hear Mr. Renkin skipping down the stairs inside. This was it. It didn’t have to be complicated. It was a straightforward deal.
He opened the door, expecting an adult but finding a teenager.
“Jenny?”
“Hi.”
“What are you doing here? Are you OK?” He looked out behind her like he expected to see someone chasing her.
“We need to talk,” she said like she planned. Short, direct sentences that would command his attention.
“Is that so?” He wasn’t taking her seriously.
“About my sister.”
He released the door and tucked his hands into the pockets of his khaki teacher pants. He rocked on his feet, waiting for her follow-up statement.
“Can I come in?” she asked, not wanting to conduct serious business on the front porch like a Girl Scout. She was selling secrets, not cookies.
He backed up, leaving his hands in his pockets but pushing the door open with his backside. Jenny entered the rustic living room. It was bigger than it looked from the outside. The whole floor was an open layout with high ceilings lined with wooden beams.
He closed the door behind her and stood in the entranceway as she took in the house. She had never been in a teacher’s house before. It was just a house, but a teacher-student relationship was so complicated and regimented that it felt almost forbidden to be in there. If kids at school knew, her popularity would skyrocket. Mallory would die.
She took the step down from the entranceway, now officially in his living room. “Mr. Renkin, I have a proposition for you.”
“Let’s hear it,” he said, too jovial for her liking.
“I know about your sexual relationship with my sister.” She crossed her arms as a symbolic mic drop.
His green eyes shrank in a way that made Jenny uncomfortable, like he was zooming in on her. “Did she send you here?”
“No, Virginia has no idea.” She hadn’t really considered the repercussions for her sister. Would he tell her? She didn’t want her sister to be mad. “I found something … notes.”
Mr. Renkin finally removed his hands from his pockets and mirrored her stance. He looked unamused and anxious to see where this was going. His unique eyes were no longer his best feature; instead they suddenly seemed the wrong color for his face, as if he had become possessed.
In her heart, Jenny felt the foundations of fear. She had walked in holding all the cards, but standing in the shadow of an agitated adult man, she felt her power dwindling. She soldiered on. “The notes are from you to my sister, when she was in high school and you were her teacher. You were having a sexual relationship. I have nothing to gain from telling anyone and you have a lot to lose. All I am asking for is five thousand dollars and I will give you the notes and we can forget this ever happened.”
Mr. Renkin laughed, a nervous and guilty laugh. “I don’t believe you. I barely knew your sister. There were no letters.” He left a sloppy grin on his face, waiting for her next move.
“Five thousand dollars,” she repeated.
He broke his stance and breezed past her into the kitchen. Only a small island separated him from the living room, where she remained. Jenny didn’t know how to react. Was this a break from negotiations? Did he need a snack or something?
“Can I get you anything?” he asked like he hadn’t heard a word she said. He grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and slid a large knife from a wood block that housed an array of smaller knives more appropriate for the apple.
Jenny took a defiant step toward the kitchen, not wanting him to take control of the situation but keeping the island between them just in case. “No,” she said.
He drove the knife into the apple, separating it into two halves. “Look, this was very brave of you coming here, but it’s not going to happen. What’s going to happen is you’re going to give me the notes, you’re going to leave, and you are never going to talk to anyone about this ever again.” He split one of the halves again, and Jenny flinched at the wet snap of the knife hitting the cutting board.
She rested her hands on the island, supporting herself as she leaned in. “Five. Thousand. Dollars.” She was going toe-to-toe with this man, and it was empowering. Fuck Linda and her dad. Fuck Gil. Fuck Mark Renkin. She was young, but she was savvy, and if they wanted to underestimate her, they would pay.
He placed the knife down on the counter and glared at her for a beat. This was not the face of everyone’s favorite teacher. This was the face of a proud man who was being threatened. He stepped back around the island, removing the barrier between them.
“I don’t think you understand,” he said, seizing Jenny’s arms, a jolt that decimated all the courage she had gathered. “Where are they? You’re going to give me whatever it is you think you have.”
His hands on her and the threat of violence that carried was not a line she could handle him crossing. “OK,” Jenny choked out, appropriately terrified.
He released her, shaking his head as if to scold her, justifying his actions as necessary to combat this nuisance. He backed away, convinced he’d won, but the space allowed for Jenny’s instinct to flee to take over. She waited for him to turn his head, and when he did, she ran for the door.
He had no choice but to chase her, to stop her and try to de-escalate the situation. Jenny had miscalculated everything, especially the time it would take her to get to the door. She knew he was close, and when she turned to see just how close, she forgot the step. Her foot met a dead end, bringing her crashing down, the side of her skull slamming against the hardwood floor.
She reached for her head, the sharp pain pulsing from one side and spreading to the other in waves. Her eyes were heavy, and she fought to keep them open as she rolled onto her back. A second later, Mr. Renkin stood over her.
He dropped to his knees. He unzipped her jacket and she tensed all over. Everything was cloudy, muffled. She felt him at her pants. His hands were all over her. She tried kicking, but it was no use. Her head was throbbing, her eyelids closing. His hands crawled back into her jacket. She wanted him to stop. Was this what happened with her sister? What had she done?
Suddenly, his hands were gone. All she felt was the cold floor and the fire in her head. She fought to open her eyes one more time and saw his blurry body stand. In his hand were the letters. Her eyes closed. She couldn’t feel the floor. She couldn’t feel the fire. She felt nothing.