The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [122]
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She waits outside the Nantasket room, leaning against the wall. She marvels at the architect who can have created such a monstrosity as the school and have thought the building conducive to learning. Perhaps it was a prison after all. Yellow brick rises high over her head, allowing for only narrow transom windows. Years of student scratchings have turned the metal doors a muted blue or worn orange. Wire mesh is encased in the narrow slits of the glass in the doors, guarding, she supposes, against an errant fist. From time to time, she peers through the slit to see what Thomas is doing. He sits at the head of a long table with eight other students, and they seem to be deeply engaged in discussion. Stacks of the Nantasket have recently been delivered to the room from the printer and are in piles on student desks.
She shouldn’t be here at all. She should, she knows, have taken the late bus home and closed the door to the bedroom and done her homework. She has a calculus test in the morning and a paper due on a book she hasn’t yet read. With the job at the diner and the hockey games (two a week) and her hours with Thomas (utterly necessary), she has less and less time for studying. Her discussion with Mr. K. in his classroom just now will be moot if she doesn’t keep up her grades. Before, school always seemed effortless, but effortlessness is only possible, she is learning, if you give it time.
At the end of the corridor, the vice principal, who, months ago, was her introduction to the school, is berating a sullen student with long hair and a denim jacket. She can’t hear what he is saying, but she can guess. Get rid of the jacket. Cut the hair.
She thinks about her meeting with the priest, an utterly astonishing event. So strange and so unreal, it might never have happened at all.
But it did, she thinks. It did.
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The door opens, and Thomas emerges, carrying a copy of the Nantasket. He is reading as he walks.
“Hey,” she calls.
“Linda,” he says, turning. “Hi. I didn’t expect to see you.”
“What have you got there?”
“Look,” he says.
He has the literary magazine opened to a page on which is printed a short poem by Thomas Janes. She reads the poem. “It’s very good, Thomas.” And it is good. It really is. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you. Thank you.” He bows. “What are you doing here?”
“Well,” she says. “I’ve been talking to Mr. K., and I think I’m going to apply to college.”
“Yes?” Thomas asks, smiling. “Yes?” He backs her into the wall. “Where?”
“Middlebury, for one.”
“Fucking Mr. K.,” Thomas says.
“And Tufts and B.C., maybe.”
“No kidding.”
“I’ve passed the deadline, but he’s made some calls and explained what he calls ‘my situation’ and they say they’re willing to consider my application. Well, Middlebury has so far.”
“He’s a miracle,” Thomas says and kisses her.
A voice calls to them from down the hall. “No fraternization between the sexes during school hours.” Thomas, with his back to the vice principal, raises an eyebrow. The man stands with his hands on his hips. Any minute, Linda thinks, he will stamp his foot.
“Something funny going on down there?” he asks.
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The parking lot is a sea of slush. The soles of Linda’s boots are soaked.
“Now I’ve got the chains on,” Thomas says, “we’ll probably never have another day below freezing.” He unlocks the door of the Skylark. The temperature is so freakishly warm that Linda takes off her coat at once. Thomas turns on the radio.
“It’s the same with an umbrella,” she says.
“What is?”
“If you remember it, it won’t rain.”
“Let’s celebrate,” he says.
“OK,” she says. “Where?”
He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and thinks. “There’s a nice seafood restaurant called the Lobster Pot not too far from here,” he says. “We could go have dinner.”
“Really? It’s a Wednesday.”
“So?”
“I have a test tomorrow.”
“You can study later.”
“I have to work.”
“Not now you don’t,” he says, putting the car in reverse.
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They drive along a twisting, narrow coastal route. Linda sits so close to Thomas that he has to borrow