Page 87 of Them Bones

Miriam remembered Nancy well. She’d been hired for a few years as part of a teaching co-op, bringing in real artists to work with kindergarteners. Miriam had always liked her, despite her oddities. The other teachers hadn’t warmed to her, especiallysince she insisted on students using her first name. But Miriam, who was widowed young and didn’t particularly love being reminded of her dead husband a hundred times a day by being calledMrs. Benowitz,had never blamed the girl.

“You probably don’t remember me, but my name is Miriam Benowitz. I’m a teacher at VK?”

“Oh! Miriam!” she crooned. “Of course I remember you! I’d say it’s lovely to hear from you, but honestly I’m assuming that you have a reason for calling me?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I heard that you’re a teacher now, yourself?”

“Mmhmm, mmhmm… I am. The starving artist thing was a bit too heavy on the starving, not heavy enough on the art.” She giggled. “I teach at Riverglen, now.”

Riverglen was the publicly funded experimental school. Mostly art, from what she understood.

“Listen, this is going to sound strange, but… I’ve got a student in my class who is a bit…” she struggled with what to say. She didn’t want to call him slow – he wasn’t, he was quite brilliant, actually – but he was definitely…something.“I’ve just seen some of his artwork. And it’s… well I’ve never really seen anything like it, to be frank.”

There was a pause, and a shuffling sound, like she was sitting down.

“You got Dustin Hawton, didn’t you?” Nancy said. “In your class? He’d be in sixth grade about now…”

“How onearthdid you know that?” Miriam exclaimed.

“I had him in kindergarten. Honestly, Miriam, you could tell. Even then. That he had something. I’d so hoped to talk to his parents about putting him in private art classes, but his teacher at the time wouldn’t hear of it, and I was only there on co-op… I didn’t have the authority to do anything.”

“Well, I do,” Miriam said.

Nancy laughed sweetly, a charming sound like wind chimes that filled Miriam’s heart.

Half of these kids were already well on their way to teen pregnancy, rehab, or prison. Most days, she couldn’t even remember why she’d gone into teaching.

Today is why,she thought.

And she laughed, too.

LANEY

There were about eight hundred rules, with Shane. And every single one of them seemed to have been designed specifically to torture her.

No kissing during work hours. Clothing must remain on in the bedroom at all times. No being in the bedroom at all after 7:00pm.

The first had been easy to break. The second, not asbreakablebut…flexible.He’d let her take his shirt off, but then wouldn’t take off hers. If hers came off, he wouldn’t take off his. And pants were a non-starter.

But the last… he wouldn’t budge an inch. Said that if she was in his room a minute past 7:00 they’d riskgetting carried away againand end up being late getting her home for what they now referred to as her curfew.

It was torment – a sick and twisted agony – being in bed with him, mouths fused, hands everywhere, and knowing that there was a clothing barrier between them at all times, as well as a time limit.

Still, she pushed him. And pushed and pushed and pushed. Andsometimeshe gave in.

The second day that Jerry picked them up and brought them back to his place, Dusty had set up shop at the kitchen table, and Laney had headed into the spare bedroom that was Jerry’s disaster of an office.

Around 4:00, Shane had come inside for some water. He had black circles under his eyes from getting punched, but he’d said he deserved it and left it at that.

They’d been awkward earlier, not really knowing how to be around each other, so used to off-limits that neither of them knew how to bein-limits. But he was leaning against the frame of the doorway of the office, watching her intently, heat billowing out of him like steam, and she figured they’d bridge that hurdle fairly quick.

Show me your room,she thought.

He’d held out his hand, led her down the hall, and pulled her inside, shutting the door behind them.

She ran her hand over his things; the picture Dustin had given him for Christmas, a stack of tapes, a bigger stack of CDs, t-shirts and sweatshirts and – to her surprise – a copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

“Did you finish it?” she asked.

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