Consent (19 page)

The grief, the years, have finally caught up to us.

I can't sleep.

It's the middle of the night, and I'm lying in bed, my mind churning restlessly. Cream Puff is a warm, snoring puddle at my feet. Moonlight slants through the window and illuminates the spines of the books on my blue sea horse shelves. I wish I could call Dane, but I can't because of what the solicitor guy said. I can't call Plum, either, because it's the middle of the night.

Finally, at around three a.m., I get out of bed, walk over to my desk, and boot up my computer. When the screen flickers to life, I type—what was the phrase Dad used?—
age of consent.

Dozens of links pop up. I open each one and read about the different ages of consent in different places. In Georgia it's sixteen. In Texas it's seventeen. In some states it is as low as thirteen under certain circumstances.

Great.
So if I lived in one of these other states, I could legally consent to sex. But because I happen to live here, I can't. That makes zero sense.

I then Google “student” and “teacher” and “affair.” My eyes widen when I see the number of news headlines from just the past few months alone. The ages of the students and teachers are all over the place. Fourteen and thirty-three—that's too big of an age difference; plus, fourteen is so young. Fifteen and forty—
definitely
too big. Sixteen and twenty-seven—a little better. Seventeen and twenty-two—much better. Both male and female teachers are represented, as are male and female students. Some of the teachers were arrested and sent to jail; some were simply fired from their jobs.

I click on the stories so I can read them more carefully. That's when I start to feel a bit queasy. A high school freshman commits suicide over her broken relationship with her soccer coach. A thirty-five-year-old teacher becomes pregnant by her seventh-grade student. Another thirty-five-year-old teacher makes sex tapes of threesomes with her pupils and shares them with her friends. A tenth grader tries to kill her best friend in a rivalry over their mutual “boyfriend,” who is also their history teacher. A twelve-year old-girl tells her parents that her teacher has been “touching” her for months and that they're going to get married someday.

Lives ruined by . . .

Depression and drug abuse . . .

Molestation . . .

Sex offenders . . .

Preying on the innocent and vulnerable . . .

I shut down my computer. None of this applies to Dane and me. I'm not a child. He's not a predator. We
want
to be together.

Still, I do have to admit that these other situations seem creepy and very, very wrong.

I wonder if the kids at A-Jax are even aware of these consent laws. I wasn't joking with Dad when I said that everyone is having sex. Which means that in theory, 90 percent of our student population could be arrested. Including Braden and me, if we had gone through with it last summer. It's ludicrous.

Ten years in jail.
No wonder Dane was so freaked out when we spoke on the phone.

I have to protect him, no matter what it takes.

Thanksgiving. Theo doesn't come home, which he sometimes does, but instead texts Dad last minute and tells him he's going snowboarding in Vermont with some friends.

So it's just Dad and me and Cream Puff. Dad actually made a turkey, which he's never done before; usually, we just go to a restaurant. My contributions are cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and gravy from some recipes I found online.

As we eat, Dad asks me about my Juilliard application. He can finally say the word “Juilliard” without tearing up. “When is it due?”

“In a few days. I have to finish my essay and also upload my recordings.”

“What about your other applications?”

“Peabody and the Manhattan School of Music and NEC are the same as Juilliard. Curtis is the middle of December.”

“Neck?”

“New England Conservatory of Music.”

“Yeah, that's right. Your mom—” He pauses and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“What about Mom?”

“She thought about going there for a graduate degree. But then she got pregnant with Theo.”

“Oh. Wow.”

We eat our turkey in silence. A football game is on the TV on mute, but neither of us is paying attention. I keep thinking that Dane might call or text me, since it's a holiday, but I realize how absurd that is. I actually haven't heard from him since our strategy session that day when all hell broke loose.

I miss Dane so much, and I am so worried, that I have begun to feel numb. The police have called me in for multiple interviews, but I can't tell if they went well or not. A few times I was tempted to go over to Dane's house and peek in a window, just to make sure he was still there and not in jail. But, lawyer's orders. Besides, I'm supposed to be Braden's girlfriend these days, so I've been hanging out with him a lot after school and pretending to like him
that way.

I think Braden is starting to take this whole thing way too seriously, though. Yesterday he left a bouquet of flowers on
my porch with a note:
Happy Five-Month Anniversary! Love forever, Braden.

Love forever? Five-month anniversary? Boy, he's really committing to our cover story.

He and Lianna and I have dissolved our trio—or put it on hold, anyway. It just doesn't feel right, under the circumstances. Lianna continues to insist that she didn't turn Dane and me in, contrary to Braden's theory. I'm actually beginning to believe her; she seems sincere for once in her life. But if it wasn't her, who was it?

Dad's phone buzzes with a call. He swipes at his mouth with a paper napkin, glances at the screen, and hits Talk. “Hello?”

He listens intently to someone on the other end. After a few minutes he thanks the person and hangs up.

“Who was that?” I ask curiously.

“Antonio, my friend at the DA's office. He's been keeping me posted on the police investigation, on his own time.”

I put my fork down. “And? Dad,
tell
me.”

“They've apparently interviewed a lot of people—people at your school, people at a private school where your . . . where Mr. Rossi used to teach,” Dad explains. “They can't find anything on him. And without witnesses or evidence, they can't charge him with a crime.”

Relief courses through me. “That's good, right? That's
really
good! So he won't be arrested?”

“Not so fast. Antonio said that as of Monday or so, the police were still waiting to hear back from some of the New York City folks. That woman—you know, Mr. Rossi's Juilliard teacher. Also a few others. It's possible the police have wrapped up these interviews already, but Antonio wasn't a hundred percent.”

New York City.
My mind races through the possibilities: random Juilliard students, the waiter at that French restaurant, the clerk at the motel on Whiterock Beach. The Eden Grove police wouldn't know to track them down. Would they?

And what about Dane's and my alibis? I told Detective Torres that I'd stayed in a youth hostel. Dane told them he'd stayed with friends. Did Dane speak to these “friends” and ask them to cover for him? Did the police contact all the hostels in New York City and inquire about me?

I push away my plate; I've totally lost my appetite.

What if the police manage—managed?—to locate a witness who contradicts my testimony and Dane's?

• • •

Early that evening I go over to Plum's house for pumpkin pie. This is another tradition—dessert after our respective Thanksgiving dinners at home, followed by a binge session of
old Christmas movies, to transition—but somehow, this year, today, it doesn't feel very festive.

If only the Eden Grove police would fall off the face of the earth.

When I get to the Sorensons', Plum is waiting for me on the front porch. She is bundled up in a ski parka that is several sizes too big for her and thick white Swedish mittens. Next to her is a huge clay pot of orange chrysanthemums and a couple of doggy chew toys.

She smiles and jumps to her feet when she sees me. Then she studies my face, and her smile disappears. “Bea! What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything. I don't know,” I reply with a shrug.

“Tell me!”

We sit down on the porch together. I recount what Dad's friend at the DA's office told him.

“What if the police found out the truth about New York City and . . .” I shake my head. “They'll arrest him. Dad says he could go to jail for ten years!”

“That's not going to happen,” Plum reassures me. “But . . . Bea? There's something else.”

“What?”

“I'm sure it's not true, but . . .”

“
What's
not true?”

Plum pulls her knees into her chest swipes at her nose with
the back of her mitten. “Do you remember when I told you about Lakshmi? My neighbor?”

“Who?”

“The one who goes to the Greenley Academy?”

That prep school where Dane used to teach.
“Oh, right. What about her?”

“So she's home for Thanksgiving, right? I ran into her this morning, and we got to talking, and I asked her if she knew Kit Harrington—I mean, Mr. Rossi.”

“And?”

She drops her gaze to the ground. A cold, sick feeling washes over me.

“Plum? What did Lakshmi say?” I demand.

“She said . . . that her friend at school told her that she and Mr. Rossi had an affair,” Plum blurts out.

I flinch as though someone slapped me. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

“It's probably made up,” Plum rushes on. “Lakshmi said her friend was drunk when she told her, and when Lakshmi asked her about it later, she denied it.”

“Yeah, it sounds made up,” I manage at last, although my voice sounds far away and hollow.

“The girl's name was Porter something. Porter Caulden. No, Caldwell.”

Porter Caldwell.

I gaze up at the sky. The moon looks almost exactly like the one Dane and I saw at Whiterock Beach, a shimmering white wedge. Was that only last month? We made love, we discussed the future.

It can't all have been a lie.

“There's no way Dane did that,” I finally say.

“Of course not,” Plum agrees, but she won't look at me.

On Friday, I decide to put in a marathon practice session. Plum is finishing up the last of her applications. We're having a sleepover at her house later. In the meantime, I have nothing else to do, and I can't just sit around waiting for Dane to call. Besides, I've been too distracted to practice much lately, and I really need to catch up.

I keep thinking about this Porter Caldwell girl. I actually looked her up on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, but her accounts were set to private.

I desperately need to talk to Dane, but I can't.

When we do, I'm sure we'll have a big laugh about it. In any case, it's a slippery slope from casual online “research” to jealous freakdom, so I should cut this out already.

Besides, we have
real
problems to worry about, like the police investigation. Dad's DA friend said that Detective
Torres was waiting to hear back from the New York City people. . . .

I sit down at the piano and run through scales. Dad finally had it tuned, for the first time in the fifteen years we've lived here, and it's definitely an improvement. He also told me that Mom's piano still exists and that he would try to get it back for me. Apparently, he loaned it to his alma mater, Columbia University, after she passed away, and it's sitting in one of their parlors.

I click on the gooseneck lamp as I dig through my backpack to find the pieces I need to practice. I decide to begin with the Winter Wind Etude, which I plan to play for my live auditions and which is a study of manual dexterity and flexibility. It's a wild roller-coaster ride of notes up and down the piano that seem to follow no pattern, and it requires balancing the right hand with the left hand in an intricate polyphonic duet.

Closing my eyes, I ease into the first four measures, which are
lento
and melodic and deceptively simple. A beat, a breath . . . then my right hand tears down the keyboard in a rushing cascade of notes,
allegro con brio,
while my left hand maintains the original melody with deep, heavy chords.

When my phone buzzes, I almost don't hear it because I am so wrapped up in the étude.

Dane's number flashes on the screen.

I grab for the phone, fumble it, and pick it up again. “Dane, how are you?” I shout, and I'm out of breath as though I have been running.

He laughs. How can he be laughing?

“I'm fine, love. More importantly, how are you?”

“I'm fine! Well, not fine, exactly, but . . . Where are you? How are you? What's going on? Oh my God, I can't believe it's you!”

“I got a call from Edwin, my solicitor.”

I gasp. “Oh no! Is this going to be bad?”

“No, no, it's good. Great, in fact. He just spoke to the police. They're closing the investigation, and they won't be pressing charges.”

“What? Really?”

“Really. They can't find anyone or anything to corroborate Braden's story. And without that, they can't prosecute.”

“But my dad said they were talking to a bunch of people in New York City. Annaliese and so forth.”

“Well, apparently, it was a dead end.”

“Oh my God!” And then I do a mental double take. “Wait, did you say . . .
Braden
?”