Christopher Beha - Arts & Entertainments - A Novel

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“I’ve spent some time this afternoon speaking with the board, and we’ve already made our decision. I’m not here to negotiate with you, only to explain what will happen from here. You’re going to take a paid leave of absence for the rest of the calendar year, until the semester is over.”

Eddie thought he could live with that, especially if he kept getting paid. He could use the time to help Susan and manage the damage from the video.

“That sounds reasonable.”

“At that point, your tenure at the school will be over.”

“You mean I’m fired? For something I did before I even started working here?”

“As I said, we didn’t see how we really had a choice.”

“At the very least, you’ve got to pay me through the end of the school year. I’ve got a contract.”

“It’s the opinion of our board that we have plenty of standing to terminate that contract based on the personal character and conduct clause. Frankly, there was a lot of sentiment to simply get this all over with now, since we’ll have to start paying your replacement right away. But as you well know, you have your supporters on the board, and they were able to persuade others to pay you through December. I promise that you won’t do any better than that. We have had to give some of the parents reassurances that you won’t have any contact with their boys, so I’d like you to leave the building quickly and quietly.”

“Jesus, I’m not contagious. For God’s sake, I was having sex with a grown woman. They should be relieved that my proclivities run in that direction. It puts me ahead of most Catholic school teachers.”

“I really don’t think there’s any reason to be nasty at this point.”

“Nasty? I’ve spent the majority of my life in this building, since before you’d even heard of the place. Now you’re cutting me loose over something that’s not my fault. If you had any decency, you’d be circling the wagons. You’d be supporting me.”

“If it makes you feel better to continue yelling, go ahead, but nothing can be done at this point.”

Eddie needed a different approach.

“Listen, Mr. Luce. I just found out my wife is pregnant. She’s having triplets. I’ve got three kids coming in the spring. I can’t be unemployed right now. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Eddie watched the news pass over Luce’s face. He seemed to be considering the possibility that Eddie was lying in an awkward ploy for sympathy.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, and he almost seemed to be. He continued in an unguarded tone that Eddie had never heard from him. “Of course I didn’t realize that. But you’ve got to know that the board and the parents call the shots. They’re paying a lot of money to send their boys to a place where they expect them to be protected. To be sheltered. And if they don’t want you teaching their kids, then you’re out of here. I serve at their pleasure just as much as you do, trust me on that. If they wanted me gone, I’d be done just as quickly.”

Outside, a single photographer stood talking to Stephen McLaughlin. When the photographer noticed Eddie he started taking shots of him. It seemed a good sign that only one person had come. Nothing connected him to the video besides the imaginative minds of some of his students and his history with Martha. Perhaps the story really wasn’t that big. It might all be over soon. If Eddie couldn’t get his job back, there would be something else. In the meantime, his salary would be paid for three months. But all this hopefulness disappeared when he got home and found a dozen more photographers waiting on his block. They charged him as he approached his building.

“Can you confirm that it’s you in that tape?”

“When did you make it?”

“How did it get out?”

“Do you have a message you want to send to Martha?”

“Is it true that your wife is having triplets?”

The terror that came over Eddie’s face in that moment would be captured from every possible angle and sent around the world within minutes. He dropped his chin and pressed through the crowd.

“When are they due?”

“Boys or girls? Or both?”

“Did you lose your job today? What are you going to do to support the kids?”

“Are there any other tapes?”

“Why do they call you Handsome Eddie?”

He pushed through the door and stood in the hall, catching his breath while they took pictures through the glass. Luce must have gone to the press the moment Eddie walked out of St. Albert’s. Not just about firing him, but about the babies. He might have done it in exchange for some protection for the school, but he could have just as easily done it out of spite. Eddie walked past the elevator and took the stairs to their floor, trying to imagine as he went what he would say to Susan. He wasn’t sure how much she knew, or how much anyone did. Inside she sat on the couch with her head in her hands.

“You did this,” she said without looking up. “You made this happen.”

“I’m so sorry,” he told her. “Luce fired me today, and I was begging for my job back, and I told him about the babies, because I thought that would make him reconsider. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Now she looked up.

“They know about the babies?”

“It never occurred to me.”

“You did this,” she said again.

“I’m trying to explain,” he said. “I didn’t think he’d go telling people. What a hypocrite. He talks about instilling values.”

“Alex called.”

“What?”

“Your agent called the house.”

“What did he have to say?”

“For starters, he said you never talked to him about the video. He also said that there isn’t any fucking movie playing in South Korea.”

Eddie sat down on the couch beside her, but she immediately stood and crossed the room.

“South Korea. Honestly, you must think I’m such an idiot. And the worst part is, you were right. I wanted this thing so badly that I didn’t ask where the money was coming from. South Korea. I should have known right away. Do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because you can’t act, Eddie. You couldn’t act sweaty if they sent you on a ten-mile run. People would think it was a rainy day. You couldn’t sell anything to anyone but me.”

“I just wanted to make you happy,” he said. “I couldn’t do it myself. And then I saw this chance, and it all seemed easy and harmless.”

“Get out.”

“Let’s talk about this. Try to see where I’m coming from.”

“You had your chance to talk about it. You’ve been lying to me every day for weeks. For months. Probably for years.”

“Not for years.”

“I’m going to be a laughingstock. There are camera crews staked outside our building. Is that what you think I wanted? You may have wanted that. Martha Martin might want that. But I don’t want that. Get out, Eddie. Get out right now.”

“It will pass.”

“Get out,” she told him.

“We’ve got to stick together on this.”

“Get out.”

He wasn’t sure where he was going when he left. Coming out of the building, he prepared for the flashes and shutter clicks, but the cameras were all pointed upward. He couldn’t help looking in the direction of whatever they were capturing. Susan was hanging out the window, calling down to the street.

“He did this,” she said. “Eddie Hartley sold that tape. If he tries to tell you otherwise, he’s lying.”

When he looked up, she stopped for a moment and disappeared from the window. Eddie thought the onslaught might be over. But she returned with something in her hand. She set it free, and Eddie watched it briefly take flight before beginning its descent. It was one of his old head shots. In the moment it took Eddie to understand the photo’s significance, Susan picked up the entire box of relics and emptied it into the street. The cameras didn’t follow Eddie’s things as they fell or take in his reaction as he watched them hit the ground. They stayed fixed, every one of them, on the woman inflamed above.