“I’m sure you are,” I say. I look at him, at his crystalline green eyes, his pixie nose, the nasty bruise on his arm. “But…” Yet I can think of nothing to come after this word. I’m suddenly speechless. I look at him, aware of my breathing. Again the dominoes fall in my mind.
“We have a half-day on Friday,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you could come then.”
“Yeah, that’d be good.” He smiles. “You’ll pay me, right?”
I laugh. “Of course I’ll pay you. I wouldn’t ask you to work for free.”
What I don’t tell him is that Bill will be gone then, at a convention in Philadelphia, an overnight. And that while Gracie has an abbreviated schedule too as long as I call ahead I can have them hold onto her through the mid-afternoon.
“I’ll have some projects for you to work on,” I say casually. “And maybe when you’re done we’ll watch a movie. Sound good?”
“Sure!” His face is open, bright. I want to hug him then, this pretty boy with the bruised arm, tell him things will be all right. But of course I don’t. I smile, get up and go to the VCR, turn on the movie.
The next two days I alternate between euphoria and low-grade panic. I cannot get Connor out of my mind no matter what I try. He’s taken up residence and pushed virtually everything else out. I make my way through my classes well enough—I’m professional enough for that—but mentally I’m in another place. Gracie gets only a highly distracted mother, Bill a distant wife. I wonder if he’ll start to think I’m crazy. Maybe I am, I think. But that doesn’t stop the excitement, the beating heart, followed by the awful dread, the feeling of doom heading straight at me as unstoppably as a freight train. Yet I can’t get off the tracks. Every time I try to move I only seem to get locked more tightly onto them.
I kiss Bill goodbye that morning, wish him a happy convention, see him off with his briefcase and overnight bag. I hustle Gracie into the car, drive her to pre-school, remind the teacher that I won’t be back for her until three today. She assures me this is fine and that the after-school kids will have plenty of fun. “Yes, good,” I say, or think that I say, jumping into the car again, driving too fast to Cutts, teaching my classes in a rushed and breathless way. Connor says nothing in class, seemingly just waiting, like the other kids, for the bell to ring and the half-day to begin. It does. He lingers after the others.
“See you at one, Connor,” I smile. It’s the time we’ve arranged.
He grins brightly. “Okay. ’Bye!”
The day has turned gray, cold, wet. Rain is slamming down by the time I get to my car, toss in my things, pull out of the parking lot and try to control myself, try to keep from pressing the gas pedal to the floor to get home. Or to get away, far away, any place except where I’m going. But my hands steer the wheel competently through the rain and soon enough I’m in the driveway, I’m home, I’m changing into a bright yellow blouse and short white skirt, I’m fixing my hair. My hands are covered in cold sweat. At any moment I expect to see Bill pull into the driveway, shaking his head in the self-effacing way he’s developed over the years, since he grew staid and conventional, saying as I open the door: You know what? I just realized I got the date wrong. The convention isn’t until next week! In a way I hope he does. I hope his familiar car pulls up behind mine in the driveway and I open the door and he comes in and we have coffee and he suggests we pick up Gracie and go for a drive or for lunch somewhere or dinner.
But he doesn’t. Instead Connor comes walking along the street. He has no umbrella, no hat, just his big coat. He looks up through the heavy rain, double-checking that he’s got the right house, and moves up the walkway. I force myself to wait until he rings the bell—not once, but twice. Then I walk to the hall and open the door.
“Connor! My gosh, you’re soaked!”
“Yeah.” He smiles, rain dripping from his nose. “Kinda wet.”
“Why didn’t you bring an umbrella?”
He laughs. “I don’t have one!”
“Well, come in, come in,” I say, clearing the way for him. “Take off your shoes, okay?” He does, leaves them near the door. “And give me your coat.” He does. “Connor, this thing is soaked all the way through! You should have called. I could have picked you up or we just could have postponed or something.”
He shrugs. “It’s okay.” But I can see that he’s cold. Now that his coat is off I notice that he’s shivering.
“Connor, it’s not.”
“I wanted to come,” he says as I hang up his coat. “I need the money.”
“Of course,” I say.
“So what’s the job? Is it outside?”
I look at him. “Connor, you’re in no shape to work. You’re too cold. Let me get you something hot to drink.”
“I’m okay.”
“Connor, you’re going to drink something hot.”
He shrugs again. “Okay. I wouldn’t mind.”
I seat him at the kitchen table. “Do you like hot tea?”
“Sure. Okay.”
I microwave two cups of water, drops bags of mint tea into them, keep up some sort of line of chatter as I do so. I bring the hot tea and then go back for the sugar bowl. “I don’t know how sweet you like it,” I say. “Put in however much you want.”
He puts in quite a lot. Finally he sips.
“Good?”
“Yeah.” He smiles, still quivering. We don’t talk for a minute or two. The house suddenly strikes me as extremely quiet, shockingly quiet. There is no sound but the rain and that seems far away.
Finally he says, “What’s the job, Ms. Straw?”
“Connor,” I say, my breath short, “you need to get out of those wet things. You’ll catch cold.”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t look at me. After a moment he sips his tea again.
“I’m okay,” he says at last.
“Don’t be silly. You’re shivering.” I stand finally. “You can use our bathroom. I can give you a robe. We’ll put your things in the dryer. They’ll only take a few minutes.”
He stands, slowly, looking down at the table.
“C’mon,” I say, taking him by the hand. “Use this bathroom.” I open the door for him, switch on the light. “Just take off your stuff and I’ll get you a robe. We can’t have you getting sick,” I say brightly.
I close the door, stand there breathing fast. My stomach hurts suddenly. I feel as if I’m going to vomit. But it passes. I move off to the bedroom, grab a robe of mine for him to put on. He’ll look silly in it but it’s just for a few minutes, until his clothes are dry. I return to the bathroom. I stare at the doorknob. Has he locked it? If he has, I decide, I’ll just knock gently, say, “Connor, I have your robe, just open the door a crack so I can pass it to you,” and that will be that. He’ll put it on, come out complaining that he looks stupid in this thing, we’ll dry his clothes and I’ll start him on his job. (What job? I haven’t even thought.) He’ll work, I’ll give him a snack, the clothes will dry and he’ll go back into the bathroom and lock the door behind him to put them on, he’ll come out again, we’ll watch a movie. All innocent, a comedy of errors, nothing important, just Ms. Straw hiring that Connor Blue kid to do some more work, that’s all.
The door is unlocked.
I open it.
He’s standing in the middle of the bathroom floor, facing away from me. He’s taken off his pants, which are heaped next to him. His socks are gone, too. He’s wearing his red-and-white striped shirt and a pair of white shorts.
“Here’s your robe, Connor,” I say, my voice oddly husky.
He doesn’t move, just stands there with his hands at his sides as if he doesn’t know what to do. I place the robe on the counter.