“She was talking about killing herself. Oh, my God, she didn’t do it, did she?”
Angela shakes her head. “Her parents have accused you of sexual assault, Zoe.”
I blink, certain I haven’t heard correctly. “What?”
“They say you came on to her on two separate occasions.”
“That’s absolutely ridiculous! Our relationship is completely professional!” I turn to Vanessa. “Tell her.”
“She’s a seriously disturbed girl,” Vanessa says. “Surely whatever Lucy’s said would have to be taken with a grain of salt the size of a salt lick.”
“Which is why it’s particularly damaging that someone named Grace Belliveau has apparently signed a statement indicating she saw Zoe and the girl in a compromising position.”
My bones feel like they are floating loose inside me. “Who the hell is Grace Belliveau?”
“She teaches math,” Vanessa says. “I doubt you’ve ever even met her.”
I have a brief and vivid flash of a teacher with short black hair, poking her head into the room at the end of a particularly emotional session with Lucy. My hand on Lucy’s back, rubbing slow circles.
But she had been sobbing,I want to say.
It’s not what you think.
I had played Barney’s theme song on the ukulele. I’d told Lucy that I knew the truth, that she was shutting me out so that I couldn’t shutherout. I’d told her I wouldn’t leave her. Ever.
“The girl alleges,” Angela says, “that you told her you’re gay.”
“Give me a break.” Vanessa shakes her head. “After all this media coverage, whodoesn’tknow? Whatever this is, whatever he’s got on Zoe—it’s all fabricated.”
“I did tell her I was gay,” I confess. “The last time I saw her. It’s the last thing you’re ever supposed to do as a music therapist—bring yourself into the therapy—but she was so upset over what Pastor Clive was saying about homosexuality. She was talking about suicide again, and . . . I don’t know. I just had the sense that maybe she was questioning her own sexuality, and that it wasn’t something her family would really be supportive about. That maybe it would help her to realize that someone she respected—someone like me—could be a good person and still be a lesbian. I wanted to give her something to hang her hat on, you know, instead of the sermons she probably hears at church.”
“She goes to Clive Lincoln’s church?” Angela asks.
“Yes,” Vanessa says.
“Well. That solves the mystery of how Pastor Clive got this scoop.”
“So the accusation isn’t public yet?” Vanessa asks.
“No,” Angela says. “And surprise, surprise. Wade says that he might be able topersuadethe family to keep it private. Someone in Lucy’s family must have gone to the pastor for counseling. Maybe even brought Lucy there herself.”
It’s not a boy,Lucy had said.
It was a girl.
Could it have been me? Had her attachment to me gone further than friendship? Could she have said something, sung something, written something that was misinterpreted by her parents?
Or had Lucy done nothing at all, except finally gotten the courage to come out . . . only to have her parents twist it into a lie that was easier for them to accept?
“What’s the mother like?” Angela asks.
Vanessa glances up. “Meek. Does what her husband says. I’ve never met him.”
“Has Lucy got siblings?”
“Three younger ones coming up through the middle school,” Vanessa says. “It’s a second marriage, from what I understand. Lucy’s biological father died when she was a baby.”
I turn to her. “You believe me, don’t you? You know I’d never do what she’s saying I did?”
