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I handed him the binder and said, “Budget report, as requested.”
“Aw, that’s so cute,” one of the girls said. “She’s bringing him his homework.”
Cory’s eyes shot toward her and then back to me. “I thought I told you to drop it in the office.”
“I didn’t want to come all this way and not see you.” I stepped closer, as if leaning in for a kiss, but he took another step back. The girl who’d had her hand on his arm just moments before shot me a triumphant look.
Finally, I said, “Well, I’ll get back to it. See you at home?”
Cory gave me a relieved smile. “Sure.”
I turned and made my way back through the campus, my mind turning over the scene, filing away impressions. Ideas. Suspicions. Then figuring out how I wanted to respond.
***
I thought an argument would be best. “It was insulting, the way you dismissed me,” I said after dinner.
“You’re blowing this out of proportion.” Cory shot back. “I’m an authority figure. I can’t be seen kissing my girlfriend in the middle of the quad at lunchtime.”
“It was like you were embarrassed.” I remembered how close he stood to the girls, feeding their desire in a subtle yet clear way. “It’s like you didn’t want them to even know I was your girlfriend.”
“It’s none of their business who you are to me,” he said, swiping a hand through his hair. “But regardless, I’m not going to justify my actions to you or explain myself. You should have done what I asked and dropped the binder at the office.”
Cory had shifted to the offensive, which told me it was time to acquiesce. I’d registered my jealousy. That was enough.
I turned away from him that night in bed though, and he huffed in frustration, but didn’t press it. I stared at the wall, listening to his breathing slow as he fell into sleep, a satisfied smile playing at the edges of my mouth. Everyone wants someone who will fight for them.
***
By the time I got around to Cory’s desk, I’d become a master at passing through a drawer undetected. Looking through all the bits and pieces tucked into corners, evaluating their worth to me, then moving on.
I learned that he’d paid $900,000 for his tiny two-bedroom house. He had three separate bank accounts at Chase Bank—savings, checking, and a household account with about $30,000 in it.
I learned that his computer didn’t need a password to access it and that his personal email inbox was mostly a flood of forwarded jokes and crass sexual innuendos from Nate.
Also interesting was what was missing. Cory had very few photographs of his family, whom he supposedly loved, according to his Circle of Love profile, and very few email exchanges with them. The ones he did have were invitations to family functions that Cory always declined, making me wonder about the obvious distance between them, and what might have caused it.
I was just finishing up with his bottom filing drawer, my mind barely registering what I was seeing—car insurance documents, homeowner’s insurance—when I saw it. Northside. The label was written in faded pencil, as if he’d been hoping the word would disappear altogether.
Inside were the papers outlining the terms of an agreement Cory had made with Northside and the district.
It took me a few minutes to get the hang of the legal jargon, but the date on the cover page placed the agreement six months after Kristen had left school. I’d never asked Cory much about his transition from teaching to administration, assuming it must have been a typical promotion. But as I read, a different picture began to unfurl—of a man who’d abused his position as a teacher, a young girl traumatized by it, and a district desperate to cover it up.
The agreement itself was cold and detached. Facts only. But the last page was a victim statement, which shattered my whitewashed assumptions of what had happened to Kristen. Yes, it had been consensual at the beginning. But just because she wasn’t being forced into that car or dragged into that classroom didn’t mean she wanted to stay there.
My mind flew back to the girls in the north quad the other day, testing the power of their youth and beauty, no clue how quickly that power could be snatched away and held in a vise, out of reach.
I flipped back to the agreement page and read it with fresh eyes. In exchange for his participation in mandatory therapy and a quiet exit, Cory would get a letter of recommendation for an administrative position at a different high school and no formal charges.
This was what a young girl’s life was worth. Some sessions with a counselor and a promotion.
