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Emily asked the librarian to cover her first period class for a few minutes, and then headed toward Mr. Hogan’s office. Lexi was alone at her locker, and Emily couldn’t help but stare. Her first thought, which she was ashamed of, was that Lexi wasn’t terribly attractive. She was tall, probably taller than Milton even, and broad. She looked more like a boy than a girl, and her short hair didn’t add any femininity. Lexi looked up and caught Emily staring, and Emily tried to fake a smile. She knew she’d failed though. She wondered if she should ask Lexi before she went to Mr. Hogan and essentially threw a bucket of chocolate yogurt at the fan, but she wasn’t sure what to say, how to ask, or how to respond to Lexi’s answer. So she kept walking, feeling ill-equipped for every facet of this scenario.
Mr. Hogan’s office door was closed and locked. Emily asked Julie if she knew when he’d be back and Julie looked at the clock. “Don’t you have a class right now?”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?” Emily repeated, a little terser this time.
“I don’t.”
Wordlessly, Emily headed toward guidance. The door was shut. She knocked. “Come in,” Mr. Babcock called out. She opened the door to find him and Sydney Hopkins—alone, in his office, with the door shut. Twenty minutes before, this detail wouldn’t even have registered, but now it terrified her.
“I need to speak with you for a minute,” Emily said and could hear fear in her voice.
“I’m with a student right now,” Richard said with no little condescension.
Emily looked at Sydney. “I’m sorry, Syd.” Then she looked at Richard. “This can’t wait.”
He heaved a big sigh. “Can you step out for a minute, Sydney? This won’t take long.”
She obliged. Emily shut the door. “A student just told me that Milton is sleeping with Lexi Smith.”
Much to Emily’s horror, Richard actually laughed. He leaned back in his chair and tipped his head back and laughed at the ceiling.
Emily’s jaw dropped.
“Who told you that?”
“Apparently Lexi told a friend at a party on Saturday night.”
“Lexi doesn’t go to parties during basketball season. You must be mistaken.”
Emily didn’t know what to do. She was angry, scared, and felt helpless. “Even if it’s not true,” she said in a small voice, “it still needs to be looked into.”
He slapped his leg. “I will do that. I will look into it for you. Now”—he pointed at the closed door—“could you send Sydney back in?”
On the way back to her classroom, the waterworks started. Emily ducked into the staff restroom to try to get a grip. She leaned on the sink and took several long, deep breaths. Then she began to pray. “God, give me wisdom here. I’m freaking out. If it’s not true, I don’t want to hurt Lexi, or Milton—OK, maybe I do want to hurt Milton, but I don’t want to destroy the man’s life. But if it’s true, oh God, if it’s true, we’ve got to do something.”
It was a long morning. Emily fought tears, and nausea, every moment. She was jumpy and sweating profusely despite it being only sixty degrees in her room.
When Larry paused to lean on his broom in her doorway during second period and scolded her for sitting on her desk, she responded with much less grace than usual. “Do you mind? I’m trying to teach a class here.”
He actually stepped into the room. “That desk is older than I am!” he said threateningly.
“Well then it’s obviously strong enough to endure my sitting on it,” she spat. “Now get out of my classroom!”
To her surprise, he left, and she tried to pick up where she’d left off with Of Mice and Men, but all the kids were laughing.
“Way to go, Miss M,” Thomas said, offering her another fist bump.
She ignored it. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have acted that way. I’m having a difficult day.”
“Don’t apologize,” Hannah said. “He deserves it. He’s rude to everyone, acts like he runs the place.”
“Regardless, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful—”
“So, about Lennie’s mouse,” Noah said and gave Emily a knowing look.
“Yes, Noah, thank you. About that mouse ...”
When Lexi walked into Emily’s classroom for her fourth period class, Emily felt something within her snap. She stared at Lexi, trying to see something—anything—to indicate that the apple cart had at least been bumped, if not upset. But Lexi was acting completely normally, and every cell of Emily’s body was certain that her guidance counselor hadn’t said a word to anyone.
“If you’ll excuse me, class, I’ll be right back.” Back to the library she went and asked the librarian again to cover. Back down the hallway she went to the principal’s office, which was still locked up tight. Julie still claimed no knowledge of Mr. Hogan’s whereabouts. Back up the hallway she went. It was empty and silent now, save for the click of her heels and her taut breathing. She had never felt so tightly wound in her whole life. She opened the door to Kyle’s empty classroom, entered, and slammed the door behind her.
Startled, he shut the laptop, making it clear he’d been doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. “Most people knock!”
She took four quick strides across the room and then sat down across from his desk. “A student told me this morning that Milton is having sex with Lexi Smith. I went and told Richard, but he laughed at me, and he hasn’t done anything. Mr. Hogan’s nowhere to be found. What do I do? Is it up to me to call the cops?”
Kyle’s eyes grew wider as she talked, but when she stopped for a breath, he flashed that dazzling smile at her. “First thing we’re going to do is calm down.”
She nodded. “OK, then what?”
He smiled again. “Seriously, Emily, take a breath. You look like you’re about to have a stroke.”
She took a breath. He didn’t seem satisfied. She took another.
“Good. Now, listen to me. This rumor, or ones like it, have been going around for years. Literally years. When I was in high school, they were saying the same thing about Milton’s dad. It’s just island junk. Non-basketball people talk smack because they’re jealous.”
She stared at him for several seconds. “You’re saying it’s not true?”
“I’m saying it’s not true.”
She let out a burst of air and realized that she’d just been told exactly what she wanted to hear. “The student who told me, she said that Lexi told her at a party.”
“We don’t know what Lexi really said, but even if she did say that, I wouldn’t put too much stock in a hormonal teenager’s drunken angst.”
Emily put her head in her hands.
“Hey, it’s OK. You’ve reacted exactly how you’re supposed to react. If it were true, it would be pretty messed up, but really, it’s not true. I guarantee it. I have known Milton forever. He’s a neanderthal, but he’s not a pedophile.”
She peeked out through her fingers at him. “Has anyone ever looked into it?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. But if you push this, you’re not going to help yourself any. Who told you?”
Emily didn’t answer.
“Come on, Em. Who told you? Chloe? Thomas?”
Emily shook her head and stood up to go. “Doesn’t matter, right? If it’s not true?” She headed toward the door. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime, but Em?”
She stopped to look at him.
“If it ever happens again, just tell the student to go straight to Mr. Hogan. Then it takes you out of the equation. Less stress, less mess.”
Emily, dismissing this advice as soon as it was given, nodded as if she hadn’t, and left the room. MacKenzie had told her because MacKenzie had trusted her, had felt comfortable telling her, or at least comfortable enough to tell her. Emily couldn’t imagine MacKenzie going to Mr. Hogan with such a thing.
She paused outside her classroom, her hand on the doorknob. A lot of what Kyle had said had made sense, right? If it were true, surely there would have been signs. There’s no secrets on an island, right? She decided that it must not be true after all.
But that night, she couldn’t fall asleep. That night, she rolled over every ten seconds, pounded the pillow every fifteen, alternated between crying and hard-won self-control. She decided she needed to just ask Lexi, but then realized that, if it weren’t true, how wildly inappropriate that would be. How it would make Lexi feel. What would happen to her job if Lexi told anyone. Which she would because there are no secrets ... or are there?
At two o’clock in the morning, Emily got out of bed and got dressed. She stepped out into the subzero weather and started her car. Then she drove to the small cape on the other side of the island, where she climbed out of her car and knocked on the door. Moments went by. She knocked again. A bright light came on directly above her head and blinded her.
The Sheriff opened the door in his pajamas. “Yes?”
“Sorry to bother you, Sheriff,” she began, her voice shaking.
“What is it?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m a teacher at the high school—”
“I know who you are.” He stepped out onto the porch, shutting the door behind him. “Don’t you have a phone?”
“I do, but I didn’t know your phone number.”
“But you know where I live?”
“Someone showed me.”
“Remind me to thank Gagnon for that.... Well, what?”
“A student told me today that Milton Darling is having an affair with one of our seniors, Lexi Smith.”
The Sheriff stared at her expressionlessly.
She shifted her weight back and forth, trying to force some blood into her toes.
“Who?”
“Lexi Smith,” she said, more slowly this time.
“No, I mean, who told you this?”
“Oh ... I don’t think I’m ready to say.”
He looked dumbfounded. “Not ready to say? What do you think this is? Someone levels an accusation like that? They don’t get to stay anonymous.”
“I understand. I just wanted to wait ... to wait ...” She wasn’t sure how to finish her sentence.
“Wait for what?”
“Wait to make sure you’re going to do something about it.”
“What?”
Emily took a deep breath and the cold hurt her lungs. “I already told the guidance counselor, who laughed at me, so I’m not really confident that you’re going to do something either. And if you’re not, then I’d like to protect the student who told me. She told me because she was concerned about Lexi, not for any other reason.”
The Sheriff leaned toward Emily, and she reflexively took a step back.
“Ma’am, if a child is being sexually assaulted, you can certainly know that I’m going to do something. Now, what student told you this?”
Emily didn’t know what to do. Most of her just wanted to give up MacKenzie’s name, but there was this small part of her that resisted. And it was this part, and her cold toes, that won the fight. She began to back away. “Just look into it? Please?” She continued backing toward her car, suddenly desperate to be within its relative safety and warmth. “If it’s not true, no harm done, right? And if it’s true?” She got into her car and without another look, backed out of the driveway and drove home.
She was asleep mere seconds after her head hit the pillow.
