Exposure by Therese Fowler Page A

his—would draw attention. Then, with his heart thumping against his ribs even before he set off, he jogged the distance to the far side of the Wilkeses’ property. He was experienced and knowledgeable enough to feel confident about the mechanics of what they were about to do, but he’d never been quite so anxious about getting things right.
    Amelia’s clubhouse was a small cottage set just beyond the patio and lawn, at the wood’s edge. Modeled after her mother’s favorite Thomas Kinkade cottage, it was built of stone and brick, a full one story in height, and with a real thatched roof. He’d seen it once in daylight, as one of probably thirty teenagers there at the Wilkes home last February to celebrate Amelia’s seventeenth birthday. Harlan Wilkes had engaged him in conversation:
    “So, you’re the one whose mom’s the teacher—you all came from New York, that right?”
    “Yes, sir,” he’d said, the way his mother taught him he needed to address Southern men if he didn’t want to raise their hackles—and where Harlan Wilkes was concerned, he wanted to go as unnoticed as possible.
    Wilkes watched Anthony watching Amelia and three of her girlfriends, who were playing Twister. Mary Beth Pernelli’s low-rise jeans were threatening to show more of her backside than she intended. Wilkes seemed not to notice, saying, “Your mother, she teaches French.”
    “Art and French, yes, sir,” Anthony said, casually turning his eyes away from the game (from Amelia) and to the kitchen, where Sheri Wilkes stood with several other women, mothers of partygoers, in the same manner he was sure they’d all done a dozen years earlier. The same way his mother had done with her Ithaca friends, while he and his playmates built LEGO towers or ran around in Batman capes.
    Wilkes remained at his side. “You’re a junior, like Amelia?” he asked, and Anthony nodded, wishing someone would come along and save him. “You do sports?” Wilkes asked.
    Anthony said, “Soccer, yes, sir. We’re just starting practice for spring rec league, and I played for the school this past fall, varsity.”
    “What’re you planning to major in—assuming you’re planning on college.”
    “I am. Fine arts—drama.”
    “That’s a degree?” Wilkes snorted, then patted him on the back, saying, “I wish you luck with that,” before wandering off to grill another of the dozen boys there.
    That day, the day of the party, had been too cold for them to be outdoors. From inside the family room’s towering windows, Amelia’s cottage had appeared austere, its surrounding rosebushes and hydrangeas cut back in anticipation of spring. This June night, with those same plants lush and blooming, their colors deepened almost to black in the moonlight, the cottage beckoned Anthony as if it, or he, had been put under a spell.
    He tapped on the door, then opened it. Amelia was there with a quilt and a candle, wearing cotton pajama shorts and the thinnest of lace-edged tank tops, a wisp of a garment. She took his hand, then closed the door and wedged a heavy stone against it. Turning to him again, she said, “It’s not exactly a nice hotel room—”
    “It’s perfect.” He leaned in to kiss her, adding, “Just like you.”
    When Anthony looked back on this night—and he would, often, during the dark, empty days after the trouble began, he’d savor what had, at the time, been a rush of sensation and emotion. Amelia’s smooth skin flushed and glowing in the candlelight. Her hair loose and flowing over her shoulders like a stream of dark silk. Her hands beneath his shirt, lifting it up and over his head—and then lifting her own, and then the contact of her skin against his, breasts to chest, pounding heart to pounding heart.
    He would recall how they’d laughed when he stumbled, stepping out of his pants, and then how she’d grown serious, reverent almost, when she knelt down and peeled off his boxers and ran her hands over him. She drew him down