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“Well, when you decide,” I said softly, “let me know.”

If a human being could explode and reform himself, he would have at that moment. His face got so red with blood, I thought the top of his head would blow off and stick to the ceiling. His throat undulated like the body of a snake, his Adam’s apple bulging, and then he stammered and pointed at me.

“You… you show me some respect, young lady. Your life here is hanging on by a thread.”

I turned away again, and there was a knock on the door.

“Come in!” he screamed.

The door opened, and his secretary told him Ashley was outside.

“Send him in here,” he commanded.

I heard Ashley enter, but I didn’t look back at him.

“Not only is the coach very, very disappointed in you, Ashley, I am absolutely disgusted with your behavior. What was going on in your head?”

I smiled to myself.

It wasn’t exactly what was going on in his head that mattered, I thought.

“Wipe that grin off your lips, young lady, or I’ll wipe it off for you,” Dean Cassidy threatened.

“And how you going to do that?” I shot back up at him.

His eyes widened in surprise. I looked at Ashley, who was just as astounded. He shook his head gently as a warning.

Dean Cassidy got hold of himself and straightened up.

“I wanted the two of you in here together so I wouldn’t get one story from one of you and another story from the other. You don’t know how serious this is, Ashley. You could be in a lot more hot water than I cook up,” Dean Cassidy told him, and nodded at me.

What was he implying? That I would accuse Ashley of trying to rape me?

Ashley looked sufficiently terrified now.

“I’m not going into detail about what Mrs. Fassbinder reported. You know what she saw. Do either of you want to deny it?” the dean asked.

“No, sir,” Ashley said quickly.

“And you, young lady?”

“My name’s Phoebe,” I said.

“And you, Phoebe?”

I looked at Ashley.

“I guess what she told you is what it was, but I don’t know what she told you, now do I?”

“Well, I’m not going to get into detail about it,” Dean Cassidy said.

He finally sat behind his desk.

“Okay, Phoebe, you wait outside. I want to speak with Ashley first.”

I got up and walked out, closing the door hard behind me. I knew what he was going to say in there. I could have written his dialogue for him. He was going to tell Ashley Porter I was a very bad girl with a bad record from my other school and he had gotten himself into trouble because of me. He was going to tell him how devastated his parents were going to be when they heard about it all. He was going to tell him how he was a boy with a good future that he was tossing into the ash can. And then finally, he was going to try to get him to put as much blame on me as he could. By the time he was finished, it would be as Ashley had pretended: I had seduced him.

Ashley will probably do and say what the man wanted, I thought. What did I matter anyway? His parents lived here, and the dean would emphasize that he should be concerned about them.