Losing Penny

by Kristy Tate

  “Today we’re going to draw our very own super-heroes,” I told the class as I passed out comic books. “Let your imagination go wild. If you were a super-hero, what powers would you have?” I turned the kids loose on their easels and wandered around the room, watching them work.

  O’Toole lounged on his bed in the corner, his head resting on his paws. Mr. Everett and a few of his harem remained in the back, but I kept one eye on the kids and another on the door. Artie should have returned before the class started.

  “Who’s that?” Travis, a ten-year-old in cargo pants and a robot sweatshirt, curled his lip at Savannah’s drawing of a winged creature flying over a city skyline.

  Savannah rolled her eyes at Jessie who answered for her friend. “That just happens to be Letriciana, Goddess of Reincarnation.” The two girls stood side by side as if linked by an invisible chain. They wore identical jeans with the word Juicy written on the pockets and they each had on a pair of bumblebee shoes with matching, glittery beads threaded onto their laces.

  “Carnation?” Travis lived in Woodinville, a city neighboring the town of Carnation. “There isn’t a Goddess of Carnation!” Travis’ straw hair pointed at the ceiling and a line of freckles crossed both of his cheeks.

  “Re-in-carnation,” Savannah said, adding a cloud to her sky.

  Travis also added a cloud to his sky. Whenever he moved his arms the robot’s ears wiggled. “Can she fly, or is that thing on her back a jetpack?”

  Savannah set her pencil down to give Travis a hard, I-don’t-believe-you-could-so-stupid stare. “Goddesses don’t need jetpacks.” She flipped her blond hair over her shoulder before she picked up her pencil. “Those are wings.” Savannah considered her work then drew a lightning streak through the cloud.

  “If you think she can be a superhero, she can’t,” Travis said as he drew his own lightning streak. “Only men can be superheroes.”

  “That’s not what Hailey Clements says,” Jessie piped in.

  My throat tightened as it always did whenever anyone mentioned my grandmother. I feared anything—my blush, my eyes, the way I shoved my hands into my pockets—would reveal my lie. My eyes caught Savannah’s father’s. I wanted to take my paintbrush and paint a frown over his knowing grin.

  Jessie, despite her pants, was a “Royal, Loyal” reader—a Haileyism for devoted fans. There were, naturally, readers who were neither royal nor loyal, but Gram hadn’t given them a name, because she refused to acknowledge their existence.

  “Hailey Clements says that everyone can and should be the hero of their own life,” Jessie continued. Her dangly earrings jiggled when she nodded her headed. She didn’t dress the conservative part of a Royal Loyal, but I knew Gram would love Jessie. Gram relished and encouraged blind devotion.

  Savannah nodded and drew a dog on the street below the flying Goddess of Reincarnation.

  Robot ears wiggled at me as Travis also drew a dog. A cloud, a lightning streak, and a dog all floated in the white space of Travis’ page. Travis was having a hard time finding his own hero.

  I could relate.

  My eyes slipped back to Savannah’s dad chatting with Mrs. Schumann, a woman I’d never seen in anything other than tennis whites. It was hard to say if she played before or after Travis’ art class because I’d never seen her sweaty and I’d never seen her racquet, but I’d seen the panties under her tennis skirts a hundred times.

  Savannah set down her pencil again and glared at Travis. “Stop it!”

  Travis added a puff of fur on his dog’s tail so that it resembled a dandelion. “Stop what?” Travis asked, his freckles turning upward.

  “You’re copying me!” Savannah stamped her bumblebee shoe and the beads jingled.

  Savannah was right, he was copying her, but before I could separate them, I noticed that O’Toole had left his bed to rummage in an unattended backpack. My heart picked up speed as I remembered O’Toole’s last experience with a student’s half eaten candy bar. The dog had a nose for chocolate. I could relate to that as well, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of another barf scene, especially not in front of the students. Or the parents.

  I snapped my fingers at O’Toole but he ignored me. “Jeanine, your bag,” I called to a pale and timid girl who watched in horror as O’Toole rooted in her backpack.

  Travis’ lips twisted into a grin. “Yeah, right. As if I wanted to draw the Queen of Carnation.”

  “Could someone please get the dog,” I called from across the room.

  “I think it’s really unprofessional that Miss Artie brings that creature to class,” Mrs. Wagner said. She looked up from her novel but didn’t budge from her chair.

  “It’s her school,” Mrs. Langley replied with a shrug, her amused eyes on O’Toole who was licking clean a Snicker’s candy wrapper.

  “Not for long,” Mrs. Devon said.

  “Really? I hadn’t heard that,” Mrs. Langley replied.

  I hadn’t heard that either, but I didn’t have time to wonder about it right then because O’Toole gagged. I grabbed the Cocker by the collar and hauled him out the back door.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Artie asked as she climbed from her Jeep.

  “Chocolate,” I muttered, handing over the dog.

  “Aw, the downfall of so many,” Artie said, taking a grip on O’Toole’s collar.

  I rolled my eyes at her and hurried back into the class, silently agreeing with Mrs. Langley assessment of professionalism and creatures.

  I returned to class in time to watch Travis draw a city skyline. His buildings stood a little straighter than Savannah’s. He drew in strong, fast, even lines. “Hailey Clements is an old poop,” Travis said.

  I scowled. Grammy wasn’t a poop. If Grammy were a bodily function, she’d be a reoccurring twitch, not a poop.

  Travis compared his picture to Savannah’s and liked what he saw. “And I’m sick of listening you talk about her,” he said.

  Me too.

  “That’s very nice, Travis,” I said, stepping behind him and trying to discreetly angle his easel so that he couldn’t see Savannah’s work. “Where would you imagine the sun?”

  Travis flashed a smile at Savannah and drew a circle in the in the corner of the page.

  Savanna stamped both feet. The beads on her feet jingled reminded me of a parade pony. “Can’t you see he’s totally copying me?” Savannah wailed.

  A small hush fell and I felt the stares of the students and parents resting on my back. When Savannah stamped her foot again, the jingling seemed much louder.

  “That’s where my sun is!” Savannah bordered on tears.

  “Isn’t the sun in the sky the same for everyone?” Travis said, feigning wisdom beyond his years. He stepped away from his easel, considered his masterpiece and smiled. I wondered which he most enjoyed, his art, the attention, or teasing Savannah.

  Before I could separate them, Savannah ripped Travis’ picture off his easel and put it next to hers for comparison. “See?” Her voice quivered indignantly.

  The parents in the back of the room stopped talking. Savannah’s father stopped laughing. “He’s drawn everything just like me,” Savannah complained.

  Travis assumed bull-charging stance, his hair seemed, if possible, to stand a little straighter. “Have not!” He lunged for his picture.

  Savannah lifted the easel and pictures over her head. If someone didn’t do something Savannah would bean Travis, or Travis would tackle Savannah. Through the open door I heard the familiar sound of O’Toole vomiting.

  Travis knocked me into Savannah and the three of us fell taking two easels with us. My elbow crashed against a desk but I caught myself with one hand as Travis toppled on top of me. As I fell I lost my glasses, but I could still see a blurry robot just inches from my nose. My elbow stung and my eyes swam in dizzy pain.

  For the first time ever I thought that maybe Gram was right: maybe I should quit my job at the academy.

  “Hailey Clements says there is never a need for viol
ence,” Jessie said, a voice of reason not far above us.

  Travis clambered off me. A strong hand pulled on my arm and set me on my feet, but I still couldn’t see.

  “But Hailey Clements doesn’t know about Letriciana, Goddess of Reincarnation.” Mr. Everett slid my glasses onto my nose and sight returned. I glanced around at the parents surrounding me. No longer hovering over their children, they shifted their maternal instincts to me. Their expressions varied from horror to worry to amusement. Well, only one looked amused, and I knew just from his touch that the instincts we shared were more animal than maternal.

  Parents and students watched as I brushed off my pants and blinked away tears of pain and embarrassment. I waited for Mr. Everett to scold his daughter or for Travis’ mom to demand an apology, but all I heard was O’Toole’s continuous retching.

  “She knows about everything,” Jessie said. She put down her pencil, and gathered up her jacket. She refused to make eye-contact with Savannah’s father. Gram would love her jutting little chin and her righteous indignation.

  Savannah’s father snorted and flashed his dimples at me. “No one knows everything,” he said to Jessie’s back. “Except for maybe the Queen of Reincarnation.”

  A Haileyism came to mind. “Those people who think they know everything are especially annoying to those of us who do.” I wasn’t in the mood for Haileyisms.

  The bell struck five, officially ending class. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Mothers and students gathered up folios, returned pencils, put on jackets, and called good-bye. I waved to them as they disappeared out the door.

  But Savannah, Jesse, and Mr. Everett stayed behind. Mr. Everett considered Jessie’s portrait of a beaked nosed woman wearing horned rimmed glasses. “Is that your hero?”

  I turned away, hugging my smarting elbow, before Jessie could give the answer I didn’t want to hear. “Hailey Clements is your hero?” Savannah’s father asked.

  I collected pencils, determined not to listen.

  “She’s my superhero,” Jessie said primly. “She saves people, and that’s what superheroes do.” Jessie shrugged into her jacket.

  I put the pencils into the tin can pencil holders. Savannah’s father put his hand on Jessie’s shoulder. “She doesn’t save anyone. She’s just a nice elderly woman.” He cut a glance at me. “Some even say that she doesn’t write the column and that it’s really written by a team of therapists.”

  “That’s not true!” My own voice surprised me, I hadn’t meant to speak. I concentrated on the pencils and forced my voice to sound calm, matter of fact, and emotionally detached. “Why would she need a team of therapists? She’s the sage of sticky social situations. She doesn’t pretend to replace MDs or psychologists.”

  “Ah, but what is she pretending then?”

  “She doesn’t pretend at all.” Which wasn’t exactly true. “She’s syndicated in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Bangkok.” That was true. I stood tall, tugged my smock into place and then, embarrassed, fussed over the art supplies. “And when all of the newspapers are collapsing, she’s one of the few columnists that have successfully transitioned onto the Internet. Her blog is the--”

  “Do you think Hailey Clements is pretend?” Savannah interrupted my spiel.

  I took deep breath, mortified I’d gotten so carried away. I reminded myself that farts and braggarts are equally popular.

  “Of course not,” I told Savannah. “She’s a sweet woman who is trying…to make the world a better place.” I snapped an easel shut and pinched a finger. I yelped and put my wounded finger in my mouth.

  “You think she’s a do-gooder?” Mr. Everett asked.

  “She’s very successful and charitable.”

  “Huh.”

  He leaned against the table and crossed his legs at the ankles. He looked ready to engage in conversation instead of looking ready to leave, as one should when class has been dismissed.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “You don’t think she writes her column for the money…or for fame?”

  Grammy Hailey, still beautiful and scrupulous, relished her role as the world’s answer to everything. TV talk shows, fundraiser luncheons, news interviews, Grammy Hailey loved the camera and spot light. I, on the other hand, valued anonymity. “Maybe all that fame is more difficult to live with than it might seem. Maybe it’s hard to be the world’s know it all.”

  He snorted.

  I carried the supplies to the closet and shut the door. “Seriously. I bet she finds it hard to have a normal, balanced life. She probably longs for a life where random strangers don’t know her face or ask her advice. Maybe she can’t hire a plumber, reserve a plane ticket, or get a mammogram without someone recognizing her.” Not everyone sought her advice, of course, but whenever I went anywhere with my Gram, I found the hushed whispers and long stares unbearable. She was once getting a Pap-smear, her feet in stirrups, bottom to the edge, when a troubled nurse-practitioner unburdened herself. Gram laughed when she told me, but I’d decided long before that to keep my life private. I put my finger back in my mouth because it still hurt, but also because I needed to stop talking.

  “I understand,” he said, grinning as he made a guess. “I’d feel the same if my grandmother handed out platitudes and clichés.”

  I pushed back my hair and turned to face him. “She’s not a cliché. It’s not a bad thing to offer advice without being overburdened with information.”

  He sat a little straighter and then laughed long and hard. “You’re good! You sound just like her! You know I overheard you that day in the grocery store. I read Hailey’s Comments that day. And the next. That lemon line, the one I overheard you say, it didn’t come out until today.” He motioned toward his briefcase. “In fact, I brought in the paper to ask you about it.”

  I put my hands on my hips and slipped into my Miss Emma no nonsense art instructor voice. “I really can’t comment on that.”

  He laughed. “I get it. Hailey’s Comments—no comment.”

  I gave him a weak smile. “You overheard me talking about lemons while standing in the produce section.”

  “So you do remember.”

  “Maybe it sounded like something Hailey would say, but I’m sure you just…” I faltered a moment, but then regrouped and gathered my wits. “I’m sure you either heard wrong or it was just a coincidence.” More lies. Sticky lies.

  He studied me for a long, quiet moment then asked, “What were you talking about?”

  “Lemons obviously.”

  “Lemons aren’t that interesting.”

  I shrugged and squirmed beneath his gaze. “I’m boring.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Well, this conversation is boring.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, look at Savannah.” His daughter stood in front of the dry erase board, drawing flying goddesses. “I’m sure she wants to go home…as do I.”

  He cocked his head, but didn’t budge from the art table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you.” The dying winter sun back lit his blond hair. “Or offend you.”

  “Offense can’t be given if not received.” The words just popped out. I was spouting platitudes and clichés.

  I wondered if I would enjoy his laughter if I didn’t feel it was directed at me.