by Kira Blakely
“What do you think?” Clarissa asked.
“I think I’m done talking about private shit.”
“Private? What does that mean? Have things gotten serious between you two?”
I grunted and rolled my eyes. It was like talking to a brick wall. She was stubborn, and that was probably where I’d gotten it. Definitely not from my loser dad who’d quit the minute the going had gotten tough. Walked out on us because he’d found greener pastures.
“Well, I’m going to invite her for dinner. I think it would be an awesome evening, and that you and she would have a great time together. Talking about… stuff.”
“Stuff?” I arched an eyebrow at her. “What stuff?”
“Oh, just—I don’t know. I’m jabbering. Want some coffee?” She rose from her armchair and puffed her chestnut brown ‘do. “I ordered in one of those specialized coffee machines. You know, the ones that the real baristas use?”
“Sure,” I said.
Coffee was the last thing on my mind.
Mom drifted out of the room on a cloud of her intentions for me. She’d likely already planned an engagement party and a wedding. Before, that’d been nothing but a mild irritant, but now, it hit home, hard.
My phone buzzed, and I lifted it from the sofa, swiped to unlock the screen.
Sorry. I can’t make it today. I’ve been called in for another meeting at the school. We’ll have to reschedule for tomorrow.
Why not a dinner date? I wasn’t a day-date dude. Was this her attempt at forcing me into the friend zone? It was a little late for that shit.
Sure. I texted back. Noncommittal enough, even though I burned inside at the change of plans.
In fact, I wouldn’t stand for this shit. I had to see her today. I had to.
I’d wait until this evening and go over, talk to her about what’d happened, make her feel better. Show her that I meant business.
I dropped the phone beside me and checked my Facebook wall. Nothing of interest. No updates from anyone I cared about. Jase hadn’t posted in ages. He hadn’t spoken to me since the last call, and that didn’t help my temperament.
I’d fucked up, but losing my friend over it wasn’t an option.
Why did they call her in for a meeting? The thought popped into my head unbidden. Christ, what if that fuckhead’s there?
I opened the Daisy Oaks Facebook page and scrolled past pictures of happy kids playing and events announcements. One of the images, a picture of Charlie watching over the playground, had several angry dislikes.
I clicked on it and Charlie stole my mind again. Hair brushed to one side by a breeze, wearing that same blue summer dress I’d first seen her in—the one that’d had the toothpaste stain on it. Adorable.
Her hands folded in front of her, a smile dancing at the corners of lips and eyes.
“Coffee,” Mom said, merrily and scooted into the living room, carrying a tray herself.
I looked up. “Shit, Mom, I thought you were going to get Butler to do it.”
“Not necessary. I’m healthy as a horse, and for the last time, Houston, his name is Jeffrey not Butler.”
“Same difference,” I said.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked and sat down beside me. “Still the jobs—oh!” She spotted Charlie.
I would’ve been angry at her, but I was accustomed to this behavior from her. She wanted what was best for me; she just didn’t understand how to go about achieving that.
“She looks gorgeous,” she said and leaned in. “See, this is exactly what I was talking about. You two suit each other. She’s radiant, and you’re such a handsome man.”
She was radiant. She had been. Had I changed that for her by coming back?
Fuck, I hated overthinking shit. It wasn’t me. “Don’t worry about her or me, Mom. Just stay in your lane.”
My mother slapped my forearm. “We’ve always been on the same highway, Huey. Ever since you were a baby. Ever since, your father left.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about him, now. That’s great chat for a coffee break.”
“Fine, we don’t have to talk about him. But, Charlie—” She frowned and scooched closer. “What are all those unhappy faces for?”
I scanned the comments beside her image, and lead balls dropped in my gut.
This is the one. Melissa Jones. The name was a link to another profile.
Melissa Jones’s reply was directly beneath that comment. Oh, wow. That’s the teacher who’s fraternizing with parents? I can’t believe she’s still employed by them. This dated just two days ago.
My blood boiled all over again. What the fuck was wrong with the people in this town? Gossipy bastards.
Not for long. That reply was from Jenny Harrington herself. The bitch who’d gotten Charlie in trouble. I’m going to a meeting at the school this morning. Let’s just say that she won’t be a problem for much longer. Apparently, she’s on her final warning. That’d been left this morning.
I ground my teeth.
They planned on firing her. Jenny Harrington had come up with some method of ousting Charlie from the school.
This isn’t fucking happening. Not on my watch.
“Houston? What’s wrong?” Mom patted my arm. “Stop doing that with your teeth. I thought you broke that habit.”
Apparently not. It was one I’d taken up after my father had left. “Fuck,” I grunted.
Mom jerked back an inch. “Huey!”
“Fuck, these bastards. I fucking can’t—” I rose, and the laptop crashed to the ground.
“Houston!” Mom screeched.
I stomped around it, ignoring the whine from its fans. Bastards, bastards. I bumped the coffee table where mom had set down the coffees, and they tipped over and spilled. “Fuck!” I growled.
“Houston, you need to calm down. Whatever’s going on, you need to calm down. You know what Dr. Jenkins said about your anger. You got over this.”
“Dr. Jenkins was a quack,” I replied, but she was right.
If I didn’t, I’d do something I’d regret again. This wasn’t the end. This was fine. Fuck it, it was all OK. No, it wasn’t. I’d destroy someone for this.
Jenny and Greg. Them first.
No, the school. Why was she in a meeting with them?
“Houston.”
“I need the car,” I said and turned to her. “One of them. The Audi.”
“You’re too emotional to drive.”
“I’m not emotional,” I replied. “I’m fucking furious. They’re trying to screw Charlie. I’m going to her. The car.”
“Take it.” Mom’s horror faded, and her expression transformed to one of determination, similar to mine. “The car keys are on the peg in the kitchen.”
“Thanks.” I walked for the door, then paused and looked back at her. “I’ll be fine.”
She wrung her hands but didn’t try stopping me. She knew that once I decided on something, she couldn’t stop me from following through. It was just who I’d become. “Huey, please be careful. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
“It’s not what I’ll regret,” I replied. It was what they’d regret.
Those sons of bitches would regret messing with Charlie. They’d regret making her cry.
She’d done nothing but support that god damn school and this was how they repaid her. Suspicion and gossip and crap messages on Facebook.
I jogged out into the hall and blew past Butler, who hovered near the entrance to the parlor next door. He sniffed but didn’t say anything.
Ten minutes later, I was in the Audi, chauffer free, tearing down the street outside my mother’s mansion.
“I’m coming,” I grunted. “I’m coming, Charlie.”
Chapter 25
Charlie
I wrenched open my closet door and dug around inside it. I had about five minutes before I had to be at Daisy Oaks. I shouldn’t have time to dwell on this, but I did.
All the planning what I’d say to him, all the long talks with Pamm
y and the huge build-up to the moment had been for nothing. My fear had fizzled out and been replaced with disappointment.
I couldn’t tell him today.
“Shit,” I muttered and dragged a dress from its hanger. I hadn’t even changed out of my PJs yet. “Shit, shit, shit.” I hardly ever cussed, but today warranted it.
“What’s going on in there?” Pammy called down the hall. “Do you need help?”
“No,” I replied. “I’m OK.”
“We should’ve been there ten minutes ago.”
“Almost done!” I stripped as fast as possible, then tugged on my dress. What a mess. What an absolute mess.
Do I even want to know why Henrietta’s calling me back?
She said I was on my last warning. That if I set out a foot out of line that’d be it for me, but I hadn’t. I hadn’t set any foot out of line. I hadn’t done a single thing wrong. Had I?
No. There had been no confrontations with Jenny—I’d avoided her like the plague—and no contact with Greg whatsoever, thank goodness. I hadn’t even reported him to the cops, despite Houston’s urging to do just that.
Nothing. I’d done nothing.
I checked my reflection in the mirror and grimaced. Hair still a mess, but it would have to do.
I rushed out, and Pammy looped her arm through mine and guided me toward the beetle.
“What do you think it’s about?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. This is really weird and really short notice, too.” I got in the car and pressed my hands to my stomach. This was my permanent position, of late—hands pressed to my stomach, holding back a tide of nerves and nausea.
Pammy started the car and we rattled down the road. Each revolution of the tires brought us closer to Daisy Oaks, and my anxiety skyrocketed.
This isn’t right. Whatever this is, it isn’t right.
“Hey, relax,” Pammy said and cast a sideways glance my way. “It’s going to be all right. There’s nothing they can do to you, Charlie. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Under normal circumstances, that might’ve placated me, but these weren’t normal circumstances.
Summit Springs was cloistered and full of cliques. I wasn’t part of them. I was the help and an outsider, and that meant I was expendable.
It was easy to see why Houston hated Summit Springs, now. I finally understood.
We pulled up outside the kindergarten, and I chewed my bottom lip.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Pammy asked.
“No, I’m fine, Mom,” I replied and tried for a giggle. It came out as a wheeze instead.
“Aw, sweetie, I know you’re responsible and independent, but I figure you could use the support right now.” Pammy squeezed my knee.
“I’ll be fine.” I opened the car door and stepped out into the parking lot, still teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I wasn’t fine, but I’d have to be. I’d have to handle whatever they threw at me.
I bumped the car door shut with my hip, then walked to the front entrance. Another slam and Pammy rushed up beside me. “I’m coming with you, anyway. I want to see Henrietta’s face. I want to get a good read on her.”
“You don’t—”
“Henrietta and I go way back, Charlie. When we were pals, she was a good person. She’d never have victimized someone or taken sides. She was fair.”
I couldn’t fathom a younger version of Henrietta roaming the halls of Daisy Oaks. I couldn’t envision her in anything but a pantsuit and a tight bun, pulled back so far the hair at her temples tugged her skin taut.
“All right,” I said and opened the front door of the school. I stepped into its hallowed entryway, with the mural of a daisy flowering beneath an oak tree on the wall, that same ticking clock above it, and steeled myself.
Have some balls! You’ve got this. It’s probably not as bad as you think.
Outside the glass double doors opposite, the kids had already arrived for their holiday program. They played and laughed, and something deep inside me panged. I’d have my own child soon.
My own little boy—it had to be a boy, it felt like it—who’d play on the monkey bars and practice writing his name out. Not at this school, no. We wouldn’t be able to afford Daisy Oaks.
“Where is she?” Pammy asked.
As if on cue, the door to Principal Henrietta’s office creaked open and the woman herself stepped out. She’d chosen a beige pantsuit for today, and her expression was equally uninspired. She looked past me to Pammy, and a flicker of confusion replaced the severe stare.
“Pamela,” she said, stiffly. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Just accompanying Charlie,” my aunt replied, breezily.
“This is a professional meeting, Pamela. I’m afraid Charlie needs to be in here with me, alone.”
“I see,” Pammy said and looked around. “Then I’ll wait out here.” She pointed to the plastic chair right outside Henrietta’s office door. “If that’s OK with you. I might want to talk to you after the meeting.”
“No, that’s not OK. Only official personnel on school grounds, I’m afraid.” Henrietta clasped her hands together in front of her abdomen. “I trust you’ll see yourself out.”
Pammy tut-tutted but didn’t argue back. She was fiery, but she was no Houston Pope. He’d probably have forced Henrietta to let him stay by his presence alone.
“I’ll be right outside, hon,” Pammy said and patted my shoulder. “Call me if you need anything.” She ambled toward the door then let herself out. It clacked closed behind her.
Ugh, it felt so final. That slam of noise.
“My office, Miss Stinson,” Henrietta said and gestured to door, slightly ajar. She spun and entered, and I followed behind her.
Once again, Jenny had beaten me to the punch. She sat in the seat across from Principal Henrietta’s rosewood desk, a smile plastered on her lips. This week, her hair was a vicious, platinum blond, and she’d permed it.
It was a miracle the woman’s hair hadn’t fallen out. Or maybe it had, and all these different styles were a variety of wigs.
The image of a bald Jenny brought a tiny smile to my lips. One that was utterly inappropriate given the situation.
“Take a seat, Miss Stinson.” Henrietta shut the door and walked to her desk. She lowered herself into that fantastic principal’s chair and waited.
I exhaled. Jenny happy meant me sad.
This is it, isn’t it? She’s found something to use against me. Something else.
I walked to the desk, and this time, it truly was as if a long plank had been laid out before me, and at the end of it, I’d dive off into the deep blue, never to be heard from again. Jenny was the shark circling. She’d smelled blood in the water.
But what was the blood?
I settled myself in the chair and placed my hands in my lap. “Is everything all right?”
Jenny snorted. “What a ridiculous question.”
“Please, Jenny, let me handle this discussion,” Henrietta said and gave the mommy a stern expression—eyebrows drawn in right above that hooked nose, and she became a bird of prey.
Jenny shrugged. “Fine, but I just want to state for the record or whatever, that I saw this coming and I warned you.” She pointed at Henrietta. “I warned you several times about this woman, and you wouldn’t listen.”
Man, I loved it when people spoke about me like I wasn’t around. “I don’t understand what this is about,” I said. “What’s going on?”
Henrietta pinched the bridge of that hooked nose. “Charlotte, it’s come to our attention that you’re pregnant.”
My jaw dropped. The room hazed.
Out of everything I’d expected her to say, that was the last. Specks drifted in front of my eyes, and I sucked in gasp upon gasp. I swayed forward and Henrietta jerked out of her desk and rushed around to my side of it. She caught my shoulder and held me upright in my seat.
“Water,” she said, over my
head. “Get her a bottle of water from my fridge.”
“Why should we care for her?” Jenny asked, with a pout in her tone. “She got herself into this mess. She should be ashamed.”
“Now!” Henrietta snapped.
Movement, the click-clack of a fridge, the krrtz of a bottle top unscrewed. Water appeared in front of me, and I took it, glugged some of it back, still shaking. I shut my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been getting dizzy a lot lately. Dizzy and sick.”
“Yeah, that’s what happens when you’re pregnant. Go figure,” Jenny replied.
I didn’t dare look at her.
How the hell did they know? How the hell had they found out I was pregnant? And what business of it was theirs unless I was underperforming in my job? And how could I be if they’d given me off until the end of the holiday program? How could I have done anything wrong?
The thoughts screamed through my mind at a million miles a minute.
Henrietta shifted away from my side, and I opened my eyes.
She took her place on the other side of the desk and shifted a paper, placed it in front of her. “Charlie, the fact that you’re pregnant—”
“You can’t fire me for being pregnant,” I said, immediately. “It’s illegal, and I can take you to court for that.” The words held no weight the minute I said them. They were all true, but I couldn’t afford to take anyone to court.
“You’re absolutely right,” Henrietta said. “And I would never dream of terminating you on that basis. In fact, some of our longest-term teachers have had several children and had them educated at this very school. We love our mommies, whether they’re teachers or they’re regular parents who have other day jobs.”
“Then why are we talking about the fact that I’m pregnant?” I asked. “What difference does it make?”
“All the difference in the world,” Jenny replied. “My friend heard you talking about it in The Springs yesterday. About all your sordid affairs. We know what’s really going on.”
I blinked. How the hell did they know it was Houston? I’d been exceedingly careful not to mention his name in public. Nightmares made flesh. That’s what this is. The two of them here.