by CATHY L. CLAMP; FRANCIS RAY; BEVERLY JENKINS; MONICA JACKSON; GERI GUILLAUME
My eyes were closed. I didn’t want to note the passing of time. I didn’t want to see other cars pulling into the parking lot. As far as I was concerned, there was only Kirby and me.
Later I’d ask all the appropriate questions. “How have you been?” “What have you been up to?” “How is your project going?” “How many students do you have?” “How long are you staying?” “Are you seeing anyone else?” “Do you still love me?”
Not now. I didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to think. Just feel.
I raised my hand to the back of her head, caressing her hair. For a moment, I thought that I’d heard her sigh. It couldn’t have been the wind. There was a good, brisk one blowing up, so I adjusted my body, trying to shield her from the brunt of it.
I felt Kirby’s body meld into mine. She lifted her face, brushed her lips at the base of my throat. My entire body thrummed to life. It had been so long. So long!
It was the wrong place. The wrong time. But the sentiments were right. What had started out as a simple, welcoming hug between us escalated out of control. I didn’t remember maneuvering her against the car, pressing against her. Kirby moaned my name, her stance widening even farther. It was an invitation—bold, passionate, but forbidden at this moment in time.
“Damn it, Kirby!” I tried to inject a note of sanity back into this situation. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.” I made a half-hearted attempt to pull back, but Kirby clung tightly to me.
“Come on, Bear,” she soothed, stroking the back of my neck. “It’s all right.” She peeked around my shoulder. “It’s still early. Nobody’s around.”
“No, it isn’t all right,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I want to make love to you, Kirby, not screw you. That’s what we’ll be doing if we don’t get our heads back on straight.”
“You know, there was a time when you were doing all the coaxing,” she reminded me.
“We’re not kids anymore, Kirby. And this is where I work.”
She might not have seen anyone, but I had a feeling. Mayron was never too far from sight. He knew everything that went on, inside and outside the school. How else was he going to maintain his coveted status as school confidant?
Kirby opened the door to the SUV.
“Get in,” she said with a nod of her head.
I shook my head. “Nuh-uh. I know what’s going to happen if I climb in there, behind those tinted windows.”
“I’ll be good. I promise.” She grinned at me.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” My tone was wry, but it made her laugh. It was good to hear her laugh again. Laugh in person, not marred by the static of poor phone connections.
“Just get in, Bear. I just want to talk for a few minutes. To have you to myself before you have to go inside to your students.”
I understood exactly what she meant. I walked around to the passenger’s side and climbed in. She’d said “your students.” A clue that she had put a lot of emotional detachment between herself and the kids she used to know.
Kirby climbed in on the driver’s side, slammed the door, and settled herself comfortably in the seat. Even though she’d said she wanted to talk, she didn’t speak for a few moments. It was so quiet inside, I could hear nothing but the sound of our breathing. The silence grew uncomfortable for her. I could tell. She started to fidget, rummage in her purse. She pulled out her compact. A small brush, a light dusting of powder over the shine of her forehead and nose, was about all Kirby needed to restore her polished look.
“You’re staring at me,” she said softly.
“Does it bother you?” I asked, smoothing a strand of her hair back into place.
“No. Not really. I was just wondering what you were thinking.”
“You used to know what I was thinking, Kirby. Used to be able to complete my sentences for me,” I reminded her.
“Not too hard since you were just a big jock anyway,” she teased. When she turned to face me, her eyes were troubled. “Paul—”
“Sh—” I interrupted. “I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do. We need to talk, but . . .”
“We will. When the time’s right. I’ve got a lot to say to you, Kirby.” The engagement ring that I meant to offer to her was practically burning a hole in my pocket.
“All right,” she said. “But first things first. Come on, Bear; help me with some of my things.”
“What things?”
Kirby then indicated several boxes in the trunk. “Help me out with those, would you?”
She climbed out on one side and I climbed out on the other. So much for our heart-to-heart talk. Kirby opened the trunk and I reached for a box.
“What have you got in here?” I asked, dragging the heavy box across the carpeted bed. “What are these for?”
“A few learning aids,” she said. “When we get inside, I’ll show you. We can talk more about what’s been going on in your school.”
I shot her a surprised look. I hadn’t told her much. Made light of what had happened. She knew about the fight and the suspension, but I’d said nothing about the flyers. I kept silent for a number of reasons. One: I figured I could handle the situation on my own. Two: I didn’t want to spend our limited time together talking about work.
“What do you know about what’s going on here?”
“Enough to let me know that you’ve got some real issues working.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“That Jolene McHenry was the one who spilled it. I could tell by our last conversation that something was bothering you.”
Jolene was president of the school’s parent-teacher organization. She was also a close friend of Kirby. “So you ran to Jolene and she blabbed?”
“She didn’t blab. She was just a little more open than you were about what was bothering you. And I can see why you’re concerned, Bear. The bad news is, your school isn’t the only one that’s going through this kind of crisis. It’s happening all over the U.S.”
“But why?”
Kirby shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Analysts are all over the map. You know as well as I do that bigotry and hatred aren’t new. And it isn’t just among Southern schools. It seems as though after September eleventh, there’s been a surge in national pride that’s been taken to the extreme. Everyone wants to wave the American flag, but no one wants to remember that the American flag is supposed to represent tolerance and diversity.”
“Hell, half the folks around here who are waving that flag can’t even spell tolerance and diversity,” I retorted.
“That’s not funny,” she chastised me.
“I didn’t mean it to be. I’m an educator, Kirby. I know the types that I’m talking about. I’ve seen it. It’s a lot easier to pick up a gun or a knife or a baseball bat than to reason your way out of confrontation.”
Kirby stopped, squared her shoulders. “Well, that’s what I’m here for. While I’m here, while I can, I want to help your students work out their differences. I’ve asked Jolene to meet us here today so we can talk about a strategy. We want to have a plan in place for your PTO meeting next week.”
“Just like the old times,” I said softly. For however long it lasts.
“The three of us back in high school again. Now there’s a scary thought.” Kirby grinned at me. “I’m sure Ms. Gilbert is already polishing up her glasses, so she can peer over them in disapproval at us.”
“But the students will be glad to see you back, Kirby.”
I leaned on the front door with my shoulder, holding it open for her as she passed inside.
Chapter 4
We’d all met up in my office. Jolene McHenry sat thoughtfully twirling her coffee with a plastic stirrer while Kirby outlined her strategy for approaching the student unrest. Jolene was open, receptive—which translated to me as desperate. At this stage, she was willing to grasp at anything that would get the students’ minds back on track instead of worrying about watching their backs.
“. . . And in this case, Jolie, I used a combination of one-on-one private counseling sessions to help students deal with a student suicide. Here, take a look at this. This is a report that I submitted for the administrators’ review. It notes the increase in attendance, the raised test scores, even an informal poll of the students asking them to rate the safety of their school—all indirect indicators that the students had regained their confidence by the time I’d completed my program.”
“I’m not sure that I see how that applies here. No one here has died,” Jolene said.
“No, but your students are dealing with the anxiety and fears associated with the threat of violence. I believe that I can apply some of the same principles and techniques here that I did for this other school. The trick is to get the students and the faculty talking to me again, to express their fears.”
“Everybody’s already talking,” I said.
“I’m not talking about the fearful rumor-mongering that I’m sure is running rampant through your halls right now,” Kirby said. “I’m talking about focused, directed discussions by trained individuals. Namely me. No offense to you and your teaching staff, Bear.”
“None taken,” I said, knowing that she would forgive me for that little stretch of the truth. I was very protective of my staff.
“How are you going to get them to open up to you again, Kirby? As much as the kids may like you and miss you, how are you going to deal with the fact that some of the kids think that you abandoned them? You chose some students in some faraway country over them.”
Kirby heaved a sigh. “I didn’t abandon them.” She looked directly at me, as if assuring me as she would the students. “I just thought that those other students needed me more. I think I can address their feelings and manage to get through to them.”
“And the fact that you don’t work here anymore?” Jolene pressed.
“That’s just a formality, a question of paperwork. We can hire her on as an interim counselor until Mrs. Adair returns. That is, if you’re committed to stay for that long, Kirby.” It was my turn to pass on the unspoken message. How committed to me was she? Yes, those other students needed her. But so did I. And they could never love her as much as I could.
“That’s where you come in, Bear. When you introduce me during the assemblies, you have to stress that I’m not an outsider. I’m not a stranger. You have to make them understand that I’ve come back home expressly for the reason of helping out my own.”
“We could always drag out your high-school yearbook picture,” Jolene suggested, grinning mischievously at Kirby.
“Oh, good heavens, no!” Kirby cried out. “If the students ever got ahold of that, seeing me in my big teased hair and Apollonia wannabe wardrobe, they’d lose all respect for me.”
“Yeah, it took a while for me to get my respect back for you, too. Everybody knows that Vanity was way finer than Apollonia,” I interjected.
“Both of y’all are crazy. The woman to be was Cyndi Lauper.”
“You mean the woman that you wanted to be,” Kirby retorted. “How long did it take you to grow back your hair to its natural color when you died it cotton candy pink?”
“Too long.” Jolene shuddered.
All of us fell silent for a moment. The mental image of Jolene in her black spandex biker shorts, orange ballerina-style tutus, combat boots, and bright pink hair had us speechless.
“So—” I cleared my throat, getting us back on track. “After you’ve talked all you can talk, Kirby, what do you plan to do next?”
“To get your students and staff focusing their energy on something positive, we’ll need some kind of event or exercise. Something that will bring them all together.”
“Any ideas?” Jolene prompted.
“A few, but none that I’m entirely satisfied with. An idea will come together after I’ve had some time to talk to the kids, find out where their heads are. I need to know what motivates them. I already know what scares them spitless.”
“You won’t have a lot of time to get them to talk to you, Kirby. As soon as you start any kind of momentum, it’ll be time for Thanksgiving break,” Jolene reminded her.
“I know. And that’s fine. In fact, it’s probably better this way. I’ll need these few days of assemblies to meet and greet everyone. Then everyone can spend the holiday thinking about that. Nothing too heavy. In the meantime, they’ll have other, hopefully more positive things to think about—food, family, friends. By the time we get back, my office will be all set up with the rest of my counseling aids.”
She flipped through a few sheets of paper, glanced at the contents of some files. “One thing I want to be sure to do, however, is to make certain that I speak with Chalmers, Donovan, and Vaughn.”
“Why especially them? If you single them out, won’t it look like you’re picking on them? I mean, they’ve already completed their suspension,” Jolene objected.
“I’m not picking on them, Jolie,” Kirby denied. “Those three, whether willing or not, were the catalysts for the events transpiring at your school. I want to try to get those three as allies for my efforts. If I can’t win them over, I can forget the rest of the students.”
“Sounds like a solid plan,” Jolene agreed.
“It’s going to take time, but I think I can help get good ol’ Calhoun High back to some degree of normality.”
“Normal?” I snorted. “Normal is the last thing I want to come back here.” I didn’t feel there was anything normal about continuing to worship a long-dead symbol of war.
“What you want won’t happen overnight, Bear,” Jolene cautioned me. “You can’t change generations of sentiment in one fell swoop. You try to introduce too many changes and you’ll get an entire community against you. right now, you’ve got their support. But if you push them . . . push us . . .”
Her voice trailed off, but I understand exactly what she meant.
“Still griping about that school mascot?” Kirby said, with a wry twist of her lips.
“Don’t you know it.”
“I can’t slay that dragon for you. You’ll have to go after that one yourself. Let me worry about stemming the race riot. You worry about that school mascot.”
“You two still don’t get it. The two are intricately connected. One feeds into the other. The mentality, this Southern culture, somehow it’s all so . . . backward.”
“You make it sound like we’re battling against a legion of devils. It’s not that bad around here. We’ve made some progress. I should know. I grew up here, too. And I didn’t turn out so bad, huh?” Jolene said.
“You were always different,” Kirby mused. “You were one of the few white kids that hung out with us.”
“We were all different,” Jolene insisted. “And you didn’t do nearly as much hanging out with the black kids as you think that you remember that you do . . . and don’t ask me to repeat that because I’m not sure what in the world I just said.”
“But I know what you meant. I didn’t hang out with any group, really, except for the two of you.” Kirby’s smile was nostalgic.
“What a trio we made.” I laughed reluctantly. “The blimp, the trailer trash, and the Oreo.”
“Bear!” Jolene and Kirby exclaimed in unison.
“I never liked that word Oreo. When some of the girls called me that in school, made me mad,” Kirby said.
“They were just jealous because you were naturally gorgeous, made good grades, had all the guys panting after you . . . Wait a minute; I think that was me that was jealous!” Jolene laughed. “Isn’t the politically correct term biracial?”
“Nobody was worried about being PC back then. That’s what they called us. Don’t deny it. You know that they did. We hung out together because we had nowhere else to go.” Whatever the reason, despite the anguish, the three of us had grown up practically as close as family.
“I had the cheerleading squad,” Jolene spoke up.
“Oh yeah, like that was a step up.” Kirby rose from her
seat, clapped her hands in a mock spirit chant. “We’ve got spirit; yes, we do! We’ve got spirit! How ’bout you!” She pointed at Jolene.
“Cow,” Jolene grumbled.
I snickered, ducking when Jolene threw a punch at me.
“At least you guys got your revenge. Homecoming king and queen. Ruled the school.”
“Speaking of ruling the school, are we ready for tonight?” I asked, turning the focus back to work.
Jolene shrugged, but Kirby gave a definitive nod of her head.
“All right then. Let’s do this,” I said, and then called for an office assistant to pull the necessary paperwork for me.
Chapter 5
The PTO meeting was supposed to start at six. But by five o’clock the parking lot was full. Too full for just my teaching and administrative staff. I took a look at the previous agenda and started to crumple it up. We had planned to discuss how to raise funds for the senior trip, whether to initiate a girls’ football team, and whether it was time to update the school’s image by changing the mascot. I had a feeling that we wouldn’t get to those topics tonight. The more students I talked to through the day, the more I realized that the fight and the resulting flyers had gotten out of hand.
I stood at the window of my office, peering through the blinds and thoughtfully munching on an apple. Some of the vehicles I recognized as belonging to my students. Tran Le’s little souped-up Honda, with exhaust system tweaked to sound like those speed freaks from that movie The Fast and the Furious. Caitlyn Mahoney’s ’84 two-toned shortbed GMC with mounted twin American flags whipping from the bed of her truck. Lakeshia Moore’s Jeep Cherokee with the soft removable top. Still driving it with pride even though thieves had sliced the top several times to get the equalizer and radio.
I don’t know how long I stood there watching the parade of headlights of vehicles vying for limited parking space. Students, parents, and anyone who’d also gotten wind of what was happening filled the staff and student parking, lined the edge of the drive and the bus loading zone. When I thought I saw the old clunker that Amity Stinson of the Calhoun County Herald drove, I knew that I was in for a tough time tonight. When Amity covered an event, she didn’t say much. She was not the most aggressive of reporters. Then again, she didn’t have to be. She always faded into the background but never failed to note every detail. Nothing would escape her prolific pen.