Life on the Porcelain Edge

by C. E. Hilbert

  Trevor and Mason both shook their heads, clearly fearful of opening their mouths.

  “If either of you have a whiff of poor behavior near your persons in the next three and a half years, gentlemen, I’ll personally call Chief Taylor and allow him to determine your punishment.”

  Trevor’s and Mason’s collective pallor fell to the color of paste.

  Ryland shook his head and directed them to leave. Ignoring the limping fourteen year olds, he zeroed in on his real prey.

  The three remaining delinquents in his gym at eight o’clock on Saturday morning—and the facilitators of hurt on Tessa Tarrington.

  He dragged a folding chair over and stopped directly in front of the boys. Straddling the chair, he leaned his forearms on the backrest. The chair threatened to crack under the pressure of his two hundred and forty pound frame.

  The three juniors were in varying states of misery. Grady’s floppy brown hair, typically perfectly coiffed, was drowned in sweat. His cheeks were rosy with heat. Of the three, Grady probably felt the most guilt over the comments on the message board. Jared Noland and Bode Michaelson were disturbed at being caught, and likely hated having their good guy images tarnished in the eyes of the school, town, or even the church, but Grady Bell was a boy whose heart tended to live firmly on his sleeve. Not that he didn’t try and hide it under jackets of bad jokes and harassing cheerleaders, but he definitely experienced life more deeply than the average teenage boy.

  Ryland could identify. “And then there were three.” He tried to keep his voice steady and clear, but his anger was coming to a boil. The thought of anyone hurting Tessa made his belly twist with fury. No more fear of chain reaction puking in front of students. Rage was a great antacid. “Gentlemen, of everyone who was sent to Saturday Sessions today, I’m most disappointed in you. You’re called to be leaders—not just in school, but in our church. The teacher you violated with your attacks isn’t any teacher, she’s your pastor’s daughter.” He watched how his words impacted each of the boys’ fallen faces. Guilt—he’d learned from his mother and five sisters—was a powerful weapon when properly wielded.

  “Miss Tarrington left her job and her entire life to come back to Gibson’s Run to help her dad—our pastor—heal. She accepted the position at GRHS because Mrs. Monahan specifically requested her to take over her classes. Mrs. Mo asked for Miss Tarrington because she knew Miss Tarrington’s knowledge of literature and composition was better than a typical substitute. If Mrs. Mo couldn’t teach you, she wanted you to have the best. Miss Tarrington has published a half dozen books, is finishing her masters in composition, and holds a Bachelors in Comparative Literature. You morons are extraordinarily blessed to have her as your teacher—no matter how long or how short her tenure is with the school.

  “Instead of trying to take advantage of a new teacher, why don’t you three use the brains I know the good Lord gave you and take advantage of all Miss Tarrington wants to teach you? Learn something. Be something other than immature imbeciles. I know you have it in you.”

  “OK, Coach…” Jared mumbled.

  The other boys nodded their heads in agreement.

  “You know you aren’t getting away with one session of lines, right?” Their collective groan rattled the beams in the gym, and he couldn’t suppress his chuckle. “No more running—at least not from me until baseball starts. But what I want you to do is call Miss Tarrington and Pastor Tom. See what they need.” Each boy lifted his gaze to meet Ryland’s, and the surprise he saw in their depths was a reminder that service was not second nature for the generation nipping at his heels. “You can do their grocery shopping, or clean the snow from their sidewalks, or go with Pastor Tom to a doctor’s appointment, or something entirely different. I don’t care what you do. I care that the three of you rediscover the leaders lurking deep inside. I know you each have a servant’s heart. I just wish the seventeen year-old idiot didn’t take over so often.” He dropped his I’m-your-football-coach-don’t-question-me stare before waving them toward the exit.

  Jared and Bode shuffled as fast as their likely spaghetti legs would allow them, but Grady hesitated.

  “Coach?”

  “Yes, Bell. Is there something on your mind?”

  The rangy teen scooted to face Ryland. He lifted his gaze to his coach, and the thick lashed, blue depths were brimming with tears.

  Ryland sat a little straighter in his chair and nodded to Grady.

  “Coach, I’m super sorry about hurting Miss T’s feelings. She’s really great.”

  “If she’s so great, then why did you write all of those negative comments about her?”

  He shrugged, dropping his focus to the super-sealed wood floor.

  “Not a good answer, Bell. You never have permission to blatantly hurt someone, but if you like the person the last thing you should do is proactively injure.”

  The first tear drop hit the wood floor with a splash. And then they gushed like a tapped fire hydrant.

  Shifting out of his chair, Ryland slid onto the bleacher bench beside Grady and waited for the seventeen-year-old to exorcize his teen angst. The wave of emotion was not uncommon for Grady. Ryland had sat beside him many times when tears flowed because the words were too confusing to comprehend.

  Grady’s father was a victim of friendly-fire while stationed in the Middle East making the then pre-teen the man of his family. Sergeant Bell’s death seemed to have shattered much of his son’s childhood. Grady often seemed too old for his years, and yet made foolish decisions when he was faced with peer pressure.

  With snuffled breaths, Grady began to speak. “I knew it w-was a b-bad idea, but the g-guys kept teasing me about l-liking Miss T in you know…that way.” He glanced up to Ryland and his heart seemed to rip through his eyes. “I just had to do something, Coach.”

  He patted Grady’s back. He knew how the kid felt. “I understand you made a bad choice in the face of a difficult situation, but Grady, it’s never an acceptable solution to push someone else down so you feel better—or feel safer.”

  Grady swiped his giant wide receiver hands against his eyes. “I know. I need to be a leader. That’s what my dad said to me every time he’d go in-country.” He lifted his gaze to Ryland. “Sometimes it’s easier to just go along, y’a know?”

  Ryland’s heart squeezed for the dozen years when it was easier to call Tessa, T.T. “Son, I know better than you could ever imagine.”

  “How do I fix it, Coach? I really like Miss T. She wants us to read all of these great current books—some stuff I’ve already read because it’s so awesome—I know she’s going to be a cool teacher. But now she thinks I hate her.”

  “She doesn’t think you hate her, Grady.”

  Both Ryland and Grady swiveled at the soft sound of Tessa’s voice wafting through the cavernous gymnasium.

  Ryland’s heart twisted at the sight of her long blond hair loose and messy around her shoulders. She was cocooned in that awful down coat. It looked as if twenty families could fit inside. She closed the distance, her booted feet leaving puddles of footprints in her wake. Except for the first moment he’d seen his daughter in his arms, Ryland didn’t think he had ever seen anyone more beautiful. He shook his head. Get a grip, Jessup.

  “Grady,” she started, tugging at her gloves. She sat on the bleacher bench beside the teen. “I know those comments weren’t really you. Any of the three of you.” Her voice was soft with a bit of an early morning lilt. “You, Jared, and Bode seem to be wonderful young men. I just wonder why you wanted to hurt or discredit me with your words.”

  “Miss T. I can’t really give you a good answer, I’m just sorry.” More tears gushed down his cheeks. “You’re a great teacher. Only a week in and I know you’re gonna teach us a ton of great stuff.”

  “Well, I appreciate your apology. Although your diction and word choice need some help. Words exist beyond great to identify superior work. And ‘gonna’ will never be a word.”

  “Yes ma’am.”


  “Please don’t beat yourself up about this situation, Grady.” She lifted her gaze from Grady’s and stared into Ryland’s eyes. “We all do dumb things when we’re teenagers. It’s kind of like a rite of passage toward adulthood.”

  “I’m real sorry, Miss T.” He rubbed his nose against his sweat drenched shoulder. “What can I do to show you?”

  “Continue to work hard in class.”

  Grady lifted his speculative gaze between Ryland and Tessa.

  “Even though I made the pop quiz nearly impossible to finish, or pass without a Masters in comparative literature, you earned a B+. The only questions you missed were the ones you didn’t answer.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. And, although your composition style is deplorable, I imagine if you apply the same effort you clearly gave to this morning’s activity, you’ll be able to excel in your writing as well. You have true potential, Grady Bell. Please don’t do anyone a disservice by wasting your gifts.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” His face lit as bright as if his heart was the core of the East Coast electrical grid.

  “Get out of here, Bell, before my whistle finds my lips again.” Ryland joked. “And don’t forget to call Pastor Tom.”

  “Got it, Coach.” He stood. His frame seemed to grow five inches with the simple and honest feedback Tessa poured into Grady. “See you at church tomorrow.” He hollered over his shoulder as he disappeared into the locker room.

  The echo of showers and muffled voices filtered into the gym, punctuating the silence between Tessa and Ryland.

  Why was she here?

  He straightened, reaching for his folding chair.

  “Thank you.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the muted words.

  Based on her posture, Tessa was thanking the gleaming wooden floor.

  “Tessa, the floor didn’t do anything but take a bit of a beating this morning. But go ahead and thank everyone and everything except me. I’m used to it.” The whine was a little beneath him, but he was tired of extending olive branches. At the rate he’d been giving them to her, he could have started his own olive oil business.

  “Thank you, Ryland.” She stood, looking directly into his eyes. Her gaze glistened in the harsh fluorescent light. “I know you stuck your neck out to defend me.”

  The feeling of warm honey seemed to slide through his entire being with the intensity of her scrutiny.

  Clearing his throat, he nodded and returned to straightening the gym, trying to dismiss her presence. He closed the small distance to the cart of folding chairs. The seemingly easy task of replacing one chair was unfortunately daunting. He struggled to straighten the shambled mess of metal and hinges. With brute force, he shoved the row of thirty plus chairs to the right in an effort to slide his chair behind the row. Like most non-football related things in his life, the chairs did not submit to his will and dominoed to the floor in a cascade of clangs, bangs, and sliding metal.

  “Seriously,” he muttered.

  The cackle of laughter behind him shot his focus from the chairs to Tessa. He tried to summon his I’m-the-football-coach look, but her expression of pure delight pulled a chuckle from deep within his belly.

  She struggled out of her enormous coat, dropping it on the bench. Sauntering toward him in skinny jeans and another two sizes too big sweater, he felt sucker punched. Only Tessa Tarrington could make no make-up and clothes that looked like they were selected in the dark gorgeous.

  “So, was it your plan to get all the chairs on the floor?” she asked with a wink.

  “I can’t say that was my strategy.” If he’d known he would receive help from her, he may have deliberately made himself look like an idiot. “Do you have any thoughts?”

  She pushed her too long sleeves to her elbows. “Well, I think the best approach is to start at the very beginning.” Her lips lifted to a sly grin. “Sometimes starting over is the only way to make things better.”

  7

  Why was she at the school on a Saturday…at eight in the morning? Even when she was a student she’d barely made it to school on time. She truly believed only her dad’s insistent prayers were behind her on time—barely—arrival each day her first week of subbing. Ghost writing was a perfect profession for her. She found many celebrities enjoyed sleeping late, so most of her in-person meetings were in the afternoon. And when she was actively writing, she could easily start at noon and wrap up around midnight. So, why was she giving up her only morning of zero alarms?

  When Ryland dropped the six-in-the-morning gauntlet on her students yesterday, she was stunned. She thought she’d handled the whole new-teacher harassment effectively with the pop quiz. The quiz proved her secret-teacher-superpower: knowing all things at all times.

  Of course the only reason she knew about the awful comments was because of the internet alerts she set up on herself after all of her clients’ personal information curiously walked out her front door without protest. Regardless, to the students her superpower appeared to be firmly intact.

  Yet, the always in charge Coach Ryland felt the need to add his own layer of punishment to hers. With his unwarranted intervention he undoubtedly proved to all of her students—particularly the athletes who held the most influence—she was incapable of delivering her own swift and just punishment. The more she contemplated his interference, the angrier she became until she found herself in the high school parking lot with a mass of messy bed-head hair and her morning coffee clamped to her hand.

  From the other side of the gym doors, Ryland’s no-nonsense voice firmly placed the fear of God into two freshmen, before turning his painful disappointment on her three troublemakers. Although his soliloquy on why her students should be grateful for her teaching wouldn’t win any essay contests, without blinking an eye, he’d zoomed right past beignets with steamy hot chicory coffee on her like meter.

  Now, twenty minutes later, she was cheerfully stacking folding chairs in a boy-sweat filled gymnasium on her one free morning. Being back in Gibson’s Run had certainly off-kiltered her life more than she’d anticipated.

  With one final clank of metal against metal, all of the chairs stood like neat soldiers ready for a battle—or the high school pep band’s performance later that evening.

  Ryland wiped his hands down the front of his wind pants. “Thanks for helping. You really didn’t need to assist, but I appreciate it.”

  “How could I not after that speech?”

  “You heard me?”

  Was Ryland Jessup blushing? Not possible…or was it? Yep, definitely the fine hue of Gala apple pink flushing his perfect cheekbones.

  She nodded and followed him back toward her coat. “You were very kind and generous with your words. Your tone could put the fear of God in the worst of sinners. Maybe you should’ve taken up preaching rather than coaching?”

  “I like to think of coaching as teaching—not unlike what your dad does. We just have different pulpits.” His dimple popped at the corner of his lifted lips. “Of course, I get the privilege of yelling a little more than he does.”

  “I don’t know…you weren’t his daughter.” She cringed as the joke slipped through her lips. Settling on the bench she faced him. “That’s not exactly true.”

  “Your dad never yelled at you? You were that perfect?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m far from perfect, but my parents—mostly my mother—resorted to nagging rather than yelling. I think my mother would’ve been on cloud nine if I’d been caught doing anything rambunctious or outside the lines when I was a teenager. I preferred sitting in my room and reading books. I think my dad only yelled at me once in my entire life.”

  Ryland chuckled. “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “I think my dad yelled at me once a day before noon until I left for college. And, then he would call to check-in and even his words of comfort were kind of yelling. But then again my dad was a football coach. Yelling was kind of his thing.”

  �
��I was sorry to hear about your dad’s death. He was always nice to me. He never once made me run in gym, because he knew I didn’t want to shower in the locker room.” Carl Jessup, Ryland’s dad, was a semi-legend in Gibson’s Run. After captaining a Rose Bowl winning football team, he returned to his hometown with his fancy PhD candidate wife and led the GRHS Grizzlies to their first playoff victory in nearly a decade. He remained the Head Football Coach and Athletic Director until his untimely death. His heart attack during her sophomore year at LSU—right in the middle of football season—created a nearly unfillable hole in his family and the entire town.

  But it was Ryland’s position as a starting linebacker for his father’s alma mater that created the national story. A news segment, near Christmas of that year, reported about Ryland’s tough transition back to football without his dad. Father and son had a relationship that was often heard as well as seen, but the love and respect between the two was undeniable.

  “Thanks. Some days I forget he’s gone and I pick up the phone to ask him advice about a play or how to deal with a student. I miss him every day. I just wish he’d met Emma. He would have loved being a Papa.”

  She squeezed his hand in comfort. The simple touch shot a sizzling current through her entire body. Snapping her hand from his, she rubbed her palm against her jean clad thigh. Curious to see his response to her touch, she peeked out of the corner of her eye but found his face draped in the pain of loss. “I’m sure he’d have been the best grandpa to Emma.” Her lips tilted. “I know he’s proud of you. He always was, Ryland.”

  He swiped a hand across his moist eyes, nodding his head in her direction. “Sorry. It’s still pretty fresh even though it’s been almost six years.” He reached for her hand. “But I guess you understand that as well as I do.”