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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

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Someone picked up on the third ring. “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice.
“Hello, is Mrs. Jenna Corson there, please?”
“Speaking.”
Chris covered his free ear as a floral delivery truck pulled into the driveway beside the funeral parlor. “Mrs. Corson, this is . . .” He hesitated and glanced at the truck. “This is Emerald City Flowers calling. We have a delivery for you. Are you going to be home for the next hour?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Chris held his breath.
“Yes, I’ll be home,” she said finally.
“We have you at 22013 Forty-second Avenue in Kent, Unit 2-F, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be there within the hour, Mrs. Corson, thank you,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said. Then he heard a click on the other end.
Chris switched off the cell phone. He had a strange feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. It had been stupid of him to pretend he was someone else on the phone; but he’d figured she would hang up if she knew it was him. Now she’d be even angrier once she found he’d lied to her.
He heard a door slam and saw a young, heavyset woman with red hair unloading a blooming plant from the back of the truck. “Excuse me?” he called to her. “Is that for Corson?”
She hesitated, and then glanced at the card on the plant. “Yeah,” she said.
“I’ll take it, thanks,” he said, holding out his hand.
She gave him a crooked grin. “Wait a sec. Who are you?”
Chris straightened his tie. Then he pulled out the business card with
Bonney-Watson Funeral Home
and the man’s name on it. He flashed it at the woman. “We were expecting you an hour ago.”
“Oh, well, sorry.” The redhead handed him the mum plant.
“It’s okay,” Chris said. “Mrs. Corson will be glad to get it.”
Minutes later, Chris sat in the back of a Yellow Cab, balancing the blooming plant in his lap. He was on his way to Kent. The card on the little plastic holder read:
To Jenna—Thinking of you, with love, Dennis & Debbie Gotlieb.
Chris felt inside his jacket pocket for his sunglasses, but they weren’t there. Then he remembered—they were on the bathroom floor in the funeral parlor. An eighty-five-dollar pair of Ray-Bans, right down the toilet—or in this case, right beside the toilet. He checked his other pocket just to make sure. No, he had his cell phone in there, and nothing else.
His cell phone.
“Shit!” he whispered. He realized—after thinking he’d been so damn clever with the funeral parlor guy and the florist—he’d done something really bonehead stupid. He’d called Mrs. Corson on
his cell phone
, pretending to be someone else. She almost certainly had caller ID. She might have forgotten to check it when she’d picked up the phone. But chances were she would check it before he showed up at her door. Maybe she already knew it had been him calling.
He felt that knot in his stomach again and wished he’d just been honest with her. He expected his cell phone to ring any minute—with Mrs. Corson on the other end, ready to chew him out. And he would deserve it.
“Stupid,” Chris muttered to himself. He adjusted the mum plant in his lap and pressed a hand to his stomach.
He felt the knot tightening.
C
HAPTER
S
EVEN
Molly was driving on the interstate, halfway home. “Tuesday Afternoon” played on the car radio, and a cool breeze whipped through the half-open window.
She thought again about calling him, but told herself that Chris was a big boy. He had bus fare and a route schedule. He could get home on his own. He was a responsible kid.
As she watched the road ahead, Molly remembered six months ago and how they’d tried to do the responsible thing. But then it all spiraled out of control.
Before that, back in October, she still hadn’t known Chris well enough to read his various moods. She’d been married to Jeff for only three months. She’d figured most teenagers were sullen and withdrawn all the time. Chris was still getting used to this strange woman in the house, moving in on his mother’s turf. His behavior seemed normal considering the circumstances. But Jeff was deeply concerned about him.
“Since Angela moved out, he’s been getting worse and worse,” Jeff observed. “Every time he comes back from a weekend with her, all he does is snarl at me. I’m sure Angela’s bad-mouthing us to him every chance she gets. And poor Chris is her captive audience.”
Molly tried to reach out to Chris. Having him pose as the teen hero for the cover of the young adult novel,
Conquer the Night,
helped thaw him out a little. And in early November, when he asked her to come with him to Zales to pick out a bracelet for Courtney, Molly felt she’d finally won him over. She told him in the jewelry store how flattered she was that he’d solicited her opinion.
He shrugged. “Well, Mr. Corson thought I should ask you—since you’re a woman and you know this kind of stuff.”
She and Jeff had been hearing more and more about his guidance counselor, Mr. Corson. At first, Jeff had been grateful Chris was even talking to them—about anything. But after a while, Molly could tell he felt a bit threatened. Ray Corson seemed to have become Chris’s new father figure. “I’m not sure I like Chris going on these late-afternoon runs with this guy—just the two of them,” Jeff told her one night. “It’s just weird.”
But Molly considered Mr. Corson a godsend. Until the guidance counselor came along, Molly hadn’t realized Chris could be so sweet and friendly. She guessed he might have been that way before his parents’ separation; and if so, they had Ray Corson to thank for bringing back the old Chris.
But he started to backslide in late November. His mother had suddenly fallen in love with Larry Keegan, a Bellevue divorced dad. She didn’t waste much time moving in with him. So Chris had a potential stepdad and teenage stepsister, and obviously, he wasn’t crazy about either one of them. Making matters worse, he and Courtney had broken up.
It seemed to come to a head one night the week after Thanksgiving, when Jeff was out of town. Molly had been holding dinner for Chris, who still hadn’t come home from school. He hadn’t answered his cell phone, either. She finally fed Erin at eight-fifteen. Chris crept in at a quarter to nine, while she and Erin were washing the dishes. Erin wanted him to guess what she drew in art class. Molly asked where he’d been and why he hadn’t called.
“Could you both just leave me alone?” he muttered, retreating upstairs to his room.
After tucking Erin in bed, Molly went to his door and gently knocked. “Chris, can I come in?”
“I don’t feel like company, okay?” he replied from the other side of the door.
“Well, I didn’t feel like worrying about you for the last four hours, but I did,” she replied. “You owe me an explanation. I’m coming in.” She opened the door and found him on top of the bed with his hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.
“I know you’re having a tough time lately,” she said, standing in the doorway with her arms folded. “What happened today? Why didn’t you call? You were very curt with Erin when you came in. That’s not like you. Her feelings were hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, rolling over on his side. His back was to her.
“Did something happen with Courtney?”
“No. It’s got nothing to do with her,” he murmured.
“But something happened,” she said.
His voice was strained when he finally answered. “I—I can’t talk to you about it, Molly.”
She sat on the edge of his desk. “Well, if this is as serious as it sounds, maybe you should talk to your dad.”
“He’s too busy,” Chris grunted.
“He’s never too busy for you, Chris. You know that. You should call him.”
“It’s almost midnight in D.C. He’s probably asleep. It is D.C. where he’s at this week, right?”
Molly didn’t respond right away. He sounded so bitter. “Well, it’s not too late to call your mother.”
“She can’t be bothered right now. She’s in love.”
“What about Mr. Corson? Do you have his number? You trust him.”
“Not anymore,” he muttered.
“Why? Did something happen with Mr. Corson?” Molly remembered what Jeff had said a while back:
“I’m not sure I like Chris going on these late afternoon runs with this guy—just the two of them. It’s just weird.”
She walked around the bed so she was facing him. “Chris, did something happen with Mr. Corson?”
He rubbed his eyes. “Damn it, you’d think I’d learn. People always let you down. What a disappointment—first, my mom and dad, and then Courtney, and now, Mr. C. . . .”
Molly sat on the edge of his bed. “Chris, what did Mr. Corson do to you?”
With a sigh, Chris half sat up. He pushed his pillow up against the headboard and leaned back on it. “He didn’t do anything to me. It’s just . . . I needed to talk with him. I’ve missed him on the track the last couple of days—and I’ve had a lot of stuff on my mind.”
Molly nodded. “I know you have.”
He picked at a loose thread on his bedspread. “I’m not sure whether or not I told you about Ian Scholl.”
“Isn’t he the boy everyone picks on?” Molly asked. “He snapped at you when you tried to help him pick up his books. . . .”
Chris nodded. “Mr. Corson asked me to be nice to him—and be his pal. I wasn’t so gung ho about the idea. I mean, I tried to be nice to him before, and look how he reacted.” Chris shifted on the bed, and the springs squeaked. “Anyway, I went looking for Mr. Corson this afternoon. It was kind of late, and he wasn’t at the track. He sometimes takes a shower in the varsity locker room after his run. So I went looking for him in there. At first, I thought the place was empty. But then I heard this strange, moaning sound a few locker rows down from where I was. I went to check it out and . . .” Frowning, he took a deep breath. “Well, Mr. Corson was standing there hugging Ian Scholl. No one else was in the place. Mr. Corson had his shirt off, and it wasn’t buddybuddy hugging, y’know? I mean, it looked like he was kissing the top of Ian’s head. . . .”
“Go on,” Molly said somberly.
He shrugged. “Ian suddenly saw me, and he just freaked. He practically knocked me down running out of there. I couldn’t believe it. I just stared at Mr. Corson, and I think he started to say something. But I didn’t stick around. I bolted. I heard Mr. Corson call to me, but I just kept running. A few minutes later, he phoned my cell twice, but I didn’t pick up. I finally switched it off.” Chris shook his head. “It really disgusted me, and I’m not sure why. I don’t think I’m homophobic or anything like that. I just—”
“What if you found him with a female student, doing the exact same thing? How would you have felt?”
He sighed. “Just as disgusted, I guess. I didn’t think of Mr. Corson as the type of guy who would make a move on a student—any student.”
Molly patted his leg. “You’re not homophobic, Chris. You’re just very disappointed in Mr. Corson. So am I—if that hug is what you say it was. Are you sure it was sexual? I mean, don’t guys sometimes hug in the locker room after a game?”
“Not when one of them is half naked, and no one else is around—and there’s no game,” he muttered. “It looked pretty sexual. So now, I’m wondering why he wanted me to be friends with that creepy Ian, and why he’s been so nice to me. I think back to all the times we were alone, and—shit.” Chris shook his head. “How come I feel so pissed off and disgusted about this? I mean, why should I care if they want to get it on?”
“Because you looked up to Mr. Corson, you trusted him,” Molly said. “And then you found him doing this—this wildly inappropriate thing. Ian’s a student—and a minor. It’s not just inappropriate, it’s against the law. What Mr. Corson was doing was wrong.”
Chris turned away and rubbed his eyes.
“You said he tried to call you?” Molly asked quietly. “Did he leave a message?”
Chris frowned. “No, I checked. I was hoping he could explain. . . .”
Biting her lip, Molly realized she was out of her element here. This was a matter Jeff needed to handle. The new stepmom had no business trying to resolve it.
So she heated up leftovers from that night’s ham-and-mac dinner for him. Though Chris had claimed he wasn’t hungry, he wolfed it down—alone in his room. Molly retreated downstairs to the kitchen and phoned Jeff at the Hilton in Washington, D.C. Jeff had been sleeping. He sounded groggy at first, but after Molly explained why she was calling, he became wide awake—and angry.
“I knew that guy was bad news!” he declared. “What have I been telling you? There’s something basically wrong with a teacher spending so much time alone after school with a student. Damn it, I should have nipped this in the bud months ago. Jesus, it’s a good thing I’m not there right now. I’d kick the crap out of that SOB.”
“Well, then I’m glad you’re not here,” she said. “Jeff, we can’t be one hundred percent positive about what Chris saw. We should at least listen to what Mr. Corson has to say, maybe get him together with Chris—”
“What? Are you nuts? He’s not getting near Chris again. Listen, listen—put Chris on, honey. I need to talk with him, make sure he’s okay. . . .”
She let Chris talk to his father in private for a few minutes. When Molly got back on the line, Jeff explained that Chris had agreed to tell his story to the school principal in the morning. Could she set up the appointment? Could she go with him to see the principal?
They met with the principal during lunch hour the next day. Molly’s heart ached for Chris, who sat across from her in Principal Carney’s office. His foot shook nervously, and he kept glancing down at the ugly gray carpeted floor—unable to look anyone in the eye. Molly’s chair was hard and uncomfortable, and she figured his was, too. They were probably that way on purpose for students being disciplined in there.
Carney was a large, fiftysomething black woman who looked like she didn’t smile much. Behind her desk was a blown-up photo of the Seattle skyline and several framed certificates. She listened solemnly as Chris recounted what he’d seen in the varsity locker room the previous evening.
When he was finished, the principal cleared her throat, reached for her phone, and pressed three numbers. “Shannon, have Ray Corson come to my office. . . . Yes, right away . . .”
Chris seemed to go pale. He shot Molly a panicked look.
She reached over and put her hand on his arm. “Chris and I aren’t comfortable with this,” she said to the principal. “I thought we’d be talking with just you, Principal Carney. We weren’t expecting a face-to-face with Mr. Corson.”
The principal gave her a dubious sidelong glance. “Well, if Mr. Corson has an explanation, you want to hear it from him, don’t you?”
Molly just sighed and said nothing. She noticed Chris’s foot started to shake so bad it looked like a spasm.
Principal Carney began typing on her computer keyboard. Molly wasn’t sure if she was writing up a summary of what Chris had just told her or if she was answering e-mails. The principal didn’t explain. No one said anything. Molly listened to the
click-click-click
of those fingernails on the keyboard for about five excruciating minutes.
At last, she spotted Ray Corson through the window in the office door. At least, she was pretty sure he was Ray Corson. He reminded her a bit of Jeff, only not quite as handsome—and a few years younger. Still, he was pleasant looking. He wore a blue striped shirt, jeans, and a loosened tie. He knocked on the office door and then opened it.
Chris slinked down in his chair.
When Corson saw him, a sad half smile came to his face. “Hi, Chris,” he said. Then he approached Molly with his hand out for her to shake. “Mrs. Dennehy?”
She hesitated. All she could think about was Jeff, going ballistic because she actually shook the guy’s hand. “Molly,” she said finally. She didn’t want to be mistaken for Angela. She went ahead and shook his hand.
“Have a seat.” Principal Carney nodded at a single chair against the wall. He sat down in it. The principal folded her hands on her desktop. “Mr. Corson, Chris happened to see you in the locker room last night with a student, and he was concerned that something inappropriate might have happened there. Maybe you can clarify for us exactly what was going on.”
Ray Corson frowned. “I was counseling a student on a personal matter.”

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