My Dark Vanessa(100)

“I was raped by a teacher there,” I say. “I was fifteen.” I’m shocked at how smoothly the lie comes out of me, though I don’t know if I’m lying or just not telling the truth. “He’s still there,” I add. “So when you said that you knew someone, it just . . . I panicked.”

Henry brings his hands to his face, to his mouth. He picks his beer back up, sets it down again. Finally, he says, “I’m stunned.”

I open my mouth to clarify, to explain that I’m exaggerating, I shouldn’t use that word, but he speaks first.

“I have a sister,” he says. “Something similar happened to her.”

He looks to me, big sorrowful eyes, each of his features a gentler version of Strane’s. It’s easy to imagine him sinking to his knees, lowering his head into my lap, not to lament how he will inevitably ruin me but instead to mourn that another man already has.

“I’m sorry, Vanessa,” he says. “Though I know that might be a useless thing to hear. I’m just so sorry.”

We’re quiet for a moment, him leaning forward as if he wants to comfort me—his kindness like bathwater, lapping my shoulders, milky and warm. This is more than I deserve.

My eyes fixed on the floor, I say, “Please don’t tell your friend about this.”

Henry shakes his head. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

*

On the day after Christmas, I drive to Strane’s house, blasting Fiona Apple and singing my throat on fire. I slouch in my seat as I pass through the downtown streets of Norumbega, leave the car in the library parking lot across from his house, and run to his front door with my hood covering my recognizable hair—precautions dictated by Strane that I’ve followed for so long, I do them without thinking.

Once inside, I’m shifty, darting away from his hands and not looking him in the eye. I worry he knows what I said to Henry. There’s the possibility Henry told his friend and his friend told someone else at Browick; it wouldn’t take much for the gossip to loop back around to Strane. There’s also what I know is impossible but nevertheless half believe: that he knows everything I say and do, that he has the ability to peer inside my mind.

When he surprises me with a wrapped present, I don’t take it at first, worried it’s a trap, that I’ll open the box to find a note saying, I know what you did. He’s never given me a Christmas present before.

“Go on,” he says with a laugh, nudging the gift against my chest.

I stare down at it, a clothing-sized box wrapped in thick gold paper and red ribbon, the work of a retail employee. “But I didn’t get you anything,”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

I peel off the paper. Inside is a thick sweater, dark blue with a cream Fair Isle design around the neck. “Wow.” I lift it from the box. “I love it.”

“You sound surprised.”

I slip the sweater over my head. “I didn’t realize you paid attention to what kinds of clothes I wear.” A stupid thing to say. Of course he pays attention. He knows everything about me, everything I’ve ever been and will be.

He makes us pasta and red sauce—no eggs and toast for once—and sets our plates on the bar, arranges the silverware and folded napkins like it’s a date. He asks what I’m taking next semester, withholding his usual criticism about the course descriptions and reading lists. When I tell him about my finals and the paper I wrote for Henry’s class, he interrupts me.

“That’s the professor,” he says. “Specializes in British lit, came from Texas? That’s him. His wife is that new counselor they brought in for the students.”

I bite down, hard, on my tongue. “Wife?”

“Penelope. Fresh out of grad school, got an LCS—whatever that social work degree is.”

My breathing stops, caught between inhale and exhale.

Strane taps his fork against the rim of my plate. “You all right?”

I nod, force myself to swallow. I have a friend who works there. Friend. He said that. Or am I remembering it wrong? But why would he lie? Maybe he felt so sorry for me that he didn’t want to bring even the idea of another woman into the room. But he mentioned his sister—and besides, the lie would have happened before I said anything about being raped. So why would he lie?

I ask what she’s like, the most banal question I can think of, because I don’t dare ask the ones I really want answers to—what does she look like, is she smart, what kind of clothes does she wear, does she talk about him?—but even though I hold back, Strane still knows. He sees it in me, my ears pricked and hackles raised.

“Vanessa, stay away from him,” he says.

I screw up my face, fake indignation. “What are you talking about?”

“Be a good girl,” he says. “You know what you’re capable of.”

After we eat and the dishes are in the sink, he stops me when I move toward the stairs, up to his bedroom.

“I have to tell you something,” he says. “Come in here.”

As he guides me into the living room, I think again that this is it, the confrontation about what I said. That’s why Strane mentioned Henry—he’s taking it slow, luring me into it. But as he sits me down on the couch, he warns that what he’s about to tell me will sound worse than it actually is, that it’s a misunderstanding, an unfortunate circumstance.