We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [182]
Kevin, too, recognized the importance of costuming, and for once was wearing plain slacks and a button-down of the customary size. On command, he assumed the shuffling, averted-eye squirm that he’d practiced in the archway of our den. “You mean, like, that time she asked me to stay after school, right?”
“I never asked him to stay after school,” Pagorski blurted. Her voice was shaky but surprisingly forceful.
“You’ll get your chance, Miss Pagorski,” said Strickland. “For now we’re going to hear Kevin’s side of things, all right?” He clearly wanted this hearing to proceed calmly and civilly, and I thought, good luck.
“I don’t know,” said Kevin, ducking and weaving his head. “It just got kinda intimate, you know? I wasn’t gonna say anything or anything, but then my dad started asking questions and I like, told him.”
“Told him about what?” Strickland asked gently.
“You know—what I told Mr. Bevons about, too, before.” Kevin sandwiched his hands between his thighs and looked at the floor.
“Kevin, I realize this is difficult for you, but we’re going to need details. Your teacher’s career is on the line.”
Kevin looked to you. “Dad, do I have to?”
“Afraid so, Kev,” you said.
“Well, Miss Pagorski’s always been nice to me, Mr. Strickland. Real nice. Always asking did I need help choosing a scene or could she read the other part so I could memorize mine ... And I’ve never thought I was all that good, but she’d say I was a great actor and she loved my ‘dramatic face’ and my ‘tight build’ and with my looks I could be in the movies. I don’t know about that. Still, I sure wouldn’t want to get her in trouble.”
“You leave that to us, Kevin, and just tell us what happened.”
“See, she’d asked me several times if I could stay after school so she could coach me on my delivery, but before I’d always said I couldn’t. Actually, I could, most days, I mean, I didn’t have anything I had to do or anything, but I just didn’t—I felt funny about it. I don’t know why, it just felt kinda weird when she’d pull me over to her desk after class and, like, pick off little pieces of lint on my shirt that I wasn’t sure were really there. Or she’d take the flap of my belt and tuck it back in the loop?”
“Since when has Kevin ever worn a belt?” I whispered. You shushed me quiet.
“—But this one time she was real insistent, almost like I had to, like it was part of class work or something. I didn’t want to go—I told you, I don’t know why exactly, I just didn’t—but it seemed like this time I didn’t have any choice.”
Most of this was addressed to the linoleum, but Kevin would shoot quick glances at Strickland from time to time, and Strickland would nod reassuringly.
“So I waited around till 4 o’clock, since she said she had stuff to do right after the bell, and by then there wasn’t hardly anybody around anymore. I walked into her classroom, and I thought it was kinda strange that she’d changed clothes since our fourth-period class. I mean, just the shirt, but now it was one of those stretchy T’s that are scooped low and it was clingy enough I could see her—you know.”
“Her what?”
“Her . . . nipples,” said Kevin. “So I said, ‘You want me to go though my monologue?’ and she got up and closed the door. And she locked it. She said, “We need a little privacy, don’t we?” I said, actually, I didn’t mind the air. Then I asked should I start at the top, and she said, ‘First we’ve got to work on that posture of yours.’ She said I’ve got to learn to speak from the diaphragm, right here, and she put her hand on my chest and she left it there. Then she said, and you’ve got to stand up real straight, and she put her other hand on my lower back and pressed and sort of smoothed around. I sure did stand up straight. I remember holding my breath, like. Since I was nervous. Then I started my monologue from Equus—actually, I’d wanted to do Shakespeare, you know? That to be or not to be thing. I thought it was kinda cool.”
“In your own good time, son. But what happened next?”
“I think she interrupted me after only two or three lines. She said, ‘You have to remember that