I Don't Think It's That Simple

By Nicole Eva Fraser

Do you think Evan Leighton is a stalker—or a good guy looking for love in all the wrong places? And how about Julia Atwater—is she an innocent flirt or a shameless manipulator? The one sure thing is that they both love Julia’s teenage son Hunter—then a surreal accident changes the course of all their futures. Evan and Julia may touch your heart, they may frustrate or infuriate you, but you’re guaranteed to recognize someone you care about—even yourself—in their story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Second Wind Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Mar 18, 2015

Nicole Eva Fraser

Nicole Eva Fraser received her MFA in creative writing from the NEOMFA consortium in northeast Ohio and graduated summa cum laude from Baldwin-Wallace College with a double major in English and communications. She is an adult-literacy advocate in Cleveland, Tanzania and Malawi. She runs 10ks (slowly), used to speak French, and often can be found putting her foot in her mouth.

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www.secondwindpublishing.com

I Don’t Think

It’s That Simple

by

Nicole Eva Fraser

Running Angel Books

Published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Kernersville

Running Angel Books

Second Wind Publishing, LLC

931-B South Main Street, Box 145

Kernersville, NC 27284

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any event, locale or person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright 2014 by Nicole Eva Fraser

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or part in any format.

First Running Angel Books edition published February 2015.

Running Angel Books, Running Angel, and all production design are trademarks of Second Wind Publishing, used under license.

Cover design by Fiona Jayde Media

A different version of this novel was published as Waiting for the World to End by Nicole Hunter (iUniverse 2004) and is now out of print.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fraser, Nicole Eva

I don’t think it’s that simple / Nicole Eva Fraser.

pages ; cm.

ISBN: 978-1-935171-59-1

1. Basketball coaches—United States—Fiction. 2. Male high school teachers—United States—Fiction. 3. High school athletes—United States—Fiction. 4. Basketball players—United States—Fiction. 5. School sports—Coaching—United States—Fiction. 6. Teenage pregnancy—United States—Fiction. 7. Abortion—United States—Fiction. 8. Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (Ind.)—Fiction. 9. Indiana—Fiction. 10. Tucson (Ariz)—Fiction. 11. Love stories, American. 12. Psychological fiction, American. I. Title

PS3606.R4236I13 2015

813.6—dc23 1502

Manufactured in the United States of America

The six worlds are a universe of Shape-Changers.

Micmac stories emphasize this over and over…

The tricky thing about Shape-Changers

is that not only do they change their forms,

they also change their minds.

Thus in stories

there are no Good Persons, the Heroes;

there are no Bad Persons, eternally Villains…

Ruth Holmes Whitehead,

Stories from the Six Worlds: Micmac Legends

Chapter 1

Fog and Light

I was standing alone at my kitchen sink with a bottle of Heineken and my thoughts and my view of the Indiana sky, remembering the story, silently, for myself.

The very first thing was Hunter saying, Here’s my house—yeah, this one. Thanks for the ride, Coach. Then he jumped out of my silver ’72 Corvette and started walking up the driveway, bouncing his basketball. I watched him go: long seventeen-year-old legs, neck burned brown on summer courts, his confidence unpretentious. Reminds me of me.

Hunter had played basketball for me two years already, starting as a freshman. Now he was a junior and I had him in AP English, too.

I had just turned forty-one. In my years of teaching and coaching I’d met thousands of kids, many of them exceptional, but Hunter was more than just a good kid—he was a missing piece, a missing person, he was history that had long ago slipped through my fingers but was now, somehow, restored.

Hey, I should meet your mom and dad finally—gotta start talking about college! Tell them we should set something up, I called from the car, top down for the warm afternoon.

Okay, Hunter called back, and disappeared behind the house.

It was late September and sunny. It was Indian summer and a few leaves were falling, some withered brown, some crimson and orange, falling around my car as I drove away, dreams that had fallen from grace, catching the hope of an updraft briefly, then falling back to earth, drifting, sailing, falling back to earth.

The suburban rush-hour roads were humming with traffic. At some point I glanced over my shoulder to change lanes and saw that Hunter had forgotten his book bag behind the seat. Kid’s got basketball on his mind. Nothing wrong with that. I slowed down, turned around on a side street. Hope I can find his house again. I was in no hurry to get home to dinner for one, quiet hanging in the air, English compositions to grade, phone calls and basketball game tapes to fill the empty spaces.

I parked in Hunter’s driveway and reached around for the book bag. Whoa, tonnage here. The bag was half unzipped and I looked inside. Trigonometry, physics, history, the latest Sports Illustrated, a smashed bag of potato chips.

Reminds me of me.

I zipped the book bag shut and carried it up the stone path to Hunter’s front door. Big brick house, lots of flowers in the garden. Heard muffled rock and roll coming from inside.

I rang the doorbell but nobody came. Looking through the window in the front door, I saw flowers in a vase on a table, pictures in frames dotting a tall bookshelf, and a big brown mutt asleep on a rug—not much of a watchdog. So I backtracked along the stone path and headed up the driveway, book bag slung on my shoulder.

Around back, muffled music, louder, was drifting out from a window upstairs. First I thought about knocking on the screen door. Then I took a few steps backward in the driveway and looked up toward the window.

Hey, Hunter! I shouted. Hey, Hunter, it’s Coach Leighton! You left your book bag in my car—here it is!

I remembered the first time I heard her voice, voice like rain and sunlight: I don’t think he can hear you, I heard this voice say. I turned around and saw a tree house in a big old oak. The branches waved and rustled, and the tree house swayed.

Hello? I said.

Then the voice of rain and sunlight swung down from the tree.

She was dark blonde hair, dark eyes, ponytail, swimsuit top, tiny cutoffs colored like a piece of sky. She said, I’m Julia. Hunter’s mom. That was when I understood everything that had ever happened to me and when almost none of it mattered anymore. Forget bad karma, unanswered prayers, a silent waiting room in a stainless steel clinic. Forget solitude, cold winters, empty promises, empty soul. Forget summa cum laude, teacher of the year, state championship trophies, glory.

I’m Evan Leighton, I said, somehow.

Evan, Julia said. She lifted one hand to fiddle with her earring, and a ray of sun lit up her wedding band, bounced off the ring and hit my heart like lightning—but even then I knew that wouldn’t stop me.

I hadn’t stayed long that afternoon—just long enough for Hunter to run downstairs and get his book bag, for me to paint the swirls and sways of Julia’s body onto my memory, for the three of us to stand together in the same ray of September sun. Julia’s hands fluttered as she spoke: she had been reading Margaret Atwood in the tree house; she loved Indian summer; she was making fettuccine Alfredo for dinner—would I like to stay? Hunter stood at Julia’s side with an ease that verged on tenderness, book bag slung on his shoulder now, biting a fingernail, looking at something in the sky.

I lingered a little longer (why did it feel like we were father, mother, and son, like I had just stepped back into my own true life), listening more than talking although my mind was working (working on what—wasn’t this hopeless?), until Hunter went back in the house, and Julia touched my arm, saying, Good-bye, Evan, and left traces of fog and light on my skin.

I couldn’t tell anyone about her. I couldn’t even tell my best buddy Pierce. If I spoke the story of Julia aloud, she would shatter into a million flecks of crystalline air and never be seen again. That would be my punishment for trying to capture her with words, for thinking I could capture fog and light and beauty in the jar of my words, for believing Julia could happen to me.

In my mind’s eye that September, Julia’s image still surged sometimes in fine-pointed clarity, but more often wafted dimly, fading like my hope that I’d see her again. I had Hunter in AP English every day, I had Hunter in the gym shooting hoops every afternoon, but that did me no good. After all, I wanted the unthinkable—which was easy enough to bear when Julia didn’t cross my mind, harder in the moments that shook with the feeling she was just around the corner.

Then the story accrued another chapter.

It was a Friday afternoon and my AP English class was taking an essay test. I tracked the sound effects. Paper rustling. Pens scratching. Sighs heaving. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. The absence of gum cracking, as I forbade it in my classes, one of my few absolutes. I watched Hunter writing in the back of the room, his long torso and big shoulders folded over the little desk, like a giant in a dollhouse. I scanned the other students. Some wrote with diligence, others with energy. Some looked tired, some looked out the window, but all of them could be trusted, and I was restless. It seemed as good a time as any to walk down to the teachers’ lounge and check my mail.

The corridors stretched out deserted, except for hall monitors and the stray student en route to the bathroom. Heading toward the lounge, I approached the main office, where a girl had emerged and was heading away from me, sliding papers into a folder, carrying a black leather jacket over her arm. Absent-mindedly I admired her sun-streaked hair swinging from side to side over her shoulders, her hips sweeping petitely above legs snugly fitted in snow-blue denim. Then she looked over her shoulder at me. It was Julia.

I could only stare at her.

Evan? she said, lifting her eyebrows and smiling as she turned full to face me. It’s me, Julia Atwater—Hunter’s mom, her voice soaking into my skin.

I sucked in a breath. Hi, Julia. What a surprise—I was just going to check my mail—what brings you here today? Zigzagging in words, I walked straight across the twenty feet between us until I was close enough to breathe in her misty cape of perfume and soap and fresh air.

I’m running this year’s bake sale at Art From the Heart, Julia said. You know, that arts and crafts fair the school holds every year? I just dropped off a copy of the flyer I designed so they can get it printed.

An arts and crafts show? I murmured, taking a half-step closer to her. Julia slipped a flyer out of the folder and showed me.

Eleventh Annual Art From the Heart Fair—Capital Heights High School—Saturday, October 29— Over 100 artists and craftspeople—Do all your Christmas shopping—our famously delicious Bake Sale—proceeds benefit the Mothers Club scholarship fund.

Oh, yeah, I said. I remember. I don’t usually come to it, though.

Julia laughed and said, I wouldn’t think so! and swung her hair over her shoulders and swept her fingers across the fabric of my sleeve, and it felt to me like yesterday instead of a thousand hours ago that she had first and last stood beside me.

A bake sale sounds like a small thing, doesn’t it? Julia said. But it makes a lot of money for the scholarship fund.

It doesn’t sound like a small thing to me, I said. And it was not a small thing either when you touched me to say good-bye, where I still feel you touch me when I lie in bed at night.

Would you hold this for a sec? Julia asked, and handed me her folder. She slipped her leather jacket on but didn’t zip it—held it open, in fact, and looked down at her body; then as I watched, she ran one palm over the slight curve of her belly to smooth her soft white sweater. She pulled the sweater taut, holding it down over her hips for a second or two, and I caught a glimpse of the ivory shadow of her bra beneath the fabric.

I felt the blood pumping against my eardrums. I heard a trebly blurb broadcasting from the PA speakers in the background, but couldn’t make out the words.

Thank you, Julia said.

She smiled, and the flashes of Hunter in her eyes and her face startled me, made my chest ache with aloneness. She reached for me with one of her small hands, and I almost reached for her, but then she said, My folder.

Ah, I said, yes, and gave it back.

So—a new basketball season! I’m sure it’ll be another great one, she said.

I want to win a state championship with Hunter, I said. It’s been too long since I’ve taken a team that far. Hunter had that taste of Semi-State last year, but there’s nothing like winning it all. I’d love to get that feeling back again. I edged closer to Julia. I love that boy, you know. Best kid I’ve ever known.

Well, then, said Julia. She didn’t back away. We have something very important in common.

Hunter’s going to be getting lots of offers, I said. Basketball scholarship offers from some outstanding colleges.

Julia looked down and started fiddling with the edges of her folder. I’ll be honest with you, Evan, she said. "I don’t want Hunter to go to college on a basketball scholarship. I’ve been doing some investigating. I think that with an athletic scholarship, you’re beholden to a college in a way that’s in their best interests, not yours. I’ve told Hunter he needs to get an academic scholarship at a college where they also want him to play basketball. I hope you understand."

I played basketball for Ohio State, I said. They wouldn’t let me pay my own way. Not a bad deal. But I understand what you’re saying.

Are you from Ohio? she asked.

No, Boston, by way of Rhode Island, actually. And you?

I grew up around Fort Wayne, Julia said. We moved here when Hunter was a baby.

What brought you to Capital Heights?

Oh, my husband got a job here.

What does he do? I asked. I want to know. I don’t want to know.

He works for the city, Julia said. He’s the assistant building director.

I crossed my arms over my chest. What’s an assistant building director do?

Silas’s in charge of new construction, the commercial stuff. Oversees all that.

The intrusion of reality, Julia’s husband taking name and form, prickled on my skin. I didn’t realize there was any new building going on in Capital Heights, I said dismissively.

I don’t think there’s much. But there’s at least enough to keep him occupied, Julia replied, and grinned. Her equal dismissiveness shot through my veins like a burning blur of alcohol. I felt newly bold, lucid.

How come I’ve never met you before? I asked. This’ll be Hunter’s third year playing for me—and I first saw him in eighth grade at a tournament he played in. But in all this time, all these years, I’ve never met you. How can that be?

I’ve seen you from afar, said Julia. I’ve been to every game, every parents’ meeting, every basketball banquet. Guess I just blend into the crowds.

Impossible—that’s impossible. I have been blind.

Not so impossible, said Julia. You always look like you have a lot on your mind. Preoccupied. Like you’re here but also a million miles away.

I do?

And you have quite the fan club—always so many people around you. Lots of parents talking up their sons, I imagine. But that’s not my style.

What is your style? I asked.

Julia laughed and said, I don’t know! But I don’t think you need parents telling you how to do your job. You look like you’ve got things figured out just fine.

Well. I’ve been playing the game a long time.

You have? she said, and twirled her hair around a finger.

Can you try and understand what it’s been like for me? My body and soul have learned to lead separate lives.

Julia tilted her head and smiled, still twirling her hair.

I’ve got to check my mail and get back to class, I said. But can I walk you out first?

She didn’t answer. She kept her eyes on me for a minute, then started walking, slowly, toward the exit. I fell in step beside her.

When we got to the glass doors, Julia stopped. She smoothed her hair, tucked it behind her ear, played with her earring. Good-bye, Evan.

So, I said, good luck with your scholarship thing—that fundraiser—hope you make a lot of money. It’s a good cause.

Julia didn’t answer, just stood facing me, black leather unzipped over white softness.

I put my hand on the door but didn’t open it. I looked back over my shoulder—the hall was deserted.

So what do you do in your spare time, I asked, when you’re not leaping from tree houses, and running fundraisers, and raising a great kid?

She laughed again, and I laughed, too, leaning down toward her face.

Well, not much else, Julia said. I read a lot. Work at the Capital Heights library. Do a little gardening. Help out with Sunday school at our church. Stuff like that.

Sunday school, I said. I needed more of that when I was a kid.

Really?

Yeah.

Why? she asked. Were you bad? and the velvet edge in her voice traced its way down through my whole body.

Good God. So, I said quickly, just think of all the kids you keep on the straight and narrow. You’re a good role model.

That’s what they tell me. Julia stroked her earring, gazing at some faraway point over my shoulder. Can you keep a secret, though?

Sure.

My body behaves itself perfectly, she said, but my imagination lives a life that would blow people’s illusions to smithereens. Do you know what I mean?

I opened my mouth to answer, but my tongue wouldn’t move.

Julia pressed her fingertip against her lips. Shh, she said. Then she opened the door for herself and walked outside and away into the school parking lot.

I watched her go, my ears buzzing, then sailed into the teachers’ lounge, swept up my mail, and returned to AP English, where I roused even the bored and the sleepy with my high spirits.

In my memory, I liked to end the story there. Of course, the real ending was that when school was over that day, I went home to my empty house and stood alone at the kitchen sink, drinking a bottle of Heineken.

How had I ended up here—no wife, no kids, just teaching and coaching in an Indiana high school after growing up in East Coast wealth? Partly because, at one time, it was what I’d wanted. But it was mostly because I’d been running away for years.

My parents, Beacon Hill, Newport, prep school, the Ivy League, the whole blueblood thing I was born into—I couldn’t have gotten away fast enough from all that. And I couldn’t get away far enough from some of my memories. Like the lonely only child memories. My mother’s refrain when I was growing up that the hospital must have made a mistake and given her the wrong baby (punctuated with her one-syllable laugh). The prep-school spring break when my parents forgot to pick me up at Andover (they were golfing in Hilton Head) and my English instructor drove me all the way home to Wellesley and I broke one of our basement windows to get in. My parents were both college professors, sociable people who talked politics and economics; but I was an introvert, an athlete, an accident that happened to them when my mother was forty-two.

And I was still trying to forget the abortion, back when Isabella and I were in grad school at Ohio State, and the time wasn’t right for us, simple as that. We were engaged, living together, our wedding date set on the far horizon, and plenty of years ahead to have kids.

I went with Isabella to the clinic, as all good men did. After the abortion, she carried on in her focused, cut-and-dried way, but I started to see my life passing before my eyes. Everywhere I looked. Even while I was sleeping. But no matter what, there was always Isabella, brilliant blonde high-speed glacier, smooth and powerful and wearing down everything in her path. To Isabella, nothing stayed a problem for long. Ah, to be more like her.

I called the wedding off.

After getting my master’s I bounced around from job to job in state to state, teaching English and coaching basketball, until I ended up in Capital Heights, Indiana when I was thirty. I resuscitated the high school’s English department and, more importantly, endeared myself to the local basketball fanatics by christening a new era of Capital Heights Wildcats basketball brilliance. I was also the most eligible commitment-phobic single guy in the city. Hell, the county. I indulged a lot of the women up to a point. My occasional girlfriend Kiki, a TV weather reporter in Indianapolis, had once aspired to be my salvation, but as time rolled on she settled for something considerably less.

When my memories got too thick, I knew how to clear my head: get in my ’72 silver Corvette and drive north to the Indiana Dunes. I liked the dunes best in winter, parking alone in the deserted lot and climbing the killer mountain of sand they called Mount Baldy, looking out at the sheer blue ice and ice blue sky under the thin white winter light. I liked those sands of ancient seas that flew on spinning Lake Michigan winds, sand that stung my face and caught in my lungs and reminded me I was still alive. Alive enough to believe that I could still find a way to turn things around.

Chapter 2

Trances

On a Friday night two weeks later, I was alone in the dark gym of Capital Heights High, hurling a basketball against the wall with such ferocity that the wrestling mats hanging there trembled in surrender on their hooks.

Oooh, a little tense, are we? Did your guys look that bad at conditioning tonight?

I looked over my shoulder and saw my best buddy Pierce, the phys ed teacher and varsity football coach, walking into the gym.

No, they were all right, I said, heading toward the wall. I picked the ball up and started lofting shots. I didn’t think anybody else was still here besides the janitors.

What’s wrong, man? Pierce said.

Nothing. Just—I don’t know. Nothing.

I know what it is.

What?

We gotta get you a woman.

Hmm.

"Remember that song? We got-ta get you a wooo-man...that’s ancient. Actually, I never liked that song. But how are things going in that department, anyway? Because it seems like Kiki’s been out of the picture."

"Oh, I don’t know. The ones who want me, I don’t