Part 10 (2/2)

But Lora seemed to have selective amnesia. Four days after our clumsy attempt at lovemaking, she still hadn't mentioned the incident. It was like it had never happened. She treated me just as she had before that afternoon in her bedroomlike a best friendand it was killing me.

63.

64.

I sat in the back row of comp cla.s.s and watched the door, starving for a look at her. She breezed in, her trendy plaid skirt whipping about her knees and penny loafers slapping the tile floor. She dropped her books on the desk beside me.

”Hey, Claire, there's going to be an excellent party at Rachel's house Sat.u.r.day night. Think you and Matthew would like to go?”

”Yeah.” I feigned exuberance. ”I'll tell him not to make plans.”

”Great. We can all go together.” She glanced toward me, catching my eye for an instant. Her expression almost sparkled as it had when she had laid my hand on her chest a few days before. Almost. ”I was thinking maybe you could sleep over at my house Sat.u.r.day night. My parents are going to visit my brother at college for the weekend, so we'll have the place to ourselves.”

Something like a huge wad of cotton lodged in my throat, and I nodded. I struggled for something to say, but Mr. Burns had followed Lora in, and he brought the cla.s.s to order. As our teacher a.n.a.lyzed The Scarlet Letter, I watched Lora from the corner of my eye. She was drawing cartoon mice in the margin of her book.

Thinking about spending the night with Lora made my scalp crawl.

The feelings that had pa.s.sed between us were so intense, so real. She must have felt it, too. But what if I had read her wrong? What if the need in her eyes was a figment of my imagination and Lora had only wanted a one-time experiment to explore a dormant and now-dead side of her s.e.xuality?

From the desk in front of me, Gina's booming voice shook me out of my trance. ”That preacher was a spineless coward. He knocked that girl up and then let her take all the heat.”

Toward the front of the room, Joey Kennedy piped up. ”Hester knew what she was doing. If you can't take the heat...”

”But it takes two to tango,” someone voiced another cliche from the window aisle.

”His sin was secret, and that's worse,” I said, more to myself than to the cla.s.s.

”What's that, Miss Blevins?” Mr. Burns peered at me over his black-rimmed bifocals and laid his worn copy of the book aside.

”Sin is worse when you can't tell anyone about it.” I fiddled with the cap of my ballpoint pen.

”Elaborate, please,” Mr. Burns said, that intimidating stare of his plastered on me.

65.

I drew a deep breath. ”If you did something and couldn't tell anyone about it, wouldn't it drive you crazy, even if what you did wasn't a sin?”

”You don't believe they sinned?” Mr. Burns asked.

I felt that Lora wasn't looking at me but went on despite her indifference. ”They thought it was a sin because that's what they'd been taught, not because it was true. All they did was love each other, but everyone else thought it was a sin so they kept it a secret. But Hester got pregnant and everyone found out. That's when everything started going wrong.”

Mr. Burns pressed his lips together and drummed his fingers on his desk. ”Go on.”

”What if no one had ever known about it?” I was trying to make a point, but my thoughts kept derailing and jamming up. The problem with making a point is that you have to have a point, and I was just a kid with a head full of confusion.

”Sin and secrecy,” Mr. Burns said. ”These are our quandaries. Is forbidden love a sin only if it is discovered? Is sin based on societal perceptions? What is real sin? In the case of Hester and Dimmesdale, I would presume that in a Puritan society, they would see their actions as less than virtuous, even if their affair had remained hidden.” He waggled his hand. ”But then the contrast would be lost. It would be a very different story if Hester's actions hadn't been revealed by her pregnancy.”

”He's still a creep,” Gina muttered.

Mr. Burns lifted a cautioning finger. ”Ah, perhaps, but we have much to read, much to discover. Reverend Dimmesdale might surprise you before we get to the final page.”

I nodded, but wasn't sure why. I didn't want to talk about it anymore. When I looked toward Lora, she was doodling Jock's name on her notebook.

After cla.s.s, Lora and I walked together down the hall.

”You're awfully quiet lately,” Lora said, waving at another student as we pa.s.sed.

I shrugged, s.h.i.+fting my load of books from my right arm to my left.

”Just a little worried about this a.s.signment, I guess.”

”Don't lie to me, Claire. You've got that Hawthorne and morality c.r.a.p down cold.”

66.

I shook my head. I wanted to tell her we should talk, needed to tell her how that afternoon in her room had affected me, had to tell her it was making me crazy. But the words wouldn't come, and I just looked away.

Lora stopped and I did, too. We blocked the hallway, but she ignored the swarm of kids pressing around us. ”Claire, look at me,” she said quietly.

I faced her. Tears puddled in my eyes. I tried to fight them, but I was frustrated beyond belief and more than a little fed up with her nonchalance. ”What?” I mouthed the word, unable to speak around the lump in my throat.

Lora's expression changed. A mix of revelation and confusion flooded her eyes. At last, she was getting the picture. I wasn't just her study buddy or even her best friend. But I wasn't a potential boyfriend or prom date, either. I was something different altogether, a thing neither of us knew how to deal with.

She swallowed hard. ”Come on, we'll stop at the soda machine.”

She b.u.mped me with her shoulder to urge me forward, then walked on ahead.

I was past the point of containing my anguish. I went in the opposite direction and ducked into the girls' restroom. Unable to hold it in any longer, I found a vacant stall, sat down, and cried. All my questions and fears tumbled around one another and beat against my insides like fists. They gnawed on my brain, driving me crazy. What sin had I committed to deserve this? What deed was so horrible that I'd be forced to endure this pain? I was seventeen, for Pete's sake, how bad could I have been?

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