My Dark Vanessa(57)

“I don’t like this, Vanessa,” Dad says.

“It’s fine,” I say. “You know I would tell you if anything was wrong.”

He and I go quiet, wait for Mom.

“It’s almost the end of the year,” she says. “I guess it doesn’t make sense to pull you out. But, Vanessa, you stay away from that teacher, ok? If he tries to talk to you, tell the headmaster.”

“He’s my teacher. He has to be able to talk to me.”

“You know what I mean,” she says. “Go to class and then leave.”

“He’s not even the problem.”

“Vanessa,” Dad barks. “Listen to your mother.”

“I want you to call us every night,” Mom says. “At six thirty, I expect the phone to ring. Understood?”

Staring across the common room, the television showing MTV on mute, Carson Daly’s spiked hair and black nail polish, I mumble, “Yes, ma’am.” Mom sighs. She hates it when I call her that.



Strane says we need to back off for a while, be conscious of optics. No late afternoons in his office, long hours spent alone. “Even this is a risk,” he says, meaning my skipping lunch to spend the free period in his classroom with the door wide open. We need to be careful, at least for the time being, as much as it kills him to keep his distance from me.

He’s confident, though, that it’ll all blow over soon. He keeps using that phrase, “blow over,” like this is some bad weather. Summer will come and, with it, drives in his station wagon, open windows, and sea-salt air. He tells me to trust him, that by next fall, this will all be forgotten. I don’t know if I believe him. A couple days pass and things seem ok, but whenever I’m within eyesight of Jenny, she shoots me a look of raw resentment. Strane thinks she’s given up because she transferred out of his class, but I can tell she’s still mad.



The bulletin board goes up listing every senior’s plan for college the following year. I go to dinner and, while I’m waiting in line at the sandwich station, I notice Jenny and Hannah moving methodically around the dining hall. Jenny carries a pen and notebook, and as they approach each table, Hannah says something to the people sitting there, waits for a response, and then Jenny writes something down in the notebook. I notice, too, how many eyes turn toward me, then dart away, not wanting me to catch them staring.

I leave the line, and as I walk across the dining hall I hear Hannah ask, “Have any of you heard a rumor that Vanessa Wye and Mr. Strane are having an affair?”

It’s a table of seniors. Brandon McLean, whose name I saw listed next to Dartmouth on the bulletin board, asks, “Who’s Vanessa Wye?”

The girl sitting beside him—Alexis Cartwright, Williams College—points to me. “Isn’t that her?”

The whole table turns. Jenny and Hannah do, too. I catch a glimpse of Jenny’s notebook, a list of names, before she hides it against her chest.



Twenty-six. That’s how many names are on Jenny’s list. I sit across from Mrs. Giles, this time only her and me in the office, no secretary or Strane. Mrs. Giles hands me a copy of the list, and I read down the names, mostly sophomores, classmates, girls on my floor. No one I’ve ever talked to about Strane. Then I see the last name on the page—Jesse Ly.

“If you have anything you want to tell me,” Mrs. Giles says, “now is the time to do it.”

I’m not sure what she’s expecting from me, if she still believes the rumor isn’t true or if this list has changed her mind and now she’s angry that I lied. She’s angry about something.

I look up from the list. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“I’d like you to be honest with me.”

I say nothing, not wanting to take a step in any direction.

“What if I tell you I’ve spoken with a student on this list who says you explicitly told them you were romantically involved with Mr. Strane?”

It takes me a moment to understand she doesn’t mean “explicit” in a sexual sense, but that I told this person directly. Again, I say nothing. I don’t know if she’s telling the truth. It seems like the sort of bluff cops on TV shows use when trying to wrangle a confession out of someone. The smart move is always to stay silent, wait for your lawyer—though I don’t know who the equivalent of a lawyer would be in my case. Strane? My parents?

Mrs. Giles takes a deep breath, touches her fingers to her temples. She doesn’t want to be dealing with this. I don’t want to deal with this, either. We should just forget it—that’s what I want to say. Let’s forget all about this. But I know we can’t, not with Jenny leading the charge, and because of who her father is. The structure of Browick suddenly seems obvious, a blatant system of power and worth in which some people matter more than others, something I’ve always felt but haven’t before been able to comprehend so plainly.

“We need to get to the bottom of this,” she says.

“We are at the bottom,” I say. “None of it is true. That’s the bottom.”

“So if I go get this student and bring them in here, will your story change?” she asks.

I blink as I realize she’s trying to call my bluff, not the other way around. “It’s not true,” I say again.