She saw a familiar face at one of the tables. The day before, her eyes would have passed right over the dark-haired young man without any real notice. Today she recognized Chase Hamilton right away.
The table where he sat was full, but at first glance Phyllis didn’t know any of the students, which meant they weren’t in any of her classes. She always tried not to judge, but most of them, boys and girls alike, had a rough look about them, she thought. She knew that wasn’t fair, but it was her impression.
Influenced, maybe, by what she had learned about Chase, she reminded herself.
“Hi, Phyllis.” The cheerful voice distracted her. She looked around and saw Amber Trahearne sitting at the faculty table. The attractive young math teacher motioned to the empty space beside her. Phyllis didn’t see any graceful way of refusing the invitation, and anyway, there was no reason to, other than the fact that Amber’s perky attitude sometimes could be a little too much.
Phyllis set her tray on the table and said, “Hello.”
“How are you doing today?”
“All right, I think.” Phyllis wasn’t, not really, but she wasn’t going to share that with Amber.
“And how was Sam this morning?”
“I’m surprised he didn’t tell you himself.”
“Oh, I haven’t seen him,” Amber said with a casual wave of her hand. “Busy, busy, busy. Me, not him, although I assume he is, too. I saw him eating lunch at his desk when I came down here. Looked like he had a pile of papers to grade.”
Phyllis hadn’t expected to see Sam in the cafeteria today, in fact, because she had packed that lunch for him. Amber’s assumption was right; Sam was trying not to fall behind on his grading.
“He seemed fine when I saw him,” Phyllis said.
“Is he looking forward to the dance next week?”
“I think so.”
“Frances told me you’re going to be providing some of the snacks,” Amber said. “I’m really looking forward to that. I’ve heard so much about what a great baker and cook you are.”
“From Sam, you mean?”
“Well, of course! He brags on you all the time. Which makes sense considering that the two of you live together.”
“Sam rents a room in my house,” Phyllis said, trying not to sound stiff about it but not sure she succeeded.
“Sure, that’s what I meant,” Amber said. Phyllis wasn’t sure she was being completely sincere, though. Maybe Amber was trying to find out just exactly what the relationship between Phyllis and Sam really was.
None of her business, that’s what it was, Phyllis thought.
A change of subject was in order here, she decided. She asked, “Do you have a boy named Chase Hamilton in any of your classes?”
Amber frowned a little and looked puzzled. “As a matter of fact, I don’t. All I teach are AP and Pre-AP level courses, and I’m not sure he’d be up to that. But he is in my home room, so I know who he is. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, it’s nothing important,” Phyllis replied with a shake of her head. “Sam’s granddaughter said something about knowing him, and I just wondered what sort of boy he was.”
“I couldn’t really say. The school year’s not that old, and I don’t see him all that often. Would you like me to ask some of his teachers about him?”
“Oh, no, not at all. Like I said, it’s not that important. I was just curious, that’s all. Since there’s the connection with Sam’s granddaughter.”
“And Sam rents a room in your house,” Amber said.
“That’s right.”
Before Phyllis could say anything else, she was distracted by the feeling that someone was watching her. She turned her head and looked across the cafeteria. Ray Brooks stood beside the far wall with his shoulders leaned against it and his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t exactly glaring in her direction, but he was certainly looking intently toward her.
Phyllis wasn’t the only one to notice. Amber leaned toward her and said quietly, “He’s kind of a creepy guy, isn’t he?”
“You mean Mr. Brooks?” Phyllis said, even though she wasn’t sure who else Amber might be talking about.
“Yeah. Look at him, scuttling away like a cockroach.”
It was true that the security guard had straightened up and was walking out of the cafeteria. He wasn’t scuttling, really, Phyllis thought, but he wasn’t wasting any time, either. And he had reacted right after Phyllis had noticed that he was staring at her. Maybe he was embarrassed at being caught. Or maybe he just didn’t want to provoke her into lodging a complaint about him with Principal Shula.
Another teacher came up then, sat down next to Amber, and began talking to her, so Phyllis was left to finish eating her lunch. Today she had crispy chicken tacos, baby carrots, and an apple with a glass of water.
A few minutes were still left in the lunch period when she saw Chase get up and leave the table where he had been sitting. He walked out of the cafeteria by himself.
Acting on a whim, and since she was finished anyway, Phyllis got up and followed him.
Chase walked past the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the library toward a side corridor that led left to a classroom wing and right to the gym. He didn’t so much as glance behind him, or he would have seen Phyllis, who figured she was at least fifty years too old to be skulking.
But she surprised herself by suddenly stepping behind a brick pillar when she spotted a flash of bright blue up ahead at the corner of the right-hand corridor. Ronnie was there. She said something to Chase, and then both of them disappeared around that corner.
Phyllis knew there were no classrooms along there, only a janitor’s closet and the double doors at the end of the hall leading into the gym. It wasn’t quite as private an alcove as the one where Ronnie and Chase had been the previous afternoon, but they could spend a few minutes there without much risk of being seen.
Phyllis started to turn away and head back to her classroom. If she tried again to interfere in Ronnie’s life, she stood a good chance of making the situation worse.
On the other hand, she would never forgive herself if something happened to Sam’s only grandchild and she could have prevented it somehow.
With that thought in her mind, she moved closer to the corner, being careful not to make too much noise as she walked.
When she could hear their voices, she slowed even more. In the past, she had been accused of meddling, of being a nosy busybody, and now she was about to add eavesdropping on a couple of teenagers to the list. Her concern for Ronnie overrode anything else, though, so she eased up to the corner, where she was out of sight but could hear what was going on.
“—got to cut this out, Ronnie,” Chase was saying.
“But why?” she demanded. “Why deny what’s going on between us?”
“Because there’s nothing going on!” Chase sounded frustrated, even a little exasperated. “Look, I know what you think happened up there at home, but you’re wrong.”
At least they weren’t making a drug deal, Phyllis thought, but she wasn’t sure she understood what they were talking about.
“But Chase, you wouldn’t have done what you did if you didn’t care about me,” Ronnie insisted.
If nothing else, this exchange confirmed that Ronnie and Chase had known each other in Pennsylvania.
“Sure I would have.” Chase’s voice hardened as he added, “I just felt sorry for you, that’s all.”
“You . . . felt sorry for me?”
Phyllis wanted to wince at the pain she heard in Ronnie’s words.
“That’s right. I mean . . . you’re a good kid. Why wouldn’t I want to give you a hand?”
“A kid,” Ronnie repeated, still sounding miserable. “That’s all I am to you? I’m a junior and you’re a senior—”
“Yeah, but you know there were two grades difference between us before. I just didn’t graduate, that’s all.”
“Two whole years,” Ronnie said bitterly. “Are you really trying to tel
l me that’s enough to matter?”
“That and the fact that I’m not your boyfriend. I never was.”
Evidently Ronnie had been telling the truth about her being the one to pursue him. Given what Phyllis was hearing now, she had no trouble believing that Ronnie was the one who had initiated the kiss the day before, when Ray Brooks had caught them. Chase hadn’t put a stop to it right away, but Phyllis supposed she couldn’t blame him for that. What young man would object too much to being kissed by a pretty girl?
“You’re horrible,” Ronnie said.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“I . . . I can’t believe that I thought you really cared about me.”
“I did care about you. Just not the way you convinced yourself I did. If I ever led you on, Ronnie, I’m sorry.”
“Go to hell,” she muttered.
Phyllis heard footsteps and turned to retreat toward the library. She reached the entrance and had one of the doors partially open by the time Ronnie hurried past behind her. Phyllis looked back over her shoulder and caught the girl’s eye as if she had just been going into the library. Ronnie slowed for a second and Phyllis said her name, but then Ronnie hurried on, saying, “I’ve got to get to class.”
So did Phyllis, but as she let the library door close without going in, she saw Chase come around the corner from the corridor where he had been talking to Ronnie.
If she was going to have a reputation as a meddler and a busybody, she might as well justify it, she told herself. She moved to intercept Chase, and when he stopped rather than run into her, she said, “Mr. Hamilton, I’d like to talk to you . . . in private.”
He frowned. “You’re not one of my teachers, Mrs. Newsom.”
“No, but Ronnie is the granddaughter of my best friend. That’s how I’m talking to you now, as Ronnie’s friend, rather than a teacher.”
He seemed to be thinking about it for a second, and then he drew in a deep breath and said, “Sure, I understand. Maybe it would be a good idea. Maybe you can talk some sense into the girl’s head!”
“Give me a good reason to, and I’ll try,” Phyllis promised. “Let’s go around the corner there, and you can tell me what’s really going on.”
Chapter 10
Phyllis checked the time as she and Chase stepped into the short hallway leading to the gym. She had only a few minutes before she would need to head back to her classroom, but what she was doing here might be important, too.
“How much has Ronnie told you about what happened up in Pennsylvania?” Chase asked.
“Not a lot,” Phyllis answered, deliberately being vague.
“She never said anything about the two of us going to the same school up there?”
Phyllis raised an eyebrow in feigned surprise. She couldn’t admit she already knew about that without telling Chase she’d been looking into his background, and she didn’t want to do that. If he knew, he might decide not to tell her anything.
“She made it sound just the opposite, in fact, as if she didn’t know you until she came down here.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not true. We weren’t close or anything, but we knew each other up there. We were in a couple of classes together. I never really paid much attention to her, though, until that business with Shelby Vance started.”
Now he was talking about something Phyllis actually knew nothing about. She hadn’t run across the name Shelby Vance when she was searching for information about Chase on the Internet.
So she was sincere when she asked, “Who’s Shelby Vance?”
“The most popular girl in school. And the head mean girl.”
Over the years of teaching junior high, Phyllis had seen plenty of “most popular” girls. The cheerleaders. The athletes. The rich girls. The ones who had developed physically earlier than their peers.
Unlike the stereotypes found so often in movies and TV shows, many of those girls were smart, sweet, and genuinely nice young people. Some weren’t, of course—enough so to give rise to that stereotype. According to what Chase was saying, Shelby Vance fit into that category.
“What’s the connection between this Vance girl and Ronnie?” Phyllis asked.
“None at first. I mean, they moved in completely different circles. But then Shelby noticed Ronnie one day, and she decided to have some fun.”
“But it wasn’t fun for Ronnie,” Phyllis guessed.
Chase shook his head. “You know how she is. She likes being an outsider, being different. It’s not just her hair, it’s her whole attitude, the way she considered herself apart from most of the people in school. And that comes across as looking down on them. It’s like a red flag to a girl like Shelby, who has to feel like she’s better than everybody else or her whole concept of herself collapses. She started making fun of Ronnie, and of course all her friends had to follow suit, and suddenly it was like Shelby was running this whole campaign of terror against Ronnie, not just at school but on social media and other places in town, wherever their paths happened to cross.”
“You’re saying Ronnie was bullied.”
“Yeah, big time.”
“I never heard anything about this. Did she tell her parents or any of her teachers?”
Chase scoffed and shook his head. “Ronnie’s not the type who runs to some authority figure for help. She tried to deal with it herself. She asked Shelby to leave her alone. Of course, that didn’t do a bit of good.”
“It might have even made things worse,” Phyllis mused.
“Yeah, maybe. Anyway, I kind of knew what was going on, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it. I mean, Ronnie didn’t run in my crowd or anything.”
Your crowd of drug dealers, Phyllis thought, but she kept that to herself since Chase seemed to be opening up to her.
“Then Jerry Plemmons and his buddies started harassing her.”
“Who?”
“Plemmons was Shelby Vance’s boyfriend,” Chase said. “If Shelby was the mean girl stereotype, then Plemmons was the dumb jock. Not really dumb, mind you, but he acted like it sometimes. And of course he did whatever Shelby told him to do. He and his friends started pushing Ronnie around. A couple of her guy friends tried to stand up for her, but they were, well . . .”
“Weirdos like her,” Phyllis guessed.
Chase grunted. “Yeah. I probably wouldn’t have thought of that word, but it’s a good one. They got beat up, and that was the last time anybody tried to defend Ronnie.”
“Until you got fed up with it and stepped in.” It was a guess on Phyllis’s part, but given everything she knew, where else could this story be leading?
“That’s right. I told Plemmons to back off and take his buddies with him, and he figured he’d whip me like he whipped those other guys.”
“I suppose it didn’t work out that way,” Phyllis said, shaking her head.
“Not quite. I didn’t hurt him enough to put him in the hospital, but he woke up sore and shaking for a week, I’ll bet.” Chase smiled a little, as if the memory was a fond one. “That was enough of a message for everybody else to decide it would be a good idea if they left Ronnie alone. It would have been fine with me if she had never heard about what happened—”
“But she did, and you were her hero,” Phyllis said. “Her knight in shining armor. She would never think of it in those terms, but that was the way she felt.”
“I guess. I wouldn’t think of it like that, either.” A wry laugh came from Chase. “Nobody ever considered me any kind of a hero before.”
It was hard to be heroic when you were selling drugs and ruining other people’s lives, Phyllis thought. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel a small surge of gratitude that Chase had stepped in and put a stop to the bullying that targeted Ronnie as its victim.
“After that, some other things happened that didn’t have anything to do with Ronnie, and I wound up leaving town,” Chase went on. “But before I left, she made it pretty clear she had a crush on me, and she
talked about how the two of us ought to run away together and come down here to Texas where her grandfather lived. She claimed we were meant to be together. I didn’t believe that, of course. I didn’t fall for her or anything. I just tried to help out a kid who was—and no offense here—kind of pathetic. That’s all.” He shrugged. “When I decided to leave town, I remembered her talking about Weatherford. She made it sound like a pretty nice place. So I thought I’d give it a try. Hey, it’s a long way from Pennsylvania.”
“It never occurred to you that she might run away and follow you down here?”
“I swear to you it didn’t, Mrs. Newsom.” His expression hardened. “The last thing I wanted was any of my trouble from up there following me down here.”
Phyllis could easily imagine that, considering how much of his trouble had been with the law.
He seemed sincere, though, and she decided that she believed him . . . for now. She would keep an open mind, though, and open eyes, as well, for anything that might contradict what he had told her.
And none of his story, even if it was completely true, meant that he wasn’t dealing drugs here at Courtland High School. Maybe he had some decency left in his character that had led him to defend Ronnie. Phyllis was grateful for that. It didn’t absolve him of his wrongdoing.
But neither was it her job to bring drug dealers to justice. The law would take care of that, as best it could. Her only real goal was to keep Ronnie from being hurt.
“If you’re telling me the truth about not having any . . . romantic feelings . . . for Ronnie, I hope you’ll continue trying to discourage her.”
“That’s exactly what I want to do, and as far as I’m concerned, you can discourage her, too. It won’t offend me. Like I told you, I wish you’d try to talk some sense into her head.”
“I intend to,” Phyllis said. “In the meantime, you can keep your distance from her.”
“Yeah, believe me, that’s not always easy to do. She keeps ambushing me.”
“Try,” Phyllis said, and before she could add anything else, the bell rang for the end of C Lunch and the beginning of the passing period. She started to turn away, but she paused to say, “Thank you . . . for what you did for her.”
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