Page 12 of The Banned Books Club
“I don’t think you were here long enough to see all the fallout after the trial. I assume your family told you, though.”
“We don’t talk about it.” They did even more than not talk about it—they studiously avoided any mention of the parties involved, which was why Gia knew absolutely nothing.
“Got it. Well, I’m sure you remember that he was sentenced to quite a bit of community service, and he also had to register as a sex offender? That made it pretty hard for him to get another job.”
Gia flinched. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“I’m not saying it was—just letting you know why it is that nowadays he runs the tractor store at the far end of town.”
Mr. Hart was capable of doing so much more. He’d been one of the most intelligent people she’d ever met. He’d been an excellent teacher, too. Which was part of what made the whole situation so sad.
But she wasn’t the one who’d betrayedhistrust. “Does he still live down the street from my parents?”
“You’ve never asked them?”
Gia could hear the surprise in Sammie’s voice. “I told you—we don’t talk about him. I wouldn’t be talking about him now except I need to know what land mines remain—and where those land mines might be.” She also didn’t want to remind her parents, who she felt hadn’t supported her the way they should have.
“He’s no longer down the street. He and his wife lost that house about a year after you left.”
It’d been repossessed? Gia was glad she hadn’t heard that. Over the years, she’d felt bad enough about what had happened. It wasn’t as if Mr. Hart’s wife or children had deserved any punishment.
“Some other family lives there now,” Sammie was saying. “But Cormac lives right behind you.”
Gia had been lounging on her bed while she talked, but at this she sat up. “What’d you say?”
“Cormac bought the house right behind you.”
She blinked, staring at nothing, remembering the house Sammie was referring to. She knew it almost as well as her own. Leslie, her childhood bestie, had lived there until she and her family had moved to Des Moines when she was in the fourth grade. Gia and Leslie had been so close Leslie’s father had installed a gate so they could go back and forth between the two houses without having to walk all the way around the block. “But...how could Cormac afford a house like that?” she asked. “It’s nice. I mean, it doesn’t have a pool and hot tub like this one, but...it’s almost as big.”
“The same way you own a helicopter, I guess,” she said with a laugh.
“I have a loan on that. And I have a partner who helps make the payments.”
“I’m sure Cormac has a loan on his house, too. No partner, though—of the personalorbusiness kind. But I doubt he needs any help. Since old man Tomlin retired, Cormac’s the only veterinarian in town. I think he does pretty well for himself.”
“He never married?”
“Not yet, despite a string of girlfriends in his twenties and one or two—so far—in his thirties. There isn’t a single woman in town who doesn’t have her eye on him.”
“Including you?” Gia was mostly joking, so she was surprised by Sammie’s response.
“Including me,” she admitted with a laugh. “You should see what he looks like these days. He’s freaking hot. And he’s nice, too.”
Gia bit her bottom lip as she considered this information. She didn’t want to think about the good-looking or nice parts. She was focused on his close proximity. “Is he with anyone now?”
“No. He hasn’t had a girlfriend for a couple of years, at least. As I said, a lot of women have tried to change that, but he seems to be too preoccupied with his clinic, his dog and enjoying the single life.”
She got up and peered out her window. There were a few trees in both yards that’d grown enough to partially obstruct her view, but she could see light spilling around the blinds on the ground floor and found it odd to think that Cormac was in Leslie’s old house, watching TV or working on his computer before bed. “What made him buy the house right around the block from my parents?” she asked. She was mostly talking to herself, but Sammie attempted to answer.
“Maybe he got a good deal.”
A shadow passed in front of one of the blinds, causing Gia to step back. Unless he had a guest over, that was him right there. But just because he lived so close didn’t mean she’d bump into him, she told herself. Having him around the block was far better than having him down the street where she’d be more likely to drive past while he was pulling in or out of his driveway, doing yardwork, washing his vehicle or whatever. Chances were he wouldn’t even realize she was back.
Except that someone would probably tell him. The scandal that had erupted her senior year, his junior year, had shaken up the whole town...
“G?”
Gia drew her mind back to the conversation. “What?”
