Fly on the Wall (29 page)

“Theodore Lakewood?” a reporter gasped. “Are you the student in question?”

They all held their microphones up extra high to hear whatever he would say. I squeezed his hand, a hint for him not to say anything, but before his brain picked up on my clue, he was speaking.

“Yes,” he said, “I am the student, and I'm also eighteen years old. If I can vote on who the next man to lead this country should be, then I can make decisions regarding my personal life as well. We are doing nothing wrong.” I nudged him and we walked into the school side by side.

“Why in the hell would you say that?” I was angry. “They're going to put that on the news, in the paper, everywhere.”

“So what?” he said. “They can't tell me what to fuckin' do.”

“Yeah, but you have to think of consequences before you open your mouth.”

“I did.”

“You did?” I struggled to regain my composure. “What were you thinking?”

“Don't start that.” He looked down at me. “I was thinking that I don't want you to go through this alone, which is why I'm here.” I could continue to bicker with him about revealing too much to the public or I could be grateful that he was still standing by my side. He wasn't running, he wasn't hiding, and he wasn't a coward. He could take it and was showing me, once again, that he was a man.

“Thank you,” I said.

He walked with me to the main office but waited outside.

“Those reporters didn't bite you, did they?” Courtland asked as he closed the door to his office. The entire process took about twenty minutes. I handed him my letter and he handed me some papers to sign. He informed me that the process still wouldn't be complete until I went to Downtown Miami to the county office to complete an exit interview and sign even more papers.

“I'll do that tomorrow,” I said as I stood.

“I hate to see you go.” He reached his hand out to me with a smile.

“Go to hell.” I looked down at his hand and willed it to drop off.

I walked out of his office and once again, all eyes were on me. When I met Theo in the hall, I hugged him so that the curious eyes sneaking a peek would be satisfied. We walked out of the building together.

“Did you resign so that you could continue a relationship with Theodore Lakewood?” a reporter asked.

“No.” I stopped walking. “I resigned so that I could continue on with my life.” I tried to smile. “Speaking of relationships, you guys should wait out here until Principal Courtland comes out and ask him about his relationship with Mr. Doran Bess, the new math teacher here.
Their
love story should be even more interesting than mine.” With that said, Theo and I walked to my car and had our first lunch, in town, together.

 

 

That evening, we returned to my house and made love with an unheard-of passion. It was as though we had been imprisoned and suddenly set free. My response to his touch, his words, to the feel of him was amazing. Things seemed new, better, and ten times more powerful.

As we finished and lay side-by-side panting, sweating, and dehydrated, my cell phone lit up and vibrated itself off of the dresser.

“I think you use that to play with when I'm not here,” Theo joked as he got up to go to the bathroom.

“I do.” I laughed and reached down to the ground for the phone. “Hello?”

“I guess you thought you were really doing something when you said that shit to those reporters,” Doran said.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact I did,” I said, smiling.

“Don't fuck with me.”

“Sorry.” I tried to calm him. “I truly didn't mean to get you involved. It was personal and had nothing to do with you.”

“Well, it sure as hell sounded like it. You said my goddamn first and last name.”

“Yeah, but it was about Courtland. He and I are even now.”

“Even?” he asked. “Even? What in the hell did I have to do with you getting even with him?”

“It was the only thing I had.”

“Oh yeah?” He went silent. “Well, I've got a little getting even to do with you.”

I giggled. “Everything is out in the open now. I have nothing to hide.”

“You don't, but your man does,” Doran said. “Ask your little boyfriend about being in a bathroom stall with Angela Porter on the night of the Valentine's Day dance.”

My smile dropped. “What?” I sat up in bed.

“I caught them fuckin'.” He gave a sinister laugh. “I caught them. Ask him about it. I know that he's right there. I'll hold the line if you want me to.”

“Fuck you, Doran.” I hung up the phone and Marion Jones couldn't get to the bathroom faster than me. I opened the door as Theo was washing his hands. I stared at him and tried to make myself believe that things weren't about to end right here and now after all that I had given up. Doran had to be just making things up to make my life miserable. Theo wouldn't, he couldn't, he didn't. Shit, I would kill him if I found out it was true. He noticed the blank look on my face. “What's up?”

I walked toward him. “That's what I want to know.”

“Who was on the phone?” He cupped some water and brought it up to freshen his face.

I proudly said, “That was Doran Bess.”

“Oh.” His eyes left mine immediately. “Oh, okay.”

I would make a terrible detective. I had to get right to the core. “What happened between you and Angela at the dance?”

“What do you mean?” His eyes suddenly widened and he couldn't close his mouth as he grabbed a towel and dried his hands and face. “What?”

“You heard me.” I got loud. “What happened at the fuckin' dance?”

He threw the towel into the sink forcefully. “Man, fuck that punk-ass muthafucka.” He tried to walk past me.

“Why, because that punk-ass muthafucka is telling the truth?” I leaned against the wall to frame him in the room. “Isn't he?” I shouted. “Is it true?”

He stared at the wall. “Is what true?”

“Did you do it?”

“Do what?” He angrily pushed his way past me.

Never in a million years did I expect this. Me, a grown woman, enraged about my eighteen-year-old boyfriend sleeping with a teenage girl. What happened to my life?

“Did you fuck Angela?” I asked. When I turned and walked into the room, he was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. “All I want to know is, is it true?”

“Nothing really happened.” He wouldn't look up at me.

“What does that mean?” I pushed his head back. I needed to see his eyes. “What do you mean by nothing really happened? Did you have sex with her or not?”

“No. There was no sex, Paige.” He jumped up from the bed and held my hands. “We didn't have sex, Paige. I'm not lying to you. We did not have sex.”

“Then why were you in a stall with her?” I couldn't understand. “
Were
you in a stall with her?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” I asked and he looked away again. “Why, Theo?”

“'cause she wanted to.” He took a deep breath. “Damn.”

“She wanted to what?” I asked.

“She wanted to go down on me,” he answered and stood up.

“Did she?” I yanked my hands away from him and found myself banging on his chest. “Did she?” He said nothing, but Theo's silence said everything that I didn't want to know.

“And you came here.” The tears fell heavily onto my bare breasts. “You came here to my house, to my fuckin' bed after you let her do it.” I don't know when I stopped hitting him, but I found myself beating on the bed. The pain from Craig and every other person who had ever let me down returned, and I let out a cry that came from the very bottom of my soul. It surfaced in one word. “Why?”

“Paige, it's not like what you're thinking.”

I asked, “Did she do it or not?”

He hesitated. “Yeah, but she—”

“Get out.”

“Wait!”

“Get the fuck out of my house.” I grabbed his pants, shirt, anything that belonged to him and tossed them at him. “Get the fuck out.”

“Paige, just listen to me.”

“Listen to you?” I was disgusted with him. “Listen to you? After all I've been through. After all of this bullshit I've been through, I don't have time to listen to anything. You just wasted six months of my life.”

“I'm telling you the truth,” he yelled. “At least I'm being a man about it.”

“A man?” I almost laughed. “That's exactly what your sorry ass is not.”

“I am.”

“You're not!” I yelled. “You are so not.”

“Just let me talk!” he shouted angrily at me. “Let me explain.”

“No!” I shouted back. “Who in the hell do you think you are, Usher, with your late-ass confession?” I threw his underwear at him. “Save it! If you had something you wanted me to know, you would've told me. No one should have to call me to tell me what the fuck you did.”

He was frustrated. “I'm trying to be a man!”

“No, a
man
wouldn't have gotten caught.” I thought about what I had said. “No, actually, if this relationship, or whatever it is, meant anything to you, then you wouldn't have let the bitch suck your dick.” I was hurting. “Get out of my house.”

“You ain't even letting me t—”

“Get out!” I shouted and backed away.

“Paige.” He walked toward me, but before he could say a word, I was sobbing.

“Please, just get out,” I said and walked into the bathroom, slammed and locked the door behind me. “When I'm done, I don't want you here.” I turned the shower on full blast so that I wouldn't hear anything that he had to say. I sat on the toilet seat and poured my tears into a large green towel.

Eva Lakewood paced the area in front of the door inside her house with the cordless phone in hand. It had been ringing ever since the five o'clock news, when she, and the rest of South Florida, learned of her son's involvement with his English teacher. Though she heard her son's voice, saw him on the screen, and understood what he had to say, Eva needed to see him for herself. Reporters seemed comfortable waiting in front of the house for someone, anyone, to come in or go out.

She dialed Theo's cell phone number every ten minutes, but received no answer. She left him countless messages and before long, his voice mail was full to capacity. Eva was angry, embarrassed, shocked, and disappointed in her son. She hadn't even taken off her uniform. She continuously peered out of the window hoping that he would show up and say that it was all a joke.

He pulled into the driveway a few minutes before eleven. She would finally make some sense of it all. The reporters crowded around Theo's car.

“Theodore, can we get a comment from you?”

“Is it true that you two were caught together in Key West?”

“What does your coach, her ex-husband, have to say about this?”

“Were you two sexually involved?”

Theo ignored them and pushed through the sea of reporters just like he did when they asked him stupid questions after losing a game. He marched into the house and closed the door in their faces.

“Well, hello
Mr.
Lakewood,” Eva said as she turned and stared him down from the crown of his head to his size seventeen shoes. “I've been calling you for the past five hours.”

“Oh, yeah, I had my phone off.” He walked past her. “What's up?”

She followed him into his room. “Well, I guess I know who bought you the damn cell phone now.”

“Oh God.” Theo threw his hands up. “Ma, please.”

“Ma, please?” she shouted. “Ma, please my ass. Theo, what in the hell do you think you're doing?”

He didn't know what she knew. “What?”

“What?” she said sarcastically. “Messing around with your teacher.”

“Look, I can make my own decisions.” Theo added, “It's my life.”

“No!” Eva yelled. “It's not your life. It's your damn future that you're fuckin' up.” She grabbed the remote and powered on the television. “They're already talking about how this shit may change your standing in the draft.”

“I don't think that this has anything to do with my game.”

She threw the remote on the bed. “Well, apparently somebody thinks so.”

He felt the weight of the world atop his head. “Ma, they just want something to talk about.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked. “Well, you sure gave them a lot.”

“Whatever. I don't wanna discuss this right now.” All Theo could think about was waiting an hour and a half for Paige to come out of the bathroom, and she never did. Each time he screamed or banged on the door, she turned the water up louder. He pretended to leave, but she found him out by calling his phone and hearing it ring in her bedroom. When he answered, she simply said, “Please leave,” and hung up. He then turned off his phone and forfeited. He left her alone in her house, her tears, and her pain. Now he walked into turmoil at his own house.

“Ma, I need some time to myself. Please, let's talk about this in the morning.”

“In the morning?” she said. “No, Theo, I want to know what's going on. Are you really involved with Ms. Patrick?”

“Yes.” He was short and sweet. “Yes.”

“Yes?” She couldn't believe what her son was saying. “She is your teacher, old enough to be your mother,” she paused, “and your coach's wife.”

“Ex-wife,” he corrected her. “They're divorced.”

“Whatever,” she snapped. “When did all of this start?”

Theo forcefully closed the drawer he was looking in for something to change into after his shower. “Do we
have
to have this conversation?” He was annoyed.

“You are my son; You were on the goddamn five o'clock news, about to be on again at eleven, and the fuckin' phone has been ringing off of the goddamn hook.” She pointed up into his face. “Yes, we have to have this conversation
right
now.”

“Damn, Ma.”

She was sick of the runaround. “Look, if you don't want to talk, then I'll call her. I still have her number, ya know.”

“Man.” He thought long and hard then turned to look at her. “It started during the first month of school . . .”

She folded her arms across her chest, sat on his bed, and listened. Theo didn't bother with details, just what she needed to know, along with the fact that he thought their relationship was over because of the mistake he made with Angela. In six minutes, he summed up their entire relationship. “And that's it.”

Eva was speechless and jealous. She couldn't believe that her baby was in love. The things he had done and was willing to do for Paige and the things that she had done for him were incredible. Had Theo told her the same story about a girl his age, she would've called him an idiot for messing up and urged him to make things right, but instead she said, “I can't believe that she is so desperate for a fuckin' man.”

Eva stood up angrily and couldn't determine if her bitterness was because she wanted someone to care about her half as much, because she herself was desperate, or because her son loved someone other than her.

“I cannot believe what some women would do to get a man.” She realized that she envied Paige.

“Well, I'm just glad that it's all over.” She paused. “Maybe you should tell that to the reporters.”

“I'm not telling them shit.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“Whatever.” He blew her comment off. “So
she's
the bad person in this. Is that how you see it?”

“I didn't say that she was a bad person.” She rolled her eyes. “But she's certainly needy. To be in a relationship with a child, she has to be.”

“Needy?” Theo had something that he had been holding in for three years. “Maybe she
was
needy. She
needed
me. I wonder why she was needy, though.” Theo pretended to really think about it. “Hmm, I wonder why she was craving love from somebody, anybody, even a quote-unquote child.” He added as he stood in his mother's face, “I wonder if it had anything to do with you fuckin' her husband.”

“What?” Eva's neck nearly snapped to look sharply up at her son.

“Don't play stupid with me. I knew about it.” Theo had never spoken to his mother this way. “I knew about it for the entire time you were doing it. That motherfucka came here late at night and you snuck him into your room. His cell phone number was in the caller ID all the time. He never called here for me.”

“That was a long time ago.”

Theo yelled, “He was married and you were fuckin' him. So, who is really the
needy
one here?”

She hesitated. “All of that ended years ago.” Eva embarrassingly stood up and tried to leave.

Theo blocked her in the room. “Here you are talking about her being desperate. What about all that shit you did when Coach Stiller came here? Cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and wearing the tightest muthafuckin' thing you could find? That wasn't years ago.”

“Shut up.”

“No.” He raised his voice. “I call that desperate. If I wasn't here that day, he could've and would've probably fucked you, and that's all he would've wanted, just like Coach J.” Theo paused. “I love Paige.
I
went after
her
. She was always concerned about my age and what people would think about our relationship. I begged her to give
me
a chance.” Focusing in on his mother's eyes, Theo added, “She wasn't looking to just get fucked like you.”

He knew it was coming, and braced himself for the slap that his mother laid on his face. Eva was out of his room before the sting went away, but he had even more to say.

“I know about the abortion you had for him, too. I found those pills and looked them up on the Internet.” Her room door slammed.

Spoken words are irreversible. Once in the shower, Theo felt horrible about the things he said. He didn't so much regret what he said, just how he said it. He wanted to apologize, but was sick of always being the one to ease her pain. He was hurting too.

He walked back into his room, turned on his phone, and within minutes it was ringing. He was excited.

“Hello?” He didn't bother to look at who was calling.

“Damn, boy.” It was Will. “How much does it cost to be like you?”

“What's up?”

“You, man,” giggled Will. “How could you keep that from me?”

Theo wasn't in the mood. “Lemme call you back.”

“Naw, man,” Will insisted. “We gotta talk about this shit now.”

“I can't, man.” He was agitated. “I have to go.” He hung up the phone and then the house phone chimed.

He answered the line. “Hello?”

There was a bit of silence then, “Hey, Theo,” Trese said.

“I can't talk now.”

“What, you got homework?” She paused. “Oops, I forgot. You're the teacher's pet; you don't get homework. You just eat that bitch's old, stale-ass pussy.”

“Fuck you, Trese. The only stale pussy I ever had was your wide as the Grand Canyon shit.”

“Nigga, you wish!” Trese shouted. “I can't fuckin' believe that you dropped me for an old, fat muthafucka.”

“First of all, she's nowhere near fat or old, and if she was, I wanted her, I still want her, and that's that.” He paused. “Ain't nobody
dropped
you because you can't drop what has already fallen down in the muthafuckin' gutter.” Theo's anger escalated. “We never had anything. I didn't want you; I never wanted you. I fucked you just like all them other cats did.” He wanted to call her something outside of her name. “Fuck you, and don't call this goddamn number again.”

He immediately dialed Paige's numbers. The house phone was off the hook, and her cell phone was turned off. He sat on his bed and remembered the horrible look on her face when she rushed into the bathroom, the pitiful way she wept, and the way she struggled to breathe. Paige made it clear that she never wanted to see or talk to him again.

Never in his life did he imagine he could care so much about anyone, and even more about the way he made her feel. “Shit,” he whispered, and before he knew what hit him, he was in tears.

 

 

At three in the morning, Paige was still pacing the floors of her house. She needed something to do so that she wouldn't do something foolish. She cooked, cleaned, organized, and cooked again. The pain of being betrayed was a wicked one. It was different than the feeling that came with being cut off by someone in traffic or having the power company disconnect your lights. This feeling was next to insanity.

Finally retiring to her room, she sat on the bed and put the receiver on the hook. Instantaneously, it was ringing. The Caller ID spat out the name of someone that wasn't Theo, so she answered. “Yeah?”

“Are you all right?” Craig asked.

“Ah . . .” She wanted to lie, but the words wouldn't come out. “Ah.”

“I saw the news,” he said. “I just want you to know that it wasn't me. I didn't say a word to anyone.”

“I know.” Her voice was weak.

“Paige, are you all right?”

“ No. ”

The dick in shining armor said, “I'm on my way.”