“Oh, Attalee, things have changed so much since we were girls!” Mrs. Tobias said with a practiced flick of her wrist. “There used to be a certain decorum associated with labor. Now it’s a sideshow. Why, just a few days ago, I read about a woman who gave birth while parachuting out of an airplane.”
“I read that, too, Mrs. Tobias,” Mavis said, unconsciously rubbing the faint fluff of hair just above her upper lip. “It was in the Sunday supplement of the newspaper. And not to contradict you, but as I recall, the woman said her wedding vows while jumping out of a parachute. She gave birth underwater.”
“Scandalous!” Mrs. Tobias said with a shudder.
“Water births aren’t as oddball as you might imagine,” Reeky said. “When I lived in Columbia, I knew several women who gave birth that way.”
“Well, Columbia,” Mrs. Tobias said. Her nostrils flared in distaste. “One might expect such shenanigans in a university town.”
Reeky receded into her turtleneck and jutted out her lower lip. Before she could say anything in response, Chiffon plunked a bowl on the coffee table. “Time to play a game.”
The afternoon wore on as the ladies tried to retrieve diaper pins from a bowl of rice while blindfolded. Attalee had surprisingly nimble fingers and fished out the most diaper pins. Following the diaper pin game, the party guests cut off lengths of yarn to guess the circumference of Elizabeth’s belly. (Reeky was closest and won a bud vase filled with baby’s breath.)
After several activities, the women sat in a semicircle in Chiffon’s living room, balancing paper plates filled with cookies and cake on their knees.
“There’s enough sweets left over to feed an army,” Mrs. Tobias said. “I imagine Chiffon’s children will have a field day.”
Mavis sat in Lonnie’s La-Z-Boy and nibbled on a ginger snap. “I have a suggestion, Chiffon,” she said. “Why not take these leftovers to the Senior Center? All they ever get are cookies from the bargain bin. I know the older folks would appreciate a special treat.”
“Maybe I’ll just do that,” Chiffon said in a small voice. Considering she was down to her last dollar, she’d been hoping to keep the leftovers for herself.
Elizabeth looked up from her plate. “I didn’t know you were involved with the Senior Center, Mavis.”
“I stop in now and then,” Mavis said. “Birdie’s on the board of directors out there, and she tells me that the center is really hurting for funds. We’re going to have a community meeting to see if we can’t come up with some kind of fundraising plan.”
“You can count on me being at that meeting. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind hosting it,” Elizabeth said with a nod. “How about you, Chiffon? Would you like to be involved?”
“Sounds okay to me,” Chiffon said distractedly.
“I’d like to be included as well,” Mrs. Tobias said, a sugar cookie poised between her thumb and forefinger.
A grin spilled over Mavis’s face. “That’d be sweet of you, Mrs. Tobias. Particularly since you don’t even live in Cayboo Creek.”
“Well, I’m just a few miles down the road in Augusta,” Mrs. Tobias said. “And I visit Elizabeth and Timothy so often I’ve begun to feel a part of the community. I’d adore helping out the seniors.”
Shortly afterward, the shower broke up. Everyone went home except Elizabeth, who helped Chiffon tidy up.
“Tomorrow is my last day of work until after the baby’s born,” Elizabeth said, running a dish towel over a serving platter. Elizabeth was marketing director for Hollingsworth Paper Cups in Augusta, a company owned by her husband’s family.
“I just hope I won’t go stir-crazy for the last month of my pregnancy,” she added. “I’m not used to being a lady of leisure.”
“You could always help Timothy out at the bait shop,” Chiffon said with a chuckle.
“Shoot. I can’t tell a cricket from a red wiggler. Nor do I care to.” Elizabeth eased herself into a chair at the kitchen table and rested her hands on the crest of her belly. “Besides, the boys who hang out at the store don’t want to buy bait from a woman. You know how they are.”
Darn straight she knew. Chiffon was married to one of them “boys.” At the thought of Lonnie, she grimaced.
“Chiffon. Is there anything wrong? You don’t seem like yourself today.”
She met Elizabeth’s concerned eyes. Part of her urgently wanted to share her troubles with her friend. But she hesitated to discuss the seedier side of her marriage with Elizabeth. The two couples often had supper together, and Timothy and Lonnie were fishing buddies. As far as Elizabeth knew, everything was hunky-dory in the Butrell household, and Chiffon wanted to keep it that way. Besides, what would Elizabeth think if she knew that Chiffon couldn’t even keep her man in line?
“I’m just PMS-ing,” Chiffon answered. She rubbed her pelvic area as if it ached. “Lonnie says I’m surly as a grizzly bear when ‘Auntie Flo’ comes to call.”
“It’s been so long since I’ve had a period, I hardly remember what it’s like,” Elizabeth said with a laugh.
“It’s something I’d just as soon forget,” Chiffon said with a derisive laugh.
The mood at the table changed, and Elizabeth described the furniture she’d picked out for the nursery. Chiffon was grateful Elizabeth had accepted her explanation and didn’t ask any more questions. Had she probed just a bit more, Chiffon didn’t know if she could hold back her worries about Lonnie.
Sunday morning Emily helped Chiffon get the two younger children dressed and strapped into the car for the drive to the airport.
Clouds floated lazily against a blinding blue backdrop, fluffy and fresh, as if they’d tumbled out of the clothes dryer. Chiffon filled her lungs with the chilled air and noted the way the bare trees scribbled their shadows on the front of the house. She was unexpectedly cheerful. Even if Lonnie was guilty of laying his pipe with Janie-Lynn, her man was coming home.
Not that she’d let on how much she missed him, because if he’d cheated again, there’d be a price to pay. For starters, he’d owe her a steak dinner, and not the overdone shoe leather they served at the Wagon Wheel: She wanted to eat in a restaurant with cloth napkins, fresh flowers, and a wandering violinist.
But a fancy dinner would be just the beginning. If Lonnie had been fraternizing with a movie star, he’d have to spend some serious time around the house with his tool kit. Maybe she could get him to fix the loose shutters or install the garbage disposal they’d bought six months ago. When she’d caught him cheating with Jonelle Jasper last year, she’d made him weatherstrip all the doors and the windows.
But fooling around with a movie star was a much more heinous crime. Heck, if he’d really been shaking the grate with Janie-Lynn Lauren, Chiffon might even get him to add on a Florida room.
She whistled as she crossed Tobacco Road and turned off to the Augusta Regional Airport. In the backseat, Emily read Bob the Builder to Dewitt in a singsong voice. Gabby napped in her car seat, her peaceful face striped with bars of sunlight.
Chiffon tried to put herself in Lonnie’s shoes. Suppose she’d been the one to go to Hollywood instead of Lonnie and one of her favorite movie stars, like Ben Affleck, had propositioned her. Try as she might, she just couldn’t see herself cozying up to a strange man, no matter how handsome he was or what fancy automobile he tooled around in. Chiffon was a one-man woman. Had been since the day she’d first laid eyes on Lonnie Butrell when he transferred to Cayboo Creek High School in his senior year.
Every female in the class had been smitten on sight by Lonnie, who was so handsome he could make a girl’s eyes burn. His chestnut hair hung over a pair of alert copper-colored eyes, glinting with a secretive sort of amusement. His face was all sharp angles, broken only by a soft curved bottom lip that Chiffon had longed to touch with the tip of her finger. At the time, Chiffon had been dating the quart
erback of the football team, Findley Barnett, a brutish fireplug of a fellow. All thoughts of fidelity to Findley fled her mind when Lonnie, sleek as an otter, ambled down the hallways of Cayboo Creek High School, his eyes flickering on the girls who lined the hallways like a row of spring flowers.
When he saw Chiffon standing by her locker, eyeing him coyly over the top of her business math textbook, his face split into a heartbreaking grin. Chiffon felt like a bean-bag in which every bean had shifted.
Truth be known, she was still under Lonnie’s spell, making her much too quick to forgive his failings. Every time she intended to be tough on him, she weakened at his touch.
Chiffon turned on the road leading up to the airport as a jet rumbled overhead.
“I bet that’s Daddy’s plane. What do you think, Dewitt?” she said.
“Is Daddy driving the plane, Mama?” Dewitt asked. Her five-year-old son was a carbon copy of his daddy, right down to the dimples.
“No, honey bun. The pilot’s driving,” Chiffon said as she parked in front of the terminal. “But when we get out of the car, if you wave real hard, maybe Daddy will see you through the window.”
Emily and Dewitt tumbled out of the car yelling “Daddy!” and waving furiously at the incoming plane while Chiffon lifted Gabby out of her car seat and positioned her on her shoulder.
As they walked through the terminal, Chiffon recalled Lonnie’s scent, a mingling of chicory, Big Red chewing gum, and musk aftershave. She thought about his eyes, the right one a darker copper color than the left, and how his pupils would darken as he gazed wickedly at her beneath a fringe of eyelashes when he was in the mood for love.
Most of all, she thought about his hands, callused on the palms but soft on the fingertips, and how they’d expertly read her body as if it were covered in Braille instead of goose bumps. She was practically weak from pining for her man. They’d never been apart this long before.
They stopped in the airport ladies’ room, where Chiffon slicked down tufts of Dewitt’s hair with tap water and wiped a dab of drool from Gabby’s chin. Then she glanced at her own reflection in the row of mirrors above the sinks.
For most of her life, the looking glass had been Chiffon’s best friend. No matter what else went wrong, gazing at her attractive face in the mirror could nearly always cheer her. But for the last few years, her lifelong buddy had turned on her.
Now she automatically sucked in her cheeks, lifted her chin, and tightened her belly muscles before she dared a peek at herself. Even then, she was often bothered by the wrinkles and puffiness she saw reflected back at her.
Today was one of those rare instances when she was pleased by what she saw in the mirror. Her teal scarf complemented her eyes, and her hair looked as bouncy and fall as a Breck girl’s. A naughty little curl to her lip completed the pretty picture. And though her present-day body wouldn’t pass muster in a swimsuit competition, her roomy black slacks and loose turtle-neck covered up the worst of her sins.
Licking her full bottom lip, she thought, You still got it, Chiffon Amber Butrell.
She and the children arrived just as passengers from the plane were entering the baggage terminal. Groups of soldiers from Fort Gordon trotted past, and Chiffon noticed an acne-scarred recruit looking her up and down with approval. She ignored his attentions and kept her eyes riveted to the flow of people, her heart skittering in her chest like a frightened squirrel.
“Will Daddy bring us presents?” Emily asked.
“Maybe,” Chiffon said, only half listening. A few minutes went by and the rush of passengers had slowed. Only a few stragglers wandered into the terminal: a man with an oversize package and a woman trying to corral two overexcited toddlers. It would be just like Lonnie to be the last passenger off the plane; he had the internal clock of a sloth. She continued to stare hopefully at the gate even after the flight attendants, in their navy blue outfits, exited, followed by a pilot and a copilot. Both looked barely old enough to commandeer ten-speeds, much less a plane.
“Mama, where’s Daddy?” Dewitt whined. His palm was sweaty as he grasped her hand. Chiffon didn’t answer; she kept looking, searching the baggage terminal, certain that at any minute Lonnie would appear.
Five
My reality check just bounced.
~ Sign hanging in the teachers’ lounge at Bible Grove High School
Chenille sat in the principal’s office, counting the miniature football helmets displayed on a shelf above the desk. Sport pennants and pictures of football teams covered the entire back wall, and a jockstrap, autographed by last season’s starting quarterback, hung from the doorknob.
Mr. Brock was an ex-coach turned administrator, more interested in rushing records than in SAT scores. Normally Chenille would have frowned on a principal with such dubious priorities as an educator, but Mr. Brock was tall and muscular, with a rumbling baritone voice that made her heart careen every time it came over the P.A. system. With his flashing white teeth and golden hair, he reminded Chenille of the Brawny paper towel man. It was no accident that she’d dressed for their meeting in her nicest plaid dress with the flounced skirt and a nosegay of flowers at the collar.
The man himself entered the office, startling Chenille, who’d leaned forward in her chair to examine the family portrait on the corner of his desk. His children were also big, blond, and Nordic, like the progeny of a lumberjack.
“I’m sorry to make you wait, Ms. Grace,” Mr. Brock said, taking a seat behind his desk.
“Not at all, Mr. Brock,” Chenille said, approving his starched white shirt and light blue necktie, which matched his eyes. Too many male educators wore those silly novelty neckties. How a male teacher expected to garner respect from young people while wearing Three Stooges neckwear was a mystery to her.
Mr. Brock formed a steeple with his fingers and rested his chiseled chin on top. “That was some incident in your classroom the other day.”
“Gracious, yes,” Chenille said, smoothing her skirt.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better. And that you were released from the hospital so quickly,” he said.
“Much better,” Chenille said, averting her eyes in shame. She regretted her one-night hospital stay after the scene with Mrs. Schmatt, thinking it made her look unprofessional and just a tad bit hysterical. “The doctors insisted I stay one night for observation and only because I fainted. I put up a fight about it, believe you me,” Chenille said with an anxious chuckle.
Mr. Brock nodded and flashed a boyish smile, as if he understood completely. Thus far, their meeting was going swimmingly. It was a shame she and Mr. Brock didn’t have more opportunities for one-on-one interaction.
“We’re very lucky Mrs. Schmatt’s machete was merely a plastic toy,” Mr. Brock said. “Steven was physically unharmed. Mrs. Schmatt claims she was just trying to scare the youngster.”
“She accomplished that,” Chenille replied. “The machete looked so real!”
Glancing down at his desk, Mr. Brock picked up a doll-sized rake and began scratching it across a box of sand. He had one of those miniature Zen gardens, an executive toy intended to relieve stress. The office was quiet except for the scritch, scritch of the rake. After a few moments, Mr. Brock set it down and looked up at Chenille with a sheepish expression on his face.
“Steven’s parents are making a big stink about this whole thing. I’m afraid they’re blaming the teacher in charge.”
“But I’m the teacher in charge,” Chenille said slowly. Their lovely tête-â-tête was taking an ugly turn.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Steven’s parents are blaming me?” Chenille asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Brock said. “Since Mrs. Schmatt was under your supervision, they consider you culpable. And they were influenced by Mrs. Schmatt’s version of the episode.”
Chenille gripped the a
rms of her chair. “Mrs. Schmatt’s version?”
Mr. Brock swallowed, his voice a husky whisper. “Mrs. Schmatt claims she had your full approval to intimidate Steven.”
“She what?” Chenille reared back in her chair as if she’d taken a hit from a shotgun.
“She said that you instructed her to use whatever means necessary to subdue your students.”
Chenille clutched at the nosegay of cloth flowers at her throat and began to hiccup. Whenever she got really upset, her diaphragm would spasm and throw her into a vicious spell of hiccups.
“I may have...hic...suggested that she...hic...aid in the discipline of students, but I assumed she would stay within the parameters of...hic...professionalism as authorized...hic...by Bible Grove High School’s Educator’s Code of...hic...of Ethics.”
“There, there, Ms. Grace. No need to get upset. Steven’s parents aren’t asking for your resignation.”
“They’re not?” Chenille said, although that possibility hadn’t even crossed her mind.
“Not at all. They do, however, request that you be transferred from Bible Grove High. And seeing how Steven’s uncle is on the school board, I’ve agreed to honor their wishes.”
“Transferred? But I—”
“I took the liberty of calling personnel to see what openings were available in the county.” He picked up a folder and peered inside. “The middle school in Dry Gulch has an industrial arts opening, and there’s also an elementary Spanish position.”
“Industrial arts? You don’t mean shop class?”
“That’s an outmoded term, but yes, I do mean shop.” He took another glance at the folder. “Oh, wait a minute. The industrial arts position is only half-day. You probably want full-time. How’s your Spanish?”
“Feliz navidad?”
“Good enough.”
Chenille kept a shaky hold on her composure until she reached the parking lot. A torrent of tears gushed from her eyes as soon as she swung open the door of her Dodge Neon. What was she going to do? She couldn’t speak Spanish, much less teach it. And Dry Gulch! She may as well have been banished to a gulag. Horror stories circulated about the teaching conditions there. Rat-ridden portable classrooms. Mimeograph machines always on the fritz. Textbooks last updated during the Eisenhower administration. She withdrew a Kleenex from the travel pack she kept in her console and blew her nose. Teaching was the one thing that gave her an identity. What would she do without it?
A Dollar Short (The Bottom Dollar Series Book 2) Page 5
