“Are you going to stop seeing me?” Her voice quavered, like a hurt child.
And she was. Jeremy felt sick, knowing he would only hurt her more. But not yet. Not today.
He reached for her hand. “No, Nikki. I won’t.”
He pulled out. Glancing at the rearview mirror, Jeremy’s blood ran cold as he sighted the Camry across the parking lot.
TWENTY FOUR
THE WHOLE DRIVE BACK from the Watchung Reservation, Jeremy watched in vain for the Camry. He half-listened to Nikki’s chatter, responded in monosyllables, and, relieved, dropped her at their park. Driving on to the apartment, he continued to obsess. Should have gotten the Camry’s license number. But then, do what with it? Not like he had an in with Motor Vehicle Bureau. One thing clear: No more rendezvous with Nikki. Had to stop. Had to.
“Mel?” Jeremy called, walking into the apartment.
Melissa emerged from the bedroom, cellphone to her ear. She met Jeremy’s quizzical gaze with a frown and raised finger, signaling him to wait.
“When will we know for sure?” She grimaced.
“What’s wrong?” Jeremy asked, alarmed.
Melissa held up a palm. “Okay. I understand. All right, I will.”
“What is it?” Jeremy demanded when she ended the call.
She pointed at her laptop, sitting on the coffee table. “Google Pre-eclampsia.”
They rushed to the sofa, Jeremy the first to reach the computer. “Two e’s?” he asked. “A dash in between?”
“Who knows?” Melissa snapped.
“Wait,” he said. “Here it is.” They both leaned in to peruse the Wikipedia entry. “Jesus!” Jeremy read aloud: A medical condition producing dangerously high blood pressure during pregnancy and potentially serious risks to mother and child. “Seizures?” he exclaimed. “Did the doctor say you have this, Mel?” He eyed her as if she might fall to the floor twitching any moment.
“The condition doesn’t develop until later in the pregnancy,” she said. “There’s a blood test they can do in a few weeks.”
Jeremy scrolled down the page, skipping past a bunch of technical stuff. “Then…?”
“Here!” Melissa grabbed for the cursor. “This is what he was talking about. My PP13 level, from the blood work they did.”
Jeremy scanned the section on early methods of diagnosis. A low level of Placental Protein 13, considered a possible indicator of Pre-eclampsia developing later.
“So he’s not saying you have the condition, right?” He blew out a breath. “According to this, they’ll have to check your Placental Growth Factor levels at the end of the first trimester.”
“But what if I do have it?” Melissa insisted. “Jeremy, I’m scared.”
“Come on, Mel.” He closed the Wikipedia page and leaned back on the sofa. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself.”
“But it could—”
“Fucking tests,” Jeremy muttered. “Just give you more useless shit to worry about.”
“We were so happy about the baby,” Melissa said.
She believed that? He looked away, uncomfortable.
“How will we get through the next few weeks?” Her eyes implored him.
“Mel, I—”
“Jeremy! What should we do?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.” Nature offering a way out? “If you’re so worried,” he ventured, “I mean, if your health is at stake, maybe we should think about, you know…uh, terminating?” Her look of horror told him he’d made a big mistake.
“An abortion?”
“Well, it’s not like this is our last chance to have a baby, right?”
“Jeremy!”
“I mean, wouldn’t it be better if we tried to build up some savings before—”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this!” Melissa wailed. “The other day you promised you were with me.”
“Yeah, and yesterday you called me an idiot,” he shot back. Another mistake. Melissa got up from the couch. “You said I could count on you.”
“You can, Mel! I only meant—” Jeremy stood and reached out, but she pulled away.
All at once she turned ashen. Her hand rose to her mouth. “Oh shit, I’m gonna puke.” She rushed for the bathroom.
Jeremy sank back onto the sofa. He leaned forward, his head drooping to rest in his open hands. Again, that sensation of things closing in—the Camry, the baby, Nikki. He, too, wanted to throw up.
IN HER ROOM, HEATHER read post after humiliating post on Facebook, heartsick. She’d become a joke. Way worse than all of them ignoring her, like before. No one was supposed to know what had happened with Mr. B. Her note, the false accusations—all of that was confidential. The Protective Services lady had promised her. The principal, too. Yet here she was, a public laughing stock. Who’d told?
She hated to think Nikki had. But who else knew? She reread Nikki’s post. Supposedly defending her, but Nikki went and blabbed about Heather going for therapy. That was private, personal.
Heather turned off her laptop and looked over at Pretzels in his cage. “Think I should call her?” she asked the guinea pig. And say—what?
A tap on her door and her mom walked into the bedroom. “I made an appointment for you with a therapist,” she announced. “Tomorrow at four.”
“Oh,” Heather said. So soon. “Who? Where?”
“She’s right in town. A psychologist. Dr. Gold.” Her mother frowned. “Or was it Golden? Something like that.”
“Oh,” Heather repeated. “How’d you find her?”
“Through the insurance. She’s in network.”
“Uh huh.” Heather nodded. Not much else to say about it.
“Did you give him the letter?” her mom asked.
“Huh? Oh, you mean, Mr. B?”
“Who else would I be talking about?” her mother snapped. “What did he say?”
“Umm, nothing. I mean, not yet, anyway.”
“Didn’t you give it to him?” Mom demanded.
Heather hesitated. “I left it on his desk.”
“Heather! Why didn’t you hand it to him personally?”
Was she serious? “I—I didn’t want to make a whole big scene out of it, Mom.”
“But did he read it?”
“I guess. He—uh—picked it up and put it in his desk,” Heather said. “He must have read it after class.”
“Well, check with him tomorrow, Heather. You make sure he read that apology.” Another frown. “If I’d realized you weren’t going to hand deliver it, I’d have sent it by certified mail.” Her forehead crinkled. “We should have. Then we’d have proof of receipt.”
“Mom!” Heather groaned. “It’ll be okay, honest.”
“Make sure you check with him tomorrow, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Heather mumbled.
“All right, then. Dinner in half an hour.” Her mother walked out without waiting for a response.
So, a therapist appointment tomorrow afternoon.
“At least it’s a woman, huh Pretzels?” That lady at Child Protection had been nice, listened to her. Heather went over to the cage, poked in a finger to pet the guinea pig. “Think she can help me handle Nikki?” She stroked the animal’s brown and white fur. “Better be some therapist, Pretzels,” she muttered.
TWENTY FIVE
JEREMY LEANED OVER THE bed to kiss Melissa goodbye. “Want me to pick up anything on my way home from school?”
She gave him a sleepy smile. “More saltines?”
“You got it.” He patted her dark, rumpled hair. Thank god they’d worked out a truce. He hoped it would last this time. “I’m off,” he told her.
He drove to the Forrest School, still worrying about the Camry.
Parking in the faculty lot, he pushed aside his fears to focus on a roomful of sixth graders. The class went smoothly enough and Jeremy trotted across the campus to AP English.
He walked in and saw it. An apple on his desk—the biggest, reddest, most in-your-fa
ce specimen he’d ever seen. He did a classic double take—a cursory glance at his desk, followed by a head jerk back to the enormous piece of fruit. A few giggles erupted from his students.
Of all things, Jeremy blushed.
C’mon, get it together, Barrett. What are you, a greenhorn student teacher? His eyes darted to Nikki, sealing his doom. His face turned red as the Honeycrisp on his desk.
“Uh…” Buying time, he went to his desk and picked up the fruit, making a show of examining it while his heartbeat returned to normal. He looked around the room. “This must be the Big Apple,” he quipped. Laughter and a few groans, but no longer at his expense.
Jeremy held up the apple. “So, who left this for me?” Go bold or go home. “Perhaps Eve?” He wiggled his eyebrows, milking it. “Or the serpent?” More giggles and a few sidelong glances at Heather, who stared down at her desk.
Enough. He still didn’t get the joke, but he’d regained control. “Anyway, thanks, whoever you are.” He gave the juicy piece of fruit a last appraising look. He considered taking a bite, for effect. But, who knew? Might be a sharp object hidden inside. “I’ll save it for later,” he said. He put the apple back on his desk. “Now, let’s get back to Jay Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy.”
Obsessions. Jeremy had become an expert on that subject.
His preoccupation with Nikki might end up as badly as Jay Gatsby’s. At least Gatsby pursued a woman his own age. He had to end this thing. He was going to be a father, even if the idea terrified him. Again, he promised: No more contact with Nikki outside of school. No meetings, no texts. This time he meant it. Jeremy got through the class on autopilot, keeping his eyes anywhere but on Nikki.
At the end of the period, she would be the last to leave. She’d stay behind to confess she’d left the apple, as she’d acknowledged the cupcake yesterday.
But she didn’t.
As she walked out with the others, Nikki met his inquiring gaze with a blue-eyed expression of pure sweetness and innocence. Baffled, he watched her go.
“Mr. B?”
Heather stood at his desk, books clutched to her chest like a bulletproof vest.
“Yes, Heather?” Keeping his tone neutral. Not crazy about being alone in the classroom with her. “What is it?”
“I—um.” Her cheeks flushed. “I wanted to…”
“Yes?”
“Did you get the letter I left you?”
“I did.” What to say? Thank her for it?
“Was it—okay?”
Her face pinched and drawn with misery, Heather looked forty, rather than sixteen. Jeremy pitied her. Who was he to judge her? “It was fine, Heather. Apology accepted.”
She looked up at him, her face going slack with relief and gratitude. “Thank you,” she whispered, and rushed to the door.
“Heather?”
She turned, eyebrows shooting upward.
“That apple—did you…?”
She shook her head. “Not me. I swear it, Mr. B.”
She hurried off, leaving Jeremy with yet another mystery on his hands.
TWENTY SIX
HEATHER STOLE A GLANCE at the clock in Dr. Goldman’s office. Only ten minutes left. Her first session, and she wished it were longer. So much she wanted to tell the doctor.
“Those girls are up to something else now.” Heather’s finger traced a nervous circle along the armrest of her chair.
“What are they doing?” Dr. Goldman asked.
“Someone left this apple on Mr. B’s desk.” She darted a glance at the psychologist’s face, then looked away. “And the girls acted like it was me who did it.”
“That must have been very uncomfortable. What did you do, Heather?”
A shrug. “Nothing. Ignored them. Sort of.”
Dr. Goldman nodded. “Okay.”
“But I wish—”
“What? What do you wish?”
“That I could stand up to them.” Heather lowered her gaze.
“I see.” Her therapist paused. “If you want, I can show you some techniques that might help.”
“Like what?” Heather’s eyes shot up to meet the doctor’s.
“Hmmm.” Dr. Goldman thought for a moment. “How to speak up. Talk to those girls in a calm and confident way.”
Heather slumped in her chair. Ask me to swim the Hudson, why don’t you? “I don’t feel calm and confident.” Dr. Goldman, on the other hand, looked relaxed and poised. This woman might teach her something.
“Sometimes, Heather, if you act as if you feel a certain way, the feelings follow.”
“Yeah?”
Dr. Goldman smiled. “We call it fake it till you make it.”
Heather laughed. “Cool.”
“Want to try something before we end the session?”
Heather grinned. “Sure.”
“Good. We’ll start with centering in your body. As you sit there in your chair, Heather, imagine you’re a mountain.”
Weird, but they worked on it for the rest of the session and Heather liked it. When Dr. Goldman suggested she practice at home, Heather agreed. Being a mountain was way better homework than they gave at school.
The first test of her therapist’s training came all too soon.
Heather walked into AP English the next morning to find a cluster of girls around Mr. B’s desk, giggling. As she passed them, she concentrated on her breathing, like Dr. Goldman had showed her. But then she saw what they were all laughing about. A box of tiny heart-shaped candies, the kind with corny messages on them, there on the desk. Heather scurried to her seat, breathing faster.
Moments later, Mr. B came in. He frowned at the smirking girls around his desk.
Pretty cool, the way he handled that. Still, Heather wished he hadn’t sent those candies into circulation. The box of miniature hearts made its way back, coming closer to her seat. Murmurs and chuckles followed along the way.
You’re a mountain.
The candies approached, only a row away. One of the girls, Tiffany, read the inscription on a little heart, in a loud whisper.
“I love you.” A few titters.
“Let’s settle down,” Mr. B warned.
“Be mine,” another girl read. Giggles, now.
“Mr. B,” someone added. Not a whisper that time. Heather caught a sidelong glimpse of Nikki, smirking.
“Love, Heather!” A chortle, then a muffled guffaw.
“Ladies!” Mr. B called out.
But the laughter had its own momentum now.
All eyes on her, Heather had nowhere safe to look. Breathe! Nice and slow. But the more she inhaled and exhaled, the more Heather grew light-headed, scared she’d hyperventilate. If she passed out, at least she wouldn’t have to sit there, all those eyes boring into her, hearing that laughter.
Be a mountain.
But Heather didn’t want to be a mountain now. She wanted to be invisible.
“Stop it!” she exploded. “Leave me alone!”
“Enough!” Mr. B shouted, the first time Heather ever heard him yell. “Heather, all of you, stop it right now.” He charged to the back of the room, snatched up the nearly empty box of candy hearts and hurled them into the waste basket beside his desk.
“Shouldn’t waste food.” Somebody—Samantha?—a stage whisper.
Mr. B turned and scanned the room, eyes flashing with anger. “Let’s get back on track.” He resumed the lesson.
Not the end of it. Not hardly. Heather knew she’d get plenty more chances to apply her therapist’s training. Fake it till you make it—yeah, right. Would she ever?
She’d practice. A lot. Maybe Mom would let her see Dr. Goldman twice a week.
TWENTY S
EVEN
END OF THE SCHOOL day found Jeremy eager to leave. He’d handled the apple, but those candy hearts? They’d spooked him. And this time he’d lost control of his class. Bizarre, this stuff on his desk. Like starring in a remake of The Blair Witch Project, checking for dead animals and bones planted outside his tent each morning.
And the witch? Heather, maybe? Gathering up books and papers in his new office, Jeremy considered the idea and rejected it. She’d need Meryl Streep’s acting chops to pull off the stunt of sneaking in those gifts while looking so freaked out by them. Besides, Heather had taken plenty of ridicule this morning.
Nikki, then? He’d barely said a word to her on the way back from their disastrous trip to the Watchung Reservation yesterday. Punishing him, maybe?
No. Not Nikki. What a rat to even think it. Chalk it up to fraying nerves.
Those nerves took yet another shock when Jeremy walked out of his office and saw Nikki waiting for him in the hallway. Late for her to be hanging around.
“Hey,” he said. “Let’s walk.” Better than being caught loitering with her.
She fell into step beside him. “That was way weird in class today, huh?”
“Pretty surreal.” From the corner of his eye, Jeremy watched her. “Nikki…?”
“What, Mr. B?” Glacier eyes came around and locked onto his.
“Did—uh, you leave those candies on my desk?”
She flinched, like he’d struck her.
“Sorry,” Jeremy muttered. What a bastard, even to ask! But who, then? “You think it was Heather?”
Her blue eyes clouded. “The other girls say so.”
“Do you believe them?” Cruel putting Nikki on the spot, but who else could he turn to? No way he’d bring this mess to Donnelly and have him digging around.
Nikki hesitated. “I don’t think it’s fair to make any accusations, Mr. B.” Solemn and big-eyed as an owlet. “Do you?”
“No. Of course not.” He forced a smile. “Hey, getting late. We’d better go.”
Nikki flashed him a radiant grin. “Where to?”
Shit, that came out wrong. “No, I mean I’ve got to be getting home. See you tomorrow, Nikki.” Jeremy hurried off.