Creepy Teacher: A Psychological Thriller (7 page)

Feeling happy was better.

Cleaning actually felt great.

Additionally, the kitchen was the most likely part of the house that Eric Cady would see tomorrow night when he picked her up for the party.

That had considerable significance, she had to admit.

That was certainly part of it.

But a lot, still, was just wanting to move.

Her dad arrived home first, walked in the door, and smelled the situation at hand.

“You’re cleaning?” he asked.

“Yeah, dad. Life is good,” she replied.

He turned around and walked straight back out the door.

In a few moments, she heard him milling around in the garage, stacking recycle bins, and bagging cans. Her dad always went to the garage when a bitter argument plagued his mind. Better, he said, to chew a stick in the garage than vent your hang-ups inside the house.

She was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor around the garbage can when he came back in.

“Who is this Eric Cady?” he asked.

“He’s a senior. He plays sports. People like him. I like him. We’re in Algebra together. He’s nice to me,” Bailey told him. “What do you want to know? His parents are doctors, if that helps.”

Her dad went back into the garage.

Bailey got up, went to the sink, and dumped out the bucket of dirty water.

He entered the kitchen again. “So you’re suddenly wearing tank tops to school and getting invited to parties?”

Glancing down at her t-shirt, she said, “This is what I wore to school.”

He said, “I mean yesterday.”

“Yesterday is gone,” she said. “I wasn’t comfortable wearing that. I doubt I’ll do it again.”

“It seems like a coincidence to me,” he said.

“Eric invited me before that,” she told him.

Once again, he went back out to the garage.

She knew her dad well enough to know he was going to tell her yes. Whenever he blustered about this way, his battle had already been lost. All that remained was for him to admit it to himself, and then to reluctantly agree.

He came back in, a bit of fight yet in him.

As she cleaned the glass around the kitchen’s outside door, he stood behind her, holding open the inside door to the garage, and he said, “And let me point out a nugget of information you might not be aware of. You say he’s nice to you. Why wouldn’t he be? The number one thing on his mind is exactly the one thing that you don’t want to be out at a barn party doing.”

“Watching scary movies?” Bailey said.

“Oh, that’s the game, huh? That’s slick,” her dad said. “Not very original, but the movie gambit’s worked for years. I used to take your mother to the drive-in, but, you know, it’s funny, I just can’t remember the movie that was playing.”

When Bailey glanced at him, he appeared proud to have drawn such a relevant counter-point from his bag of old memories.

She said, “If you don’t want me to go, just tell me.”

He answered, “I don’t want you to go.”

She rephrased it. “If I can’t go, just tell me.”

He dodged into the garage, saying, “Bailey, Bailey, Bailey.”

There were small cobwebs in the corners above the door. She found the long-handled whisker brush in the tall cabinet beside the refrigerator, and went back and swept the cobwebs away. No amount of cobwebs could dampen her mood. She felt even more invigorated just reaching her arms up high.

The truth was, Bailey knew, she had never given her parents any reason to doubt that she would continue to make intelligent decisions, even when it came to boys.

Although she had questioned it initially—and how could she have not?—she now whole-heartedly believed in Eric Cady’s sincerity. His attention provided her with much-needed affirmation. That she was a good person, an interesting person, a vital woman, attractive not ugly, more than a bookworm, and countless other affirmations she still hadn’t clarified. She had never pursued Eric Cady, never would have considered it. But his smiles, and his kindness had changed so many thing, especially how she felt inside.

When her dad slipped into the house again, he entered with a look of acceptance on his face.

He said, “Honey, you seem so happy, I just can’t tell you no. All I’m going to say is…
please
, use your brain.”

She spun and wrapped him in a tight hug.

“I will, dad,” she said. “You know me.”

Her mom walked in then, looked at them both, and said, “I take it the answer is yes.”

*     *     *

Because Jany’s car
was better, she drove. They went to Pine Ridge Mall, which was now remodeled. Both
Fanka’s
and
Rue De La Mode
had recently opened stores there. Bailey had never been to either.

“The clothes make the woman,” Jany said, reading the slogan on the wall at
Fanka’s
.

“That’s untrue,” Bailey replied. “But I’ll still buy something.”

Jany smiled. “All right, the woman makes the woman.”

Bailey considered that more accurate, but even so, she rarely ever thought in terms of ego-puffing mantras.

“Can a woman wear shorts in a hay barn?” she asked.

“Why not?”

“I’m guessing my legs will get itchy.”

“Take a blanket.”

“I don’t think so. Find me jeans.”

Jany knew Bailey’s size in jeans. As they moved past the tables, Jany gathered up the pairs that she imagined might look good, and handed them to Bailey. But whereas Jany was a twig, Bailey had hips. Jeans never fit them the same.

“Guys like stitching on pockets,” Jany informed her.

“You act so confident, like you know,” Bailey said.

Jany shrugged. “I simply watch where their eyes go,” she said. “A guy’s eyes always drift to an ass with stitching on the pockets. It’s plenty scientific.”

“I’m starting to get really nervous about this party,” Bailey admitted.

“Why?”

“You know why. I’ll feel completely out of place. Everyone will know it, too, and they’ll all be analyzing me.”

“You over-think things, Bailey. Try to relax.”

“I can’t.”

“Just remember the fact that it’s Eric Cady’s party, and Eric Cady is taking you as his ‘special guest’.”

“Do you have say it like that? That doesn’t help,” Bailey told her.

“Okay, he’s taking you as his date,” Jany said.

Bailey had four pairs of jeans stacked in her arms when she answered, “At least that sounds normal.”

“Start trying those on,” Jany said.

In the dressing room, Bailey tried on the first pair and tore them off immediately. “These suck,” she said, and flopped them over the door.

Jany said, “Stop that. I want to see them.”

“Not those, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

But Bailey had the next pair almost on. As she worked them up and buttoned them, she asked in a hushed tone, “Do you think he’ll try to make a move?”

“Yes.”

“You do?”

“Of course. He’s a quarterback. What would you expect?” Jany said.

“He’ll come up short,” Bailey stated flatly.

“That will be good for him. Open the door.”

Bailey opened the door. “These suck, too,” she said.

“You’re right, those look bad. Get those off,” Jany told her.

“Thank you.”

“Try on the dark pair.”

“With the stitching or without?”

“With.”

The dark pair with the stitching on the pockets cost over a hundred dollars, Bailey noticed now. She nearly got sick. As she slipped them on, she wondered how on earth she would ever survive tomorrow night.

She said, “You have to help me with my confidence, Jany. I swear I could vomit just thinking about going to this party alone.”

“You won’t be alone,” Jany said.

“You know what I mean. These look okay.”

Jany rattled the door. “Come on. Let me see.”

Bailey opened the door, saying, “He told me it wasn’t a drinking party, but then he said some people might bring their own. Does that make any sense?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you think he’ll end up drinking?”

“Who knows,” Jany said. “Those jeans look good. Get those.”

“You think so?”

“Look at them. They look hot.”

Bailey turned to check her butt in the mirror. Then she smiled and said, “Yeah, they do look hot, don’t they?”

Jany said, “How about a blue plaid shirt with pearl buttons down the front? Guys love blue.”

“You’re pulling these ideas out of your butt,” Bailey said.

“On that one, you’re right,” Jany admitted.

A
s soon as
the garage door was closed, Stuart Renly shut off his Buick and said to the woman, “I suppose I might be anal retentive. But sending me a picture that’s five years old is misleading. I was trying to explain that. I wasn’t trying to insult you.”

“Like I said, that’s the only picture I had of me wearing a tank top,” the woman said. “You can sue me. Are we doing it in the house or in the garage?”

“Inside,” he told her.

“Where’s the rest of the money?”

“Inside,” he told her.

“It’s Friday night, Jon,” the woman said. “If you don’t like me, take me back.”

She was hardly sweet-tempered, Stuart thought. He had asked her specifically if she had a sweet personality. On the phone, she had said “Of course, honey. Can you pick me up?” So she had lied about that, too, because she hadn’t been sweet since.

“I wanted sweet, remember?” he said. “I’m sorry I called you old. You actually look good in dim light. Kind of how I’d hoped. But if you could act sweet, I’d be happier with that.”

“Sure, honey,” the woman said. “I’ll be sweet if you’re money is green.”

That sounded rancorous to him.

He’d have to make the best of it, he decided.

“Come on in, Bailey,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Let’s have the money before we start the fantasy.”

“Not a problem,” he told her, getting out of the car.

She got out, too, and while Stuart Renley ascended the steps leading into the house, she shut the car door—more like slammed it, so to speak.

“Once I’m paid, I’m a dream come true,” she said.

The way she said it, though, he imagined her grinding out a cigarette with her shoe on the garage floor.

She was too thin, as well, without much softness in her curves, from what he could tell so far.

He held the door open for her, and she walked into the house ahead of him. She made an expression of approval at the layout of the living room, but didn’t say anything about it aloud.

She wanted paid first, he knew. Then she’d open up.

Literally.

He had big plans for tonight, in fact. Plans that he’d started working out immediately after school. What had sparked his planning was the conversation he’d overheard between Bailey Howard and her mother. There was a party this weekend at Eric Cady’s barn. He’d started feeling depressed upon hearing about it, because it reminded him that he wasn’t part of the student body, just a teacher and all alone.

But he was used to dealing with depression.

By now, after years of experience, he had learned that his depression could be cured by taking action. And having a plan on a Friday night was his preemptive remedy against an otherwise long and lonely weekend. As such, his Friday night made or broke his entire weekend. If his plans went well, he could wake up Saturday morning feeling great, which carried over to Sunday. But if he did nothing on Friday night, he felt more and more pathetic, and his depression deepened, lasting until Monday morning’s first bell.

Summer vacation was an entirely different problem.

“Let me get some cash,” Stuart Renly said. “Assuming we get along, I’d like you to spend the night. I can drive you home in the morning.”

“Two thousand,” the woman said.

“Ten hours at a hundred is one thousand,” he told her.

“Double for all night,” the woman said.

“It should be discounted, I would think,” he said.

“Not if I’m role playing all night,” the woman said. “That makes it extra work.”

“Will you do whatever I ask?” he said.

“Anything you ask, honey,” the woman said, trying to fake sweetness. “As long as you wear a condom.”