You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [86]
People thought she knew all along. Ms. Carver practically said so. But he never told anyone. And all you had to do was look at Ms. Keller’s face and you’d know. She was wrecked. I think maybe she’d been in love with him. Once when we were alone in her classroom she cried.
I kept asking her, Where is he? You must know, I said. But she just looked at me and shook her head and when I saw how upset she was, I stopped asking. That’s when she started to cry. She wiped her eyes and said, I’m sorry, Marie.
She was always there when I needed her. I didn’t even think about it then, but now I realize she was probably angry at me too.
We’d betrayed her, and even if she was a teacher and I was a student it didn’t really matter. I’d lied to her and it’s like I said before, we all came to the same place every day. We were part of one another’s lives. They were like us and we were like them.
* * *
I don’t know what happened to him. Where he went or ended up. I imagine that he went home, back to his wife, where they picked up their lives and had a child together. Sometimes I think about them sitting on an empty beach somewhere. Maybe a beach in Brittany in late autumn. The three of them all alone. I can see them there in the sun.
I still dream about him.
WILL
One morning there is a note on my desk.
“Will, Please meet me in Laetitia’s office. Paul.”
* * *
I walk over to the gym where a game is underway. I can hear the familiar hollow pounding of basketballs against the smooth gym floor.
The kids with free periods are packed into the wooden bleachers. Julia waves at me from her seat in the back row. I smile at her and she makes a show of finding me a place to sit, sliding over against Lydia. I make my way through the crowd. There are parents scattered around, cheering their kids on as they charge up and down the court.
“What’s up, Silver?” Lydia asks never looking away from the game.
“Oh my God, Mr. Silver, the game’s so close.” Julia elbows me in the side, watching as an American School of London player makes a free throw.
I watch Rick, his eyes on the basket, waiting for the rebound. I see him in class, fiercely scrutinizing the board. The shot misses. Julia screams in delight. I look out across the court and scan the opposite bleachers.
The game is close and with each basket the gym becomes louder.
There are two minutes left to play.
The fans stomp their feet and the small gym shakes. I watch a middle-school student cup his hands around his mouth and scream for his school. Girls on the London side holding a banner: “London Rocks!”
The bright fluorescent lights hang high above. The crowd seems to undulate and move in unison. A single body. And not only the crowd but also the players flowing from end to end, the ball flying through the air, from hand to hand.
Let’s go London, let’s go. Stomp stomp. Let’s go London, let’s go. Stomp stomp.
I. S. F., we chant. I. S. F.
I am pressed in with the rest of them, cheering every Paris basket and beneath those bright humming lights I’m absorbed by the joyous crowd.
Then with a minute left in the game we call a time out.
The clock is frozen at 58 seconds.
The players huddle around their respective coaches. Julia punches my shoulder.
“Oh my God, Mr. Silver,” she says hitting me again.
Lydia rolls her eyes.
I look up to find Paul Spencer watching me from across the court.
I look back and meet his eyes.
ISF wins the game at the buzzer.
Around me the crowd rises. Everyone is standing. He can no longer see me.
For a moment I stay there beneath them, surrounded, their noise far away.
Then I get up and touch Julia’s shoulder.
“I’ll see you later,