A Heart Divided

by Cherie Bennett

  And I tried. I really tried. But an hour later, when I stopped to read what I’d written, I wanted to cry. Because it was dreadful.

  “Hi.”

  Startled, I looked up. Standing by my table was the last person I’d expect to see greeting me: Sara Fife. She took in my coffee, my computer, my notes. Then she ignored them. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “I’m kind of busy, actually.” I closed the scene I’d been writing without saving it to my hard drive. It didn’t matter. It was hardly worth saving.

  “I won’t stay long.” She sat across from me, hands wrapped around an oversized plastic cup. “It is a sad fact of life that Redford, Tennessee, is the last place on the planet to get a Starbucks.”

  “I thought you loved Redford.”

  “I do. It’s a sadder fact of life how pathetically happy I am about it. I’m addicted to these.” She picked up her Iced Caffè Mocha and smiled. “So, working on your play?”

  I took a mental step backward. “How did you know about that?”

  “My friend Pansy is in your drama class. She said you’re writing about the flag. It’s not a secret, is it?”

  “No,” I said warily.

  “You aren’t going to make all of us sound like Jared Boose, are you?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Good. Because he is quite the singular sensation.”

  “Yeah, I kind of got that. I’ve been interviewing people on both sides. Trying to learn …”

  “So, what’d you learn?”

  What had I learned? I thought a moment. Even Mrs. Augustus had admitted to me that though she no longer flew that flag, she still loved it. And Mrs. Augustus was no racist. “I guess what I’ve learned is that while racists may love that flag, not everyone who loves it is a racist.”

  “Good for you.” I thought I saw a new respect in her eyes. “Can I read what you’ve written?”

  Which would be exactly nothing. “I don’t like anyone to read my stuff when it’s still in progress.”

  She nodded and sipped her drink. “Especially not me, right?”

  I decided to go for honest, because what the hell. “Right.”

  “Yeah. I don’t blame you.” She stared into her cup. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you.”

  What? You stole my boyfriend? I waited for the grenade I was certain she was about to lob.

  “Jackson was my first love,” she said softly. “I thought we’d always be together. Then he met you, and everything changed.” She finally raised her eyes to me. “I despised you at first. I admit it. But not anymore.”

  “You don’t?” I asked cautiously.

  “I will always care about Jackson. I guess what I learned about myself is that I care about him enough to want him to be happy, even if he isn’t happy with me. Does that make any sense?”

  “In a way-more-mature-than-me way, yeah.”

  She laughed ruefully. “Maturity hasn’t been my strong suit in the past. I’m sure I have a ways to go yet.”

  God. Like so much else about Redford, I had completely misjudged her. “I’m so sorry,” I blurted out.

  “For what?”

  “For all the mean things I thought about you.”

  “Ditto.” She held her hand out to me. I shook it. She pushed out of her chair. “Well, good luck with your play. I admire writers so much. Every time we get a creative writing assignment, I just wilt. I’ll see you around.”

  “Bye.” I watched as she walked to her car, a white BMW with a GO REBELS! school bumper sticker near its rear license plate. Sara Fife was nice. And gracious. Okay, the Crimson Maidens thing still made me cringe. But clearly that was only one small part of who she was. I had to face it: I’d only seen Sara’s negative qualities because that’s all that I’d wanted to see, so that I could go for her guy. Lillith had been wrong. It turned out the Sorority Queen Exception didn’t apply to Sara Fife at all.

  18

  close encounter of the Sara kind at Starbucks, conveniently leaving out the part where she called him her first love. I said how nice she’d been, how she’d offered me her friendship. It made him helium-balloon happy, even more than the fact that at the event the night before, his mother hadn’t said a word about their fight. If Sara Fife had come around, Jack said, it meant everyone else would, too.

  Jack’s words proved prophetic. It was as if Sara was a CEO who had signed off on liking Kate, so now it was company policy. Everyone was friendly to me. Crystal sat with me at lunch to say she was giving a Halloween party, would Jack and I come? Pansy Clifford, with whom I’d never before had an actual conversation, invited me and Jack to join a bunch of her friends at her family’s cabin at Land Between the Lakes. At last, I had truly become a part of Jack’s circle of friends, and I hadn’t compromised my beliefs to do it.

  I had a great talk with Lillith that night. I told her how happy I was, in love with Jack, in love with life, and finally, at least in like with Redford. I also gave her the blow-by-blow on Sally Redford v. Jensen Pride. (Her Lillith-esque response: “Your mom rocks. Now, send Mrs. Redford a little note and suggest that sexual release would do wonders for her tension.”)

  A month earlier, if someone had told me that I’d have fun at a party thrown by Crystal Evans, I would have asked that person what they were smoking. And if they’d told me that Sara Fife would loan me an antebellum dress (complete with hoop petticoat) so that I could attend as Scarlett O’Hara to Jack’s Rhett Butler, I would have been deeply concerned for their mental health. But both of those things happened, and Halloween night was one of the best times I’d ever had in my life.

  Compliments of Crystal’s parents, there was even a hayride. A farmer drove up in his John Deere tractor lugging a load of hay. We all tumbled in, hay and costume pieces flying, breathless in a night as crisp as a perfect apple. Jack and I lay back in the straw, my hoop skirt sticking straight up like a funnel. Above us, a blanket of stars went on forever.

  As long as I banished all thoughts of Sally Redford from my mind, life was rosy. But roses can bloom over hidden land mines—and you only find out when one blows up in your face.

  I felt it the moment Jack and I walked into school on Thursday. Everything looked and sounded the same. Lockers were slamming; kids were flirting and jockeying for social position. But the air felt different, darker. I thought it had to be because of the vote on the flag, which was set for the next day. It seemed as if the JUST SAY NO and REBELS FOREVER leaflets had bred and multiplied overnight. They were everywhere—on walls, bulletin boards, and lockers.

  My foreboding increased as we walked toward Miss Bright’s classroom. But now it felt personal. People were definitely staring at us, as if through some distorting fish-eye lens. “Something’s wrong,” I told Jack.

  “Naw,” he drawled, looping an arm around my shoulders. “You worry too much.”

  Maybe. But when he called a friendly greeting across the hall to the girl who was stage-managing Living in Sunshine, she pointedly turned her back. “I’m telling you,” I repeated, “something is wrong.”

  We stopped at his locker to stash some books, then continued down the hallway. Outside the main office stood Principal McSorley, scanning faces. His eyes lit on us. “Miss Pride, I’d like to see you in my office,” he said. “Jack, please get to your first-period class.”

  When I was eleven, we took a family trip to France. I remember that I felt nauseous when we passed through French customs, as if the officials would think I’d done something wrong, even though I hadn’t. I felt the same way now.

  But that was ridiculous. I refused to give in to Dread of Authority Figure Syndrome. “It’s okay, I’ll see you later,” I assured Jack with a smile. Then I followed Mr. McSorley into his office. He sat behind a battered oak desk. On the wall was a framed photo of him with the governor of Tennessee and a four-year-old plaque naming him Middle Tennessee Principal of the Year.

  He nodded me into a hard-backed chair, then sighed. “I hardly know what
to say. I’ve supported open debate on Friday’s vote. I encourage the students of this school to freely express themselves. But you, Miss Pride, have crossed the line.”

  I had zero idea what he was talking about. Which is exactly what I told him.

  He looked disgusted. “We both know that’s a lie.”

  I was getting mad, which felt a lot better than giving in to terror. “No, Mr. McSorley. One of us doesn’t know anything. So why don’t you fill one of us in?”

  With a forefinger he pushed some papers in my direction across his desk. “I’m going to leave you alone for a few minutes with this. I want you to give some serious thought to the harm you’ve done to this school. And then I’d like to hear what you believe would be an appropriate punishment.”

  I didn’t hear him leave. Because I was too busy gaping at the title page of something I had never seen before in my life.

  BLACK AND WHITE AND REDFORD ALL OVER

  A new play by Kate Pride

  ACT ONE

  SCENE 1

  A drama class at Redford High School in the small town of Redford, Tennessee. Drama teacher MISS DULL stands before her class. She has Tourette’s syndrome and has body jerks, facial tics, and uncontrollable hand movements. Kids laugh at her behind her back.

  MISS DULL: (ticcing wildly) Soon we will be voting on whether the Confederate flag should remain the emblem of Redford High, so we’ll do an improvisation to help get you in touch with your feelings on the issue. Let’s all close our eyes. Now, you are the flag. Be the flag. You’re waving in the breeze—

  The bell rings. Kids gather up their stuff to head out.

  MISS DULL: Excellent work! Remember play practice after school. If you don’t work on my wonderful, fabulous play, you flunk!

  Students and Miss Dull exit. Three students stay behind: TIA, CINDY, and DAN; all good-looking, popular, the in crowd that rules Redford High.

  TIA: “Be the flag?” She is such a loser.

  DAN: I’m surprised some black kid didn’t go, (imitating someone illiterate) “Miz Dull, I ain’t gonna beez no racist flag.”

  CINDY: (imitating both Miss Dull’s voice and tics) Students who find this assignment offensive can pretend to be an African American flag: stupid and on welfare.

  They all laugh together in a mean way.

  DAN: They just want free handouts from white people.

  TIA: Because they’re all lazy and on welfare.

  DAN: Right. No matter how much we give them, they want more.

  CINDY: Maybe we should burn a cross on someone’s front lawn.

  DAN: I’d do it if I thought I could get away with it.

  TIA: Well, what are we supposed to do, just let them take over our school?

  CINDY: We don’t have to worry about that. Kids at this school are such sheep. Baa-a-a. We rule this school. We tell the sheep how to vote, and we win.

  TIA: You’re right, Cindy.

  DAN: Yes. I agree.

  TIA: After we win, I’m going to tell them: We won, you lost. So you and all your low-life, agitating, boon-coon buddies can kiss my lily-white Confederate flag-waving ass.

  Sick to my stomach, I basically quit reading, though the scene went on for several pages in the same ugly vein. God. Everyone must have seen it. That’s why people were acting so weird. I thought of Jack. Would he think for even a moment that I’d written it?

  I whirled toward the door the moment Mr. McSorley came back to his office. “This is some kind of… of sick joke. I did not write this!”

  “Frankly, Miss Pride, I don’t believe you.” He sat heavily behind his desk.

  “Mr. McSorley, whoever wrote this doesn’t know what they’re doing. It’s not even in correct play form. Plus, the writing is terrible. Why would I do something like that?”

  “You’re the only one who can answer that, Miss Pride. I’m certain you didn’t want copies floating all over the school just yet—I suppose you planned to spring the entire work on us at some point—but someone beat you to the punch.”

  “That’s not true,” I insisted.

  He gave me a jaundiced look. “This school has a strict code against hate speech. In my book, what you wrote merits immediate suspension.”

  “You can’t suspend me for something I didn’t do.”

  Anger flashed in his eyes. “This is not a court of law. It’s my school, and I’ll decide how to proceed. Now, I’m going to call your—”

  There was a discreet rap on his door. It opened. Sara Fife stuck her head in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir. But I heard you brought Kate Pride in here, and I really do need to speak with you. About her play.”

  He motioned her in. My hands clenched into twin fists of rage, realizing that this incident could easily ruin our new friendship. I held the stapled pages out to her, praying that she’d believe what I was about to say. “Sara, I did not write this.”

  “I know that,” she said calmly. “That’s why I’m here.”

  I exhaled with relief. Mr. McSorley looked momentarily thrown. He rubbed one eyebrow. “Okay, Sara, have a seat. Let’s hash this thing out.”

  She did. Then she talked for five minutes straight, recounting some of our conversation at Starbucks and backing up my claim. “Mr. McSorley, I know for a fact that Kate has been interviewing people on both sides of the issue.

  She’s trying to be open-minded. I respect that. Kate and I may have had our differences in the past. But I don’t believe she wrote this.”

  Mr. McSorley’s lips were pressed into a thin line. He bounced a pencil on his desk while we waited. “Okay,” he said finally. “The jury is still out on this thing. I have to do some investigating, then we’ll take this up again. Both of you, get to first period.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sara said as we both stood up. “Thanks for listening.”

  We left the office. When we reached the hall, I realized I was shaking. Sara lightly touched my shoulder. “You okay?”

  “No.” I took a ragged breath. “Thank you for what you just did.”

  She shrugged. “It was the right thing to do.”

  I smiled gratefully. “Do you have any idea who—”

  She shook her head. “Someone who hates you. Well, I’d better get going.”

  I thanked her again and we took off in opposite directions. My feet carried me to Miss Bright’s room; I felt as if I was about to face the guillotine. When I pushed through the door, Miss Bright was midlecture. “In commedia dell’arte, the actor uses movement to—”

  The moment Miss Bright saw me, she stopped and plastered her fluttering hands against her sides, as if willing herself not to wrap them around my neck. I looked at my classmates. Everyone was staring daggers at me. And then my eyes found Jack’s. He was gazing at me with such love and solidarity. He gave me strength. I realized I didn’t have to act guilty if I wasn’t guilty. “Miss Bright, may I please say something?”

  “No, Kate, you may not,” she replied. “I believe you’ve disrupted this class enough already. Now take your seat or leave. I really don’t care which.”

  I made the endless twenty-five-foot walk to my desk. As I did, I saw copies of “my” play on desks and sticking out of backpacks. Everyone had read it. And they all loathed me for it.

  Miss Bright resumed her lecture. For the rest of the period I sat stone-faced, staring at the ring I wore on the thumb of my right hand. Silver, with a tiny diamond chip, I’d inherited it from my father’s mother, Gramma Rose. She had really loved me. I reminded myself that lots of people loved me. My parents. Portia. Lillith. And Jack.

  “Kate?”

  I looked up. Nikki stood by my desk, backpack slung over one shoulder. Next to her was Jack. “The bell rang,” he said.

  “I can’t think of a good reason to move.”

  “Well, we can sit with you,” Nikki offered. “Or we can blow this pop stand.”

  I stood. “So, today pretty much sucks.”

  “We pretty much know,” Nikki acknowledged.

  “I c
an’t believe… I just can’t believe…” I couldn’t get the words out.

  Jack ran his knuckles softly over my cheek. “No one who really knows you could ever believe you wrote that thing, Kate.”

  I felt pathetically grateful. Or maybe just plain pathetic. I hugged him. Then I hugged Nikki. Then I hugged him again. Over his shoulder I could see kids gawking through the open door.

  “We could make this a three-way hug and really give them something to talk about,” Nikki suggested.

  I dredged up a weak laugh. Then our trio headed out to face the storm.

  19

  There had been hundreds of copies of “my” scene distributed around school before anyone arrived, and the scene had been written so that to anyone but the most anarchic of the pierced-punk battalion, I’d be an instant pariah. Even those against the flag decided that I was an outsider who’d branded Redford with my poison pen. Jack and Nikki tried to convince people it wasn’t my doing, but few believed them.

  Throughout the day, Jack demonstrated his boundless optimism. He assured me this was nothing more than the high school scandale du jour, and that tomorrow or the next day it would be—as it always was—on to the next. Even when his friends froze him out, his spirits stayed high; he was sure it wouldn’t last.

  But his optimism couldn’t shield me from the anonymous calls that started the moment I got home. Sometimes they came one after another, sometimes a half hour would pass before the next one. There were different voices, male and female, all well disguised. “We don’t want your kind in Redford.” “I hope you rot in hell, bitch.”

  My parents phoned the police, who told us they’d run some extra patrols past our home and advised us to turn off the ringer on the phone.

  For obvious reasons, I had trouble sleeping that night. Two o’clock in the morning found me at the kitchen table, taking solace in peanut butter cookies and my dog-eared copy of The Crucible. It seemed like appropriate reading material: My peers had pronounced me guilty and were ready to hang me for something I hadn’t done.