Michelle's transition from authority figure to high school buddy had been pleasantly seamless, thanks in part to fast thinking. She had answered open mouths and skeptical glances, during the introductions, with an offer to be as sparing with her judgments as she was generous with her money. She knew that a quick wit and a friendly smile did wonders in situations like this and knew that teens could be surprisingly accommodating when someone else paid the bill.
Michelle smiled at the sight of April laughing. She had missed that face and the delightfully complex personality behind it.
"Shelly tells me that we are neighbors," she said to April as she sampled her root beer float. "I just moved into Apartment A-6, the studio."
"We're in C-6, just across the parking lot. It's the Taj Mahal."
"You don't like it?"
"It's all right," April said. "I have a big bedroom and the living room's pretty nice. We even got cable last week. But it's not the same as a house. I'd really like to have a house someday, with a large yard, and not have to move every time my mom changes boyfriends."
Michelle considered a follow-up but let the matter drop. She knew April's story as well as her own. Following the shooting death of her father in Yakima, April, then nine years old, had followed Delores Burke and a slick-talking man named Earl Pratt to Unionville. The adults had found jobs in a food processing plant and a slice of paradise in a double-wide on the outskirts of town. But their union in Unionville had lasted less than two years. By the time April had reached the eighth grade, she had lived in five different homes with five different men she could never call Dad.
"How do you like living there?" April asked.
"I like it a lot. I searched the city for a place with a squeaky bed, carpenter ants, and a running toilet and I found it in an hour. If I could get the TV to work, it would be perfect."
"You sound like my mother," April said with a wide grin. "She's always making fun of our place. I think you'd like her. You even have the same smirk."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Michelle said.
Michelle looked at April again and smiled. Even in jeans and a Rally Club T-shirt she looked like a princess. Her braided hair alone was worth a fortune. Michelle laughed to herself when she thought of the women who paid hundreds of dollars to get what April got at birth.
"Your mother must be very pretty to have such a pretty daughter," Michelle said.
April blushed and gave Shelly a sidelong glance before returning to her elder.
"She is," April said. "But not like she used to be. She's had a hard life."
April cocked her head and looked at Michelle more closely.
"You're very pretty too, Miss Jennings. In fact, you look a lot like Shelly's mom, a lot like her. You two could be sisters."
"I'm fairly certain they were separated at birth," Shelly said. She smiled softly at Michelle and April and then returned to the window, where she stared blankly at the street beyond. "Thankfully, the similarities end there."
Michelle looked closely at Shelly and noticed that she had lost much of the spark she had brought into the restaurant. She looked very much like a young woman who had more on her mind than pretty peers, substandard living spaces, and women who looked like her mother.
"Having more problems with your mom?" Brian asked.
"Just the usual," Shelly said. "But I must say that today's ewe was the best in weeks."
Michelle smiled. She knew what was coming.
"Did you say ewe?" Brian asked. "You mean like a sheep?"
"No, Brian," April interrupted. "Shelly means ewe as in E-W-E. Episodes with Evelyn."
April finger-flicked a gnat from the top of her root beer float, stuck a plastic spoon in an island of ice cream, and transferred a scoop to her mouth. Apparently satisfied that the insect had not affected product quality, she turned to face her best friend.
"So what was it today?"
"The Knack," Shelly said matter-of-factly. "She walked in my room this morning when I played 'Good Girls Don't,' the naughty version, the one they can't play on the radio. She had a cow, of course. She took the album and my turntable. I can have the record player back in a week if I promise not to, and I quote, 'play that filth again.' I'll probably cave. I always do. But this means I won't be able to play the Sex Pistols on a school day."
Michelle laughed to herself. She remembered that morning as if it were yesterday and not thirty-one years ago. Evelyn Preston had done more than take the turntable. She had threatened to give it to a thrift shop on Third Street. Shelly would not see the audio component for another month. Get the Knack would go into permanent retirement.
Shelly played with a straw that emerged from her float.
"It's not just the music though. That I could handle," she said. "She's also been riding me about math. She keeps reminding me that, if I blow my four-point, I won't get a scholarship and that, if I don't get a scholarship, she and Dad won't be able to send me to a private college."
Michelle's heart sank when she heard the comment. She remembered the battles and the endless anxiety of her senior year. She hated seeing the disappointment on the face of a girl who had far more promise than money and confidence.
"Cheer up," she said to her younger self. "I'm sure you'll find a way."
Shelly looked at Michelle and smiled sadly.
"I hope so," she said.
Shelly sighed.
"Then there's Scott."
"What do you mean?"
"He and I got into a fight yesterday. We haven't been getting along lately."
Michelle looked at the others and noted their differing reactions. April frowned and glanced at the floor, as if to suggest that she had heard Shelly's lament many times and had no answers for her friend. Brian, on the other hand, became conspicuously engaged. He put down a French fry and stared at Shelly with eyes that betrayed both concern and affection. Michelle wondered why she had never seen that look as a youth. She studied Brian a few more seconds before redirecting her eyes to the girl across the table.
"I don't know what it is," Shelly said. "We've been dating only three months but already we're fighting like an old married couple."
Try thirty-one years.
"I'm sure you'll work things out," Michelle said. "You're young. Nothing is insurmountable when you're eighteen, even boys."
Shelly smiled weakly.
"You're probably right."
"I know I'm right, Shelly. I've been in your shoes."
Michelle grimaced as she considered the literal accuracy of that statement and measured her young friend's angst. She wished she could bestow upon Shelly the wisdom of age or at least tell her that Scott Richardson, Oregon State, and even teaching may not be in her best interests. Then she realized, almost as quickly, that she could do just that.
As Michelle watched Shelly settle into her seat and visibly relax, she again was reminded of something that had struck her on Labor Day. She had the means to be an agent of change – and not just as a pint-sized interloper leaving tiny footprints either. She had a chance to make broad and deep marks and influence people in ways that went far beyond homework help and pep talks.
Michelle had an opportunity to remake lives, including her own. Glancing out the window to the street beyond, she pondered possibilities and costs. She knew it was probably wrong to even consider such meddling. The power to change fate belonged to God, not man.
Yet when she looked again at her friends, she didn't think about right or wrong or moral responsibilities. She thought about creating better outcomes for people who had mattered before and would matter again. She had power, real power. The question now was whether to use it.
CHAPTER 17: SHELLY
Friday, October 5, 1979
As parking lots go, the crescent-shaped strip between the backside of Unionville High School and the Mission River was relatively small. It offered spaces for only forty cars and five motorcycles. But it was convenient, functional, and highly conducive to social interaction. Sh
elly observed some of that interaction as she sat alone atop a brick barrier that separated the lot from the courtyard and soaked up what remained of a glorious fall afternoon.
She looked to her left and saw varsity cheerleaders, a lot of them. They had gathered near a large white van that would soon take them to La Grande and the football team's third league game of the year. Shelly liked most of the girls but found two insufferable.
Morgan Richardson, Scott's twin sister, had boobs for brains, a condescending air, and the temperament of a rattlesnake. She had considered Shelly unworthy of her brother's affections from the start. Shelly was "South Side trash with a pretty face," a girl who had no business dipping her toes in the family's backyard pool.
Senior Stacie Collins was no better. Tall, blonde, and beautiful, the daughter of the town's only oral surgeon had acknowledged Shelly just twice in high school. She had mocked her attire the first day of their sophomore year and mocked Fred Preston's skill with scissors after he had given her boyfriend a haircut that Stacie had deemed less than satisfactory.
Shelly turned to the center of the lot and took in another layer of the school's social strata. Shaggy-looking students with rock band T-shirts sat atop Volkswagen Rabbits, Toyota Coronas, and Mazda pickups and pushed the volume of their car stereos as far as it could go. Teachers and administrators considered these kids dopers and slackers, but Shelly knew most as decent, albeit raggedy, neighbors and friends. Many came from families and homes like hers, families and homes that populated the poor end of town.
Ten minutes later, Shelly glanced at her watch, collected her books, and jumped off the barrier. She walked down a flight of ten steps to the lot and then another hundred or so feet to an orange Beetle that she had washed and vacuumed the previous day.
"You're looking good, Preston."
Shelly withdrew a key she had pushed in her car door and looked over her right shoulder to a spot a few feet away, where a fellow senior leaned against the passenger door of his red 1974 Plymouth Barracuda. Nick Bender wore a motorcycle jacket, tight-fitting Levis, work boots, and a grin that Shelly found both inviting and unnerving.
"Thanks."
"No practice today?"
"Not today," Shelly said. She turned around and faced her questioner. "Miss Thompson wanted to give us a chance to get to the game. Are you going?"
"No," Nick answered with a laugh. "I think that's a pleasure I'll deny myself."
"You don't like football?"
"I like football. I'm just not into all the rah-rah of high school sports."
"Neither am I, for the most part. But Scott is the quarterback and this is our last year."
Nick adjusted a mirror he had pushed out of place, moved along the door a few inches, and resettled his frame against the side of his car. He stared at Shelly and folded his arms.
"Still going out with Richardson, huh?"
"I am."
"That's too bad."
"Why is that?"
"Oh, I just thought that one of these days you might want to go for a spin. I had my engine modified over the summer, but I haven't had a chance to push it to its limit. I've been waiting for the right opportunity."
Shelly smiled as she looked at the boy with the long brown hair and equally arresting dark brown eyes. Nick Bender had pursued the right opportunities with Shelly Preston since the ninth grade, when they had dated for three months. But he had found those opportunities few and far between in high school. They had drifted in different directions and had done little in the past two years but exchange pleasantries when passing in hallways and classrooms.
"Don't you have a girlfriend, Nick? What happened to Lori?"
"We split up. She decided that I wasn't her type."
Shelly laughed. She could empathize. Lori Lane was a rebellious North Side girl who liked to regularly irritate her parents by hanging out with guys with rough edges. Nick had apparently outlasted his usefulness as a social prop.
"I can just see that. She did that with Jesse Carter last year. You may just have to start dating girls from the neighborhood."
"I'm working on it," Nick said with a sly smile.
Shelly blushed. She knew exactly what he wanted and what he was all about, but she did not at all mind the flattery. She hadn't been on the receiving end of that kind of banter since late June, when Scott Richardson had discovered her at an American Legion baseball game.
"What about you? Are you going to the rah-rah?"
"I am. But I think I'm going to take the rooter bus with April and Heidi. I'll have a lot more fun and won't have to deal with driving back after the game."
"You sure you don't want to go for a ride?"
Nick's grin was back.
"I'm sure."
"I'll let you drive."
"I'm sure."
"Is it because of Scott?"
Shelly sighed.
"Yes, in part. But it's mostly because of me," she said. "My life is pretty complicated now. I don't need another complication."
Shelly watched a more thoughtful expression replace the grin on his face. She could see that there was more behind his flirtation than boredom or passing interest. She opened the door to her Beetle, climbed in, and rolled down the window before glancing at him one last time.
"Thanks for the offer, though. Maybe another time."
"You've got it. Just say the word," he said.
Shelly shifted into first gear, pulled out of her space, and drove out of the lot. As she headed east toward the Harrison Street Bridge, she thought about Scott, college, Nick, and his cool, fast car. She meant it when she had told him that she didn't need another complication. Then again, she didn't need a lot of things.
CHAPTER 18: MICHELLE
Monday, October 15, 1979
Michelle's third visit to the large, cluttered office of Principal Wayne Dennison was notably different than those that had preceded it. She was not here to defend her attire at a school assembly or to apply for a job but rather to receive a thirty-day performance review that was more than a week overdue.
"Good morning, Michelle," Dennison said as he barged into the room.
He settled into his padded swivel chair and reached for two porcelain mugs that sat atop his spacious metal desk. The first mug, filled with coffee, bore the words "No. 1 Grandpa." The second, filled with ballpoint pens, touted his college alma mater. He grabbed a writing instrument from the latter, opened a file, and returned his attention to his most recent hire.
"Can I get you something to drink? Coffee perhaps?" he asked.
"I had some earlier. I think I'm set for a while."
"Good," he said. "That's good. Let me know if you change your mind."
Dennison pulled two sheets from the folder and placed them side by side. He marked one with a pen, circling what appeared to be dates in September and October, and then took a long look at the other before putting down the pen and leaning back in his chair.
"First, I must apologize for being late. I spoke at the Chamber of Commerce this morning and couldn't get out of there until eight thirty. The chairman insisted that I meet each and every one of their new members. You know how that goes."
"I do," Michelle said.
She didn't, of course. The only chamber Michelle had ever belonged to was a chamber orchestra that had performed once a month in Seattle when she was thirty-two. But if she had learned one thing about Wayne Dennison in six weeks, it's that it was better to nod her head than to shake it and to go with the flow whenever and wherever possible.
"Michelle, the purpose of this meeting is to note your progress of the past thirty days, identify strengths and weaknesses, and proceed from there. I'm not a big fan of performance evaluations, at least at this stage. I'd just as soon have an informal chat once a week and be done with it, but the school board insists on formal reviews. I'll try to make this as painless as possible."
"I appreciate that."
"The long and short of it is that you're doing a pretty fair job, as I ex
pected you would."
"Thank you," Michelle said.
For the next ten minutes, Dennison explained why he thought she was doing a pretty fair job. He praised Michelle's work in two fundraising drives, her efficiency in filing and processing forms, and her decision to volunteer for several committees.
"I have also spoken with Mrs. Zimmerman and other staff and they all, to a person, say you are a pleasure to work with," Dennison said. "That's saying a lot too. It's pretty hard to bat a thousand around here."
"Thank you."
Michelle breathed a sigh of relief as she digested the principal's words. She had feared that he might bring up her freelance work as a tutor and counselor and shut down the kind of random acts that had become her mission in life. But she cringed when she saw the big man trade his smile for a frown and lift the marked sheet from the top of his desk.
"There is, however, a little matter I must bring up before I let you go."
"Oh?"
"The sheet to my left contains attendance numbers for September and early October of last year," Dennison said. He grimaced as he moved his eyes from the form to Michelle. "The sheet in my hand contains attendance numbers for the same period this year."
"Are they good?" she asked.
"They're different," he replied.
"Oh."
"Last year through the first six weeks, Mrs. Wainwright recorded ninety-five unexcused absences. That has been the norm since I've been here."
"OK."
"This year through the first six weeks, you've recorded eight unexcused absences. That has not been the norm since I've been here."
"I see."
Michelle sank in her chair. She should have known that signing off on every lame excuse that came her way would lead to a meeting like this. An hour earlier she had accepted notes from six students who had claimed that their cars had suffered flat tires on Riverside Drive. The word was out that the new attendance secretary was a pushover and would-be pushers were lining up.
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