Been There, Done That (21 page)

There were forty-two people in the audience. I should have lost myself in the music and passed on the counting, but I couldn’t help it. Anyway, it didn’t take long. Thirty-one female, eleven male (two of whom appeared to be faculty). The auditorium seated five hundred.

I desperately wished for latecomers until the forty-third audience member slipped in: Tim.

Perspiration dampened the polyester lining of my dress. My throat constricted (good thing I didn’t have a solo). I couldn’t put a label on what I was feeling, but it was much, much worse than stage fright.

The concert was a success—at least as successful as it could be without much of an audience. But no one screwed up, and the forty-five people in the audience (there had been three latecomers) applauded enthusiastically. Okay, forty-four did, anyway.

After our last number, we walked in a line backstage, taking turns pushing the curtain aside (we’d been unable to find someone to actually open and close the curtain for us). There were giggles, squeals and something that resembled a group hug. “People were actually smiling!” Vanessa gushed. “Did you see?”

Eventually, I trudged up the long, now-empty aisle to Tim, who leaned against the back wall, his arms crossed casually in front of him. Only his tight-lipped smile betrayed any tension.

I was trying to figure out the best way to break the news about the Prom Queens, but he did it for me. “Those girls aren’t hookers.” He didn’t sound angry or even irritated. Rather, his voice was controlled, slow and patient, as if he were telling an especially dim child, “First put on your underpants,
then
the trousers.”

“I was just about to tell you,” I said, as if this were a piece of late-breaking news.

I heard a giggle behind me. Relieved at the interruption, I turned to Shelby, who squeezed my arm and did a little jump. Her smile was quite literally blinding, as her braces reflected the stage lights. She wore a studded leather jacket over turquoise satin, and her brown hair hung in ringlets. She looked like a child who had raided her trampy teenage sister’s closet. “I am so pumped!” she said. “I am so jazzed! This is, like, the best day of my life!”

“You ought to get out more,” Tim purred.

Shelby shot him a look of purest disdain and turned her attention back to me. “Mother’s boyfriend?” she whispered in my ear.

“Mmm,” I replied, vaguely.

“Mine’s always trying to act cool, too. Just ignore him—it works for me.”

“I was Kathy’s high school music teacher,” Tim said casually. “It was so nice of her to invite me to her concert.”

Shelby looked at him strangely. “I’ll see you at practice,” she said as she left.

I tried to look at Tim but couldn’t stand it. Instead, I examined my high-tops. What had appeared fun and quirky an hour ago suddenly seemed trite and regressive.

“I’m called Katie here,” I said finally.

“I wish you had mentioned that.” We were quiet for another moment, until he asked, “Want to go for a drink?”

“You have no idea.”

 
 
The Snake Pit was packed and noisy. We claimed a corner near the bar so we could grab the first available stools. I was relieved at the crowd, as we couldn’t possibly discuss my incompetence among so many potential eavesdroppers. I felt a little ridiculous in my reconstructed prom outfit, but no one seemed to notice. “You still a wine drinker?” Tim asked with much more practicality than sentiment.

“As long as it’s not white zin,” I said. “They guzzle that stuff by the caseload around here.”

Tim ordered a beer for himself—some obscure import—and the wine for me. The bartender—not Gerry, our informant—jerked his head in my direction. “She got ID?”

Tim stared at him for a moment, smirked briefly, then looked over to me with mock concern. “You
are
twenty-one, right?”

“Of course,” I said. For a moment, I longed for my license, which was hidden in the glove compartment of my car, but I knew I could never pull it out and blow my cover. “I just, um, left my ID at home.”

“Lotta that goin’ around,” the bartender sneered.

“How about we go back to your room and get it, then,” Tim suggested.

The bartender guffawed. “Better make sure she’s eighteen before you take her home. Don’t want to be getting into any trouble.” Tim leaned back to the bartender, and they exchanged words I couldn’t hear.

“It’s not funny,” I said, once we were out on the street.

“Actually, it is,” Tim said, as he walked briskly to the liquor store two doors down. “Your roommate around?”

“I doubt it. Her boyfriend’s speaking to her this week, and his roommate usually goes home weekends.”

The door of College Liquors jingled as Tim opened it. “Wait here,” he instructed.

Back in my room, he opened the brown bag. He took out a six-pack of dark brown beer and set it on the floor. Then he reached back in. “For you,” he said, presenting a bottle of very pink wine.

“My favorite,” I sneered.

“You were expecting an oaky chardonnay with vanilla undertones? You’re supposed to be eighteen. Consider yourself lucky. I almost bought you peach wine.”

I grabbed the bottle of white zinfandel and reached for the corkscrew that I kept in the top drawer of my desk. “You won’t be needing that,” Tim said. He took the bottle from me, and with one quick turn of the wrist, it was open. I retrieved the single wine glass that I left out on my desk and held it out to be filled. Then, I settled onto my bed. Tim sat on my chair, even though it was much harder than my bed and much farther away from me. Perhaps that was the point. “You could just drink wine out of your mug like all the other freshman,” he suggested.

I snorted. “College isn’t quite the same as in our day. Kid down the hall? Very into his port—tawny, not ruby. Has to be at least twenty years old.”

“The kid?”

“The port.” I gulped my wine. It tasted much better than I’d expected it to. “But I think it’s because of all those years in France.”

“The port?”

“No, the kid. He went to high school in Paris. Port’s from Portugal.”

“I know that.” He smiled, or softened, at least.

I drank some more. Maybe Jeremy was right; I was getting a bit too attached to my booze. “As for my sophisticated tastes, I’ve got it covered.” I held my glass up in a mock toast. “Ever since my parents’ separation—this was sophomore year of high school—my mother, who’s a borderline lush but not really an alcoholic, has taken me on three wine tasting vacations. Two in Napa, one in the south of France.”

“This would be your Jewish mother.”

“The very same.”

“And how did she get a fifteen-year-old on these tours?”

“She was sleeping with the tour coordinator.”

“Male or female?”

“Oh, male. I’m the only lesbian in my family. And even that may be just a phase.” I smiled, and so did he, although he still didn’t move over to my bed. I drained my glass. It was actually kind of tasty if you thought of it as juice.

Tim took a swig of beer and squinted at my Matisse poster. “You know, Kathy, you don’t have to be quite so—creative. Your father can be a banker. Your mother can be a part-time office manager. Home can be a brick colonial in Connecticut. Sound familiar?”

“Vaguely. But then tell me this: why don’t my parents ever call? Why aren’t they coming up for Parents Weekend? Why am I the only girl on the hall who doesn’t want to sleep with our Greek god of an R.A., who, by the way, thinks I’m quite the hot little number.” I looked for signs of jealousy and came up empty. “Because I come from a dysfunctional family, that’s why! Mine’s not even the weirdest around, judging from the stories I’ve heard.”

“Look.” He put his beer on my desk. “I just think that the less you say, the better. And borrowing from your real life may not be such a bad idea. Half-truths are generally more believable than total lies.”

“Are you speaking from personal experience?” I snapped. Our reconciliation was sliding further and further away.

“Let’s just—oh, Christ.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Can we just talk about the investigation?” Thus he steered the conversation away from my relationship screwups and back to my career screwups, where it belonged.

“I joined the wrong singing group,” I announced.

“So I gathered.”

“But it still gives me an inside perspective.” I yapped for a bit about the microcosm of college singing groups. He bought the argument for the same reason I thought of it in the first place; at Cornell, a cappella groups were an elite, trendy group. At Mercer, there were only two girls’ groups, one of which had nothing better to do on Saturday nights, the other of which had too much. (They had yet to give any kind of performance.) “There will be tours to other colleges, joint events”—this I claimed because Penny had said that the Red Hots sometimes sing at nearby schools—“and if they ever get invited to something like that again, maybe we can ask to be included.”

Tim went along with it. As he drained his beer, he nodded through a gulp and wiped a touch of froth from the corner of his mouth. If only I’d joined the Red Hots, maybe I would have had the nerve to lick it off before he got to it. That’s the kind of behavior that would come naturally to that set. “Okay,” he said. “Whatever. I guess it’s a done deal, anyway—it would look suspicious if you backed out now. Just try to find out something worthwhile. Time’s running out.” He stood up and reached for his jacket, which he’d thrown next to me on the bed. “Enjoy your wine.”

“You’re not staying?” My voice cracked. Whenever I get upset, I acquire the voice of a fourteen-year-old boy. I lowered it an octave. “I thought we might work on our notes, plot strategy. Something.” I paused. “We didn’t get very far the other night.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize.” I tried to catch his eye. He focused on finding his car keys. “I thought we were having—fun.”

He put his hand on the doorknob. “The bartender at The Snake Pit said Gerry would be coming in around now. I’m going to check back with him, see if he’s heard anything. I’ll be back in D.C. on Monday. You can e-mail me. Plus I’ll be in Boston again next weekend in case you want to meet face-to-face. I shouldn’t hang around the college too much. People might get suspicious.”

There was a knock on the door. Tim dropped the knob and looked at me. I shrugged. I knew I should panic, but I was much too romantically depressed. In short, I was beginning to feel like a real college freshman.

Tim waited about a minute for the knocker to leave, then he opened the door. The knocker was still there: Jeremy. “Hi,” he said, seeing Tim, except it came out more like a question: “Hi?”

Tim held up his hand in a lazy wave directed back to me. “Thanks for inviting me to your concert.” He nodded at Jeremy and strolled through the door.

“Tim—wait,” I said, far too desperately. He turned around slowly and gave me a warning look. I wouldn’t call a teacher by his first name.

“Thanks,” I said. “For coming to the performance.” He smiled with utter falseness. He was an even worse actor than I.

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he said, walking away.

Jeremy still stood in the doorway. I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to say anything, too afraid I would cry. I held the wine glass to my lips and, realizing it was empty, poured myself another glass. I held the bottle up to Jeremy as a silent offering. He shook his head. Noticing Tim’s remaining five bottles of beer on the floor, he pulled one out of the carton and wrenched it open.

“My old music teacher,” I said, as brightly as I could manage. “It was our first concert tonight, and he was in the area.”

Jeremy nodded. “You were good. I was there.” He took a long drink of the beer.

“Really? I didn’t see you. I counted heads but I couldn’t see faces very well.”

He shrugged. “It’s easy to get lost in the crowd. Anyway, it’s why I’m here—to tell you, you know, that you were great.” We held each other’s eyes for a moment. But I couldn’t help it. My eyes wandered to the door, as if it might still project a fading image of Tim. Jeremy looked at the door. He looked back at me. “You’re not really a lesbian, are you?”

twenty-five

I told Jeremy everything. I really had no choice. He knew something was up. So I told him how ashamed I was of the lies and deception, how terrified I was of being found out. He swore he wouldn’t tell a soul. “And stop feeling guilty,” he admonished, stroking my hand. “You are so completely blameless. He’s the one who should have known better.”

“It’s just as much my fault as his,” I wailed. “Because I was so stupid. I
am
so stupid!”

Jeremy shook his head. “A teacher should never get involved with a student—never. He should be fired.”

I shook my head in return. “He didn’t pursue me. It wasn’t like that. I’m the one who kept coming in after hours to practice
The Hallelujah Chorus
. I’m the one who insisted on taking up the cello when, really, I have no aptitude for strings at all.”