Chapter 4

Mike woke with a screaming headache, a dry, pasty mouth, and four cats curled up on the heavy quilt around him, sleeping in the shallow depressions formed by the crooks of his arms and legs. He wasn’t sure at first where he was or how he’d gotten there, but after several confusing moments, he recalled that he’d gone to Theresa’s house to sober up, and then ... he couldn’t recall what he’d done after getting there. Passed out, apparently.

“Looks like you got some pussy last night after all,” came a voice from behind.

Mike turned his head to find Theresa leaning in the transition to the hallway, her blonde hair a tangled mess, wearing a midriff tank top and a pair of thin, form-fitting cotton sweatpants. She yawned and stretched, then padded across the living room toward the small kitchen. As she passed by, he noticed the way she walked on the balls of her feet, with her heels slightly elevated off the floor, finding that just a little bit odd.

“Morning,” he tried to say, but the word came out as a groaning croak.

Cabinet doors opened and banged shut, and he winced at the skull piercing rattle and screaming whir of grinding coffee beans.

“You sleep okay?” she yelled to him over the racket.

He sat up to rub his face and scratch his head, rousting his feline sleeping companions in the process. He was shirtless for some reason, but a quick peek under the quilt showed his pants to still be secured around his waist. With great effort, he swung his feet out onto the hardwood floor and stood up, feeling woozy and a bit nauseous.

“What time did I pass out last night?” he asked, looking around the cluttered living room for his shirt and shoes. One of Theresa’s cats rubbed against his leg, then leaped onto the sofa to beg for scratches, which he obliged to quiet its insistent meows.

“Too early for my taste.”

Mike turned at the sound of her voice to find her standing behind him with a short Yeti tumbler in her hand.

“That coffee?” he asked hopefully, but she shook her head.

“Leftover protein shake from yesterday.” She held it out to him. “Want some?”

He blanched and said, “I’ll wait for coffee, thanks.”

He found his shirt hanging neatly over the back of a dining room chair, and discovered his shoes on the floor underneath it. Theresa watched with regret as he covered up his sculpted torso, and when he sat to put his shoes back on, she sighed heavily.

“Do you like me, Mike?”

The question brought his head up. He was about to ask what she meant, but stopped himself when her meaning became clear. Before responding, he gave her an appraising look. There didn’t seem to be anything insecure or vulnerable about her demeanor. She wasn’t holding her breath with hope and expectation that he might say one thing or another. She just wanted to know if she was wasting her time.

“I like you a lot,” he said, returning his attention to the task of tying his shoelaces. “You’re one of my closest friends.”

“You know what I mean,” she said, struggling to keep the exasperation she felt at his non-answer from coloring her voice. “I’m asking if you could ever see us together. You know, as a couple.”

Mike stood to tuck in his shirt, then combed his hair back with his fingers, buying himself time to formulate a reasonable answer. At last he faced her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Under different circumstances? Yes, absolutely. You’re a gorgeous, amazing woman. But I don’t date the people I work with. There’s just too much chance for relationship drama to find its way in. Believe me, I know from experience. It’s better for me this way.”

Theresa nodded, appearing to accept his reasoning. “I totally get that,” she said, “but it doesn’t have to be that way, you know. We could keep it on the down low. I know how to be discreet.”

Did she really, though? As his hazy memory of the evening’s events returned, he recalled the little sparring match between her and Rachel at the brewpub. Add to that Anne-Marie’s unhinged response to his rejection of her, and Linda’s apparent vindictiveness for much the same reason, and it seemed highly doubtful that things at work wouldn’t devolve into a massive shit show, eventually. He shook his head.

“I believe you, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable sneaking around behind everyone’s back. That wouldn’t be fair to either of us. Besides, it’s just too risky for me. I told someone no the other day, and it might have gotten me fired. I’d rather not find out what happens if I say yes.”

News of Mr. Messina’s abrupt departure from Scirewood Academy eventually filtered its way through the highly interconnected web of relationships that formed the student social network. Lily Wilson had spied him clearing out the desk in his office, and Ella Nelson had watched from the entrance to Leavitt Hall as Ms. Stafford and Ms. Rosen chased after him in the parking lot. Avery Simmons asked Mr. Baden about it, who let it slip that no, Mr. Messina wasn’t likely to be returning to class Monday morning, and Beth Foster pumped Mrs. Nair for information, but she refused to give her a straight answer, confirming to anyone with half a brain that Mr. Messina had definitely been fired. By the time word reached the Robotics Club, the school was abuzz in rumor, innuendo, and speculation.

“I heard he was doing it with some of the teachers,” Mia Clark said through a mouthful of peanut m&m’s. “Ms. Stafford and Ms. Rosen. At the same time.”

The eight members of the Robotics Club lounged around the school’s small swimming pool, trying to catch the last few golden rays of late summer sunshine before the weather irrevocably turned, giving way to the chilly, hazy days of autumn. Most simply lay out to work on their tans, but Michelle sat up with her scorching laptop balanced on her thighs, busily clacking away on the keyboard, listening in with one ear while the other girls gossiped.

“Oh yeah? Well I heard he was doing it with a bunch of students,” Madison Anderson said in an attempt to one up Mia. “Right on his desk.”

Madison lay on her stomach with her top untied, something a couple of the others ventured to do as well. They all said they did it to prevent tan lines, but in truth they found the act freeing and a little naughty. It wasn’t something they’d have done when the male teachers, or Ms. Richardson, were around, of course, except perhaps for Mr. Messina, but it was Ms. Rosen’s turn on rotation as the Dormitory Supervisor that week. The granddaughter of a sixties radical, and a vocal feminist in her own right, she’d never voiced any objections before about girls going topless at the pool.

“Bullshit,” Sophia Bryce scoffed, absently gliding her thumb over the soft skin underneath her arm to feel for the thin, hard shape hidden there. Something they all subconsciously did from time to time. “Who did you hear that from?”

Madison bristled at the notion that her sources were anything but trustworthy. “Gabby said that Riley told her she saw Vicky Price sneaking into his office after school a couple weeks ago, and she didn’t come out again for, like, thirty whole minutes or something.”

“Riley Adams is a lying little twat,” Olivia Redmond said with a sniff, picking her wedged bikini bottom out from between her large, pale butt cheeks. “Bitch is always making shit up,” she grumbled, then paused. “What the fuck are you looking at?”

Endora Hardin sat directly across from her in one the ubiquitous molded plastic chairs known to just about every person in the world, watching a topless Olivia dig around in her ass with a little too much interest from behind a pair of dark sunglasses. Endora herself was far too pale and self-conscious to wear something as revealing as a swimsuit in public, and so sat dressed in a pair of ripped black jeans and a green flannel button down over a black Led Zepplin t-shirt to hide the straight parallel scars on her arms and thighs. She casually turned her head away from Olivia to look at Mia instead.

“I heard that Ms. Linda found out about those pornos, and that’s why he got fired.”

Everyone quieted and turned to look at Izzy Cabrera, who wilted under their collective attention.

“Where did you hear that?” Michelle asked, showing sudden and great interest in the conversation for the first time. She’d brooded all morning over the news of Mr. Messina’s untimely dismissal.