Lily King - The English Teacher

Tom threw out the used pieces of sandpaper and brought out the stain. He pried open the can, stirred it with a wooden stick, and placed two brushes beside it. There was a certain tenderness to each gesture, and Peter understood that he was in the presence of someone doing something he loved. He wasn’t sure he’d witnessed that before. Most of his teachers had probably once loved their subjects, but their passion was hidden under layers of frustration, years of repetition.

Staining, it turned out, was even more satisfying than sanding. Stain had none of the stress of paint, which Peter remembered glopped and streaked and never went on as evenly as you hoped. It was hard to make a mistake with stain. Sometimes they talked; sometimes there was just the sound of their brushes. He’d never really been comfortable with a grown man before. Nothing was worse than being stuck alone with Jason’s father, who stood with arms crossed over his broad chest and stiff black hair coming out of his nose as he assaulted Peter with questions. He felt awkward around all his male teachers and coaches; perhaps it was his less than stellar performances, or perhaps it was their knowledge of the absence of his father, their fear that he was looking for a substitute, or Peter’s fear that they had this fear. He even felt uncomfortable in the presence of his great-grandfather’s bronzed head in the vestibule. But with Tom after a while he just felt himself, the self he was when he was alone. Things just came out of his mouth; he didn’t rehearse his lines first, as he often did with Stuart or before speaking in class.

“Peter,” Tom said into one of their comfortable silences. “Did you ever meet your grandparents? You know,” he added hastily, “your mother’s parents?”

“No.”

“Has she ever told you about them, or told you about her childhood?”

“She didn’t like them much. They moved around a lot and my mother read in the backseat of the car. That’s all I know.”

Tom waited a while, then asked, “What was your mother like when you were little? Do you remember?”

“I don’t know,” he stalled. He knew Tom wanted him to say she was different somehow. “She played more games, maybe.” He wished they didn’t have to talk about her. He wished he just lived with the Belous without her getting in the way.

“Has she always had a few drinks at night?”

“No, not always. I think it was more on weekends, if she went out.”

“Did she go out a lot?”

“Probably once a month.” Peter kept staining, watching how quickly the wood absorbed the color.

Tom nodded, then asked softly, “And would she come home drunk?”

“Not drunk. Not like she couldn’t walk or talk. Just kind of happy. She’s actually a lot nicer that way.” Ever since that fight in the kitchen, he’d wanted to tell Tom this.

“My father drank himself into his grave before he was fifty.” Tom’s voice was slow and hard and his mouth had fallen down into his chin. “I won’t let that happen to anyone else I love.”

The front door and all the first-story windows of the Larabys’ house were open. As he and Jason crossed a circle of wet grass, the machinelike hum they’d hardly been aware of broke into separate human voices. Kristina. Kristina would be here. His heart thumped heavily. Peter could see people holding beers.

“Aren’t they worried about the neighbors telling?” he said.

“What neighbors?”

It was true. The property was encased in woods; the last house Peter had seen was miles back.

“I’m going to get laid tonight,” Jason said.

“Yeah, right.” But Jason’s confidence made him uneasy, and Peter worried that that was how you had to be to get a girl, even just to kiss a girl.

They stepped into the front hall, where a group of seniors leaned against paintings on the wall.

“Hey, J-man,” Kent Scully said. “Keg’s in the kitchen.”

“Cool.”

Peter wasn’t exactly sure what a keg looked like. Jason was starting to know a lot more than he did. Peter watched him lead the way, greeting juniors and seniors, being greeted. There was no mockery in it anymore for him. Peter got the same twisted smiles and the funny voices he got in the hallways at school. “Does your mommy-mommy know where you are?” he heard someone say behind him. Peter had learned to block it out. Kristina was his only thought. It was the only thought he’d ever had since he’d started going to parties. And so useless. He’d heard that week at school that she’d broken up with Brian again, but even that, if he was really honest with himself, would never matter.

They passed a small den filled with kids from his grade holding plastic cups and trying to act like they’d been to senior parties before. Kristina, who certainly didn’t have to fake that, would never be among them.

Scott Laraby, the host, lay spread-eagle and fast asleep on the kitchen table. A girl with a few of Scott’s features, the same stunned eyes and pushed-in nose, was in the corner, operating what Peter guessed was the keg. It didn’t need an operator — all you had to do was press a little button at the end of a hose — but she had put herself on a stool with the cups stacked between her knees just to be able to talk to everybody. It was the kind of thing Peter would do if he had the chance, and it made him instantly dislike her.

He and Jason got in line.

“Easy does it this round, sailor,” she said to a guy in a blue-and-white-striped shirt.

When it was their turn Jason asked if she was Scott’s sister.

She nodded at her brother, passed out on the table. “Some girls have all the luck.”

“So why don’t you go to Fayer?”

“Oh, it was decided long ago I’m not private school material. Red or blue?”

“Whichever’s bigger,” Jason said, though of course he knew the cups were the same size.

“You like ’em big?” she said.

“Always have.”

Peter was left out of these kinds of provocative, senseless exchanges. He couldn’t respond to them any better than he could initiate them. As if sensing this, Scott’s sister handed Peter a blue cup without a word and poured. Other people, even girls, even now Jason, exuded something he did not. He was as bland as water, as unremarkable as air. He and his cup of foam moved on while Jason stayed at the keg bantering with the sister.

Peter had no choice but to head to the room of tenth graders. He took the long way around, glancing into the dining room. At the far end of the long table was Kristina with two guys he’d never seen before, older guys, maybe even older than seniors. She was holding a small pleated paper cup, the kind you rinse with at the dentist’s, up to the mouth of a bottle with a fancy gold necklace around it. When it was full, she knocked back the liquor in one swallow. Her throat was much paler than her face and arms. The guys were smiling at each other. Peter knew what they were after; probably Kristina knew, too. She wouldn’t want him to intervene. Although the sight disgusted him, something — that oval of pale skin, the already drunken shape of her lips — aroused him and he tugged down the front of his sweatshirt over the tightening of his pants.

He tried to imagine Stuart at this party, standing with his perfect posture. He’d drink water instead of beer and make it seem cool. In a half hour he’d be able to get any girl he wanted. Trying to invoke Stuart’s spirit through the meditative techniques he’d taught him, Peter straightened his spine, became aware of his organs, and dissolved his tension. He took a long deep breath, a long gulp of beer, and vowed he’d fool around with someone, nearly anyone (it didn’t have to be Kristina — it could never be Kristina), tonight.

When he turned away from the dining room, he noticed that the three most lusted-after junior girls were watching him. He tried to look at them the way Stuart looked at his girls through the window, pleased but unsurprised. They buckled, all three of them, to the floor in heaves of laughter. He retreated immediately to the den, grateful for the flat chests and sympathetic voices of the unpopular girls.