over his bulging belly, his expression intent and somber. Darren sat across from him, his expression full of dejection and failure. Next to Darren sat a woman who Charlene supposed was the boy's mother. Her shoulders quivered as if she were crying. With a thin, shaking hand, she slid a piece of paper across the desk toward the principal.
Charlene had written Darren only one letter, one stupid letter, and she had chosen very strong words that conveyed her love. His mother must have discovered it, and now it rested on Milovitch's desk. My God! How could she have been so stupid? There it was, all gone ¾ her career ¾ her family ¾ Darren. She felt her chest constrict and her breath came in sharp, quick intakes.
The secretary appeared, Miss Louisa, a thin woman, who stared at Charlene with wide-eyed hardness. Charlene fumbled for words. "Not feeling well ¾ need to go home ¾ "
With that, she rushed out of the office and straight to her car.
All the way down Santa Teresa Boulevard, she fought the tears. This would destroy Ben, too. Her husband wasn't a bad man. His sin was one of dullness, fifteen years of incredible, mind numbing dullness. And Darren ¾ sweet, sensitive Darren who possessed surprising depths of passion ¾ had become her lover almost by accident, a fleeting touch that led to brief, hurried embraces in a storage room adjacent to her classroom and later to clandestine meetings in motels for which she paid. Their affair began barely two months before, but the intensity of it--oh, the intensity!--led her to fantasize the two of them sharing a life together, and she said so in her letter.
The same letter that now lay on Milovitch's desk.
The car flew up the old pass road, and every time she negotiated a curve, her tires kicked dirt and rocks off down the mountainside.
Right this minute Milovich must be calling the police to file a report of sexual abuse. Darren was only seventeen, a child in the eyes of the school, but he was a man in every respect but age.
And he was also a student. People, including Milovich, would see only that. They would whisper behind her back, and they would laugh at her. She couldn't stand that, to be the butt of jokes, and the thought of public censor, perhaps even imprisonment, frightened her worse than her worse nightmare.
She hit the straightaway, her foot forcing the gas pedal to the floor. Tears filled her eyes so that the world blurred into a watery gray. Ahead loomed the scared wall where the road made its sharp ninety-degree turn and where so many others had discovered eternity.
Milovich opened the door to the outer office and discovered Miss Louisa sitting behind her desk busily typing a letter.
"I still need to see Mrs. Moran," he said.
Irritated, she peered at him over her reading glasses. "She said she was sick. Just rushed out without leaving lesson plans. I don't have any idea what instructions to give the sub."
Milovich closed the door and returned to his desk, settling his bulk into the comfortable chair. "I'm sorry, but Mrs. Moran has had to go home. She wasn't feeling well." He folded his hands across his stomach. "It shouldn't matter. Her grade is the last one we need, and once we get it, we'll send it right along."
After the boy and his mother left, Milovich gave the letter a cursory glance. In it the mother explained the reasons for removing her son from school. It was an old story, one with which he was all too familiar-- a single parent whose work had transferred her to another location. He stuffed the letter and the transfer forms in a folder. How he hated to lose students, especially mid-year. Each student represented money from the state, and money kept the school running.
Milovich was already late for a meeting with counselors complaining about extra duties. As he left his office, he dropped the folder on Miss Louisa's desk. He could see that she was still irked over the fact that Charlene Moran left no lesson plans, but he didn't have time to deal with her troubles. He had his own, more pressing problems to deal with.
End
