Chapter 7 #2
They came in before Kaitlyn could say anything, and with a handful of clipped and uncomfortable sentences, it was decided that we should relocate to the conference room down the hall.
I sat on one side of the long wood laminate table, and they sat on the other.
Six people staring the hard stare of righteousness at me, waiting for me to give testimony they already knew they wouldn’t believe.
Dante was wrong. Hell has only one level, and it was a conference room with a broken projector and a scatter of plastic ballpoints on imitation wood.
The room was so bright that I caught myself squinting, but I was also grateful because I could pretend it was the reason for my glassy eyes. I could pretend I wasn’t struggling to keep myself from crying.
They asked me to tell them in my own words what had happened, and my eyes strayed over to Kaitlyn.
Her vape had vanished the minute Father Alvarez and the others walked into the room; at some point, a laptop had appeared.
Her eyes met mine over the laptop screen, and I could hear her flat, skeptical words again in my mind: You’re not giving me much reason to believe otherwise.
I couldn’t bring myself to try to explain the way Bell had evaded my consent.
If my best friend wouldn’t believe me, then how could I expect these five people across the table to?
These people who represented the college that I’d just embarrassed by being caught with my skirt up in front of donating alumni?
In the face of what it had undeniably looked like, how could I claim that it was something else when I had no idea how to clarify what that something else even was?
I spoke quietly, briefly, while Kaitlyn typed, her face settling into a hard, blank expression. Neva Weeks, my boss and someone I’d always gotten along with, had a more sympathetic expression, and when I glanced up, I found myself looking to her for comfort.
I just wanted someone to ask if I was okay.
The hour I was alone with Bell in the studio flattened into a handful of declarative statements.
He came in unexpectedly. I thought he was there about grades.
He kissed me. I protested but I didn’t stop him.
Things continued and I didn’t stop him then either, not until the end.
We had never touched before this. This was the first time I’d had sexual or romantic contact with anyone at Evelyn: student, faculty, or staff.
Yes, I was aware that this was a violation of my employment contract.
Yes, I was aware that this violated Evelyn’s commitment to student safety.
Kaitlyn’s fingers moved over the keys with aggressive, determined finality. Every space was hammered like a nail and every return like a shovel into stubborn dirt. When I finished talking, I looked up to see four scornful faces and two pitying ones.
Father Alvarez was one of the latter; Neva was the other.
Father Alvarez was the first to speak. He cleared his throat and shifted in his cheap, mesh-backed chair.
“We are in a constrained position, Birdie. At a non-Catholic college, a liaison with a twenty-two-year-old student, particularly on the eve of his graduation, might be a matter of a written reprimand. But Evelyn stands for more. Evelyn stands for the work of God and his Church. Evelyn has to represent that Church. And I hope you understand why the Church cannot tolerate any kind of sexual impropriety, why we must be ruthless in transparency and consequences. It’s to rebuild trust. It is to make sure there is no home in the Church for sin and no shelter for those who would harm the vulnerable. ”
I flinched. Had I harmed the vulnerable? I was the teacher after all, however counterfeit the position had felt, and I was seven years older than Bell. Could I have done more to stop him? Save us both from his impulses?
Neva came next, putting her hands on the table.
She was a painter and there were flecks of paint on the deep brown skin of her fingers.
Her eyes were dark and kind, but she spoke with an unhesitating certainty.
“The artist in residence program is already fragile. It’s only two years old, and every budgetary meeting, I’m asked to justify it.
I’m asked not only why the fine arts are necessary at all but why are we literally paying an artist to make art?
What good does that do the college? The students?
I love this program, Birdie. I believe in it.
Having an artist accessible to these students is so valuable.
But we can’t have someone credibly accused of sexual misconduct on the payroll.
We can’t look like we’re not only protecting an abuser but funding them in a place where the abuser has access to more students they could abuse. ”
“The Church is repairing itself,” Father Alvarez said. “It’s our mission and calling to make the Church safe and honest. Sexual misconduct of any kind, but with a student…”
“You’ll be put on suspension without pay,” the dean said, taking over.
The words were curt. “There will be a full investigation over the next week, and then you’ll be sent the results of that investigation by mail.
The results will include our final determination about your residency contract.
You will have thirty days after receipt to appeal our decision. Do you have any questions?”
I had so many. For the first time since high school, I wished I were Busy, that I had just an ounce of her confidence or ferocity.
That I could ask them why it didn’t matter that my only sin was being unlucky enough to like pomegranates.
That I could ask them why the Church’s policy of total transparency around sexual misconduct still seemed quite opaque when it came to quite a lot of other sexual misconduct.
But I wasn’t Busy. I was only shy, terrified Birdie, and I shook my head.
No, I didn’t have any questions. I already knew where the answers would take us—right back to my guilt.
There was no point in fighting what they believed to be true, because even if they didn’t believe their own words, it wouldn’t change anything.
In this case, moral clarity and the appearance of moral clarity amounted to the same thing.
Any hint of impropriety had to be weeded out for God and The Kansas City Star both.
I couldn’t argue with that, and I wouldn’t.
I wanted the Church to be a better, safer place; I wanted more transparency in how it handled reports of harm.
It was right and correct that a teacher having sex with a student was being investigated and dealt with, and the right thing superseded any individual situation.
That was why it existed. That was its purpose—to be a standard applied to every single instance of misconduct.
I only wished I could understand why I’d done the misconduct at all. Why I hadn’t fought Bell off like Kaitlyn thought I should have.
They left in a creak of chairs and carpeted footsteps. Kaitlyn was the last to go, shutting her laptop and standing up.
“I’ll give you until Sunday to be out of my house,” she said, no inflection to her voice at all. The words could have been spoken by a robot.
“Kaitlyn,” I said, but nothing else. What could I say? We’d been friends for almost three decades, and yet that one hour with Bell could nullify every year of it? Every shared stick of lip balm, every hug, every fond text sent to help the other get through the day?
“Your lease says I can evict you at any point,” she said, and she was right.
She’d drawn up the lease herself, and it had been baldly favorable to her, but I hadn’t thought anything of it when I signed it.
She was my best friend, I’d thought. What could go wrong?
She paused with her hand on the closed laptop, looking away.
Her mouth was tight. “I’m interviewing for a job with the diocese next week.
I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get my own hopes up, but if this interview goes well, I’ll be put through their full vetting process.
You can’t have someone with skeletons in their closet bury your diocesan bodies.
I can’t have a roommate with the words student sex scandal attached to her name. ”
I wasn’t defiant; I didn’t fight. I wouldn’t make it hard for her, because I knew it was already hard for her, and I didn’t want to be unkind. I still loved her and wanted what was best for her, wanted her to have the job she was so eager for.
“I’ll do my best to have everything out by Sunday,” I replied.
She gave me a sharp nod and slid the laptop off the table to tuck into her elbow. “He’s still with a counselor and another associate lawyer,” she said. “If you want to leave before he gets done.”
And then she was gone.
It was the last kindness she’d pay me, and I didn’t waste it, even though a part of me knew I could have sat in that cheap and sterile room and stared at the wall for hours.
Instead, I made myself stand. I made myself go back to the studio, and avoiding the chalkboard in the corner of my vision, I made myself pack up my things.
I didn’t clean up the pomegranate.
And it wasn’t until I was in my car, driving to Kaitlyn’s house to scrape together as many of my clothes as possible, that I realized I hadn’t prayed once through the entire ordeal.