“I don’t know, Beau. Is it worth it? It’s not like trucking pays much. I’m tired of working two jobs to make ends meet.”
“I’m sorry.” He takes her hands in his nicer, softer ones. “Here.” He reaches into his jacket pocket. “This made me think of you.”
He gives her a black box. It has no label or brand, and inside is rather sad with a pair of golden earrings shaped like strings of hearts. Still, the mother’s face brightens. “They’re pretty.”
“Just like you.” He reaches out and runs one hand softly along her hair. “You’re the only one for me.”
Smiling, the mother lets him lead her to the only bedroom in the apartment. Their moans and grunts keep the girl awake for a long, long time.
Chapter Fourteen
Ava
Tuesday passes without incident. Teachers still eye me speculatively, but I pretend it doesn’t bother me. Neither Kouchou-sensei nor Mishima-sensei has bugged me since then, so I act like Monday never happened.
Even if I have a job offer, I still need to finish out my contract with the school, and I don’t want to have any pointless tension here.
Thankfully Lucas doesn’t bother me with another bouquet of nonsense. Hopefully he’s flown back to America by now, where he belongs…with Faye Belbin. The idea stirs a crazy cocktail of jealousy inside me, and I breathe deeply to calm myself. It’s better this way. Don’t I know that?
But Wednesday morning Mishima-sensei comes and tells me that Kouchou-sensei wants to talk to me again. I raise my eyebrows. I haven’t gone out or done anything that could be construed as inappropriate, so I don’t know what Kouchou-sensei can possibly want to talk about.
“Before your first class,” Mishima-sensei clarifies.
“Arigato gozaimasu.”
I make my way to the office. Yamamoto-san fidgets when she sees me. She won’t meet my eyes.
A bad sign. What’s the problem now?
“You can go in,” Yamamoto-san says.
I murmur my thanks and walk inside. Kouchou-sensei is again seated at her desk, and she offers the same chair. I sit down, feeling a bit of déjà vu. Maybe I’m hallucinating. That wouldn’t surprise me. I haven’t been sleeping well—thanks to Lucas’s sudden reappearance and demands—and I could be dreaming with my eyes wide open…
Her thin hands are on the desk, folded neatly. “It’s come to my attention that there is a problem other than the hotel incident.”
I stare at her. What crime have I committed? My Facebook account has nothing that could come back to bite me in the butt. I didn’t even start one until I left the States, mostly so I could keep in touch with Darcy and Ray. Bennie and I used LINE and Skype to communicate with each other until I joined him in Osaka.
When I don’t give her the reaction she was obviously expecting, Kouchou-sensei asks, “Is it true you’re cohabiting with a man?” There is a subtle emphasis on cohabiting, as though I’ve been hosting and participating in orgies or something.
“If you’re asking me whether I have a roommate, yes, I do.”
“And this roommate… Is he a man?”
“Yes. He’s my best friend. He’s been my best friend since I was a small child.”
“But he is a man.”
I can see where this is going. “Yes.”
“And he is not related to you.”
“No, but he’s like a brother to me. We grew up together.”
Her forehead wrinkles. “Yet he is not your brother, correct?”
“Correct.”
She stares at me as though surprised at my frank answers. “You must realize how this appears.”