Schooled In Lies

by Angela Henry

  “Dennis, I didn’t realize you were working here.” I handed him my book.

  “I just started last week. It’s only temporary, though, until something in my field opens up,” he said nonchalantly. I could tell he was embarrassed for me to see him working a job he clearly considered beneath him.

  I knew Dennis’s field was sports medicine and that he’d worked for a college baseball team in California before moving home to help his parents after his father’s triple bypass. Willow wasn’t exactly a booming area for the sports medicine field. Dennis was in for a long wait.

  “Did you have an accident?” I asked, gesturing to his wrist and forehead.

  “Oh, this?” He rubbed the bruise on his forehead. “I didn’t exactly have a great evening starting with that bullshit meeting. When I got home I found out someone had broken into my parent’s garage and trashed it. Red spray paint all over the fucking walls. I slipped on some spilled lawn fertilizer and slid into the wall. I bumped my head and sprained my wrist and knocked down a shelf. Then when I got out the Dustbuster to vacuum up the fertilizer, I plugged it in and almost got electrocuted.” He chuckled.

  “What masterpiece did they paint on your walls?” I asked, trying hard to shake the image of big Dennis sliding into the wall.

  “Huh?” He was looking like I’d spoken to him in a foreign language.

  “You said there was red spray paint all over the walls. Did they spray paint something crude?”

  “It wasn’t pictures. It was words and misspelled ones too. It’s great to see our education system at work.” He laughed loudly, a little too loudly.

  I asked him if he’d heard about Audrey being in the hospital.

  “No, what happened to her?” I could tell he wasn’t all that interested. He was shifting from foot to foot and I got the distinct feeling he wanted me to leave. Instead, I filled him in on what happened to Audrey. He whistled and shook his head.

  “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if those rug rats of hers have driven her to drink. And I wouldn’t put it past her to lie about it, either. Honesty’s never been real important to Audrey.”

  “Really,” I said, my curiosity flaring up.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to know this, but Audrey’s been on antidepressants since our senior year in high school. She started taking them after she got depressed and overdosed on sleeping pills.” He smirked nastily, which surprised me.

  Dennis and Audrey, being fellow members of the round table crew, had been tight. I knew eleven years was a long time for some people to maintain a high school friendship. But I could tell that Dennis was getting a big kick out of Audrey’s troubles and wondered what had happened to change things.

  “She tried to kill herself?”

  “She claimed it was an accident. Personally, I think she was just looking for some attention.”

  “Any idea why she’s so depressed?” I asked, handing him my credit card.

  “I guess she never got over her one true love,” he said, staring off into space. Audrey’s one true love had been Dennis’s cousin Julian Spicer. They’d dated all throughout high school until she mysteriously dumped him halfway through our senior year.

  “But she dumped him. Why would she try to kill herself over a relationship she ended?”

  “I think she tried to get back with Julian but my cousin had moved on to greener pastures.”

  People would do a double take when Dennis told them Julian was his cousin. Julian had been biracial but looked more like his black father than his mother, who was Dennis’s aunt. Dennis and Julian’s mothers had been born into the wealthy Aldridge family. Mama used to be their maid back in the days before she married my grandfather and stayed on good terms with the family after she quit. Dennis’s mother, Emma, was the beauty of the family and married into the equally wealthy Kirby family.

  Emma’s older sister, Helen, was quiet, shy and plain, destined to become the family spinster, until she fell in love with and ran off and married Jimmy Spicer, the family’s black handyman. Both sisters gave birth to sons within months of each other. Dennis and Julian had very different childhoods. Helen had been cut off financially by her parents and she and Jimmy struggled to live off of Jimmy’s salary as a bus driver, while Dennis lived a life of privilege. Tragically, Helen and Jimmy were killed in the Highland Hills Supper Club fire of 1977, while celebrating their anniversary, an occasion Jimmy had spent months saving up for, and nine year-old Julian went to live with Dennis and his parents. Dennis and Julian became as close as brothers. They were inseparable.

  “I was real sorry about what happened to Julian, Dennis,” I said, finally after an awkward silence.

  “Yeah, life sucks, doesn’t it?” he replied shrugging his thick shoulders and handing me the plastic bag with my book in it. I didn’t notice until I looked at my receipt later that he’d given me his employee discount.

  Chapter Five

  MONDAY EVENING I HEADED to Beekman Hall on the Kingford College campus armed with my book and ready to be bored out of my mind. A class on education theory couldn’t be anything other than a chance to catch up on some z’s. The class was held in a large lecture hall. I was one of about sixty students, a handful of who looked like other teachers in the same boat as me.

  My professor, a thin, intense-looking woman named Dr. Petra Garvey had a loud, harsh voice that cut through me like a knife. Her tight dark green knit dress clung to her like a second skin emphasizing her angular figure and making her sharp collarbone, pointy elbows, and jutting hipbones hard to look at without wanting to force feed her. Dr. Garvey was also big on class participation and liked to call on those who didn’t look like they were paying enough attention to the profound wisdom she was dropping on us, which meant sleeping was out. I tried hard to look bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and interested so she wouldn’t call on me. But by hour two of listening to her drone on and on without a break, I was wilting like warm lettuce and ready to slide out of my chair.

  “You in the back in the purple top. What can you tell me about the Montessori Method?” she screeched making me jump and bump my knee on the underside of my desk. It took me a few seconds to realize she was talking to me. I heard the distinct sounds of muffled laughter and felt my face get hot.

  “Well?” she asked, waiting for my reply with her hands planted on her bony hips.

  Everyone was staring at me and I had to dig deep into my subconscious, all the way back to my college days at Ohio State as an education major, for an answer that danced on the edge of my memory before disappearing altogether. I started to open my mouth to apologize before I remembered that I was there to learn from her.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Garvey. But, I thought the purpose of this class was to learn about education theory. Shouldn’t you tell us what the Montessori Method is?” My words were met by more muffled laughter.

  Dr. Garvey’s nostrils and lips were pinched together in anger and I wondered how air was getting to her brain. She shook her head and walked quickly back to her desk.

  “Okay, class, we’ll go ahead and end now. For class on Wednesday I’d like you all to read chapters one through three in your textbooks, and I want a five page paper on the Montessori Method of teaching,” she said, smiling triumphantly.

  Just great. Amid the groaning and heavy sighing, everyone was glaring at me like it was my fault. I gathered up my stuff and got the hell out of there. In my rush to get to my car before I was pummeled with spiral notebooks, I ran right smack into a young woman, knocking her book bag off her shoulder. It turned out to be Cherisse Craig.

  “Whoa, what’s the rush?” she asked as she picked up the book bag and flung it over her shoulder. She was dressed down in jeans, a blue cotton tunic, and espadrilles. Her long blonde dreads were pulled back with an elastic scrunchy.

  “Sorry. I’ve just been to my first class since college and I was just reminded of why I didn’t further my education.” She laughed and it lit her whole face up.

  “Are you taking classe
s, too?” I asked, following her to the parking lot.

  “Uh huh, for about a year now. Just a couple of classes a quarter. It’s all I can manage working full-time. After I lost my job with Julian last year, I decided to go back to school and get a degree. I’m just taking electives right now. I haven’t declared a major yet.”

  “That’s great,” I told her. Once we’d reached my car, my stomach rumbled loudly reminding me that it hadn’t been fed.

  “You want to go have dinner?” Cherisse asked timidly.

  Her shyness made me wonder if she’d made many friends in the eleven years since high school. Back then her only friend was her twin sister, Serena. I had no other plans since my so-called man was avoiding me like I was plague stricken, claiming he was swamped at work.

  “Sounds like a plan.” I agreed.

  We met ten minutes later at the Red Dragon Chinese Restaurant. The usually jam-packed restaurant was half empty on a Monday night and we were seated right away. I ordered my usual cashew chicken and fried rice while Cherisse ordered shrimp lo mein. We both had mai tais and egg rolls.

  “You know, I always wondered what happened to you after high school. You were one of the few people who didn’t torture me,” Cherisse said after we’d placed our orders.

  “I wasn’t exactly Miss Popularity, either. Picking on you would have been dweeb on dweeb violence.”

  She laughed so hard I thought mai tai might squirt out of her nose.

  “Can you believe how fat Audrey and Dennis got? I can understand gaining weight when you’ve had five kids but what’s Dennis’s excuse?” she asked.

  I wasn’t going to touch that one since my scale regularly swung back and forth between fat and fabulous.

  “Remember how Audrey and her crew all acted like they were going on to big things after graduation? Audrey was going to model. Dennis was going to play pro baseball. Julian was going to be a brain surgeon. Remember how they bragged about all their big plans?” I asked, chuckling. Cherisse laughed too.

  The waitress brought us our egg rolls and I took a bite without waiting for it to cool and almost burned my tongue.

  “Gerald seems to be the only one doing well professionally but then again he has three ex-wives and four kids. He must be spending a fortune on child support and alimony, “ she said.

  I nodded in agreement and suddenly remembered the missing reunion fund money and Gerald’s reaction at the meeting. Thirty-five hundred dollars might not be a fortune but to someone like Gerald with ex-wives and children to support, it wasn’t exactly small change.

  “Gerald used to visit Julian at his office a lot. Do you know he had the nerve to act like he didn’t remember me?” She curled her lips in distain.

  “Well, you do look a lot different now, more stylish.”

  “Thanks.” I could tell she was flattered.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I was unable to contain my curiosity about the Julian situation any longer. I wanted to know if her version matched what Ms. Flack had already told me. She laughed and took a big gulp of her drink.

  “Go ahead and ask. It’s what everyone wants to know,” she said dryly.

  “What happened? Why’d he fire you?”

  “It’s simple. I forgot to give him an important message from a potential client. He lost out on the account and I got fired as a result. But to be honest, I don’t think Julian firing me was completely my fault.”

  “Why?”

  “Julian had just broken up with his girlfriend and was acting like a crazy person. He was so upset and then I messed up by not giving him that damned message and I think he just took everything out on me,” she said, shrugging.

  “Wow. Who was the girlfriend?” I asked before taking another bite of egg roll. But she just shook her head.

  “I’d rather not say. She did me a big favor by helping me get that job with Julian in the first place. I don’t want to talk about her behind her back.”

  I could respect that so I moved on.

  “So you never left Willow after high school, huh? I just figured you probably joined Serena wherever she went.” The minute it was out of my mouth I regretted it. Her face almost fell into her drink.

  “Serena’s dead, Kendra,” she said softly, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Oh my God, Cherisse. I’m so sorry. When did she die?” I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. She didn’t pull away, but her hand was as limp and cold as a dead fish.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged and stared at me.

  “But I thought you said—”

  “Serena never came back home. She never wrote or called. I’m her twin. Why wouldn’t she have called or written to let me know she was okay? She has to be dead. That’s the only explanation.”

  Serena Craig was the polar opposite of her sister, Cherisse. She was a wild child, a bad ass. She smoked and drank, had a vocabulary that would make a felon blush, talked back to teachers, and regularly cut class. She also had her own very distinct style of dress that included mini skirts or baggy shorts, tight T-shirts, fishnet stocking, and combat boots worn with long coats and blazers. She wore her hair in a big curly Afro when most other black kids back then were sporting Jheri Curls or asymmetrical cuts. She was beautiful and untamed, like some kind of wild exotic animal, the kind that don’t thrive in captivity. Strangely enough, the round table crew left her alone. I think even they were in awe of her. But their deference to Serena didn’t stop them from going after Cherisse. I sometimes wondered if they gave Cherisse a double dose of bullying to make up for what they didn’t have the nerve to do to Serena. She protected her twin as best she could when she actually came to school, but it wasn’t enough.

  Our food arrived and we started eating.

  “Did your parents file a missing person’s report?” I asked between bites.

  “My parents were really hurt when Serena left home. They thought she did it to get back at them and that she’d turn up eventually. When she never came home, they just acted like little kids in a staring contest trying to see who would blink first, them or Serena. I think they were trying to practice tough love. You know, trying to show her they couldn’t be manipulated by her actions anymore.”

  “Get back at them for what?”

  Cherisse pushed noodles around her plate for a few seconds before answering.

  “Serena was a lesbian.”

  I stopped eating and stared at her until she continued.

  “I’d known since junior high. I didn’t care. She was my sister. I worshipped her. But she came out to our parents about a month before she left. They kicked her out of the house. She didn’t have any money, and she was sleeping on the streets. I begged them to let her come back home. They only agreed to let her come back if she promised to attend one of those reversion programs. You know the kind that are supposed to turn homosexuals straight?”

  “I’ve heard of those programs. Don’t they use some kind of aversion therapy to repeal homosexual urges?”

  “Yeah. She agreed to go. And my parents enrolled her into a program run by this Christian organization. She was gone for two weeks and when she came home for a weekend visit she was like a different person. She was so quiet and subdued. My parents were happy. They thought the program was working. But I knew she was faking. She told me she was leaving to go live with our aunt in California. Then before she had to go back to the program, she was gone and we never heard from her again.”

  “Didn’t anyone contact your aunt to see if she was there?”

  “My mom and my aunt Carmen hadn’t spoken in years. She’s a lesbian, too. My mom didn’t approve of her lifestyle. I never told my parents where Serena was going. She was under-age and I didn’t want them dragging her back here. I wanted her to be happy. After graduation, I called my aunt to talk to Serena and she had no idea what I was talking about. Serena wasn’t there and she hadn’t seen or heard from her, and since I never heard from her again, I figured something bad must have happened to her on her
way to California.”

  “Where did she even get the money to go to California?” I asked.

  “I had jars of pennies that I’d been saving since I was twelve. I cashed them in at the bank and gave it to her. It was only about three hundred dollars, but enough to get her a bus ticket.”

  “It’s been eleven years. Don’t your parents wonder where she is?”

  “My father died of a heart attack five years ago and mom died of cancer six months ago. Until the day they both died, they still thought she was just staying away out of spite just to hurt them. They refused to look for her.”

  “Maybe it’s time you found out what happened to her,” I said.

  “You know, I don’t know what would upset me more, if I found out she was alive and just didn’t want to see me, or if I found out she was dead. I’m almost too afraid to find out for sure.”

  “If she was my sister, I’d want to know what happened to her.”

  “I really do think she’s dead.” Cherisse pushed her half-eaten plate away. “I know you wouldn’t understand. It’s a twin thing. It’s like I can’t feel her energy anymore. It’s like half of me is gone forever.”

  “All the more reason to find her,” I insisted.

  Forty-five minutes later, we were standing at the curb in front of the restaurant saying our good-byes. Cherisse gave me a hug.

  “Thanks for having dinner with me. It really felt good to talk to someone about Serena.”

  “No problem, girlfriend. Anytime you want to talk, you just give me a call.” I handed her a slip of paper with my number on it.