Going the Distance (14 page)

And her parents. They assured her they understood what she had done, that it had unquestionably been the right thing to do. They still invited her to dinner on Wednesdays, still made her favorite foods and acted like they loved and cared for her. But how could she go home when she knew Chris lived upstairs? He’d go out on the nights she was scheduled to come over, but it was beyond weird to know he was sleeping down the hall from her parents while she’d had to install a second deadbolt on the apartment door.

By the end of June she knew she couldn’t keep working at the elementary school. They couldn’t actually fire her for what she’d done, but they’d made it pretty unbearable for her to continue. She didn’t want to run away, didn’t want people to have the satisfaction of thinking they’d chased her off, so she drove her slur-covered car and tried to keep her head up, even as she wanted to cry every time she approached it.

Willa Jetz, her closest friend from college, taught kindergarten at a school outside of Boston, and read about the story in the news. She called in July with Olivia’s first real spark of hope: Willa and her husband were expecting their first child, and she’d be going on maternity leave. Olivia could fill in for Willa beginning in November, and escape Candor. Assuming she could survive that long.

She quit her job and lived off her savings, spending months researching things to do in Boston and looking at apartment listings online. She hadn’t told anyone but her parents of her plans, and they’d been supportive. Maybe a little too relieved. And then, on October first, Willa called in tears. She’d lost the baby. They’d been trying for a while and she was devastated. She wouldn’t be going on maternity leave. She was sorry.

Olivia said all the right things—no, she was the one who was sorry, was there anything she could do, don’t worry, she’d find something else, take care of herself, they could try again. And then she’d hung up the phone and sobbed, harder than she had in ten months, as hard as she’d wanted to. She looked for jobs but it was a weird time of year to be hired as a teacher, and no one wanted her as a substitute. Her money was running out, and she’d become a friendless hermit, leaving the apartment only as necessary.

And then one day she’d been looking around online and seen an ad for a certificate program to teach English as a second language. She had nothing better to do so she clicked on it, read the testimonials, and started looking at web sites that offered job listings for ESL teachers. She was already a teacher, which qualified her for pretty much everything, and while she wasn’t really considering moving abroad, it was a nice way to kill the time. To fantasize. She would never actually do it.

Then she went to her parents’ house for Wednesday dinner, and there were two additional place settings at the table. Chris was there with his new girlfriend, and they were very happy. Chris, who had seen the video and not reported it, Chris who was still the coach of the baseball team, who was still the fucking town hero, was very happy. The girl had dropped the charges, the boys who hadn’t graduated were back on the team, their lives would go on.

The food tasted like chalk. She couldn’t look her parents in the eye. At ten o’clock she’d returned to her dark, lonely apartment and applied for a job in some town in China called Lazhou. Two weeks later she bought a plane ticket. And the day before she left, she called her parents and told them she was going.

Jarek didn’t think she knew she was crying until the story was over. Her cheeks were wet with tears, eyes huge and glossy, and suddenly Olivia, the strongest, most self-possessed woman he’d ever known, looked fragile. And he’d been the one to shake the box until the pieces rattled.

“Satisfied?” she asked, swiping at her cheeks.

He felt like shit. “Of course not.” He’d done far worse to a lot of people and couldn’t have cared less. And now he did. And it was awful.

“Anything else you simply need to know?” The words were angry but her voice was empty of any real vitriol.

He hadn’t actually intended to ask her about Michigan. After talking to Jonah on Thursday, he’d bailed on her on Friday, choosing instead to spend the night in that grimy Internet café, reading everything he could about the case. He’d felt alternately sad and angry, and hated that he felt anything at all. That he couldn’t turn it off, no matter how hard he tried. And then on Saturday morning Ritchie mentioned that Marcus had gone to Shanghai with Olivia and he’d felt a whole host of things he hadn’t felt before, jealousy chief among them. And he was fucking furious—with himself, for feeling that way, with her, for making him. With Marcus, for being a geologist or a geographer or something equally smug, and with Olivia, for going off with him.

He’d stewed all day Saturday, drowned his sorrows at the bar with Brant and Dale in the evening, reluctantly admitting his irritation with the news but downplaying his jealousy. They saw right through it, but pretended not to. He used to be a wall no one could penetrate, now people were walking through left, right, and center, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

He didn’t know what time she was getting back from Shanghai, or he’d have been waiting at her apartment when she pulled up in the cab. He spent Sunday morning taking out his frustration on the punching bag in the gym trailer, then at home, staring blankly at the television as the Canadian guy failed to teach him Mandarin. He’d been on his way to the dining trailer when he passed the gym and heard Dale needling her. His first instinct had been to storm inside and tell the other man to back off, but he knew firsthand that Olivia was perfectly capable of standing up for herself.

His heart kicked up a notch when he went inside and saw her, cheeks flushed, the overhead light catching on the beads of sweat that dotted her chest and throat. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to throttle her or fuck her, so he’d settled for the least mature option and gotten her alone in the carpentry trailer so he could make her cry.

“Fuck,” he muttered, running a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m sorry about all the stuff that happened to you. You did the right thing.”

Her jaw set. “I know that.” But it was obvious she resented it.

“And I’m sorry about hauling you in here.”

That blond eyebrow arched. “That’s it?”

“What else should I say?”

“That you realize it’s none of your business where I go or with whom, and then tell me why you felt like any of this was appropriate.”

Oh God. She was so fucking difficult when she was in teacher mode. He loved it and hated it in equal measure. He opened his mouth to repeat the part about it being none of his business, but instead what came out was, “It’s my business if my girlf—you go out with another guy. Deal with it.”

Her jaw dropped and she kicked him in the shin, but not hard. “Deal with it?”

“Yeah. Deal with it.”

She studied him for a few seconds, then asked, “What’s a
girlf
?”

“
Shit
. Olivia.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“You remember what I said to you that first night when you kissed me?”

“If I’m not mistaken, you squealed like a pig and ran away crying, ‘I hate girls!’”

“Christ. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hate
you
sometimes.”

She folded her arms, pushing up her breasts so he could see a hint of cleavage where her zipper was undone. “I’m not offended.”

“I told you I’m not what you’re looking for.”

“Trust me, I know.”

“I don’t know how to—I can’t be—”

“I know.” Her eyes were dry now, and steady on his. Like she saw right through him, and didn’t care that there were pieces missing.

“You’re leaving in June.”

“That’s right.”

“So if you want to…Until then…”

“Just say it, please.”

“You know what I’m getting at.”

“Do I?” She tilted her head and stared at him quizzically. He knew she knew. This was punishment for the most failed interrogation he’d ever conducted. He’d come in here expecting to get answers from her, and instead somehow heard himself putting the painful truth on the line, hoping it wouldn’t hurt him.

He wiped a hand across his mouth, his tongue suddenly dry. “You’re my girlfriend, so don’t fucking hang out with Marcus.”

She burst out laughing, surprised and unimpressed. “It looks like you’ve been learning something from those romantic movies after all.”

“Yes or no?”

“He’s leaving in two days anyway. I wasn’t going to see him.”

“Don’t fuck around on me. I have issues.”

“No kidding.”

He stepped close enough that their thighs pressed together, and caught her ponytail in his hand. He didn’t kiss her or grope her, just held her like that, resting his chin on top of her head, letting his thumb brush her neck so he could feel her pulse, steady and reassuring. His heart was racing, and he imagined it doing drills, back and forth, one side thrilled, the other horrified. She was his first girlfriend in thirteen years. He didn’t know how to do this. But he hadn’t figured out how to walk away, either.

“Say yes,” he said softly.

“Yes,” she replied.

“R
EMIND
M
E
A
GAIN
why we’re doing this?”

“Just shut up and push.”

A faint thud, then a muffled curse. “I think I got hit by a car.”

“
Clipped
. You got clipped. You’ll live.”

Jarek turned to look over his shoulder at Brant, Ritchie, and Dale, sweating as they slogged along behind him. He and Ritchie had one dolly, Brant and Dale had the other, and each was laden with a dozen unpainted wooden tree cutouts, each about five feet tall. The company trucks were still full of work supplies, so they’d had to use dollies to wheel the fake trees the twenty-minute walk to Olivia’s school, and the men had been complaining the entire time. In exchange for their blood, sweat, and tears, Jarek had had to promise to buy them beer and admit that Olivia was his girlfriend.

He had never known grown men could gossip this much. After he’d left the gym with Olivia yesterday, Dale promptly spread the word that Jarek had confronted her, and this morning they’d all been waiting for him in the lobby, demanding details. The acknowledgment that she was his girlfriend had felt stiff and awkward coming from his lips, but there’d been a sense of satisfaction there, too. Like he’d accomplished something. He’d been demanding the truth from other people for so long that he’d almost forgotten what it was like to admit it himself.

They arrived at the front gates to the kindergarten, locked during the day to keep strangers out and kids in. The older woman manning the booth inside peered at them strangely, then smiled as she recognized Ritchie. She said something in rapid fire Mandarin then picked up the phone. Two minutes later Olivia and Honor emerged from the hallway that divided the front two buildings, shielding their eyes from the sun so they could see the unexpected visitors.

Jarek’s heart threatened to leap out of his chest at the sight of her, and his palms grew damp on the dolly handle. He wiped them on his pants and was glad he’d chosen to wear sunglasses so she couldn’t see the rising panic in his eyes.

“What
is
this?” Olivia asked as the gates slid open and they wheeled the dollies through. The trees were unpainted, just flat wooden cutouts that suddenly felt really fucking stupid.
What had he been thinking?

Then she gasped. “Wait—are these trees? For my play?”

Everyone was staring at him. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the trees. It had taken him days to cut them all out, using scraps of wood from the site and pieces he’d purchased from a local supplier. They were a variety of shapes, some rounded, some pointed, some abstract, as the shape of the wood he’d used had dictated. Eventually he realized everyone was waiting for his response. “Ah, yeah. We had some extra wood and you needed trees, so I just figured…we could get rid of the wood.”

Brant looked at him and shook his head, disappointed at the lame response. He couldn’t perform with these guys watching him. He didn’t know how to be her boyfriend while they were ogling him like this.

“Well, thank you. I love them.” She patted his arm appreciatively as she circled the dollies, taking it all in. “Can you help bring them to the classroom?”

“Yeah. Sure. Of course.” He avoided looking at Dale; the man’s shit-eating grin made him want to break something. They were loving this, the jerks.

“We’ve gotta get going,” Brant said, nodding at Dale and Ritchie. “You bring the trees to the classroom, say good-bye to your
girlfriend
, and head back after, okay?”

He’d kill them all in their sleep and love every second of it. “Yeah.”

“Good-bye, Olivia.”

“Bye, Brant. Dale. Ritchie.”

The men nodded, Ritchie squeezed Honor’s hand, and they left. Olivia and Honor took one dolly and led the way, Jarek trailing after. He tried not to stare at her ass, but the jeans she wore fit her perfectly, and it was hard to stay focused.

“Nice shirt,” she said over her shoulder, shooting him a smug smile.

His lips twitched. He’d been razzed about the shirt all morning. She’d given it to him last night after he’d spent a good hour apologizing wordlessly in bed, showing her how good a boyfriend he could be if he put his mind—and hands, and tongue, and a few other things—to it. Her gift from Shanghai was a white T-shirt covered almost entirely in bright tattoo-inspired artwork. He’d held it between two fingertips like it was radioactive before squinting at the name scrawled across the chest and getting the joke. She’d looked rueful as she recounted her fruitless search for Hardy Boys merchandise, ultimately settling on the Ed Hardy T-shirt.

Said shirt clung to the sweat on his back as they crossed the courtyard and stopped in front of her classroom. Honor said good-bye and went back to work next door, and Olivia turned. “This is really nice of you,” she said, studying him thoughtfully.

He shrugged like it had been no big deal. “You gave me something,” he said, fingering the shirt. “Figured I’d repay the favor.”

“So we’re even now? One knock-off T-shirt for two dozen beautiful trees?”

“This is a knock-off?” He tried to look offended. “I’m taking some trees back.”

She laughed, then turned when a raised voice came from inside her classroom. The Chinese teacher was yelling at the kids to get away from the windows where they stood with noses pressed to the glass, taking in the scene outside.

“I think you have to come in now,” Olivia said.

“No,” he said firmly. “I’ve got to get back.”

“Just for a minute.”

“No.”

She pushed out her bottom lip and gazed at him woefully. “Jarek.”

“Don’t do that.”

She trailed her fingers down his forearm, her touch cool on his heated skin. Then she gripped his hand and yanked him after her into the room. “Back to your seats,” she ordered. The kids scurried away, as though racing there might mean she’d never seen them at the window in the first place.

Tiny voices murmured curiously as they took in the tall stranger standing in front of the whiteboard. He took off his sunglasses and waited stiffly as they gazed up at him in awe. Olivia let go of his hand and he felt untethered.

“Don’t just stare at him,” she admonished the room. “What do we say when we meet somebody new?”

“NICE TO MEET YOU!” the class screamed.

Jarek flinched.

Olivia was trying not to laugh. “That’s true,” she conceded. “But what do we say first?” She waved and mouthed the words, “
Hi, how are you?
”

“HI, HOW ARE YOU?”

Then they all looked at him expectantly. “Uh, fine,” Jarek replied.

Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Ask how they’re doing.”

“How are you?” he echoed weakly.

At least this time he was ready for the volume. “I’M FINE, THANK YOU! HOW ARE YOU?”

“You already asked that,” Olivia pointed out. “He’s doing
fine
, obviously.” Her lips curled in a knowing smirk. He scowled at her and the class giggled, even though they weren’t in on the joke. “This is my friend Jarek,” she told the kids. “He came to give us some trees for our play. Isn’t that nice?”

“YES!”

“What do we say when someone helps us?”

“THANK YOU!”

A long pause.

“Uh-oh,” Olivia said, eyes wide. “What do we say when someone says thank you?”

“YOU’RE WELCOME!”

He stared daggers at her, but she just smiled politely. “You’re welcome,” he said through his teeth.

“THANK YOU!”

“I have to get going,” he said under his breath.

One of the kids, a little girl in the front row, stuck her hand in the air and asked something in Mandarin, then pointed at the CD player sitting on a desk.

“Hmm,” Olivia said. “I’ll ask.” She turned to him formally. “Jarek, we were just about to sing a song. Would you like to sing with us?”

The kids squirmed in their seats like live wires, unable to contain their glee at the prospect of a new participant.

“I really wouldn’t,” he said.

“He said yes!” Olivia exclaimed.

The room exploded in cheers.

“Okay, Rose. Start the song, please. Number four.”

The little girl who had started this trouble in the first place darted to the front, punched a few buttons, and a song he hadn’t heard in thirty years started playing. The kids jumped to their feet, shuffled in place, and started singing along as best they could when they were merely emulating sounds and not words. And damn Olivia, singing and dancing along with them as he stood there wishing he were dead.

“Put your right hand in,” she sang loudly, snatching up his right wrist and putting it “in” something invisible in front of him.

“I’m breaking up with you,” he whispered.

She was laughing too hard to answer. Her lips shaped the words to the song, but all that really came out was “ha ha ha.”

The kids were ecstatic, putting their hands in and then both their feet, then, when prompted to choose an action, Olivia looked at a little boy wearing a Spiderman costume—in fact, four boys were wearing Spiderman outfits—and held up her hands as though looking for an answer. “What do you think, Alan?” she asked. “What should we do now?”

The kid stared at her as though looking over a precipice and trying to decide if he should jump off or run away. Jarek knew the feeling. She made him feel that way every time she looked at him. And like an idiot he’d been leaping over the edge, with no clue what might be waiting for him.

Alan, however, chose the sane option, and folded his arms, refusing to speak.

“Okay,” she called brightly, as though he hadn’t turned her down. “Who else?”

The kids unanimously agreed to stick their butts in, and Jarek staunchly refused, even as he watched Olivia bob up and down, ass sticking out, making him think very inappropriate things. The song ended and he made a mental note to pass its name along to the agency he’d worked with in his previous career. This was torture in its purest, most melodic form.

The kids clapped and giggled as they sat down, and Rose turned off the CD player.

“I’ve really got to go,” Jarek said, and Olivia relented.

“Okay, everybody. Jarek has to go now. What do we say?”

“GOOD-BYE!” Some of them may have said his name, but it was hard to tell.

“Bye.” He waved abruptly and started for the door. He could hear Olivia’s sneakers behind him and turned when they were outside, far enough away that they couldn’t be overheard—even if they couldn’t be understood—but still well within view. He put his sunglasses back on and looked down at her.

“Did you have fun?” she asked. She was a master interrogator, smiling as she cut off fingers and pulled teeth.

“No.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“You do this every day?”

“All day, every day.”

“You’re a sadist. And a masochist.”

She laughed. “Do you still want to run later?”

“With you? Absolutely not.”

She batted her eyes and, like a pussy, he caved.

“I’ll see you at seven.” He kissed her on the forehead and strode back across the courtyard, determinedly ignoring the snickers and whispers that emanated from every classroom.

They ran along the path by the water. Spring was in full bloom and the sky was full of fuzzy white cottonwood seeds, blown free from the trees and filling the air like warm snow. Jarek plucked several out of Olivia’s hair as they ran, admiring the way her ass twitched in her shorts, and the bounce of her breasts with each step. He was sufficiently distracted that she had to swat him on the arm to get his attention.

“Are you listening to me?” she demanded.

“I—” He was going to lie, but she had a built-in bullshit detector. Plus he was pretty sure she’d seen him ogling her tits. “No.”

She huffed and shook her head, but he knew she wasn’t mad. “What were you saying?” he asked.

“I was telling you how excited the kids were about the trees you made. Davy—I don’t know if you saw him in the front row?—he’s already talking about what colors they should be. And I can’t be sure, but I think the Spidermans are trying to come up with ways to climb them.”

“The kids seemed to like you,” he offered as penance for not listening.

“Some do. Some don’t. You saw Alan, right? The Spiderman who wouldn’t pick a dance move? That kid loves to dance, but he hates me. Won’t say a word.”

Jarek thought back to the boy who’d dismissed Olivia’s offer during the song. “That kid doesn’t hate you,” he said seriously. “He just doesn’t know what to make of you.”

She shot him a baleful look. “I’ve been his teacher for four months. He knows what to make of me.”

He shrugged and jogged a circle around her, knowing it drove her nuts. “I’m just telling you. He’s intimidated. He wants you to like him.”

“How do you figure?”

“I know how to read people.” Plus, he knew exactly how it felt when Olivia offered you an opportunity you didn’t know what to do with.

“So what do I do?”

He circled her again, tugging her ponytail until she tried to elbow him in the stomach. “Just keep trying.”

She stomped on his foot and nearly tripped them both. He caught her around the waist with one hand and braced the other on the low wall before they could topple into the water. “That was a freebie,” he murmured in her ear, righting them. “Do it again and I’ll let you fall.”

She tipped back her head to look him in the eye. “I don’t believe you.”

“I’m still going to make you pay for today’s little stunt.”

She was the picture of innocence. “What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I mean. Did you really think I was going to dance in front of a room full of children? Stick my ass out?”

“I saw you tapping your feet to the beat. Don’t be an Alan, Jarek. You can dance if you want to.”

He smacked her ass, hard. “We’ll see about that.”

They jogged in silence for a minute, then Olivia spoke. “Was it just me, or were Brant and Dale acting stranger than usual today?”

“They’re just dickheads.”

“Did you tell them anything?”

“Anything like what?”

“Like that I was your girlfriend.” She was watching the pavement at their feet, not looking at him. She looked…shy. For once.