She’d pick up a piece of pizza, take a bite and chew, put it down and go through the pictures again and again. By the time she was finally ready to concentrate on the pizza, he’d consumed half of it.

She handed him back his phone. “You got it all greasy,” he said, wiping it off with a napkin.

“You’re very quiet tonight,” she said.

“Oh? I’m sorry, was there time for me to speak?” he asked.

“Very funny,” she said. “It was a quiet night, wasn’t it?”

He shrugged and took another bite, though he didn’t really feel hungry all of a sudden. He put his pizza down. “Got a beer?” he asked.

She cocked her head and gave him a half smile. “In uniform?” she asked. But she grabbed a beer from the fridge.

“I logged off for the night. I just haven’t changed yet.” He opened the beer and took a pull. “Ahhh,” he said. Then he looked at Iris. “I had to deliver a twelve-year-old home to his mother. Sassy.”

Iris put down her pizza slice. “Oh?”

“He ripped off candy from a couple of younger boys. He didn’t hurt them, but I was right there and caught him. I’d like to think he wouldn’t have hurt them, but I will never know for sure. That’s a bully move. I hate that.”

“Kind of soured you on all the Halloween fun, I guess.”

“Yeah, but it’s Sassy who sours me more. The way she talks. She thinks there was something between us. Something meaningful.” He shook his head. “I don’t get that. I remember it as painful. Short and painful and better forgotten.”

Iris was very quiet for a long stretched-out moment. All the way through him wiping off his hands, taking another slug of beer, wiping his mouth with the napkin. Then he looked at her and said, “What?”

“That’s how I was sure you thought of us,” she said.

“Iris, I didn’t know there was an us. At least, I wasn’t sure what kind of us there was. I was grieving a lost friendship without knowing there was more to it. There was a good reason you were so hurt and angry. It’s not like that with Sassy. She’s been married at least three times since high school and still talks as if we should give it another chance.”

“I guess that’s how she feels,” Iris said. “Maybe she’s felt that way for years.”

“If she has, she’s delusional. Look,” he said, then he paused at length as if thinking about things. “I’m bound to screw this up. I was an ass and an idiot. I was a teenager. I thought I was a gentleman, my mother drilled good behavior toward girls into my thick head. I did have the occasional gentlemanly act. But honestly? I was drawn to Sassy because she exuded sex and opportunity. I couldn’t have put words to it then, but that’s what it was. And it was a miserable experience that filled me with shame and jealousy and frustration.”

“And broke your heart,” she added.

“For fifteen minutes, until the next pretty girl came along. The next one broke my heart, too. So did the one after that. I was quite a bit older before I was clear on what mattered, what was genuine. Sassy was never a friend, never a girl I trusted. That’s not right, Iris, but that’s all I had at the time. And guess what? That’s all she had. I haven’t lost a second of sleep over her since.”

“That doesn’t mean she isn’t hurting over it now,” Iris said.

“There’s nothing I can do to help her with that. It’s time for all of us to grow up and move on. She might not have admitted it yet, but she’s got bigger problems than whether one of her old high school boyfriends wants to date her. If she doesn’t pay attention to her kids, at least one of them could get real mean. He’s a big kid and he could get in some real trouble.”

Iris sat up a little straighter. “Um, could we have a professional conversation? High school counselor to deputy sheriff? Confidential and all that?”

“Sure. But what—?”

“There’s a girl at school I worry about a little. Could be she’s just kind of klutzy. She’s got an excuse for each of her bruises, perfectly logical excuses. There’s just something a little suspicious and I... Not just me, other teachers have been wondering what’s going on. I never thought about a younger brother being responsible for her injuries, but what if a brother is fighting with her? Knocking her around?”

Seth shrugged. “I fought with my brothers regularly. Nick and Boomer got into it a lot—my mother went after them with a broom, swatting them till they gave up. But they usually came away with bruises. The occasional black eye. I wouldn’t call either of them abusive. Just stupid. And siblings. For that matter, you and I used to go at it pretty good. You beat me up!”

“You totally had it coming,” she argued. “Besides, you could’ve taken me. Why didn’t you? Now that I think about it, if you could beat up Robbie Delaney, you could beat me up, but you didn’t....”

“I wasn’t allowed to hit girls,” he said. “And we were young then. That never happened when we were older, like teenagers.”

“This is a teenage girl,” Iris reminded him. “A sweet girl. She’s not a scrapper, not someone who would pick a fight and end up with injuries.”

“What kind of injuries?” he asked.

“Bruises on her neck. Shoulder. Split lip and black eye. How many times can you get kneed in cheerleading practice or run into a wall?”

Seth frowned. “Black eye? Bruises on her neck?”

Iris nodded. “Troy brought it to my attention and I’ve been watching her. Seth, it’s Sassy’s daughter. And now I know she has a younger brother who could be a bully.”

“Shit,” he said.

Twelve

When Iris was in high school and John Garvey was the school guidance counselor, there was a girl in her class named Laura. She was popular, but not mega popular like the homecoming queens and such. She was a cheerleader, was in lots of clubs and worked hard on school projects, like the dances. As Iris recalled, she rarely dated, which might’ve been one of the reasons they were friendly—it seemed as if it often got down to Laura and Iris stringing up crepe paper and balloons for dances they wouldn’t attend.

Laura came to school one morning crying her eyes out. She was so upset she couldn’t go to first period so she hid out in the bathroom near the gym, a spot no one would really notice because there wasn’t a lot of traffic in there once classes started.

John Garvey, the dumbest counselor who ever lived, summoned her and demanded to know what was wrong. He refused to let her go to class without telling him; he said he’d keep her in his office all day if necessary. Laura said she’d tell him if he promised not to tell her parents what she said.

Laura told Iris about it later. They weren’t really close, not the kind of girlfriends who walked to class together or talked on the phone at night, but they had always liked each other. Mr. Garvey promised never to tell anyone and so Laura told him her father had pitched a fit that morning. He was probably hungover, she said. He was mad about everything and everyone. He’d been out of work for a couple of months and was angry in general. That morning, he screamed at her, grabbed her by the hair and knocked her head into the front door, cracking the glass in the small diamond-shaped window. He was pissed about that and threw her schoolbooks out onto the front lawn, which was very wet and icky. He screamed at her that she was a worthless piece of shit and she walked to school without a coat because she wasn’t going back inside for anything.