“Depends on the lottery, sir.”
“Right. The lottery.”
The deadline for transfer submissions was three o’clock. At three, the administrators at both districts would have the enrollment process underway. A lottery would determine which of the transfer students got in and which would have to transfer elsewhere, since there were more transfer requests than spots available in the Crystal Ridge District.
“What’s with the box?” Mr. Kelly asked, bending his head to the side so he could get a better look at Anaya’s bag. “And the rolls of…tinfoil?”
“My sister’s making a time machine,” Darius answered, in a sort of mocking, amused tone that made her want to slug him.
She didn’t feel free to do it in front of Mr. Kelly or Jan McCormick.
Mr. Kelly’s eyes twinkled. “A time machine?”
“It’s an idea I came across earlier this year. A fun way to teach history. I thought I’d give it a try.” When she first read about it, she’d been struck by its brilliance and had fun imagining the way her students’ eyes would light up when she revealed it. Of course, she imagined kids like Abeo and Cynthia’s grandson Tavian, who sometimes accompanied Cynthia to Auntie Trill’s and always had a knock-knock joke to share.
The phone rang in the front office.
Jan McCormick excused herself, then bustled inside to answer it.
Darius picked up the box, and he and Anaya followed Mr. Kelly down the hallway. Their shoes squeaked against the shiny linoleum. The air was cool and smelled like Pine-Sol.
“You’ll be happy to know our PTA has a new-teacher fund.”
“A new-teacher fund?”
“To offset the cost of setting up a classroom. It’s quite generous, if I do say so myself. Jan will be happy to explain how it works. Your room is here in the north hallway. Reach the T, turn left. First door on your right.” Mr. Kelly stopped.
And Anaya stepped inside…her very own classroom. Large and mostly empty except for a computer station and twenty new desks, polished and pushed to one corner. There were two large bulletin boards on one wall, an interactive whiteboard on another. Two rows of cubbies, empty and as clean as everything else. An entire row of windows, where plenty of natural light streamed inside, and an exit door in the back that led out to one of three playgrounds.
“What do you think?”
In a little less than a week and a half, this classroom would be filled with twenty second grade students. She desperately hoped at least some of them would be South Fork transfers. Kids at South Fork deserved a room like this. They deserved a time machine too. Anaya would give it to them, and more. With the help of the PTA’s new-teacher fund, she would make this classroom the coolest classroom in the whole state of Missouri. “It’s perfect.”
“I should have your class list ready on Monday.”
Darius set the refrigerator box inside.
Mr. Kelly slid his hands in his pockets. “I know it’s been a crazy start to the year, but I think it’s gonna be a great one.”
Nineteen
“Why you eatin’ like a bird?” Granny’s voice dripped with disapproval.
The coverage of the controversial town meeting last month? The anger it stirred up in the residents of South Fork? Granny didn’t get too riled about those things. She said it was the same old stuff; nothing new under the sun. But the minute someone didn’t take seconds of her cooking? Watch out.
Mama scooped up a forkful and took a bite. Anaya wondered if she tasted it at all.
Today was Friday.
Parents were told they could expect a phone call from an administrator on Friday.
The wait was making Mama crazy.
Uncle Jemar wiped his mouth with a napkin and leaned back with a groan. He’d eaten two full plates. Since Daddy died, Granny had taken to feeding Uncle Jemar twice as much. As he set his hands over his belly, Anaya thought it was starting to show. “Ain’t nobody make biscuits and gravy like you, Granny. But don’t you tell Estelle I said so.”
“I’ll send you home with leftovers.”
He shook his round, bald head. “And let my wife know I’ve been cheating?”
Mama’s phone rang.
Granny didn’t allow phones at the dinner table, so Mama practically hurdled the table and the chairs in an attempt to snag it off the counter. When she got ahold of it, she frowned at the screen and sent the call to voice mail.
“Girl, you trippin’,” Uncle Jemar said.
Mama raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
“Wanting to send my nephew to that school after such a shameful meeting. I tell you what I’m gonna send there. I’m gonna send my foot. They all talking about how this ain’t nothing to do with race. Yeah, okay. And Neil Armstrong really walked on the moon.”
Darius coughed and caught Anaya’s eye.
“You two go on and laugh. It don’t matter. I seen the evidence. There ain’t no way that boy walked on the moon. Look at the shadows if you don’t believe me. Watch the footage in slow motion. They got the whole world fooled.”
Uncle Jemar was a conspiracy theorist, and this was one of his favorites. The problem was, whenever he got talking about them, it made it easy to dismiss anything else he had to say.
“Jeremiah be rolling over in his grave, seeing his son at that school.”
“You hush now.” Mama wagged a paper towel at him, her expression cross. It was the same thing Auntie Trill kept saying, and Mama didn’t like hearing it from her brother-in-law any more than she liked hearing it from her best friend.
A lot of South Fork parents reconsidered after the public meeting that went viral. Between that and the superintendent making such a hard sell to get parents to stay, a good percentage had changed their minds.
Not Mama.
According to Mama, Dr. Robert Joiner was all wind and no follow-through. She said his promises were too little too late. Anaya had been relieved, no matter what Daddy was or wasn’t doing in his grave.
Mama’s phone rang again.
This time she didn’t send the call to voice mail. She flapped her arms in the air to quiet Uncle Jemar, who was still going on about Neil Armstrong and the moon, and pressed the phone against her ear, answering with a breathless hello.
She nodded. “Yes…I understand…Thank you.”
Anaya couldn’t read Mama’s expression.
Until she put the phone back down and looked up at Darius with a smile brighter than the sun. “My baby’s going to the best high school in the whole state of Missouri.”
* * *
After dinner, Mama went to work, and Anaya ended up here—at the courts. Two of them were squeezed between First Immanuel and the youth center, and every Friday evening Marcus was there, doing what he could to keep the boys of South Fork safely occupied on a night that gave itself too eagerly to trouble. He dribbled at the top of the key, passing the ball smoothly back and forth from palm to palm—a sight that dredged up bittersweet memories that were better left undredged.
It was the summer before Daddy died. The youth center’s very first three-on-three basketball tournament. The day Anaya laid eyes on the finest man she’d ever seen—with rich caramel skin and beautiful eyes and a swagger that said he knew what the ladies were thinking.
He talked a big game, but he played an even bigger one. Every girl at the tournament noticed him.
“Ain’t he fine?” ReShawn said, nudging Anaya’s shoulder with her own.
“Who?”
“Who? Girl, you know who. You been staring at that boy for a minute.”
Anaya jutted her chin and looked away.
Stubborn.
He swished a three and held his cocked wrist in the air, catching her eye across the court as he did.
“He’s the reverend’s nephew.”
Anaya raised her eyebrows. “
For real?”
“Mm-hmm. Rev says his nephew wants to follow in his footsteps.”
“He wants to be a preacher?”
“Rumor has it he’s fixing to take over at the youth center.”
When it was Anaya’s turn to play, she felt his eyes on her the whole time. It made her hyperaware, so much so that she may have shown off a little. When the game ended, he sauntered over. She was standing on the sideline swigging water with her teammates—Latrell and Darnell, brothers who grew up next door and sandwiched Anaya in age.
Apparently, mister preacher boy already knew them.
They gave each other some dap and came together in back-thumping hugs. When it was over, Marcus acknowledged her with a “sup” nod, followed by a quick but not so subtle up-and-down look that made her wish she wasn’t sweating in a pair of basketball shorts.
“Anaya, this is my boy, Marcus,” said Latrell, the older of the two brothers. “Marcus, this is my homegirl, Anaya.”
She gave Marcus a nod of her own, trying to play it cool.
“You play college ball?” he asked.
“Does it look like I play college ball?” Anaya motioned to her vertically challenged height.
“You move like you do.”
“Nah,” she said, thankful she was too brown to blush.
“Anaya runs,” Darnell said. “She aight.”
“Aight?” She gave Darnell a friendly shove. “Fool, I run laps around your sorry butt.”
“Pshh, girl. Please.”
But it was true. When they were in high school, she used to smoke him in the mile.
Marcus looked impressed, and as the conversation unfolded, she observed that he was shyer—quieter—than he first appeared and had the adorable habit of nibbling on his left thumbnail. Her team ended up playing his in the championship game. He smelled way too good for a boy who’d been playing basketball all day. A shock of electricity hit her every time their bodies touched, which was a lot given the fact that they were guarding each other. She wondered if he felt it too. If chemistry like that could be one-sided.
Her question was answered when he asked if he could walk her home. He didn’t hold her hand, but he may as well have with how often their knuckles brushed. Each time, the electric shock hit her just as it had on the court.
That was three years ago.
Anaya shook her head.
Auntie Trill was right. The gossip running around town was justified. She was spending more time than usual at the youth center these days. And over the past few months, Marcus was attempting to dip their toes back into friendship. Anaya wondered why. Did he really want to be friends—and only friends—or was he fishing for something more? Was it even possible for them to be friends?
One thing was certain. He wasn’t going to wait around forever. Pretty soon, one of the girls vying for his attention would actually snag it, and Anaya would be forced to watch the romance unfold.
As if sensing her thoughts, Marcus picked up his dribble. Their eyes met and held. He straightened from his crouched position and gave her that same nod he had all those years ago—only it wasn’t cocky so much as curious. He was always waiting for her reaction. This was how he treated her now. Like a startled fawn, and one wrong move would have her darting back into the safety of the forest.
Anaya nodded back, thankful again that her dark tone covered the heat pooling in her cheeks. Despite herself, she still loved him. She was too weak not to.
Twenty
The egg cracked against the counter and slid from the shell, hitting the hot frying pan with a loud hissing sizzle. While the water warmed in the teakettle, Camille’s breakfast crackled and popped against melted butter, reminding her of that 1980s commercial.
“This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”
Yes, actually.
But not about drugs.
Her questions were for Neil. Namely, how could he?
It was the first Saturday without her children, and every sound magnified the emptiness of her cavernous home. Yesterday, she packed them each a suitcase, and they left to their father’s new apartment in the city. He had an apartment now. Neil—her husband—had an apartment.
The unfolding nightmare that had become her life continued to march onward. Over the past couple of weeks, Neil had been asking to take the children for a weekend. Camille wanted to scream. To tell him tough luck. He didn’t get to have their children for the weekend. This was not going to be their life. But the kids missed their dad, and as angry as she was at Neil, she refused to make this any harder on them. She had to be the bigger person. She had to be the woman in the Bible, the one King Solomon praised because she let her baby go. She loved her baby too much to see the child torn in two.
The egg continued frying in the pan, browning at the edges.
“This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs.”
Rebecca talked about drugs at the town meeting. She’d been castigated by the media for it as harshly as Camille had been castigated. So much so that the two women found a brief, close-knit camaraderie in the aftermath. It gave them something to bond over. For the first time since the inception of the 5K and all the planning that had happened between the first run until now, they got together for coffee—just the two of them. And for one passionate hour, they vented their frustrations over being so unfairly portrayed.
“I’m not an idiot,” Rebecca had huffed. “I’m well aware that there are drugs in Crystal Ridge already.”
“Of course you are,” Camille consoled.
“I only meant that there will be more if these kids come. Do you know how many of them have been brought in for drug possession? And we’re not talking about a small bag of weed, either.”
For some reason, Camille thought it sounded strange. Hearing pregnant Rebecca say the word weed.
When their outrage was spent, the conversation fizzled. They grappled for a topic to fill the space—kids, mostly—but Rebecca’s children were very into Cub Scouts and 4-H and Camille’s were currently distraught. Neil had been the elephant in the room, sitting between them as they sipped their coffee. But Camille refused to address it. So they stumbled along awkwardly for another half hour before calling it a day.
She and Rebecca hadn’t gone for coffee since.
Camille scooped the egg onto a plate, then stared at it with contempt. Neil preferred his sunny-side up with extra pepper. How many eggs had she made for him through the years? And now what? He left like none of them mattered. Like she was as easy to discard as the twenty pounds of weight he’d been carrying around his middle.
She dumped the egg in the trash compactor and walked to her bedroom. Everyone was talking about her. She could feel the way people stared whenever she went out in public.
This was another thing that infuriated her.
Neil was turning her into an agoraphobe. Camille had never—not once in her life—been the least bit hesitant to get out of the house. But now? She’d found an excuse every Sunday to avoid church. She couldn’t bring herself to go to the last 5K meeting. The only reason she’d picked the splash pad for Paige’s playdate instead of inviting Jen and Jubilee to the country club to swim was for the strict purpose of avoiding as many people she might know as possible.
It hadn’t worked.
Laura Ransom was there, with her two towheaded toddlers. Camille hated the extra note of kindness that had been in Laura’s wave. Neil had made her into an object of pity.
Poor Camille.
Did you hear her husband left her?
The whispers followed her everywhere she went, even now. She shuffled into the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. No wonder everyone was concerned. Her cheeks had turned gaunt, and the thinness was not becoming. It accentuated her age.
She ran her hands down her hair, thick and blond and naturally wavy. While most men
fixated on the more obvious female anatomy, it had been Camille’s hair that turned Neil on. When they first started dating, he called it her crown of glory.
She never cut it.
She had it trimmed of course, but never more than that. For the past twenty-six years, she kept it the same long length—halfway down her back.
All for him.
Her upper lip began to curl in the mirror’s reflection. Her left eye twitched. A wild, untamed thing bucked and kicked inside her, like a bull in a chute. It needed to get out. It needed to do something.
Camille grabbed a pair of scissors sitting on the vanity and let the beast have its way. She hacked at her hair, letting it fall in long clumps against the tiled floor. She cut it all off in a fit of rage that did not stop until the teakettle had long been whistling.
* * *
Camille’s short hair, which was styled in a sleek bob barely long enough to tuck behind her ears, came as a giant shock. When Neil dropped the kids off yesterday afternoon, he stared—his mouth agape—until Camille barked at him to stop.
She gave it intermittent pats as she drove with the windows down and Paige chattered in the backseat. She was going on about all the things she had done with her father over the weekend. Board games. Mini golf. The zoo. Swimming. Dinner at a hibachi grill. Apparently, he’d gone and squeezed every fun summer activity into the span of two days.
Camille kept her face appropriately schooled, pretending to relish Paige’s words when each one felt like a whip against raw skin.
“I can’t believe it’s you, Mom. I keep thinking you’re somebody else.”
“It’s really me.” As though to prove it, she patted her hair again.
On Saturday, after her sanity returned and panic set in, Camille did her best to even her hair out, swept the shorn locks into the garbage, then drove forty-five minutes to Saint Charles all so she could go to a salon where nobody would know her.
Thankfully, no one did.
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