The Wallflower

by Jan Freed

  He was already starting to smile. “I dunno. How?”

  “She holds a bulb up to the socket while the world revolves around her.”

  His laugh rang out, surprisingly masculine and infectious. Female heads turned, including Kate’s, Sarah noted with interest. The girl’s eyes were greener than Jack’s, but much the same shape, and fringed with the long thick lashes so startling on her brother. Her bemused expression dissolved into a smile.

  Good heavens, no wonder Fred was smitten!

  “She’s ba-a-ack,” Fred murmured under his breath for Sarah’s ears alone.

  A snow-haired bunny of a woman bustled into the middle of the room and stopped, her uplifted nose twitching. “Oh, doesn’t it smell marvelous in here! The freshmen dance committee will be thrilled. You’ve all worked so hard, I’ve decided four cakes from each class is enough to fill the refreshment table.” Tapping a finger against her round little chin, she cocked her head, her blue eyes twinkling. “Any ideas on what we should do with the extra cake?”

  It took a second for her meaning to register. Then shouts of “Eat, eat!” and “Aw-right!” and “Hroohroo-hroo!” echoed from all around.

  Smiling, she clapped her hands sharply. “Settle down. We have just enough time to sample a slice before the bell. Melanie, bring me the paper plates, please. Thomas, the plastic forks are in the cabinet above your stove. Quickly, quickly! Now, whose cake should we cut?”

  It was Friday. Spirits were high. Regressing to childhood birthday party silliness, teens too cool to walk faster than a casual stroll jumped up and down, waving their hands, vying to be chosen. To be picked first.

  Amid the hyperactivity, Sarah and Fred stood rock still shoulder to shoulder, united in dread.

  Mrs. Dent zeroed in on them, of course. Teachers had radar about these things. She smiled knowingly and headed their way. “What are you two hiding back there, hmm? Move aside—” she made a shooing motion “—and let me see your—Oh! Oh, dear.”

  Not since a rubber band ejected from her braces to hit Jeff Miiler—the crush of her life—on the forehead and stick, had Sarah seen such astounded revulsion on another’s face.

  She looked at their cake as it must appear to Mrs. Dent.

  Fred had tried, bless his heart. Sarah could see his effort to create the illusion of a level surface by using alternating thicknesses of frosting. But he wasn’t Houdini. The thing still looked like something best avoided in a cow pasture.

  By now the class had crowded around to stare.

  “I was in charge of mixing the batter,” Sarah explained in the heavy silence. “Please don’t blame Fred. I’m sure the frosting tastes great. He mixed that. Maybe you can grade us separately—”

  “I’m as much to blame as Sarina,” Fred interrupted. “Whatever grade you give, Mrs. Dent, give it to us both.”

  Sarah revised her earlier thought. Fred wouldn’t become 4-H material as a man. He already was.

  Obviously searching for words, the ancient teacher adjusted the pink cardigan sweater covering her matronly bosom. She cleared her throat, looked from Fred to Sarah, glanced at the cake and then down at her stout white nursing-type shoes. Her mouth twitched. A tiny chuckle escaped. Then another, this one rising in volume and scale.

  That’s all the encouragement the class needed to laugh as if Jim Carrey cavorted on that cake plate. Suggestions for what to do with the disaster flew fast and furious. Donate it to the track team for discus throwing practice. Donate it to the metal shop for a new grinding stone. Leave it on Principal Miller’s office chair, sort of a whoopie cushion without the whoop.

  Sarah herself offered a suggestion just as the shrill bell rang. They should freeze the cake for the next senior dance, and sneak it onto the refreshment table with the note, “A token of our esteem. Signed, The Fish.”

  While the others hooted their appreciation and collected their books, Sarah ignored Fred’s disapproving glance. Hey, she had no loyalty to the graduating class. And she’d kept these fish from sampling any cake. She owed them.

  Retrieving her backpack from a storage shelf, she wound up walking beside Kate to the doorway.

  “I liked your idea the best,” Kate said, her smile friendly, but curious. “Why would you help freshmen play a joke on seniors?”

  “I remember what being a fish feels like.” Miserable. Especially if your own class scorned you.

  “You have Mr. Morgan for English, don’t you?

  Sarah’s antennae shot up. “Yes. How did you know?” Had he talked about her to his sister?

  “You’ve broken Morgan’s Ten Commandments and lived to tell about it. The whole school’s talldng.”

  Of course. The kids were talking. “I don’t know why. Since that first day, I’ve been a model student.” Jack was a stickler for rules, true. But he was also, as Elaine had said, an excellent teacher who cared about his students. Sarah actually enjoyed his class now.

  Kate paused at the doorway. “Hmm. That’s not what my brother says.” With a mischievous glance, she entered the crowded hallway.

  Sarah’s heart lurched.

  “Heads up, Sarina,” a voice behind her snapped.

  Realizing she blocked the doorway, Sarah stumbled after Kate, intending to grill her for specifics. But the girl had been intercepted and pulled aside by a boy. Tall. Good-looking. Hair as black as his expensive leather jacket.

  Closer to a man than a boy, really. His heavy chin stubble and brawny build said he’d been held back in his school career more than once. Sarah had seen him sitting with Kate at lunch, come to think of it. Jack was always frowning their way.

  Sarah could see why, now. The look of fascination and fear on Kate’s upturned face was disturbing. He spoke a few words, fondled a strand of her hair possessively, then slipped something into her pants pocket. Sarah might have missed the move altogether if his fingers hadn’t. wandered on their way out. A shadow of distress passed over Kate’s features.

  To hell with this. “Hey, Kate!” Sarah called, weaving through jostling bodies toward them.

  They jerked apart, Kate with a look of relief, the boy with a scowl of irritation.

  Ignoring him, Sarah stopped beside the girl. “Can you sit with me at lunch today? There’s plenty of room.” Actually, the empty table Elaine and Sarah had started out with was filling up fast

  “Kate sits with me, beautiful.”

  Turning, Sarah stared into ice blue eyes. Her blood drained straight to her toes.

  Time raced backward in a dizzying rush. She was watching the downward arc of a knife, moonlight glinting off a blade and icy colorless eyes—

  “Sarina! Are you all right?” Kate asked.

  Sarah blinked and drew shaky breath. Her surroundings came into focus. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” She managed a small smile. “Just hungry, I guess.”

  “Shit, I thought you were trippin’ out there a minute,” the man-boy said.

  Sarah met his eyes again and forced herself not to shudder. “I don’t do drugs.”

  His smile was half sneer. “So you’re a good little girl, huh?”

  “Just a smart one,” she corrected, her instinctive dislike of this boy intensifying.

  From his expression, she wasn’t making any points with him, either. “I’m Bruce Logan. You’re that new girl from California I’ve been hearing about, right?”

  “Guess so. Sorry. I’ve never heard of you.” Bull’s-eye. His puffed up self-importance deflated a little. Her gaze moved to Kate. “You never answered about sitting at my lunch table.”

  “Yo, Bruce!” Tony Baldovino strutted through the hallway traffic, his dark gaze taking in both girls curiously. He stopped near the trio and looked at the older boy. “I need to talk to you, man. I’m almost out of—Well, we need to talk.”

  Bruce slung an arm over Kate’s slender shoulders. “In a minute.” He thrust his jaw at Sarah. “I told you before, Kate sits with me unless I say so. You’re asking the wrong person.”

  Sarah arched a
brow. “No, I definitely want Kate—not you—to sit with me. And she can answer herself. Right, Kate?”

  Blushing, the girl glanced nervously at Bruce and Tony, and finally, at Sarah. “Maybe we can sit together some other time?”

  Triumph flashed in Bruce’s icy blue eyes.

  “Sure, we can do that,” Sarah agreed.

  Bruce smiled insolently. “You can always sit at my table. The chairs are full, but there’s room on my lap.”

  “Good plan,” Tony said, grinning.

  Bruce’s leer deepened. “How ’bout it, beautiful? I’m sure I could...squeeze you on.”

  Good grief. “Be still my heart,” Sarah said evenly.

  “I think that means no, pal,” Tony said.

  Bruce’s icy gaze, bent on intimidation, never wavered from Sarah’s. “You sure? Think hard, babe.” He adjusted himself at the crotch. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  Sarah flicked a dismissive glance at his zipper. “I think I do. And if both heads were as big as the one holding that giant ego of yours, I might be more tempted.”

  Ignoring Tony’s loud bark of laughter, she looked at the blushing girl beneath Bruce’s arm. “Sure you don’t want to walk with me to the cafeteria?”

  Wide-eyed, Kate shook her head no.

  “Okay, but that was a standing lunch invitation. Any time you want, come on over to our table.” You don’t have to sit with that jerk, Sarah conveyed silently.

  The halls were thinning. The feel of Bruce’s hostile glare sent a shiver of fear over her skin. But she held Kate’s gaze until the girl nodded, then she said goodbye to Tony, turned and walked away.

  Behind her, Bruce demanded, “Who does that bitch think she is, anyway?” Kate’s murmur was indistinguishable.

  Too bad. Sarah would have liked to hear the answer. Lately, she didn’t know who Sarina was, either. She only knew it wasn’t the old Sarah.

  Two HOURS LATER, Jack watched the last of his fourth period class leave the room, then pulled fifth period’s graded quiz papers from a file. He’d resigned himself to the anticipation heightening his awareness this time every day. But he didn’t have to acknowledge its presence.

  If he ignored the fact that one particular student walking through that door any minute would bump up his heartbeat, then he didn’t have a problem. He wasn’t out of line. He remained responsible and honorable, like his father had been.

  Brian Morgan’s footsteps were hard to follow, but Jack did his best. He always had. Giving up his scholarship to USC, which offered the finest School of Cinema-Television in the country, had been the first step. Supporting his mother and sister the past eleven years had taken him closer to his role model’s standard.

  He’d only stumbled once. At least, in the way his mother saw things. As she so often pointed out, he could have taken business courses in night school, something practical and potentially lucrative. But he’d earned a degree in English Literature, then chosen to teach. Vera Morgan couldn’t to this day understand why. She considered the “hobby” teaching enabled him to pursue during long holidays and summer vacations a waste of time.

  Maybe it was. Five weeks and counting since he’d mailed Free Fall. And still no word from Irving Greenbloom.

  Students began trickling in. Some, like Elaine Harper, walked quietly straight to their desks. Others, like Beto Garcia, came in laughing, but sobered right away. Very good.

  Tim Williams had once asked for the secret of Jack’s disciplined classroom. “My kids know the rules,” he’d told the chemistry teacher. “And they know the consequences of breaking them. It’s as simple as that.” And unlike certain wimpy teachers around here, I never make exceptions to the rules, he’d added silently.

  Life wouldn’t make exceptions, either, once these kids graduated.

  Jessica Bates wandered in, together with Tony Baldovino and his four shadow jocks. Almost time for the bell, now. Two empty seats left. But he’d seen her in the cafeteria earlier. She wasn’t absent.

  The bell jangled.

  Sarina slipped in under its fading echo. If he’d been a cop, he would’ve ticketed her for charging through yellow as the light changed. But she threw him a dimpled grin and his heartbeat ker-thumped. By the time he recovered, she was in her seat, her hands folded demurely on the desktop.

  Who was he kidding? He was so goddamn out of line if he’d been a cop, he would’ve arrested himself.

  Without Jack asking, Kim got up and closed the door.

  “Thank you, Kim.” He looked out over the class. The natives were restless. Fridays did that to kids. And teachers. “Okay, I know you all couldn’t enjoy your weekend without finding out what you made on the review quiz, yesterday. So I stayed up late last night grading them.”

  Rising from his chair to the sound of groans, he rounded the desk and began passing out the multiple choice quiz results. The questions weren’t difficult—if you’d read chapters one through eight in The Grapes of Wrath. Which only about two-thirds of the class had managed, judging from the grades. He sighed.

  “Kathleen—” he handed down her high B score “—review chapter two. Otherwise, keep up the good work. Beto—” he met the Hispanic boy’s guilty gaze “—the Noah I was referring to is Ma and Pa Joad’s oldest son.”

  Taking his paper, Beto grimaced at his grade. “Aw, ma-an. Don’t I get some credit for reading The Bible? It’s a lot thicker than The Grapes of Wrath.” He grinned unrepentantly amid the giggles and snorts.

  The kid was bright, but more interested in getting laughs than good grades. “I’m glad you’ve read it. You’re going to need to do some serious praying to pass this class unless you start taking assignments seriously.”

  He leveled a stern look before moving on to Elaine. “Very nice. As usual. I wish all my students were as conscientious as you.”

  Flushing, she darted quick looks at her classmates, then shrank deeper into her seat. Go figure. He continued up and down the rows until he reached a red-orange mop of hair.

  She’d read the chapters. Still, she hadn’t followed directions on one of the questions. Trust her to be different.

  “Sarina—” her upraised Liz Taylor eyes kicked his heart into that extra beat “—read over chapter three again and you’ll be fine,” he assured her, then moved out of the danger zone.

  “Bonnie, good job. Tony, whichever athletic scholarship you accept will be worthless unless you actually graduate from high school. Do you think—”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Morgan?” Sarina called out.

  Jack stopped. Why am I not surprised? Composing his expression, he turned to see her frowning at her quiz. “Yes?”

  She met his gaze. “I don’t understand why I missed this question.”

  He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. “Because you didn’t answer it correctly. In case you didn’t notice, there is no multiple choice option called ‘other.’”

  “Of course I noticed. Did you notice my explanation?”

  God grant him patience. “The turtle in chapter three is an analogy to man’s struggle against his uncontrollable destiny.”

  “Says who?”

  “Sar-ina,” he drawled warningly.

  “I’m not being disrespectful. I honestly want to know why that’s the ‘correct’ interpretation.” Her violet eyes were clear, intelligent and inquisitive. As if she really did want to learn.

  His brain shifted into a higher gear. “Academia agrees that Steinbeck was a master at symbolism posing as realism. Think of the passage with the turtle. It’s written in such accurate detail, we are that turtle. Hindered by ants, hills, oat seeds under our shells... and finally, the dangerous highway traffic. Just as man is a victim of a hostile universe.”

  “I don’t dispute the symbolism. But I saw that turtle as courageous, always continuing on despite one setback after another. A symbol of man’s fortitude, not his victimization. There wasn’t a multiple choice for my interpretation, so I added one.”

  What an astou
ndingly articulate answer. Still... “You can’t just go adding on answers when the interpretations by recognized experts in American literature don’t suit you.”

  “Says who?”

  “Sar-ina.”

  “I’m not being disrespectful. I simply object to being forced to think like the ‘experts.’ This is America. Freedom of speech and thought is my constitutional right. I’ll bet John Steinbeck would’ve been glad to knock back a couple of cold ones with me and listen to my opinion of his work.”

  Jack crossed his arms, enjoying himself immensely. “I doubt it. John was probably so sick of public opinion he would’ve thrown you out of the bar. When the book first came out, the majority of Americans thought he was a liar and a Communist.”

  She looked startled, then intrigued. “I can see they might not have known migrant conditions were that bad until his facts were investigated. But calling him a Communist? I’m assuming that was because of Jim Casy’s outlook,” she said, referring to the former preacher character traveling with the Joads. “But his philosophy was more...I don’t know, Emersonian than Communistic. At least, that’s my opinion.” The glint of challenge in her gaze was unmistakable.

  Inordinately pleased, he conceded her point. “It’s taken the distancing of time for Americans to arrive at that rational conclusion.”

  “Well, there, you see? The experts at the time thought differently from how they do now. So, what’s to say my interpretation of the turtle won’t become accepted in the future?”

  She had him there, dammit.

  Sarina cocked her head. “I would think you’d want to encourage students to think for themselves, to develop their own opinions.”

  “And you think I don’t?” Her answer was suddenly way too important to Jack.

  “Based on this quiz, I have my doubts. I gave you a well thought out answer that took a lot more time than circling letter a. But it wasn’t straight out of Cliffs Notes, so you counted it wrong.”

  Unbelievable. “Did your previous high school teachers let you make up your own multiple choice answers?”

  “Milburn High School is very progressive,” she said primly. “The English teachers there know the difference between Steinbeck and algebra.”