Home Song (6 page)

“Mine was really dynamite tonight,” she said afterward, sighing, rolling back, closing her eyes.

“I could tell. The kids probably could, too.”

Her eyes flew open. “I wasn't
that
loud, was I?”

“Only before I put the pillow over your mouth.”

Once again they chuckled, then resumed a loose embrace that put her face against his chest and his chin on her hair.

“Well, you weren't so quiet yourself.”

“I know, but at least I made the effort to time my outbursts with the beat from Robby's stereo.” Through their common bedroom wall they could hear the faint thrum of a rock station, which played at Robby's bedtime every night.

Claire sighed and rubbed Tom's chest. “Do you ever think about how wonderful it's going to be when they're gone and we can have the house to ourselves?”

“Yeah . . . wonderful and awful.”

“I know.” They lay in silence, amazed at how fast that time was approaching.

“Two years,” she said, with a wistful note of sadness, “less than two years.”

He rubbed her arm and kissed the top of her hair. She heard his heart clunking along reassuringly beneath her ear.

“But at least we'll still have each other. Not everybody's that lucky.”

“Oh?” He drew back to look into her face, warned by a note in her voice that she was troubled by something.

“Ruth thinks Dean is cheating on her.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“She's collecting evidence. It's largely circumstantial, but she thinks she's right.”

“I guess it wouldn't surprise me.”

“It wouldn't?”

“Dean and I are pretty good friends, too. He's never said anything directly, but I've gathered from inferences that she sort of lost interest after the boys went to college.”

A knock sounded on their bedroom door, and Tom pulled
the covers up to their armpits. “Come on in,” he said, leaving his arm around Claire.

“Hi.” Chelsea poked her head into the room, took in their pose at a glance, and repeated self-consciously, “Oh . . . hi. Gosh . . . sorry to bother you.”

“No, it's okay.” Tom straightened up against the pillows. “Come on in, honey.”

“I just wanted to tell you that Mrs. Berlatsky called, and they're short of kids to act as partners for the new students tomorrow, so she recruited me. But she forgot to say what time.”

“Eleven-thirty in the library.”

“Great. Well . . . g'night.” She smiled at the two of them and was withdrawing when Tom called, “Hey, Chels?” Her face reemerged wearing an expectant expression. “Thanks for helping out, honey.”

“Sure. G'night, Dad. G'night, Mom.”

“Good night,” they replied in unison, then exchanged a look of approval. “Pretty great kid, huh?” he said.

“You bet. We raised nothing but good kids.”

 

In her own room, Chelsea pulled the puckered taffeta tiebacks from her twin ponytails. They'd been mounted one atop the other behind stiffened bangs that shot forth like fireworks above her face. She brushed her hair, dressed for bed, and climbed in to lie in the dark, smiling about her mom and dad. They did it yet—she was pretty sure. It wasn't the kind of thing she'd ever asked them about, but she didn't need to. There'd been a rule about entering their bedroom without knocking since Chelsea was in the first grade, and tonight Mom's shoulders had been bare, and they'd been snuggled up as if
something
was up.

She wondered about
the act
, about how it was possible to
carry out such a thing gracefully. How often did married people do it, and how did they approach doing it? Did they just
say something
? Or did they automatically do it on days when they'd been flirting, like her parents had been today? She knew they sometimes took showers together and had caught them at it once when she was thirteen, but she'd been so scared of getting caught staring at the steamy shower door that she'd turned around and gotten out of there before she was discovered.

Sex . . . that awesome force. She'd been thinking more and more about it lately, especially since her best friend, Erin, had confided that she and Rick had gone all the way this summer. But Chelsea had never gone steady with anyone for the length of time Erin had gone with Rick. Oh, there had been boys she'd liked, and she'd been touched and tempted some. But never to the point where she'd even come close to considering doing the
Big Nasty
(as she and Erin had called it for years).

Lying in her bed on a pleasant August night with her brother in his room and the faint sound of his radio finally being turned off, and her parents across the hall, with a new pair of cheerleading tennies in her closet and the promise of a super school year ahead, Chelsea Gardner hoped that no boy would become so important to her that she lost her good sense, not while she was still in high school. She wanted to go to college, get a career, then have a marriage like her mother and father's, one where they were the only ones for each other and still in love after lots of years. She wanted a home and a family like this one where everybody loved and respected each other. Chelsea figured one sure way to risk losing all that was to get tangled up with some boy and get pregnant.

She could wait. She
would
wait.

And in the meantime she'd be grateful that she could go to bed every night feeling secure in the knowledge that she had the best family in the world.

 

The following morning Tom found himself distracted much of the time by thoughts of Kent Arens. Shaving, patting on aftershave, combing his hair, he found himself studying his reflection in the mirror and recalling how much Kent resembled him. Things happened inside him whenever the boy came into his thoughts, a tightness around his heart, a prickle and flush fired partly by apprehension, partly by exhilaration. He had another child, a third child, a child different from the two he'd known, who would bring a different mix of genes into the future, would achieve different things, go different places, maybe have grandchildren someday. The fact that Kent didn't know him as a father brought added depth to Tom's anxieties over the boy. The knowledge had a preciousness to it while at the same time stirring alarm within him at the unknowns his future would undergo because of Kent's advent into his life.

By eleven-thirty, when the new students met in the library, Tom found himself approaching the meeting with such intense expectancy it had actually elevated his pulse. To walk into a room and cast your eyes on a young man of seventeen, knowing without question for the first time that he was your son . . .

Watch yourself, Tom. Don't go straight to him, or study him too much, or show overt favoritism to him; there'll be other faculty members in the room
.

Indeed there were. A number of them were already assembled and greeting students near the door when Tom arrived. The school librarian, Mrs. Haff, was there, along with the vice-principal, Noreen Altman, three school counselors,
including Joan Berlatsky, and a half dozen coaches. Some of the students who were acting as guides today were also near the door.

Tom greeted them but his attention veered immediately in search of Kent Arens.

He found him with no trouble, standing half a head taller than most around him. He had gone to a bookshelf and selected a volume, through which he paged, his dark head bent, his shoulders looking impressively broad in a blue plaid short-sleeved shirt with crisply creased sleeves.

My son
, Tom thought, his heart racing, his face warming.
Holy Mary, mother of God . . . that boy is my son!
How long before he could look at him without all of these physical reactions?
My son, whose whole life I've missed until now
.

Kent looked up, caught himself being watched, and smiled.

Tom smiled, too, and started moving toward him as Kent replaced the book on the shelf.

“Hi, Mr. Gardner.” He extended his hand.

“Hi, Kent. How did it go with Coach Gorman?” So grown up, Tom thought, marveling again at the manners this young man had been taught. Clasping his hand, Tom felt an undeniable rush. If there was such a thing as father love, he felt it at that moment when he touched his son's hand: the mindless thrust of emotion that accompanies the mere knowledge of paternity.

The handshake was brief.

“I made the team at running back.”

“Good for you. I'm glad to hear it.”

“Thanks a lot for taking me down and introducing me to the coach. It helped a lot.”

The two were still talking when Chelsea Gardner entered the media center, smiled, and said hi to some of the faculty.

Mrs. Berlatsky said, “Hi, Chelsea. Thanks a lot for helping out today.”

“Oh, sure. No problem.”

“Help yourself to cookies and pop.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Berlatsky.” She eyed the refreshment table in the middle of the room and headed that way. Dressed in a short white split skirt and a hot-pink tank top, she looked as if she were heading for the tennis courts. Her skin was tan. Her makeup was simple. Her nails were unpolished. Her shoulder-length hair was pulled up high on the sides and secured with combs. Her bangs were standing at attention. She moved with the quickness and agility of a tennis player, too, taking a chilled can of orange soda and popping its top while she glanced over the crowd. She'd taken one sip when she saw her dad talking with a tall, dark, good-looking student she'd never seen before. The can lowered slowly from her lips.

Wow
, she thought, and walked toward them immediately.

“Hi, Dad,” she said with a big smile.

Tom turned, suppressing his dire anxiety at his daughter's arrival. When she'd stuck her head into their bedroom the night before and announced that she'd been recruited to be a partner here today, he could think of no logical excuse to ask her not to come. It would have been pointless anyway: he couldn't keep her from meeting Kent Arens indefinitely.

He dropped an arm around her shoulders and said, “Hi, honey.” But she wasn't even looking at him. She was focused on Kent and offering him her usual bright, welcoming smile.

“This is my daughter, Chelsea. She's a junior here. Chelsea, this is Kent Arens.”

Chelsea briskly offered her hand.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he said, as they shook hands.

“Kent is from Austin, Texas,” Tom put in.

“Oh, you're the one Dad was talking about at the supper table last night.”

“I am?” Kent glanced at Tom, surprised that he'd been the subject of conversation at his principal's house.

“There's always a lot of school talk at our supper table,” Tom replied. “You can imagine . . . with four of us here in the building.”

“Four of you?”

“My wife teaches English here, too.”

“Oh . . . sure,
that
Mrs. Gardner. She's going to be my teacher,” Kent said.

“So you're an honors student,” Chelsea put in.

At that moment Mrs. Berlatsky picked up a microphone and spoke into it. “Good morning, everybody! Feel free to help yourselves to cookies and pop, then take a seat so we can get started.”

Tom said, “I'd better visit with some of the others,” then moved on.

“Do you want a can of pop?” Chelsea asked Kent. “Or a cookie?”

“A can of pop, maybe.”

“What kind? I'll get one for you.”

“Oh, you don't have to do that.”

“That's our job, to make the new students feel comfortable. I'm one of the official partners here today. What kind?” She was already heading away.

“Pepsi,” he called after her.

She returned momentarily, handing him a chilled can.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You're welcome. Let's sit.”

They sat at a library table sipping, and before they could
speak, Mrs. Berlatsky got on the mike again and started the program.

“I want to welcome all you new students to Hubert H. Humphrey High School, and to thank all of you old students who came today to act as partners. We really appreciate your help. To all of you who don't know me . . . I'm Joan Berlatsky, one of the school counselors.” She introduced the rest of the faculty present, ending with Tom. “. . . And last, I want to introduce you all to Mr. Gardner, your principal, who's here to officially welcome you this morning.”

Chelsea watched her father move toward the front of the library and take the mike. She felt a radiant pride, as she did whenever she witnessed him performing his duties as principal. Though there were plenty of kids who called him names and wrote nasty things about him on the rest room walls, they were primarily the geeks, the druggies, the lawbreakers, the losers. Those in her circle pretty much agreed that her dad was a fair man, that he'd do anything he could for the students, and they liked him. And he hadn't grown fat or sloppy like some middle-age people did. He was still trim, and he was a really neat dresser, though today he wore only a yellow polo shirt and tan chinos—to put the new kids at ease, she knew. She thought surely he must be succeeding as he stood with one hand in his trouser pocket and spoke into the mike with a pleasant expression on his face, letting his eyes scan the room.

“Welcome, everyone. I'd guess there must be between fifty and sixty of you here who moved in from other districts and other states over the summer. I imagine you're all wondering what our school is like, what it'll be like for you coming here five days a week, and some of you a lot of evenings as well. This morning we're here to answer your questions, show you your building, tell you about our academic and
sports programs . . . give you a chance to get to know us a little and for us to get to know you.”

Tom and others took turns filling in the new students on attendance policies, major activities of the year, lunch schedules, early-release forms, fire drills, study halls, student parking rules, and the sexual harassment policy. The coaches spoke about eligibility rules, the Minnesota State High School League, and the HHH sports program.