She doesn't. Not exactly. It contradicts all she has ever been told.

"Some might think so," the priest says. He sneezes once quickly and says, "Excuse me." He takes out a handkerchief and blows his nose. "I've got a cold coming on," he says, explaining. "Would you like to speak to someone about this? Someone who might be able to help you?"

She shakes her head quickly. "No," she says.

"I'm thinking of someone such as a doctor, who could talk to you about how you might be feeling about all of this."

"No," she says. "I don't think so."

"I could arrange, I think, for you to speak to a woman."

"Not really," she says.

"It's too hard to carry such a burden alone."

A great childish sob escapes her. A gulp, a hiccup of air. She turns away from the priest.

She hears the priest stand and then leave the room. She thinks that he has left her to cry alone without anyone to watch, but then he returns with a box of tissues. He stops in front of her, but she is unwilling to raise her eyes past his knees. She takes a tissue from the box and blows her nose. All these functions of the body, she thinks.

"Perhaps you would like some time to be alone," he says.

She shakes her head again. "I have to get back to cla.s.s," she says, wanting more than anything to leave the rectory.

"I understand," he says. "Linda."

She looks up at him. She was wrong. He doesn't look a thing like Eddie Garrity. "Can you forgive the man?" he asks.

"I don't know," she says. "I try not to think about it."

"Can you forgive your aunt?"

She shakes her head. "She hates," Linda says. "Which seems worse."

"It is not for us to decide which is the worse sin."

"No," she says.

"You'll work on forgiving them. You'll try."

"Yes," she says, knowing this might not be true.

"Do you have friends?" he asks. "Anyone you can talk to?"

"I have a friend," she says.

"Someone you trust?" he asks.

"Yes. Very much."

"Is this person a boy or a girl?"

"A boy."

"Is he a Catholic?"

"No."

"Well, never mind."

"He is my life," Linda says.

"Now, now," the priest says gently. "G.o.d is your life. Your life is in G.o.d."

"Yes," she says.

"But now is perhaps not the time to get into that. I a.s.sume you have had quite a religious training."

She nods.

"More than you ever wanted."

She glances up at him and sees that he is smiling. No, he does not resemble Eddie Garrity at all, she thinks.

The priest holds out his hand. She takes it, and he helps her up.

"I'll see you to the door," he says. "If you ever want to talk, about this or about anything else, you have only to call."

"Thank you," she says. "I don't even know your name."

"Father Meaghan," he says. "Don't forget your pocketbook there."

Linda walks out to the sidewalk, knowing that the priest is watching her from behind a window. The light outside is so bright and so harsh she immediately has to take her sungla.s.ses from her purse. She puts them on gratefully, makes the turn toward the bus stop, and when she knows she is out of sight of the rectory, she begins to cry.

She waits outside the Nantasket Nantasket room, leaning against the wall. She marvels at the architect who can have created such a monstrosity as the school and have thought the building conducive to learning. Perhaps it room, leaning against the wall. She marvels at the architect who can have created such a monstrosity as the school and have thought the building conducive to learning. Perhaps it was was a prison after all. Yellow brick rises high over her head, allowing for only narrow transom windows. Years of student scratchings have turned the metal doors a muted blue or worn orange. Wire mesh is encased in the narrow slits of the gla.s.s in the doors, guarding, she supposes, against an errant fist. From time to time, she peers through the slit to see what Thomas is doing. He sits at the head of a long table with eight other students, and they seem to be deeply engaged in discussion. Stacks of the a prison after all. Yellow brick rises high over her head, allowing for only narrow transom windows. Years of student scratchings have turned the metal doors a muted blue or worn orange. Wire mesh is encased in the narrow slits of the gla.s.s in the doors, guarding, she supposes, against an errant fist. From time to time, she peers through the slit to see what Thomas is doing. He sits at the head of a long table with eight other students, and they seem to be deeply engaged in discussion. Stacks of the Nantasket Nantasket have recently been delivered to the room from the printer and are in piles on student desks. have recently been delivered to the room from the printer and are in piles on student desks.

She shouldn't be here at all. She should, she knows, have taken the late bus home and closed the door to the bedroom and done her homework. She has a calculus test in the morning and a paper due on a book she hasn't yet read. With the job at the diner and the hockey games (two a week) and her hours with Thomas (utterly necessary), she has less and less time for studying. Her discussion with Mr. K. in his cla.s.sroom just now will be moot if she doesn't keep up her grades. Before, school always seemed effortless, but effortlessness is only possible, she is learning, if you give it time.

At the end of the corridor, the vice princ.i.p.al, who, months ago, was her introduction to the school, is berating a sullen student with long hair and a denim jacket. She can't hear what he is saying, but she can guess. Get rid of the jacket. Cut the hair. Get rid of the jacket. Cut the hair.

She thinks about her meeting with the priest, an utterly astonishing event. So strange and so unreal, it might never have happened at all.

But it did, she thinks. It did.

The door opens, and Thomas emerges, carrying a copy of the Nantasket. Nantasket. He is reading as he walks. He is reading as he walks.

"Hey," she calls.

"Linda," he says, turning. "Hi. I didn't expect to see you."

"What have you got there?"

"Look," he says.

He has the literary magazine opened to a page on which is printed a short poem by Thomas Janes. She reads the poem. "It's very good, Thomas." And it is good. It really is. "Congratulations."

"Thank you. Thank you." He bows. "What are you doing here?"

"Well," she says. "I've been talking to Mr. K., and I think I'm going to apply to college."

"Yes?" Thomas asks, smiling. "Yes?" He backs her into the wall. "Where?"

"Middlebury, for one."

"f.u.c.king Mr. K.," Thomas says.

"And Tufts and B.C., maybe."

"No kidding."

"I've pa.s.sed the deadline, but he's made some calls and explained what he calls 'my situation' and they say they're willing to consider my application. Well, Middlebury has so far."

"He's a miracle," Thomas says and kisses her.

A voice calls to them from down the hall. "No fraternization between the s.e.xes during school hours." Thomas, with his back to the vice princ.i.p.al, raises an eyebrow. The man stands with his hands on his hips. Any minute, Linda thinks, he will stamp his foot.

"Something funny going on down there?" he asks.

The parking lot is a sea of slush. The soles of Linda's boots are soaked.

"Now I've got the chains on," Thomas says, "we'll probably never have another day below freezing." He unlocks the door of the Skylark. The temperature is so freakishly warm that Linda takes off her coat at once. Thomas turns on the radio.

"It's the same with an umbrella," she says.

"What is?"

"If you remember it, it won't rain."

"Let's celebrate," he says.

"OK," she says. "Where?"

He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and thinks. "There's a nice seafood restaurant called the Lobster Pot not too far from here," he says. "We could go have dinner."

"Really? It's a Wednesday."

"So?"

"I have a test tomorrow."

"You can study later."

"I have to work."

"Not now you don't," he says, putting the car in reverse.

They drive along a twisting, narrow coastal route. Linda sits so close to Thomas that he has to borrow his arm back occasionally to steer. When he can, he puts his hand on her knee. Once, he hitches up her skirt so that he can see her thigh. Then he snakes his hand under the skirt. She doesn't push him away.

Thomas stops at a gas station so that she can call the diner. She holds her nose and pretends to have a cold, while Thomas stands outside the booth, banging on the gla.s.s and singing. Help me, Rhonda. Help, help me, Rhonda. Help me, Rhonda. Help, help me, Rhonda. When they get back in the car, Linda kisses him so hard and for so long, she leaves him gasping for breath. When they get back in the car, Linda kisses him so hard and for so long, she leaves him gasping for breath.

As they drive, the setting sun lights up the trees and the old houses beside the road so that, for a time, the world seems happily on fire.

"This is the best day of my life," she says.

"Really?"

The water in the marshes turns a brilliant pink. Thomas reaches below his seat and pulls out a bottle of what looks to be scotch or whiskey. A shadow pa.s.ses across the road.

"What's this about?" she asks.

"You want a drink? We're celebrating."

The bottle is only half full. Perhaps there are things about Thomas she doesn't know.

"You've never had a drink," he says.

"Thomas, can we stop somewhere? There's something I want to tell you."

"He used to have s.e.x with me," she says, letting her breath out in a rush.

She waits for the car to buckle in, for the air to billow out. Thomas has parked the Skylark on a dirt lane in the marshes. They are partially hidden from the road by a grove of trees, glittering and melting in the setting sun.

"He raped you," Thomas says.

"It wasn't rape," she says.

This will be the moment, Linda thinks, when Thomas will have to open the door of the car and get out, letting in a cool gust of air. He will have to take a walk, get his bearings, and when he gets back in, she knows, everything will be different between them.

"Often?" Thomas asks.

"Five times," she says.

He lays his head back against the seat. Linda feels light-headed. She needs to eat.

"I knew it was something like that," Thomas says quietly.

"You did?" She is only a little surprised. And perhaps a bit deflated. One's terrible secret guessed after all.

"I didn't know for sure," Thomas says. "Actually, for a while, I thought it might have been your father."