10. Family Weekend #6
Mr. James, who leads a tour to the chapel roof only during Family Weekend, pushes open a heavy metal door and Simone and the parents step out into mellow sunshine.
There are oohs and aahs as the parents move toward the crenellated walls and gaze out at the campus, spread below them like a patchwork quilt.
They have a bird’s-eye view of the playing fields, the Pasture, the long drive lined with white horse fencing, the Schoolhouse, the Manse, the Paddock, the Sink, and the Teddy.
They can see the white tent where everyone else is gathered for the reception.
(Simone should be there, but Cordelia Spooner assured her that the tour was a better use of her time.
Just don’t stand too close to the edge! Cordelia said, in a voice that made it sound like that was exactly what she wanted Simone to do.)
For some reason, Simone thinks, Cordelia Spooner has it out for her.
The parents whip out their phones and Simone does as well, but there’s a bottleneck at the best vantage point, so she ventures to the adjacent wall, which overlooks the dorms.
She sees someone—a student? A faculty member?—heading down the outdoor stairs in the rear of Classic South, the stairs that lead to the cellar. Simone zooms the lens of her phone in. It’s East.
Simone waves to Mr. James. “Thank you so much for this, but duty calls.” She tries to pull open the metal door, but it won’t budge, so she’s forced to accept help from Mr. Stringfellow.
Mr. James calls out, “Be careful going down, missy. Watch your step.”
As Simone hurries down the staircase, she considers bringing a complaint against Mr. James for the inappropriate way he addresses her (first “sweetheart” and now “missy”?), though Simone knows she won’t do this because she is far from innocent herself.
She race-walks over to the dorms, praying that nobody from the chapel tour sees her the way she saw East. And also, what is she doing? The sun is starting to set, and she’s expected at the Paddock for the steak dinner; she’ll go straight there as soon as she figures out what East is up to.
She descends the outdoor stairs and yanks open the cellar door. She turns on the light of her phone, though this time she knows where she’s going—to the door in the far back corner. She opens it and descends the stairs until she’s in the brick tunnel.
“Hello?” she calls out. “East?”
She hears nothing so she moves forward and bam ! Out of nowhere, there he is in front of her. She nearly drops her phone.
“Merde!” she says. “What are you doing down here again?”
He gives her a lazy grin. “What are you doing down here again?”
Does she need to remind him that she’s the teacher and he’s the student? He has one hand behind his back; he’s hiding something—an unlit joint, a flask of Jim Beam? Simone grabs his arm. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” she asks.
“Keska say,” he mimics, switching whatever he’s holding into the opposite hand, laughing.
“What is it, East? Hand it over, now.” But Simone’s voice is more playful than it should be, and East keeps switching hands until Simone backs him up against the brick wall. She gazes up at him. “I’m serious. Give it.”
He holds out something shiny and made of metal. It’s a… tape measure?
“What’s this for?” she asks.
He pulls the end out and pretends to measure the distance between Simone’s shoulders. Then he shoves the tape measure into his back pocket, takes Simone’s face in his hands, and kisses her.
This, she thinks, is why she came down here.
Not to catch Andrew Eastman doing something but to kiss him in this brick tunnel.
She presses up against him and wonders if there’s a way to measure desire.
Does it have a scale? Because right now she wants Andrew Eastman more than she’s ever wanted anyone in her life.
She runs a hand over the fly of his jeans and he says, “Hey now, Ms. Bergeron.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, though of course it’s not okay, it’s the opposite of okay, a fact East seems to be more cognizant of than she is because he backs off, tucks in his T-shirt, and runs a hand through his bangs, suddenly cool. He knows Simone wants him.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” she says, angry now and embarrassed by his rejection. “You should be at the Paddock at dinner.”
“I’m good,” East says. “My dad didn’t come this weekend.”
“He didn’t?” Simone says. She thought all the Tiffin parents came. And isn’t East’s father the…
“He’s in Japan for work.” East shrugs, and Simone tries to discern if this is bravado or if he doesn’t actually care.
“Your mother…?”
“Ha,” he says flatly. “No.”
“Okay, well, you still shouldn’t…” She peers down the hallway into the dark. “What are you doing down here, East?”
“Just dreaming,” he says.
Simone’s phone buzzes with a text. She doesn’t have to check it to know that it’s Rhode. He wants to sit together at dinner, present a “unified front” as dorm parents, as fifth- and sixth-form teachers, English and humanities, with their complementary curricula.
“I have to go,” Simone says. She turns to head back the way she came, but instead of following her, East stays where he is. When Simone reaches the bottom of the stairs, she looks back. He’s gone.