Girl in Snow(52)

The scene is chaos. Cameron’s mom is pleading with the officers. “Please,” she says. You can tell she’s uncomfortable with the sound. “Please, you can’t take him. Russ, come on, it’s me. You can’t just take him.”

I catch snippets of conversation. The art teacher; he was her art teacher—Years at Jefferson, I never thought he’d—So inappropriate for a funeral, they should have waited—Wanted to make a scene, makes them look productive—

The two police officers march Mr. O away like a trophy. He keeps his head bowed to the ground, takes each step purposefully. His hair, peppered with gray, shines white in the sun.

Cameron’s mother hugs him close, and they both watch, horrified, as the officers lead Mr. O into a squad car.

Sirens wail. Doors slam. People follow, and a few have their flip phones poised to take grainy photos. But most stand, dumbfounded, circling a drama that has now gone, leaving an empty, pulsing space in the middle of the crowd.



I’ve met that police officer before—with the moustache.

Howie used to live in Willow Square. In winter, he’d set up his sleeping bag in the drained, empty fountain and shake his cup of change at you. The city complained, and one day, when Howie and I were playing checkers on the steps of the fountain, the cops came to move him. There were two of them—one was the lieutenant, gruff and mean. Pile of dirt, he spat at Howie as he shooed me away. I retreated to a storefront as the other cop squatted down into Howie’s line of sight. “Fletcher,” his badge said. He helped Howie up by the arms, gathered Howie’s things into his shopping cart while the lieutenant filled out a report on a clipboard, grumbling with annoyance under his breath.

As he arrests Mr. O, Officer Fletcher’s gaze is somewhere else. When I follow his line of sight, I see her: Querida. Querida, in her black veil, gripping the arm of a man who could be her brother, tears streaming down her face as she shakes her head like No, no, no.

Querida notices me, but only for a second. She looks away quickly, panicked. But in that second, her dark eyes hold mine. So brief. Ashamed. I see myself very suddenly, too. It’s like looking into a mirror as shower fog evaporates: I am the line connecting the dots.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it—how it’s possible to be a secondary character in your own story.



The sun is blinding. Cars idle in the parking lot, silent witnesses.

“You had him last year, didn’t you, Jay?” Ma says. “For art class, what was it, pottery?”

“Ceramics.”

“Did he ever do anything to you?”

“What?”

“Did he ever touch you?”

“God, no, Ma. That’s disgusting.”

“He always creeped me out,” Amy chimes in. “He stays for hours after school every day, just looking at paintings and stuff.”

“I don’t know, Amy . . . he is an art teacher.”

“Watch it, Jade,” Ma snaps, digging through her purse for the car keys.

People stand in small groups around the parking lot, gossiping. Everywhere I go, Mr. O’s name.

“Jade!” someone says from behind.

Mrs. Arnaud holds up her long black skirt, hurrying over from the other side of the parking lot. Ma has already started the car, and Amy fixes her hair in the passenger’s-side mirror.

“Jade.” Mrs. Arnaud stops near the bumper of Ma’s Subaru. She wears her hair in black mourner’s lace like a 1940s widow, and it falls in pretty tendrils around her face. The Arnauds are technically two years younger than my parents, but it’s like they’re impervious to time, the way naturally good-looking people tend to be. They do things like running and hiking and biking. Mrs. Arnaud always looks like she’s just returned from a tropical vacation.

Now, Mrs. Arnaud squints at me, using a tanned hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

“It’s Edouard,” she says. When I first met the Arnauds, they both had thick French accents, but in the years since they’ve become barely detectable. “He’s a mess. He won’t speak to anyone. We don’t know what to do.”

I wonder if she’s somehow missed the memo—if the last year has shrunk into a short blip in her mind, a speed bump in my and Zap’s friendship. If she even noticed at all.

“I know you haven’t been over in a while,” she says. “But maybe you could stop by this afternoon? I think he’d like to see you.”

She’s wrong, but I don’t tell her that. I nod and fight the urge to pull her close, to rest my tired head on Mrs. Arnaud’s shoulder, which I know will smell like Burberry perfume and brand-name laundry detergent.



WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY BUT CAN’T WITHOUT BEING A DICK

A Screenplay by Jade Dixon-Burns

EXT. FUNERAL HOME PARKING LOT—DAY

Celly and BOY’S MOTHER (43, glowing tan), stand side by side against the whiplash wind. Celly looks beautiful in a white summer dress.





CELLY


You know him. Boy. Your son.

BOY’S MOTHER

Yes, of course I do.





CELLY


Can you tell me where he’s gone?

BOY’S MOTHER

I just told you, he’s home.

Celly shifts her weight from one foot to the other.