“Ellie’s always been sensitive,” Beth Ann said. She smiled a little, but her eyes remained sad.
“Well, I was impressed,” Deirdre said, turning back to face the woman. “I’ve never heard Ellie speak like that in class.”
“She loves your class, Ms. Murphy—”
“It’s Deirdre, please.”
Beth Ann smiled. “She says she just loves French and the way you get everyone to speak. She has never had a teacher take an interest in her before.”
Deirdre didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t taken an interest in Ellie—that was painfully clear the minute Ellie opened her mouth on the gallery floor—Deirdre had been as shocked as everyone else. She made a mental note to talk with Martin Loring and revise her earlier assessment.
Mario stood. “Well, I’ve been impressed too,” he said. “Obviously, you knew just the question to ask.” He looked right at Deirdre. “I can see how you get good work from your students. A simple question, but one I had never imagined asking any of the students who pass through the gallery . . . Not that many students even get the chance to come see our little gallery!” He laughed. “That in and of itself is impressive.”
“Well, I guess I’m always trying to make the material relevant to them,” Deirdre said. “That’s all.” She got up and walked toward the center of the large, airy room. She looked at Ellie talking with two other girls, sitting there in their circle. She had definitely misjudged her. Deirdre had completely missed the sadness in her and had seen only resistance. Odd that Ellie had gone home and told her mother how much she liked the class when she seemed so clearly not to like it while she was there. She almost never looked up at Deirdre when she was teaching. Never wanted to answer a question. When Deirdre tried to get Ellie’s attention, she wouldn’t let her. She looked away. Never returned her gaze. She was an odd duck for sure. Her skinny arms were covered with blond hair, downy.
Where was Anna? Deirdre wanted to talk with her, be sure she was getting something out of this trip. Deirdre was sure she could change the girl’s attitude. There, sitting cross-legged next to Lydia, Anna braided Lydia’s long red hair. Lydia was regaling the other girls with some story, and they sat rapt, laughing when it was appropriate, their smiles a display of braces and even, white teeth.
“Hey,” Deirdre said, squatting down next to Lydia and Anna, “how’s it going?”
“Great,” Lydia replied. “This is so cool.”
The other girls agreed and nodded.
“Yeah? Anna, what do you think?” Deirdre tilted her head to get a better look at the girl’s face.
“It’s okay,” Anna said, the typical scowl marring her brow. She kept braiding Lydia’s hair, didn’t look up.
“What did you all think of the doors? Pretty wild, huh? The Dogon people live in cone-shaped huts but they take the care to have these beautiful doors put on the outsides . . .” Deirdre remembered reading about how the Dogon people were famous for their hospitality and took pride in their humble living quarters, keeping them tidy and clean.
“Yeah, like, that’s weird,” Hilary said. “It’s a door.”
“I want to get my mother to buy one,” Lydia said.
“Right,” Anna laughed. “Where are you going to put that thing in your house? I can see it now.” She dropped the braid she was working on and spread her hands wide. “You come into the living room and there’s this . . . door . . .” The two of them burst into giggles. When Deirdre tried to smile at Anna, she scowled again and went back to her braiding.
“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying your visit,” Deirdre said to all the girls. “We’ll be finishing up the tour in a bit, okay? Anna, can I see you for a minute?” She motioned her to follow.
The other girls resumed their storytelling and laughing. Hilary took up where Anna left off with Lydia’s hair. Anna took her time making her way over to Deirdre.
“What’s up?” Deirdre asked. She tried to make her voice sound concerned, caring.
Anna shrugged.
“Come on. You’re not giving this a chance. You’re barely listening to the guide.” Deirdre tried to get Anna to look at her. She touched her on the shoulder. “Is something the matter? Do we need to talk?”
Anna looked up. “No,” she said, still pouting. “Can I go now?”
Deirdre folded her arms. “Sure,” she said. “I just wanted to be sure everything’s okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, all right then.” Deirdre patted Anna gently on the back and Anna looked right at Deirdre, her eyes clouded. In that instant, Deirdre got it. She understood that Anna was pissed off because Deirdre wasn’t paying enough attention to her. That’s what this was about. Deirdre took a deep breath. “Anna,” she said, and the girl turned around. There it was. The hope. “No, forget it . . . never mind.” She waved Anna back to her group. “We’ll talk later.”
* * *
They finished the tour with Morgan asking questions at every section. Deirdre couldn’t believe it. Morgan was never that interested. Deirdre made another mental note to talk with her, express appreciation for her enthusiasm during the gallery visit. She had few opportunities to praise Morgan and she wanted to take advantage of every one. So often lately Morgan was driving her crazy, putting down the other girls, making those generalizations that Deirdre did her best to teach them not to make.
“Thank you.” Deirdre shook Mario’s hand. “I think they got a lot out of this visit.”
“Thank you,” Mario said. “They’re great. Interested—but I suspect that you have a lot to do with that.” He smiled at her with a twinkle in his eyes, as if they shared some little secret.
Deirdre said nothing. She never knew how to respond to praise like this. She honestly didn’t know if what she did with her students was out of the ordinary. She often told SJ that in fact she didn’t even know what it was she was doing at all, that she ran on instinct. “Then you have the right instincts. Be grateful,” SJ always told her. Still, even in her seventh year of teaching, Deirdre wondered. She couldn’t help but think there was some hidden skill she was missing, some important knowledge about how to teach that eluded her.
Evelyn interrupted her thoughts. “A great trip,” she said. “I enjoyed myself.”
“Thanks for helping out,” Deirdre said. They walked down the gallery steps, the students in a pack on the blacktop already, alongside the van. Deirdre turned to look for Beth Ann behind them. “Where’d she go?”
“Who?”
“Beth Ann. Do you see her?”
“Down there.” Evelyn pointed to the crowd of kids and the blue and blond figure unlocking the white car. “I wonder what her story is.”
“Hmmm.” Deirdre wanted to find out. “Whatever it is, it’s big.”
They walked toward the van and Evelyn’s car. Anna Worthington stood leaning with her back against the passenger door of the van, arms crossed. Hilary paced in front of her.
“Ms. Murphy,” Hilary said, “Anna says she’s sitting in the front seat on the way back. She says you promised.”
“I said no such thing.”
A hurt look from Anna. “You said I could switch . . .”
“I said we’d see. I didn’t say you should bully your way onto the van.” Deirdre turned to Hilary “You know, it would be a nice thing to switch with Anna for the ride home.”
“Ride in that car? I don’t know those kids!” A whine.
“C’mon, Hil. I’d do it for you.” A plead. Anna. The adoring eyes turned on Hilary. Hands in prayer position.
“You two decide. But do it quick.” To the others, “Let’s go, folks. Time to get home.”
They drove in near silence back to school, Anna in the van’s front passenger seat, Hilary sulking in the backseat of Beth Ann’s car. “You owe me major,” Hilary had said, shaking her finger at Anna as she walked away from the van. “Like, huge.”
Anna said little on the ride back, hummed an unrecognizable tune, and stared out the window. Deirdre t
ried to engage her in conversation, but all she got were one-word answers. So why did it matter if Anna rode with Beth Ann or in the van? Deirdre wondered. Funny kid. Even Morgan was subdued on the ride back. None of her usual wisecracks. Deirdre peeked in her rearview mirror. Morgan sat slouched in the way back, head resting against the vinyl seat. The rest of the girls looked out the window. One or two had their eyes shut.
They passed the turnoff for the library and Deirdre wondered what kind of mood SJ would be in that night. She had been so odd lately—aloof and preoccupied. She’d hardly spoken at Paul and Kris’s the other night. Some kind of thing going on at the library—an accreditation, she thought SJ had said. Deirdre decided she’d make an asparagus quiche, one of SJ’s favorites. See if the market had fresh flowers. And she’d call Paul, thank him for dinner. She loved spending time with Sophie and Mark. After Sophie was first born, Deirdre used to fantasize that something would happen to Kris and she and SJ would have to help Paul raise the kids. For Paul’s sake, Deirdre wouldn’t kill Kris in her fantasies but have her run away, decide to abandon Paul and the kids, though of course in real life the chances of that happening were pretty remote. Kris doted on Mark and Sophie. And Paul. It was only Deirdre she didn’t seem to like.
“All right,” Deirdre said now, turning into the Brandywine parking lot. “We’re here.” Grunts and groans from the back. Bodies stretching, unbuckling seat belts.
“Hey, there’s my mom,” Morgan said, banging on the window.
Deirdre jumped out of the van. Some parents, mothers mostly, stood together at the edge of the parking lot, and they approached, smiling at Deirdre, looking for their kids. Deirdre didn’t see Frances Worthington. A few other parents emerged from their parked cars, lined alongside the curb. Martin Loring walked out the front door and down the front steps.
“Good trip?” he called to Deirdre, waving a beefy hand.
“A great one!” she answered.
Martin greeted several of the parents and kids. “Glad it went well,” he said when he got closer to Deirdre. “They seem happy.” He motioned to the group on the blacktop.
“They were terrific,” Deirdre said. “In fact, can I stop by Monday? I’d like to talk with you about some things I learned today.”
“Sure.” He looked around, waved to the parents who pulled out of the parking lineup. “You got this under control? I’m on my way out. Got a board meeting in an hour,” he said, looking at his watch.
Deirdre waved her hand. “Go on, I’ll wait. I’ll be sure they’re all taken care of.”
A few of the parents approached Deirdre and thanked her for organizing the trip, for taking the time to do something out of the ordinary. She noticed Morgan and her mother, an elegant, tall woman with frosted hair, standing alongside a maroon Mercedes. “Mrs. Abernathy,” Deirdre said, hurrying over to them.
“Oh, hello.” A friend of Frances Worthington’s, no doubt. She gave off no warmth. Offered that familiar icy smile.
“I just wanted to tell you how terrific Morgan was in the gallery today.” Deirdre paused and glanced at Morgan, who looked uncertain and clutched her notebook to her chest. “I mean, she was great. Asking all sorts of questions—she was interested . . . by far the most engaged student.” Deirdre nodded enthusiastically.
A sort of amused smile twitched at Mrs. Abernathy’s lips.
A look from Morgan stopped Deirdre from saying anything else. Waste of time, her eyes said.
“Well, she was great. I think she learned a lot.”
Mrs. Abernathy beeped her Mercedes unlocked. She opened her door and motioned for Morgan to do the same.
Deirdre surveyed the group. A few kids and parents were getting into their cars. No one else was left waiting. She wouldn’t let Morgan’s mother get to her. It had been a great day. Ellie had come out of her shell in front of everyone and might have made a couple of new friends. Even Anna seemed to turn around at the end. Anna—Deirdre never saw Frances Worthington and Anna had left without saying goodbye.
Weird.
Deirdre shrugged and opened the van door to drive it around to its parking spot. There, in the passenger seat, sat Anna.
“Anna! What are you doing in here? Where’s your mother?” Deirdre remembered then that Martin said there was a board meeting in an hour. She couldn’t imagine Frances Worthington making two trips out to Brandywine within an hour. “Anna, were you supposed to ride home with someone else? With Evelyn?”
The girl sat hugging her knees. She smiled at Deirdre. “The thing is,” she said, “my mother doesn’t know I’m here.”
“What?”
“Look, she wasn’t going to let me go . . .”
“What’s going on?” Deirdre stood holding the van door open. “This isn’t funny. What’s going on?”
“I forged her signature.”
“You did what?” Deirdre climbed into the van. “Do you know how much trouble I could be in?” She heard the harshness in her voice.
“You wanted me to go!” Anna let go of her knees, turned to Deirdre. Here was the child—bright-eyed, with cheerleader hair. The little kid. “I did it for you!” Tears forming.
“Oh.” Deirdre reached over and rubbed Anna’s arm. “Of course you know I wanted you to come . . .”
“No, you didn’t even care!” A full-fledged tantrum now. “You couldn’t have cared less! I should have listened to my mother. I should have stayed home.”
“Anna, look at me.” Deirdre sat sideways in her seat, tried to grab both of Anna’s shoulders, but the girl twisted away. “Anna . . .”
She stayed still with her arms wrapped around her knees, head down.
Deirdre stroked her hair. “Listen,” she said, making her voice soft. “Of course I wanted you to come on the trip—I really hoped you’d like it too.” She ran her hand the length of Anna’s silky, baby-fine hair. “But forging your mother’s signature—that’s wrong, Anna. We both could be in a lot of trouble.”
Anna stopped crying, said nothing.
Deirdre continued to stroke her hair. “I didn’t mean for you to disobey your mother,” she said, still using her soft voice. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Nearly five o’clock. “Don’t you think she’s worried about you?”
“I don’t care.” Muffled, from between her knees.
“Well, here,” Deirdre said, taking the school’s cell phone from her bag. “I think we should call her, at least let her know you’re okay.”
“No!” Anna sat up. “I don’t . . . It’s just . . .” She fidgeted with her rings, twisted them around her fingers, silver on nearly every one.
“Look,” the teacher-voice again, “let her know you’re safe. She’s got to be worried sick!”
“If she was worried, why wasn’t she up here looking for me? Huh? Why didn’t she call Mr. Loring, wondering where I was? She acts like it’s all about me, but it’s really all about her.” Anna’s voice got excited again and she pulled harder at her rings. “She acts like it’s you she hates, but it’s me. She hates me.” Tears, cascading now.
Deirdre leaned over and put her arms around Anna. “Shhh. She doesn’t hate you. She’s your mother.” Deirdre thought of her own mother, and her own mother’s disappointment—disapproval—when Deirdre had told her she was gay. How Deirdre had been so naïve, how she thought that a mother’s love for her daughter could outweigh anything.
Deirdre hugged Anna close. She held her, whispered that it would be okay, that she was sure her mother loved her, that she would take Anna home and everything would work out.
“Shhh,” she said, rocking Anna a little, patting her back. Anna put her head on Deirdre’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around her, tight.
“I love you,” Anna’s little kid voice mumbled.
Deirdre continued patting. “I love you too. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“No, I mean I really love you.” Anna raised her head. And before Deirdre could respond, before her mind could think of what to say, Anna leane
d over and kissed her on the lips.
Now Deirdre’s mind seemed to stop. Anna’s lips on hers. She held one hand, she realized, suspended above Anna’s long hair. Her body tense. Frozen. Her other hand still on Anna’s shoulder. Stuck there. She removed it, an action that got her mind working again, racing. Deirdre pulled away from Anna, words forming in her brain, a plan, an action. Trouble, a voice said inside her head. Big trouble.
“Oh shit,” said Anna.
There, with one hand on the handle of the driver’s-side door, her face contorted in anger, stood Frances Worthington.
Chapter Seven
Deirdre searched the bottom shelf of the refrigerator for a beer. Nothing. She picked up the carton of skim milk, pushed aside the orange juice. No wine either. She slammed the refrigerator shut and glanced up at the wall—six o’clock. No word from SJ. She crossed the kitchen and opened the cupboards, looking for . . . something. She peered behind the arborio rice and the pine nuts. Whole wheat crackers, fig cookies, packages of all-natural macaroni and cheese. There was nothing she wanted. Deirdre paced the kitchen. She thought of calling Paul. Yeah, right. Hi, Paul—guess what? I just got caught kissing one of my students. Already, Paul could only go so far in his understanding of Deirdre’s “lifestyle” as he called it. In his mind, homosexuality was wrong, but he loved Deirdre. Deird, what the hell were you doing kissing a student? Then, in the background, she could imagine Kris telling Paul to hang up, that his sister was a pervert.
Where was SJ? Deirdre picked up the phone and held the receiver. Put it down. Picked it up again. Put it down. She strode over to the dining room hutch, opened the liquor cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label. She didn’t bother with ice cubes, just filled a tumbler, one of the crystal ones SJ’s mother had given her once as a birthday gift, before she knew Deirdre.
Just holding a full glass of Scotch helped. Deirdre breathed in the burning, sweet smell, swirled the liquid, licked the rim and insides of the glass. What was she going to do? She took one tentative sip. What in God’s name could she say to Martin Loring on Monday morning to make everything okay? There was nothing—the anger on Frances’s face, in her voice. The look in Anna’s eyes, the fear, the terror—what were they going to do?
The Year of Needy Girls Page 6