The Most Dangerous Place on Earth(47)

Nick stared out the passenger window. Teenagers never felt the social burden of small talk; that was one thing Molly had come to like about them. But his silence was excruciating; she was compelled to fill it.

“So, how are you liking the class so far?”

He shrugged. “It’s cool.”

After a moment she offered, “Your Salesman essay was very insightful. I was impressed.”

He nodded. “Yeah.” Spectacular, the confidence of teenage boys! They took compliments like points they were owed—unlike the girls, who were surprised, or eager to say she was wrong.

“I think the other students would really benefit from your ideas. It would be nice to hear more from you in class.”

“No doubt,” he said, smirking, then pointed left. “Turn here.”

Molly turned in to Tamalpais Park, dismayed by how easily she had reverted to talking about school, because at the age of twenty-three she still had absolutely no clue what boys wanted her to say to them. Behind the silvery wash of the rain, she made out tasteful Craftsman and ranch houses, picket fences slick and white. Giant redwoods, oaks, and sycamores. Along the narrow streets she saw nothing garish or overlarge, nothing ugly or out of place. In some ways it was absolutely ordinary. It was disconcerting, and somewhat depressing, to know that no matter how successful a teacher she was, she could never afford to live on these streets, in this neighborhood Nick Brickston knew as home.

Then, without warning, he spoke. “You know who you remind me of?”

“Who?”

“I’m tryna figure it out. I know. That girl from that book.”

“Which? Gatsby?” She thought foolishly, Let it be Daisy.

“Naw, the one from last year. About the governess and that crazy bitch in the attic.”

“Oh. You mean Jane Eyre.” She must have frowned, because he seemed to make a calculation, then said,

“Yeah, like Jane. But also, that girl who was in Titanic. Rose whatever. Kind of like Jane Eyre and the girl from Titanic had a baby.”

“Kate Winslet?”

“That’s it.”

The water streamed steadily around them. She was aware of Nick’s body in the close space. Without wanting to, she thought of Doug Ellison, the hotel room, the girl. Was this how it started? As easily as pulling over in a rainstorm, unlocking a passenger door?

She cleared her throat. “So you do read the books. I was beginning to wonder if anyone did.”

“When I feel like it.”

“And you read on your own as well? You must.”

Nick shrugged. Now he seemed embarrassed—he jutted his chin and she noticed his skinny, razor-burned neck, and the blackheads that muddled the grooves of his nose. She saw that she had pushed into a tender place, to witness something he spent most of his waking hours ensuring no one got to see.

“Stop here,” he said.

She pulled in front of a two-story yellow Craftsman with a BMW in the driveway and a basketball hoop over the garage. It had a wide white porch and a front door flanked by outsized windows. The blinds were open, and through the rain Molly made out the form of a little girl, nine or ten, who was staring at them through the window, pressing her palm to the glass. What was she looking for?

“Is that your sister?” Molly asked Nick.

“That’s just Nell,” he said.

“Lovely home.”

He looked at it like he’d never thought of it that way, or any way at all. “I guess,” he said. “Hey, thanks for the ride, Miss Nicoll.”

“Call me Molly,” she said automatically, and they both were startled.

“Okay?”

She couldn’t take it back, somehow. “See you in class.”

Nick stepped out into the rain and slammed the car door behind him. She waited until he’d loped up the slate walkway and knocked at the front door. When at last the door opened, Ryan Harbinger was on the other side. The boys knocked fists, then turned to squint at her car through the rain. She sat there in confusion. This was Ryan’s house? Why had Nick brought her here? Why hadn’t he told her this was where he wanted to go? Was there any limit to the list of things she didn’t know? Both boys waved and she pulled her car into gear; she had forgotten, briefly, that she was visible.

—

That night, there was a friend request from Nick Brickston waiting for her on Facebook. She hesitated for only a moment before accepting. She liked Nick, and anyway she’d already said yes to Amelia Frye.

Molly sat on the love seat in her little apartment and looked into Nick Brickston’s world. She saw him bleary-eyed at parties, cheery with his mother, brooding at the mountain’s edge, and shirtless (pale and skinny) at the beach. She read what he wrote on his friends’ pages (much of it nonsense, none of it about her) and what they wrote to him. She saw him playing video games in Damon Flintov’s bedroom and smoking a cigarette at Ryan Harbinger’s baseball game. She read his friends’ complaints about all their other teachers and all their other work, and was quietly thrilled to be the one they liked, the one who understood them and didn’t assign work over holiday weekends, or when there were tests in other classes, who in fact hardly assigned work at all.

—

Jane Frank’s curriculum called for The Scarlet Letter, but Molly chose A Clockwork Orange instead. She knew her kids: Hawthorne would not stand a chance. But the boys in her class would be braced by Clockwork’s violence, while girls like Calista might find the poetry inside.