Southern Charmed

by Melanie Jacobson

  “You’re welcome,” I said, and he walked back to his friends, who were all grinning and fist-bumping him. I found Kate in the corner, and she grabbed my arms and squealed.

  A couple of guys walked by and checked us out, elbowing each other and grinning. Kate smiled back, and they kept going. “I think this is one of those situations where you guys hated each other so much that you were doomed to fall in love,” she announced.

  A couple of girls walked past and giggled. One of them stopped and watched us, but the other girls pulled her along with them. I wanted to jump up and down, but I stayed cool. “So what do I do next?”

  Her eyebrows rose when her older sister walked up to us. “What’s up, Emery?”

  “You have toilet paper hanging off you, Lila.” Mortified I shot a glance down at my shoes, but there was nothing. “Not your shoes. Your waist.”

  I tried to peek over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see anything. Kate whirled me around and squeaked. She tugged at my waistband and held up a four-foot-long piece of toilet paper in her hand.

  I glanced over at Max, and he smirked again, not even breaking eye contact with me when one of his friends gave him a “good job” punch on the shoulder. I turned my back on him and everyone else who was laughing at me and stared at the accordion wall past Kate’s shoulder, the one that separated the gym from the chapel, wishing I could slip past it into the quiet beyond.

  “Why did he do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Because he’s Max,” she growled, her fists balled.

  “But I thought—” And my throat closed up, crowding in around the sob that would have come out next.

  Kate had gotten permission from one of the chaperones for us to sit in the Primary room until the dance was over while she tried to cheer me up with a game of hangman on the chalkboard in which every answer was an insult about Max. I’d seen him when we’d joined the flow of people out to the parking lot, and it had made my stomach hurt. I’d never spoken to him again, and his dad had been released a few months later.

  And now here I was, sitting on the bank of the Mississippi with the perpetrator whose prank had led to the boys in my ward making toilet-paper jokes about me until I’d graduated high school. Where other guys might call girls angels, they called me Angel Soft. Among other things.

  Max’s brow was furrowed, and I smiled at him. “If this was five years ago, I might be tempted to push you into the river,” I said.

  “I should probably throw myself in. I deserve it.”

  “Maybe back then you did. I’ve been over it for a few years, so we can move on.”

  “Could I explain something, and then we’ll drop it forever?”

  Mom’s training to always be gracious asserted itself, and I smiled again. “Sure, explain.”

  “I thought you were being mean to my friend, and I decided to teach you a lesson.” He winced. “I was such an idiot. I wanted to impress my buddies because I was starting to fit in with them, and I wanted their approval. As soon as I saw your face when you found the toilet paper, I wanted to rewind time and not do it.”

  “It’s okay, Max. Like I said, I watch stuff like this play out between high school kids all the time. That’s what it was—high school. Don’t feel bad.”

  He turned and sat cross-legged so he was facing me. “You’re kind of great.”

  I held out my arms for a hug. “Come on, then. Squeeze the Charmin.”

  He groaned and collapsed back on the grass. “I take it back. You’re the worst.”

  I broke up laughing. “Well, worst or not, I’m your ride to church, so we better get on the road if we want to get there on time.”

  “Will you sit with me?” he asked, sitting up again.

  “The ward will have us engaged by the end of sacrament meeting, and by the time I get home, my mom will have had five phone calls asking her when the wedding is.”

  “Is that so bad?” he asked. “To have people get all crazy with their speculation?”

  I forced a smile, a “haha that’s a funny joke you told” smile, and climbed to my feet, offering a hand to pull him up. “I try never to be the ward news,” I said.

  “Chicken. Let’s go back and not face the music.”

  It was a slightly awkward moment, and I worried it would mean a long, awkward ride back to Baton Rouge, but it didn’t. He made it fun, testing me on my Louisiana history and making up facts of his own.

  I gave him a real one to counter his nonsense. “Here’s an interesting fact: there are only a hundred cities in the whole state with populations greater than five thousand.”

  “So you’re saying there are a lot of small towns to make up stories about?”

  “I didn’t think that’s what I was saying, but now that you mention it, yes, I guess that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Cool. Whoever makes up the best story about each town we drive through wins.” He pointed to a sign for Morganza. “Have I ever told the story of how good ole Morganza got started?”

  We laughed the whole way back. My side hurt by the time I pulled up to his apartment complex. We still had thirty minutes to spare before church, so that meant plenty of time for him to get his car and drive himself over. “Lila Mae,” he said, when the car was in park. “Thank you for the best Sunday morning I’ve ever had. I’ll see you at church?”

  “See you at church.”

  When he climbed out of my car, it was the first I’d ever noticed that such a small car could feel empty with only me inside it.

  Chapter 15

  Max didn’t come for Sunday-night supper because he’d gotten an invitation to eat with some of his parents’ old friends from their mission days. I tried not to be freaked out that it already felt odd for him not to be at our dinner table after church. It helped that Mom had invited the Lewises. Brother Lewis had deep, tired lines etched around his eyes and mouth. He was probably only a little older than my mom, maybe in his early fifties, but he looked as if he’d lived a lot harder in the handful of extra years that separated them. I guessed it was the difference between losing your spouse in an instant, like the way Daddy went out, versus nursing your spouse through a long, brutal illness.

  I wanted to hug Brother Lewis and tell him it would be okay, but how would I know? I hadn’t lost anyone the long way. And if my grief had taught me anything, it was that “It will be okay” was the wrong thing to say. Grieving people only resent hearing it. It would never be okay. It would only be something you learned to live with.

  So over dishes, which Brother Lewis insisted on helping with, saying his wife would be ashamed of him if he didn’t, I put an arm around his shoulders and gave him a light squeeze before picking up the rag to dry with. “I’m sorry it hurts so much. Would you tell me about Debbie? I knew her a little bit, but I’d like to know more.”

  Brother Lewis swallowed, and a small smile crept over his face. “Sure. Debbie was great. She ran a tight ship.” And I listened while he told me all about her. Bridger was out in the work shed with Mom, who had invited him out to show him some of the birdhouses Daddy had made over the years. He’d gone from simple lines in the early birdhouses to some so beautiful and complicated that no bird could have figured out how to actually get inside one of them.

  The Lewis’s company made it easier to get over the fact that Max hadn’t called or texted. Maybe he thought it was overkill after spending the whole morning together or something.

  Monday he redeemed himself when I checked my phone between classes and found a text from him. Much rather be driving to Natchez. He’d followed that with a bomb emoji.

  So work is going that well?

  He answered with three more bombs, which made me laugh, and I started third period with an extra burst of energy. By bedtime I hadn’t heard from him again, and I screenshot his morning text and sent it to Kate with a demand to explain what it meant.

  He had a bad a.m. at work.

  I rolled my eyes at her answer. Thanks, Sherlock. I meant abt Natchez part.r />
  Long pause, then, That Natchez is better than his work?

  I growled in frustration and called her. “I meant that he didn’t say he wanted to be driving to Natchez with me, just that he wanted to drive to Natchez instead of work,” I said when she answered. “What am I supposed to think about that?”

  “I know what I think, which is that you have it for him so bad,” she said, satisfaction oozing through the phone.

  “I don’t. He confuses me, that’s all.”

  “Nope. You’re analyzing his word choice in texts. Admit you’re smitten, and go with it.”

  “I can’t talk to you,” I said and hung up the phone.

  It lit up twenty seconds later with a text from her. Hahaha. Love you.

  I flopped back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Was she right? I’d been trained as a historian. I should know exactly how to look at the facts of a situation and understand what they pointed to.

  Fact: A morning without a text from Max felt like my old early-morning seminary days. A morning with a text from Max felt like the last school bell before Christmas break.

  Fact: A round-trip to Natchez with him had made me laugh harder than a week of Fallon episodes.

  I texted Kate again. He feels like a cold Dr. Pepper in July.

  Her answer was lightning fast. You’re toast.

  I pulled my pillow over my head and screamed. I totally was. Now to figure out how not to be the burnt kind.

  * * *

  When a wadded-up paper ball went flying across my classroom the next morning, I knew I had to snap out of it. I had a pretty good handle on my classes, but they were still kids who took a mile for every inch they were given, and my distractedness had given them a few inches today.

  Max did not help when he texted me during my lunch break. Do you want to grab some dinner tonight?

  YES. But I stayed strong. Can’t, sorry. Have to do a massive classroom makeover plus grading. Will be here forever.

  Got it. Raincheck?

  Definitely.

  As much as I hated saying no, it was for the best. Next time I saw him, I needed to know what I wanted from him. It was time to make some big decisions.

  By dinner time, I was wondering if anyone ever outgrew their need for their mamas. As I stood on a table in the back of my classroom with a giant piece of butcher paper trying to attack me, I decided that I most likely never would because all I wanted to do at the moment was whip out my phone and beg her to come help me—help me with my bulletin board, help me with Max, help me with dinner.

  The classroom door opened, and I heard a chuckle that was both too soft and too deep to come from any of my students. Something thumped down on a desk, and footsteps came to my rescue.

  “Hey.”

  I recognized Max’s voice, but the paper trying to eat my head blocked my view of him. “Max?”

  “Tell me how to help.”

  “Could you climb up here and hold this paper up so I can staple it?”

  The table jostled as he stepped onto it, and a few seconds later, he was smiling at me as he lifted the mutant butcher paper and pressed it to the wall.

  I whacked it with the stapler.

  “Way to show it who’s boss.”

  “Small but mighty.” I flexed a bicep. “Also, it’s therapeutic. Try it.”

  He took the stapler and tacked his corner up with a grunt. “Yeah, I can see the therapy thing. Feels pretty good to do this a few dozen times, I bet.”

  I pounded a completely unnecessary staple right into the middle of the newly covered wall. Max hopped down and held up his hands to help me down too. I could have climbed down easily, but I let him swing me down, his hands on my waist guiding me to land directly in front of him. “Thank you.”

  “Sure.” He didn’t move his hands. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” A slow grin overtook him. “You should probably let me go before I get the wrong idea,” he said.

  I gave a pointed look at his hands on either side of my waist.

  “Right,” he said, still not moving. “Hey.”

  I rose to my tiptoes and pressed a kiss against his mouth, a teasing brush against his lips, before I stepped out of his grasp and headed toward my desk at the other end of room. “What are you doing here so late? What are you doing here at all? And how did you find my classroom?”

  He walked to the second desk from the door where he’d set down a duffel bag. “I decided it was my turn to do a picnic. The food is in here, which is not my gym bag, and you shouldn’t be afraid to eat anything that comes out of it.” He pulled out white paper bags with Raisin’ Canes, my favorite chicken chain, printed on the side. “Also, finding your class was easy. The baseball team was coming off the field from practice, so I asked where your room was, and about five of them told me.”

  I groaned. “They’re going to bust my chops tomorrow.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “Why?”

  “You forget you’re in a high school.”

  “Oh, right, the ‘Miss Guidry has a boyfriend’ thing.” He sounded unconcerned as he worked on arranging our dinners.

  But the word boyfriend embarrassed me, and I rushed to cover it up. “That’s if I’m lucky. I mean, I’m not saying I’m lucky because you’re my boyfriend.” Oh, help. “And I’m not saying you’re my boyfriend. I mean I’m lucky if that’s all they say. Probably they’ll be worse because they’ll think it’s funny.”

  Max had paused about halfway through that barrage to stare at me. “They might be right.”

  “Oh, kill me now. It’s not going to bother you if I eat under my desk and don’t make eye contact, right?”

  He walked over and kissed me so thoroughly my knees buckled and I plopped onto my desk. It didn’t break the kiss, and when he did straighten, he smiled at me. “Yes, I mind if you eat under there.”

  He guided me toward his picnic. I shouldn’t have been doing any of this until we talked, but there had been something about watching Mom last night, her eyes twinkling as she’d talked to Bridger and Brother Lewis, about hearing her laugh a couple of times out on the deck as she and Bridger had fussed with the birdhouses. Life had stirred in her voice the same way life had begun to peek out in the yard, where buds were forming on azalea bushes, ready to break into a riot of color in a few short weeks. That feeling of life about to happen laced every molecule of the air between Max and me, and it had since Leonard’s.

  He made a table of two student desks, and each seat had a warm Styrofoam takeout box, thirty-two ounces of blessed caffeine, and a stack of napkins.

  “Go ahead,” he said, opening his own box and letting the smell of garlic and fried chicken fill the air. I opened my own and gave a happy gasp. “Texas toast and extra dipping sauce!”

  “Of course extra sauce. Isn’t the sauce the point of the chicken?”

  I’d already dug in, so I only nodded. When I’d finished half of my tenders, I sat back to rest. “Is it possible that food you eat with your hands tastes better than fork food?”

  “No, because you can’t eat gumbo with your hands, so it can’t be a fact.”

  “Good point.”

  “Ready for round two?” He reached into the duffel bag he’d set on the next desk and pulled out another to-go box. “I’ve eaten here before. I never underestimate how much I’m going to want.”

  It made me laugh, but that quickly changed to grabby hands when I realized he’d also brought more Texas toast. We talked about high school sports (he’d played soccer; I’d been more into theater) and whether we would go back if we could (not for any amount of money). When the food was finally gone, he jerked his head toward the bulletin board. “So have you been working on the walls all afternoon?”

  I shook my head. “I had a batch of essays to work through. I’ve only been working on the wall for an hour, so I have a while to go.”

  “What’s the bulletin board going to be?”

  “I’m about to launch spring projects with my junio
rs. They’re a massive deal, and I want to kick it off in style, get them excited about it.”

  “So we’re going to do an epic bulletin board?”

  I liked that he made it sound like spending hours on a bulletin board was totally reasonable. I loved that he used we. “If you want to jump on this crazy train, then yes, that’s what we’re going to do.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “Tell me the plan.” I explained my vision for a giant smart phone screen where every app would correlate to a concept, event, or historic figure we’d be learning about, and his eyes grew wider. “I’m seriously impressed,” he said. “I should have guessed after all your ideas for the YSA conference that you’re insanely creative.”

  I leaned forward and plucked at the front of his shirt to pull him toward me. When our lips were nearly touching, I leaned the tiniest bit more until I could whisper in his ear, “Pinterest.”

  He planted a kiss on me.

  “I can’t think when you do that.”

  He kissed me again. “Then no more until this board is done.”

  I jumped up. “What are we waiting for?”

  An hour and a half later, I was massaging a crick out of my neck and Max was rubbing his lower back, but we were doing it in front of an awesome cell phone full of apps the kids would be dying to explore, and I was fine with the pain for the payoff.

  I pointed to a seat near our abandoned picnic setup. “That belongs to Kiana in first period. She keeps me up at night. But she’s got an idea for her project that she can’t let go of, and that’s a beautiful thing to see. Maybe this board will spark a few more of those.”

  “What’s her project about?”

  “The first female millionaire in the US, who happened to be from Louisiana and who also happened to be black, which Kiana is.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yes, Kiana is totally black.”

  “Ha ha,” he said, nudging me with his foot. “I meant about the first female millionaire. How did she make her money?”

  “Beauty supplies for other black women. Hair pomades especially. But the cool part is that she also focused on trying to make each of the women who sold her products successful too.”