.
was asked to pay back the advance, which was a problem since they’d already spent it. That hadn’t been Sarah’s doing. She was frugal by nature, but Heath wanted things. A lot of things. New clothes, a car, a better apartment, restaurants, parties. Who was she to say no, when he’d felt so deprived, growing up? Her parents stepped in and lent them the money to pay back the publisher—and never let them forget it.
Her father had thankfully managed to hush up the scandal, or else Heath would’ve been unemployable in teaching at any reputable school. If it came out, even now, a school like Odell would have no choice but to fire him. Some nights Sarah lay awake, worrying. About the past coming back to haunt them. About Heath’s mental stability, how despondent he’d become when things went wrong, and whether he was susceptible to falling into that deep, dark pit again. She didn’t think so. She prayed not. She was grateful that, with the dorm head job, he’d found something to feel excited about again. She wanted him to be happy. Heath wasn’t a dishonest person. He’d just wanted to succeed so badly—to impress Sarah, to impress her parents—that he’d taken a shortcut to get there. Then he got caught, and felt ashamed, which was why he’d lied. It was a unique situation, far in the past, and unlikely to repeat itself. Besides, they had the children to think about now, and Heath adored his children. He wouldn’t let himself get out of control emotionally again, she was certain.
Maybe not certain. But hopeful.
The waitress headed for their table, carrying the seafood tower. Heads turned to admire the dramatic presentation, just as they’d turned when her handsome husband walked in the door a half hour before. People were naturally drawn to Heath. The Moreland girls were crazy about him already. A colleague had said to her that very afternoon: Whenever I see your husband, he’s trailing a gaggle of pretty girls. Sarah didn’t let it bother her. She trusted Heath, and besides, it wasn’t his fault. If she was a student here, she’d follow him around, too. Just look at that incredible smile, as the waitress presented the seafood tower. It was wonderful to see. Heath’s happiness was the only gift Sarah needed.
Bel sat in Mr. Donovan’s classroom in Benchley Hall, watching the hands on the old wall clock creep toward two-twenty, when English class would end. She had a meeting scheduled with Mr. Donovan then, and the thought of it made her queasy. Though she’d been feeling off all day anyway in this awful, sticky heat. Everyone said that the heat wave was unusual, but that didn’t help her sleep at night or eat anything more substantial than a piece of fruit. Heat in L.A. had never bothered her, but the climate here was just evil.
The fan buzzing in the corner lulled her, and her eyelids drooped. But then Mr. Donovan spoke, and she bolted upright, her eyes flying open. Heath Donovan was the one thing in this new life that made Bel feel wide awake. He stood at the whiteboard, writing out a line from Shelley and explaining the concept of synecdoche. English was her favorite class just because she liked watching him and listening to his voice. Every day, Bel noticed new details about him. A small scar above his eyebrow, a beauty mark on his cheek, how his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the whiteness of his teeth. She paid attention not only to what he said, but how he moved, when he laughed, what he wore. Today he was wearing khaki pants and a blue-check dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The outfit looked amazing on his tennis player’s body. He wasn’t overly jacked like so many of the jock boys. He was lean and elegant. She didn’t try to notice these things. He just made an impression on her, whether she liked it or not.
Mr. Donovan turned to recite the line to the class.
“‘Its sculptor well those passions read,’” he quoted, in his deep, rich voice, “‘which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, the hand that mocked him.’”
He asked for a volunteer to identify the synecdoche in that line, and Bel averted her eyes. If she tried to speak, she’d stutter and blush and generally make a fool of herself. Not because she hadn’t done the reading—this was the one class she always prepared for. But because she was shy in front of these hyper-verbal Odell kids, and because Mr. Donovan unnerved her. That part was Darcy Madden’s fault. Normally Bel would never stoop so low as to get a crush on a teacher, but Darcy and her posse of Moreland seniors were obsessed with Mr. Donovan and talked about him nonstop. Naturally their obsession had rubbed off on her. Bel listened to Darcy, and followed her lead in all things. Darcy was older, sophisticated. She understood how things worked around here. Bel felt fortunate to have been taken under her wing.
Yet, she had to laugh, because the seniors’ contest to seduce Mr. Donovan had gone nowhere. Girls went to his office hours or cornered him in the dining hall. They flirted shamelessly, made heavy eye contact. The bold ones flashed some cleavage or bared a thigh in a short skirt. And they got no response. Zero. Donovan didn’t seem to notice at all. He was apparently loyal to his wife, though nobody understood why. Darcy said the wife was a total mouse, a real loser. That she must have some unnatural hold over him. Maybe it was money, or some secret she was using to blackmail him. Otherwise, he’d be susceptible to the seniors’ charms, like any man would be. To Darcy’s own charms, anyway. Bel had to agree—Darcy was killer. She had those perfectly regular features: the long, swinging blond hair; a sharp tongue hidden behind a wide smile. Everybody danced to her tune. To Bel, she was the Oracle of Moreland, not to be contradicted. Yet, Bel thought Darcy was wrong about Mr. Donovan. His love for his wife was pure, and Mr. Donovan was chivalrous. Honorable, like a knight of old. He would see Darcy’s sharp edges, and keep his distance. Which made him all the more attractive in Bel’s book.
The bell rang. Class ended, and Bel gathered her things, hesitating. Was she supposed to go up to him, or wait for him to speak to her? Would their meeting happen here in this room, or should she go to his office? Talking to teachers wasn’t Bel’s thing to begin with, and him, well, she couldn’t imagine speaking to him alone. Well, she could imagine it, but the things she imagined were unlikely to happen.
A couple of kids went up to the front of the room to talk to him, and Bel breathed a sigh of relief. Kids at Odell loved to hang around after class and suck up to teacher. Back home, being smart made you uncool, but here it was the opposite. Everybody spoke up in class, and competed to get noticed. Everyone except Bel, who kept her mouth firmly shut unless a teacher called on her, and then struggled to get a word out. Back home, teachers hadn’t cared what she thought, not enough to put her on the spot anyway, and she preferred it that way.
With Mr. Donovan distracted, Bel took the opportunity to slink toward the door, hoping to escape before he noticed. She could claim she forgot, or that something suddenly came up, or—
“Bel,” Mr. Donovan called. “Hold on. I’ll be done in a minute.”
Crap. Bel waited, palms sweaty, heartbeat skittering. Once they were alone, she’d be struck dumb, she knew it.
After a few minutes, the students left to go to their sixth-period classes, and he came over to her.
“Were you going to my office?” he asked, with a puzzled smile. Up this close, his teeth were so white, his eyes so blue, and he smelled so good that she felt dizzy.
“Um. Sorry?”
“I saw you leaving. You remember we have our first advisory meeting now, right?” he asked.
“Oh. Right. Yes. No, I didn’t forget, I just wasn’t sure, uh, where to, or—what to do,” Bel said, her cheeks burning. She sounded like the biggest idiot.
“It’s so warm today. I thought we could grab an iced coffee and sit outside. My office is like an oven, but there should be some breeze if we go over to the Art Café. Come on.”
Coffee? With Mr. Donovan? Alone? The Moreland girls would be pea-green with envy.
They went to the snack bar in the basement of the Art Studio, which was empty at this hour, since most kids were in class. (Bel had scheduled the meeting for her free period.) Mr. Donovan bought two iced coffees, which he carried to the patio out back. They sat down facing each other at a small iron table in the shade of a tall tree. (The trees in this place were