PLEASE CLEAN UP THIS ROOM.
Aria tentatively knocked. “Come in,” she heard him say from the other side. She’d expected Ezra to be with another student—from snippets she heard in class, she’d thought his lunchtime office hours were always busy—but here he was alone, with a Happy Meal box on his desk. The room smelled like McNuggets.
“Aria!” Ezra exclaimed, raising an eyebrow. “This is a surprise. Sit down.”
She plopped down on Ezra’s scratchy tweed couch—the same kind that was in the Rosewood Day headmaster’s office. She pointed at his desk. “Happy Meal?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I like the toys.” He held up a car from some kids’ movie. “McNugget?” He proffered the box. “I got barbecue.”
She waved him away. “I don’t eat meat.”
“That’s right.” He ate a fry, his eyes locked with hers. “I forgot.”
Aria felt a swoosh of something—a mix of intimacy and discomfort. Ezra looked away, probably feeling it too. She looked around on his desk. It was littered with stacks of paper, a mini zen rock garden, and about a thousand books.
“So…” Ezra wiped his mouth with a napkin, not noticing Aria’s expression. “What can I do for you?”
Aria leaned her elbow on the couch’s arm. “Well, I’m wondering if I can have an extension on the Scarlet Letter essay that’s due tomorrow.”
He set down his soda. “Really? I’m surprised. You’re never late with anything.”
“I know,” she mumbled sheepishly. But the Ackards’ house was not conducive to studying. One, it was too quiet—Aria was used to studying while simultaneously listening to music, the TV, and Mike yammering on the phone in the next room. Two, it was hard to concentrate when she felt like someone was…watching her. “But it’s not a big deal,” she went on. “All I need is this weekend.”
Ezra scratched his head. “Well…I haven’t set a policy on extensions yet. But all right. Just this once. Next time, I’m going to have to mark you down a grade.”
She pushed her hair behind her ears. “I’m not going to make a habit of it.”
“Good. So, what, are you not liking the book? Or haven’t you started it?”
“I finished it today. But I hated it. I hated Hester Prynne.”
“Why?”
Aria fiddled with the buckle on her Urban Outfitters ivory suede flats. “She assumes her husband’s lost at sea, and so she goes and has an affair,” she muttered.
Ezra leaned forward on his elbow, looking amused. “But her husband isn’t a very good man, either. That’s what makes it complicated.”
Aria stared at the books that were crammed into Ezra’s cramped, wooden bookshelves. War and Peace. Gravity’s Rainbow. An extensive collection of e. e. cummings and Rilke poetry, and not one but two copies of No Exit. There was the Edgar Allan Poe collection Sean hadn’t read. All of the books looked creased and worn from reading and rereading. “But I couldn’t see past what Hester did,” Aria said quietly. “She cheated.”
“But we’re supposed to feel for her struggle, and how society has branded her, and how she strives to forge her own identity and not allow anyone to create one for her.”
“I hated her, okay?” Aria exploded. “And I’ll never forgive her!”
She covered her face with her hands. Tears spilled down her cheeks. When she shut her eyes, she pictured Byron and Meredith as the book’s illicit lovers, Ella as Hester’s vengeful, wronged husband. But if life really imitated art, Byron and Meredith should be suffering…not Aria. She’d tried to call her house last night, but as soon as Ella picked up and heard Aria’s voice on the other end, she hung up. When Aria waved at Mike across the gym, Mike had quickly spun on his heel and marched back into the locker room. No one was on her side.
“Whoa,” Ezra said quietly, after Aria let out a stifled sob. “It’s okay. So you didn’t like the book. It’s fine.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just…” She felt hot tears on her palms. Ezra’s room had grown so quiet. There was only the whirring of the computer’s hard drive. The buzz of the fluorescent lamp. The happy cries from the lower school playground—all the little kids were out for recess.
“Is there something you want to talk about?” Ezra asked.
Aria wiped her eyes with the back of her blazer sleeve. She picked at a loose button on one of the couch’s seat cushions. “My father had an affair with his student three years ago,” she blurted out. “He’s a professor at Hollis. I knew about it the whole time, but he asked me not to tell my mom. Well, now he’s back with the student…and my mom found out. She’s furious I knew for so long…and now my dad’s gone.”
“Jesus,” Ezra whispered. “This just happened?”
“A few weeks ago, yeah.”
“God.” Ezra stared up at the beamed ceiling for a while. “That doesn’t sound very fair of your dad. Or your mom.”
Aria shrugged. Her chin started to tremble again. “I shouldn’t have kept it a secret from my mom. But what was I supposed to do?”
“It’s not your fault,” Ezra told her.
He got out of his chair, walked around to the front of the desk, pushed a few papers aside, and sat on the edge.
“Okay. So, I’ve never told anyone this, but when I was in high school, I saw my mom kissing her doctor. She had cancer at the time, and since my dad was traveling, she asked me to take her to her chemotherapy treatments. Once, while I was waiting, I had to use the bathroom, and as I was walking back through the hall, I saw this exam room door open. I don’t know why I looked in, but when I did…there they were. Kissing.”