After Shane finished sponge-mopping the windows, cabinets, shelves, desks, chairs, ceiling, walls and floor, he threw the sponge and gloves into the garbage can, washed his hands, and began setting out his things, pulling them from the plastic bags in which he'd stored them in the boxes. Julianna's picture went onto his desk. Mozart's bust went on the top of one bookshelf and Shakespeare's went on the other. He filled the shelves with books--ones he hadn't licked, since he hoped he might actually inspire a student or two to read some of them.

He wanted to hang his favorite dust jackets from the ceiling and had put strings on them for that purpose, with loops on the ends for masking tape, but the ceiling was higher than he'd expected. He studied it for a moment, wondering whether it was worth bothering anyone to help him get a ladder. Surely there were some. He decided maybe he could get by without the ladder. He rolled his chair back to his desk, moved the picture of Julianna to the bookshelf, and lifted the chair to the top of the desk. He tore two pieces of masking tape from the roll, formed an X, and stuck it to the end of his nose. He put the middle of the dust jacket's string into his mouth, unable to resist the urge to run his tongue over it. He knew that might cut him and it would hurt, but that was always an interesting feeling. It didn't cut him. He ran his tongue in a circle, wrapping the string around it as he climbed onto the desk and then the chair. His fingers brushed the ceiling. He was almost tall enough. He rose to his tiptoes and managed to press his palm flat. That would do it.

He pulled the string from his mouth without unwinding it, liking the almost-pain as it scraped the surface of his tongue. He put the tape through the loop and raised it in his hand, his eyes scanning as he tried to judge the spot that would be exact center over the desk. He knew he only had to run a finger over the masking tape to get it to stick, but that wouldn't feel right. The job wouldn't be done until he'd pressed it hard. Things went well until he pushed. The chair rolled and he jerked a little, surfing-like, to maintain his balance. He jumped, dragging the chair with his feet, skateboarding-like, and got it back where he wanted it. This time he made sure he was directly beneath the target point and the tape went up without a hitch. He pushed until his arm hurt. There. It was done.

He dragged the chair-topped desk around the room, hanging dust jackets.

He was on tiptoes in the chair in the middle of the room when footsteps stopped outside his door. A quiet knock came.

"Just a minute!"

He put the tape onto the ceiling, pressed it hard, and climbed down, putting the chair on the floor, and opened the door.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you," Faith said.

"You're fine."

"May I come in?"

He backed up, opening the door more widely, and she moved into the room.

"I like what you're doing there," she said, her eyes on the dust jackets. She bit her lip. "It's possible you might get more ideas for arranging things after the kids arrive," she said, lowering her head to look at him. "Maybe just put out a few things for now."

There was that warning again. "Thanks," he said.

She wandered a little and then checked out his bookshelf, looking much like a browser at a library. Her eyes fell on the photograph. She smiled. "Your wife?"

"Uh-huh."

"How long have you been married?"

"Since May."

Her smile grew. "Newlyweds," she said. "Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"She's lovely."

Shane nodded. Julianna was among the prettiest women he'd ever encountered. He loved her delicate features. She looked like a fancy doll, brought to life. "You're married, too, right?" She wore a ring.

"Ten years," she said, grinning. Her eyes were so dark, they were almost black, and he liked the way the lights danced in them.

"How long have you worked here?"

"This is only my second year. I have two children. My youngest started kindergarten last year. So here I am."

"Like it?"

"Most days," she answered. "It's not easy sometimes. When the kids have problems I can't fix."

He nodded. "That would be hard." Teaching them Math was easy by comparison.

Though she worked to be subtle, she was assessing him, judging him in the manner of a new acquaintance. With her, though, it went deeper. Counselors made it their business to read between the lines.

"So what made you decide to be a teacher?"

"I just wanted to teach."

"But this represents quite a change for someone like you."

There went her graceful balance. Co-worker-counselor no more, she was Mother Hen assessing the fox.

"Well, yeah, you know, but I heard all the stories of the extravagant pay and fancy meals and five-star accommodations that teaching offered, and I wanted in."

"If that's what you wanted, it seems you took a wrong turn on your way to California." She canted her head, studying him. "I went to one of your shows this summer. I guess I came here because I really just... I think I need to reassure myself that you're not as bad as I imagined."

"Actually, in a lot of ways, I probably am," he said. "In fact, I'm likely a lot worse."

"I'm not sure that's possible."

"Well, then, you have either a very small or a very wicked mind, Faith Rush."

Her face went red.

"You don't want me here. And I think that's because you know you and the other counselors don't know these kids well enough to protect them from me. I assure you, I did not come here to fuck up any kids' lives. I'm thinking maybe you ought to quit worrying about me and put a little more thought into the underlying problem. Figure out how you can strengthen that relationship with the kids. Because, believe it or not, there's a lot of things out there in the real world they live in that are even scarier than I am."

She crossed her arms over her chest and paced. "And I thought Fawn was bad," she breathed.

Shane laughed, deciding Fawn Martin was one teacher he looked forward to meeting. She and a couple other teachers from the school played in a bar band called Random Chaos. He'd never caught their act. Cover bands didn't much interest him because it was the creative aspect of music that turned him on, but Random Chaos was supposed to be pretty good for what it was. He knew the drummer, Ethan Darridge. Twice, over the years, Ethan had landed spots as drummer for local bands trying to make names for themselves, but both times, he'd been let go and ended up back with cover bands. He was a decent drummer and could replicate other people's work passably well, but lacked the creativity to pull his weight in a band making original music. Ethan was on the short list of musicians Bryan and the others were considering adding to the Painted Ghost lineup. Rico had been Painted Ghost's original drummer but he'd switched to bass when Shane joined the band. With Shane's departure, Rico had gone back to drums, but he couldn't handle all the songs Shane had written under the name Shiloh Wells since he became drummer. Multiple tracks and session drummers could get them through recording, but the band had decided the best thing to do for touring was to add a second drummer so he and Rico could split the work. Ethan's lack of creativity wouldn't be a major problem because the band had Rico. Ethan would just need to learn when to play what, and he was pretty good at that.

Faith stopped in front of him, looking down at his face, her eyes searching. "Please," she said, "tell me why you are here, teaching Math, in this school."

"I wanna help all the kids learn to count, measure and tell time real well," he said. "That way, they won't get ripped off when I send 'em out to sell drugs and their bodies and shit, so I won't hafta kill 'em."

A snorting sound came as she tried to hold in her laugh. She turned away, fanning her face. "I should not be laughing at that," she said. "I think I hate you."

Shane put the chair back onto the desk, slid the desk, and climbed up with another dust jacket. By the time he got down, she'd readied another one for him. He resisted the urge to fix her lopsided X. They worked in companionable silence for a time.

"I don't have anything against your band's music," she said. "In fact, I rather like some of it. A few of the songs are brilliant. We used a couple of them last year to prompt discussion at group sessions. But then, there are others that seem to glorify things that could be dangerous to kids. Of course, I suppose that could be said of the music of a lot of bands. And perhaps wouldn't be so troubling if not for the fact that... well... I just didn't like the way you acted on stage."

Bryan and the others would be toning things down a bit now that they were going mainstream. It wouldn't require much change, really. They'd always run clean versions of their shows at venues where minors might be present. Besides, Shane's stage personality had been the extreme one. They'd originally brought him into the band in the role of a would-be delinquent they were trying to salvage. He'd done some crazy shit. Still, high schoolers were smart enough to recognize the difference between fact and fiction. There were some pretty graphic pictures but those, like the most objectionable songs, resided on a 21-and-over site that required age verification. He ran the site off one of his own servers and did what he could to keep kids from getting in there.

"So, anyway, what is the meaning of 'Drink the Dream'?" she asked.

"I think it's an ode to Pepto-Bismol."

"I'm serious!"

"I don't know what to tell you," he said. "People always asked us that question. None of us had the same answer. We used to sit around and argue about it when we got drunk."

"You don't know the songwriter so you could ask him?"

"Uh-uh," Shane said. "Only Bryan knows him. And he's the one told us the songwriter said it was about Pepto-Bismol."

It was true, in a way. The song had started out as a joke, when Shane was fourteen and crawling down the hall of the band's house, hunting cures for his hangover symptoms. Like so many other songs, it turned itself into something beyond what he initially had in mind for it. A lot of the letters that reached Shiloh Wells through the music publishing company asked about that song. Though Shane always responded to letters--or at least had Ziggy do it for him--he never revealed much about what the songs meant. He liked that people found their own meanings and saw their own lives in the songs. Of all his songs, "Drink the Dream" was among the most vitriolic. Some people thought it referred to alcohol or other drugs. Others thought it referred to poison. Some thought it just meant embracing life for all it was worth. To Shane, it was all those things, plus a rejection of all the medications doctors had recommended to try to make him more normal. Still, it had started as an ode to Pepto-Bismol--and a loud and whiny one, at that. There'd been none in the house and so he got louder and whinier, and Bryan said it sucked that Shane hadn't gotten a headache along with the rest of it so he wouldn't be inclined to make noises like that. Finally, to shut him up, Bryan went to the store and got him some Pepto-Bismol.

When Bryan subsequently gave the band a new Shiloh Wells song that contained some of the lines that other members of the band had heard Shane compose as he languished in the hall, Shane threatened to sue both Bryan and Shiloh Wells for intellectual property theft, but let the matter go after Bryan bought him a case of beer and two more bottles of Pepto-Bismol.

Faith spoke again. "Do you miss the music?"

No, he missed the musicians. "I still play." He had a room full of instruments in the basement. He'd filled in for a couple bands recently when their drummers couldn't make gigs. He'd gone into the studio a few times over the summer when producers he knew found themselves in need. Painted Ghost producer Gary Kilgorne, a man he'd never met, had found out about a couple of those and called to bitch at him because he never went to the studio for him. Shane had laughed at him. He couldn't help but enjoy the cat-and-mouse game with Gary. One of the first few times they ever talked on the phone, Gary had asked how it was that they kept failing to meet, given all their mutual acquaintances, and he'd jokingly accused Shane of avoiding him on purpose. After that, Shane did avoid him. Gary was a man he needed to avoid. Judging from his pictures, he was sexy as hell. He was brilliant and a perfectionist, when it came to his music. He was rich and powerful. He was straight but, for whatever reasons he might have had, inclined to flirt with Shane. He had a tantalizing sadistic streak and the kind of voice that could turn a person's insides to honey. He also had a serious cocaine habit.

"I thought it was interesting the way you stood up when you played, instead of having a stool," she said. "I never saw a drummer do that."

Shane knew of a few others who did it that way. He hadn't when he started doing it, though.

She spoke again. "I thought it was a good show," she said as Shane pressed another X to the ceiling. "For adults."

He sighed and dropped from the chair. He sat on the edge of the desk, looking at her. "Look, I hate to explain myself and I really don't think I owe it to you, but I realize your intentions are good and I respect you for having the courage to defend your principles as well as your students. This awkward thing you're doing is starting to get on my nerves. So you win. I'll talk. Let's just get this over with. There are various aspects of my life that would not be appropriate to reveal to the kids here. I have no intention of bringing any of that to school and I can only hope no one else does. I want to teach because that is what I have always wanted to do. If I had to explain it further, I'd say it's because I want to help kids gain the knowledge and skills that they need to build good lives for themselves and their future kids, but I wanted to be a teacher long before I could fully articulate that goal. I want to teach math specifically because it is among my strongest areas of focus and because I believe the keys to many of the problems humanity faces can be found therein. I want to teach high school specifically because I saw how frustrated some of the kids at university were when they ended up in classes there for which high school had not prepared them. I would like to help the students prepare here so they do not fail there, where it really matters. Further--and here's the deep, dark, personal, psychological kernel for which I know you're digging--I admit it. High school looked like fun to me. As you've likely gathered from my records, I never went to school. I went straight from home tutors to university at fourteen. I wanted to come to high school. Now, before you get all worried, let me assure you, I know the difference between adults and kids. I also know the difference between right and wrong. I am well aware that I am a teacher here and not a student. It is the teacher's experience and not the student's that I want. I should no more be suspect for that than should someone who did go to high school and remembers it fondly and decides to return and teach. I simply wanted to be in this environment. I wish I could guarantee I'll be a good teacher. But I can't. As a matter of fact, I'm scared shitless. I don't want to fuck up. But I feel like I'm supposed to be here. And so I'm here."

Her eyes shone. "I think you'll be fine," she said. "But you may want to avoid words like 'shit' and 'fuck' in front of the kids."

"See?" he said. "I knew you could help me with this shit. Faith, you are a fuckin' awesome counselor."

"Well, thank you," she said, preening. "I do try."

"Uneasy truce?" he said.

She smiled and nodded. "Be careful," she said. "Especially with the girls. You could confuse them, simply by being who you are."

"I'll keep that in mind." Her words were true in many more ways than she suspected.